Chapter Text
A 16-year-old boy who looked a lot like a Japanese version of Timothée Chalamet, with his haircut from the movie Dune, woke up in the middle of a white room with a table and nothing else; the last thing he remembered was distracting a gunman.
It took him a moment to realize what had happened: he was dead.
"Oh shit… I won't get to see Arata's face…" He thought to himself as he looked at the table, trying to put his situation into perspective.
"I think his name is Shiro." Said someone who appeared in the chair behind the table.
The young man's eyes widened at the sight. The man in front of him looked a lot like Masahiro Inoue in his role as Tsukasa Kadoya, dressed in a white suit.
He was about to comment on this when the man raised his arm.
"Pleased to meet you, Satoru Yagami." He greeted him. "This isn't my true appearance. You should know that the form you see is a disguise; if you were to see the true appearance of an angel, your soul would shatter. And I chose this appearance so that you could see something somewhat familiar."
"Okay, he cleared that up pretty quickly." The young man thought as the angel pulled out a file and began to look through it.
"Well, according to your file, you died saving the lives of several innocent people by… unleashing the principal's ferret, which you'd taken with you for an underground dogfight at your university, on a crazed gunman, and a stray bullet went through your throat?!" Said the angel, taken aback as he read the circumstances of the young man's death. "Why did you have a ferret?"
"We didn't have any dogs on hand. So since I didn't have time to hunt down a wolf, I took the principal's ferret." Satoru explained.
"Wait, an underground dogfight organized at his high school, Shiro… Satoru Yagami… No, no, no, it can't be…" The angel said as he thought it over, flipping through the pages of the file, then looked at the young man with a mixture of surprise and terror. "Oh, shit. It's him…"
"Because I've got a bit of a reputation around here?" Satoru asked.
"No! Uh, yes! Uh…" Said the angel as he searched for the right words.
"It's okay, you can calm down. I'm at your place, so I'm not going to cause any trouble right away. I know how to keep a low profile when I need to." Said the young man with a friendly smile that did nothing to reassure the angel.
"I-I-I, okay." Said the angel nervously, trying unsuccessfully to appear relaxed as he searched for a way to satisfy the one entrusted with the soul's fate, before an idea struck him as he thought about what one of his colleagues had done for a charitable soul. "You know what? As a reward for that heroic sacrifice, you're going to get a second chance at life, but this time, you can do it in a world of your choice, fictional or otherwise. And you get five wishes, on the house."
"Well, perfect! You're very helpful!" Satoru smiled, amused by the angel's apparent fear. "So let me think about the world I'm going to be reincarnated into…"
He took a few moments to think before finally making his decision, picturing the perfect world where he could wreak havoc on the storyline and how to achieve it, all while fulfilling a fantasy he'd had since middle school.
"I'd like to be reborn in the anime *My Hero Academia*."
"T-that's an interesting choice." Stammered the angel, taking note of the request. "L-let's move on to the wishes now."
"Cool. For my first wish: I want to look exactly like Izuku Midoriya."
"W-why not ask to take his place?" Asked the angel, curiously.
"I don't want to take his place in the story. I already have some small projects in mind, and they don't involve sucking All Might's dick. As for his appearance, it's just because I like the way he looks in *My Villain Gang*." Satoru explained. "For my second wish, I want All for One's power, without the problems associated with Alter gifts, as well as the ability to instantly master the Alters in my possession. I don't want to hurt the people I'd give them to, and I don't have the patience to train for every Alter I get my hands on."
"That's a good decision. Using the wishes to remodel the Alter to make it more practical or better is a good option." The angel agreed, looking more at ease, knowing that by agreeing with everything Satoru said, he wasn't taking any risks. "And for the third wish?"
"I want All for One, in addition to being able to steal and grant Quirks, to duplicate them. That way, I can keep a copy of the ones I give away."
"Understandable, so you don't lose any more." The angel agreed. "And your fourth wish?"
"To be able to take, give, or copy an Alter with a simple touch, without pain. I don't know if it hurts anymore, but I don't want to take the risk."
"And you're absolutely right." The angel remarked, continuing to write. "And for your last wish?"
"Your second-to-last wish? So actually, that makes five wish…" The angel corrected before he cut him off.
