Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I'm sorry to tell you, Mrs. Midoriya, but your son is Quirkless," said Dr. Tsubasa, who gestured towards an x-ray of a foot. "I'm afraid he has two pinky-toe joints, which are present in-"

"Excuse me, doctor, but you're mistaken. My son definitely has a Quirk," interrupted Inko Midoriya coolly, in confusion at the man's words. Honestly, the nerve of this man, telling her that her baby boy didn't have a Quirk, but she knew. There was no other explanation for what had occurred; it had to have been the result of a Quirk. Even if she couldn't see it, she still felt it. She looked down at the boy she was standing behind and leaned down. "Izuku, sweetie, why don't you tell him about your friend?"

"Okay!" he chirped, before closing his eyes, trying to concentrate on recreating the strange sound he had heard earlier that day.

"Wow, Kacchan! I hope I get my Quirk soon!"

"Yeah, well whatever it is, it's not gonna be as cool as mine!"

Izuku had gone to sleep hoping, praying, that he'd get a Quirk soon. Everyone else at his daycare had one, and his best friend Kacchan had a really cool one! He said he could make nit...nitro...something out of his sweat and make it explode! Izuku had kept his hopes up when the first child had gotten their Quirk, and when Katsuki had gotten his, and when he still hadn't gotten his and the others started whispering. He never considered the possibility that he could be Quirkless. After all, what four-year old was pessimistic about their dream? All he ever wanted was to be a hero, just like All Might, the number one hero in the world!

So why was it taking so long to get his? Izuku had never really noticed, but his mother Inko's smiles had become more and more strained lately, when she watched him watch video after video of All Might's battles, when she would watch him and Katsuki play Heroes and Villains, and when he would excitedly talk about what type of Quirk he would be getting.

'Please be a good one...' he thought as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Izuku had been walking down an alleyway, when he noticed a man lying in a patch of grass behind the nearby parking lot. After briefly staring at the sight in confusion, he saw something that looked to be blood spilling out from nearby.

"Shit, we lost him!" Izuku jumped at the sudden noise and turned to see a group of men in suits. "Do you think he went into one of the houses?" he asked, looking around.

"He can't get far without bleeding out," another one replied. "There should be a trail somewhere around here.  Hey kid!" Izuku had gone back to staring at the man who was bleeding out, but turned to see the group running towards him.

"Huh?" he asked.

"Did you see a bleeding man around here?" one of them asked, he and the others standing imposingly. "He's tall and has black hair."

Izuku stared at him for a moment, thinking about the man who was hidden from their view. "Yes," he replied with an impassive face, before pointing in the opposite direction. "He went that way."

"He shouldn't be far," a different man said, looking out into the alleyway that Izuku was pointing to. "Thanks, kid. Let's go!" He ran off, with the others following behind. However, one of them stayed, and was looking the other direction, but Izuku kept his arm pointed in the direction the others were going, his expression unwavering.

"Hey! What are you still doing there?!" he heard. The man who stayed then finally left, running to the rest. Throughout the lie, Izuku felt not a single ounce of fear. He believed that the man who was lying in the grass was someone who felt alone.

Just like he did.

Izuku's eyes shot open at the sound of his mother waking him.

"Izuku, baby, it's time to wake up," she said, lightly pushing his shoulder. When she saw that he was awake, she planted a kiss to his forehead and pulled away his blanket. "I made some katsudon for you~."

"Okay, mommy," he replied groggily. When Inko stood up and left the room, Izuku took a deep breath and stretched, before rubbing his eyes and fully sitting up. When he draped his legs over the bed and slid off to stand, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to look at it, he became confused at the sight of a butterfly fluttering around his room, before settling on the wall beside the door.

'Huh?' he thought.

Izuku stood up and walked over to where the butterfly was perched, and just stared at it curiously, before reaching out a hand towards his surprise, however, the butterfly flew over to his hand. When it landed on his finger, the butterfly made a strange noise before shifting into (or rather, back into) the crayon he had been drawing with just the night before, which had fallen to the ground. Izuku picked up the toy and stared at it in awe for a moment, before breaking out into a grin.

"Mommy! Mommy!" he yelled out, opening the door and running to the kitchen. "I got my Quirk!"

