Chapter Text
The sharp jolt of pain through Aizawa Shota’s scalp snapped him back into wakefulness. He tried to open his eyes…only to find that something had been bound tightly over them…extremely tightly, as though the person who’d bound them hadn’t given a damn if Shota’s eyeballs were crushed like grapes in the process.
He awoke to throbbing and stabbing pains across his entire body. His arms were bound tightly behind his back, heedless of the fact that the right one had been broken. His legs dangled behind him, knees thoroughly smashed. His fractured ribs sent stabbing sensations of pain through his chest with each bump and jostle of his body…of which there were many, since his captor was not concerned about his comfort as he dragged the UA teacher and Underground hero across the floor of…wherever this place was…by his hair.
To make matters worse, the floor wasn’t smooth and even. Instead it was broken by wires and tubes of some kind, making the process of dragging Shota across them all the more painful.
“It sounds like you’re awake…Sensei.”
That last word, spoken with so much contempt…as though the speaker was spitting it out of their mouth like he’d bitten into something…only to find it utterly rotten and repulsive on his tongue…made Shota shudder…and remember.
That’s right…Midoriya…
It was absurd how it had started, because it was such a small…normal thing for Shota. Another first day of classes at UA High School, another expulsion of some student who’d somehow managed to buck the systems in place via the entrance exam and luck into a spot they didn’t deserve, despite having no potential. In this case, that student had been the green-haired, Quirkless brat, who’d managed to somehow squeak through the exam with a small arsenal of homemade support gear.
Okay…he actually got the top score. But that didn’t mean anything.
Naturally, since Shota always opened with his Quirk Apprehension Test, it was easy to rank Midoriya in last, since no matter how well Midoriya performed on any of the tests, he didn’t have a Quirk to assess. Thanks to that, it was perfectly easy to expel him.
Shota was quick to make his case to Nezu, who reluctantly overrode the protests of Power Loader, Maijima wanting to claim Midoriya for his own course, given the incredible variety of gear Midoriya had fielded at the exam. However, that was denied for two major reasons. Firstly, Midoriya’s gear emulated Quirks, and his designs would be of no use to anyone with a Quirk of their own, so there was no logical reason to keep him. The other was that Midoriya would likely make a play to reenter the Hero Course via the Sports Festival. And while it was unlikely that he’d stand a chance, competing against Quirked students instead of robots, they couldn’t allow the potential risk to their reputation that would come with a Quirkless student outperforming students from the Hero Course.
So Midoriya had been given the boot, and that was the last Shota had bothered to think about him. The kid was a liability, and would have only gotten himself killed in the field. Whatever happened to him after Shota saved his life wasn’t his problem. Shota vaguely remembered something about the boy’s mother reporting him missing, as well as suing UA for discrimination. But with the lawyers he had at his disposal, Nezu could keep that case from making any headway.
Sure, Maijima hadn’t been happy, and had resigned from UA in protest. That had been a problem, because one of his students then got herself expelled by his replacement for causing a series of explosions that leveled a portion of the Support Course facilities. It was annoying…but ultimately for the best. They were better off without a wild card like Hatsume Mei.
And so the dead weight was gone, and life had continued as normal. Sure, there had been the attack at USJ, where it had been a minor miracle that none of the students had died. Then Bakugo had drawn all kinds of negative publicity with the way he acted at the Sports Festival, which Shota couldn’t care less about. But then Ida had gone to Hosu and gotten himself killed by the Hero Killer.
Shota had been in hot water for that one. After all, Ida had handed in an internship request form, with a single entry filled out, his sole choice being a hero that operated in the same area where his brother had been maimed by the Hero Killer. “The intent was obvious,” they said, and Shota did kick himself, because he’d approved it without barely thinking about it, because he was due for a long patrol that evening and wanted to squeeze in as much extra sleep as he could get in preparation for it. Besides, Ida was such a stickler for the rules that the notion that he’d go off the reservation like that seemed absurd.
Besides, it was Ida’s fault in the end. The fool had illogically assumed that he, a first-year student, was a match for a serial killer with a list of dead and disabled heroes in the double-digits, including Ida’s older, more-experienced brother. It was the height of irrationality, and Shota wasn’t responsible when students engaged in such self-destructive stupidity.
It wasn’t as though preventing deaths like that had been the entire reason he’d started teaching to begin with.
But that was only the start of the problems. In the midst of all of that were the deaths and beatings.
It wasn’t just the Hero Killer anymore. Suddenly, heroes were dying at the hands of low-level thugs they should have been able to beat with both arms tied behind their backs. And this wasn’t just low-rankers or unranked newbies either. Some of these were experienced pros, including some in the Top Hundred. They were dying at the hands of the kind of low-rank villains that Shota cleaned up by the dozen over the course of a busy week. It was incomprehensible how it could be happening.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, there had been a survivor, who’d reported the most unsettling thing…that her Quirk had suddenly stopped working…which was all the opening the villains needed to beat her nearly to death. It was nothing short of a miracle that she hadn’t died en-route to the hospital, and her injuries would ensure that her career had come to a permanent end.
And then Shota was in some more hot water, because the effects that hero had described had been just like his Erasure. There was an investigation, with some suggesting that he might actually be in league with the villains. Fortunately, UA verified his alibi. It didn’t change the fact that several heroes now looked askance at him, while there were fewer who were willing to work with him.
The other, and more troubling, idea was that there was someone else out there with the same, or at least a similar, Quirk, but who was working with the villains instead of the heroes. Quirk registries were combed over, but no leads came up.
And then, in the days leading up to the semester finals, Nezu had called an emergency meeting for a rather troubling reason. He had been reviewing the applications for the next year…and noticed a disturbing trend. A number of applications had been retracted, due to the students who’d submitted them becoming ineligible, due to serious injury, injuries that sometimes prevented them from being able to use their Quirks. It wasn’t just UA. Other hero schools had reported similar issues. This spate of school violence had prompted an investigation. The media was in a tizzy about it, because the future heroes of Japan were apparently being targeted before they could even get into a hero school. If this kept up, then there could be serious long-term consequences.
However, the resulting investigation turned into a gnarled mess…because it soon became apparent that these cases weren’t so cut and dried after all. When they looked into the relationships of the affected students, to see if anyone had a reason to target them, they quickly found the problem that each victim came with a small army of potential suspects.
The victims had been bullies. Marked out as future prospects, the teachers and administrators of their schools had gone to great lengths to ensure that their records weren’t marred, which might impact their chances of getting into their schools of choice. Said students had taken full advantage of that, abusing their classmates, particularly those with weak Quirks, and especially anyone unfortunate enough to be Quirkless. These “prospective heroes” were often guilty of outright villainy, but had their actions brushed under the rug to preserve their reputations.