"Well, make that six. There's something I'd forgotten. And don't interrupt me anymore, it's getting on my nerves."
"But we can certainly bend the rule, just this once, for you." The angel said quickly, followed by a nervous laugh as he corrected what he had just written.
"I prefer it that way. For my fifth wish, I wish for this power to also apply to Alters who carry the recessive gene."
"Not a bad idea for stealing or awakening dormant Alters." The angel remarked. "And so… for your… sixth wish…"
"So, for my sixth wish, I want it so that if I take Alters similar to several people, they'll merge into a single Alter that combines their powers. For example, if I take two healing Alters, they'll merge to create a healer who's even more effective."
"All right, I understand the reasoning." The angel nodded as he wrote in his file. "Well, that's all good with me. You'll be sent to Musutafu during the Sludge Villain's attack."
"Well, that's perfect." Satoru smiled, glad that his requests had been accepted and that he was being sent at that specific time. "Oh, by the way… I forgot to ask your name…"
The angel panicked a little at the question.
"Um… Call me Val." He said before Satoru disappeared, and he finally slumped into the chair. "Damn, that was a close call."
"You're going to get your ass kicked by the big boss, Valtiel!" Someone shouted from afar.
"What else did you want me to do? Didn't you see who I was dealing with! I'd rather he beat me up than that guy." Val shouted back before quickly jotting something down.
When Satoru opened his eyes, he saw that he was on a rooftop. He looked at his hands, then ran a finger through his hair, noticing that it was styled differently, more tousled and voluminous. He had nothing to check his reflection in, but just from that, he could tell it had worked.
He then looked down at the building below to see the heroes battling a Sludge Villain, with Bakugo getting involved and putting himself in danger before Midoriya stepped in and was saved by All Might.
"Enjoy your life." He said as the rain began to fall, turning his head toward an advertisement featuring Endeavor. "There's a new player. He'll bring your whole world crashing down and save it from what you've done to it."
A few days later, a man locked the door to his cosmetic surgery office, feeling satisfied.
That man was Satoshi Miyamoto, a man whose Alter allowed him to alter the appearance of others. Whether it was their faces, their heights, or their body measurements, he could practically make people look younger. And he could do so without the need for additional products or follow-up injections. This delighted his female clientele.
As he turned to leave, he felt a hand grab his face, followed by a strange sensation before he collapsed, unconscious.
"Sorry, buddy. But I need your power." Satoru said, looking down at the man's unconscious body.
He was now wearing a black suit and tie with a white shirt, and his nails were painted black.
The next morning, Satoru walked into a psychologist's office and did the same thing to him as he had done to Satoshi, before making him drink something that seemed to have propelled him through the ceiling, his head wedged in there while he lay unconscious and a brown liquid trickled down his legs.
It had taken him a few days to track this guy down. But it was worth it.
This psychiatrist was known in the underground scene for having the unsavory habit of using his Quirk to toy with the minds of his female clients and abuse them. He'd do this by altering their memories to make them believe they were cheating on their partners of their own free will, or by simply erasing that moment from their memories.
So, unlike Satoshi, he hadn't bothered to spare his dignity. Even though he had to thank him, without him, he would have had to search much longer to find the Quirk he needed. Or accumulate the absorption of a similar Quirk to improve it and achieve that level of mental manipulation.
"I'm glad I haven't lost my touch when it comes to concocting laxatives." Satoru smiled as he left the office, informing the secretary that "something strange" Had happened to her boss.
He did the same several hours later with several doctors who possessed healing and regeneration Quirks. Next came a magician with a teleportation Quirk, whom he used for his magic tricks.
The hardest part came after that.
After gathering the Quirks that would be most useful to him at the moment, he scoured the city of Musutafu until he found him, the one who wanted Endeavor's downfall just as much as he did.
And there he stood before him, his hair dyed black, his skin burned across almost his entire body.
Dabi.
Toya Todoroki.
"What do you want?" Dabi simply asked as the rain began to fall.
"The same thing you do. For Endeavor to pay for what he's done." Satoru replied. "And I think we can help each other with that, and many other things."
"Oh yeah? Like what?" Dabi growled, unimpressed, though the fact that, according to Satoru, they shared a common goal did pique his interest.
