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Chapter Text

                When Katsuki was taken aside by his mother and told that Izuku would never get a quirk, he was confused at first.

                “But Mom, if Izuku doesn’t get a quirk, how will we be heroes together?”

                “Izuku might have some difficulty with becoming a hero,” his mother replied, sitting on the corner of his bed after school, “That doesn’t mean he can’t be one, it just might look different from what you expect it to be.”

                “That’s stupid!” Katsuki shouted, hopping off his bed, “He promised we would be the top heroes together!”

                A slap hits the back of his head a moment later as his mother swiftly chastises him. “Be quiet Brat!” she shouts, “Have some respect for your friend, this is hard for him!”

                Later at school, Katsuki repeated his question to Izuku. The other boy didn’t have an answer for him though, and just cried and insisted he could be a hero anyway. Katsuki was infuriated with this as he stormed off, his palms crackling angrily.

()()()

                Izuku sat listlessly in his chair, surfing through the Heronet after school. His mother was home but busy in the kitchen making dinner, and Katsuki didn’t seem to want to hangout with him much anymore, leaving his afternoon empty and alone once again. He clicks out of the forum page and into a newly posted interview with Present Mic, where he talked about how his agency worked during a signing event.

                “That’s a great question Listener!” The radio hero sat at a plain desk with the new poster he was signing that event hung up behind him. “My agency is a limelight one and runs like a lot of similar agencies do. We have limelight heroes that patrol and handle public appearances like Hands Up Radio and events like these. We also have support staff like technicians and medics that work shifts in the agency in case they are needed while on duty.”

                Izuku takes notes as the hero discusses the agency’s day to day operations. A lot of this information is old news to him, since many agencies run the same way, but he can’t seem to shake his note-taking habit even in the wake of his diagnosis.

                “While all those operations are important, and our public rescues certainly get the most publicity, we also have a team of underground heroes that work with our agency in the shadows.”

                Izuku pauses writing for a moment confused. He has never heard of underground heroes before; what kind of hero would stay away from the spotlight? Aren’t heroes supposed to save people with a smile?

                “These heroes work on investigative cases, patrol the nighttime routes, and handle more sensitive matters that heroes like me would be too LOUD to deal with” Present Mic continues at the interviewers prompting. “It isn’t showy or publicized like limelight heroics, but it’s super important to the smooth running of an agency that these heroes do their work. I wouldn’t exactly be inconspicuous staking out a drug den, would I?”

                Izuku shuts the broadcast off as it changes topics to the controversy over a recent celebrity guest on the radio show and sits for a moment thinking. Then he changes tabs and shakily types the words ‘underground heroics is what’ into the search bar.

()()()

                The next day Izuku goes running up to Kachan, nearly bowling into him in his excitement.

                “What is it, Deku?” Kachan growls, the recently acquired cruel nickname not yet packing much heat behind it as it leaves his lips. “You nearly knocked me over!” His palms crackle, and he brushes himself off and shoves Izuku away.

                “ICANBEAHEROKACHAN!” Izuku shouts excitedly, then takes a breath. ‘I can be a hero! An underground hero like Eraserhead, or an investigative one like Sir Nighteye! You can employ me at your agency when you are number one!”

                “No way,” Kachan scoffs, “You can’t be a hero, you don’t have a quirk.”

                “Sir Nighteye fights quirkless!” Izuku says happily, “I don’t need a quirk, just a little more practice! … oh, crap we are going to be late!!” He grabs Kachan’s arm and drags him into the classroom without another word, taking his seat quickly.

                Katsuki sits at his desk sullenly, not paying any attention to what the teacher is droning on about. At five years old his thought process isn’t the most sophisticated, but he carefully considers Deku’s words as best he can. Katsuki knows who Sir Nighteye is, of course, but he hadn’t considered that he fought mostly quirkless until now. He wanted to insist that he would be the greatest hero on his own no matter what, but maybe if the nerd was in the shadows working for him it wouldn’t be so bad. Then he would be number one still, and investigation and stakeouts sounded icky anyways. If Deku could learn to fight and help Katsuki in other ways too, maybe he wouldn’t be such a deku anymore.

                “Okay Zuku,” Katsuki says, older nickname falling smoothly from his lips as he clasps his hand. “We can be hero partners, but you need to be the best damn underground hero ever.” Izuku shouts with glee and grasps his hand firmly, promising to do his best no matter what.

Chapter Text

                Friendship mended and reaffirmed by their new shared goal; the boys stay fast friends throughout elementary school. Neither of them makes many other friends: Katsuki is driven and prickly, and Izuku prefers to stick to him rather than fight his anxiety to expand his social circle. They spend most of their time at Izuku’s place, his mother working long hours and leaving them alone in the apartment most afternoons.

                “Hey Nerd” Katsuki says, tossing a ball in his hands as he lays on Izuku’s bed. “How are you going to pass the entrance exam?”

                Izuku looks up from where he is typing away at his laptop, working on a coding lesson he had found through the local library. “I don’t know Kachan, I have three years to figure it out though, so I’m not too concerned.” He says shrugging.

                Katsuki swings his legs off the bed and sits up. “That’s bullshit and you know it!” he says, “Everyone says the exam is super tough and biased towards awesome quirks like mine, you need to think of a strategy now, so you have time to practice.” He jumps to his feet and shuts the laptop, drawing an outraged squawk from his best friend. Pacing around the room, he crackles his palms with excitement, “We should learn martial arts!” He declares, throwing some phantom punches at the air.

                Izuku reopens his laptop back up and types into the search bar, Katsuki’s excitement catching on with him. “Are their dojos nearby that have classes we could attend? What type of martial art would be best suited to heroics? Are we in shape enough for martial arts, or do we need to start with exercise? Are we old enough to work out? Can you incorporate quirks into martial arts? Should we fir- OW!” The mumble storm is cut off by Katsuki punching him in the shoulder.

                “Slow down Nerd,” Katsuki says as he opens the door, “There’s a place nearby that advertises as good hero training, let’s just ask Auntie Inko to sign us up!”

()()()

                 The place nearby turned out to be a local dojang for Taekwondo, one of the many martial arts that had survived the dawn of quirks nearly unchanged. Today, Taekwondo bore closer resemblance to the military form of the art than to the pre-quirk era sport, and it emphasized self-defense techniques a little heavier than it did the sport of sparring. Regardless, the structure and traditions of the art had been preserved, and the dojang drew in students by promising to teach them both techniques and values that would be useful for heroics.

                 The boys entered the building after school for their first class and were given a short tour of the dojang. It was a small room, with interlocking red and blue mats on the floor and various punching bags and dummies lining one wall, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors along two more walls. The sabom (a Korean version of Sensei, as Izuku helpfully supplied) introduced himself as Mister Hideyoshi and explained that the boys would begin as white belts and would train three times a week.

()()()

                 Izuku breathed deeply through his nose as he eyed his opponent on the other side of the ring. The taller, tailed boy glared back with determination as they squared up to continue the third round of the finals. This was not Izuku’s first mixed-martial arts tournament, but it was the first time he had gotten to the finals, and the first time he had gotten farther than Kachan. His opponent was a brown belt in Karate, making him roughly a belt higher than Izuku’s own equally brown belt.

                 The ref barked the words to begin, and Izuku rushed forwards. He shifted into an L-stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet cautiously as he waited for the other boy to attack. Over the last year and a half, Izuku had developed into a careful and meticulous counter-offensive fighter, and it was serving him well in this tournament. He tensed as his opponent shifted their weight to their front foot, sliding his front arm into a block as the tailed boy threw a front kick, then rotating his arm diagonally to block the following twist kick.

                 Shoving the taller boy off-balance with the block, Izuku stepped in with a quick series of punches, ending with a clean strike to the head and leaping backwards. The two boys circled for a moment, both panting with exertion as they sized each other up for the last time that day. Izuku rotated to the side and went for a counterstrike as his opponent opened with a jumping kick, but the taller boy’s reach and speed were too much for Izuku, and the kick and subsequent strikes connected on him a moment before time was called.

                 The boys bowed, shaking hands after the tailed boy was declared the winner. The boy was mobbed by his clubmates, and Izuku headed back over to Kachan and the rest of his dojang.

                 “What was that shitty performance Nerd?” Kachan ribbed him, clapping him on the back and handing him some water, “That final kick left him wide open, you should have been faster!”

                 “Bakugo-san!” Their Sabom barked sharply, “Be respectful. Remember your values or you will be doing conditioning drills again this week.” He turned to Izuku, and congratulated him in a much warmer voice, “You’ve come a long way Midoriya-san, by this time next year you may even reach the first dan.”

                 Midoriya bowed and thanked his instructor, smiling at the praise. Being in Taekwondo had done wonders for his confidence and transformed him from a gangly youth into a much more toned, albeit still short, teenager. He still found crowds and new people daunting, but once he adjusted, he could be as witty and care-free as any other teen.

                 “Yeah Kachan, keep up the attitude and you’ll never win one of these” he joked, “Maybe you should do the extra conditioning, and next time you might beat me!”

                 “Fuck off Nerd,” Kachan retorts lightly, clapping him on the back again and guiding him over to their parents as they wave goodbye to Hideyoshi-sensei. “You know as well as I do that if I used my quirk, I’d level you.”

                 “Which is why you’ll be the high and mighty limelight hero, while I do all the real work in the shadows” Izuku says.

()()()

                 “ZUKU!” Katsuki shouted, booking it down the fire escape to the alley below. “Fuck man, are you alright?”

                 “I’m fine” Izuku groaned, picking himself out of the dumpster and brushing off his clothes. “That next rooftop was a bit farther than I expected, that’s all. Nothing more than bruises.”

                 “Farther than expected my ass” Katsuki says, “You fell because you were trying that fancy dive again instead of jumping over it like a sane person.”

                 “That ‘fancy dive’ is going to look so cool once I master it though!”

                 “What it's going to look like is another hospital trip and me tearing my hair out trying to explain to Auntie how you broke a bone for the third time this semester!” Katsuki retorts, helping Izuku out of the bin with a sigh. “Where is the shy nerd from elementary school when you need him? Stop trying moves on the roofs until the instructor says you are ready for them in the gym.”

                 The two boys were in the summer after their third year now, preparing for the entrance exams that would take place in a few months. Both had grown into muscled, well-built teenagers, and had recently obtained their first dan black belts in Taekwondo. At the start of the last school year, Izuku had talked Katsuki into joining a local parkour gym as well and had begun an impressive streak of sprained bones and semi-permanent bruises, much to his mother’s constant worry.

                 “Kachannnn, I’ll be fine” Izuku whined, shoving his hands into his shorts and walking out of the alley.

                 “Then be fine tomorrow, let’s go home and study now. You can show me that computer shit you were working on last night while I finish the review sheets for algebra.” Katsuki followed him out of the alleyway, carrying on casual conversation about the recent All Might sightings in Musutafu and speculating on whether the slime villain he had captured a few months ago would have posed a fight to the local heroes if All Might hadn’t been around.

                 Katsuki was more controlled nowadays, channeling his inner “eat shit and die” as Izuku called it into only people who deserved it. When they had first started middle-school Katsuki had gotten himself banned from the dojang for a week multiple times for bullying kids and getting into fights, nearly getting himself kicked out before he straightened out. The strict code of rules and ethics provided by Taekwondo had been good for him, and now the only time Katsuki beat the shit out of someone was in defense of himself or others, in the ring during self-defense nights, and if Izuku stole the last goddamned cookie again.

                “Alright Nerd, this program better not be more illegal shit” Katsuki says, pulling up a chair to Izuku’s desk and cracking open his algebra book. “After the last time I had to talk you down from tapping police cameras for fun, if you do it again, I’ll turn you in fucker.”

                “No! You can’t-” Izuku shouts, quickly tabbing to a new program, “err, I mean this one is completely legal, it’s just a basic algorithm to map out villain sightings and predict where they will attack next in a city. Totally legal, and the police use similar, if way more complicated, programs all the time to help narrow down patrol zones for serial killers! … Just don’t ask where I’m getting the activity data from okay.”

Chapter Text

                Katsuki takes a deep breath as he walks up to the UA gates, Izuku at his side mumbling nervously. They step through, walking towards the building indicated on the map from their exam package. Katsuki hears a shout and turns around hurriedly, just in time to watch Izuku fall towards the ground as if in slow motion. A passing girl reaches for him in an attempt to grab him, but before she can Izuku is tucking into a dive only slightly different from the same move he spent all summer practicing on the rooftops and bouncing back to his feet.

                “Oh sorry, I thought you were going to fall there,” the girl says, looking surprised at his sudden recovery. “It would be bad luck to fall on exam day, right?!”

                Katsuki scoffs as the nerd turns bright red and stammers out something unintelligible before the girl waves and walks off.

                “Wow Nerd, real Casanova there,” he says dryly, “How the fuck are you going to be a hero if you can’t talk just because it’s a woman? What if your exam proctor is Midnight huh?! Pull it together Zuku!”

                “Don’t worry Kachan, I’ll be fine.” Izuku says, brushing the embarrassment and dust off, “I have to face women, you have to face the much scarier prospect of not giving your proctor a heart attack with that personality.”

                “Whatever Nerd, let’s just go in.”

()()()

                Katsuki looks around the area in front of the gate to the practical appraisingly as he shakes off the cobwebs from the written exam. He had destroyed that lame ass test of course, but three hours of exam will do anybody’s head in. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walks towards one of the examinees, may as well put Hideyoshi-sensei’s words into practice and try to make friends or some shit.

                “Hey Extra” he says gruffly to the tired looking purple haired kid, “Excited for the exam?”

                “Not at all.” The purple haired boy responds, “Who do you think you are, calling me an extra like that?”

                “I’m the one who will be the fucking best that’s wh- “Katsuki cuts off, his mind going blank for a moment.

“Go away, leave me alone till we start.”

()()()

                Katsuki shakes himself as the buzzer sounds, marveling at that crazy fucking kid’s quirk as he charges forwards with the pack of other examinees towards the robots. He applies his explosions liberally as he does so, boosting himself forwards and up into the air, shakily hovering in a move he had only recently started to get the hang of. He shoots an explosion towards a one-pointer as it swings out of an alleyway, and cackles as it gets torn to shreds in magnificent fashion. All the pent-up stress and anger he’s been feeling for the last few weeks preparing for this stupid exam lets itself out as he tears through the mock city in a whirlwind of explosions and chaotic shrapnel.

                Maybe halfway through the allotted time (he lost count somewhere between three minutes and thirty dead robots scattered across the streets) Katsuki spots the purple-haired kid from earlier desperately beating at a robot with a pipe. His stringy arms can’t exert enough force to even dent the robot, and as Katsuki watches a swipe from it sends the boy stumbling across the street gasping. He turns to move on, then pauses, his instructor’s words and the tenants of Taekwondo echoing through his head.

                “Fuck! This is some fucking Izuku shit!” Katsuki curses, charging back towards the boy, “HEY! Purple! Use your quirk on me, get yourself some fucking points already.”

                “What?!”

                “Your quirk, the mind whammy shit! Use it!”

                Katsuki feels his mind slip into blankness for a second time that day and watches his body pivot on its own and pulverize some robots. The kickback snaps him out of the brainwashing a few times, and after a couple minutes of gaining points on the boy’s behalf he snarls and blasts off, just in time for the big fuck-off robot to appear, destroying buildings as it advances.

                “Oh, Hell Yes!” Katsuki screams, blasting towards it with a triumphantly manic grin on his face, leaving behind a baffled insomniac standing in a street of twisted scrap.

()()()

                “So, how’d you do Kachan?” Izuku says happily, swinging his bag beside him as they trudge home tiredly after the practical.

                “I fucking destroyed it of course” Katsuki says, “Even popped the face off that big one. How’d you get through Nerd?”

                “I did alright” Izuku says unconcernedly, “Not top scorer I imagine, but I wrecked a good few between pulling the weak ones apart and grabbing at some off switches on the three-pointers.”

                Katsuki grunts, waving him goodbye as he goes home to shower. Thirty minutes later as hot water streams down his back, he stares pensively at the tiled wall, reflecting on the exam. Before martial arts, he wouldn’t have stopped to help that boy. Even now, during the exam his instincts screamed for him to leave the boy alone and continue gleefully fucking shit up. What did that say about him as a hero? Could he save people with a smile like All Might if all he was driven to do was destroy?

                Katsuki shakes his head to clear it of the negative thoughts. Of course, he was going to be a fantastic hero, he was Katsuki fucking Bakugo, future number one.

()()()

                Izuku barges into Kachan’s room after waving hurriedly at his mother, two letters clutched tightly in his hands as he squealed out a greeting.

                “They’re heeere Kachan!” He says gleefully, throwing a letter at him as he flops onto the bed. “Open it! Open it! Open it!”

                “Alright I will, just pipe down will you Nerd” Katsuki groans at the early morning disruption, slitting his letter and dumping out a small disk. The disk shimmers and burst to life letting out a hologram of All Might that announces his score. Izuku has a similar disk, playing another pre-recorded message that only deviates in what numbers are announced.

                “Holy crap Kachan! First place with a perfect 100 points!” Izuku cheers, “And you got thirty-five rescue points too? Who are you and what did you do to my best friend and new class-1A-mate?”

                “Shut up Nerd, I’m going to be a hero, of course I fucking rescue people.” Kachan growls back, replaying Izuku’s disk. “How the hell did you get third place? Thirty-five robot points? I understand the forty rescue points, but thirty-five? That’s more than half the other examinees got!”

                Izuku flinches, his mind flashing back to a ten-minute whirlwind of parkour, mania, and oily carnage as a green figure bounds between buildings tugging people out of the way and diving into robots. “uh… Switches!” he says loudly with a shaky grin.

Chapter Text

                 Izuku opens the door to class 1-A before class starts, not quite as early as Kachan would have liked but still rather ahead of schedule. Kachan follows him in and sits down in his desk, putting his feet up for comfort. They chat idly for a few minutes as Izuku fidgets in his desk before people start to filter in.

                “EXCUSE ME!” a blue haired boy exclaims, chopping his arms mechanically, “Please remove your feet from that desk, you are disrespecting this great establishment and our upperclassmen who once used these desks!”

                Izuku stands up and wanders away as Kachan does his impression of the noise a hurricane of nukes would make and approaches the other student who had arrived early and was sitting quietly at a desk.

                “Hi!” Izuku exclaims, “I’m Midoriya Izuku, what’s your name?”

                “Shoto Todoroki.” The bi-chromatic boy replies flatly, barely acknowledging the loud greenette buzzing around his desk.

                “Hi Todoroki!” Izuku says, refusing to be deterred, “I didn’t see you at the exam, are you a recommendation student? Do you want to be friends?!”

                “I am not here to make friends.” Todoroki says, staring ahead and resolutely not engaging, “My father recommended me, and I will do my duty and become the number one hero.”

                “Oh, you’re fucked” chuckles Bakugo from the other side of the room as the blue-haired boy indignantly squawks behind him, “The nerd won’t let you hear the end of that now.”

                “Kachaaan,” complains Izuku, “I’m not that bad. I am going to be his friend, but I’ll be peaceful this time!”

                Todoroki looked vaguely bemused at the exchange, turning his attention back to his desk as the classroom door swings open again, a sizable chunk of the class filtering in now that the bell was approaching.

                “It’s you! From the exam!” Two voices ring out in distinctly different tones.

                The purple-haired boy wandering over to Kachan’s desk with a friendly wave is far more interesting to Izuku than the bubbly brunette staring at him in abject terror as she sways and nearly passes out, so he bounces across the classroom again and crowds around Kachan’s desk.

                “So, you passed, huh extra?” Kachan grunted, “Good. That’s a fucking broken quirk you have.”

                “Thanks” Shinsou says, “I appreciate the sentiment and the help, even if you’re an unmitigated ass.”

                “Huh?! The fuck did you call me Eyebags?”

                “I’ll call you whatever I want DynaSlight.”

                “KACHAN!” Izuku interrupts the posturing by gleefully gesturing in all directions, “YOU MADE A FRIEND? I am so proud of you; you’ve grown so much!”

                Kachan growls and turns his head up, refusing to acknowledge what Izuku sees as the obvious truth. Meanwhile, the purple-haired boy has mimicked the action in an equally grumpy manner.

                “Eyebags/DynaSlight isn’t me friend- Hey!” The pair grumbles, turning to glare at each other and then the obnoxiously loud greenette, who has begun a celebratory dance beside the desk.

                “If you are just here to dance, then you can get out now. Take your seats.” A yellow caterpillar rises from the doorway and chases the last few students in as everyone scrambles for their seats. “Hmph, it took you twelve seconds to get organized. Time is valuable, wasting it is illogical. Here at UA, you will be rigorously trained to become heroes. The teachers are given complete freedom to teach how they want, and I demand logic from each of my students… which includes not muttering while I intimidate you. Do you have something to say Midoriya?”

                “You’re Eraserhead!” Izuku says excitedly, turning forwards from where he had been mumbling in Kachan’s direction while Shinsou nodded along. “You’re my inspiration!”

                “Hopefully I inspire you to pay attention in class then. Put these gym clothes on, we are having a quirk apprehension test on the front field instead of going to the illogically wasteful orientation ceremony.” The scruffy hero tosses a pile of labeled gym uniforms onto his desk and walks out of the classroom. “If you aren’t at the P.E. Grounds in ten minutes, you’re all expelled.”

()()()

                Shouta watched his students pensively as he ran through his routine speech about the quirk apprehension test and the school system’s failures. Predictably, the bubbly pink student made the yearly comment about fun, and he took a brief moment of pleasure in viciously shutting it down. As the students began to run through the activities, Shouta weighed each of them carefully. This year each student seemed to be promising, although Todoroki was clearly lazy, and he had some concerns about how aggressive Bakugo was. However, the recordings of the entrance exam showed that Bakugo could be cooperative, and even now, as he watched, the boy was socializing well if not peacefully with Shinsou and Midoriya. Maybe he wouldn’t need to expel anyone after all.

                “Alright, the last test is long distance running. Line up and off you go, you will be scored on how far you can go before collapsing.” Shouta barks out, feeling a little vindictive and willing to make this test a little harder since no one had shown cracks yet. Time to see if they could handle despair and total exhaustion, or if they would give up prematurely. “Go as far as you can, show me your determination to be a hero. This is your last chance to prove yourself.”

()()()

                Two hours later and Shouta was still watching time count onto the clock, each second coming off what he thought would be some free hours for an afternoon nap. Almost every student was collapsed around the track, aside from Momo who had cleverly made a bike and could pace herself better, and the two emergent problem children Bakugo and Midoriya. Those two were clearly far past their limits, dragging themselves step by step as they threw taunts at each other and stagger around the track, refusing to give up. Shouta groaned internally, problem children with too much determination were never a good thing. He called a halt to the test, watching the boys collapse gratefully as he started to tally the scores, marking the final three runners down for infinity to be nice for once.

                “Alright, congratulations to Yaoyorozo for coming in first. Hagakure, you came last.” Shouta trailed off ominously as the girl burst into tears, Midoriya stopping his celebration over coming in ninth to go awkwardly comfort her. He was quickly pushed aside by the other 1A girls, who glared at Shouta as they did so.

 “However, I lied about the expulsion. You all showed you deserve your spot here, and you can all stay.” Shouta continued quickly. Hey, he wasn’t entirely as heartless as the other staff claimed, just pragmatic.

()()()

Izuku groaned as he dragged himself towards the gate, Kachan in a similar state of agony beside him. Everything in his body hurt, and it took all his willpower to take another step. They had been released swiftly after the test, and his legs had not even remotely recovered.

                “You guys are crazy” Shinsou says, hands stuffed in his pockets as he walks beside them, “I can’t believe I’m ending up friends with a pair of energetic people like this.”

                “Hey, you know you love us already!” Izuku cheers, picking himself up straighter and forcing a smile and a little dance. “Someone has to drag you out of your weird edgy funk!”

                Beside him, Kachan just grunts tiredly, palms sparking weakly as he tosses a glare of solidarity at Shinshou for the mutual suffering they must undergo for their choice of company.

                “Eh, you grow on me” Shinsou says, raising an eyebrow at Izuku’s outburst of glee at the remark, “Kind of like a tumor actually, now that I think of it.”

Chapter Text

                Hitoshi rolled over in bed that evening (breaking his usual habit of staring at the ceiling moodily for hours) when his phone pinged him. Confused, he picked it up and checked the notifications. As far as he knew nobody had his number, so why was he in a groupchat?

Groupchat between Midoriya Izuku, Bakugo Katsuki, Shinsou Hitoshi

[Midoriya Izuku]: Hi! Don’t ask how I got your number!

[Bakugo Katsuki]: Seriously, don’t ask him. Welcome to hell eyebags.

Midoriya Izuku changed Shinsou Hitoshi’s named to Eyebags

Midoriya Izuku changed Bakugo Katsuki’s name to Blastoid

Blastoid changed Midoriya Izuku’s name to Deku

What the fuck?

[Deku]: Kachan! That’s mean!

[Blastoid]: You earned it asshole.

Whatever it was, I believe Bakugo.

[Deku]: Hey! Not you too!

We are united in suffering. A house divided against itself blah blah blah.

Why are you messaging me at 3am?

[Deku]: Because I am E X C I T E D! First day of classes tomorrow.

[Blastoid]: Fuck. I’m going to bed. Muting this chat.

Mood. See you guys tomorrow.

[Deku]: Don’t leave meeee.

                Hitoshi rolled back over in bed with a smile, closing his phone and placing it back on the dresser. Having friends was nice, especially ones that didn’t seem to care about his quirk for some reason. If only he could hope for the same reaction from the class once he had to start using it in heroics lessons. He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut in hopes it would keep out the depressing reality. May as well try to get an hour or two of sleep before he must get up at 6am.

()()()

                Hitoshi walked into class the next morning tired and disheveled, taking his seat in front of Midoriya with a groan. The ever cheerful greenette immediately pokes him on the shoulder.

                “Hey Shinsou, what’s up?” Midoriya says, “Why the tired face? You look like you were up at 3am or something!”

                “Izuku, he was up at three in the damned morning!” Bakugo cuts in tiredly.

                “Oh, why would he do that?”

                “YOU WOKE HIM UP TEXTING WHEN YOU WOKE ME UP, AT THREE IN THE MORNING WITH YOUR DAMNED GROUPCHAT!” The blond explodes, drawing a chuckle from Hitoshi as Izuku facepalms and sits fully in his seat.

                Moments later Eraserhead is rising from behind his desk calling for silence, and the day proceeds normally from there. It weirds Hitoshi out sometimes just how normal the classes in UA are: they have had math, English, and history already and it seems no different from other schools, aside from Midoriya fanboying over the teachers constantly. Maybe Heroics would be different.

()()()

                “I AM HERE… coming through the doorway like a normal person!” All Might pronounced as he slid into the classroom.

                “OH MY GOD ITS ALL MIGHT!” Screamed Izuku as he, along with the rest of the class, collectively lost their minds over the great hero.

                Several minutes and twenty hero suits later, the kids were filing down into the locker rooms, chattering merrily in excitement. Izuku put his case down and snapped it open. Inside was his costume and, he thought to himself reverently, his future.