However, the troubling aspect was that their stories were disturbingly familiar. They related the same occurrences. Some of them were pursuing or engaging with a favored target…only for their Quirk to suddenly cease to function…at which point, they were often jumped from outside their field of vision, someone taking them down…and then repaying the abuse they’d doled out tenfold. Others were simply ambushed in out-of-the-way locations or jumped from behind, being viciously and brutally beaten, all while their Quirks refused to respond.
The obvious suspects were the bullies’ victims, who were turning the tables on their abusers. However, there was a disturbing lack of evidence. The victims never seemed to be able to see their attacker coming, and in the cases of multiple assailants, they always seemed to fail to get a view of any defining features of their attackers. It was impossible to tell if the ones the bullies were originally attacking were collaborating. It was as if someone was coaching these kids on how to hide the evidence of their crimes.
It was in the midst of all this absurdity that Shota and Sekijiro had taken their students to their summer boot camp after the semester finals…and that was when everything had gone straight to Hell.
The villains had attacked, setting fire to the forest and spreading a cloud of poison gas. The students had been forced to fight for their lives, and Shota had rushed into the forest to do his part…and that was when Shota had met him again.
Midoriya had been there, and intercepted Shota directly. It had been a fierce…and one-sided…fight. Midoriya’s Support Gear emulated a variety of Quirks. He had a set of gauntlets that could emulate Bakugo’s explosions, as well as greaves that imitated Ida’s Engine Quirk. There had been remotely guided flechettes that zipped through the hair like razor-edged hornets, reminding Shota of the way Hawks’ feathers moved. He was even wielding an upgraded version of Shota’s own Capture Cloth.
It hadn’t helped that Shota had completely discounted the Quirkless boy as an opponent, not thinking that he could be any real threat.
It didn’t take long for Shota to find himself outclassed, completely at Midoriya’s mercy. Erasure was useless against someone who didn’t have a Quirk to erase. With all the experience and training he had, Shota should have had the edge. But Midoriya had his number from the very beginning, seemingly able to anticipate Shota’s every movement. And in the end, Midoriya had stood over Shota’s broken and bleeding body, Shota’s final memory, before everything faded to black, being Midoriya yanking on his hair to drag him along the forest floor.
And so it was that Shota had been jarred back awake by the pain of being dragged into wherever he was now. While he had been unconscious, his eyes had been tightly bound, ensuring that he wouldn’t be able to see what was going on, or use his Quirk on anyone.
With a careless motion, Midoriya pulled sharply on Shota’s hair, using the movement to essentially toss Shota ahead of him. Shota coughed and yelped with pain as he landed, rolling across wires, tubes, and pipes, before coming to a stop with some of them jabbing painfully into his body. Whatever place this was, it was a compliance nightmare for sure.
“We’re back, Sensei,” said Izuku, clearly not speaking to Shota, if the intonation of his voice was any indicator.
“Welcome,” rumbled a low, deep voice, the intensity behind it making the air seem to hum. “You have done well…Midoriya Izuku.”
“Thanks, Sensei,” said Izuku, his tone polite. “As promised, I’ve retrieved the hero, Ragdoll.”
Shota heard a muffled female voice and grunted. Ragdoll! He wasn’t the only one abducted then. There was a sound of something being softly settled on the floor, and Shota got the impression that Ragdoll was being treated with a great deal more care and consideration than he was.
Strangely, she had been gagged…while Shota hadn’t.
“And Tomura has his prospective new recruit,” added the new voice, with a morbid chuckle.
“Well…recruiting Bakugo’s going to be a non-starter,” Izuku replied. “I just hope Shigaraki-san at least follows my advice.”
Bakugo! Shota tensed. Shit!
That meant that the League had at least one of his students. How many more had they taken? How many had been killed in the fighting?
Still… “You’re working with the League, Midoriya?” he asked, not bothering to keep the contempt from his voice. “I never thought you’d sink so low.”
A chuckle answered his jibe. “Obviously not, Eraserhead,” Izuku replied. “Granted, at least ninety-percent of that is that you probably didn’t think about me at all, after you kicked me out. And as for sinking low…I wonder whose fault that is. It’s not like I was booted out of the premier hero institution in the eastern hemisphere with a black mark marring my record, making it utterly impossible for me to have any hope of getting a decent job, much less getting into another school. If I hadn’t turned to villainy, I probably would have died out in the streets.
“Not that you’d care about that. You said you were saving my life, when you kicked me out. I guess killing students yourself is one way to keep them from dying in the field.”
Shota clenched his jaw furiously. That wasn’t his fault. None of this was his fault. It was Midoriya’s fault that he failed to make anything of himself and ended up turning to villainy. And now, here he was, apparently getting a little petty revenge.
Bakugo was the more important issue. The League apparently thought they could recruit him. Shota knew the public would probably buy into that, given the way Bakugo had presented himself at the Sports Festival. They just didn’t appreciate his drive, the way he pushed himself harder than anyone, chasing the spot of the next Number One Hero. Sure, the rest of Shota’s class regarded Bakugo as a menace, save for Kirishima. But that wasn’t a problem. If anything, those brats needed to be toughened up. Bakugo was doing them a favor.
“Oh…right…I guess you’re worried about Bakugo,” said Izuku, somehow picking up on Shota’s line of thought. “I wouldn’t bother. We both know that he’d never join the League…if only because Bakugo equates being a villain with being a loser, and that’s the last thing he’d ever want to be.
“It doesn’t really matter that he actually is a villain, and if heroes like you actually did your homework on him, the only place he’d belong is in prison, with a C-Rank label at the very least for all the shit he’s pulled. But that probably won’t be an issue much longer.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Shota, trying to raise his head, only to cough in pain as the movement jolted all the breaks in his skeleton. “What do you mean by that?!”
He could hear Izuku’s grin. “I told Shigaraki-san that, while it would be a major accomplishment to sway one of UA’s Hero Course students to villainy, it’s incredibly unlikely. Buuuuut…leaving a decayed corpse for the heroes to find would be a pretty solid blow too.”
Shota grunted furiously.
“Wow…you really like Bakugo,” Izuku noted. “Let me guess, he’s your favorite student…because he has so much potential, right…? It doesn’t matter that he’s a deranged, narcissistic sociopath who delights in the pain of others…No! Actually, that’s probably why you like him so much. You’re birds of a feather, aren’t you?”
