Work Text:
* * *
The day All Might triumphed over his lifelong nemesis was the day his life changed forever.
It was a rainy morning in Tokyo, the drizzle from above coating the streets in a soft, reflective glow from the neon lights above.
But this was no ordinary rain.
Further into the city a storm cloud was spiraling, not the work of some weather manipulation quirk, but rather caused by the sheer force of blows being traded by All Might and his most powerful foe, All for One.
“I WON’T LET YOU DESTROY THIS CITY—YOUR REIGN OF TERROR ENDS TODAY, DEMON LORD!”
All for One just cackled in response, a dry, evil sound, like forcing hundreds of hamsters into a paper shredder. “I have decimated many more of your kind, All Might, you will merely be the eighth in a long line of fallen heroes.”
All Might’s eyes snapped open as he flew into a rage, delivering a flurry of blows on All for One, sending shockwaves into the air that made the surrounding clouds crackle with static electricity.
“W-wait—Timeout, I wasn’t ready—” The villain tried to protest, as he was thrown onto his back, laying prone in the street.
The thunderclap of lightning touching down nearby accentuated the hero’s final blow. With a mighty crack, the face of Japan’s greatest villain caved in, his life hanging on by a thread, only sustained by sheer force of will and dozens of regeneration quirks.
All for One raised a shaky hand, morphed into a knife, to All Might’s shin.
“EVEN IN DEATH, YOU REMAIN SO SPITEFUL.” All Might frowned down at the pitiful sight of the man. Raising his foot, he stomped on the blade, crushing it underfoot.
‘His strength, physique, and quirk all outmatch mine…’ The villain thought hazily, as his consciousness slipped in and out. ‘All for One is meaningless in this fight, if only I could steal One for All…’
Suddenly, the wretched and half-crumpled brain of All for One came up with an idea.
‘I can’t take his quirk… but who’s to say I can’t give one?’
A tendril of red light snaked from the villain’s hand, wrapping around the hero’s leg.
“YOUR EFFORTS ARE IN VAIN; DO YOU NOT REMEMBER THE LAST TIME YOU TRIED TO TAKE MY QUIRK? OR ALL THE OTHER TIMES BEFORE?”
Still, All for One grinned, a difficult task when half of his teeth were scattered about the street.
‘This quirk will do nicely—it was one of the Doctor’s more curious finds, taken from a quirked rabbit with the ability to mutate into another, slightly different rabbit.’
With a puff of smoke, Japan’s Symbol of Peace disappeared, never to be seen again.
* * *
“I’m standing in downtown Tokyo, where a large battle seems to have erupted, devastating the landscape!”
All Might looked up to see a reporter standing overhead, a well-dressed woman speaking into a giant camera.
‘THAT IS STRANGE, WHEN DID REPORTERS GET SO TALL? …AND WHY CAN’T I SPEAK?!’
“The only thing that remains in the wrecking is the body of some poor man dressed in a suit—likely an innocent bystander caught up in the carnage—neither heroes nor villains are anywhere to be seen.”
‘WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I AM HERE! RIGHT HERE!’ All Might pulled himself to his feet, only to find that he was already standing, albeit on four tiny, fluffy legs.
Stumbling and feeling off balance, All Might made the arduous journey over to the reporter. Step by step he crossed the wreckage, climbing over slabs of shattered concrete to reach his goal. When he reached the woman, she turned, and her disturbed expression melted away in an instant.
“Miraculously, something appears to have survived this disaster—it’s a bunny!”
‘A BUNNY? WHERE?’
The reporter kneeled down to meet All Might, as did the camera man.
“Aww, hey little Bun Bun, did you lose your owner?” She looked around as if to spot some nonexistent rabbit owner holding an empty leash.
Her eyes landed on All for One instead, and her expression fell.
“Oh… you poor thing… You’re an orphan now, huh? What a sad world we live in, where rabbits can lose their owners in the blink of an eye…”
It was at this moment that everything clicked for All Might. The ‘rabbit’ everyone kept mentioning, his tiny, furry legs, the way he suddenly had a craving for an electrical wire to chew on—
The hero’s eyes turned up, gazing into the large, reflective camera. A tear formed in his tiny eye and rolled down his fluffy cheek.
All Might, Symbol of Peace and greatest hero this world had ever known, had become a bunny rabbit.
* * *
It only took hours for ‘Crying orphaned bunny’ to become the internet’s top trending video. Young or old, any viewer was brought to tears by the sad sight of that poor sandy colored rabbit covered in dust and debris, shedding a single tear over his dead owner.
It was heartbreaking. The rabbit must have loved that businessman so much that he would defy all animal logic and cry actual tears over him.
People made fanart.