                Izuku’s costume consisted of a black jumpsuit lightly sprinkled with glitter to give it a starry effect whenever he moved. The jumpsuit was made of a thin and durable material, that wouldn’t stop a knife or anything but could help lessen impacts and prevents scrapes. Over the jumpsuit went a black utility belt with dark green pouches, and a pair of elbow length black gloves, streaked with green lines. Completing the ensemble was a pair of garish red boots, and a minimalist black mask with a light filter in it. The belt was filled with medical supplies, basic gimmicks like marbles and darts, and a small four-inch utility knife clipped to the side of it.

                Izuku did a little twirl and walked out of the room with Kachan, who’s large gauntlets made Izuku chuckle to himself at how silly they looked.

                “Who gave you a knife?!” Shinsou exclaimed in alarm, quickly backing away. His own costume was very similar to Izuku’s, a dark purple jumpsuit with a black vest of some durable looking material and a pair of black combat pants over it. At his neck hung a complicated looking mask, and his own utility belt lacked a knife but gained what appeared to be several black yoyos.

                “Nedzu approved it!” Izuku said cheerfully, flicking it open and waving it around, “I asked permission when we were discussing my transfer into some coding classes with the support department.”

                “Why is Nedzu personally transferring you into coding classes?”

                “Oh, that’s because he caught me trying to hack into the UA system to get people’s quirk info!” Izuku announced, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with the information.

                 Shinsou groaned, and behind him a certain brunette recoiled in horror. A few minutes later All Might came in and announced the exercise for the day: Battle Trial. Izuku vibrated with excitement as the details were ironed out and bounded excitedly over to Uraraka when their partnership is announced.

                “Hi Uraraka!” Izuku says, “I can’t wait to work with you it’s going to be so –… Why are you crying?”

                “You’re the green boy from the exam,” Uraraka said, looking up at him in terror, ptsd flashing across her eyes. “You’re crazy, oh my god please don’t hurt me.”

                “Don’t worry!” Izuku says cheerfully oblivious, “I don’t bite!”

                “Do you stab?”

                “.. I don’t bite!” Izuku motions to the floor plan he brought with him, “We should make a plan, Ojiro and Mina will be tough opponents!”

                “O okay,” Uraraka says shakily, “What did you have in mind?”

                “What if you floated me to the top level of the building, and then came in through the bottom? We could divide and conquer!” Izuku says, before grinning wickedly, “Besides, they will most likely leave Ojiro up top with the bomb, since Mina is too excitable to stay put. And I have a score to settle with tail boy!”

                Uraraka nods, and the plan is set. Two minutes later Izuku is floating up the side of a modest building from just the force of a jump, peering through windows until he finds the floor he wants. He motions to Uraraka to let him go, then crashes through the window with a dive. Ojiro jumps in surprise, turning around from where he was patrolling the entrance points of the fourth floor in case of this exact scenario.

                “Hello! My name is Inigo Midoriya. You killed my win streak. Prepare to die!” Izuku happily exclaims, jumping towards Ojiro in a flying front kick.

                “I thought you were a counter-offensive fighter?” Ojiro exclaims, blocking the kick and pivoting smoothly into a fighting stance. “Why so aggressive?”

                “I wasn’t a counter-offensive fighter!” Izuku protests, jabbing twice before throwing a knife hand towards Ojiro’s unprotected neck. “I was just shy!”

                Ojiro grunts as he uses his tail to dodge away from the knife hand, taking it to his shoulder instead. He pivots on his tail and throws a vicious side kick at Midoriya’s ribs, which is deflected to the side and answered with a flurry of punches. The two martial artists weave in and out of each other’s guards, sparring at a frantic pace as Izuku pushes for the victory he was denied at the tournament.

                Izuku springs back suddenly, whipping out his knife and scoring a line in the drywall. He flicks the mess at his confused opponent’s eyes and jumps up, using the wall as a steppingstone for greater momentum. Two front kicks lash out into Ojiro’s fumbling guard, the second catching him in the jaw as Izuku’s body lands squarely on his shoulders. The pair tumble to the ground with a thud, Izuku pummeling Ojiro with punches before quickly wrapping the tape around his wrists when he crosses them for a block.

                “You fight dirty outside of a tournament.” Ojiro complains good-naturedly as he pulls himself to a seated position gingerly.

                “Consider it a sign of respect,” Izuku says as he bounds off to help out Uraraka at the location she has just radioed him from, “If you were a worse fighter, I wouldn’t have needed the knife.”

()()()

                Ochako picked her way through the building slowly, still a little shaken up from being near Midoriya. The greenette didn’t act anything like the feral blur that had saved her during the exam, before jumping off a building and onto a robot, but his presence still set her on edge. Memories of the oily carnage were burned into her.

                A sizzling noise echoed from the hallway in front of her, and she tensed. Mina stepped around the corner, hands dribbling acid ominously as she advanced.

                “Hey Uraraka!” she says cheerfully, “No hard feelings for this, okay?”

                “For what?”

                A wave of acid flowed out of Mina’s hands as she jumped forwards, splattering against the walls and floor. Ochako flung herself back desperately, globs of it sizzling on her bodysuit. Mina continues to advance, palms coated with acid. Ochako settles into a basic boxing position, wishing she had learned to fight better before coming to school. Some martial arts training like Midoriya had would be great right now.

                “If either of us score a touch, this will get messy fast” Mina says, leaping forwards and throwing a sloppy palm strike.

                “I won’t give up!” Ochako cries out, feeling a little silly but determined to do her best. The palm strike stings as it impacts her forearm and she drives her fist into Mina’s stomach, tapping her with her fingers to activate her quirk. “Midoriya! I’m on the third floor, Mina is here with me!”

                Mina scowls, floating in the air awkwardly. She kicks off her shoes and shoots acid out of her feet, propelling herself towards Ochako swiftly.

                “You’ve mobilized me” Mina cackles gleefully, “I have the high ground!”

                Ochako ducks under Mina and hisses again when acid splatters against her. She swings wildly, drive Mina towards the stairs without managing to hit her. The pink girl retaliates by cupping her hands and spraying out a thin line of acid at Ochako, who swiftly dodges. She is rapidly running out of space, and Ochako starts to sweat as the acid swings towards her again.

                “I’ve got you now!” Mina says, “Surrender to m- ahck”

                The pinkette’s taunt cuts off as a green shape drops onto her shoulders, having leapt from the top of the stairs, and dove onto her. Ochako barely has the presence of mind to release her quirk and send them crashing to the ground as the boy lays into Mina with a series of vicious punches. By the time Midoriya hits the ground beside her, Mina is barely conscious and doesn’t fight back as Ochako wraps her in the capture tape.

                “The hero team win!” All Might’s voice rings out on the comms as Ochako reflects on how little this has done to alleviate her fear of Midoriya Izuku.

Chapter Text

                Katsuki marches into the room with the bomb beside Eyebags with determination. Seeing how easily Izuku had rolled his opponents had him all fired up, and he even had an okay-ish teammate to help him.

                “Okay Eyebags,” he barks, “We want a clean capture victory, no bullshit time out stuff. I’ll take Icyhot, you guard the bomb.”

                “Whatever. That will probably work best anyway. Are you sure you can handle Todoroki?”

                “Of fucking course, I can handle him. He ain’t shit.” Katsuki bangs his gauntlets together. As if stupid Icyhot could pose an issue to him, the future number one hero. He turns around for a moment as he hears a noise. “What’s that crackling sound?”

                Ice washes over the room swiftly, covering Eyebags and Katsuki up to their shins, and chilling the atmosphere to near freezing temperatures. Katsuki tries to light off explosions in his palms and free himself, but the cold stops him from sweating anymore and reduces the explosion to a light crackle. A few swearing filled minutes later, Icyhot walks into the room.

                “ICYHOT you asshole!” Katsuki screams, “Let me go so we can have a real fight!”

                “No thank you Bakugo. I am just going to touch the bomb. Sorry about this.”

                “Hey Todoroki!” Eyebags calls out obnoxiously, “Where did you get that scar?”

                “The scar is my own bus- “Icyhot cuts off as Eyebags takes control of him.

                “Use your fire to melt the ice, then wrap the capture tape around your hands.”

                Katsuki stands there sullenly as Icyhot melts him out of the ice, and obligingly captures himself before he snaps out of it. The heterochromatic teen stands there staring at his left hand with a dumb expression on his face. Everything about this situation is pissing Katsuki off. He isn’t some damsel to be fucking rescued, he is going to be a top hero!

                “Same plan as before Eyebags,” Katsuki shouts, jumping through the door, “Watch the shitty bomb in case Arms slips past me!”

                “Whatever” Eyebags says, rolling his eyes, “Try not to lose instantly this time DynaSlight.”

                Katsuki growls as he charges down the stairs, rubbing his palms together to generate a sheen of sweat. Thank God his biology lets him warm up faster to facilitate sweat production, or he would already be out of the fight entirely. Three floors down he finds Arms cautiously making his way towards the bomb and lets out an unholy scream as he blows apart the wall beside his head.

                “Surrender or die Motherfucker!” Katsuki declares, palms crackling as he pants eagerly in front of the tall tentacled teen.

                “I think I’ll pass,” Arms says out of one of his stupid mouth hands, and then lunges forwards. His first three handed strike is just as powerful as Katsuki’s previous explosion, shattering the dry wall underneath it as the explosive boy jumps back. For the next few minutes, they engage in a furious and fiery back and forth, culminating in Katsuki being slammed into the wall by a series of charred tentacles.

                “Surrender or die Villain,” Arms parrots mockingly, raising the capture tape. Katsuki twists in his grip, desperately bringing his palms to bear and blowing himself away, bouncing along the floor of the hallway. He stands up, infuriated and humiliated, and pulls the pin of his gauntlet.

                “Bakugo! Do not use that, at this range he could die!” All Might immediately orders him to stop.

                “Not if he just regenerates!” Katsuki cries out, firing the gauntlet’s massive blast to the left of Arms’ mass.

                When the smoke clears, Arms is slumped against the wall unconscious, his left arms missing entirely. The rest of the boy is unharmed aside from some scorched marks, and Katsuki breathes a sigh of relief. The anger has mostly settled now, and seriously injuring a classmate would not sit right with him. He picks his way across the room, and loops his capture tape around the remaining arms, before helping him to the medbots on standby while the victory announcement rings out.

()()()

                After the battle trial ended, twenty moderately battered teens gathered by All Might to review their performance. His original lesson plan had involved reviewing the fights as they went on, but Aizawa had pointed out to him it made more sense for raw beginners to do it this way, so they had more samples to decide what types of things worked or did not.

                “Okay, who is the MVP of the first round?” Toshinori ask, shuffling his script around in his hands.

                “It was Midoriya.” Says Yaoyorozo, raising her hand and speaking. “He came up with a plan to divide their opponents, successfully predicted their movements, and ultimately was instrumental in both takedowns… and he was slightly terrifying.”

                The class all nod their agreement, Mina and Uraraka having a moment of solidarity over their shared trauma. Midoriya looks around in confusion, clearly unaware of the reaction he inspired. Toshinori himself had been very impressed by the boy’s reckless drive and skill. If he hadn’t already loudly declared his plan to be an underground hero, he would be high on his list of possible candidates. As it was, he found his list short. Hopefully some students would impress him more soon enough.

                “Very well, I agree with that assessment thank you.” All Might says, “and who would be the MVP of round two?”

                “Shinsou, kero” says Asui, “Both members of his team performed well, but without him the match would have been lost from the beginning. Also, Bakugo acted recklessly and endangered the building and Shoji, kero.”

                All Might nods, taking note of how young Bakugo flinches at the criticism, stewing in the corner and glaring at his friends. A concerning attitude to take, despite the skill he showed. That boy clearly has some issues he is yet to work through.

                “Alright, and for round 3?” Toshinori moves along, making notes on his clipboard to send to Aizawa along with the tapes.

()()()

                Katsuki trudged to his house from the train station after Izuku and Eyebags had turned off to go to their respective neighborhoods. He replayed the events of the battle trial over and over again in his mind. How had he lost? Eyebags had needed to save his ass, and he had barely beat Arms. Frogface was right, he had been reckless, and his final move was ill-advised even if it had won him the match. So far, all school was showing him was that he wasn’t the best, and that wasn’t right? Was it? Was everyone really extras if they could all match him like that?

                Also, how did he get told he was reckless when they had Izuku to compare him too?

Chapter Text

                Hitoshi trudged into school exhausted, clothes scuffled and looking more harried than usual after an annoying run in with the press outside the front gates. Bakugo and Midoriya were already in the classroom, looking no worse for wear and waving at him happily.

                “What the fuck?” He deadpanned, “Why are you here like this?”

                “The nerd snuck us in.”

                “Nedzu gave me access codes to the back entrance!” Midoriya exclaims, as though that explained anything at all.

                The rest of their classmates filter in over the next half hour, with Eraserhead showing up ten minutes late for homeroom.

                “Alright class, today you have yet another challenge” he says, the class tensing in anticipation, “Pick a class president.”

                “ME!” screams Midoriya, gleefully jumping into the air, only to be smacked down by everyone in his immediate vicinity.

()()()

                Later that day at lunch, Izuku is pouting at the sheer discrimination his classmates have against him. Yaoyorozo will surely make a good president, and Ilda is an excellent vice, but he wasn’t even allowed to run! He continued to contemplate this crime against democracy for nearly half the lunch period, interrupted only by the ringing klaxon of the school alarm. His friends try to drag him away as he pouts, refusing to leave his post in protest. Maybe if he dies, he will expose the systemic issues in this institution.

                The class reps do end up solving the issue, Yaoyorozo making a megaphone for Ilda while Uraraka floats him. Izuku is not cognizant of this, having been knocked unconscious and evacuated by the well-oiled teamwork of Shinsou and Bakugo.

()()()

                The bus to the USJ a day later is rambunctious as people chat about their hopes for rescue training and their quirks.

                “I say what’s on my mind kero” Asui croaks out, “Midoriya, you are very scary, especially since you do everything quirkless.”

                “Thanks Tsu!” Midoriya says brightly, “I think the attitude and determination are way more important than a quirk. Anyone who is heroic can be a hero!”

                “Not Bakugo then” Kaminari pipes in, bracing himself for the possible retaliation, “We haven’t known each other that long, so it’s amazing that everyone already knows his personality is crap steeped in sewage.”

                “Yeah, you’re right dumbass.” Bakugo says with a hint of sadness in his angry tone, staring around the bus at the many cowering students, “What the fuck are you scared of! I’m not some fucking bully who will hit you!”

()()()

                The students crowd around Thirteen and Aizawa as the space hero gives a speech about how dangerous their quirks are, and how they must use them properly. Bakugo looks surprisingly reflective throughout, despite his brief fit of rage to silence Uraraka’s fangirling.

Moments later the students scream and run towards the exit as Aizawa charges down the stairs. Villains emerge into the plaza of the USJ, and a misty man in a suit warps in front of the front door.

“Greetings,” the mist man says. “We are the League of Villains, and we have come to end All Might’s life. Please forgive our audacity.”

Bakugo roars, jumping forwards with Kirishima at his side to attack the villain, only to get warped away with most of the rest of the students, vertigo consuming their senses alongside the purple mist.

()()()

Izuku groggily stands up, looking around his surroundings in confusion. He brightens considerably when he sees Ojiro standing up next to him.

“Oh, hey Ojiro!” He calls out.

“Hey Midoriya. Where are we?”

“The ruins zone I assume, lots of ruined buildings anyways.” Izuku says, taking stock of the situation, “Lots of villains as well!”

“Lots of what?” Ojiro looks around in panicking, seeing a slowly approaching crowd of menacing figures, “Midoriya that’s a problem!”

“I know… when they are all the way over there, I can’t whoop their collective asses!” Izuku hops up onto a broken wall, balancing lightly. “Parkour time! Let’s go Tail Boy!”

“I am going to regret this; I just know it.” The tailed hero student sighs, hopping up on the wall alongside him.

()()()

                Katsuki glares around at the defeated villains in the fire zone, a panting and sweaty Shitty-Hair at his side. It had been an easy fight, the heat from the flames drenching him in sweat and enhancing his explosions significantly; especially since Shitty-Hair could harden himself and end up mostly immune to all the villain’s fire-based attacks. Katsuki would almost have preferred the fight was difficult. Then it would have at least taken his mind of the vicious cycle of self-flagellation it had been stuck in since he attacked the misty fucker at the entry way. Once again, his rage had put people in danger and possibly gotten other students hurt. And this time, Katsuki couldn’t seem to brush it off, even if it was just extras.

                “Should we set out to the plaza Bakubro?” Shitty-Hair says, mashing his rocky fists together, “That is where the really tough villains will be, we can have a really manly fight.”

Katsuki is sorely tempted. Rushing in and smacking down the big boss appeals to his ego greatly, and after destroying the small fry with little effort, the leader can’t be that much tougher. However, the niggling voice that has been with him through the fight makes itself known again, reminding him that not all his classmates are as tough as he. Katsuki shakes his head, scarcely able to believe what comes out of his mouth.

                “No, we need to help our classmates if they need it. Let’s head to the next zone over and group up against the villains.”

()()()

Hitoshi has rarely been happy to see excitable, loud, rude people in his life. Recently, that has started to change as Bakugo has become a regular and mostly friendly presence, and Midoriya has stuck to Bakugo like a particularly static-charged dryer sheet. This may be the happiest he ever is to see an extrovert though, flying through the air on explosions like an avenging angel and blasting away the shark villain that was climbing the edge of their sinking boat.

“What’s up Eyebags?” Bakugo says as he skids across the deck of the boat, “How are you and Frogface losing to trash like this?”

“I can’t swim well, and the boat is starting to sink.” Hitoshi protests, “Also, they wised up to my quirk very quick. Do you have a way to get us out of here?”

“Yeah, we make for Shitty-Hair over there” Bakugo says pointing to where Kirishima is making his way around the shoreline, “Ever been in a speed boat before? Hang on”

Hitoshi loses sight of the explosive boy as he dashes towards the sinking rear-end of the boat. A moment later he frantically grabs onto the railing as Bakugo’s words become clear, explosions ringing out and propelling the model yacht through the water and a brisk speed. Asui ribbits in fright, grabbing on beside Hitoshi and staring at him with wide eyes as they suddenly crash into the shore, beaching on the artificial terrain.

“Let’s go fuckers!” Bakugo calls out, blasting over the boat and to Kirishima. “Villains on our six!”

A short and intense fight later, Hitoshi stands panting beside the others, a pile of villains floating in the shallow water of the shore. The group turns towards the nearby plaza, watching in horror as their homeroom teacher is slammed into the ground and disabled handily by the hulking monster. Bakugo grits his teeth, hesitating for a few seconds. In this time, the doors burst open, and All Might charges into the plaza, screaming his catchphrase in rage as he attacks the villain.

()()()

                Izuku crept along the edge of the plaza towards the leader of the villains as he watched the fight unfold. All Might slammed the ‘nomu’? into the ground with a mighty Supplex, only to be caught off guard by the misty figure’s portal. He inches across the edge of the plaza now, cautiously approaching the villain with hands covering him as Kachan and Todoroki rescue All Might, taking down the portal man. All Might rips apart the Nomu, recoiling in shock as it regenerates almost instantly and strikes at Kachan. One ferocious exchange later, the mist man is standing by the leader of the villains as All Might and the nomu exchange blows at a frantic pace. One final triumphant smash later, the monster is flying through the skylight as All Might stands, steaming and triumphant.

“What happened to clearing the game…?” The number one hero taunts, “If you can take me, then bring it on!”

The hand covered villain goes to charge forwards, and Izuku sees his moment. He lunges, stabbing his pocketknife into the villain’s right shoulder with a sickening squelch. Time seems to slow as the villain screams and turns on him, All Might helpless to stop him as his hand reaches for Izuku’s face. Fingers latch around his skull one by one, the fifth dropping with a sense of ominous finality.

“…You really are pretty cool,” The hand covered man says, seething as he flexes his fingers around a frozen Izuku’s face, “Eraserhead.”

Izuku reacts immediately, taking the opportunity granted to him by the crumpled Hero to lash out with several aggressive kicks, knocking hands loose from the villain’s body and scrambling to get away. A moment later shots are ringing out through the USJ as even more holes appear in the retreating villain’s body. A moment after that, and silence reigns for a moment as the reinforcements observe the grisly scene before them.

“…aw crap,” Izuku complains, sitting down heavily, “He took my knife with him!”

Chapter Text

A few hours later the students had been checked out and taken back to school to be collected by their worried parents, or to walk home, for those who lived alone. Aizawa had been bundled up by paramedics and taken to the hospital alongside Thirteen. Since there were no major student injuries, and the heroes dealt with the villains in a relatively decisive matter, the incident had mostly blown over by the next day.

()()()

Katsuki ditched his friends on the walk home and took a detour. Hobo-sensei had announced the sports festival today, but his mind was elsewhere. The events of the USJ, and his choice to take friends over glory, along with his many mistakes, kept rattling around in his head. Ever since coming to school, it seemed, every step of the way had revealed more errors in his thought patterns, or more examples to prove him wrong. He wasn’t the strongest, he wasn’t the smartest, he needed help sometimes, and giving help and teaming up was occasionally the right choice. It just didn’t make sense; this isn’t what being a hero was supposed to be about. Katsuki reached his destination and trudged through the doorway, bowing low.

“Sabom,” he barks respectfully, the older man reclining behind his desk during a lull between classes, “Please, I need advice.”

“Of course, Bakugo-san, come in, take a seat.”

()()()

Katsuki walks out of the dojang thirty minutes later, wiping away the tears he refused to admit were there as younger students filed in for their class. The older man had given him a lot to think about, and he didn’t want to go home yet, so he made his way to Dagobah beach near his house.

The explosive teen stalked across the trash covered sand, muttering to himself as he tried to sort out his feelings. He let out an explosion, pulverizing a section of trash, before lifting it and carrying it over to a previous pile of sorted trash. During his middle school years this beach had been recommended to him by short-lived school counsellor as a good way to blow off excess steam and anger while doing the community a service. He didn’t come here super often, but over the past year or two he had slowly cleaned a reasonable section of it.

Katsuki worked up a sweat quickly, crushing and scorching trash before moving it into bags and stacking them in his usual place. His Sabom’s worlds circled his head rapidly, fluttering around and picking holes in his normal thought pattern.

“Others do not have to be weak for you to be strong. If they are strong too, it will only help you grow”

A microwave takes two powerful explosions to crumple, its composite parts expelled rapidly out the sides of the machine. The remaining scrap is flat packed and placed into a bag alongside the remnants of a toaster oven.

“Needing help is not weakness. It was not weakness when you asked me to teach you, it was getting stronger. We are at our strongest with others to support us.”

A fridge proved tougher than the other scrap, allowing Katsuki to spend a few mindless minutes slowly pummeling it into submission. The smoking and warped door is placed beside the bags, while the fridge box comes apart panel by panel and gets stacked neatly. Later, a garbage truck will come by the collect the trash. His parents had arranged for it during his third year of middle school at his request.

“All Might saves people with a smile; he does not destroy villains with a smile. A hero’s job is to save people, not just to conquer villains.”

Katsuki powers through another pile of trash, the sun slowly starting to dip below the horizon. His parents won’t care if he gets back late, this isn’t the first time he has stayed out past dark working on something. He crushes the smaller trash into a cube, firing rapid small explosions to heat and melt it together while enhancing the compacting power of his arms. The beach is isolated enough that no one has every complained about the rapid explosions, so he is at relatively low risk for an illegal quirk use warning.

“It is okay to be angry. It is okay to not like people much. It is not okay to take it out violently. You do not have to change your personality, or who you are, to become a better person.”

A tall, emaciated man in a pin-stripped suit watches the explosive teen thoughtfully for a while, before going on his way wordlessly. Katsuki ignores the stranger, focusing on the next section of beach as he slowly works through his thoughts.

Hours later, the teen trudges back into his house. His uniform is stained and rumpled, and he is breathing heavily and covered in soot.

“Hag!” He barks at his mother upon entering the living room of their home, “Call the garbage men and tell them to bring two trucks this time. And… sign this application form so I can go see the school counsellor.”

()()()

Elsewhere during the weekend, a small green boy fidgets gleefully with some scrap in a workshop. Other students putter around him, open workshop time is very busy this close to the sports festival, as smarter students in other courses race to build a few pieces of gear to give them an edge in the competition. A click and a hiss sound from the object on the desk, and the greenette holds it up triumphantly.

 “I’ve done it!” Izuku cries with glee, nearby students flinching away, “The negative three-thousand-degree knife! Take that HeroTok!”

Chapter Text

  The two weeks before the sports festival is always a busy period at UA. Students in the other departments scramble to prepare almost as much as the hero course students do. Business students draw up odds and draft graphs and predictions for the class projects they have surrounding the festival, the support course submits gear for review and frantically finish their last few pieces, general education either trains frantically for their chance at entering the hero course or are the only members of the school not busy, and management students offer their services to the other departments, hoping to prove their skills by mentoring a sports festival underdog.

For the hero course students, these two weeks are even busier. Rescue training is allowed to fall to the wayside during these weeks as the students are endlessly drilled in combat and tactics and subjected to as much conditioning as possible. For them, the festival is crucial to their future career opportunities, and competitive spirit is at an all time high. Most of the students spend their free time in the gym or on the training fields, but some students take advantage of the rule allowing them to bring one piece of homemade support gear to help them. For Aoyama, this is his only chance to have the belt crucial to his quirk control, but for Izuku this time only represents an opportunity to arm himself in increasingly creative ways.

Izuku tosses the knife onto the table as Power Loader lectures him about acceptable objects to stick into other students. He grumbles under his breath and pulls out another blueprint, moving onto his fifth project of the week.

“How about knife gloves?” He asks the support teacher, “Like the ones in Assassin’s Creed XXV?”

“Yes Midoriya, knives are fine since you are cleared to use them by your teacher,” the support hero says tiredly, “The only issue with your other designs was the possibility of injecting students with dangerous substances or dangerous temperatures. A knife glove should be fine, I could even teach you how to hook a basic taser to it.”

“Okay!”

()()()

Shoto hangs up his phone with a synthetic click, tossing it into his gym bag in disgust. His father was once again insisting that he spend his time at school training his fire, so that he could win the sports festival and eventually surpass All Might.

It wasn’t that Shoto had too much of a problem with the fire anymore. After his classmate had made him use it early in the semester, he had slowly been coming to terms with the idea of employing fire on the field. During the USJ, the villains he froze could have suffered serious injuries if he hadn’t thawed them out afterwards, and a gout of flame may have been able to cauterize the Nomu and stop its regeneration.

But every time his father insisted on him using the fire again, Shoto couldn’t help but double down on his resistance and continue his stubborn refusal to employ his left side. He knew he should use it during the sports festival, his teacher had pulled him aside and discussed his refusal to use it a few lessons ago, and the concept of sportsmanship had come up. Shoto may be stubborn, but he did not want to disrespect his classmates in that way, just his father.

The hetero-chromatic teen shrugs, clearing his mind of his conflicted thoughts as he goes back to training, frosting over the gym floor and then shakily skating across it.

()()()

Shinsou panted heavily as he backed away from Bakugo, his forearms smarting from sloppy blocks, and a bruise forming on his face from the final blow of the sparring match.

“What the fuck don’t you understand about guard your face Eyebags?” Bakugo said angrily, making the motion for a high block again, “You asked me to show you how to fight, you could at least learn the basics!”