Once again, Shota gasped in pain as Izuku seized his hair, hauling him up. “You both enjoy being in that position of power, where you can torment those who are powerless to fight back against you. That’s why you do what you do isn’t it? It isn’t out of some supposed desire to stop students from getting themselves killed, it’s because you get off on being an object of fear to them.
“Well…that ends today…right…Sensei?”
“That is correct,” rumbled ‘Sensei’. “You fulfilled your end of the bargain, Izuku. And now it is time for your reward.”
“What…What’s going on?” demanded Shota, only to yelp in pain as he was thrown across the floor again, his body lighting up with pain as he bounced and rolled over whatever wires and pipes were crossing over it.
“Ah…Where are my manners, Aizawa-sensei?” asked Izuku rhetorically. “Allow me to introduce the villain…All For One. You might have heard of him…You might not. If you did, you probably think he’s nothing more than a rumor.”
“All…For…” Shota’s voice trailed off, horror dawning over him. It can’t be…!
“As it turns out, Sensei’s an old nemesis of All Might’s. In fact, he’s the one who put that hole in All Might’s gut that has him rapidly approaching the end of his career.” Izuku chuckled darkly. “And from your reaction, it seems you have an idea of what he’s all about.”
Shota’s mouth was dry. He had indeed heard of All For One. They were mere whispers, rumors bandied about in the darkness of the underworld…rumors of a villain with the power to take people’s Quirks for his own, and grant them to others. Shota’s mind flashed back to the Nomu, powerful monsters apparently empowered with multiple Quirks.
“I can see you’re connecting the dots,” said Izuku. “And you can probably guess what this is all about.
“I approached All For One…because I was tired of being the worthless, Quirkless, Deku. You made it abundantly clear that there’s no place for people like me in this world, so I wanted the power to take my revenge. All For One promised me a Quirk in exchange for working for him…but I didn’t want just any Quirk. I wanted yours.”
Izuku viciously kicked Shota in the ribs, making him shout with pain. “You stood there, passing judgment over me, discounting everything I accomplished, just because I didn’t do it with a Quirk. So…now…I’m going to take your Quirk, and I’m going to use it to do horrific…monstrous things…so that, by the time I’m done, everyone will associate your Quirk with misery and fear. That is going to be your legacy from here on out.
“Sensei…if you please.”
“Gladly…Izuku.”
A hand clamped over the top of Shota’s head. Shota’s mouth fell open, his voice escaping with a howl as he felt something within him, something integral to his very being…being forcefully ripped out of him. Shota writhed in agony as his Quirk was brutally torn away from him.
And then it was over. The hand clamped onto his head released, and Shota dropped to the floor once more, the jolting pain from the impacts to his broken bones barely background noise to the yawning abyss within him, a sensation that left him feeling completely detached from the world around him.
“Don’t fade away just yet, Eraser-Oops! Sorry…Aizawa-san,” Izuku said with mocking good cheer. “Now that you don’t have your Quirk anymore, I don’t have any reason to keep your eyes covered. I want you to see the magic moment, where what was once yours…becomes mine.”
The blindfold was stripped away, and Shota blinked furiously as his surroundings came into focus. It was dark. He was laying in the midst of some kind of facility. Disturbingly, he was surrounded on all sides by what looked like glass tanks, filled with some kind of fluid, within which dark shapes floated ominously.
However, he was quick to fixate on two prominent figures. The first was Izuku…almost as Shota remembered him. His features were a little sharper and leaner, his eyes harder and colder. His gaze was fixated on Shota with a mocking smile decorating his face. He didn’t seem to be wearing his full suite of support gear, which he’d used against Shota. Perhaps his patron hadn’t allowed him to bring such dangerous tools into his presence.
Beside and behind Izuku…was a figure from a nightmare. The man was tall, seemingly matching All Might in stature. He was dressed in an impeccable black suit. However, his head was a vision of ruin. Everything above his mouth was nothing more then a mass of gnarled, twisted scar issue, with only faint indents marking the places where his eyes and nose once resided. Tubes large and small were inserted into his neck and portions of his face. His lips were pulled back, baring his teeth in a garish grin.
“Ah…What a wonderful feeling,” mused All For One. “I wanted this Quirk for so long. It is such a shame that it would come to me…after All Might took my eyes. And if things had gone the way they were supposed to…all those years ago…it might have been mine so much sooner…and things would already be going my way.”
“What…What do you mean?” grunted Shota.
All For One chuckled darkly. “I suppose you deserve to know. That day…the one that marked you forever…the day you lost your dearest friend…I know all about it…because that was my doing.”
Shota’s jaw nearly unhinged as he stared at All For One.
“Yes,” said All For One with another chuckle. “That villain…was there at my behest. But…things did not go as I had hoped. You see…you…that is…your Quirk, had been my target from the very beginning. That day…you were supposed to be the one who died, so that I could take that magnificent power of yours…and make it mine.”
“No…!” whispered Shota, horrified.
“But I have no use for it now,” noted All For One. “It’s something of a pity I made that deal with young Izuku here. After all, a Quirk like this would be perfect for Tomura. However, a bargain is a bargain…and Izuku has fulfilled his end.”
Izuku flashed Shota one last victorious grin, and turned to face All For One.
“And now…it is time to receive the fruits of your labor,” said All For One, his hand rising towards Izuku.
“Actually…”
At the sound of the uncertain-seeming word from Izuku, All For One paused, his hand only partly raised. He failed to notice Izuku slipping something small and cylindrical out of a pouch on his belt.
“…I changed my mind.”
There was a faint, almost inaudible click…and suddenly, All For One was bathed in red light. A choking sound came from the villain’s mouth as his body began to lurch and spasm. Veins stretched beneath the scar tissue cover his head, crawling across his face as he clawed at his neck with hands that seemed to be withering way.
Meanwhile, the innocuous-looking watch around Izuku’s left wrist opened up, spreading out across his arm and encasing his hand, forming the gauntlet he’d used against Shota earlier.
“I’d rather have your life,” Izuku finished, raising his left hand up and clamping it over All For One’s face.
An almost deafening bang echoed through the room, accompanied by a sudden flash. All For One’s head was reduced to fragments of bone and pulped gray matter. His lifeless form slumped to the floor, his suit rapidly falling…like a balloon with air escaping…as the body within it withered away into a desiccated husk before Shota’s disbelieving eyes. Before long, all that remained of All For One looked like nothing more than a pile of flesh-colored sand, and a few bones.
“That should do it,” said Izuku. With a click, the circle of red light illuminating what little remained of the villain vanished, and Izuku slipped the cylinder back into his pouch.
