Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya stared up at the vast, imposing door to Class 1-B.
The UA uniform felt strange on his body. Like he wasn’t the right shape to fit into it, not yet. But that was why he was here; to learn how to fill it out, to become a Hero. He might have made it through the entrance exams, he might have learned how to fight for what he believed in, but he was still Quirkless.
He was still Deku, somewhere deep in his heart.
One day, he hoped to move past that phase of his life. And this was the path that would help him do it.
He scrunched up his face and reached for the doorknob, sending out a silent prayer that he wouldn’t be in the same class as Kacchan.
He opened the door.
The good news was that Kacchan wasn’t in his class. Most of the desks were already full and Izuku’s childhood friend was exhaustively punctual, so the odds of him just not having arrived yet were incredibly low.
The bad news was that even though most of the room was full, it was dead silent. Nobody was saying a single word. Nobody was even breathing loudly.
The yet-to-be-sorted news was that there was a tall, mysterious man standing at the front of the room, staring at him. He wore a simple suit and a black skull half-mask that covered the upper half of his face. His bright white hair ensured that the only spots of color on the man were the bright red pupils shining from the otherwise impenetrable darkness of the mask’s eyeholes.
“Ah. Midoriya. Have a seat, please,” he said in a low, silky voice.
A glance at the seating chart told Izuku that his seat was front and center. So he sat down. Directly in front of the mysterious man who was maybe their teacher?
A few more students came in after him, and each was quietly welcomed by name and invited to sit down. The skull-masked man seemed to enjoy passing the intervening moments by staring directly at Izuku and smirking every time eye contact was broken.
After the eighth such event, the bell rang.
The man clapped his hands together. “Alright kids, welcome to Class 1B. My name is All for One, and I’m going to be your teacher this year. In the back of the room glaring daggers at me is my assistant teacher Eraserhead, everyone give him a warm welcome please.”
Izuku hesitantly twisted around to look at a homeless-looking man in a black jumpsuit who was indeed fixing a death glare on All for One. Izuku waved shyly. Eraserhead sighed.
All for One continued. “Now, there’s a lot going on this year, so I’m going to make this quick. All of you are only here because All Might decided you were less important than someone else.”
He smirked widely at the low muttering his words had provoked, then continued. “The kids in 1A have a future, and you all are human sacrifices meant to distract me while your Symbol of Peace builds an army to defeat me. The only way for any of you to salvage the next three years of your lives is to kill me before he finishes raising his little supersoldiers. Any questions?”
“Wait- All Might! Please!” Izuku reached out to the Hero crouched on the roof’s edge.
“No time,” said All Might shortly as he prepared to leap again.
“Can- can someone Quirkless still be a Hero?” Izuku shouted before his idol could leave.
All Might froze for a moment. “Kid…”
“I know… I know I can’t be as good as everyone else… but if I can just save one person, I’ll be happy. I just… I want to help someone. I… I want to mean something, you know? So, um…” Izuku trailed off as steam began rolling off All Might’s form.
“Kid,” came a different voice that immediately cut off with a hacking cough. Or rather, the same voice, but… hoarser? Less smooth? The steam cleared, and standing where All Might should have been was a tall, thin, sickly-looking man with blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
Izuku blinked.
“Ah, well,” said the man with a vague air of defeat. “Look, you’ve seen the real me, but please don’t post about this on the internet or anything. You kids and your SNS, I swear…”
Izuku nodded slowly, eyes wide.
“So, you’re Quirkless and you wanna be a Hero, right?” asked the man. “It’s a dangerous job, you know.”
“I know,” said Izuku quietly. “21.3% of licensed Pro Heroes die or are permanently incapacitated in their first year of activity. Less than 8% make it long enough to retire peacefully. I know the statistics, I know what they mean, and I don’t care.”
All Might winced. “Look, kid.” He pulled up his shirt, revealing a massive, sprawling scar that dominated his torso. “Five years ago, a villain gave me this scar. My respiratory system was almost completely destroyed, and my stomach had to be removed. Surviving those surgeries turned me into what you’re looking at right now.” He held his arms out to give Izuku a clear view of his thin, almost skeletal body. “Is this the future you want? Is this the person you want to become?”