The purple haired teen grits his teeth, putting his hands up and closing the distance between them again, lashing out with the basic jab and cross pattern the explosive boy had taught him earlier that afternoon.

()()()

Izuku giggled as he watched Todoroki declare war on Kachan in the dressing room as they prepared for the first event of the sports festival. He carefully strapped on the knife gloves he had spent a lot of the past two weeks working on. The blade extended about two thirds of a foot beyond his fist, and the glove had a small trigger he could clench his hand around to run a light charge through the metal of the knife. The blades didn’t retract, Izuku did not have the time or knowledge to make anything that fancy, but a small mechanism at the base of them let him unlock the blades and swing them to point out of the way along his forearm, doubling as a sort of shield while he did so.

“And here they are! Class 1-A” Present Mic’s voice startled Izuku out of his contemplation about his gear, the other classes following them to the field shortly after. “And with the highest score on the entrance exam, giving the athlete’s oath is Bakugo Katsuki!”

“Thank you very much,” The explosive teen started, his classmates doing a double take at the respectful tone. “For my athlete’s oath, I promise to do my best. Everyone here has worked incredibly hard, and I am sure we are all here to compete at the height of our ability. I promise to respect that be giving nothing less than one hundred percent. And as a personal oath, I vow to beat every one of you fuckers and achieve my dreams!”

The blonde slammed the mic back into the stand as the crowd goes wild around him, his classmates feeling reassured at the return of his obscenity. Midnight sauntered onto the stage, thanking him for his words and announcing the first event: an obstacle race.

()()()

Izuku took a deep breath, steadying himself in the packed hallway. His eyes were locked on the door in front of him, and he knew it would be the first obstacle. The starting gun went, and he leapt into the air, scrambling across shoulders as he used his newfound verticality to pass over the crowd. A chill raced down his spine a moment later, and most of the pack froze in place as Todoroki skated out of the block, his classmates following him moments later.

Izuku dove through the door to the sound of gunfire, as the space beyond the gate turned out to be a long uphill hallway with turrets lined up at the end. Every time a student moved, the turrets swiveled to face them and pelted them with beanbags. Todoroki was huddled behind a wall of ice as he planned his next move, and Bakugo had begun to advance, blasting explosions wildly and staggering whenever a beanbag clipped him.

“OH YEAH! THIS IS MY KIND OF OBSTACLE!” Kirishima screamed as he charged by Izuku with his hardening up, beanbags not even phasing him. As he approached the end of the obstacle seconds later, the turrets slid to the sides and let him pass unmolested.

The greenette grinned, gauging the distance between the walls of the corridor (it was fairly narrow, wide enough for at most a person and a half), and then jumped up. He kicked off the first wall he connected with and propelled himself across the gap, pushing off the other wall in the same way. Several students taking shelter behind Todoroki’s now abandoned ice wall gape at him as he parkours his way over head, the beanbags falling behind him as the turrets proved not to have much ability to track motion with vertical targets. Seconds later, he lands behind the turrets in fifth place, taking off at a sprint across the open track towards the frontrunners.

()()()

Katsuki growled as he saw the two students in front of him approach the next obstacle, a series of concrete pillars of varying heights rapidly moving around a deep pit. Kirishima faltered at the edge, and Icyhot –the bastard—just skated over the void, forming an ice bridge under his feet as he went along. Katsuki fired off his explosions as he approached, taking off from the ground in his limited version of flight as he soared across the chasm.

“WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!” A wall of beanbags exploded out of a previously hidden turret, slamming into the boy, and forcing him to land awkwardly on a pillar in the center of the obstacle.

“OH! And it appears Bakugo has run afoul of the anti-air turrets!” Present Mic’s voice rings out across the field. “That’s right! To keep it all fair, trying to fly across obstacles will catch you some FLAK!”

“Limiting student’s creativity in this way is the height of irrationality.” Eraserhead called out a moment later, echoing Katsuki’s own thoughts.

Katsuki staggered to his feet, rubbing the sore spots on his arms where the projectiles had viciously smacked into him. Thanking the nerd (who had already passed him now, damn that turret) for all his forced parkour lessons, Katsuki set off across the pillars at a brisk pace, quickly catching up to the leaders of the race once again.

()()()

Shoto felt like he had this in the bag as he carefully iced his way across the field of electrified squares. He could easily use his ice to cross the safe green squares, and the electric yellow ones, so he only had to be careful of the red squares: they would violently explode if anything passed above them.

A loud noise startled the hot and cold teen, and he turned his head to see Bakugo Katsuki barreling his way across the field with a truly unholy scream. The explosive boy was firing on all cylinders and sprinting across the squares, body twitching and spasming as he rapidly fired explosions to propel it forward regardless. Shoto watched in horror as a red platform erupted around the boy, only for him to go flying out of it towards the goal, gym clothes smoking and scorched as a snarl twisted his face.

Behind Bakugo, Midoriya was swiftly crossing the field again, moving with the grace of a dancer as he dove and dodged his way around the traps. Shoto put his head down and redoubled his pace, reaching the edge of the minefield seconds after Bakugo staggered across the finish line. He sighed; his father would be so displeased that he lost at the very end like this. Oh well, at least he managed to stay ahead of Midoriya, the boy was as scary as he was somewhat attractive.

Chapter Text

Izuku vibrated with excitement as Midnight announced the second event of the sports festival. Capture the flag! And it would be in a small-scale urban setting too, thanks to Cementoss. The perfect environment to show off the skills he had been cultivating to any underground heroes in the crowd.

“Kachan!” Izuku shouted, turning to his friend who had just received a one-million-point flag for finishing first, “Let’s team up!”

“Fine by me Nerd.” Kachan turns to him, waving Shinsou over as he does. “We can split our team two ways, like a hero agency would split between underground and limelight. You and Eyebags can go get flags as insurance, and I will protect the flag, along with Arms if we can get him.”

Izuku nodded, mumbling to himself as he planned out ways he could attack the teams he could see forming around them. He barely noticed as his teammates recruited Shoji to their team, and only looked up as the arena began to rumble and fluidly shape itself into a small city full of boxy buildings between one and three stories tall. Suddenly the massive size of the arena was brought into relief, as even the tallest structures were still a good ten or fifteen feet below the lowest row of spectators.

The teams were each directed to different buildings from what Izuku could tell by looking at the nearest groups to either side. The building his team was placed in was the tallest around, with a large lightning rod on top, in an ironic nod to its high value occupants. Izuku briefly conferred with Shinsou and decided that they should split up, since Shinsou worked best with traps and Izuku preferred surprise rush down attacks. A bell sounded throughout the arena, and Present Mic screamed from his booth as the game began.

()()()

Neito was prepared for a lot of things during the second event. He expected Todoroki’s team to charge at Bakugo for the million points, and by the sounds outside his building that was exactly what was happening. He expected around half the teams to rush the top spot, in fact. Since his team had enough points to comfortably move on without even capturing a flag, he planned to bunker down for the first half of the match, and then pick off the weakened teams to bolster their score. Kendo was with him, watching the bottom half of the building and ready to warn him if someone tried to storm their two-story fort.

His other teammates, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu, had said some things about manliness before rushing off. They had at least let Neito copy their quirks first, so he wasn’t too upset about their lack of adherence to the plan. Once the timer on his copied quirks ran out, he would know it was time to go on the offensive and start picking off weak teams. It was quiet outside the building, and the sounds of fighting were distant, so Neito expected the first part of the plan to go rather smoothly.

His assumption was corrected moments later, as he turned around to investigate a thud from behind him. A green-haired form rose from the floor it had dove onto during its entrance via window, the beams of sunlight from the window glinting off his knives in intimidating fashion.

“Hello!” Midoriya? (Neito thought that was his name, but he hadn’t put much stock in his sister class since they were obviously inferior) said, “I’ve come to bargain!”

“Bargain?” Neito drawled, settling into a fighting stance, and calling up Steel. “I don’t bargain with weaklings, and class 1-A is nothing but.”

Midoriya nodded sagely, before moving his hands in an odd two-fingered pattern and jumping back out the window. Neito stuck his head out cautiously, but the regretted had seemingly vanished without a trace. Presumably because he knew this wasn’t a fight he could win; Neito was a top tier student after all.

“THUNK.” Neito crumpled to the floor, his head swimming as he crumpled to the floor. Midoriya towered over him, having already circled the outside of the building and come in via the other window.

“Hello.” The other boy whispered, leaning down beside Neito, “I’ve come to bargain.”

By the time Itsuka came upstairs to plan their offensive strategy with Monoma, their flag was long gone, and the blonde was unconscious on the floor. She shook him awake, panic setting in as she realized how far behind they must be by now.

()()()

Shinsou crept quietly around the edge of the building he was scoping out. As far is he could tell, there were two students inside: the vine girl from 1-B and a grape-haired kid from gen ed who had made it into the top forty. He could hear the boy loudly hitting on the vine girl, who was rebuffing his advancements with what sounded like quotes from scripture. He grinned, an easy target then.

“Hey! Ass or tits?” Shinsou calls out as he steps through the door of the building.

“TITS!”

“I would never consider something so vulgar!”

Both students went slack as Shinsou grasped them with his quirk, chuckling softly to himself as he walked past their unresponsive bodies. Taking control of more than one person at a time was a strain on his quirk, but when he didn’t need to give them orders like this it was a lot easier on his brain. He made his way to the flag, located in the back of the single-storied building, and collected it before heading out.

()()()

Arms was turning out to be the perfect teammate, as much as Katsuki hated to admit it. They were standing with their flag by the lightning rod on top of their building, and so far the game had been incredibly simple. Arms would use his superior hearing to pinpoint where extras –no, students—where coming from and then Katsuki would indiscriminately blast them. None of the heavy hitters had reached their building yet, so the first few minutes had been smooth sailing. The ground around the building was pitted with craters and groaning classmates, and the roof access stairs had been collapsed.

The ground shook for a moment, the air chilled, and suddenly a glacier erupted up the side of the building as Todoroki arrived. Arms shouted a warning, scrambling back from the edge as Katsuki brought both hands to bear. With an echoing boom, the glacier shattered into hundreds of pieces.

The arena was oddly silent for a moment, as team Todoroki recovered from their failed attempt to scale the building, and the other teams backed off to avoid the crossfire. Distantly, Katsuki registers Present Mic shouting out the halfway mark.

“They are planning an electrical attack, since the ice didn’t work” Arms says, walking over to join Katsuki near the edge of the building. “Todoroki will distract you while Kaminari and Yaoyorozu approach from the ruined stairwell.”

“Those dumb fuckers,” Katsuki says gleefully, “They’re going to play right into our hands.”

A minute passes, Arms moving back towards the center of the building as Katsuki amuses himself by taking pot shots at Icyhot’s structures, pretending to be taken in by the distraction. Thirty seconds after that, the stairwell bursts open again from what sounds like a controlled detonation of some form of explosive. Katsuki is impressed, he didn’t think Ponytail had the balls for a move like that.

“INDISCRIMINATE SHOCK! ONE MILLION VOLTS!” Pikachu shouts, lighting up the roof as he bathes it in electricity.

The glow fades after a couple seconds, revealing Pikachu stumbling around drunkenly as Katsuki cackles maniacally. The lightning rod on the roof had absorbed the shock and grounded it, and Dunce Face had wasted his one shot at taking them out. Ponytail emerges from her blanket thing with a look of surprise, and Arms charges towards her.

Katsuki watches in amusement as Arms lays a brutal beatdown on the poor girl, knocking her hasty shield and staff away with his incredibly strong blows. The tentacled teen twists around her guard a moment later and totally takes her down.

Todoroki arrives to the roof a moment later, taking advantage of Katsuki’s distraction to finally scale the building. He seems shocked to find his team defeated, but quickly steels himself for a fight. Katsuki shatters the first few streams of ice with resounding explosions, Arms moving up to support him. The taller boy is capable of shattering the frozen constructs with his bare hands, and between the two of them they slowly advance towards Icyhot.

“Hi Kachan!” The nerd says, popping up out of nowhere as usual, a random assortment of flags clutched in his fist. “I got some flags! Oh, Hi Todoroki!”

Present Mic calls out the final minute of the match, and Todoroki growls in frustration as his efforts prove futile. Fifty seconds later and the combined efforts of team Bakugo have driven him to the edge of the roof, Shinsou arriving in the background via the stairs.

The match ends just as Izuku shoulder slams Todoroki off the roof, Katsuki shattering his ice under him and leave him to awkwardly slide back to the ground in defeat.

()()()

During the lunch break Izuku sits with his friends, glad that all of them have made it to the final round. Todoroki’s team squeaked by in fourth, their original flag guarded by Ochako and giving them enough points to qualify. Team Monoma had recovered as well, their other members managing to capture several flags despite the crushing defeat at home base. The final team had been Ilda’s, who successfully employed the strategy of preying on the other distracted teams, leveraging their speed to make quick work of most of the bases. They had ended up coming in second by a fairly wide margin.

Chapter Text

Katsuki walked onto the field for his first match of the tournament confidently. No offense to Tailman, but it wasn’t likely that he could challenge Katsuki here. The circular concrete arena had a variety of pillars scattered around it, made of the same aerated and impact reducing blend that Cementoss used to make the buildings in the training grounds.

Midnight cracked her whip, signaling the start of the match as Katsuki charged forwards, explosions crackling from his hands to launch him into the air. Tailboy met him on top of the pillars, jumping rapidly towards him. They exchanged a flurry of blows, Katsuki holding off on any larger explosions in favor of displaying his martial arts prowess.

A sweeping kick from the tailed teen forces Katsuki to ignite his hands and take flight as he bails off the pillar. Deciding to end the match, he angled his palms towards the boy and let loose a large explosion. Off balance from the kick, Ojiro didn’t manage to dodge in time and took the explosion to the chest. He slammed against the pillar and rag-dolled to the ground as smoke curled from his Gi.

Katsuki landed and stalked over to him, palms crackling menacingly as he waited to see if the boy would try to rise. He didn’t, and Midnight called the match a moment later. Katsuki held out his hand, helping the tailed boy onto the stretcher to go to the infirmary.

()()()

Kaminari Denki stumbled through the pillars desperately, his mind fuzzy. After a big discharge like the one he just did, it felt like he was thinking through mud. Somewhere near him he could hear a singed and annoyed Shoji stumbling towards him like a tank, smashing pillars as he goes. His one big blast of electricity hand winded him, but the other teen had shrugged it off with some difficulty and was now hunting him like a rat in the rapidly shrinking arena.

Denki flinched as a pillar beside him shattered, turning to face it as he went to dodge. He never saw the three fists striking him from the other side, knocking him unconscious swiftly.

()()()

Hitoshi walks away from the arena, feeling the usual anxiety about using his quirk bubbling around his chest. Tetsutetsu stands confused outside the edge of the ring, the match over almost before it began.

Bakugo is in the tunnel to call him a badass for beating shitty-steel, bringing a small grin to his face. Midoriya drops down from the roof a moment later to congratulate him, and Hitoshi starts to feel more like maybe using his quirk might be okay. Slowly, the roar of the crowd fades back into his ears, and now it sounds more like cheering than judgement.

()()()

Tenya braces himself, waiting behind a pillar with a clear line on the edge of the arena. His opponent steps around it cautiously, and Tenya fires up his engines, roaring across the small space in a low gear. Kirishima never sees it coming, dragged out of the arena before his hardening can do anything to help him.

Minutes later, Sero is similarly helpless, staring in frustration at Todoroki as the audience consoles him. Tenya stands from the audience to go warm up from the glacier near his section. As he makes his way into the stadium, his phone starts to buzz in his pockets. He answers it quickly, since only an emergency call would go through while his phone is silenced like this.

()()()

Neito knew he was a side character. His quirk was one that needed help to power up, and without prior planning and relevant quirks nearby to copy it was as good as being quirkless. Still, loosing to Midoriya in one blow stung his pride a lot. Midoriya fought with even less power than Neito and losing to him was nobody’s fault but his own. So, it fell to Neito to rebuild some of his pride in this match.

Yaoyorozu was a fearsome opponent for sure, but Neito had carefully observed her during the first event, just as he had every other member of class A. There was no point to sandbagging if you didn’t gather valuable information after all. It hadn’t helped him against the unpredictable gremlin that was Midoriya, but Yaoyorozu had a much more visible weakness for him to exploit. She was unconfident, and slow to make decisions under pressure. 

To take advantage of this, he had grabbed the perfect storm of quirks right before going out to the arena.  Even if he couldn’t put her down quickly with this combo, she would likely litter enough weapons and tools for him to scavenge and have a fair shot at defeating her in quirkless combat. Contrary to what his humiliation at Midoriya’s hands would indicate, Neito had extensive training in hand to hand, specifically in martial arts that focused on grappling. His parents were always willing to fund his dream, and Neito’s entire life was just relying on others anyways.

Midnight’s whip cracked, and Neito lunged forwards as he drew on his first quirk. His skin darkened, and he slipped into the shadows of the pillars with Kurioro’s shadow. Neito zipped across the arena, quickly approaching where Yaoyorozu was standing, a shield on her arm and her belly sparkling as she prepared something. He dropped the quirk, bursting out of the shadows with a shout.

His opponent started in surprise, her sparkles fading as her concentration breaks. Neito pulls his second quirk, yell transforming into a roar as he takes Shishida’s beast form and slaps the shield aside. Yaoyorozu stumbles back towards the edge of the arena, eyes wide with panic and random sparkles running along her stomach as she tried to think of a creation that could save her.

Twenty seconds later, Neito held a blade arm to her throat as she yielded. He helped her up after, with only minimal ranting about class 1-B’s superiority. His focus drifted from the match to the future, and he could only hope that Midoriya made it through the bracket to face him in the semi-finals. Neito shook his head roughly, hands in his pockets as he made his way back to the stands. For now, Todoroki was next.

()()()

Izuku stepped up to the arena for his match against Mina with a determined look on his face. Just because he planned to go underground didn’t mean he was going to throw the festival here; he didn’t have a quirk to hide anyways. In fact, he wanted to do his best to meet Kachan in the finals and prove to the world that the quirkless could be just as strong as others.

The greenette broke into a run as Midnight’s whip cracked. He stepped up onto a smaller pillar, performing a series of wall jumps to ascend to the highest point of the small concrete forest in seconds. He crouched, blades on his arms humming as he lightly thumbed the trigger for their shock. Mina passed under him, skating along, and calling his name.

Izuku dropped from the pillar silently, landing on her shoulders and twisting. The pink girl overbalanced and slipped, falling backwards onto the ground. Her head cracked against the concrete with a nasty sound, and she stared up at Izuku with unfocused eyes as he pinned her with a knee to the chest. He squeezed the trigger on his left knife, and her eyes spasmed shut as the taser finished knocking her out.

The audience was quiet for a moment, not sure what to make of the brutal and anti-climatic fight. Then Eraserhead’s voice rang out on the PA, congratulating Midoriya for an excellent display of underground heroics’ tactics, and that set the crowd free. Midoriya walked back to the waiting rooms to a cacophony of cheers, a bright smile on his face as he happily waved to the crowd.

()()()

Itsuka Kendo was a fearsome opponent for sure, but Ochako had her dead to rights. Even without much combat experience, it wasn’t hard to puzzle out that a melee-based fighter would have an incredibly tough time against a contact quirk as strong as hers.

It didn’t go quite as smooth as Ochako had planned, Kendo was skilled and manage to slam her around a bit without getting touched. But in the end Ochako managed to wrap a hand around one massive finger and threw the ginger out of the ring before she had a chance to adjust to the chance in weight.

Ochako giggled happily as she skipped back to her waiting room to text her parents. Now she only had to beat Midoriya, and she’d be on the podium! Her anxiety at his name bubbled in her gut, but she’d been doing great at getting over it in the last two weeks, and she was too happy right now to worry about the next match. It couldn’t be that bad anyways. Right?

Chapter Text

Katsuki crouched down at the edge of the arena, rage bubbling in his gut. Four-Eyes had dropped out of the tournament, giving Eyebags a bye for the next round. Now not only did Eyebags lose a chance to prove himself, but Katsuki had to live with the fact that winning doesn’t technically make him the strongest, since some of the fights ended in forfeits.

The explosive teen shook his head, focusing his attention on the match before him. Arms was a tough opponent and had almost beaten him in the battle trial exercise. Katsuki needed to stay dialed in. He rubbed his palms together, then slicked the bottom of his shoes with his sweat. Shifting into a sprinters position, he held his arms low and near his shoes.

A minute later, Arms cautiously sidled out from one of the pillars, coming into Katsuki’s view. A mistake, in his opinion. The boy lit off his palms, resulting in a quick staccato of explosions as his hands and then his feet ignited, launching him forwards like a bullet. Katsuki twists midair, pulling his front leg up and lashing out with a vicious axe kick as he flies into the taller teen.

Arms stumbles, shoulder crunching nastily under the kick as Katsuki drops to the floor in front of him. They begin to trade blows, a rapid-fire exchange of explosions and crushing punches from all directions. Katsuki feels punches impact his arms and ribs, leaving nasty bruises and sore spots each time they connect. Meanwhile, every time Arms takes a scorching hit, he lets the limb be severed and grows it back.

Seeing the other boy is winning the battle of attrition and feeling the steady impact of fists start to take their toll on even his enhanced forearms, Katsuki withdraws. He hides behind the stub of a pillar and takes stock of the arena. Most of the pillars are shattered or demolished entirely, and the area where Arms is focusing on patching up his appendages is scorched and covered in debris. There isn’t any obstructions left for a surprise attack, or anymore pillars for Katsuki to duck around to avoid attacks. Time to finish this then.

Katsuki stands, take a fortifying breath. He calls out to Arms and then leaps into the air. He fires explosions at carefully chosen angles, slowly beginning to rotate faster and faster as he gains height, then orientates himself at his target.

“HOWITZER IMPACT!” Katsuki dives downwards, rotating rapidly as he unleashes his strongest explosion at Arms’ crossed limbs, webbing spreading between them to form a protective dome in front of him.

The smoke clears a moment later, revealing Katsuki barely standing, using a pillar for support as he raises a fist in victory. Arms is across the arena against the only other remaining pillar, slumped over unconscious. Midnight calls the match and announces a quick break to clear away the debris.

()()()

Neito was facing a serious dilemma. While his classmates were very supportive of him, since he was their only representative left in the third round and had offered him any of their quirks he needed, it just wasn’t enough for Todoroki. The boy was a monster when it came to quirk output, and his control was good enough to cause issues. Honestly, the best person to counteract Todoroki was Todoroki himself, with the ice and fire sides in seemingly direct opposition. Which lead Neito to where he was now, in the depths of the stadium hoping Todoroki had gone to the waiting rooms early after vanishing from his class seating during the break.

“SHOTO!” A deep male voice exclaimed from around the corner, causing Neito to pause and lean against the wall cautiously. “You will cease this foolish rebellion immediately! Use my fire and embrace your destiny!”

“No Father” Shoto Todoroki’s deadpan voice answered, Neito flinching at the undercurrent of pain in the nearly emotionless tone. “I will win this with Mother’s Ice alone, to prove to you that your perfect creation doesn’t require your power at all.”

“Your mother was weak! She gave you that scar and marred my masterpiece”

“If mother was so weak why did you even bother to buy her for your plan then?!” Shoto retorted angrily, and there was a woosh from the corridor. Neito glanced at the flickering orange light playing along the wall warily, mentally preparing himself to step in. He was already reeling from this conversation, so what would a little more excitement matter? “We are finished here father; I will see you at home after I win with just my ice.”

Neito quickly stands up from the wall, pretending he had just been walking around the corner and almost bumping into the retreating flame hero. The man just grunted, glaring down at Neito with angry eyes. The copycat shook himself off as the man stalked away, grinning gleefully as he started one of his watches running. Five minutes to go, and the match would start before that.

“Hey! Todoroki” He calls out.

“What do you want Monoma?” Todoroki says voice chilly and eyes even colder.

“I just wanted to apologize for catching the end of that conversation and wish you luck in our match.”

“You heard?” Todoroki seems surprised, as though he hadn’t been loudly talking in a random corridor of a stadium with more than a thousand people in it. “Well. Would you like the entire story?”

“uh? Sure?” Neito is genuinely confused at the direction this conversation is going. What kind of person just offers to dump their trauma to an opponent they barely know? This was wasting plenty of time though, which worked great for him.

“What do you know about quirk marriages?”

()()()

Three minutes later, Neito blankly stared at the wall of his preparation room, the chill of Todoroki’s handshake still lingering on his palm. He shook himself, starting another mental timer as he walk out of the room and up to the arena, the audience’s cheers ringing hollowly in his head. Like seriously, what the fuck? Todoroki was playing psychological warfare, there was no other reason to just drop bombs like those minutes before the match. Completely emotionless the entire time too? Neito was absolutely baffled.

“3...2...1... BEGIN!” Midnight’s whip cracks in the air, then she hurriedly runs to the stadium wall and clambers onto a small, raised platform, judging from a distance now considering Sero’s match.

The air grows chilling, a crackling sound filling the stadium as Todoroki slams his foot down. Neito smirks, calm even as ice rushes towards him, filling in the gaps of the pillars. He fires up his first quirk with only 15 seconds to spare before it would have run out. Flame erupts from his body, hot enough to instantly vaporize the approaching glacier, a cloud of steam hanging low and swirling around his side of the arena. The crowd is silent, shocked at the sudden display of familiar power.

“AND MONOMA DESTROYS THAT MASSIVE GLACIER WITH WHAT APPEARS TO BE ENDEAVOR’S OWN QUIRK! WHAT A MOMENT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ARE WE WITNESSING SOME GNERATIONAL STRIFE HERE? HOW DID MONOMA GET THAT QUIRK!!” Present Mic screams into the mic, causing Todoroki to start in surprise on the other side of the translucent barrier.

Neito waves cheekily, flames puffing out from around his body as the time runs out on Endeavors quirk. Even with the distortion of the ice wall, he can see that the shocked boy is shivering and feeling the strain of his opening attack. Neito shakes his body a bit, dusting off an invisible stain as he starts to advance towards the ice.

“I really don’t know why you insist on using just on side of this” Neito calls out cheerfully, his left arm igniting into flame, “It really is so useful to have fire at your beck and call you know. Balances things out quite nicely.”

Todoroki stood shocked, watching the ice wall slowly melt like a deer in the headlights as Neito pressed his palm against it. His face was pale as the ice lowered enough to reveal it, and his eyes where frantic as they darted around the half-frozen arena.

“I will never use my father’s fire.” He spat out viciously.

“It isn’t your fathers” Neito said casually, stepping over the remains of the ice, “I can feel it in my now, and I just felt Endeavor’s fire as well. Not only is your quirk one single fused entity, not two separate quirks, but his fire functions fundamentally differently. I imagine he has a telekinetic ancestor somewhere in his lineage, who’s genes didn’t get passed onto you. Your fire is much wilder and purer than his.”

Todoroki back up, stomping his foot and sending another wave of ice crackling towards the advancing blonde.

“I don’t care! Fire has brought nothing but pain to my family, I will never break my oath!”