When the dust had settled, the people began to ask the obvious question: Who will step up to adopt Bun-Bun? (A name decided on by the internet after the news reporter’s words).
Countless heroes made calls on social media, saying that they would adopt him.
Thankfully, it was easy to spot which ones were publicity stunts and which were genuine.
“No, Endeavor, you are not adopting a highly flammable animal.” One comment on the hero’s Instagram post read, a sentiment the internet all seemed to agree with.
But despite the constant bickering and arguing for who would be deemed worthy to care for Bun-Bun, nobody seemed to know exactly where the rabbit had gone. None of the nearby animal shelters had claimed him, and after his brief media stint, he seemingly disappeared into thin air.
The question on everyone’s mind soon switched from “Who gets to keep Bun-Bun?” to “Where has that rabbit gone now?”
* * *
CRACK!
Furry legs thumped softly to the ground, soon followed by the crash of a heavier body toppling to the alleyway floor.
A villain known as ‘Trapezius Headgear Senior’ had been terrorizing this side of Tokyo for the past few weeks, a fact that All Might had managed to pick up using his surprisingly great new sense of hearing.
…He supposed this new change wasn’t all bad. Besides, there was no time to rest for the Symbol of Peace, whether he had two legs or four.
All for One worked better with this new form than the hero expected, he actually felt lighter than he had in years, without any noticeable change to his strength output.
Now if only he could figure out how to speak…
Once the heroes had arrived to take away the villain, the furry mammal leapt into the air again, cracking the concrete below with the force of his leap. (He would rather not stay and try to explain how he, a rabbit, took down a 7-foot-tall man. …Not that he could explain it anyways.)
Flying through the air, All Might was intercepted by a rapidly moving object coming from his left, and before he could react, they collided, sending both figures crashing onto a rooftop.
“What the buck?!” A voice exclaimed, and when All Might raised his head, he saw the face of Miruko, Japan’s current number 12 hero, although she had been rising through the rankings quickly.
‘GREETINGS, YOUNG MIRKO! I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SINCE THE HERO GALA IN OSAKA! I’M SORRY FOR CRASHING INTO YOU LIKE THAT!’ All Might declared, although it only came out as a squeak.
“Whoa… you’re that bunny all over the news, aren’t you? How’d you get to be flying through the air like that?” Miruko responded, ignoring the squeaks.
‘IT’S A LONG STORY—ESSENTIALLY, MY NEMESIS GAVE ME A QUIRK WHICH MADE ME BECOME A RABBIT IN HIS DYING MOMENTS. I CAN’T SEEM SO SHIFT BACK NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY!’
“Maybe… you’re All Might as some kind of bunny? That would explain why he went missing a couple days ago.” The hero puzzled, cocking her head at Bun-Bun.
‘YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ME?!’ All Might screeched, looking hopefully up at the rabbit woman.
“Ha, no that would be crazy.” Miruko shook her head, chuckling. “All Might as a bunny? Sounds like some weird fanfiction, that could never happen.”
All Might’s head lowered sadly. ‘I SEE… YOU CANNOT HEAR ME, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.’
“Aw, poor little guy’s looking sad again.” The hero petted the rabbit’s head. “Why don’t I bring you back to my place and give you something to eat? According to the news you’re some kind of homeless orphan, so it’s not like you’ve got anywhere else to go.”
All Might’s tiny rabbit stomach growled. ‘I SUPPOSE I COULD GO FOR SOME HAY—I MEAN REGULAR HUMAN FOOD. WHO SAID HAY? NOT ME. THAT WOULD BE CRAZ—”
* * *
Bun-Bun sat on the table in Miruko’s apartment, munching on hay and thumping his back foot reflexively.
“Aw, you like scratchies?” Miruko asked, petting his ear.
All Might did, in fact, like scratchies. There was that one spot behind his ear he just couldn’t reach on his own.
“Y’know, I never thought of myself as a ‘pets’ kinda person, but you’re kind of growing on me.” She said, grinning toothily at the bunny. “I’m going to have to give you up at some point though; I’m a hero and a fragile bunny can’t exactly—”
All Might’s foot kicked a hole through the table as the hero found the spot behind Bun-Bun’s ear.
“Oh Kit.” The hero gaped, her surprise slowly shifting into a grin. “You’re a strong little guy, huh?”
All Might turned to look up at the woman, suddenly worried. She looked like she was plotting something…
“Welcome to the team, Side Kick!”
* * *
“Hero fans are abuzz today, as the internet’s favorite hare, Bun-Bun, made a dramatic reappearance this morning, fighting alongside Miruko! Yes, you heard that right, what everyone thought was a normal bunny is actually a brawler capable of fighting hand in hand with the number 12 hero!” A newscaster read off a teleprompter, sipping coffee as he recounted that day’s news.