“But…” protested Izuku. “But you did so much good. You saved so many people. You’re still saving people…”
“Yeah,” said All Might with a faint smile. “Yeah, I am. But that’s not what I’m trying to say. Kid, I have probably the strongest Quirk in the world, and this is what happened to me. Believe me when I say I don’t want to see what would happen to you.”
Izuku looked down at his hands. His weak, Quirkless, middle schooler hands. He looked at the hands of the man in front of him. Those long, bony fingers, that thin wrinkled skin…
There was nothing special about those hands that held up the world. That pillar of society, that god among men… All Might, the Hero, the ideal, wasn’t real, but there was a real person behind him. And that thought felt… comforting, to Izuku.
If someone like the frail man before him could put up All Might as a front… then maybe there was hope for Izuku yet.
Izuku smiled softly. “Thank you,” he bowed deeply to All Might, then slipped through the door to the stairway down.
All Might stared after him for a moment, then sighed. “Damn. I don’t think I got through to him.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a soda bottle, lid screwed on tight and packed full of slime. “May as well get you to the police before you try anything else.”
The slime villain, still unconscious, didn’t respond.
As it turned out, there were questions. A lot of them. Izuku had some as well, but was trying to get his thoughts in order before asking them.
Eraserhead cleared his throat from the back of the room, managing to cut through the wall of noise. “For clarification,” he began acidly, “All for One is the world’s most wanted supervillain. His Quirk is the ability to steal, use, and redistribute Quirks, and he is the primary party responsible for the Second Dark Age. I am aware this is little consolation, but the Hero Commission will waive your licensing exams if you do manage to defeat him during your time here.”
There was a low murmur from the class at that last detail, and Izuku’s eyes sharpened.
“Ooh! Ooh!” shouted a pink haired girl a few seats over- the seating chart said she was Mina Ashido? “Can you take my Quirk?”
Eraserhead groaned. All for One smirked and, somehow suddenly in front of her, poked her forehead.
No visible changes occurred.
Ashido frowned. “Did it not work?”
All for One leaned down and dragged his finger across the surface of the desk. It made a sizzling sound as acid ate through the wood.
“Eeeeehhhhh?” said Ashido in dismay. “I thought it was gonna make you pink!”
All for One gave her a withering look. “Do you not understand the difference between the Quirk Factor and secondary adaptations?”
Ashido blinked. “What?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said All for One dismissively, using acid to write the word ‘ dumbass ’ into her desk before walking back to the front of the class.
“Hey! That’s mean! Also, aren’t you going to give my Quirk back?”
All for One smirked cruelly. “No.”
Eraserhead’s eyes flared red as he glared at their teacher. “That goes against the terms of the agreement.”
All for One sighed. “Fine, fine, she can have it back after class.” He turned back to the class. “Anyone else want me to take their Quirks? I assure you I can use them better than any of you so please, be my guest.”
Izuku shakily raised a hand.
All for One eyed him with boredom. “Midoriya, you’re Quirkless. Both of us know this. And I’m not giving you one either, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“I, um, had a question,” said Izuku nervously.
“Too bad,” said All for One. “Does anyone else have a question? Someone who deserves rights, maybe?”
A girl with long black hair up in a ponytail- Momo Yaoyorozu- raised her hand. “Why didn’t you let Midoriya ask his question? And what makes you say he doesn’t deserve rights?”
All for One looked vaguely confused. “He’s Quirkless. I’m sorry, did you miss that part?”
“I’m starting to feel less conflicted about the whole killing thing,” Yaoyorozu said quietly.
“That’s the spirit,” said their teacher cheerfully.
Kaminari Denki raised his hand. “Why do you hate Quirkless people?”
“Quirkless people killed my grandma,” said All for One sardonically. “You’ll learn more about that one in History.”