“You know Todoroki, that’s so terribly arrogant of you; typical class 1-A really.” Neito says, wiping away the ice with a swipe of his flaming hand, the two elements mingling into steam that swirled around him imposingly. “Everyone here is giving their all, and not everyone is blessed with such powerful quirks as you. I have spent my entire life striving to grow beyond my lot in the genetic lottery and faced an uphill battle the entire time. You can imagine my anger when someone with a great quirk like yours insists on half-assing it while facing me. The SHEER DISRESPECT of someone like you, a main character like you, insisting on looking down on the side-characters for some childish grudge!”

Neito swung his hands forwards, activating both halves of the quirk, painfully aware of his time ticking down.

“Ignite yourself and face me, or I’ll blow you away!” He cries out, face angular and furious in the light of the flickering flames, steam curling off his shoulders and blowing away.

Todoroki stares at his hands for a moment, before glaring back at Neito. His shoulder bursts into flame, and both boys faces twist into a snarl as they unleash the full force of half-hot-half-cold.

An explosion rips through the arena for the umpteenth time that day, and when the steam and smoke clear, Todoroki is slummed against an ice wall, barely conscious. Neito is standing tall, skin glimmering with steel as he stalks forwards, grabbing the hetero-chromatic boy by the collar.

“Thank you.” He mutters, before unceremoniously tossing him out of bounds to the cheers of the crowd.

()()()

Ochako Uraraka was a very brave and determined person. She knows this, and everyone who saw her get fired up for the sports festival agreed. Still, something about Izuku Midoriya sets off her anxiety. Maybe it was a childhood fear of killing something if she dropped it from too high with her quirk coming up against his tendency to drop off tall objects. Maybe it was how cheerful and happy he was until he got serious, and the terrifying switch between them. Maybe it was because the principal kept greenlighting the boy to have knives. Maybe it was his tendency to say hi to her by falling out of a ceiling tile. Maybe he was just intimidatingly attractive… no, probably not that.

Regardless of the reason, Ochako grew increasingly nervous as she step up to the ring and waited for Midnight to start the match. Somewhere across the small forest of pillars was Izuku Midoriya, and it was time to face her fears. She looks around the area, annoyed at how clean it was after being freshly prepared. She didn’t have any ammunition for her quirk to throw at him, which meant close combat. And while Ochako had a quirk that was almost an instant knockout, Midoriya was demonstrably a monster at hand to hand.

Ochako sets her teeth and runs into the pillars, sticking away from the taller ones and watching the heights to avoid falling prey to the mistake that took Mina down. Sure enough, Midoriya appeared by jumping from the center pillar again, rolling across the ground towards her with a wicked grin. His emerald eyes seemed to shine with an inner electricity from the sheer adrenaline and glee, and his teeth felt like looking at a feral cat. Ochako tensed, falling into a boxing stance, and preparing to meet her enemy.

Midoriya feinted high at first, blade arm swinging towards her forehead as he dropped into a slide and popped up behind her. Ochako spun quickly, jumping backwards to avoid his two-handed swipe. A blade nicked her forearm, and she shivered as a current briefly ran through her. Midoriya circled her, clenching and unclenching his fists as the knives sparked and shimmered on his arms.

He leapt forwards again, and they exchanged a series of furious blows. Ochako felt herself flagging, the brief nicks and electricity quickly taking its toll and increasing her muscle fatigue. She disengages and runs behind a pillar to catch her breath. Midoriya follows slowly, stalking towards her with an intense stare. His eyes seemed to glow with bio-luminosity, an eerie emerald stare setting her on edge. Ochako wiped the sweat off her forehead, smearing it with blood from the small cuts on her arm as she does so. Her knees quiver as she settles back into a fighting stance and prepares herself.

She did not prepare well enough, although nothing could have prepared her for what happens next, she thinks as she frantically defends herself. Midoriya leapt up and kicked off a pillar, executing a brief wall run before falling half a foot towards her shoulders, then struck at her as he knocked her to the floor with a vicious axe kick.

They grapple furious, Ochako taking more and more cuts as Midoriya’s grabs prove to have sharp edges. After a quick struggle he has her pinned with a knife to her neck, the charge running through it making her throat spasm slightly. Ochako looks up at him, grin as sharp as his knives with his hair slicked back with sweat, and immediately bursts into tears.

Midoriya scrambles off her with a start, instantly dropping the frightening aura and helping her up, expressing feelings of concern. He seems fairly confused as to why she is crying, and tries to comfort her about losing. Ochako doesn’t have the heart to tell him the truth while he takes her to the infirmary: she started crying because he scared her half to death.

Chapter Text

Katsuki stalked into the arena for his semi-final match with an unusual amount of trepidation. Not because he was worried about the outcome of the fight, quite the opposite in fact: Katsuki found himself not wanting to totally destroy his opponent. Eyebags had earned his way to the third round, and then had his chance to prove himself taken from him, and Katsuki blasting him into the wall in a few seconds would only compound that tragedy. And the insomniac had been growing on him recently, damn it.

The match started, and Katsuki charged forwards, resolving to take a similar approach to his bout with Tailboy and not use his explosions until further in. Eyebags met him halfway and starts to throw insults and provocations, baiting a response from Katsuki.

Katsuki responds with a firm fist to the other teen’s face, and the match begins in earnest. Eyebags only started learning to fight a few weeks ago, and is no match for Katsuki’s limited mastery of Taekwondo, but the explosive teen sandbags slightly, letting the other blow get a few hits in. Eyebags realizes this quickly and grows more and more irate. His swings get more erratic, and Katsuki punishes repeatedly, spots of skin blooming to match his opponent’s hair.

“STOP LOOKING DOWN ON EVERYONE” Shinsou cries, the angry outburst coming at the two-minute mark of useless punches and even less useful insults. “FIGHT ME FOR REAL”

“I’m Not-” Katsuki cuts off mid-sentence, the distress and frustration fading from his face as his body stops moving. Eyebags pants heavily in front of him, the crowd cheering his perceived victory.

“USE YOUR EXPLOSIONS DAMMIT” The purple-haired boy screams at his unresponsive opponent, tears trickling down his face. Katsuki recoils inside as his hands raise, the familiar heat of a spark followed quickly by popping noises as he mechanically brings his hands to bear.

Eyebags seems to realize his error, panic flooding his face as he hurriedly decks Katsuki with a solid right hook, his first blow to properly land this match. Katsuki stumbles for a moment, feebly fending off the follow up. His disorientation from the brainwashing slows his movements, and he takes several heavy blows.

Katsuki recovers in a moment though, and straights with a smirk on his face. He starts to block each punch smoothly, advancing slowly in a walking stance as his hands crackle and pop.

“Use my explosions?” He says menacingly, “If you insist.”

The blonde jumps back suddenly, putting his palms together and bringing his arms to bear. Shinsou tries to dodge too late, his unconscious body impact the arena floor a moment later. Katsuki pumps his fist in victory at the crowd, who are listless and confused at the sudden turn in the fight. The explosive teen walks over to his friend and drags him onto the stretcher.

“Come on Shinsou” he says, “Lets get you to the infirmary.”

()()()

Neito returned to the field for his fated rematch against Midoriya feeling anxious. The gremlin of 1-A had taken down his other opponents with almost laughable ease, and no quirk combo would give him confidence against that kind of overwhelming skill. Having Todoroki’s quirk felt pretty good though, and the heartfelt thank you he got in the infirmary felt even better. Hopefully he wouldn’t even have to use his other quirks, because he wasn’t sure that he could take Midoriya in hand to hand, even with Razor-Sharp and Twin-Impact at his disposal.

His wristwatch beeped quietly, signaling the three-minute mark. Neito shuffles in place and glances at Midnight, anxious for the match to start. Midoriya waves at him through a small gap in the forest of pillars, a wicked grin painting his face.

The whip cracks, and Neito stamps forwards, a wave of ice spreading from his foot. He doesn’t repeat Todoroki’s mistake of obscuring his vision; the ice splits into two pillars instead. Midoriya comes barreling through the sole remaining path as expected, albeit running in the air between the two icy pseudo-walls instead of on the ground like a normal person. Neito lets a smirk slowly inch across his face, lifting his foot to stamp again and finish the match.

A thrown blade impacts his face a moment later, Midoriya having detached and launched it mid-air to disrupt the movement. Neito’s foot slams down out of reflex anyways, the ice firing wildly in the form of a jagged wave of spikes. Both boys stumble, blood trickling down Neito’s face and Midoriya’s side as they recover from their respective impacts.

“YOU STABBED ME?” Midoriya gasps out from a few meters away. “What the FUCK?”

“You’re one to talk!” Neito fires back, “YOU THREW A KNIFE AT ME!”

Midoriya lets out an unacceptably pleased giggle, and Neito charges forward with his left side glowing with flames. The greenette dodges backways, movements a little stiffer now but still more than lithe enough to dodge the blonde. Gouts of fire erupt across the arena, ice steaming around them as Midoriya rolls and parkours his way across the icy pillars, and Neito gives close pursuit.

Sweat beading across his brow, Neito stops for a moment to activate the ice side. Midoriya immediately leaps backwards, twisting mid-air and ramming his remaining knife against the other boy. Neito convulses, current flowing through the new shallow wound. The blonde shakily drops off the pillar, sending a massive glacier above him to ward off his opponent.

With no Midoriya in sight, and his timer on Todoroki’s quirk running thin as he hurriedly forces his twitching muscle to function again, Neito curses aggressively and re-evaluates his options.

“AND MIDORIYA IS FREE FROM THE ICE” Present Mic’s voice rings out and lends Neito a new sense of urgency in his planning.

When the greenette drops to the floor a couple meters away though, Neito is prepared. Ice is already flowing out to meet him, flame hemming him in on one side as steam billowing around them. Midoriya rolls to the other side desperately, shoulder slamming against the pillar and grinding audibly in the socket from the impact. Neito curses again, Todoroki’s quirk fading without finishing the job.

No matter, at least he has a better chance than before. Neito manifests matching blades to Midoriya’s on his arms, and darts towards the half-prone greenette. Midoriya stumbles to his feet, leaning against the pillar as he skillfully fends off Neito’s advances, singular knife flickering rapidly to clang against each blade-arm in turn.

“Why. Won’t. You. Go. Down?” Neito hisses between gritted teeth, pressing his attack and ignoring the weak current passing through his arms every time their blades clash.

“Tis. But. A. Scratch.” The other boy says, an unholy fire in his eyes as he lunges forwards, slamming his shoulder into the wall on the way. There is a loud pop, and Midoriya screams as he drives his knife towards Neito’s stomach.

Neito jumps backwards, calling on twin-impact and causes the ground where he stomps to explode like miniature mines, covering his escape. When the rubble clears, Midoriya is shakily standing, wincing slightly as he rolls his relocated shoulder to test its strength.

“What the fuck?” Neito breaths in fear, “What are you made out of?”

“Spite.” Midoriya says, sounding oddly honest as he runs forwards.

 Neito slams a fist quickly into the pillar beside him, priming impact locations before he switches back to sword hands. The two clash again, furious exchanging blows. Midoriya works his free hand in now, going for grapples and throwing lightning quick knife-hands and punches at Neito’s side whenever he lets his guard down.

One such strike catches him in the cheek, spinning him around and sending him tumbling to the ground. Neito stares up at Midoriya, panting desperately as his opponent smirks in victory. He calls on his last card, using Twin-Impact to detonate the pillar beside them. There is a roar as several doubled impacts all go off at once, and Neito is showered in rubble.

When he cautiously opens his eyes a moment later, ready to meet his fate, Midoriya is lying unconscious a few feet away and bleeding profusely from a fresh headwound. Neito grins, waving at the worried visage of Midnight as she rushes over after declaring his victory, and then passes out unceremoniously.

Chapter Text

Katsuki steps onto the podium to accept his medal contentedly, a large smile on his face. The festival turned out to be well-fought anyway, and his final match had been a nail biter. He shakes hands with the other blonde in front of all the camera’s while they wait for Midnight to finish her speech, both of their respective complexes quiet in the face of their accomplishments. Even though Monoma lost, he seems content with second place, and with the large cut still marrying Katsuki’s cheek. Katsuki turns and looks at his closest friends (and he never thought that word would ever be plural), sharing the third-place podium and beaming at the crowd. Shinsou looks tired, and as Katsuki watches Izuku grabs his hand and forces him to wave.

“I am here” All Might booms out as he lands, interrupting Midnight to flex in front of the podium, medals clutched in one hand. “You all have done so well!”

Katsuki grins fiercely at the cameras as his hero presents the medals to the runner ups, imagining his parents watching proudly on the other end. He pumps a fist in the air silently, then looks up at All Might when he approaches with the gold medal.

“Young Bakugo” All Might says, “You have come so far from the rash boy I first met. Today, you showed me you are truly a hero, and told the world ‘I am here!’. You earned this medal!”

Bakugo bows his head, accepting the medal and trying not to look at the cameras again to hide the small tears glistening in each eye.

()()()

The next week, Katsuki is pulled aside after class by All Might for a special talk.

“What do you need All Might?” He says, hands in his pockets, “My friends and I are discussing internships, and I don’t want to miss out.”

“Ah, I think you will want to here this Young Bakugo.” All Might says, opening the door to his office and gesturing to a chair. “What I am about to tell you is shocking, so please, take a seat.”

Katsuki sits down in the comfortable chair, setting his bag on the floor. When he looks back, All Might has vanished in a cloud of steam. As he watches, shocked, a skeletal man resembling him steps out of the steam and sits down.

“Do not be alarmed Young Bakugo” Skele-Might says, pulling up his shirt, “I am not an imposter, this is merely my true form. You see, about seven years ago I fought a vicious villain, so evil his name was stricken from the public records, and he left me this wound on my side.”

“But… you’re All Might, you never lose to anybody.” Katsuki says, confused and shocked at the sight before him, “That’s why I want to be just like you, and beat every villain with a smile.”

“Heroes are not invincible Young Bakugo, and I am no exception. Sometimes we need help, and sometimes the villains are just as powerful as us.” All Might says sadly, “My injury has cut down the time I can use my quirk, and every day that time is shrinking. Which brings us to the second topic of this discussion.”

Katsuki waits with bated breath, not sure if anything could top the horrifying revelation he just received. All Might was the pillar of society and being told his retirement was nigh felt like being told an apocalypse was coming.

“My real name is Yagi Toshinori, and I was born quirkless. When I was in highschool, my master and the previous hold of my quirk found me and trained me to be who I am now, passing her quirk to me and dying to the same villain who gave me this wound.” All Might says seriously, his tone leaving no room for doubt, “This quirk is called One for All, and it has been transferred through the generations since the dawn of quirks, for the sole purpose of defeating evil. Its sister quirk and progenitor, All for One, is held by my sworn nemesis, who retreated after we gravely injured each other seven years ago. My question for you, Young Bakugo, is will you take up this mantel? Will you grasp this sacred torch and take up the fight against evil?”

Katsuki fidgets in his seat, thinking over everything he had just heard. His first instinct was to reject the quirk, regardless of what a fantastic opportunity it was. He had come all this way on his own power, and he wanted to finish the race on his own power too. Plus, fighting against the ultimate evil sounded like a (fun) easy way to end his life prematurely.

The minute drags on, All Might sitting calmly and letting the young blonde digest and choose. Katsuki turned the offer over in his head repeatedly and found himself thinking of Izuku. His thoughts drifted to their childhood pledge, and his promise to be the very best hero for Izuku to work with, and to be a bright light for his shadow. He thought about Shinsou and all the discrimination he faced for having a villainous quirk, and the social power he could wield as number one.

“I’ll do it” Katsuki says, looking up at All Might, “I’ll take your quirk and become the new symbol. But I don’t want to be a symbol of a peaceful status quo like you, my personality doesn’t fit at all. I want to be a symbol of fighting for a bright new future, a Symbol of Light.”

()()()

Katsuki steps off the train for his internship a few days later, after waving goodbye to Izuku as he headed to Gang Orca’s agency to learn to be a scarier hero and leaving Shinsou at school to intern with their homeroom teacher.

“Gran Torino huh?” Katsuki said, raising his fist to knock on the door of an old house, “This should be good.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki groaned from his fetal position on the floor, his entire body smarting from the repeated blunt trauma Gran Torino had just inflicted on him.

“Hmm, your control of All for One is awful.” The old hero said, poking the teen in the ribs with his boot, “You didn’t even use it once the entire fight. You are much too slow to fight me without it.”

“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE THE FUCKING QUIRK DUMBASS” Katsuki exploded, unfurling from the floor, “I GOT THE SHITTY THING YESTERDAY!”

“Ah.” Gran Tornio stood confused for a moment, then walked out of the room to the phone in the kitchen. “Toshinori? Yes, the boy is here. I approve honestly, he has guts. Now… WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME HE JUST GOT THE QUIRK?”

Katsuki just lay back down on the living room floor, groaning in pain. Never meet your idols, I guess.

()()()

Izuku rubbed his aching jaw during lunch break of the first day of his internship. Gang Orca was a demanding instructor, and he had been smirking menacingly for hours now. They were finally taking a break for some food and a lesson, which was good since Izuku wasn’t sure he would ever smile again.

“So, being a scary hero is a double-edged sword.” The hero said, chewing on some dried seaweed, “It can concern members of the public, and impact your rankings in the polls. Since you are planning to go underground the polls don’t matter too much, but it can make a difficult situation trickier if the people you are trying to save panic at the sight of you.”

Izuku nodded, thinking of poor Uraraka bursting into tears when he tried to get her to the infirmary.

“On the other hand, scary villains can be very effective. A scared villain is more likely to break and surrender or flee without bloodshed, and interrogation is all about fear. In combat, someone who is on edge from your appearance or mannerisms can panic and make simple mistakes you can exploit. When we start sparring practice in a few days I will pretend to be scared every so often, and you will need to take advantage of the openings created.”

“I can do that!” Izuku said cheerfully

“Good, now let me see that smirk again. Try to get the menacing glint in your eyes this time, you almost had it at the end before our break.”

()()()

Neito looked over at Todoroki as they both panted heavily, stained in soot after a round against Endeavor. While he had been ecstatic to be invited to intern at the number two hero’s agency after his performance against the man’s son, his enthusiasm was rapidly fading in the face of the brutal training. His control over fire quirks was improving rapidly though, and one of the sidekicks had taught him some interesting quirked hand-to-hand moves.

“Sorry for my father.” Todoroki’s wooden voice shocked Neito out of his reverie, “He is likely still frustrated I failed in the festival.”

“It’s okay,” Neito responds, “You couldn’t help it, 1-A is naturally inferior after all.”

“But we beat all of your classmates with little effort?” Todoroki responds, genuine confusion coloring his tone.
Neito stared at him for a moment, processing what had just happened. Then he started laughing, quickly descending into hysterical cackles as the two-toned boy stared at him with concern.

“Are you okay Monoma?” Todoroki asked. “That looks painful.”

()()()

“Good, now spread that feeling all over your limbs.”

Katsuki grunted affirmatively as he focused, the rush of power he felt in his palms slowly spreading around his limbs. As he did so, red electricity began to crackle across his body, tones of orange and yellow sparking from it every so often. He straightened from his slightly hunched posture, rolling a shoulder experimentally.

“This feels fucking awesome.” Katsuki says gleefully, “Let’s go another round geezer!”

Two seconds later Katsuki groaned on the floor, lightning gone and a yellow boot planted firmly on his face.

“Don’t get hasty brat,” Gran Torni chided from above him, “You still need to learn how to move like this. One for All is not a power that can be mastered in a day. Now stand up, we will take a break from One for All and start working on how it has effected your base quirk. You said you felt like your explosions were stronger? Let’s start by measuring the purity and quantity of your sweat.”

()()()

“Now I don’t know the first thing about knives myself,” Gang Orca said, “But I do love a good body slam, and you seem to be mimicking the movement whenever you drop onto people.”

Izuku nodding, paying rapt attention to the killer whale hero. They were in a large warehouse by a harbor, which Gang Orca had repurposed into a training ground for the time being, since Midoriya couldn’t go to his normal underwater facility.

“Body slamming someone is about force and torsion. I get my force from mass, but that option isn’t available to you so you will need to generate force with acceleration. Dropping from a tall object evidently does the trick, but later today one of my sidekicks will teach you how to make your body a bit heavy and how to fall quickly. For now, we are going to focus on torsion, that is to say: where do you grab or put pressure on a human body to safely unbalance it and slam it into the ground?” The whale hero gestured to the neck area of the dummy standing beside him, “You have been landing on shoulders from above, but that runs a high risk of putting too much weight on the neck and snapping it, like so.”

Izuku winced as a sharp crack echoed through the warehouse, the dummy’s head hanging at an angle after Gang Orca pressed against it in the way Izuku had often felt his thighs do to a fellow student.

()()()

After the first missed joke, Neito had gleefully embraced Todoroki’s natural position as a fantastic straight man. Endeavor appreciate neither the humor nor his son participating in it, but that just made it even more enjoyable. The two interns were rapidly bonding over the practice, and Todoroki had slowly started to express basic emotions over the last few days.

“Oh god Todoroki!” Neito cried out dramatically, “The ring is on fire! Grab an extinguisher.”

“My father is always on fire though Monoma. Why would we extinguish him?”

Neito cackled as Endeavor frowned at their antics, calling him back into the ring for another round. The bruises sucked, but this was so worth it. He and Todoroki were bonding in other ways too, sleeping in the same tiny dorm had that effect. Tonight, they were apparently going to Endeavor’s house for dinner, which was sure to be interesting. Watch the abuser in his natural habitat and all that.

()()()

Ilda started at his hands as he sat in his bunk in Manual’s agency. He let out a quiet sigh, frustration boiling inside him alongside other, less identifiable, feelings. He had come to Hosu for a chance of revenge on Stain, but so far Manual had mostly focused on teaching him paperwork and protocol. That’s what he got for interning with “the average hero” he supposes.

Tomorrow evening, they are finally going out on patrol, and Ilda would be ready. Stain had only struck twice in this city, first his brother and then another hero this week. His pattern’s indicating that he would try to strike tomorrow night, especially since the heightened security would make a death extra embarrassing for the heroes.

Ilda clenched his hands into fists and stood to go shower. He could stand to shower, but Tensei couldn’t, and soon Stain wouldn’t be able to either.

Chapter Text

“Let’s go on patrol” Gran Torino says suddenly, looking down at Katsuki while he groaned on the floor. The explosive boy leapt up immediately and pumped his fist in the air at the words.

“FUCK YES” Katsuki cries, “Where are we going?”

“Shinjuku. We will take a train. Your practice with One for All has paid off, and you need other experience than me to avoid developing bad habits with it.”

()()()

Katsuki looked around the train with a bored expression on his face, idly texting his groupchat with Izuku and Shinsou. Gran Torino sat beside him; eyes closed as he relaxed. Outside the window the buildings of Hosu were rapidly passing by, night lights glittering peacefully as the refracted against the window.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now coming to an emergency stop. Sorry for the inconvenience.” The peaceful scene was shattered as the train ground to a halt, a nomu crashing through the roof with a pro hero following it a moment later.

Katsuki leaps to his feet, palms sparking as he prepared for battle.

“Boy! Go help with rescue efforts! You have my permission to fight if you need to!” Gran Torino zipped by him before he could make a move towards the nomu, landing a smarting kick on its neck and preparing for battle.

Katsuki blasts out of the hole in the roof with a shout and a string of swear words. As he flew through the air, he got a good look of the city around him. Buildings were burning and the lights of sirens lit up the streets in flashes. Katsuki watched as a column of flame erupted a few blocks away, denoting either a fire-based hero or villain’s location. He landed on the street, moving in the opposite direction towards some other disturbances.

“Ilda? Ilda where did you go?” Pro Hero Manual ran by to Katsuki’s left, calling out his classmate’s name. Katsuki whipped his head around just in time to catch white armor vanishing into an alleyway.

“Nah fuck this shit.” Katsuki growls, Ilda’s moodiness form the last week flashing through his mind alongside news bulletins and Izuku’s vague concerns about the speedster. Katsuki breaks into a sprint towards the alleyway, his palms reigniting.

“Getting trapped by your own hate and acting out of pure self-interest makes you the furthest thing from a hero,” a menacing voice from the alleyway spurs the blonde onwards.

Katsuki skidded into the alley not a moment too soon, a well-aimed blast knocking the Hero-Killer’s blade aside and the follow up driving him away from Ilda’s body.

“What the fuck are you fucking doing four-eyes?” Katsuki screams, standing over him protectively as he takes in the tableau of the alleyway. Too many people in too tight a space to use bigger explosions, fuck.

“Get out of here Bakugo!” Ilda screams from the ground, “This isn’t your fight, I need to be the one to kill Stain!”

“I know I talk a lot about fucking die this and fucking kill that, but murder isn’t actually fucking heroic you idiot!”

“That’s why he is a false hero, a fake who must be purged.” Stain draws a second blade, preparing for combat. “And even if you did the right thing protecting him, if you stand in my way, I will purge you as well.”

“We’re fucking children bitch.” Katsuki feels the unfamiliar crackle of One for All flood through him, red sparks dancing across his skin as he tenses. “How can you justify killing us?”

“Fake heroes, at any age, will never change. You will grow up to be just as bad as any other fake I have purged.”

“PEOPLE CAN FUCKING CHANGE!” Katsuki screams, the emotions visceral as he charges towards the serial killer in a blaze of red lightning and ozone. The scent of burnt caramel fills his nostrils as he exchanges a flurry of blows with Stain, knocking his katana aside and slamming his fist into the man’s gut.

A knife from the other side knicks Katsuki across his shoulder, but between the electricity and explosions surrounding him the blood on it sizzles away as his wound cauterizes painfully.

“FUCK” Katsuki jumps backwards, cradling the wound for a moment.

“You have some skill child.” Stain says as he stalks forwards, readying his sword again. “Perhaps even enough to take me down. Give it everything you have as our ideals clash. If people can change, then prove it to me here and now by saving these fakes.”

The two clash again, raging around the alleyway in a storm of blades and orange light. Numerous knicks accumulate on Katsuki’s body, but his superior speed and strength slowly win out over Stain. A hurried minute later, the serial killer is slumped against the wall, beaten, and Katsuki is panting in front of him. Sirens play in the background as an ambulance screeches up to the alleyway, Gran Torino and Manual accompanying it.

“Are you okay kid?” Gran Torino says gruffly as he helps Katsuki limp towards the ambulance. Around them, a swarm of paramedics tend to Ilda and Native. “This is going to be one hell of a debut.”

Katsuki chuckles, relaxing against the pro hero as his vision flutters. He feels like he is falling for a moment, and only realizes that the odd sensation is real a moment later when he is off the ground in the clutches of a winged Nomu, heroes screaming at him from the ground helplessly.

Katsuki hits the ground disorientated a second later, barely conscious as the hero killer monologues over top of him.

“I have carried out a crusade for a long time now. It was my quest to awaken people to the truth of hero society, and to purge the fakes from it. Trim the cancer from the body and make it whole again.” Stain steps forwards, menace radiating off him in waves. “I swore that only All Might himself would stop me, but today I have been defeated by this mere boy. He serves as living proof that there is yet hope for hero society, that people can change from their crass beginnings. Our ideals clashed and I found mine wanting, and I will never let you take a gem like this from society Tomura Shigaraki.”

Stain seemed to stare intensely at whoever he was addressing for a moment (which Katsuki would later learn was a purple warp gate), twisting the knife in the Nomu’s skull deeper before letting out a satisfied grunt. When the heroes dared to approach a few seconds later, they found the two laying side by side, equally unconscious.