Inko turned around from preparing breakfast to see her son running up to her. "Really?" She walked out and slightly bent down, placing her hands on her knees. "Well show me then, honey." Izuku nodded and closed his eyes. Clutching the crayon tightly, he tried to remember the sound that the butterfly had made, but he really wasn't sure what else to do.

After a moment of him feeling the drawing utensil not changing, Izuku opened his eyes in confusion at the failure, when he noticed a strange figure suddenly floating next to his mother. "AH!" he cried out, jumping back and pointing a finger at the intruder. "Mommy, there's someone there!"

At his exclamation and sudden fear, Inko turned to look where Izuku was pointing, but was only met with the sight of empty air. "Huh? There's no one here besides us, Izuku." Thinking he was just making it up, she started to walk towards him.

"No, mommy, he's right there!" Izuku interrupted, shaking his arms in front of him, before frantically pointing at the figure. "He's gonna...hurt..." he trailed off his sentence when he saw the strange person also cowering in fear. When he stood up, it lowered its hands back down, and continued to just float motionlessly, as if waiting for a command. "Oh." Izuku started to walk towards it, to which it turned around to face him. Before he could study it, however, his mother suddenly enveloped him in a hug.

"Oh baby," she said, hugging him tightly and rubbing small circles on his back. "I know you really want to get your Quirk, but-oh!" She stopped as she felt another set of arms hugging her side, but when she turned to see who was hugging her, she found nothing but the sight of the dining table.

'But there's...nothing there,' she thought in confusion, before coming to a realization. "Izuku," she began. "Can you see who's hugging my arm?" She felt her son nod, before he pulled back and smiled at hje.

"I think that's my Quirk, mommy," he replied.

"Oh," she said. "Oh." She hugged him again. "Well I'm so happy for you!" She kissed his cheek, and pulled back to stand up when she felt the pressure on her arm release. "Do you wanna go to the Quirk doctor later to register it?" she asked him.

Izuku nodded enthusiastically. "Okay!"

"Well then," said Dr. Tsubasa. "I have to admit, this is rather...bizarre." He watched the butterfly that previously had been the crayon the child had brought with him flutter about. The pinky-toe test is said to be the leading technique in determining Quirklessness by Quirk specialists for years now, but in your son's case, it ended up actually being proved wrong." He clicked his pen and began writing down notes on his clipboard.

"So do you believe us now, doctor?" Inko asked.

"Yes, of course, ma'am, I do now," he replied quickly. "I must apologize for my earlier statement." It seemed that either the young boy was the outlier to an otherwise accurate procedure, or the entire thing was wrong this entire time and there were thousands of people currently running around with Quirks they didn't know they had (he was much more willing to consider the former). "Now then," Dr. Tsubasa continued, pushing up the rim of his glasses. "Before we continue, can Izuku turn things into other animals, or is it just butterflies?"

"We haven't tried anything else yet," replied Inko. While she knew there was another aspect to his Quirk from that mishap at breakfast, she hoped that her son could do more than simply turning things into butterflies. Izuku wanted nothing more than to be a hero, and she would be damned if she didn't try her best to support him.

"Very well," the doctor replied. He walked up to Izuku, who was looking at the ground while dangling his legs. "Izuku," he began, leaning down and handing him a pen. "Do you think you could turn this into something else besides a butterfly? Maybe a bird or a plant?" The boy took the offered item and started intensely staring at it. Before long, the pen began to shift in form, along with a very peculiar noise that Dr. Tsubasa couldn't quite make out.

In the boy's hands was a small dandelion, as if freshly plucked off of the ground.

"Well isn't that interesting," he said bemusedly, gently taking the flower and examining it. And to think, it was only a pen mere moments ago. "To be frank, I wasn't expecting it to work. There have been Quirks that could create plants, but never animals as well." He looked back to the boy's mother. "I don't think there has ever been a Quirk as unique as your son's."

"Really?" Inko leaned down to look at her son. "Did you hear that, Izuku? There's no one else with your Quirk."

"Wow, really?" he asked with wide eyes, before breaking out into a grin. "I can't wait to tell Kacchan!" Dr. Tsubasa hummed at the boy's enthusiasm, before pulling out a second pen.

"Yes, this is cause for some celebration," he said. "But you mentioned there was another thing to his Quirk? Something about a 'friend.'"