“Hero theorists were quirk to wonder if Bun-Bun is a quirked animal, a subject of genetic experimentation, or something else entirely! We at channel 8 were able to get an interview with Miruko herself, and here’s what she had to say!”
“Bun-Bun? He’s just a rabbit, get over it. If you can’t beat a bunny the size of a football in a fistfight, you should just hang up your hero costume and go home.”
“Well, you heard it here first, folks. Bun-Bun is just a regular animal. There is absolutely nothing to see here.”
Miruko clicked off the television. “Wow Bun-Bun, you’re famous!”
‘I WAS FAMOUS LONG BEFORE YOU WERE BORN.’ All Might scoffed.
“I think everyone is focusing on you right now because they don’t want to think about All Might.” Miruko stated.
Bun-Bun’s ears cocked towards Miruko, suddenly interested.
“He’s been gone for over a week now, I just think that Japan isn’t ready to face the fact that their ‘symbol of peace’ might never be coming back…”
‘I UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY… BACK BEFORE I JOINED THE FRAY, JAPAN WAS IN UTTER CHAOS. THE PEOPLE NEED A SYMBOL TO RALLY BEHIND, SOMETHING TO CHASE THAT CHAOS AWAY SO THAT THEIR LIVES CAN RESUME ONCE MORE.’
“We need a new symbol…” Miruko muttered. “Peace was nice and all, but the villains have gotten too comfortable, we need someone to scare them away, while convincing all the innocent bystanders that someone strong is on their side.”
In that moment, the two hero’s minds aligned, alit with a new sense of purpose.
They needed a Symbol of Power.
* * *
If Miruko’s rise in the ranks before was fast, then from that day on, it was meteoric. They went from number 12 and some unranked, unlicensed animal, straight to numbers 1 and 2. One year, they actually skipped five rankings at once!
By the time they reached the top, their rankings were looser. Some years, the hero billboard would list Miruko as #1, other years it was Bun-Bun.
(This infuriated Endeavor to no end.)
In a short span of time, bunny rabbits changed in the public eye. No longer were they seen as cute and cuddly, they became the foremost image of fierce protectors.
The Tokyo Public Library actually added two rabbit statues guarding the door in place of the classic lions. Miruko and Bun-Bun attended the ribbon cutting ceremony.
There were trials along the way, of course, like the rampage of Toxic Chainsaw, a villain so powerful he was barely held back by the current top 3 heroes working together, but the moment those floppy ears arrived on the scene, the civilians watching at home let out a sigh of relief.
Japan’s symbols of Power had arrived.
What followed was a flurry of blows so fast that the camera’s frame rates could hardly keep up—with hundreds of powerful kicks being delivered, shattering the chainmail the villain wore and dissolving the clouds of toxic air molecule by molecule.
It lasted for hours, an onslaught of blows that didn’t let up until the villain finally stopped moving. The public wasn’t worried though.
Those four rabbit ears never wavered, standing tall through every single blow. In the final moments of the fight, with dust still surrounding the area in thick clouds, you could see Bun-Bun stand atop a shard of concrete.
His ears stood tall, and for a moment, you could almost see All Might standing there, signature bunny-shaped hair standing tall, raising a fist and declaring “I AM HERE!”
And that was all the citizens of Japan needed to let go of their once greatest hero. All Might was gone, and maybe they would never know where he went—but that was okay, because Japan had two new protectors, who would not fall so easily.
Japan had the Bunny Squad.
* * *
Omake:
Years later, Bun-Bun began to pick up on some whispers around Japan. Talk of an immortal being with hundreds of quirks.
Talk of the Demon Lord’s return.
While he couldn’t communicate this directly with Miruko, she knew that something was wrong. Over the years she had learned to tell when her pet rabbit sensed something off.
So, when a henchman waiting in an abandoned warehouse spilled the beans on a raid on UA high school, he was already leaping through the air, his partner right beside him.
This had the smell of All for One all over it.
It smelled bad.
Really bad.
Like, really really bad.
The rabbits crashed through the ceiling of the USJ, immediately seeing chaos below. Some kind of birdlike creature with an exposed brain was chasing a flock of birds around, while a boy with some kind of mutant quirk directed them to “distract the Nomu”
The rabbits crashed to the ground, Miruko landing on top of the creature and pinning its head to the ground.
‘I AM HERE!’ Bun-Bun declared. He knew that nobody could understand his squeaks, but still hoped that he might inspire just a bit of hope with his words—
“ALL MIGHT??!” Koji Koda exclaimed, looking directly at the rabbit.
The boy and the bunny met eyes for several seconds, while the hero processed his words.
One for All might have just found its next successor…