“What…?” grunted Shota, unable to believe what he was seeing.
The Villain Bogeyman…the Demon Lord of the Underworld…the monster whose existence was only hinted at in frightened whispers…the unstoppable beast that had punched a hole through All Might’s torso…was dead…dead at the hands of a Quirkless child that Shota had dismissed as nothing more than a liability.
Izuku calmly sauntered past Shota, who grunted, turning his head, to the bound, gagged, and blindfolded form of Ragdoll. Izuku crouched in front of her, and removed the gag, noticeably treating her much more gently than he had Shota. “My apologies, Shiretoko-san,” he said. “I don’t have anything against you, but capturing you was necessary.”
“Wha-What are you talking about?” asked Ragdoll, whom Izuku had left blindfolded.
“It was a ruse…” guessed Shota.
“That’s right,” said Izuku, turning his grin back on Shota again, Shota noticing that none of his previous sadism had faded. “Pinning down All For One was a tricky matter. Even when I joined the League, he still kept me at a distance, speaking through that television set in that bar they’re using as their base. But the one thing I knew that would allow me to get close enough was appealing to his preconceptions. In that sense, he was as predictable as everyone else.”
Izuku chuckled. “After all…what could a poor…Quirkless…worthless…nobody like me want more than a Quirk of his very own? All For One could never conceive that I actually didn’t need a Quirk, so it was all too easy to play on his beliefs, and use that as a way to enter his presence…and finally take my shot.
“So I made a point of striking a bargain with him, providing him a service, in exchange for a Quirk. He wanted Ragdoll’s Quirk, and I added a personal note, to make it more convincing, by telling him I wanted your Quirk. Then, once I delivered, since he can only give or take Quirks in-person, I would have my chance.”
Shota felt as though his entire worldview was being realigned. Far from being held back by it, this kid had turned his Quirklessness into an asset, leveraging All For One’s beliefs, and using it to make him vulnerable.
And now…he felt the first stirrings of the notion that he had been premature in his judgment of the kid.
Then the bottom fell out of his stomach. Because even if all of this had been for the sake of giving Izuku and opening to kill All For One, he’d still…
“B-But…he still took Erasure…” grunted Shota.
“That’s right,” said Izuku, before glancing casually of what little remained of the villain. “Oh…I guess you’re not getting that back…Whoops.” His casual tone indicated he was anything but sorry about that. He looked back to Shota, a vicious grin decorating his face. It was all too obvious that this had been the furthest thing from an accident. “Well…I guess that makes you a Quirkless nobody now. There’s no point calling you Eraserhead anymore…not when you can’t erase anything.”
Izuku sauntered over and crouched over Shota, his grin edging towards manic. “After all…what are you without your Quirk? I mean…it’s not like you’ve cultivated the physical ability of a world-class athlete, top-class hand-to-hand combat skills, mastery of a unique and potent weapon, and a host of other tricks…Nope. Without the glowing eyes of doom, none of that matters. According to your infallible Aizawa logic…you’re just a useless, Quirkless loser…nothing more than a liability. I guess that’s the end of both of your careers, as a teacher, and definitely as a hero.”
Shota tried to figure out what to say. Finally… “Are you happy now?”
“Oh, I’m ecstatic now,” said Izuku, standing up and spreading his arms. “I just killed the world’s greatest villain, something not even All Might was able to manage. On top of that, I finally got payback against you, by taking away the one thing that gives you any real value in this world.”
“But you could have had his Quirk!” Tomoko exclaimed, confused. “You…You didn’t want it?”
“I don’t need it,” Izuku replied with a laugh. “Or rather…I should say…I already have it.”
Shota’s breath stopped as he remembered the red light that had caused such a visceral reaction from All For One…right before Izuku had killed him. “That light…what was that light?”
Izuku smirked back down at Shota. “Nervous about something…Aizawa-san?”
“Midoriya…What was that light!?” Shota asked, his voice rising in pitch, tone becoming frantic.
“This…?” Izuku reached down to his pouch again and pulled out a small cylinder. It looked like a black penlight. Pressing the button on its side caused the lens to illuminate with a red color that was all too familiar to Shota. “It’s just my patented Eraser Light.
“It took a little work on my part. I realized a long time ago that the effect of your Quirk was a form of electromagnetic radiation, as evidenced when your eyes glow red, when your Quirk is active. That actually helped me narrow down the specific wavelength, which I figured was somewhere in the red-to-infrared range. I had to shadow a few of your patrols and record you using your Quirk with a few different kinds of camera to fully nail it down. But once I was done, it was worth it.”
Shota shivered at the realization. Midoriya had been shadowing him, following him on patrols. As an Underground Hero, Shota had thrived on stealth and concealment…and survived by not allowing himself to be snuck up on. And yet…this kid…this Quirkless kid had followed him…and recorded him…all with Shota being none the wiser.
But even more importantly…this kid had actually taken Shota’s Quirk, Erasure, the basis for who he was as a hero…and turned it into something he could carry in his pocket and use for himself.
Meanwhile, Izuku playfully spun the little light between his fingers. “And honestly, I’d say that my Eraser Light is even better than your Quirk, Aizawa-sensei. After all, needless to say, I don’t have to worry about dry-eye when using this. I can point it in any direction I want, broaden it to cover an area so that it’s not just limited to people in my field of view, or focus it for pinpoint precision to avoid catching allies with it. And, of course, with its current battery, it can maintain over seventy-two hours of continuous usage…which certainly trumps your paltry twenty-five to thirty seconds a pop, don’t you think?
“And not only that, but once I nailed down how to produce them, mass production became a snap. I can make them in the dozens for cheap, and they’re selling like hotcakes.”
Shota suddenly felt sick as he made the connection. The deaths…heroes losing and dying to low-grade villains who shouldn’t have been a blip on the radar to them. Hero hopefuls with powerful Quirks being beaten into submission by the less-powerful children who should have been completely cowed by them. “It was you…!” he gasped. “The deaths…the beatings…!”
“Well…that wasn’t me,” said Izuku. “That was just the people who bought my products. What was that saying so many Americans love…? ‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.’ It’s the same thing.”
“How can you say that!?” protested Shota furiously. “Some of those victims are kids…Children are being hurt!”
For a moment, Shota thought his words had struck a chord with Izuku, as his face suddenly flashed with a look of shock. “Children…Children are being hurt…” However, it was then immediately apparent that Izuku was merely mocking him as he continued, raising his pitch, making it higher, shriller. “Oh no! Not the children…Those poor poor children…Won’t somebody please think of the children!”