"Yup!" Izuku chirped, before pointing to his side. "There's a person right there." Dr. Tsubasa blankly stared at the spot where the boy had pointed in confusion. After a moment of not seeing anything, he tried squinting at the area for any sign of another person occupying that space, but he could see only nothing.

"Um, I'm not sure I understand..." he said awkwardly. Perhaps there something he was missing?

"It's okay, doctor," interjected Inko. "I couldn't see him either, but you can feel him." Dr. Tsubasa nodded in understanding, taking a moment to briefly write on his clipboard.

"I see," he said. "Okay, Izuku," The boy looked up at him. "Could you please tell your, uh, 'friend' to give me a high five?" he asked, holding out a hand.

"Okay!" he replied, before making a concentrated face. Almost immediately, Dr. Tsubasa felt the slap of a small hand make contact with his own. He blinked for a moment from the high five to contemplate what had just happened.

"A second Quirk? Interesting," he muttered, taking a few notes, before looking back up. "Is he the same size as you?" At the boy's positive reply, he wrote a note about how the size must be linked to his age. "Okay, now could you please describe him for me?"

"Um," Izuku began. "He looks really yellow, but it's all shiny!" Dr. Tsubasa wrote down gold. "And he's wearing a funny hat, and he has lots of purple ladybugs on him!" Dr. Tsubasa wrote down the information before looking back up at the boy expectantly. "Um..." he tilted his head. 'He has...loopy things on the sides!" Hm, a bit vague on that but it was likely an article of clothing.

"Okay," Dr. Tsubasa said. "I think that's enough for now." He looked back up to the boy's mother. "You'll need to come back sometime in the future so we can get an accurate description of your son's companion. Now-" He clicked his pen in preparation to write. "What do you think of naming his Quirk 'Life Giver?'

Katsuki Bakugō was bored. He wanted to go to the playground at the park today, but when he didn't see any sign of his friend, his mood dipped considerably. There weren't really any other kids out, so he just resigned himself to just using the swings.

"Hey, Kacchan!" Katsuki looked up from where he was sitting to see Izuku running over to him. "Guess what?" he asked, stopping in front of the other boy with a grin.

"What?" he asked, pushing his feet off of the ground to try and gain momentum in his swing.

"I got my Quirk!" At this point Izuku couldn't maintain his excitement, and began jumping up and down. Katsuki was intrigued at the information.

"Really?" He waited until he reached a high point, before jumping off of the swing. The landing kind of hurt his ankles, but he wasn't about to admit it. "Well come on," he said impatiently. "Show me!"

"Okay!" Izuku closed his eyes and closed his fists, trying to focus. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and grinned at the sight of a familiar golden figure. "Ta-da!" he exclaimed, holding his hands out, but Katsuki was only met with the sight of empty air.

"...Deku, there's nothing there," he said. Was he being had? Was Izuku just Quirkless and playing a trick on him? Before he could voice his irritation, the other boy spoke up.

"Huh?" Izuku asked in confusion, before coming to a realization. "Oh." He scratched his head. "I think the doctor said no one can see him," he explained, which did little to alleviate Katsuki's growing irritation. "But you can feel it!" he added. Katsuki, however, was still confused.

"What do you mean no one can see-" he began, but was interrupted by something touching him. "What was that?" He suddenly asked, wildly looking around. He could see Deku in front of him, but he didn't see him move at all.

"That was my Quirk!" Izuku said excitedly. "He touched you on the shoulder. Do you want me to do it again?"

Katsuki was still confused, but he just shrugged. "Okay, sure." He wasn't sure why Izuku's Quirk was invisible, but everyone else's weren't. He held out a fist to the other boy in invitation.

When he felt the sensation of a fist making contact with his own, he looked down with wide eyes. "Okay," he said, impressed. "I felt that, but-" he looked up and saw that Izuku had started moving very slowly. "Uh, Deku?" he asked, but didn't receive a response. "Oi, Deku!" he tried again, this time moving towards him. "What'd you do to...me..." he trailed off as he noticed that he had suddenly started moving fast. "Woah," he whispered in awe, slowly opening and closing a fist. "I'm fast...and I feel really strong." He looked back to Izuku. "Deku," he said, grinning. "I think your Quirk gave me a power boost."