In response, Satoru closed in on him so quickly that Dabi didn't have time to react, and Satoru pressed his hand against Dabi's face.
A light emanating from his hand spread across Dabi's face, then over his entire body, as he groaned in pain.
When the light faded, Dabi looked at his hands and then touched his face, feeling more than what Satoru seemed to have done to him, before bursting out laughing.
"I've only done a small part of the work. The rest will take a little practice." Satoru explained, slipping his hands into his pockets. "So? Do you accept my offer?"
"If I accept?" Dabi sneered, lifting his face, his skin showing no trace of burns. "When do we start?"
A week later, everyone in the hospital stepped aside as the hero Endeavor strode purposefully forward, a scowl on his face as he carried a gym bag.
He entered a hospital room labeled "Rei Todoroki" And slammed the door shut.
The only patient in the room was the aforementioned Rei Todoroki. The wife of Enji Todoroki, alias Endeavor.
A stunning middle-aged woman with long white hair and gray eyes.
When she saw Endeavor in her hospital room, her eyes widened as she began to tremble before curling up in her bed, like a traumatized child who thought it was her only safe space.
He approached her, grabbed her by the face, then opened the gym bag with his free hand, pulling out a still-warm corpse that looked exactly like Rei.
At that very moment, a light emanated from the hand holding the real Rei, who felt herself drifting off to sleep as her mind went blank, hearing the man's voice say, "I'm sorry. It's the only way." in a tender tone.
A few minutes later, a powerful explosion ripped the hospital room door off its hinges, threatening to crush a nurse in its path.
Everyone present rushed over to see that the interior of the room was charred, including a scattered, burned body, while the wall where the window had been was completely destroyed.
At that very moment, Dabi stood on a hill, watching a large house in a rural village engulfed in blue flames turn red as two elderly people screamed in agony.
"You sold your daughter to Enji Todoriki. It's time to pay the price for what you let happen to your daughter and your grandchildren." Dabi smiled, before blowing on his index finger to extinguish a blue flame, then hopping on a motorcycle behind him and leaving the village via the road.
An hour later, Dabi met up with Satoru at a warehouse outside Musutafu.
"So, did it work?"
"Totally." Dabi nodded, leaning back against a crate. "The flames changed color as the house burned, just like in training. You were right, shooting them over long distances protects you. I didn't even need to use ice to regulate my temperature."
"Still, remember to use it if you feel yourself getting too hot, just as a precaution." Satoru said, looking at something on his phone. "I can't get this out of my head. It's one of your father's biggest weaknesses. He's not immune to his own flames, but that idiot fights hand-to-hand. And he trained you to fight like him even though back then your fire resistance was crap. I don't even get why he never used fire to attack from a distance."
"I know, no need to remind me." Dabi grumbled. "I still don't get why we don't just take him out."
"Because your dear father is one of the top 10 most popular heroes. Do you really think the government will just sit idly by while some anonymous idiots spread rumors about him? They'll make the public believe it's all bullshit, and only his family would believe it, because they've lived through it. He wasn't even questioned when your mother was hospitalized for mental health issues, even though a psychiatrist had to interview her and diagnose what was wrong." Satoru said. "But if we take our time, lay the right groundwork, and investigate to gather evidence on him and the branch of the government that supports the heroes, he and the system protecting him are finished."
Dabi's eyes narrowed at the mention of his mother.
"Then we'll need more people. Because with just the two of us, it's going to take a long time." Dabi joked. "Besides, I'm not very good at investigating."
"I'm working on it." Satoru agreed before his eyes narrowed as he kept his gaze fixed on his phone.
"What's up?"
"Looks like your dad has added another piece of crap to his resume." He replied, handing his phone to Dabi.
When Dabi's gaze fell on the headline displayed on the phone, his eyes widened.
The headline: "Hero No. 2 Allegedly Destroys a Hospital Room."
He then snatched the phone from Satoru's hands and began reading it. This was accompanied by eyewitness accounts claiming to have seen Endeavor enter the hospital room shortly before she collapsed and he went missing.
But it was also accompanied by a denial from Endeavor's agency, along with a timestamped image proving that he was on the other side of town at the same time.