Izuku scoffed furiously and bared his teeth. “Oh please, spare me your hypocritical sanctimony, you fucking sack of shit. You want the truth…!”
Izuku kicked Shota right in his fractured ribs again, making him cry out as a wave of pain shot through him. Izuku followed it up by stamping on Shota’s face, his nose breaking with a crack. Then Izuku grabbed him by the hair, lifting him up again so that Izuku could glare right into his eyes. “The truth…is that children were always being hurt. You just didn’t give a fuck about it…not until your next crop of precious future child soldiers was being threatened. You think that school violence is increasing, but it’s actually been on a downward trend…after all…I’ve empowered the victims to put a stop to the ones constantly abusing them, the main instigators. After all, it’s not like they could depend on heroes like you to protect them…
“No…not when you let people like Bakugo fucking Katsuki walk through the doors of UA like he belongs anywhere other than a cell in Asphodel. If you’d bothered to look, you would have booked him for the hundreds of blatant violations of Quirk-use laws, usually in the execution of assault, battery, and destruction of property…among plenty of other crimes.
“But nooooooooo…Because he’s overflowing with so much ‘potential’…because he has a strong, convenient Quirk, in other words…he gets a free pass, and all you heroes and police look the other way, because he has a bright future and is sure to be a great hero someday. You aid and abet lawbreakers, protect abusers, and punish people for trying to build a better future…while I empower those who were helpless before, helping them obtain the means to protect themselves and what’s important to them. Which of us is the hero now?”
Shota opened his mouth to respond…but Izuku slugged him across the jaw before he could speak. “And don’t even think about spouting any bullshit about ‘following the law’. Again…you’ve protected Bakugo, and have been trying to avenge others who’ve broken the law repeatedly. But because they have so much ‘potential’, you’ve decided that the law gets to sit on the sidelines for them. And when the weaker people, the people you should be protecting, end up having to see to their own protection as a consequence, you look to punish them instead.
“You’re the ones who broke the social contract first. You defined what makes someone a villain, then you ignore that definition, when it suits you, applying it selectively so that you can protect those you favor. And in doing so…you’ve made the law meaningless, not even worth the paper it’s printed on. Rule of law is built upon the idea that, in abiding by the law, we also benefit from the law’s protection. But you expect us to mindlessly abide…while refusing to hold up your end, which means the whole thing is null and void, and those of us you gave the shaft for the sake of your convenience are free to do as we wish.”
Izuku dropped Shota into the floor like a sack of potatoes. “Well…in any case…my first endeavor with my Eraser Lights was a huge success. You know…for all that you called me a liability, because I didn’t have a Quirk, it sure seems like a lot of heroes are liabilities because of their Quirks, because they just don’t know what to do, if that precious crutch of theirs is taken away. The shoe sure is on the other foot isn’t it?
“And it has me looking forward to what happens next.”
“Next…?” Shota could barely get the word out from his bloody mouth.
Izuku grinned fiercely at him. “Of course. After all, the Eraser Light is merely my first offering. It’s been a huge success, and I can’t wait to see how my customer base increases, when I begin to diversify my catalogue. You got a nice sampling of some of them earlier.
“You considered Bakugo your star pupil, and went to bat for him because he could make explosions from his hands…even though it’s nothing more than a chemical reaction that could be recreated by anyone with a little chemistry knowhow and the ingredients of an average pharmacy. So think about how popular my Baka Gauntlets-I may need to come up with a better name for those-will be, once they hit the market. I know tons of people who’d love to get their hands on the power of the up and coming ‘next Number One Hero’.
“People could experience the speed of Ingenium with my Ingine Greaves, unleash the flames of Endeavor with Purgatory Burners, wield the strength of Death Arms with my Muscle Packages…the possibilities are absolutely endless, and the heroes will have a hard time keeping up…when practically anyone can do the things they do.
“After all…as a great man once said…Once everyone is super…then no one will be.”
For some reason…Izuku’s rant filled Shota with a sense of existential dread.
“Is that what you’re going to do?” asked Ragdoll. “You’re becoming a merchant of crime?”
“Well…it pays the bills,” said Izuku. “It’s not like I can get by with a regular job, thanks to this trumped up panhandler here.” He kicked one of Shota’s shattered knees, eliciting a hiss of pain from him. “But really…that’s just a stepping stone for what comes next.”
“And what comes next?” asked Ragdoll.
Izuku smirked, looking at what remained of All For One. “The king is dead…long live the king. It won’t be long before the rest of the underworld learns that this, the ultimate evil…is gone.
“And thanks to the fact that one of the students…Yaoyorozu I think…was able to plant a tracker on the Nomu the League used for the camp attack, it’s only a matter of time before the heroes arrive…probably no more than a few more hours…maybe even just a few minutes. And because I anonymously tipped them off to the location of the other hideout, the rest of the League will get snapped up in the bargain.
“So…that’s going to leave a pretty big power vacuum…and a lot of people and organizations are going to be vying to fill it. And…well…as the instigator of the whole thing…I figure that me and my friends would…throw our hat in the ring, so to speak, and make our own play to rise to the top of the bottom.”
“Friends…!?” Shota’s eyes widened fearfully at the realization. Midoriya wasn’t working alone then.
“That’s right…friends,” said Izuku, once again crouching over Shota. “After all, I’m not the only victim of your so-called ‘rationality’. You’ve expelled well over a hundred students during your tenure as a teacher at UA. Hell! You expelled your entire class last year. And all of those kids faced the same plight I did. I had a heck of a time tracking them down and finding the ones who were willing to work with me. Quite a few of them…didn’t make it…after suffering the consequences of the black mark you so frivolously slapped on their records. I rallied together the ones I could track down, and gave them hope…and a purpose…
“And right now, that purpose is making sure that everyone knows the consequences of your actions, Aizawa. Just to drive the point home, we’re thinking of calling ourselves…The Rationals…as a little ode to you. And when people start asking where the next big villain organization came from, we’ll be happy to tell them exactly who to credit for it.
“You’ve always hated the spotlight…but you’re about to become a household name…as the man who fostered the next generation of villains. That’s going to be your legacy from now on, Aizawa.”
No… Aizawa tried to reject the notion. If what Izuku said was true, and his allies really were all the students that Aizawa had expelled previously, then their actions now were the result of their own choices. It wasn’t his responsibility. All he’d done was what was necessary to protect them from dying in the field. If they were too weak to hack it in regular life, then they definitely didn’t stand a chance as heroes.
But deep down…he knew it was bullshit. He just didn’t want to admit it.