Monoma Neito waved a hand in the air. “I’ve got one. Why’re we supposed to kill you, why can’t All Might do it? Isn’t he here at UA too?”
All for One smirked with the air of someone who had been waiting to be asked that exact question. “Oh, he tried. He punched my face off so I donutted him. I got better, he didn’t.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku caught a vine-haired girl- Shiozaki Ibara- confusedly murmuring the word ‘donutted’ to herself.
“I put my fist straight through his chest,” elaborated their teacher. “There was a hole going all the way through him, I turned him into a donut, ergo I donutted him. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
All for One let that sit for a moment, then clapped his hands again. “That concludes today’s Q&A session, since that was the only question I actually wanted to answer anyways. Let’s go to one of the training fields so I can beat you losers up in the name of education; it’ll be fun!”
Nezu Nedzu, Principal and Rat Overlord of UA, froze as a thick purple gash in space appeared in the center of his office. Dark mist swirled around it ominously.
Calculations ran lightning-quick through the principal’s brain, and by the time a tall, suited man in a sleek black skull mask stepped through the jagged portal, Nezu’s poise had been recovered and he was calmly sipping his tea.
“All for One. To what do I owe the pleasure? It’s not every day a dead man drops by my office.”
All for One straightened his collar in feigned nonchalance. “Rumors of my demise were… greatly exaggerated.”
“So I see,” said Nezu flatly. “I would like to reiterate my query, unless you would prefer to turn this conversation into something altogether more unpleasant.”
“You hired All Might,” said All for One.
“That I did,” replied Nezu. “He is a Hero, and this is a Hero school.”
“Whatever hero class All Might takes over, I want the other one.” said All for One firmly.
“What.” said Nezu.
“Look,” explained All for One, “he’s gonna be a dogshit teacher and both of us know it. In five years every single student he gets his weirdly huge hands on is gonna waltz right in front of me practically begging me to disembowel them, and I will, and it’s going to be so easy it won’t even be fun. Neither of us want that. Thus, a compromise is needed.”
Nezu blinked, then slowly poured a second cup of tea. “Compromise requires concessions from both sides,” he said carefully.
“Here’s the deal,” said All for One. “All Might gets one class, I get the other one. I am perfectly willing to not attack him, the faculty, or any of the students so long as nobody gets to attack me. I just want to rub it in his face when mine is better than his.”
“The students are allowed to attack you, and you cannot kill, permanently injure, or traumatize them through action or inaction,” began Nezu.
All for One nodded along. “You have Recovery Girl, right? I’m game for that.”
Nezu tilted his head. “You are not allowed to take the students’ or faculty’s Quirks- any of them.”
“Only if All Might isn’t allowed to use his Quirk either,” countered All for One. “Including the thing where he puffs up like some kind of demented balloon animal to make it look like I didn’t donut him.”
“Hm. You may only take the Quirks of the students directly under your supervision, for a reason, and you must return them before the end of school hours each day.”
“Fine, but nobody gets to warn All Might about my presence. How do I get to pick my class, anyways?”
Nezu hummed thoughtfully and sipped his tea. “Typically we just have a meeting and talk about it, but I doubt that will work in this case. Alternating single picks, with the recommended students in a separate pool from the general exams? All Might picks first.”
All for One clicked his tongue. “Fine. How much freedom do I get over my class?”
Nezu grinned wickedly behind his teacup. “That depends on how much of your own you are willing to sacrifice for it.”
The edges of All for One’s mouth quirked up to match. “You would have made a much better nemesis than All Might, you damn rat. I’m almost upset I missed the opportunity.”
“Alright,” said All for One as the class filed into one of the training gyms. “I’m gonna stand right there, and you all try to attack me. Except for Midoriya, he has to stand in the corner.”
Yaoyorozu raised her hand. “Why does Midoriya have to sit out?”
All for One rolled his eyes. “Again, he’s Quirkless. What’s he gonna do, bleed on me? No, he has to stand over there, and write an essay about how much you guys suck when we’re done.”