Chapter Text

However Izuku Midoriya expected to find out that his best friend had been in a brutal fight with a serial killer, via social media was not it. Although he supposed he’d have to get used to it, limelight heroics and all. Kachan wouldn’t be able to beat live news coverage, even if his texting habits weren’t already atrocious. Still, it was first year! A bit early to start taking down members of the national most wanted list.

The video in question was a short thirty-second clip taken from what appeared to be a cellphone. The low-quality footage was shaky and obscured by the smoke in the air, but there was no mistaking Hero-Killer Stain standing in the center of the video monologuing, nor Kachan’s gauntlets stirring in the corner of the video behind him. Already the clip had been posted to most of the major news sites in Japan, and reblogged countless times.

The uproar over the sensational video had only grown in the few hours between its posting and Izuku checking his phone after evening practice, as the first news outlets began to report the capture of Stain by a first-year hero trainee authorized by his mentor for combat. Katsuki Bakugo, known as Brightside Hero: Dynamight, was the hero of Hosu, the outlets were saying. He had single-handedly downed a national threat. Speculations on his debut ranking after high school were already running rampant, despite the teen still having three years to go.

Izuku laid back into his bed, swearing vengeance for the thirty-seven missed calls, and smiled. Kachan had wasted no time fulfilling the promise from their youth, the one he had re-affirmed when he chose his hero name to echo All Might. He really was on his way to be the number one.

()()()

Katsuki groaned as his eyes fluttered open, the beeping of machines rousing him from his sleep. He looked around his hospital room blearily, and gingerly reached out and tapped the call buzzer. A few moments later a nurse entered, along with Gran Torino and some people he didn’t recognize dressed like police officers.

“How are you feeling dear?” The nurse said sweetly as she fiddled with some of the machines attached to him.

“Like I was run over by a fucking serial killer shaped steamroller.”

The nurse tsked at his language, setting down the devices and pronouncing him stable. She left the room with a promise to come check on him in the morning once the doctor was back in and a warning to his guests not to disturb his rest for long.

“Dynamight,” the dog-faced man in the police uniform began, stepping forwards. “As the chief of the Hosu police, I must thank you for your service. There was some talk of punishment or hushing this up at first, but it has been made… abundantly clear to me that you acted well within the bounds of your internship.”

“Damn right I did!” Katsuki exclaimed, “I put that fucker down like any real hero would!”

“Er, yes. Additionally, the decision was taken out of our hands when a viral video was posted showing you and Stain. The news outlets are already hailing you as a hero.”

“While the publicity dies down and for your safety, it’s been decided that you’ll complete the rest of your internship at UA. I taught there some time ago, so I have a good relationship with the principal already.” Gran Torino says, stepping forwards, “So no more patrol unfortunately, but I’ll still work you so hard you crave death you brat.”

“Bring it on geezer!” Katsuki said excitedly, shuffling himself to sit up in the hospital bed. No patrol was a little disappointing but understandable. And besides, nothing could dampen his enthusiasm after this news. He was a real hero now, and a famous one to boot. Now he could be a proper limelight hero just like he vowed to Izuku, and the gesture the greenette made by choosing the moniker Darkside Hero: Empty Umbra.

()()()

Tenya clenched a fist in frustration as he stared at the wall of his room at home. Almost entirely uninjured, he had been released from the hospital after an hour. His internship was cancelled, and Aizawa-Sensei had promised harsh punishments for him when he got back, pending the review of his position in the hero course. Pursuing vigilante justice was absolutely unacceptable for a hero trainee and vowing murder was also a concerning sign, despite Bakugo dampening their reaction to it after the hundredth time.

His parents had been wildly concerned and disapproving, but the worst part about returning home had been facing Tensei’s disappointment in him. He would rather weather a thousand lectures from his worried mother than see the look on his brother’s face as he explained how worried he was for Tenya that he would stoop so low, and how the Ingenium name wasn’t about this.

Tenya sighed and rolled into bed. Tomorrow was a new day, and once he got back to school maybe he could get back on track. Besides, before they left Bakugo had informed him that therapy was actually very productive, and not to worry. As uncharacteristic as it seemed for the abrasive teen, it was appreciated and eased some of Tenya’s worries. Maybe things would turn out alright.

()()()

Tomura Shigaraki stormed across the secluded Kamino bar in a fit of rage, running his hand along the bottles on the shelved and watching them crumble into dust behind him.

“WHO THE FUCK DOES HE THINK HE IS?” he screams at the misty form of Kurogiri, “Stupid min-maxed assassin, why did he denounce me like that? Just because he refused to join our party doesn’t mean he gets to put us on blast on the national news!”

“I do not believe his intent was to ‘put us on blast’ Tomura.” Kurogiri says calmly, wiping up the spilled drinks and dust left in his young charge’s wake. “It is not clear that Stain even knew he was being recorded. That was merely a warning for us. An irrelevant warning since he was captured moments later.”

“How will I use him to recruit for my party now though?” Tomura screams, dusting the trash can as well, “It was so public we can’t even lie or take on his image. Everyone knows that Stain was firmly against the League. This is a disaster! And how dare a filthy rogue like him issue a warning to us? Does he know who I am!?”

“Calm yourself Tomura Shigaraki.” The TV in the bar crackled as Sensei’s voice came from it, “Hosu may have been a disaster for the Nomu and for recruitment, but we did identify the next holder of One for All. And now we can prepare a plan to eliminate him and his master once and for all. Listen closely, this is what I will have you do…”

Chapter Text

Aizawa shuffles the papers the principal had set in front of him with a sigh, the large thermos of coffee steaming in front of him the only thing keeping him alive in this staff meeting.

“Alright, let’s go over this one more time.” He says, his voice gravelly from the lack of sleep, “You want to change the final exam to make it significantly harder in light of recent events, by having the students fight against teachers?”

“Absolutely!” The annoying rat principal says, clapping his paws enthusiastically, “We will pair each student with a teacher who can best challenge them in the way they need most for their growth!”

“Fine, whatever. This is only going to double my paperwork for this exam, but its fine, I don’t need to sleep anyways.”

“I commend your dedication as always Aizawa! That’s the enthusiasm I love from my staff.”

“Right. Well obviously, Todoroki and Bakugo need to face All Might. No one else can challenge them in a slugfest, and he will do better forcing them to work together than I could.”

“I agree!” The infernal rodent says, sipping his third cup of tea that meeting, “And Midoriya and Shinsou can face Present Mic, giving them a target that can brute force through Midoriya, and is relatively immune to sound-based assault. They will benefit from facing an opponent immune to their normal strategies.”

Aizawa groaned, thinking of how much trauma a fight with the demon-child would inflict on his husband. The sheer time loss from all that comfort and all those rewatches of glee alone would kill his sleep schedule for a month. Oh well, such is his life.

“I will face Uraraka and Yaoyorozu. Uraraka needs to overcome this silly fear of quirkless combatants that drop from tall objects, and it will do Yaoyorozu good to be put in a situation that she needs to adjust to on the fly as her quirk vanishes.”

“Excellent! Now for the next parring I was thinking…”

()()()

Dabi, formerly and newly known as Touya Todoroki, shuffles the papers in front of him as he stares at Giran. The info-broker and black-market dealer was smirking back, another spread of paper in front of him alongside a freshly full cash box. Dealing with Giran was safer than any other merchant in the city, and he had helped Dabi out in a spot ever since he found himself on the streets.

“These will hold up in court?” The scarred man asks, “I can’t go ahead with anything if there are holes in your paper trial Giran.”

“Don’t worry my char-broiled friend, these are airtight.” The broker’s gold tooth glinted as he smiled lazily, leaning back in his chair, “Everything you need to overturn your death certificate and explain your absence for the last nine years. I took the liberty of cleaning up some loose ends as well, consider it on the house for services rendered.”

“Thank you.” Dabi says, gathering up the papers and slipping them back into the folder they came in.

“Are you leaving the game then? I can take you off my list of people to contact on behalf of clients.”

“Yes. I’ve learned from Stain that, ironically, sometimes you don’t need to kill someone to put them in an early grave. He murdered the League of Villains without ever meeting their leader, your own failures to recruit for them prove that. I think it’s time for me to do the same.”

()()()

Izuku pants in front of All Might, brushing the dust and metal bits off of his gym uniform. He had come second in the day’s parkour race, loosing only narrowly to Sero’s superior mobility. He stood, and carefully picked his way back to the observation deck as All Might moved to his next spot. Katsuki was there to greet him with a smirk on his face, his own gym uniform scorched in several places, like usual.

“Hey second place,” his best friend says with a smirk, clapping him on the back roughly, “How’s it feel to be slower than me now?”

“You cheated in your round.” Izuku complains, stretching out as they waited for the next round, “Not all of us have quirks with which to pull random powerups out of. Remember what happened last time we raced quirkless? It wasn’t me who ended up face first in a dumpster because they tried to fly.”

“Shut up and take it nerd” The blond whines, “That was months ago, it wouldn’t happen again.”

“Sure Kachan, whatever you say.”

“Anyways, what do you think they’ll do for our finals? I heard from some upperclassmen that there will be lots of robots to blow to scrap.”

“No, I think we will be fighting teachers. Nedzu has been awful cagey about our exam, and after all the attacks recently they need to be seen stepping things up.” Izuku straightened, stretching his arms out now, “If we prepare for teachers and end up with robots, we will be way better off anyways. And if we do fight the teachers, you’ll surely be matched up against All Might, so you better work hard the next few weeks.”

“Bullshit! He better work hard to beat me, that muscle-bound gorilla.” Katsuki blasted his palms together, an excited grin gracing his face, “I can’t wait! Fighting teachers sounds awesome! We need to hit the gym every day! We can drag Shinsou there too, put some more muscle on the pipe cleaner.”

The pipe cleaner in question bolted off the roof as the whistle went for his round to start, bounding through the city with impressive dexterity. As the two turned to watch, he whipped out with some capture cloth and swung around a turn, quickly edging into second place behind Uraraka. The gravity-free girl was using her quirk to make massive leaps across city blocks, and her lead was only growing.

“He’s really improved.” Izuku remarks, studying his friend’s form. “Hard to tell he had almost no training before getting into UA.”

“Yeah, his form is great right now. Looking less like a shitty extra every day.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve noticed his form, haven’t you Kachan?”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!” The blonde turn away from the mock industrial zone to chase his friend around the deck, their classmate’s scrambling out of the way as the two rampaged around the area. Izuku’s taunts and giggles ringing out over the city in a now familiar fashion.

()()()

Deep in the slums of Musutafu, a blonde girl in a tattered school uniform giggles to herself as she rewinds a clip on her cracked phone. The video starts playing again, the Hero Killer’s voice ringing out to condemn the League in his last moments. The girl grins, showing a mouth full of teeth alongside fangs, and zooms into the corner of the video.

“Ohhhh Dynamight, you look so pretty all covered in blood like that.” She mumbles to herself, the video showing a grainy picture of a blonde teen slumped behind the serial killer, blood staining his uniform in several places. “I can’t wait to be with you forever. Only a matter of time now and I can show my love for you!”

The video stops, and the girl sets her phone down and gets up, looking around the tiny room that she has made her home. On one wall there is a montage of news paper clippings, showing off a variety of articles. Some proclaiming the debut of Dynamight, others tracking the movements and past of Stain or her own killings. Front and center of the board, held up by a series of sharp serrated knives, is a map of Musutafu. Circled in a dull red that looks uncannily like blood is the Kiyashi ward mall.

The girl lovingly strokes the collection of knives on the wall, pulling one out and rubbing it with a filthy rag as she hums to herself.

“Blood, blood, I want blood.” The eerie song echoes through the room, a perverted children’s rhyme. The paper the knife was holding up drifts to the floor, showcasing its headline in bold, bloodstained letters.

“MIDDLE SCHOOLER GOES ON MURDEROUS RAMPAGE: TOGA HIMIKO’S CRIMES”

Chapter Text

The next few weeks passed uneventfully, and Izuku soon found himself crammed onto a bus with his classmates as they drove towards the testing grounds for their practical. The last few days of written testing had been hellish, but Izuku was fairly confident he had done just as well as he always had throughout middle school. Poor Hitoshi nearly gone into a caffeine coma trying to study for their math exam before Kachan had rescued him with tutoring though. Izuku still wasn’t quite sure the boy had recovered the lost sleep, but it was hard to tell given how tired Shinsou always looked.

The bus lurched to a stop, and everyone quickly filed out, tension buzzing in the air as they took in their teachers lined up in front of them. Everyone had known that this was likely their challenge, but actually seeing it made it seem much more insurmountable. Aizawa-sensei stepped forwards, the principal popping out of his scarf with a cheer.

“Hello Class 1-A” Nedzu shouted excitedly, “I know some of you already figured out the contents of this exam, but I will explain everything anyway! Instead of robots, the staff has voted to make you all fight against the teachers as a better test of your abilities. You will be competition in pairs against one teacher, and all of us will be handicapped by high density limb weights. You can win by capture or escape, so don’t worry about needing to beat a real pro-hero in combat to pass!”

Nedzu’s words didn’t seem to reassure many members of the class, but they all nodded and gave some degree of affirmative response. Aizawa pulled a sheet of paper out of pocket and nudged Nedzu onto the ground.

“Alright, I will announce the pairings now.” The man said gruffly, “First, Uraraka and Yaoyorozu will fight me, next will be Bakugo and Todoroki against All Might, then Aoyama and Sero against Thirteen…”

()()()

Katsuki fidgeted with his gauntlets as he stared across the aisle of the empty bus at Icyhot. Hound Dog’s words about cooperation and help played through his head on loop as he turned the firing pin over and over in his hands. Finally, as they approached the mock city, he spoke.

“We need to work together to pass this Icyhot” Katsuki says slowly, “All Might isn’t number one for no reason, we just aren’t on the same plane as him yet. I don’t want to go for escape though.”

“I do not think I wish to escape either.” Icyhot said slowly, leaning towards him, “I thought maybe not fighting All Might was best to piss of my father, but someone has recently showed me that holding myself back to spite him is not the most productive way.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your family drama Icyhot, how are we going to beat All Might? I bet my best explosions will barely put a dent in him.”

“I think I have a plan that may work, but you should call me Todoroki.” The two-toned boy laced his fingers together concernedly, “Not knowing my name makes you look stupid.”

()()()

All Might stalked forwards as the timer started, Nedzu’s recorded voice ringing out over the arena. Or at least, he thought it was recorded. He wouldn’t put it past the rat to be multi-tasking to this extent even while fighting his own battle. The number-one hero grinned, rolling his shoulder in preparation for what was to come.

“COME OUT HEROES!” He roared, smashing his fist into a building to his right, demolishing it and several behind it in one blow. All Might had spent the week resting and not using his hero form in preparation for this exam, and he had plenty of energy to expend to properly test his successor and the boy’s classmate. “I’LL TEAR THIS CITY DOWN IF YOU DON’T FACE ME!”

Dust swirled across the street in waves, and in front of him he spotted an area where the dust was behaving oddly. Upon further inspection the dust proved to be rising and swirling upwards as though the sidewalk was heated, and the cause of this wave of heat was soon revealed as young Todoroki appeared out of the debris. His left side was light up like a beacon, and young Bakugo was silhouetted behind him.

Both the boys were streaked in sweat and dust, and from the angle it seemed like they had spent the last few minutes hiding in one of the buildings planning. Bakugo in particular was drenched, a fact that slightly alarmed All Might. As far as he knew his pupil could not produce sweat that fast on his own, was this an effect of One for All?

All Might dashed forwards, one arm outstretched to catch Todoroki in a clothesline. Surprisingly the boy did not activate his ice side, merely flaring his fire and jumping out of the way. Bakugo rushed forwards to engage, his skin practically sizzling in the heat as the nitroglycerin coating it popped in micro-explosions. Miraculously nothing had ignited yet, but All Might wasn’t holding out hope for that for long.

Indeed, Bakugo immediately went in for a tackle, seemingly intending to kamikaze the hero. All Might leapt out of the way, wary of the effects an explosion of that magnitude could have on him. He simply wasn’t the spring chicken he used to be, shrugging off bombs left and right.

As All Might dodged backwards, Todoroki was there to meet him, flaring the fire from is arm and spreading it around the street. No buildings had ignited yet, but the debris was crackling merrily, and the temperature was starting to rapidly grow. All Might felt beads of sweat start to drip down his own brow, One for All making him resilient but not completely immune to heat.

He swung his fist at the teen, tossing him backwards into a building with a half-power punch, reduced even further by the weights dragging down his limbs. The fire puffed out for a moment, reassuring him that the boys didn’t plan to engulf the entire city in a conflagration. Young Bakugo pressed him immediately before he could consider their plan more though, buying time for Todoroki to get up by setting off a massive explosion at point blank range. The boy was blown backwards as All Might slid across the street, scorch marks marring his costume.

Yes, that was definitely much stronger than usual. And hard to avoid too since Bakugo was moving with All for One empowered speed before his ignitions. All Might shook himself off, starting to grow winded from the weights and heat already. This was the boys plan then, to simply wear him out. It wouldn’t normally work of course, it took more than a little heat to put the number one down; however, given that they had learned the lesson set out for them and were cooperating excellently he would let them get the better of him for an instant.

It would not do to make it easy though. All Might dusted himself off and cracked his knuckles, staring menacingly as the two teens shakily got to their feet to face him. He dashed forwards into the hazy cloud of heat and smoke, the smell of burnt caramel filling his nostrils.

()()()

Izuku waved merrily to his classmates still on the bus as he dragged Hitoshi behind him as they disembarked. Fighting Present Mic would be a vicious challenge, but he couldn’t wait to prove how much he had grown! Izuku had so many great ideas for defeating the voice hero, although some were impractical. He didn’t have access to an army of bugs after all.

“Come on Hitoshi! Let’s go!” Izuku cried “Time to plan! You wouldn’t want to let Kachan down after all!”

“Why would I care what Blasty things about my performance Izu?” The insomniac groaned as he adjusted his voice mask, standing before the gate with the prep time clock ticking down.

“Because you have a crush on him of course!” Izuku stated with absolute confidence.

“I, what?! How did you—" Hitoshi stuttered, going bright red, “I mean, I don’t have a crush on him! He is rude and arrogant and abrasive; it doesn’t matter how strong or handsome or driven he is! I mean yeah, he has been putting a lot of work into growing and being nicer recently, and he helped me pass my exams and not embarrass myself at the sports festival, but that doesn’t mean I like him or anything! H how do you even know I’m gay?!”

“You’re a guy and you have a crush on Kachan!” Izuku said merrily, chuckling gleefully, “Sounds pretty gay to me!”

“That’s... what?”

“Anyways, we need to plan so you can impress him more! Then maybe he can admit his own feelings and you can stop tiptoeing around each other during game nights!”

“I... he what? Tell me what you know!” Hitoshi rounded on the greenette aggressively, blush still painting his face.

“Nope! Time to plan! So, I was thinking, we are poorly positioned against Present Mic because his long-ranged attacks can stop me from getting close, and he is too loud for your voice attacks to get through.” Izuku dodged his friends attempt to grab him and pulled out a small computer from a pouch on his costume belt, “He wears headphones to play music though, and I happen to know that they run on Bluetooth. So, I think we have the basis of a plan building right here.”

“I hate you so much right now.” The purple-haired teen in front of him moaned, slumping against the city wall.

()()()

Hitoshi crept forwards in the broken shell of a building, the panes rattling as Present Mic’s voice reverberated through the streets. The voice hero was standing by the exit gate, aiming his voice attacks towards each section of the arena has he tried to flush them out or wear them down. It seemed to be working too, Hitoshi’s ears were ringing, and he felt woozy as he made his way forwards. Izuku said he could disrupt the shouting and giving him his moment though, so he had to trust in that.

True to his word, Present Mic cut off mid-screech a minute later, allowing Hitoshi to make a mad dash forward to execute his part of the plan. He raised his voice-changing to his face, clutching the bag he had spent the first half of the exam collecting as Izuku worked to hack the hero’s headphones.

Hitoshi rounds the corner of the alleyway to see Present Mic tossing his headphones onto the ground with a shriek, shouting something incomprehensible about rick rolls and ancient memes, and demanding to know if Shouta put them up to this. His quirk was still off for the moment as the voice hero reeled from the song karma. Hitoshi seized his moment and threw his bag, watched is it spilled all over Present Mic’s feet.

“Oh my god look out Hizashi!” Hitoshi screamed into his fake vocal cords, Aizawa’s voice emanating from it, “That’s a lot of bugs!”

“BUGS! OH MY GOSH!” The voice hero reacted instinctively as a handful of centipedes and ants crawled out of the sack, responding to the familiar voice without thinking. A moment later he went slack, and Hitoshi commanded him to step away from the bag in an attempt to make up for the psychological warfare.

“Good job Hitoshi!” Izuku said as he walked up the street, tucking his computer into his bag. “Kachan will be so proud you passed!”

“Shut up Izuku.” Hitoshi said dryly, clicking the handcuffs onto the unresponsive hero as Nedzu’s voice rang out to announce their victory.  “If I wasn’t so happy we passed, you’d be so dead right now.”

Chapter Text

Shouta read out the results to the class solemnly, watching his students faces fall when he announced the class’s two failures. He relished the moment everyone gathered around Kirishima, Sato, and Mina, indulging in a little child cruelty to sooth his grated nerves that Midoriya kept worsening.

“The camp was a logical ruse though.” He calls out, watching the kids perk up. “You will all be going to it, and those who failed will just have to do some remedial work in the evenings.”

His students cheer, and he looks at them fondly for a moment before settling into his sleeping bag for a quick nap. As he drifts off for the rest of homeroom, Shouta can hear them excitedly planning a mall trip together. Good. It will improve moral and class bonding is always beneficial. Being prepared is highly logical.

()()()

Katsuki groans internally as he walks into the Kiyashi ward mall with Izuku and Hitoshi at his side to see his classmates all excitedly waving at him. He hadn’t wanted to go to this shopping trip at first, just because he was behaving nicer didn’t mean he was suddenly a social butterfly. But Hitoshi had specifically asked him to come along so he had someone to talk to, and Katsuki couldn’t find it in himself to say no to the insomniac. Not that that meant anything, he was just practicing being a good friend.

“Hey guys!” Izuku calls out, bouncing over to them in his typical excitable way. “So, what do you want to do first! Does everyone need the same things, or should we split up?!”

“I think we need to split up!” Mina says, matching his energy instantly, “This is going to be so much fun! Lets agree to meet in the food court in two hours, we can all get All Might burgers from that American place!”

Katsuki ignores them, grabbing Hitoshi’s hand and making his way towards the first store on his list.

“Come on Eyebags, lets get out of here. I need a new sleeping bag.” He says gruffly, not noticing his friend go bright red as he drags him along.

“All right boom boy lets hit the camping supply store then. Do you think they sell fireproof bags? You never know when you’ll have a little… accident in the night.”

“THAT WAS ONE TIME! I sneezed, okay?” Katsuki says indignantly, tugging his hand away. ‘I can’t believe Izuku told you about that. It wasn’t even that big of a deal, his eyebrows grew back the same week.”

“It’s such an adorable story though!” Hitoshi coos, regaining his footing now that they are back in the familiar ground of teasing. “Little Katsuki sneezes and accidently lights his best friend on fire, it doesn’t get more adorable than that.”

()()()

Izuku hums to himself happily as he follows Mina and Ochako towards the clothing store. Nothing makes him feel better than spending time with his friends, and now that he is in UA and surrounded by people who can keep up with him, he has so many more. Kachan is really nice, don’t get him wrong, but middle school was a little lonely at times when it was just the two of them. Now Izuku has so many friends, and nothing makes him happier.

“So Ochako!” He says abruptly, “Why are you suddenly okay with hanging out with me? You avoided me all of first semester, kind of a weird reversal.”

“I have decided scarousal is the highest form of arousal.” Ochako turns to face him, delivering the line with a deadpan that left Izuku unsure of how serious she is. In the background Mina cackled as Izuku turned slightly red, making a heart shape with her hands as she skips along.

“Well.” He says uncertainly, “That sure is an epiphany. Oh look! There’s the clothing store let’s go!”

Izuku turns and escapes into an aisle of T-shirts, questioning his earlier appreciation for friends. Is this how Hitoshi always feels? How awful.

“How about this one?” Mina says, coming up behind him and displaying a T-shirt that proudly declares itself to be a pair of pants. “It’s just your style.”

Izuku grins, re-re-considering his evaluation of friendships. Maybe people are pretty great after all.

“Also, Ochako and I want to go shopping for new sports underwear for camp” Mina adds a moment later, “You should come with us, so we don’t have to split up, it’ll be fun!”

On fourth though, friends are awful. Izuku is going to become an ascetic hermit.

()()()

Shoto reflects on his classmates as he waits for the nurse to lead him to his mother’s room. They are all at the mall today, surely doing whatever it is that teens do for fun. He would be with them, continuing his quest to discover how teenagers work, but this was the only timeslot he could get away to visit his mother.

The nurse returns to admit him to the room, smiling softly at him as he steps through the door nervously. His mother is sitting in a comfy armchair at the window, a small vase of flowers on the table. The flowers have a frost blossom on them, presumably preserved by his mother or sister’s quirk. His mother hears him step in and turns to look at him with a gentle smile on her face.

“Hello Mother,” he says softly, his voice cracking a little. “I’m back. Sorry it took so long.”

“Oh Sho,” his mother says, “It’s okay. I forgave you so long ago. I only hope you found it in your heart to forgive me for what I did.”

Shoto nods, not trusting his voice at the moment. He makes his way over to her and wraps his arms around her, tears dripping down his face in two temperatures as he starts to cry quietly. His mother hugs him back, crying as well. They sit there for a moment, enjoying their reunion.

After what could be an hour or a few minutes, Shoto pulls away gingerly and sits in the chair across from her. He takes a deep breath, a wide grin on his face as he processes the fact that his mother wasn’t holding a grudge against him for the last few years like he thought.

“I used my fire.” He says quietly, “I’m sorry if it disappoints you. I vowed not to use his power.”

“No, it’s your power Sho.” His mother says softly, echoing the words Monoma has been repeating to him for weeks. “And even if it wasn’t, it would still be okay. Nothing you can do could make me love you less. I realize that more clearly than ever now, and I never want to lose you again.”

“Thank you.” Shoto says, nodding slowly. He hesitates for a moment before continuing, “I think I’m gay, I haven’t told dad yet, but I think Fuyumi knows.”

His mother just giggles in response, reaching over the table to take his hand.

“Always so serious with you.” She says with a grin, “Its been that way since you were young. I don’t care who you love Shoto, as long as they make you happy. And as far as I know your father wouldn’t care either, for all his other faults. His interest in eugenics died with Touya.”

Shoto takes a moment to digest her words, deliriously happy at how well his visit is going. His smile returns in full force, and warm seems to spread from his left side into his right as he registers his mother’s love.

“Now, who is the lucky boy you have your eye on?” She says mischievously, the sparkle he remembers her having in his youth returning to her eyes as she teases him.

Shoto blushes, embarrassed at her questions but overwhelmingly grateful that she is here to ask them to him. He may be missing out on discovering what mall trips are, but this is something far more valuable for him to find.