Izuku stood up and stretched. “Well…in any case, I’d better get going. The heroes will be here to rescue you soon, Shiretoko-san…and clean up what’s left of you, Aizawa.”
“I’m still alive,” growled Shota.
“Are you?” asked Izuku playfully. “I took away the thing that makes you worth anything in the eyes of the world. Without your Quirk…you’re nothing. That’s not an assessment based on overall attributes…but simply applying your own ‘logic’ to you.
“And sure…this could be the impetus for you to realize that you were wrong…that your Quirk doesn’t have to be what defines you…that you can be a hero without a Quirk. Maybe you’ll realize that if you’re smart enough, strong enough, and driven enough, a Quirk is merely another potential tool…and one you could even do without. Maybe you’ll realize that you could be a Quirkless hero…”
Izuku’s eyes hardened, and his expression became coldly furious, as his voice dropped nearly a whole octave, achieving a whole new level of menace “Except…no…you don’t. You don’t get to have a fucking epiphany about how you were wrong all along, and how your logic was flawed, only in time for it to benefit you…not when you destroyed my life with it. No…you don’t get to become a Quirkless hero, Aizawa Shota. You get to slink off, tail between your legs, just as worthless and useless as you judged me to be.
“And if you think you can do otherwise…if you try to be a hero without a Quirk…I will hunt you down, kill you, rip off your head, and mount it on a spike in front of UA’s gates as a message describing what happens to fucking hypocrites who only follow the rules when it suits them. You’ve ruined countless lives with your logic…now you have to live by it too.”
Shota shuddered at the sheer venom in Izuku’s voice, the ironclad conviction with which he delivered his threat.
Izuku pulled a phone out of his pocket and tapped out something on it. A moment later, there was a swirling of black mist, and Kurogiri materialized in the room.
“What is your bidding, Izuku-sama?” he asked.
“You managed to sway him?!” asked Shota, shocked by Kurogiri’s appearance.
“‘Sway’…isn’t exactly the word I would use,” said Izuku. “You see, despite behaving rather like just another villain, Kurogiri is actually a Nomu.”
Shota and Ragdoll were both shocked by the revelation.
“Yeah, kinda hard to believe…he’s just like that monster you fought at USJ,” said Izuku. “He just happens to be a High End product, as that ex-doctor of All For One referred to him. I already took care of him by the way.
“In any case, when I disposed of the Doctor, I also made sure to uncover the command protocols that would allow me to take control of Kurogiri and bind his allegiance to me. Oh…that also means that, when the heroes raid the League’s bar, the League’s primary means of escape is no longer viable, thanks to me. You’re welcome.”
Then something occurred to Izuku, and his grin grew three-times more evil that day. “Oh…that reminds me…Kurogiri’s special for another reason. Go ahead…and show Aizawa that handsome face of yours.”
“Yes, Izuku-sama,” said Kurogiri, the swirling mist that constantly emerged from the collar of his bartender’s uniform parting to give Shota look at the features of the man hidden beneath it. When it did…Shota gagged…then hacked. He didn’t want to see anymore, but he also couldn’t look away. It was impossible, yet also undeniable. Ignoring the pain of moving, Shota shifted and began to vomit.
“That’s right,” said Izuku, taking a twisted joy in Shota’s horror. “That friend of yours, the one All For One mentioned who died instead of you that day; and, if I’m not mistaken, the raison d’être for your infamous ‘logic’, and the reason you ‘saved’ so many of us by condemning us…his ashes never went into that urn under his grave. Instead, he got taken by All For One, who repurposed him as an undead servitor to serve as the League’s taxi. Your oh-so-heroic friend, in whose name you caused so much pain and harm…it’s only fitting that he spend his…unlife?…as a servant of evil.
“And me and my friends will continue making good use of him, so that you can be sure that we’ll have plenty more crimes to dirty the name of Shirakumo Oboro with before long. So look forward to that.”
Shota coughed…then sobbed, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks in horror and pain.
“Let’s go, Kurogiri,” said Izuku. “The others are waiting.”
“Yes, Izuku-sama,” said Kurogiri, creating another portal.
“Well…in any case, the heroes are going to make their move soon,” said Izuku. “And Shigaraki-san is dead-set on getting Bakugo to join him, so it’s unlikely he’ll follow my advice. So, at the very least, you should cheer up, Aizawa…because Kacchan is going to be just fine…” Izuku paused, feigning uncertainty. “…probably…maybe…You know what! You should probably tell the heroes raiding the bar to bring along a dustpan, just in case.
“Well…so long then.”
With that, Izuku disappeared into the portal, followed by his new servant. The black mist closed up behind them, leaving Shota and Ragdoll alone in the lair of All For One.
Shota’s grasp on reality began to slip away as the events of the past few minutes washed over him again and again, and he relived his former-student, if Izuku could even be called that, slapping him in the face with all his failures.
Izuku emerged from the portal, and immediately braced himself as a girl with pink-hair rushed him. He caught her in his arms, twirling her around as he pulled her into a tight hug, her lips interlocking with his for a long moment. The kiss ending, Izuku pulled back and looked into the young woman’s gray eyes, the pupils of which were decorated with white, cloud-shaped marks.
“I’m back, Mawata,” he said, smiling lovingly at her.
“Is it done?” Fuwa Mawata asked back.
“Yep,” said Izuku. “All For One is dead, and Aizawa is Quirkless.”
Around them, Izuku could hear the cheers and applause of Mawata’s former-classmates, and their current comrades in arms. The members of what would have been Class 2-A of UA this year, had they not had Aizawa for a teacher, comprised the bulk of the membership of The Rationals. After their mass expulsion, nearly all of them had lost their homes, evicted by their families for their perceived failures. It was Mawata who had done her best to rally them together and find a way for them to survive, when they were unable to hold regular jobs. It had ultimately been her decision…after much agonizing, for them to turn to villainy to support themselves, simply because there seemed to be no other viable option.
Izuku had found them soon after his own expulsion. He had joined with them out of empathy for their experiences, and with them, searched for Aizawa’s other victims. It had been a considerable effort to track down everyone they could. Some had died. Some had taken their own lives in despair. Others languished in prison after being caught committing crimes of their own (Izuku had plans to break them out). And some, sadly, had suffered fates far worse than any death a hero might experience in the field, a bitter irony, considering that “protecting” them had been Aizawa’s entire motivation behind ruining their lives and futures.
In the process of bringing everyone together, Izuku and Mawata had ended up…getting together. Their bond was firm and constant, and they could unquestionably say that they were fully in love with one another…something that many of their comrades found absolutely adorable.