Izuku grit his teeth but walked over to the corner of the gym. He had somehow expected UA would be different, would be better … ah well. He could deal with it. He’d spent his whole life practicing, after all.
He narrowed his eyes and pulled out a fresh notebook; if his participation grade was going to be an essay, he was gonna write the best goddamn essay that shithead ever had the fortune to read.
“So, uh,” said Kaminari, “when do we start?”
“Now,” said All for One as he casually leaned down and grazed the concrete floor with his fingertips. The ground whirled apart and reformed into a forest of thick jutting spikes that imprisoned each of Izuku’s classmates and pinned them in place.
“Hey,” shouted a struggling Ashido, “You didn’t give my Quirk back!”
“No,” said All for One smugly, “I did not.”
A gunshot rang out. All for One turned to make direct eye contact with Yaoyorozu as he caught a tranquilizer dart between two fingers. “Yaoyorozu, sweetheart, if you’re going to shoot me you’re going to need a much bigger gun. And real bullets, none of this pansy nonlethal garbage.” He flicked the dart back at her and turned away as it knocked her out.
Jirou plunged her earjacks into the concrete surrounding her and let loose a sonic blast, shattering the rocks that pinned the class down.
Yanagi waved her arms, and the shattered spikes rose into the air and shot directly at their teacher- with a yelp from Shiozaki as chunks of stone that she was preparing to throw got pulled out of her vine-hair. “Sorry~!” called out Yanagi.
All for One looked almost bored as he batted each spike out of the air with a single hand. He caught the last one and sent it back, smirking as his students dove out of the way. “If you’re the best Hero candidates Japan has to offer then that might explain the utterly pathetic showing over the past 200 years-”
A shadow flicked up from his suit to his mask, and their teacher cut himself off as he threw his head back. A blindingly bright beam of energy shot out from his eyes, the light it gave off forcing Kuroiro out of All for One’s mask. An almost careless backhand launched the boy across the room.
All for One chuckled. “Alright, that was a good one. Shame it won’t work twice; if you’d brought a knife you might’ve actually been able to take out an eye. For the ten seconds it’d take me to regrow it.”
Uraraka jumped out from a pile of rubble behind him and ran in, hands outstretched. All for One turned his head slightly, and a pair of silvery arms burst from his back and pinned her wrists to the ground. He clicked his tongue. “And back to standard-issue idiocy. You didn’t even try to sound out my awareness before going for the sneak attack, shame on you.”
Uraraka glared up at him even as she tried to pry her arms from the Quirk’s grasp. “What even are you?”
All for One shook his head sadly and crouched down in front of her. “Oh, didn’t you listen? I’m the man who started the Second Dark Age, the king of things that go bump in the night, the secret so big your government killed its own Heroes to keep it.”
The remaining classmates rushed at the villain while his back was to them. Their teacher grinned wide- too wide- and a single black-and-red tendril speared through the chest of Denki Kaminari.
He loomed over Uraraka as the resulting blast of electricity fried the rest of the class.
“I’m All for One; the Original Goddamn Supervillain.”
Izuku’s brow furrowed as he ran through the cityscape amidst the crowd of his fellow Hero Course applicants. They were thinning out the further they got in; spreading out through the wide testing field. Splitting off from the crowd himself, he found himself face-to-face with a one-point robot.
“Alright then,” he muttered to himself, “let’s see what you’ve got.”`
He dodged its wild swing- slow, telegraphed, not particularly powerful but enough to hurt if he took it straight on- and circled around it, looking for a weakpoint-
A barrage of energy arrows shot down from a nearby rooftop, tearing the robot to shreds before Izuku could do anything. He glanced up at the blonde-haired girl who had done it, but her attention was already on destroying another robot. Izuku grit his teeth and ran to find another enemy himself- he didn’t have time to do anything else.
Ah, there! A small group, decent spread of 1, 2, and 3 point robots. As Izuku approached, an inky-black form rampaged through them, sending scraps of steel and electronics into the air. The bottom half of a 3-pointer landed on the asphalt in front of him, sparking weakly as the chassis crumpled around the treads.