()()()

Katsuki turns to find a bench to sit down on while he waits for Hitoshi to return from the bathroom, pushing his way through a thick crowd of people. He pauses a moment later, feeling a sharp object poke into his ribs, just barely not drawing blood.

“Hiii gorgeous.” A girl’s voice coos into his ear, her other hand wrapping around his shoulder. “Let’s not get hasty here, as much as I’d love to see you bleed all over. I don’t think you want to see how red this mall can get on my way out. So come with me quietly, we can get some lunch. I always wanted to go on a date with a super cute boy after all.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki freezes, nodding slowly to not draw attention. He spots a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye, and it clicks for him who it is. He had seen her all over the news for the last few months, a serial assaulter who had seemingly only avoided murder charges by accident and her victim’s good fortune. He kicks himself for letting his guard down, hoping that Hitoshi will be smart enough to call for the heroes when he comes back to find Katsuki missing.

“Alright Himiko, can I call you that?” He says smoothly, only a tiny tremor in his voice betraying his feelings, “Let’s go on a hot fucking date.”

“Of course, you can Katsu-chan!” she says in a sickly-sweet voice, leading him through the crowd and into the elevator. She leans against the wall, draping herself over him and carefully keeping the knife out of view of any cameras. “I’m so happy you’re cooperating, even if I wish I could spill a bit of your pretty blood. Killing people in a mall like this just gets soo messy sometimes.”

Katsuki nods stiffly, mentally counting the time he had been missing.

“So, why me Himiko?” he says, “I mean, I’m so flattered, but surely you could land a date with anyone in this mall right?”

“Aww, you’re so sweet.” Toga gently pushes him out of the elevator, knife subtly poking into his ribs again, hidden between their linked arms. Every time Katsuki shifted a little for his comfort, she pressed the knife harder against him. “I saw you in the Stain video, and you just looked soooo pretty all covered in blood and cuts like that. I couldn’t resist. And your sports festival clips were so awesome too. I was disappointed you couldn’t fight the boy with the knives though, I like knives so much! Knives are so awesome don’t you think Katsu-chan?”

“Yes, knives are great Himiko.” He says, unsettled by her casual childish demeanor. “Is this the place?”

“Yup! Its such a cute tea shop. I’ll get us drinks. You stay right here in your seat, so I don’t have to kill the cute barista!” Toga leaves him by a table in the corner, bouncing over to order drinks excitedly.

Katsuki watches the knife expertly vanish into her sleeve as she waves her hands around, the barista smiling back pleasantly. His phone buzzes in his pocket twice, and he quickly checks it while the Toga is distracted. Hitoshi is asking where he is. Katsuki types out a quick garbled text explaining the situation and asking him to get the heroes, then deletes the messages on his end and shoves his phone back into his pocket.

“What’d you get me Himiko?” He says with forced charm as she arrives with the tea. “It smells so good!”

“It’s a red chai with a bit of copper powder in it. Doesn’t it kind of taste like blood?” Toga announces this face with perfect cheer, nearly making Katsuki spit the odd tea out. “I love it so much, and I just know you will too.”

“It’s fantastic, thank you.” Katsuki says, swallowing the coppery mixture with distaste. “So, is your plan just a date? I can’t imagine you would take such a big risk for just some tea.”

“No silly, I’m going to love you afterwards of course.” She says straight faced, “I’ll drink all your blood, and we can be together forever when I become you. Isn’t that so romantic?”

“...yes” Katsuki says, scrambling to hide the horror on his face. “I can’t wait personally, I’m so touched.”

The crazy highschooler giggles, kicking her legs under the table happily. She swallows half her tea in a big gulp, setting the cup down heavily with an odd look on her face.

“I’m glad you’re being so accepting Katsu-chan!” Toga says, oddly serious for a moment. “Nobody else is. My parents always wanted me to be normal normal normal. They beat me once when they found me with a bird’s body. My quirk creates cravings in me you see, and I just can’t resist it very long. My classmates didn’t think it was cute at all, I was teased so horribly when they found out. And my crush rejected me so cruelly, when all I wanted was for us to be together forever so I could become him.”

“That sounds awful Himiko” Katsuki says, actually meaning it to a degree this time. Parental abuse was no joke and bullying at school struck a close nerve for him. That sort of thing probably always would.

“I know. All I want is to become the people I love. And here I am, discriminated for my quirk and my normal, reduced to holding a knife under a table just to have a nice date.” She says, waving the aforementioned knife and nearly nicking his knee. Katsuki hurriedly pulls his knees closer to his chair. “Why is our society so awful? I thought some league people wanted to change it, but they turned out to be fakes according to Mr. Stainy.”

“The league of villains?” Katsuki asks, “They are trying to recruit people?”

“Yes, but nobody wants to work for them anymore” Toga says, “Mr. Stainy showed everyone how fake they were, and nobody wants to work with fakes. I want some real idealists, someone who can change society so that people can be normal. That’s all I want Katsu-chan.”

Toga seemed sad for a moment, and Katsuki found himself emphasizing a little bit with her. Between quirk related anger issues and growing up alongside Izuku, he had obviously seen his fair share of discrimination. Hero society was messed up, and although murder wasn’t the way to change it, he wouldn’t disagree that something should be done.

His phone buzzed in his pocket a few times, and out of the corner of his eye Katsuki spotted Eraserhead walking into the café in civilian clothes. He breathed a sigh of relief, and leaned forwards across the table, using the motion to pull his lower body away from easy knife range.

“I would love you to get the help you need Himiko.” He says sincerely, keeping her attention on him as his teacher moves into position. “Not all of the system is rotten, the police have good rehab centers for people suffering from quirks like you. You haven’t killed yet, and you’re a minor. You could have a second chance.”

“A second chance?” Toga seems to consider it for a moment, “That doesn’t seem real. This society doesn’t accept people like me no matter what. If they gave me a second chance it would be a chance only to pretend to be their normal, not to be myself.”

“I’m sorry then. I’ll try to visit you.” Katsuki says, watching her face change to shock as he shoved his chair back, tumbling across the floor of the café.

Above him, he saw his teachers capture clothe flash across the café from the next table over, cleaning wrapping Toga up and restraining her arms. Eraserhead swiftly descended on her, removing the knife from her hand and several other sheaths before shouting for the others to come in.

Hitoshi rushes to Katsuki’s side as policemen crowd into the café, organizing the bystanders and clipping handcuffs onto Toga. Katsuki brushes his friend’s concern off for a moment, stumbling back to his feet and heading for his teacher. People could change, and they deserved to get second chances.

“Aizawa-Sensei” He says respectfully, some desperation in his voice, “She is only doing this because of quirk cravings, you hear me? Make sure the police know and get her help, please don’t let her just get tucked away.”

“Alright Bakugo,” His teacher says, gently guiding him back towards Hitoshi. “I’ll make sure she gets due consideration. I know the lead detective of this precinct; he will make sure everything is fair and non-discriminatory.”

Katsuki nods shakily, all the stress from the last half hour coming crashing down on him all at once. He leans against Hitoshi, taking shaking breaths to cope with the shock as the adrenaline drains from his system. His friend rubs a circle on his back, and for once Katsuki doesn’t really mind the touch. He barely registers the police leading Toga away and the cup of blessedly normal tea someone presses into his hands.

A moment later a blanket is wrapped around him, and Hitoshi helps lead him away to somewhere less public to recover while Aizawa finishes wrapping things up at the café. Katsuki takes a few deep breaths, settling into the warmth of the tea and blanket, allowing himself to take comfort from his friend.

“I’m sorry for being weak” he mumbles shakily, a few searing hot tears prickling the corners of his eyes.

“You idiot,” Hitoshi says softly, “There’s nothing wrong with being weak. And what you did was incredible, you saved so many bystanders today.”

Katsuki nodded, taking a deep breath. Hopefully he can pull himself together in the next hour, he wouldn’t want the rest of the class to see him like this. It’s okay if it’s Hitoshi though. He feels almost as safe as Izuku does.

()()()

Izuku feels an odd prickle run down his back, almost as though there was danger, or someone was thinking really hard about him. He disregards it though, not going to check his phone. He left it behind in his bag and going to it now would mean a long walk to the locker he had stashed his knapsack in for the trip.

“What do you think of this one Izuku?” Mina asks, dragging him out of his musings and back to his nightmare with a wicked grin. “I’m not sure if it would fit me... you know?”

Izuku sees the small sports bra she is holding up in front of him, and returns to his previous state of bright crimson as he catches onto her meaning,

“uh, um, I mean…” He stutters, panicking slightly. “I’m sure you’ll look great in anything, but is that uh, your size?”

Behind him Ochako bursts into renewed cackles, patting him on the shoulder as Mina starts to laugh as well. Izuku looks for an escape, making eye contact with the only other man in the store. They share a moment of terrified solidarity before Mina grabs his hand and drags him to another section of the store, seemingly content with her selection. Izuku is grateful for the reprieve until he realizes where they are.

“Um, are you sure you guys need new swimsuits?” He says desperately, “I’m sure you own older ones that will work just fine, right?”

Chapter Text

“Alright, everyone aboard the bus.” Aizawa says as he climbs into a seat and falls asleep immediately.

The class files onto the bus noisily, waving goodbye to their 1-B counterparts as they board their own bus. Their bags were stored in a large container below, and Aizawa had made them give up their phones into a small bag before boarding, since the camp was supposed to be tech-free to help them focus on improvement. A few members of the class seemed rather stressed about this, which Izuku thought was somewhat understandable but a bit dramatic. It’s not like anyone who might text would kill them after all.

“So, Bakugo, how do you confess your gay crush?” Todoroki deadpans from across the aisle, sending the blonde and Hitoshi into a coughing fit simultaneously.

“Why the fuck are you asking me that Peppermint?” Kachan says.

“You are dating Shinsou yes? You must have asked him out then.”

“What the fuck? I don’t, I mean we aren’t fucking dating!”

“Oh. You just held his hand a lot after everyone got back from the mall. I assumed. Sorry.”

“It’s fucking fine Candy cane.”

“My name is Todoroki, sorry if I forgot to introduce myself.”

()()()

“Everybody off, bathroom break. Leave your carry-ons here, this will be a quick stop.” Aizawa calls out, watching the students file off before he disembarks himself.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Kaminari asks nervously, starting to edge back towards the bus.

“Stay. I would like to welcome our hosts; it is there land you will be staying on.” The tired teacher tells his class, huffing softly as the Wild Wild Pussycats come bounding in.

“We've come to lend a paw and help!!! Coming out of nowhere... Stingingly cute and catlike! Wild, Wild Pussycats!!!”

“Oh my gosh you are all so cute!” Ragdoll drowns out Izuku’s quiet fanboying with her shout, running over to grab Kachan by the cheek.

“When you turn 18, call me!” She coos, ignoring Shinsou bristling beside him. “I call dibs.”

“Ragdoll, stop assaulting my students.” Aizawa calls out tiredly, “I swear to God you’re worse than Midnight. We need to find someone else to run our summer training camps.”

“Unfortunately, no other hero owns the massive amount of private land we do, which allows your students to use their quirks freely.” Says Pixie Bob, making finger guns at the students in question. “I’ll try to reign Ragdoll in though, she’s just at that age where women start to worry about marriage. For now, wave goodbye to your students!”

Izuku is already running as she finishes her sentence and the ground rumbles underneath him. He had figured that they wouldn’t be stopping here for no reason, and there was obviously no bathroom. Aizawa was simply too efficient, if this was just for a meeting then he would have held it at the camp itself.

Sure enough, his classmates are swept off the cliff behind him by a wave of dirt and rocks. Izuku angles his body as he falls, landing smoothing in a tree and hanging from it as he studies his groaning classmates.

“You have three hours to make it to the camp our you don’t get lunch!” Calls out Pixie Bob, “Just head north! And watch out for the beasts!”

Izuku drops from his tree a moment later as one of the beasts in question demolishes it without warning. Around him the class is forming up, stronger students moving to the front as Jiro and Shoji start calling out warnings and directions to them. Izuku moves in the center of the pack beside Shinsou and Koda, breaking off to climb trees and help out here and there as they march through the woods.

()()()

Izuku crawls out of the woods eight hours later with a groan, the sun starting to set in the sky above him. The rest of 1-A is beside him, equally exhausted. The forest had been horrible, an endless assault of wave after wave of earth beasts. After the heavy hitters in the class had given into quirk exhaustion, the rest of the class had pitched in to chip away at the beasts one at a time. Izuku thought his arms would never be the same again, numb after knifing rock over and over.

“Sorry about that kiddos!” Ragdoll says cheerfully as they approach, “Three hours is the time it would have taken the team of us to do it!”

Someone groans again, Izuku can’t tell who. A moment later they throw up, marking them as Uraraka.

“As a treat we made you dinner though! This is the only night you won’t have to cook, so make the most of it!”

A tired cry of “curry!” makes its way through the students, and they painstakingly drag themselves to benches to enjoy the meal. The curry is rich and well-made but simple, full of hearty vegetables and served on rice. To the tired students it may as well be the most delicious meal ever made for them, and not even the grumpy child eating it with them can spoil it.

Later that night they relax in the hot springs, Izuku taking great amusement in the blushes coloring Kachan and Hitoshi’s faces as they sit in the water across from each other. Izuku himself merely enjoys the water, closing his eyes for a moment to focus on the soothing sensation of hot water playing across his sore body.

“Koda, what are you doing up there?” Ilda’s question draws Izuku back from his meditation and directs his attention to the small boy perched on top of the fence. “You could fall. How did you even climb that?”

“I am playing guard duty, in case any of you get the wrong idea!”

As he says this, Koda starts to tip backwards slowly, a look of panic flittering across his face. Izuku clambers out of the pool hurriedly, taking two steps off the wall and grabbing the top of it to vault over. As the boy tumbles off the fence, Izuku is there to catch him like a gangly football. He balances on top of the fence for a moment, precariously swaying as he tries to calm the child in his arms down.

A whistle from below draws his attention, and he glances down to see Uraraka and Mina waving at him happily from their hot spring, the water not covering as much as he wished it would. Izuku starts, stammering out an apology as he tries to back away from the girls (the rest of whom sink under the water to preserve their modesty). His foot catches nothing but air, and he tumbles off the wall and onto the stone with a heavy thud and the crack of his elbow striking hard ground.

Koda leaves his chest immediately, unharmed by the fall saved for some fear. Izuku picks himself up off the ground to peals of laughter from both sides of the pool, walking inside to get a towel as his elbow smarts with a bruise already forming. Despite that, he can’t help the happy grin that paints his face, enjoying the group camaraderie.

()()()

“Alright Tomura, you know what to do.” Sensei’s voice crackles over the TV as Tomura straps on a combat vest, artist gloves rubbing unpleasantly against his dry skin.

“Yes Sensei” Tomura says, motioning to his assembled crew as a purple warp gate swirls in front of them. Muscular and Moonfish step through, cackling in two tones of murderous insanity. “I’ll kill them all and retrieve the girl, don’t worry.”

Chapter Text

“Alright Kittens!” Mandalay says, clapping her hands together at the end of dinner. “Tonight, we have a special treat for you! A test of courage!”

Izuku feels a wide grin spread across his face at the news, visions of fear and destruction dancing in his eyes. The classmates nearest to him edge away slowly, Uraraka fidgeting as she watches him clench and unclench one hand. In the background, Aizawa drags the remedial students away while they are distracted by Izuku’s aura.

“You’re scaring the extras nerd.” Kachan says, smacking Izuku on the back of the head and breaking him from his plotting.

“Oh, haha.” Izuku says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry guys! Let’s win this together!”

Class 1-B looks over at them warily as Mandalay explains the rules. Each class would take a turn hiding in the forest and preparing ways to scare their classmates. The class up to be scared would have to walk the path to Ragdoll at the end of the forest and then make their way back down the other half of the loop. Whoever had the most students successfully meet up with Ragdoll and make it back would win, with ties broken by Ragdoll’s quirk.

The class quickly organizes, and 1-B makes their way into the woods to prepare. While they give 1-B their head start, Mandalay determines the pairs. Izuku is paired with Asui, who he doesn’t really talk with but seems like a solid partner. Kachan gets paired with Hitoshi and spends the waiting time growling at everyone when they snicker.

When Mandalay signals that the first pairs can make their way into the woods, Kachan angrily grabs Hitoshi’s hand and storms off, oblivious to his partner’s blush and the renewed wave of laughter behind him. The rest of the class slowly trails in after them, each pair separated by two minutes of waiting, so they couldn’t take solace in groups.

Izuku makes his way into the woods in the middle of the class, Asui at his side. Neither of them are particularly afraid, and Izuku whistles merrily while they walk.

“So Midoriya,” Asui says, “Are you dating Uraraka or Mina? They have both acted oddly around you. Kero.”

“I’m not dating either of them Asui.” Izuku says with a laugh.

“Call me Tsu.”

“Okay Tsu. Anyway, neither of them has said anything about dating. I think both of them just like teasing me, and Mina is helping out Uraraka with her odd fear of me.”

“You are very oblivious, kero.”

“What do you mean by that Tsu?” Izuku says, turning sightly to face a noise in the bushes. “Oh! Hi Monoma! How’s it going?”

Monoma glares at him from where he is hanging upside down in a tree, making a scary face and holding Setsuna’s head in his hands.

“You’re a freak Midoriya.” He says exasperatedly, “Stop smiling like that, it isn’t your turn to scare people yet.”

“Okay!” Izuku says, waving happily as he and Tsu continue onwards, “Say Hi to Todoroki for me!”

“Fuck you Midoriya!” Monoma calls out behind them.

They finish their cycle without too much issue. Izuku smiles happily when each of his sister-classmates pop out to scare them, and Tsu stares stoically the entire time. Ragdoll gives them their popsicle stick and congratulates them on being the least scared of the class so far.

When Izuku leaves the woods, he sees a blushing Kachan still holding Hitoshi in his arms bridal style. He immediately bounds over to them, giggling happily. Kachan groans as he approaches.

“Yes Izu, we are finally dating.” Kachan says, cutting him off. “Yes, you called it, no, you can’t take pictures to send to Mina.”

“Oh.” Izuku says, pulling up short beside them, “Well congratulations! I’m glad you formally adopted our introvert Kachan, now he can be part of the family for real!”

Hitoshi swats at him, tumbling out of Kachan’s arms and growling. They wrestle across the ground while Kachan face-palms above them, the rest of the class laughing happily in the background. Izuku is more content than he can remembering being, surrounded by the people he values.

()()()

“Alright 1-A, Class 1-B is entering the woods now. Good Luck!’” Mandalay’s voice rings in Izuku’s head as he crouches in the boughs of a tree, carefully adjusting the mask covering his eyes so it doesn’t scratch the makeup sloppily applied to his face.

Yaoyorozu had been very useful during their prep-time, and Izuku now found himself with a ratty blindfold and a liter of fake-blood drenching him. Apparently, he looked truly horrifying, especially when he smiled. The blood was food-safe thanks to Momo, so he had a large amount held in his cheek. When he grinned, it oozed through his teeth and dripped everywhere ominously.

He was his own station, since his class didn’t think he would need any help from them. They had placed him halfway through the first half of the loop, aiming to keep people from getting their sticks. A third of 1-A hadn’t been able to handle the fear and had run back, so they needed more than that of 1-B to fold to win.

His first victims approach, picking their way along the path warily. Izuku grins wide, letting all of the lessons that Gang Orca taught him shine as he drops down in front of them, staring at where his ears tell him they are.

The screams echo in the woods, and he slowly scuttles up the road towards them, giggling happily.

()()()

“Congratulations to Class 1-A for your victory.” Mandalay says later as the students gather around the campfire wrapped in blankets, “And congratulations to Monoma and Yui for being the only pair to make it around the full circuit while 1-A was scaring.”

The remedial students have filed out to join them now, and everyone is gleeful at the promise of a fun campfire and a slightly later start to training the next morning.

Jiro pulls out her guitar, and the two classes spend the evening singing campfire songs and roasting smores together.

Izuku challenges Todoroki to a smore roasting contest and loses miserably as Todoroki demonstrates the new control of his fire he gained at internships. Todoroki leaves the center of the ring to go sit by Monoma, and Izuku winks at the blonde as he settles down beside the blanket that contains Kachan and Hitoshi.

At some point everyone starts to nod off, and they make their way to bed happily, bellies full and hearts satisfied at the good company. As he drifts off, Izuku reflects on how grateful he is to be here with everyone, and that he still has the chance to be a hero, even quirkless.

()()()

Shigaraki Tomura steps out of the warp gate and throws his arms wide with a laugh.

Behind him come Muscular and Moonfish, along with a small group of well-trained villains. Everyone involved in the mission is a hardened killer, and they are loyal to him to a man. To him, not to Sensei, which makes Tomura feel warm inside at his success.

Kurogiri materializes beside him, mist swirling anxiously as he surveys their target.

“Alright Shigaraki Tomura.” The mist-man’s gravelly voice rings out in the crisp night air, “It is time to show the world your greatness now in truth. Avenge your failures at the USJ and show Sensei what a worthy successor you are.”

Chapter Text

Shigaraki Tomura surveys the large mansion in front of him calmly. The past months since his failure at the USJ had been brutal, with Sensei putting him through relentless training and lessons. In addition to countless hours spent in combat, Sensei had finally started teaching him the actual lessons of leadership.

All of Tomura’s suffering had culminated here. He had a squad of handpicked and personally recruited me that he had gathered with his own skills after Sensei’s lessons. He had two powerful A-Rank villains in addition to himself and Kurogiri. And he had all the motivation and fervor in the world. In short, his party was absolutely min-maxed through the roof.

He swipes his hand across the side wall of the mansion, and it crumbles into dust smoothly, his decay slightly spreading from the initial contact site to create a hole a meter wide. Tomura’s quest journal (as he liked to refer to the intelligence reports he received as) informed him that the girl was held on the lowest floor under a rotating guard, and that half of the Shie Hassaikai were out today supervising a test of their new brand of trigger.

Tomura waves his hand, and his kill squad rushes through the door. A press of the button triggers his berserker, and Muscular roars as he smashes through the front door and begins killing. The forces of the mansion flow towards the disturbance at the front door, and Tomura, Kurogiri, and Moonfish have a relatively uncontested walk through the mansion. The opposition they do encounter is swiftly dispatched, a mixture of blood, dust, and fading mist left behind them the only evidence of what were once healthy yakuza members.

Tomura’s phone pings as the leader of his kill squad sends him a photo of Mimic and Shin Nemoto’s cooling corpses beside the Mansion’s main servers. He smiles, pleased with the collection of the secondary quest loot. Who said npc’s couldn’t be useful in great numbers? A wave of his hand and a quick word has Kurogiri transporting the squad back to base, their numbers only slightly depleted.

He had learned his lesson at the USJ. Men were not disposable tools, and all manpower that could be retained was an asset. Finding personnel willing to work for him after all the goons he abandoned at USJ had been a challenge, and Tomura did not intend to repeat the same mistake.

Another swipe of his hand dissolves a door and most of the wall behind it, revealing a tiny girl with white hair cowering in the corner. She gasps as she takes in his villainous figure and the cooling bodies of her guards in the corridor.

“Hello Eri,” Tomura says gently, holding his hands up peacefully, “Would you like to join my party?”

“D don’t come a any closer!” The young girl shouts, stopping the villain’s advance. “I’m cursed! If you touch me, you’ll g go away forever!”

“That may be, but you’ll find Kurogiri here is quite resistant to touch-based quirks.” Tomura gestures to the misty bartender with a grin, “And my Sensei can take your curse away with no difficulty at all, you just have to come with us.”

Suitably convinced, the traumatized young girl lets herself be placed on Kurogiri’s shoulders for a piggy-back ride. As they step out of the room the mist man takes advantage of the larger hallway to warp himself away to get her settled, their main objective achieved.

Tomura turns to his phone to find an update from Muscular informing him that the remaining members of the 8 precepts had been neutralized, but the man himself was stuck waiting for Hari Kurono’s quirk to wear off.

A wet substance splatters Tomura, and he dodges backwards instinctively while tossing his phone to the floor. This action saves his life, and he whirls to face a furious Overhaul, the blood of Moonfish still coating his clothes and every inch of the hallway between them.

“WHERE IS SHE?” The leader of the Shie Hassaikai screams, his eyes burning with rage.

“Oh, the girl? Unfortunately, your princess is in another castle now.” Tomura says with a smile, pleased beyond belief that his final objective had opted to come to him instead of run. The loss of Moonfish was a shame, but the cannibal was barely controllable in the first place, so maybe that too was a benefit.

“BRING HER BACK FOOLISH BOY!” Overhaul shouted again, slamming his bare hand into the wall, and sending a wave of spikes towards Tomura. “AND MAYBE I’LL SPARE YOUR FILTHY DISEASED LIFE FOR ONE MORE SECOND!”

Tomura casually swiped the spikes away, a wave of rock no match for the horrors Sensei had thrown at him in their personal training matches. He carefully cracks each knuckle as he takes a step backwards, locking eyes with Overhaul and letting a wide smirk cover his face.

“You see Overhaul, you think you may have me on the ropes. But you lack vision.”

Tomura advances, dragging has fingers along the wall and letting a trench crumble out of it, the dust fall behind him and swirling through the air.

“We are both dex builds you know, and both min-maxed into the death touch class. A true rogue/assassin hybrid.”

Overhaul just snarls, a spike sprouting from the floor, two more accompanying it from the walls. Tomura slaps them down, the speed of his decay accelerating until the very ground where Overhaul was touching to make the pillars starts to disintegrate and the man is forced to pull his hands back and retreat a step down the hallway.

“The difference between us is how we apply it. You use your quirk on the environment, and to heal yourself. I admire the versatility of your build; it makes you practically an adventuring party unto yourself. You supplement this with a death touch that lets you take down even stronger opponents.”

Tomura slams a hand against the wall, a wave of decay spreading along it with an ominous woosh as several meters of concrete turn to dust. The purple lines stop just short of Overhaul as the yakuza boss hops back another few feet.

“But the quality aspect of your build betrays you. It is min-maxed, and in the past broad builds with lots of utility flourished. Sensei is the prime example of that, but you don’t know him. However, ever since the last patched dropped and All Might crippled Sensei with a pure strength build, the meta has changed to single stat allotments.”

Tomura dashes forwards, hands tapping surfaces as he races by and leaving deadly pools behind him to spread more decay. He swipes at Overhaul and the man stumbles back frantically, totally on the defense now. Behind them the hallway collapses with a crash.

“My build is all points in dexterity. I don’t have enough vigor to withstand even one of your hits, and you can see how wimpy my strength is. I’m no long-range caster either, Decay has been and always will be an on-contact incantation. But my focus gives me combat power. As Sensei says, you would rather face the man who practiced a thousand quirks once than the man who practiced a single quirk a thousand times. I’m simple too fast fore your grab attacks to work, and too nimble for your AOE to catch me. In short Overhaul, I’m completely specced to cheese your shitty outdated build, and end the age of yakuza once and for all!”

With that final declaration, Tomura snatches Overhaul’s wrists out of the air with seeming ease, his hands a blur in the dusty and clouded hallway. The bird-masked man screams in agony as his arms dissolve from wrist up, and he falls to his knees and Tomura’s feet.