Together, they firmed up their organization, Izuku funding them with the sale of his Eraser Lights, with their group’s members being some of the first users, as a sort of advertisement campaign. Thanks to that, they were flush with cash, and now had everything they needed to survive and thrive. They had also worked in the background, while Izuku dealt with All For One.
Not all the members of The Rationals were former students of Aizawa though.
“Greenie…when are we gonna work on our next project?!” exclaimed a different pink-haired girl, nearly bulling him and Mawata over.
“Soon,” Izuku promised, disengaging from Mawata’s embrace to gently pat the top of Hatsume Mei’s head. “We’re going to begin research and testing to refine the Air Jetpack for mass deployment. This one is going to be purely for in-house use though.”
“So long as I get to make ‘em!” said Mei, practically vibrating at the prospect.
“Then start getting the materials together,” said Izuku.
Mei nodded vigorously and rushed off, leaving an amused Izuku and Mawata in her wake.
Hatsume Mei had originally been a student of UA’s Support Course. However, in the wake of Power Loader’s resignation (which Izuku later learned had been in protest over how he had been treated), the replacement teacher had apparently not appreciated Mei’s creative process. To be fair, it was extreme, since her tendency to push the envelope with her creations often led to catastrophic (ie explosive) failure during the testing process. After one blast too many, Mei had been expelled as well…a consequence that her family hadn’t taken well, resulting in her winding up homeless as well.
Still holding hands with Mawata, Izuku made his way to the room belonging to one of their extra additions to the group. “Did you get everything, Manami?” asked Izuku.
Seated in a large, padded chair, set in front of a group monitors, streaming all kinds of different data, was a short young woman with red hair tied into long twin tails. She spun in her seat, turning to face Izuku with a triumphant grin on her face. “I got it all, boss!” she declared. “Just like you said, Garaki’s a genius of biology, genetics, and Quirk-science…but a complete luddite, when it comes to network security. Once you got me access, getting into his network was a cinch.”
“So then…”
“That’s right,” said Manami, “the assets collectively belonging to All For One and the League of Villains are ours now.”
“Great,” said Izuku. “Dump the sites used for Nomu production, and send their locations to the the heroes. Kurogiri aside, we don’t have any use for them.”
“Got it,” said Manami. “What about this guy?” She handed Izuku a tablet with information pertaining to someone named “Nine”.
Izuku reviewed it. “This one too,” he said. “This guy sounds like bad news, and it’s better to have him off the board, than running loose. Let’s keep track of him though. His associates might bail him out.”
Manami nodded, and turned to get back to work. As she did, Izuku noticed the shadows under her eyes were a little deeper than usual.
“Manami…” said Izuku, his tone becoming stern.
“Yeah?” asked Manami, growing a tad nervous as she turned back to him again.
“How long have you been working?” asked Izuku.
“Er…maybe…thirteen…” Manami tapped her fingers together as she grinned sheepishly.
Izuku sighed. “You can keep working until Danjuro comes back,” he said. “At which point, he’s going to take you on a nice date, and then the two of you are going to get a full night’s sleep…and that’s an order.”
Manami’s face lit up. “You got it, Boss!” she cheered, before spinning in place, going back to work.
Mawata giggled, leaning her head on his shoulder. “And when are you going to take a break, oh exalted leader?”
“Soon,” said Izuku. “If I’m right, I’ve got one last thing to take care of, before we call it a day.”
“Your big debut,” noted Mawata.
“That’s right,” said Izuku. “What’s the word on the heroes’ raid, Manami?”
“They’re set to make their entry in two hours,” said Manami. “They have a decoy broadcast of a press conference going out, but it’s a prerecording to throw off the villains.”
“And which location is All Might hitting?” asked Izuku.
“The bar,” said Manami. “Probably because that’s where they reasoned it’s more likely Bakugo is being kept.”
“Oh…good,” said Izuku, chuckling. “It’d be awkward to have gone through all that effort with the dramatic exit in front of Aizawa and Ragdoll…only to wind up going right back.”
“Of course that’s what you’d be worried about,” teased Mawata.
“Hey, it’s all in managing the little details,” Izuku protested, stretching. “Two hours gives us time for final equipment checks and a final strategic overview.”
“Right…” said Mawata, nodding. After all, this wouldn’t just be Izuku’s official debut as a claimant to the now-vacant throne of All For One, but also of The Rationals as a whole.
”Is it all right though?” asked Manami. “I mean…Shigaraki might really kill Bakugo.”
”Or is it all right if All Might saves him?” asked Mawata.
“It’s fine either way,” said Izuku. “Bakugo doesn’t really matter anymore. If he lives, I can play with him later. If he dies, then that’s all he was good for. I’ve stopped bothering over him.”
In a sense, that was Izuku’s revenge against a narcissist, like Katsuki. No matter who he was dealing with, or how, Bakugo Katsuki wanted the starring role, to be the center of attention, to be the fixation of everyone around him. When they had gone to school together, Katsuki had attacked and beaten Izuku for hanging around him. But when Izuku had tried to give Katsuki the space he apparently wanted, Katsuki had subsequently tracked him down and beaten Izuku for avoiding him, because Izuku “thought he was too good for him.”
So it was with dealing with Katsuki, now that Izuku was a villain. Fixating on Katsuki, making him the subject of a personal vendetta…that would just feed Katsuki’s gratification, that belief that he was the center of the universe, and that everything and everyone revolved around him.
The counter to that was that Katsuki couldn’t stand being dismissed, being ignored, being treated like he was unimportant, like he didn’t matter. So the ideal form of vengeance was to do exactly that. Thus, Izuku had given up bothering over Bakugo Katsuki. If Katsuki survived this, and came after him later, Izuku would handle him, maybe even have a little fun toying with him. But he wouldn’t give Katsuki the validation he craved by treating him as someone special.
To Izuku…Katsuki was…just a pebble in the road.
“Thats enough worrying about the extra,” said Izuku. “Let’s get to work…and finish things with a bang.”
They made their way into their base’s armory. There, Izuku began to check over his suit, an amalgamation of costume and support equipment, essentially the culmination of all his work, his research, his advances, and his efforts. It unified the various elements of the Quirks that he had been able to emulate, as well as elaborate on. Before, he’d mostly worn piecemeal equipment, employing each emulated Quirk through individual tools. But this suit brought them all together.
“I still can’t get over how you made this,” said Mawata, carefully brushing her fingers over the “cape” that was mounted and draped over the right shoulder of the suit, basically hiding the arm on that side from view. It was made from rows of countless elongated, blade-shaped objects, looking vaguely like feathers, giving the piece the appearance akin to that of a wing, starting with shorter “feathers” at the shoulder, and lengthening, until the ones at the edge were the length of small swords.