Damn it! Izuku ducked down an alleyway, coming out the other end just in time to watch a 2-pointer deck some kid in the face. The robot’s fist crumpled around the boy’s head, and with a metallic fist he gave as good as he got. The enemy’s head was knocked clean off, tumbling down the sidewalk. The boy looked back at Izuku and flashed a thumbs up before running off himself.
Izuku’s shoes thumped dully against the street as he searched for a robot that wasn’t already getting killed by something. He was out of luck; the sounds of destruction echoed through the artificial cityscape as his competitors gleefully used their Quirks to their fullest extent.
This wasn’t going to work. He needed something else, he needed an advantage, he needed-
A nearby building crumbled as a truly massive set of treads bulldozed through it. Izuku’s eyes followed the attached chassis up, and his heart seemed to compress in his chest as he realized that that was just the bottom third of the Zero Point Robot.
That was insane, the raw collateral damage of it even moving was enough to kill someone a dozen times over! Was that military tech ? Who the hell approved that?
The rubble from the building slid down, releasing a minor avalanche that swept up a few robots in its wake.
Izuku’s eyes glimmered; now there was an idea. What was that saying, again? Take refuge in audacity?
He grabbed the nearest piece of debris and ran towards the Zero Pointer. Once he judged he was close enough, he chucked it with all of his strength.
The bent stop sign dinged ineffectually against the Zero Pointer’s armored chassis. It did its job, though; the massive, many-eyed head turned to face him.
“Hey buddy,” shouted Izuku, feeling ridiculous talking to a gigantic murder robot, “Why don’t we take this outside?” He threw another piece of debris for good measure.
The Zero Pointer’s massive arms reached out to steady itself on the nearby buildings as it turned its base to face Izuku.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Izuku taunted desperately as he filled his arms with as many rocks as he could carry, “Come and get me! I’m not going home until all four of my limbs are broken!”
Once he judged the Zero Pointer was fully targeted on him, he simply ran like hell and desperately tried to ignore the deafening sounds of collapsing buildings coming from behind him. As he passed by robots, he threw rocks into their treads, jamming them up for long enough that they got swept up into the destruction and pulverized by the Zero Pointer.
He had no idea if he was getting the points for those, but damn if it wasn’t therapeutic to watch.
The entirety of Class 1B, minus their homeroom teacher, sat silently in the living room of the dorm building. Each of them held a small packet of papers; the dossier on All for One.
For a man who claimed to have started the Second Dark Age, it held a distressingly small amount of information; little more than a handful of rumors, a heavily censored statement from All Might, a body count, and a half-page of confirmed Quirks the man held.
“So let me get this straight,” Kuroiro finally said. “This guy is literally All Might’s nemesis, and we’re supposed to kill him?”
Eraserhead hesitated. “If I were to be entirely honest, I would much rather you all play it safe and do your best to simply survive the next three years…”
Setsuna raised an eyebrow. “I’m sensing a ‘but’ somewhere in there.”
“ But that would defeat the purpose,” cut in Monoma bitterly. “We aren’t expected to kill him. We aren’t even really expected to survive. It’s like he said; we’re there to distract him until All Might gets the other class ready to do the job.”
The pained look on Eraserhead’s face as good as confirmed it.
“Was it true?” asked Uraraka quietly. “‘ All of you are only here because All Might decided you were less important than someone else ,’” she quoted. “Is that what happened?”
Eraserhead sighed. “It’s a gross misrepresentation of what happened, but technically yes.”
“And I’m guessing that we don’t want to see what happens if we try to pull out of the course,” Monoma said. “‘ The secret so big your government killed its own heroes to keep it …’ what’re a few dropouts compared to real heroes, right?”
Eraserhead bowed his head. “I am so, so sorry.”
“ Fuck ,” cursed Uraraka.
“Well,” Setsuna said as she rose to her feet, “this has been a truly horrifying conversation. If we’re done with the sickening revelations I’m gonna go to bed and pretend none of this is happening.”