“Be lucky Sensei chose not to collect your quirk, or you would suffer far greater agony than this.” Tomura says, laying a hand on Overhaul’s head with finality, watching with satisfaction as the kneeling yakuza dissolves into dust.

“Well done Shigaraki Tomura.” Kurogiri says, materializing behind him in response to the signal from Tomura’s retrieved phone. “You have truly shown yourself a worthy successor today, the ripples from this will take quite some time to settle.”

“Take me back Kurogiri.” Tomura says happily, “Lets celebrate this properly at the bar. Collect Muscular on the way, he is too valuable to waste at this junction.”

“As you wish Young Master.”

“What did you do with the girl by the way?”

“I deposited her with Sensei as instructed by him. He sends his regards by the way.”

Chapter Text

The next week found a class of still exhausted 1-A students trudging into Gym Gamma for training, Aizawa already waiting for them.

“Alright class, I know you are still tired from the training camp, but we can’t let up on the gas now. The principal has decided to let you all take your provisional licensing exam early given how promising your growth has been.” Aizawa says, pausing for a moment to let the cheers subside, “To make sure you are ready for what promises to be a brutal exam, we will be building on our work at the camp. When we left off you were all on the cusp of developing Ultimate Moves, and we will be continuing in that vein. Here to help us today are Ectoplasm and Cementoss.”

The class split up in the massive gym full of pillars, pairing off with clones to start practicing. Izuku watches as Todoroki tried to ignite his fire at the same time as he was using his ice, a tactic Monoma had suggested to him as possible during camp. The blond and peppermint boys had grown even closer during camp, and Izuku couldn’t wait until they joined Kachan and Shinsou among the ranks of classmates he could tease for being in a relationship.

“Are you going to stop watching your classmates and try something of your own out?” The clone in front of him spoke in Ectoplasm’s deep voice.

“I’m not sure what to do honestly,” Izuku says, turning to face him, “I don’t have a quirk, it isn’t like I can develop any Ultimate Moves.”

“Nonsense, of course you can.”

“How? None of my techniques can really be enhanced, and support gear doesn’t exactly count as a move per say.”

“You need to play to your strengths; what are you especially good at?”

“Uh, apparently being scary?”

“That’s a good start, but it doesn’t really have potential as an Ultimate Move. What else?”

“I guess everyone says my analysis is really good, that’s why Nedzu has me in private lessons.” Izuku says, tapping his chin, “But that is an investigative skill mostly, it doesn’t really apply to combat once the fight begins.”

“Of course, it can, in fact I think that would make a great Ultimate Move for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me Izuku, have you ever heard of predictive reasoning?”

“Of course! You can make use of previously observed causal connections to make an informed prediction about how something that seems random will react next. It’s frequently used in the financial sector and in drawing certain conjectures about criminal behavior patterns.”

“Well, why don’t you use your natural skill at analysis and apply something similar to combat? You predict Bakugo’s moves all the time from exposure, right? Is there any reason you can’t quickly analyze opponents to get more and more effective at countering during the fight?”

“No, there isn’t! That could totally work! I could even mix in fear tactics as I slowly started to preempt their attacks, and pretend I had some sort of foresight. Ectoplasm-sensei, this is genius!”

“I just reminded you of what you already had, nothing special. Now, I’m going to start out slow with a simple repetitive attack pattern. When you can consistently call out what my next strike is, we will speed up and get more complex.”

“Okay!”

()()()

On the other side of the gym Katsuki stared at the clone in front of him with intense focus. They were placed on the ground to give Katsuki a bit more space, and to not risk his attack’s large area of effect hitting someone on a pillar nearby.

“So, tell me about what you have so far; I know from Aizawa you were working on a move already at the end of camp.” The clone says, standing before Katsuki.

“I recently learned how to use the same energy that I use for making sparks appear to powerup my muscles. I’ve pretty much got the hang of that move now, although it causes explosive damage to me if I go overboard.” Katsuki explains, giving the somewhat shaking excuse for his sudden powerup that he and All Might had decided on. “What I want to work on is using explosions while move at high speeds in unique ways. Right now, they throw off my balance, or lag behind me after ignition, so I tend to stop moving quickly to unleash an attack. That won’t cut it at the licensing exam obviously.”

“You’re right, it absolutely won’t. Let’s start with helping you figure out how to deal with explosions and course corrections. You can already use them for flight, so this should come to you fairly intuitively after a bit of effort. I suggest a pirouetting motion could be beneficial, maybe ask your pink classmate for some breakdancing tips?” The clone gestures towards where Mina is working on intensifying her acid spray by clenching her fingers in various shapes, “From there we can work on actually firing an attack while moving quickly. I think close range might be the simplest place to start, or maybe dashing past an opponent and firing from their back? We can experiment in a lot of ways with whatever time we have left.”

Katsuki nods, determined to improve and pass his licensing exam. As with the rest of the students, he knew that your performance at the licensing exam was an important part of getting hired for an internship. While most pros didn’t attend the actual exam, the Hero Public Safety Commission did write up a report that described the most important actions you took during the exam, and you submitted it as a part of your resume.

Katsuki in particular didn’t have a lot of connections to land an internship, since Gran Torino was retired, and All Might didn’t want to announce any public connection to him just yet. So, he needed a stellar result on the exam to help sell himself to agencies now that his Sports Festival performance was long enough ago to leave the public memory.

He powered up One for All and dashed forwards, an explosion starting to crackle in his hand as he prepared to train his heart out.

Chapter Text

One week after the camp and two weeks before the licensing exam, Katsuki finds himself standing at the gates of a juvenile detention center near UA. He rubs a shoulder as he waits for the gate guard to authenticate his ID, sore from another week of constant training. His Ultimate Move Set, as he liked to call it, was progressing well. He had the hang of shooting off explosions during high-speed movement thanks to practice and some tips from Mina, and he was continuing to practice a small group of dance movements to integrate them into his fighting style.

Explosion inertia was proving a bit more difficult to contend with. Firing them off in close combat worked about half the time, but Katsuki felt like he was hitting a wall with it. And dashing behind opponents required actually passing them first, which was harder than it sounded even with the advantage of moving faster than a speeding vehicle that his current low percent of One for All gave him.

Izuku however, was turning into an absolute terror in hand to hand thanks to his training. Katsuki didn’t know what Ectoplasm had awakened in him, but Izuku had taken to predicting his opponents like a fish in water. Half the time they sparred now it felt like Izuku was not only predicting his movements but predicting Katsuki predicting that Izuku would predict his movements, a feat that made Katsuki’s head hurt if he thought about it for more than a few seconds. The cheerful way Izuku explained it was bone-chilling as well; something about hearing a small green haired teen dissect every aspect of your thought process while he was punching your lights out just struck right at Katsuki’s spine.

The guard finished authenticating his ID and the gates swung open. Katsuki was lead through the center to the room he had an appointment at. Aizawa had pulled him aside during the week and explained Himiko Toga’s situation to him, then asked for him to help them out.

Aizawa had honored Katsuki’s request of treating the attempted serial killer kindly, getting her into a rehab center for delinquents instead of letting her go straight to prison. She was on a rather strict confinement, but she was relatively cooperative with her therapist so far. Additionally, an investigation had been opened into her parents that had started to bear fruit before it stalled, requiring Himiko’s testimony before it could proceed. Apparently, the girl in question had been resistant to elaborating on her childhood and its trauma, but she had asked to be allowed to talk to Katsuki.

Of course, he had agreed. Their encounter at the mall had been somewhat chilling, yes, but Katsuki had started to feel like he really connected with her at the end. Himiko seemed like someone who had just lost their way more than a legitimately dangerous killer, and Katsuki could see a lot of himself in her. They both had dangerous quirks that could easily be perceived as villainous (unless you were one of his rather biased middle school teachers), and both of them struggled with emotions or instincts driving them to take harmful and aggressive actions. In a way, talking to her would be a personal quest for him. After all, if he didn’t preach redemption and second chances for others, could he ever forgive himself for his own crass and bullying ways?

“Hey Katsu-chan.” Himiko says as he walks into her small room, her voice much more subdued than he remembers.

“Hey Himiko, it’s good to see you again.” He says, sitting down in an armchair across from her.

“Is it really? I’m not blood-starved anymore, and the nice therapist lady has been working with me to understand the things I did. I know it was pretty wrong.”

“It really is, I promise. You did some shitty fucking things yeah, and I was absolutely shitting myself when you held me up, but I did genuinely hope you could get the help you need. And me being here to see you again is proof that you’ve found at least some of it.”

“Right, all that stuff you said about second chances right before they arrested me. It’s so cool that you meant that Katsu-chan, I’ve never met someone like you before. You really are treating me like I’m normal!” Himiko says, perking up a little.

“You are normal Himiko, and I’m sure your therapist has stressed this too. All those fucking idiots at your school where wrong to tell you otherwise.”

“...and my parents?” Himiko says, looking vulnerable as she opened up a bit.

“Absolutely your parents. Those fuckwits didn’t know what a great daughter they had before they fucking abused you.”

“They didn’t abuse me!” Himiko protests, “They just wanted me to fit in, they tried to help me!”

“Have you told your therapist about the things they did to help you?”

“No! If I do, they’ll send them to jail!”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll think it was abuse!”

“Making if the fucking expert thinks that there might be a good motherfucking reason!”

“There can’t be!” Himiko shouts at him, tears shimmering in her eyes, “They were all I had!”

“Then find some new people and stop fucking moping!”

“Who? I’m a horrible, weird person now! I hurt so many people while I was on the streets, I can’t even leave this place for at least six months! Who are you to suggest that, with your stupid handsome face and your hero class privilege?!”

“Someone who fucking understands what it’s like to have people be afraid of you! To see someone fucking shy away because you hurt them with your quirk or hurt someone they fucking cared about!” Katsuki shouts back at her, panting a little as his emotions got to him, “Someone who knows how fucking valuable it is to have someone accept you despite that, and who knows just how braindead simple it is to get lead astray by an accepting authority figure!”

Himiko stopped shouting and look at him, considering his words for a moment. She seemed taken back by the tirade, sitting in her chair and toying with her hair.

“You… do understand? Don’t you Katsu-chan?” She says finally, chewing each word and weighing him over and over.

“I do.” Katsuki says, his voice ragged with emotion, “I swear to fucking god I do. And I’m telling you that you need help, and that it’s okay to talk to your therapist about your childhood.”

“But… then I’ll still have nobody. Isn’t someone bad better than no one at all?”

“Then you’ll have me.” Katsuki says immediately, “I’ll visit as often as I can before you get released. And I’ll bring my friend Izuku, who might be the only person more obsessed with knives than you.”

“You… have a friend who likes knives?” Himiko says, her voice a little hopeful now. “Okay. I’ll do my best to talk if you promise to come back.”

“I promise I will.” Katsuki says, standing up to leave.

“Katsu-chan?” Himiko calls after him, causing him to pause in the doorway. “How much of it was real, what you said to me at the mall? How much of it was just lies to keep me still?”

“A lot of it was fake honestly, that tea was disgusting. But I really do think you’re cool, and that you deserve a second chance. There’s just one big inaccuracy Himiko,” Katsuki says with a cheerful grin, “Unfortunately for you, I’m both incredibly gay and incredibly taken.”

“Dammit!” Himiko shouts with a laugh as he waves at her, slipping out of the room to report to her officer. “And he looked so pretty in blood too. Oh well, maybe the friend with all the knives is available.”

Chapter Text

Izuku fidgets nervously as the UA bus pulls up to the provisional licensing exam. Despite spending the last few weeks in incredibly intense training, he didn’t feel like it was ever possible to be ready enough. If he passed, he would be quite possibly the first quirkless person ever to gain a provisional license, and that was a daunting prospect. Aizawa wasn’t telling them anything about the exam, but Izuku figured it would be some sort of combat passed trial to start, and the disadvantage the sports festival gave them was prevalent in his mind. If he could use his analysis to predict an opponent’s movements from on the spot queues, how much more dangerous would a group of students with months to prepare and examine them be?

Hopefully their growth in the last semester would be enough for them to prevail, because the bus was stopping now. Izuku files off the bus with his classmates, bumping shoulders with Kachan to receive some reassurance. He takes a deep breath, trying to put his old social anxiety to rest and focus on the powerful, confident person he was today.

“PLUS ULTRA!” The class cheers, a few of them startling at the sudden addition to their chant.

“Yoarashi!” Another student in a similar uniform (Izuku thought they might be from Shiketsu?) approaches the UA circle and chastises the interloper, “It is rude to insert yourself into other school’s chants!”

“I’m so sorry!” The tall student shouts, seemingly unable to lower his volume, “All your hot-bloodedness had me so riled up! Such passion!”

“Yeah! I hope you’re proper riled up so when we crush you in the exam it’s worth our time!” Kachan fires back with equal vigor, palms crackling as he stares down the other boy.

“Hi! Looks like everyone’s getting along well!” A student wearing yet another unfamiliar uniform waves at class 1-A as he walks over to them. A friendly smile is plastered on his face, and it sends shivers down Izuku’s spine. He knows what a threatening smile looks like after all.

“We’re all getting along fantastic here!” Izuku says, stepping forwards with an unsettling smile of his own. “I’m Midoriya Izuku, resident gremlin! So pleased to meet you, I hope their won’t be any trouble!”

“I’m Shindo Yo!” Shindo says, grabbing Izuku’s hand and shaking it, “It’s a pleasure to meet someone as… enthusiastic as I am for this exam. Good luck, I hope you don’t stumble anywhere!”

“Thanks, Shindo, I hope I don’t stumble either. I have a lot of sharp points after all, I might impale someone on the way down!”

The unfamiliar students breakaway to return to their respective classes, and 1-A makes their way into the auditorium, buzzing with nerves and excitement all the way.

()()()

“Alright, I’m going to split off from the rest of you as soon as the event starts,” Izuku says to his classmates as he clips the sensors to his chest, “I can’t leverage my abilities at stealth and ambush takedowns if I’m moving in a large group.”

“No problem, knock them dead Nerd.” Kachan says cheerfully, strapping his targets on awkwardly as his gauntlets clacked against each other. “The rest of us can stick in a group, hold down the fort and make damn sure nobody gets left behind.”

A few minutes later the announcer’s voice rang out across the massive arena, and Izuku dashed off towards the city nearby. Behind him he heard an earthshattering quake, and the sounds of Kachan barking orders (and curses) at his classmates over the noise of rumbling earth and explosions.

Izuku makes his way into the city, quickly parkouring up the side of an alleyway and crouching on a building. He flicks his arm-knives out of their shield position and over his hands, creeping along the edge of the small structure in search of prey.

Not to long later, a small group of students come running by. Izuku grins savagely, leaping off of the building just as they are passing underneath him, silently plummeting two stories towards the student trailing behind his friends.

Izuku lands with a thud on the students shoulders, quickly jamming his blade against the back of his head and knocking him unconscious. The students quirk, seemingly some form of feather control, fizzles out as he loses consciousness. The rest of his friends turn around at the sudden noise, only to be greeted by their fallen friend and a sinister smirk spreading across Izuku’s face.

“Good afternoon my friends!” Izuku says cheerfully, triggering his knives mechanisms and letting electricity visible hum through them, “Let’s settle this like civilized people yes? You surrender your targets and bow out, and I don’t knock you all unconscious in a variety of painful ways!”

The students before him hesitated for a few vital moments, obviously shocked by the way their classmate had gone down so easily, and unnerved by Izuku’s confidence. Izuku made the most of this time, cataloguing the sights before him.

Three students, two with visible mutations and one without. There was an obvious lion mutant (heteromorph, unlikely to have a secondary quirk), and a girl with webbed hands who probably had an additional water based ability. The student without an obvious mutation held himself like a ranged quirk user, and Izuku imagined he could fling something from the way his arms were instinctively positioned.

The three elected not to respond, immediately fanning out to try to surround him.

“Fanning out? A wise strategy against one person! Your next move will be for the lovely lady to shoot water at me while your lion friend closes the distance. That might have worked if it wasn’t so incredibly predictable!”

Izuku springs into action, already moving when the stream of water shoots towards where he was. The lion hesitates, clearly shocked at being read like a book. Izuku pounces on the ranged quirk user as he is trying to make some distance, knocking aside the floating rock that manifests over the boy’s shoulder.  

Two quick strikes have the boy down, his movements falling into the predictable pattern that most ranged fighters move along while panicked at close range. Izuku pivots towards the two behind him, his face flushed with excitement and twisted into a rictus of a smile.

“Exhilarating!” He shouts, starting to advance, “Use your water attack now, the one where you focus it into a beam for extra cutting power!”

The girl puts her webbed hands together, a shell-shocked look on her face as she follows along with his description simultaneously to it leaving his mouth. Water squirts out of her hands in a thin stream, shooting towards Izuku.

Izuku is already lowering on knife to deflect the stream, and he cackles as the electricity shoots through the water and shocks the girl, leaving her stumbling backwards and shaking her hands.

“That’s more like it! Show me some creativity please, give me something good to dissect!”

He dashes forwards, engaging the heteromorph as they step forwards to guard their stunned comrade. Claws meet knives over and over, the lion’s superior strength offset by Izuku’s skillful parrying. One of the knives is out of charge from electrifying the water, by everything the lion strikes the other knife he twitches.

Eventually Izuku’s skill overwhelms the lion mutant, and he is sent tumbling to the ground twitching with a thin gash along his arm. Izuku drops him with a vicious kick to the head, standing over his body and staring down the remaining student.

The girl looks at him with terrified eyes, her webbed hands shaking as she looks to be on the verge of tears.

“Run!” Izuku suggests in a bright tone, his smile fading into something more natural, “I have all my eliminations right here, no sense in overkill!”

The girl nods, frantically scrambling away and abandoning her defeated classmates. Izuku quickly taps a ball against all the targets, and chuckles softly to himself as he makes his way to the waiting room.

Chapter Text

     The second phase of the provisional exam passes in a blur, Izuku mostly focusing on coordinating the rescue efforts of hero-trainees with better suited quirks to the wreckage. Afterwards they return to the waiting rooms to wait for their results, and Kachan regales him with his defeat of Gang Orca. Apparently, he and the whirlwind kid from the start of the exam had teamed up with Todoroki to produce a greatly enhanced Howitzer Impact. Wrapping an explosion in a fire tornado sounded pretty awesome to Izuku, he was glad that his friend had enjoyed himself and worked well with others.

A buzzer sounded and the students filed their way onto the field. A massive billboard displayed everyone’s scores, and Izuku spotted his halfway up the pack. Apparently he had lost points for only making a few rescues with his own hands, but the examiners ultimately understood the importance of coordination in team-up attempts.

“Look Nerd, I fucking nailed this shit!” Kachan says, swapping results with him.

“Kachan, this says you barely passed because you cussed out the civilians for not walking back themselves! That isn’t nailing it!”

“But it says I had good teamwork. That’s progress bitch!”

Izuku laughs, swapping insults with his best friend as they fill out their licensing forms and receive the durable cards. He looks down at his license, admiring the quirk field: it said not applicable. This was it, tangible physical proof that you didn’t need a quirk to be a hero; you just needed to have realistic expectations. He pockets the card, making his way back to the bus with his jubilant classmates.

()()()

     “Alright class, today we will be having some guest speakers to talk to you about the work study experience.” Aizawa-sensei says tiredly, “Please welcome the Big Three.”

Izuku claps alongside his class as UA’s top students file in, two of them happily waving back. The purple-haired student hides behind his friends, and Izuku nudges Hitoshi to note their similarity. The other teen knocks his arm away and rolls his eyes, before slumping back onto his desk to continue napping.

“Alright! The future’s looking!” The blonde student, Mirio Togata by his nametag, cups his hands and calls out.

“Grim/Nap-less/Violent/Sparkly/Loud!” Class 1-A shouts back a variety of answers, recognizing a call and response prompt but not knowing what Mirio wanted from them.

“Aw man! That was a total failure!” Mirio says cheerfully, ignoring Nejire’s continued assault on poor Uraraka (apparently her quirk was fascinating, not that Izuku disagreed.) “Aizawa, why don’t I just have them all fight me? That way they can see the difference experience truly makes!”

“Do whatever. I don’t care.” Aizawa says.
“Alright! Everyone meet me in Gym Gamma!”

()()()

     Izuku carefully considers his class’s opponent as they all gather together in Gym Gamma. For the student to suggest this he was either arrogant or incredibly skilled, and it wasn’t like Aizawa to entertain the delusions of someone arrogant. Incredibly skilled then, likely with a quirk that would let him divide and conquer their class. A mass-destruction emitter-type was possible, but it seemed unlikely he would be so confident. Their class had a lot of durable students, and some heavy hitting emitters of their own. It was more likely that an emitter quirk of that type would be countered by the sheer number of similar caliber quirks.

“Alright, everyone split up some a space out appropriately!” Izuku calls, watching his class respond to him by forming a messy grid, a few feet of space between each of them, “I suspect he has some type of movement quirk, and plans to take us out individually. Be prepared to assist whoever is beside you, and keep the pressure on him until he breaks!”

“That was a quick assessment Green Bean!” Mirio calls from the other side of the gym as he enters, “I can see why Sir Nighteye has his eye on you!”

Izuku reels for a moment from this information, shocked that his idol would even know who he is. Nighteye was All Might’s former sidekick after all, the same sort of shadow to him that Izuku desired to be for Kachan. Distracted this way, he almost missed the opening salvo. Keyword: Almost.

Mirio seemed to fade from color out of the corner of his eye, his entire pallet getting a little less vibrant. This caught Izuku’s attention and snapped him out of his shock just in time to see the older student fall through the floor.

“A phasing quirk! He is going to use it to pop up in front of you and dodge! Use lingering attacks and don’t try to block!” Izuku calls out, his mind scrambling as he tries to figure out the mechanism used in the quirk.

Phasing quirks were uncommon, but not incredibly rare. What was rare was a full-body phasing quirk like this that could be used for combat. Becoming incorporeal usually carried some extreme side-effects, like loss of stimulus and risking death from matter clipping into your body.

Mirio shoots out of the ground in front of Jiro, proving that whatever side-effects he had couldn’t be that bad. He throws a punch at her, but the slim teen was already jumping back. On her left was Kaminari, and he reacts quickly enough to jump nearly into Mirio and set a current running along his body and in the air around him. The senior student didn’t rematerialize, instead falling back into the ground and popping out away from the group.

“Wow! That was very smooth, you sure figured me out quick!” Mirio says, his hero costume slightly scorched from where some electricity must have connected. “It’s time to get serious now then!”

What followed was a fairly humiliating defeat for Class 1-A. Despite knowing some of the mechanics of Mirio’s quirk, they couldn’t seem to land significant blows on him or put together more pieces of the puzzle to exploit his weaknesses. Meanwhile, they could only evade him for so long, and every member taken out reduced their ability to react to his sudden appearances. Ten minutes was all it took for the entire class to be laying on the ground groaning, Izuku still struggling to comprehend the full scope of their senior’s quirk.

“POWER!” Mirio screams, doing a pose over Kachan’s body after he finishes him off. “Now you can see the difference experience makes!”

‘Experience? No offense Senpai, but your quirk is kind of bullshit” Izuku groans from the ground, “What kind of phasing quirk like that has no downsides? You’re basically untouchable!”

“Ahah! That’s where you’re wrong Green Bean! My quirk has a ton of downsides!” Mirio says, sitting down in front of the clump of defeated students, “I lose all my senses when I phase, because everything passes right through me. I also fall into the ground if I’m not careful. Even passing through a wall is a complicated multi-step process. I have to carefully phase and un-phase each part of my body in perfect sequence or it doesn’t work! The quick movement is a result of hours of practice figuring out how to arrange my body so that the matter of the ground shoves me out in certain directions! This experience, the ability to use your quirk to the fullest, is the real advantage of a work study!”

Izuku groans, relaxing against the cool concrete as he realized his mistake. Of course, that sort of quirk had drawbacks, every quirk does. He should have looked for how they were being mitigated, not simply looked for a different set of drawbacks. Occam’s razor, do not multiply quirk drawbacks unnecessarily, heh.

“You will all have to find your own work studies using the connections you made at internships and beyond. The school will not help you with this, but you would be remiss to dismiss such valuable experience. Class is dismissed for today, Good luck.” Aizawa rises from his position in a sleeping bag on the floor to leave the class, two of the big three trailing out behind him.

“Hey Green Bean!” Mirio calls, offering Izuku a hand up.

“Yes Senpai?” Izuku says, pulling himself to his feet with some difficulty, his stomach and head throbbing from repeated impacts.

“You already have an offer for a work study! My mentor, Sir Nighteye, has had his eye on you since the sports festival. He doesn’t take intern students, but now that you have your provisional license he would love if you came to work with him.”

“I would love to!” Izuku says excitedly, shaking his senior’s hand eagerly.

“Great! Swing by the agency next week and we can get the paperwork drawn up!”

Chapter Text

Izuku nervously steps of the train in Osaka, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder as he checks the map on his phone. Sir Nighteye’s agency is about an hour from UA, and people were just starting to get off of work as Izuku arrived. He made his way down the crowded sidewalk to the location his maps app indicated, a tall modern five-story building with imposing security doors.

The doors swing open as he approaches, and a friendly looking secretary at the front waves at him.

“Hello! You must be Midoriya, Mirio mentioned you would be stopping by soon!”

“Yes! That’s me!”

“Alright, well I have some paperwork for you to sign, waivers and so on. Then you can make your way up to Sir Nighteye’s office, I’ll buzz you in.”

Izuku fills out the forms quickly, glancing over the standard waivers that all hero course activities use. He passes the forms back to the secretary and tucks his pen back into his bag, making his way over to the elevator. It hisses open, revealing a blue-skinned woman with a cheerful grin.

“Hi! You must be Midoriya!” she says, chuckling, “You look just scary as Mirio claimed!”

“Thank you!” Izuku says matter of factly, “Are you one of Sir Nighteye’s sidekicks?”

“Yes, I’m Bubble Girl, my name is Awata Kaoruko! Sir is expecting you, good luck!”

Bubble girl makes her way out of the elevator, waving at the secretary as she leaves the building. Izuku fidgets nervously, pressing the button for the fifth floor and waiting as the elevator takes him upwards.

The doors ding and slide open, revealing a short hallway with a few closed doors. At the end of the hallway one door is slightly cracked, the plate on the door identifying it as Nighteye’s office. Izuku pushes it open and pokes his head in.

“Hello? Sir Nighteye? Mirio said to swing by for a work study opportunity?”

“Ah yes, Midoriya. Come in.” Sir Nighteye is sitting at his desk inside of a room absolutely plastered with floor-to-ceiling All Might merchandise, fidgeting with a stamp. His desk is covered in a variety of papers.

Izuku makes his way into the room, looking around in wonder at the variety of merchandise, and takes a seat in front of the desk.

“I saw your sports festival performance, very impressive.” Sir Nighteye says, “As you might know, my own quirk is not suitable for frequent use and combat, so I do the majority of my work quirkless. You showcased a very impressive grasp of the skills necessary for quirkless heroics, and for investigative heroism. I hear from Mirio that you’ve begun training analysis as well?”

“Yes Sir! I’ve been trying to work on predictive combat recently, and Principal Nedzu has been giving me some other lessons.”

“Interesting. So, how does Bubble Girl’s quirk work?” Sir Nighteye laces his fingers together, leaning forwards with a serious look on his face. “Impress me, and I’ll sign these work study papers I have here.”