“It sure took a lot of work,” said Izuku fondly, checking over the left-hand gauntlet, which was heavier and bulkier than the right. It mounted the emulators that produced an improved version of Katsuki’s explosions, able to be discharged from an emitter in the palm, or smaller ones, mounted over each knuckle. In other words, Izuku wouldn’t be limited to merely slapping his opponent, but he could also hit them with exploding punches as well. Behind that, hidden in the covering over the forearm was a spool, containing his iteration of Aizawa’s infamous Capture Cloth, modified to his specifications, and able to be extended from four separate openings. Hidden in the armor just below the elbow was a small thruster, which would add both speed and force to his strikes. The greaves sported the thrusters inspired by Ida Tenya’s Engine, but modified and improved.
Numerous other features, devices, and weapons were hidden throughout the suit, particularly the helm, which would enclose Izuku’s entire head. The left eyepiece was covered by a circular, lens-shaped object, which had multiple different sensor varieties, and could also function as an emitter for a larger Eraser Light, essentially a stronger version of the one he was currently selling on the black market.
Countless innovations, inspired by all manner of Quirks…and rejected by the world of heroes, because Izuku hadn’t been magically born with them.
“It’s funny,” Izuku mused, as he started checking over each piece. “All For One rose to the pinnacle of Japan’s underworld, in large part, because he could wield multiple Quirks. That was the factor that made him such a critical threat to the heroes that he faced.
“And yet…it’s always been possible for a person to wield multiple Quirks. It’s simply a matter of building them so that they can be equipped artificially. In a sense, with my designs…any person could be empowered with multiple Quirks…it’s just that mine come from technology, rather than genetics.”
“Do you hate Quirks?” asked Mawata.
Izuku smiled fondly, turning to look at her. “Of course not,” he said. “I love Quirks. That’s why I’ve always been so fascinated by them. That was why I always sought to understand their inner workings, and figure out how to put that understanding to work.”
“What I hate is how this society treats Quirks as some kind of semi-magical, borderline divine gift…that seeking to truly understand them is some kind of taboo. When I think about it, the reason I was rejected so harshly from UA wasn’t because Aizawa actually thought I was unfit or a liability…but because he feared what I represented…the dragging of Quirks out of their divine and mythical status…and planting them firmly into the realm of the mundane.
“Heroes are elevated and praised because of their Quirks. Kids like Bakugo are given all kinds of unearned privileges, because of their Quirks. But if someone not born with those powers was still able to wield the same kind of power, it would be a direct threat to their innate specialness. If a Quirkless person could be a hero…then the thing that makes people like Bakugo and Aizawa so special and superior…wouldn’t be so special anymore.
Izuku stroked his fingers over the artificial feathers of the cape. “Think about it. Hawks is so impressive, because he can control several-dozen, if not over a hundred, feathers independently, utilizing them for countless tasks. But no one ever really bothered to ask how they do that. How do the feathers move? What’s the source of their propulsion? How can they move objects of far greater mass than themselves? With just a few feathers, a few grams worth of material at most, Hawks can lift the weight of an entire adult human. He can even process sensory feedback from them, even though they are no longer directly connected to his nervous system.”
Izuku grinned, remembering the challenge of securing a sample of Hawks’ feathers, allowing him to finally study their properties for himself. “It’s amazing, how each of Hawks’ feathers produces its own micro-gravitational field. By using multiple in concert, he can utilize them to manipulate or affect masses far in excess of their own. The remote neural links integrated into each individual feather allow Hawks to control them via quantum brainwaves, without needing any physical connection…basically a wireless nervous system.”
It had taken careful work for Izuku to recreate those properties via a technological medium, and construct “feathers” of his own, which were controlled by the specialized neural interface in his helm. Of course, thanks to his developments, the feathers of his costume were loaded with additional tech, which gave them properties beyond what Hawks could accomplish with his own feathers.
“And that’s just scratching the surface,” said Izuku. “Quirks make the impossible possible, and fully understanding them will completely redefine the laws of physics and biology as we know them. But almost no one appreciates that.”
“So you’re going to show them the possibilities,” said Mawata.
“Yeah,” said Izuku. “That’s why I picked the villain name I did. It might be a cliche, but…I don’t think there’s anything more appropriate.”
“Really?” asked Mawata.
Izuku nodded, and began to don his suit, piece by piece. “You know…people claim that the Dark Age that followed the Advent of the Exceptional came to an end with the rise of the hero system. But the reality is that the hero system didn’t end the Dark Age. The Dark Age itself never ended. We’re living in the Dark Age, even now.
“A powerful few enforce a set status quo. Anything that challenges that status quo, even if it is something that would actually advance humanity as a species and bring untold benefits to the world, is mercilessly quashed, because those few are desperate to preserve their power, and the illusion of their inborn superiority. If Quirks were fully understood, the fantastical would be dragged into the realm of the ordinary, the special made trivial…and that makes those people feel threatened. So they want to stamp out anything that would challenge that.”
Izuku slipped his feet inside his greaves, relishing the feeling of them molding themselves to his feet and legs, fitting snugly in place.
“That’s what made me think of that old Greek myth…the myth of the titan, who defied the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity. He saved humanity by bringing them out of the darkness, gifting them with light and warmth. Thanks to that, the name of that titan has become synonymous with the concepts of progress, exploration, and enlightenment.”
By this point, Izuku had settled the torso-armor over his shoulders, and it melded itself to his upper-body with a pneumatic hiss. After that went the right gauntlet, followed by the left, and then the shoulder pieces, including the “cape” mounted on the right one.
“But…what is so conveniently forgotten about and overlooked…was that the act of gifting fire to humanity…was a crime. This titan acted in direct defiance of the will of the gods, stealing fire from them, in order to pass it on to humanity.
“In other words, when the ruling powers endeavor to keep the rest of mankind mired in darkness and ignorance…then bringing mankind out of that darkness requires going beyond the bounds of the law…because the law is itself the source of that darkness.
“That’s why…like that titan of old…I will bring humanity out of this dark age, and drag them into the light…even if I have to do it with them kicking and screaming the entire way…even if doing so is framed as an unforgivable crime, even if I’m forever branded a monster and a villain…”
Izuku settled the helm over his head, feeling it close around his face with another hiss. With a whir, the circular rim of the lens over his left eye began to spin, a red light gleaming from its center.
“…and that’s why…I will take that titan’s name as my own. So…when we’re in the field…call me…Prometheus.”