However, it was the victim's name that sent Dabi into a rage.
Rei Todoroki.
"That bastard…" Dabi growled as he handed the phone back to his partner before he risked breaking it, feeling a burning rage grow inside him, furious that his father had gotten away with it yet again.
He couldn't stand to see Satoru smiling at that.
At that very moment, Endeavor was standing on the roof of a building, looking down at the destroyed hospital room while police officers investigated.
"Are you okay?" Asked a voice behind him.
He turned around briefly to see All Might, the number one hero, standing behind him.
"Leave me alone." He said bitterly, turning his gaze back to the crime scene. "I was lucky to be busy with a villain with an ice power when it happened… But something wasn't right."
"What do you mean?"
"As soon as he heard a civilian mention an explosion at a hospital, he fled. As if he'd been waiting for that moment and was just holding me back."
All Might then cupped his chin in his hand, looking pensive.
"Hmm. You're not wrong. That is suspicious." He acknowledged. "I'll bring this up with the Hero Association. If it comes from me, they'll take it more seriously than if it comes from you, because of the scandal and the witnesses who claim to have seen you. Especially since shape-shifting Quirks, "
Endeavor clenched his teeth upon hearing that. He hated to admit that the very person he wanted to surpass in one way or another would be of great help in clearing his name.
"Do as you please." He said bitterly before walking away.
Once he was alone, Endeavor punched a wall in frustration, not only was his career in jeopardy, but she was dead now, too. How would his children react to this? Would they talk to the reporters?
Enji Todoriki realized at that moment that he was in deep trouble.
The next morning, a teenage girl with short white hair, a short fringe falling between her eyes, and gray eyes woke up in what appeared to be a hospital room.
She felt a little disoriented, as the room seemed more modern than anything she'd ever seen before, especially the television, which looked slimmer and had a rectangular screen.
The door then opened, revealing Satoru holding a bouquet of Rindou.
"Oh… Hi. Um… you're awake…" He said, a little embarrassed that she'd seen him come in, hoping she'd wake up a little later. "I'm glad you're feeling better. You were in rough shape when I found you."
"You… found me?" She asked in a soft voice.
"Yes. You're at my place. I found you nearby, so I brought you back and took care of you." Satoru explained, lying so naturally that it sounded real. "Luckily, I've still got all this stuff from… never mind."
"Um… thank you." The teenager said softly, realizing they hadn't introduced themselves.
"Oh, right… we don't know each other." Satoru said, blushing genuinely. "My name is Satoru Yagami. And you?"
"My name is Rei Himura." Rei introduced herself, trying to remember the last thing she'd experienced before waking up in this bed. "What… What happened to me?"
"I thought you might be able to tell me." Satoru lied, pulling out his phone. "You did say your name is Himura, didn't you?"
"Um, yeah, why?" Rei asked.
"Well, I think you should see this." He said, holding out his phone to Rei, revealing an article about a "mysterious fire" that had struck the Himura family home, leaving no survivors.
This shocked Rei, who put a hand over her mouth as tears welled up in her eyes, before she noticed something else shocking: the article's publication date. It was dated 29 years later than the year she remembered being in.
"My parents…" She sobbed, feeling overwhelmed by the information. "How… am I… in the future?"
Seeing Rei's distress, Satoru pulled her into his arms and offered her a shoulder to cry on.
She thought she had nothing left, so he wanted to be there for her.
Shortly afterward, Satoru was standing on the roof of a building, watching a crowd of journalists gathered for the police press conference regarding the hospital incident.
"You're very talented, you know."
He turned his head to see the great antagonist of *My Hero Academia*, All for One, standing behind him with his hands behind his back.
"Thanks for the compliment." Satoru acknowledged.
"I've been watching you for a while now. You know you could do so much more." Declared All Might's nemesis. "We have the same powers. If you join my organization, you'll probably be invincible."
The young man could see right through what he was getting at, with all the subtlety of a dump truck at 6 p.m.
"Sorry, but my plans don't involve joining you." Satoru replied, standing up and putting his hands in his pockets. "But don't worry. I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone and don't get in the way of my recruiting. What do you say?"
The two villains in suits and ties then stared at each other in silence, Satoru waiting for the masked man's response.