“Bubble Girl! Oh, did you have her pass by me specifically for this test?” Izuku fidgets in his seat for a moment before beginning, “Well, obviously she has blue skin. But that seems more like a secondary mutation, so I imagine her quirk has something to do with the gas mask she wears for her hero costume. Bubble Girl implies at least some sort of bubble, so maybe bubbles of gas? Except that seems too vague, so probably a specific type of gas, right? The rest of her suit looked like it could be useful in closer combat, especially those heavy combat boots, so she probably cannot control the bubbles, just generate them.”

“Very impressive. Yes, Bubble Girl’s quirk is to produce bubbles of a gas that mimics the smell of anything she has smelled before. I see that Mirio was not lying about your abilities, you can definitely be a help to this agency.” Nighteye says, signing the forms in front of him and tucking them into a folder. “Your class ran into the League of Villains earlier this year, correct?”

“Yes Sir.” Izuku says nervously, thinking back to the stressful USJ attack, and bemoaning the loss of his knife yet again. Nothing ever cut quite like your first knife.

“You are already familiar with some aspects of this case then. My agency has been tracking a yakuza group known as the Shie Hassaikai for months now, suspecting them to be behind much of the trigger production in the area. Two months ago, we gained evidence that they might be testing a new type of drug, rumored to be able to erase quirks.” Nighteye pauses, letting the information sink in. “Before we could confirm the existence of such a drug, the Shie Hassaikai were wiped out as an organization when a raid on their main compound killed their leader and half their personnel. A witness captured by police responders afterwards described the attackers in a way that lines up with the leaders of the League, Shigaraki Tomura, and Kurogiri. Since then, my agency has been hard at work attempting to track down their home base, so that heroes can launch a raid to wipe them out once and for all.”

“And I can help with that right?” Izuku says eagerly, “Investigation like this is exactly the sort of heroism I want to do, and Shigaraki stole my knife!”

“What?”

“He stole my knife! Well, technically I stabbed him and just didn’t get it back…”

Nighteye sighs, massaging his forehead briefly.

“Well, be that as it may, you are correct. You’ll be working closely with myself and Eraserhead, your homeroom teacher, to gather certain information on the group’s composition and location. Hopefully, you and any other students will not have to engage in any combat.”

“Not even a little?”

“Maybe in minor roles in the final raid, but I would prefer to keep you mostly out of harm’s way.”

“Awwwww”

Sir Nighteye stands, passing a few forms over to Izuku.

“Give these to your homeroom teacher. He’ll get in contact with me about your school schedule, and we can coordinate any work you’ll be doing. I’ll get back to you next week with your first assignment.”

Izuku heads out of the office, waving happily at the secretary as he heads home, excitement whirling in his head as he thinks about the chance to finally do “real hero work.”

Chapter Text

“Alright Midoriya, you remember how to access a security camera?”

“Yes!” Izuku taps away at his computer, currently connected to Nedzu’s personal network. Normally accessing a security camera like this required quite a few more steps, but the principal had spent decades placing backdoors and satellites across the country, simplifying Izuku’s work.

“Alright, now let’s run the algorithm you were working on, and start filtering some data for any appearances of known League members.”

“Right! They have to have appeared somewhere at some point, or at least Kurogiri surely has been caught on camera somewhere fetching supplies.”

“Precisely. Let the program run, and then you can take the compiled information back to Sir Nighteye when you next go to your work study.”

“Thank you, Nedzu-Sensei!”

“Of course. Now, how have your analysis assignments been going?” Nedzu says, pulling a cup of tea closer with a frightening look on his face. “If I recall, we were learning how to dismantle a psyche, correct?”

Izuku reaches into his bag and pulls out a slim manilla folder, a matching ominous look on his face.

()()()

Izuku groaned, throwing himself back in his armchair as he staired at the wall of maps and grainy images. He was sitting in Sir Nighteye’s office, trying to make sense of the data Nedzu’s program had acquired. Coating the wall was an attempt to draw any correlation between a variety of sightings of League members, tangled in red string and thumbtacks.

“Tired already?” Nighteye said sternly, sipping a cup of coffee in his own chair. “You finally finished sorting out all the false alarms after two weeks, and now you’re giving up on finding the pattern after only four hours?”

“It doesn’t make any sense! It’s just a montage of Kurogiri getting liquor, and other random sightings far enough away not to make sense.” Izuku sighs.

“We found the warehouse already, with the delivery trucks.” Nighteye says, “You did well there. Maybe come back tomorrow and have another crack at it. Not everyone can have All Might’s work ethic, and frankly, not everyone should. It isn’t healthy to bash your head off a problem forever.”

Izuku nods, grabbing his schoolbag and saying goodbye to the agency members as he makes his way back to his house. The next day, he makes his way to UA and sits down in homeroom.

“Hey Kachan” he says tiredly, “How’s your work study going?”

“Great, on pause with our current case while I wait for your agency to follow up with leads, but Gran Torino has been taking me on patrols. His agency isn’t technically in any one city, so I’ve been getting lots of interesting experience.”

“Yeah. I’m stuck staring at images of alcohol stores and random bullshit.”

“Why the fuck are you staring at booze Deku?”

“That mist guy loves it for some reason, and I can’t seem to narrow down where he goes.”

“Have you tried looking for bars?”

“Have I tried… you’re fucking kidding me.” Izuku stands up in his seat, a looking of inspiration on his face.

“Dumb Nerd. Why else would he be buying booze?”

“I thought he had a drinking problem! Wouldn’t you?” Izuku goes to sprint out of the classroom, taking out his phone.

“OBVIOUSLY NOT.” Kachan grabs him by the arm, tugging him back into his seat. “We still have class idiot, sit the fuck down!”

()()()

Izuku waves happily at a passerby, his arm blades stowed safely at the agency as part of his slightly brighter daytime uniform. Mirio waves beside him as they make their way down the sidewalk.

After his breakthrough at UA, Izuku and Sir Nighteye had managed to narrow down the neighborhood to a section of Kamino Ward, home to several shady bars and low-income housing. Izuku and Mirio were currently searching for the most plausible bar under the cover of routine patrol, combing the area in search of locations.

Izuku hears a rustling in a nearby alley, and turns to search for the noise, motioning for Mirio to follow. The sound turns out to be a young girl with white hair, hurrying down the alleyway.

The girl has tears streaming down her face, and her short-sleeved dress shows numerous surgical scars along her arms. She sprints down the alley towards the heroes, and Izuku crouches down to meet her.

“Hey! What’s wrong?” Mirio calls out brightly, “Don’t worry, you’re safe now. We’re heroes.”

“N no, the bad thief man will find me,” the young girl insists, “He always does!”

Moments later, mere feet from Izuku’s arms, the child’s words are proven true. A small light blinks on the bracelet on her arm, and purple mist swirls into existence. Izuku shouts and dives forwards, but he is too late. The girl vanishes into Kurogiri’s portal, and the mist winks out of existence swiftly.

The two frustrated young heroes catalogue the alley and radio their agency, writing down what they could remember about the girl. Izuku seethes, cursing his reaction time and the League in general. He didn’t recognize the girl, but she felt so familiar, reminding him of his childhood self before his change of heart. Timid and afraid, beaten down by their surroundings.

()()()

Izuku leaps over a rooftop, Hitoshi and Eraserhead at his side. It was night, and his arm blades had returned alongside his normal costume. After weeks of information gathering, the agency had finally narrowed down the location enough to do final recon, which lead Izuku to where he was now.

Mirio and Izuku’s encounter with the young girl, who Sir Nighteye had later identified as Eri, the daughter of a yakuza boss he was investigating in the past, had helped narrow the search area drastically. Children could only run so far, and there turned out to be only one nearby bar that fit the bill.

Now, Izuku was participating in one of many stakeouts, circling the area and cataloguing who was going in and out to identify key League members and finalized any information. Later that week he would help Nighteye and Nedzu compile final dossiers on identified members and analyze quirks and strategies as the mission was planned.

Ahead, Eraserhead holds up a hand sharply, motioning his interns to a stop. They carefully peer over the edge of the rooftop, eyeing up the bar half a block away. In the street, a hulking figure in a cloak looks both ways before stepping into the building. As he does, he pulls his hood back and Izuku catches a brief glimpse of Muscular’s face. He pulls his notebook off of his belt, scribbling down the information.

While there were no cameras in this section of the ward, and all deliveries were handled by portal, villains still came in and out the old-fashioned way. And villains were human and prone to the occasional error. After a few weeks of stakeout, they had gathered positive identification for many League members. A few pros had pointed out that it was odd for the League to allow such oversight, but in the end the taskforce had decided to take it at face value and proceed with only slightly more caution.

Izuku groans, settling onto the concrete roof for another long night of staring at an empty street. He signs a knock-knock joke at Hitoshi, smirking as he sees his friend silently groan on the other side of their stone-faced sensei.

Chapter Text

Izuku crouches tensely in a nondescript hallway, Kachan at his side. All Might and their mentors had vouched for them, so they had been allowed to join the assault force. Izuku was technically not supposed to actively engage in combat as an underground hero, but his on the spot analysis had been deemed useful enough to keep around, and it was acknowledged that he would inevitably end up fighting in some way.

Endeavor, accompanying their small assault force alongside Gran Torino and Edgeshot, knocks on the door of the seedy smaller bar they had found above the main bar.

“Pizza is here!” He says gruffly, visibly cringing as he plays out the gag that All Might had insisted, they use.

The doorknob clicks and begins to rotate, but Endeavor slams the door off of its hinges before it can open. Fire rushes into the opening, and the heroes capitalize on the distraction to get the jump on the villains inside.

Edgeshot zips over Endeavor’s shoulder towards Kurogiri, who was apparently wiping a glass behind the bar. He vanishes into the mist-man’s body and the purple figure freezes before slowly toppling over the bar.

“I’ve got him! Round up the others!” Edgeshot’s voice rings out across the bar, breaking the stalemate as the shock wears off.

Muscular roars in fury, red fibers enveloping his body as he charges Endeavor and tackles him through the opposite hallway wall. The two vanish into the open air in a rush of fire, presumably falling towards the evacuated street.

Gran Torino sails into the room with a puff of air, cutting down two emerging clones as he engages Twice. The thin man retreats, creating clones of his comrades out of thin air. The older hero bounces around and cuts each clone down with a swift and brutal kick to the neck.

“What the hell? I though heroes were supposed to be good! This is brutal!” The two-sided villain shouts as a figure of Shigaraki is decapitated, “I mean, this is so kind and cuddly!”

“Us old-timers do it different! More efficiently!” Replies Gran Torino as he slowly backs the villain up, corralling him out of the bar area and into a living room.

Izuku looks nervously over at Kachan, now standing with him in an eerily silent room. Facing them is a shocked and furious Shigaraki, who looks over at the twitching Kurogiri before turning his attention to them. The two students were supposed to be taking on Muscular, who the pros had decided was a suitably benign threat, since Izuku had the electricity to affect his muscles, and Kachan had proven to have enough firepower to injure him. Endeavor was supposed to fight Shigaraki at range, as the most dangerous threat. Now, the students were left with the lethal villain staring them down menacingly, and no choice but to fight. Kachan nods firmly at Izuku, his palms crackling in readiness.

“This is what the heroes leave me? A pair of Noobs?” Shigaraki laughs, “What a worthless example of throwing fodder at the boss. They can’t seriously think this will result in anything but a pair of dead kids.”

“Umbra! Dynamight! RUN!” Edgeshot shouts from inside Kurogiri.

“No.” Kachan says gravely, “Then Handjob will free the mist fucker, and the entire mission will be shot. We have to stop him.”

“He’s an agility focused fighter, and probably out speeds you Dynamight. We need to limit his mobility and target his hands.” Izuku flicks his wrists, extending his arm blades and electrifying both of them. No sense in holding back now.

“So, you aren’t complete noobs after all. Well, I suppose I’ll enjoy killing you both before I free my ride. Muscular should keep Endeavor occupied for long enough.”

Shigaraki charges towards the two with his hands out, immediately attempting to out speed the two and end the fight instantly. Izuku is already in motion, jumping to one side and pushing Kachan to start moving to the other. Shigaraki narrowly misses both of them and takes an explosion to the face for his efforts.

The students start to circle him, keeping their distance and trying to put furniture in between the lethal disintegration quirk and their vulnerable bodies. Shigaraki dissolves the furniture slowly, narrowing down their cover. Kachan fires off explosions periodically, and the smoke and dust from the two quirks begins to fill the room.

As Shigaraki mostly focusses on the explosive teen, identifying him as the bigger combat threat, Izuku stares intently at his movements and frantically runs calculations through his head. A pattern begins to immerge, with Shigaraki taking the same quick two steps backwards every time an explosion fires off. Izuku circles, waiting for the correct moment.

Kachan fires off an explosion, and Shigaraki two steps backwards. This time, Izuku is ready and the flat of his arm blade slams down on his wrist from behind. The wrist snaps with a sickening crack, and electricity courses through the villain’s body. He staggers momentarily, crying out in pain, and Kachan blasts him back against the wall with an explosion just as he reaches out to Izuku.

One arm blade crumbles off Izuku’s arm as he pants heavily, staring at the crumpled form of Shigaraki. Fire swirls around the bar, smoke mixing with dust and eddying in odd shapes as Gran Torino’s air blasts in the next room affect it.

“You fucking brats. Stop ganking me!” Shigaraki says venomously, pulling himself to his feet and wincing as he gingerly touches his broken wrist. “I’m going to end both of you, just like I will end this rotten society. Surely you can understand that, can’t you quirkless hero? The way the system and its oppression push people down and breaks them, how invisible and unseen they are? It’s twisted and sick, and I’m going to tear every bit of it down and crush it to dust!”

“The system is fucked, but that isn’t how you change it Handjob!” Kachan screams.

“Shut the fuck up kid. You’re part of the problem. I saw your sports festival matches, bullies like you are exactly why people without heroic quirks like the quirkless brat have such a high suicide rate. Or why villains keep popping up as quirk discrimination forces them to take drastic action. The whole vicious cycle is practically oozing from you!”

“He’s changed! And so can the system. I might be unseen, and there might be lots of problems, but I’m here and I’m a hero! And that proves change can happen!” Izuku shouts back.

“You’re an underground hero kid, not exactly going to cause big ripples with your presence, are you? A quirkless person will never be a real hero, especially not a top 10 hero with real influence! That’s the problem with idealistic noobs like you, you think you can change the system but you’re actually just adding to it!”

“The heroes in the shadow are just as vital, and so are the non-top heroes! Just because they don’t have media presence doesn’t mean they aren’t making a difference! That attitude is exactly what characterizes the system you hate. You sound like a hypocrite Shigaraki, and you’re going to fall like one!”

The two sides tensely glare at each other for a moment, flames crackling in the background as they all pant angrily. Shigaraki flexes his undamaged hand and snarls; then he slams it into the ground.

“BECOME DUST!” He cries out, and purple cracks begin to radiate from his hand. Wherever they touch, the floor decays and crumbles. The remaining furniture collapses before the encroaching wave of destruction, and more dust clogs the air.

Kachan grins viciously and blasts into the air, hovering above the purple tide. Izuku jumps up a moment later, grabbing the chandelier and swinging from it deftly.

“You won’t put us down that easily!” Izuku shouts, leaping form the chandelier towards Shigaraki as Kachan blasts alongside him.

The villain lifts his hand and lets the destruction cease, half the floor of the bar now a gaping chasm. His surprise at the students’ dodges leaves him a hair too slow, and a moment later he tumbles down to the floor below as Izuku slams his chest with a kick. He lands with the breath knocked out of him with Izuku and Kachan landing on either side.

Shigaraki flails out with his good hand and tries to catch the trainee heroes, decaying small patches of floor as he does so. All he receives in return is a vicious kick to his cracked ribs from Izuku, and a menacing explosion in front of his face.

“I analyzed your previous fights and incidents, as well as crime scene reports from the Overhaul debacle.” Izuku says with a grin, wiping sweat and grime from his face. “You can only use your super move once, and now you’re all out of luck. Every fight where your hands were injured in the past lead to a defeat, and you would normally lean on Kurogiri to retreat. But now your warper is out of the picture, and it seems like you’re on your last life, to borrow a phrase.”

Shigaraki shivers internally at the greenette’s menacing smirk but lashes out with his good hand anyway. Izuku deftly catches the strike, the villain slowed down by his injuries. With another vicious snap, he breaks Shigaraki’s remaining wrist and lets it fall to the floor palm up.

“Gotcha bitch.” Kachan says with a victorious grin.

“Dynamight! You can’t say stuff like that in the field!” Izuku complains, relaxing a little now that their foe was incapacitated.

A gurgle at their feet distracts the two from their impending argument, and they look down to see gray sludge bubbling out from Shigaraki’s throat. They both jump back from the unknown quirk and watch in frustration as it envelope’s the villain and he vanishes. They hear shouts from upstairs that signal to them the same has happened to the other villains. A moment later, Endeavor bursts through the door.

“Umbra, Dynamight! We have to move quickly; All Might needs backup!”

Chapter Text

All Might rocked anxiously on his heels. His job in the operation was to take out All for One, and since the recon teams had failed to pin his location down, that meant waiting in between the two locations to react as soon as the villain appeared.

His radio crackles as the teams move in. Best Jeanist leads a team of heroes to neutralize the Nomu warehouse, and Endeavor’s strike squad approaches the League hideout. His thoughts wander to his successor. The explosive teen had begged to be allowed to participate, and him and his friend were now part of Endeavor’s team.

The pair reminded him of himself and Nighteye in the past, the headstrong limelight hero paired with the analytical investigator. He was glad that his successor had found such good support, and perhaps even more glad to see such growth in young Bakugo. The teen had come a tremendous distance in terms of attitude, and Yagi was truly proud of how much his protégé had matured. For once in his decades long career, he finally felt at peace with his eventual retirement. He had been fighting evil for so long, and rarely trusted anyone in his lengthy career. However, young Bakugo had such drive and passion, and was so dedicated to his own self-improvement that Yagi felt he would become a hero to equal the number one hero himself. Even if the younger blonde was not yet an ideal hero, still crass and rough around the edges, his recent strides in taking advice meant he was sure to let himself be molded into the perfect candidate for number one.

And young Midoriya was no slouch either. His successor’s Nighteye equivalent carried himself with the typical gruffness of an underground hero during work but brought a sense of levity and chaos to his daily life that Yagi wholeheartedly appreciated. The hero world could be a bit serious and grim, and making people laugh and marvel was every bit as good as saving them with a reassuring smile on your face.

His radio crackles again, and a blood-curdling scream tears out of it. Yagi leaps into action, identifying the channel as Best Jeanist’s and sprinting towards the Kamino Warehouse. He arrives in seconds, nevertheless too late to save the number four hero from a grisly death.

The scene is bleak: All for One stands cackling in the destroyed shell of the warehouse, a swath of ruined buildings before him. The hero squad sent to raid the factory has seemingly been reduced to smears of blood on the floor, a small pile of blue carbon fiber marking Best Jeanist.

“ALL FOR ONE!” Yagi bellows furiously, dashing forwards and engaging him with a flurry of blows. All for One bats him away easily, suspiciously so. The masked and scarred villain disengages with a chuckle, and suddenly shimmers. An illusion falls from his body, revealing the villain in all his glory from decades ago, looking healthier than Yagi has ever seen him. A cold pit forms in his stomach.

“Well, Toshinori?” All for One’s voice drips with menace, “What do you think of my new look? Or should I say, my old look?”

“You demon! What have you done?”

“I found a cute little girl with a time reversal quirk. Well, technically a causality manipulation quirk, but brutes like you never do sweat the details. She was quite disorientated after her imprisonment, and gladly used it on me to restore the ‘poor old man’ to his former glory. Unfortunately, the quirk did not mesh well with my collection once stolen, so I had to return it to her. That alongside my villainous attitude made her quite upset, and the little pest has been frantically trying to escape ever since.” The centuries-old villain brushes a bit of dust off of his suit, white hair glimmering unnaturally. “Sounds like your other team will rescue her though, she is perfectly safe in a room at the bar. Unless MY successor kills yours, that is. Such an unfortunate coincidence that they got isolated together, a real shame Endeavor was so easy to outmaneuver.”

Yagi cries out a battle cry and charges. The battle between the two titans is furious, and All for One takes some significant hits. But Yagi can feel himself fading quickly, and the demon lord doesn’t seem to be flagging at all. The old injury in his side radiates excruciating pain, and All for One seems to unerringly strike it over and over.

The fight lulls for a moment, Yagi panting and clutching his side. Somewhere on the edge of the battlefield, he hears a police officer frantically radioing Endeavor. All for One chuckles softly.

“Tosh, Toshi, Toshi. You’ve fallen so far. Where is the valiant hero that struck me down with his final blow?” The demon lord pauses for a moment, then snaps his fingers. “You chose an excellent successor though. It seems he just defeated my own pick. A shame, I thought the Shimura boy would do better. Oh well, I guess I will have to strangle Bakugo Katsuki with my own hands after I Put. You. Down.”

Yagi reels from the revelation that Shigaraki was a Shimura, shaking his head and choosing to ignore it as he dashes forwards again. The niggling doubt follows him throughout the next exchange though, and when Shigaraki appears in a pile of grey sludge the resemblance was so stark that Yagi can’t help but falter. All for One capitalizes swiftly, slamming a vicious blow into Yagi’s injury and digging his fingers in. The fingers turn into claws, them dripped molten lead into the wound, then jab and dig and burn. Yagi gasps, falling to his knees, and vomiting onto the ground as All for One cackles maniacally.

Before All for One can strike the finishing blow, Endeavor arrives on the scene. The flame hero blasts from the sky wreathed in an inferno and blasts the demon lord away. Moments later, Gran Torino, Midoriya and Bakugo arrived. The two students help All Might away so he could recover, and a field medic starts to apply a healing quirk to his wound. Gran Torino dashes across the field, leveling the injured Shigaraki and Twice in a second before dashing at All for One to help stall.

The villain roars in frustration and swats Gran Torino out of the sky. A writhing tentacle snaps the elderly hero’s back, and a casual eyebeam tears through his yellow suit and the chest inside of it. Endeavor cries out in desperation, whipping tendrils of fire and putting up walls to protect the police.

All for One swipes at the flame hero with a tendril of water, and Endeavor counters with a lasso of flame that boils it to steam. A laser blasts out, and a carefully placed heat shimmer refracts it away from any vulnerable areas, letting it scorch along Endeavor’s ribcage. Air cannon is rendered useless in swirling eddies of hot air, one of which helps re-direct a helicopter mid-combat to save it.  Molten lead sloughs off Endeavor as his body’s temperature resistance is too high for it to affect him. A flaming slap shears off the demon lord’s luscious hair as it turns to snakes and lashes out at the hero, and a flame-powered punch blasts him back across the battlefield.

“YOU IMPETOUS FOOL!” All for One roars in fury, his arm bulging up with power. Yagi calls out a choked warning as he staggers weakly to his feet, but he is too late to stop the punch.

A sickening thud resonates around the ruined and burning ward as All for One shoves his oversized arm through Endeavor’s torso. The flame hero coughs weakly, missing half his chest and his right arm, then falls to the ground.

Yagi, rage revitalizing him alongside the field healing, blasts at All for One as his body glows with the energy of eight chromatic suns. The spirits of One for All radiate out from him as he slams the smug demon lord with a smash, catching him off guard as he prepares to monologue. Terrain blurs around them as Yagi chains a series of vicious punches across the ruined ward, smashing All for One through buildings over and over as he releases six years or a lifetime of righteous fury.

Yagi pants softly, his body steaming and sizzling as he stands back where they had started, All for One’s limp body at his feet. The villain looks like he had never healed at all, bruised, and battered, with no hair or nose and a caved in face. The demon lord chokes and splutters, smiling to the very end as Yagi’s buff form abandons him.

“You win, I suppose.” All for One says weakly, “Even my successor is down. How… unexpected.”

The worst villain in history lets out a weak rattle and goes still. Yagi stares down at him, tears streaming down his face as he sees the mutilated bodies of his fellow heroes out of the corner of his eyes. He slowly raises his head and shakily points at young Bakugo, standing horrified at the edge of the destroyed area beside his friendly shadow.

“You’re next.” He intones solemnly.

Chapter Text

Months later, Izuku makes his way across town to meet with a new friend. He boards a train from the station near UA, browsing the news as he rides. Anchors are reporting on the recent resolution of the now famous Todoroki case. Touya Todoroki had dropped all charges in light of his father’s heroic death, deciding the media slander that had followed the discovery of his existence and the court case was punishment enough. He had taken custody of his youngest sibling and was currently working on getting his mother released from her hospital. According to Monoma, Touya was a decent guy and Todoroki liked him well enough, so Izuku figured that was another happy ending.

A few alerts on his twitter feed notify him that Kachan had managed to go viral again. After the Kamino Ward Incident, the explosive teen had gained a cult following as people began to hail him as All Might’s successor. The blonde was living up to the hype, taking lessons from a variety of heroes and was already considered a shoo in for number one someday as they entered their second year. Apparently, some reporter had captured an adorable candid of him and Hitoshi on a date, the purple-haired insomniac scowling as the blonde planted a wet kiss against his cheek.

Izuku exits the train and walks through a sunny park to make his way to his destination, a small café. As he walks, he waves and smiles at passerby. Everyone cheerfully waves back, but no one recognizes him. Izuku has not been catapulted into the limelight like his friend, and that suits him just fine. His work with Sir Nighteye’s agency would be much more difficult if he was constantly trending as a hashtag. He did have some social media presence, but it was as a series of #Knife_Cryptid posts instead of anything that could be linked back to him in a recognizable fashion.

He makes his way into the café, known for its odd blends and being one of the only places in the city to import Yaoyorozu’s favorite Gold Tips Imperial tea. His friend is waiting for him at a table already, her blonde bun’s swaying slightly as she bounced up and down and wave.

“Hey Himi-chan!” Izuku says brightly as he takes his seat. “How’s it going?”

“Great! Freedom is treating me so well!” Himiko Toga says happily, newly released after almost a year of rehab and checkups. “Principal Nedzu said he might let me enroll in UA’s gen ed course if my good behavior keeps up, and then I can see everyone every day!”

“Awesome! I can’t wait to see you more.” Izuku says, ordering himself a fancy tea, eyeing Himiko’s coppery blend with distrust. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Well, you know how all those fan accounts keep thirsting after me ever since someone found footage of Katsuki and I at the mall, and dug up my redemption story?”

“Yeah, I have an alert for your hashtag just like I have for Kachan!”

“Well, partially to put a stop to them and partially because I think we’d be super cute, do you want to start dating?!” Himiko says, a little bit of nervousness filtering into her voice as she fidgets with a small, dulled knife.

“Uh, I mean I really like you; I do.” Izuku says, flustered as always when confronted with genuine emotion. “You know I’m asexual though, right?”

“Of course, silly, I don’t care. You aren’t aromantic after all.” Himiko giggles and covers his hand with her smaller one. “Besides, dating isn’t a sex thing! It’s a knife thing!”

Izuku smiles, placing his other hand over hers with a grin.

Somewhere in Musutafu, Katsuki Bakugo, future number one hero and living explosion, shivers in existential fear.

FIN