Aoyama nodded his head. “A truly magnifique idea , mademoiselle . I will do the same.”
This seemed to open the floodgates, as student after student made their excuses and headed upstairs. Izuku frowned to himself and began to slip away himself, but-
“Oh! Midoriya,” Yaoyorozu called out to him. “Hang on a second.”
Izuku looked back at her, silent.
“We,” she said, indicating herself and a small group of others who had stayed behind, “wanted to give you a hand with that essay.”
Izuku took a moment to crush the spark of hope in his chest before tilting his head. “What for?”
Yaoyorozu stared at him for a moment, just as confused as he was pretending to be. “The way All for One was treating you was unfair,” she said slowly. “So in protest of his discrimination, we’re going to help you.”
Ah, yes. A protest against their insane supervillain teacher. A cause he could certainly get behind. It also made much more sense than someone genuinely wanting to help and support him. Truly, a laughable idea.
“Besides,” offered Jirou, “You’re one of us. And if we’re gonna get through these next few years, we’re going to have to stick together.”
“Hell yeah,” Kaminari chimed in. “I dunno how much help I’m gonna be- I’m kinda dumb- but I will 100% have memes ready for when you guys get bored. It’s the least I can do.”
Rather than address the genuine sentiments held there, Izuku pulled out his notebook and placed it on the table. “These are the notes I took of the fight.”
Uraraka pulled it towards herself and flipped it open. “Starting at what page?”
Izuku blinked. “The first one?”
Uraraka stared at him. “The notebook is full, Midoriya.”
Izuku stared back at her. “Yes…?”
Yaoyorozu snatched the notebook and began flipping through the pages at incredible speed. When she reached the end, she closed her eyes and took a deep… sniff?
“What the fuck,” murmured Kaminari.
A blissful smile appeared on Yaoyorozu’s face. “It’s… fresh ,” she said, almost reverently.
“What the fuck ,” agreed Jirou.
“How is it organized?” asked Yaoyorozu, eyes still closed.
“The first chapter is a play-by-play of the fight, the rest is an extended analysis of each participant, sorted by contributions, with the movesets cross-referenced? It’s really not that special, I just-”
“I would have killed a man for a lab partner who put half as much thought into documentation,” said Yaoyorozu with a brilliant smile. She opened her eyes, and they positively gleamed with joy. “I wouldn’t have even regretted it afterwards.”
“ What the fuck ,” came Aizawa’s muffled voice from the kitchen.
“Well, this has been great, but I’m gonna go work on this alone in my room-” Izuku made to stand up, only to find that Yaoyorozu’s hand had clamped onto his arm.
He looked at her; this was a mistake. She looked at him like a sinner who had just been offered salvation, clutching onto him with an almost fanatical fervor.
“Midoriya. You are my best friend now.”
He glanced at Uraraka. She was nice, she would help pry the insane woman off his arm, right? Uraraka smiled and shook her head.
He glanced at Jirou. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. No help would come from that quarter, either.
With a sinking feeling, he glanced at Kaminari. Kaminari quickly relayed, through pantomime and hand-and-arm signals, that he was at the moment completely terrified of Yaoyorozu and didn’t really think he was in a position to help a brother out, which he totally would do otherwise, he assured him.
He looked back at Yaoyorozu. She still held his arm in a deathgrip, and the look on her face told him she would indeed die before letting go. “You are my best friend now,” she repeated with a heavy note of desperation in her voice.
Izuku, on the verge of breaking, quickly ran some calculations. After figuring that indeed, it couldn’t possibly go as badly as his best-friendship with Kacchan had, he let out a little sigh.
“Okay,” he said.
Uraraka and Kaminari immediately broke into cheers. “Best Friends! Best Friends! Best Friends!” they chanted.
Bright red, Izuku glanced at Jirou, the last bastion of reason in the impromptu study group.
She gave a sardonic grin and pumped a single arm in the air. “Best Friends,” she said slowly, sealing the coffin of his humiliation.