When he didn't get a response, he frowned. "Hey Deku." He tried to use his Quirk in an attempt to get the other boy's attention, but found that the sweat on his hands wasn't igniting. "What the...why isn't my Quirk working?" he asked himself in shock. "Uh, Deku?" Katsuki was now growing scared, his breathing and heartrate increasing. "Deku," he said desperately, trying to touch the other boy, but his hand only passed through him. "Deku, please." Soon after, Katsuki found himself back in his body, and Izuku was moving normally again, looking back at him in shock.

"I'm so sorry, Kacchan!" Izuku exclaimed when he saw Katsuki beginning to cry. "I didn't know my Quirk could do that, I promise!" He moved to wrap his friend in a hug. After some time, Katsuki pulled away.

"Don't do that again, you baka," he said, wiping his tears away with his arm.

"Sorry..." Izuku replied awkwardly, before lighting up. "Do you wanna see what else I can do?" Seeing Katsuki suddenly grow scared again, he backtracked. "I don't have to touch you!" he said, quickly waving his arms in front of him. When he saw Katsuki visibly relax, he let out a breath in relief.

"Okay," Katsuki said quietly.

"Um," Izuku began, quickly looking around. "Wait right here!" he ran around the area, looking for a small rock to pick up. When he found one, he picked it up and ran back to where Katsuki was standing. After holding it tightly and focusing, the familiar (and really weird) sound of something transforming began to play, and Izuku set it on the ground. Before long, a large vine started sprouting from the small rock. "What do you think?" he asked, looking back at Katsuki, who grinned.

"That's pretty cool," he praised, the previous accident apparently being forgotten. "Can you do more?"

Izuku tilted his head in deep thought. "I don't know," he admitted. "I made a butterfly and a flower, but I didn't do anything else."

"Hm..." Katsuki began. "So you can make plants and animals." He lit up as an idea formed in his head, and promptly turned around, breaking out into a run. "Come on!" he yelled back. "Let's see what else you can do!"

"Okay!" Izuku felt guilty for making his friend scared, but he quickly followed behind.

Chapter Text

Eventually, days turned into months, which then turned into years, and Izuku had grown comfortable with his bizarre Quirk, spending as much time as he could to analyze it, especially the ghostly being that was part of it. At first, he believed it was a new friend, but every time Izuku would try to make conversation with it, he would never get a response, either physically or verbally. It would only stare at a random area, only turning when Izuku was paying attention to something specific.

Although, there were times where the ghost would automatically do things or react whenever specific things were happening to Izuku, such as catching a glass of water that tipped over the edge of the table, or when Katsuki had tried to surprise him from behind one day and received a kick in return. (Now Katsuki wasn't scared of a lot of things, but whatever the hidden part of Deku's Quirk was, it frightened him. Which is why he never really antagonized him like the other extras.)

It was another session with Dr. Tsubasa, that it was concluded that Izuku's Quirk was technically summoning the ghost, but he could control it to use Life Giver, using its hands. At first, it looked like they were two separate Quirks (which was flat-out impossible), but it turns out the two could technically be considered a single Quirk, as one couldn't be used without the other.

When Izuku brought up that he could already make plants and animals without the use of his companion, Dr. Tsubasa became puzzled. He eventually suggested that perhaps since Izuku could control it, then he could actually use its limbs in place of his own, almost like he was wearing a suit of armor.

Aside from the ability to create life out of inanimate objects, the golden being was surprisingly strong, having the strength of several grown men, and could move very quickly, as Izuku had seen when it had caught a glass of water that fell and was just about to hit the floor and break.

When his mother asked him if he wanted to actually name his companion, Izuku already had the perfect name, deep within the recesses of his mind.

"I'll call him Gold Experience," he told her with finality.

"Hey Deku?" Katsuki asked, eyes fixated on the television screen in front of him. "You can make any animal you want, right?"

"Yeah," Izuku answered with an equal amount of concentration. "Why'd you ask?" The two of them were heavily focused on beating each other in a racing game, so several more seconds passed before Katsuki eventually spoke again.

"...You should be able to make people, right?" At that, Izuku sharply turned to look at him, which caused the car he was controlling to steer off course, giving the other boy a massive lead.

"...I don't know..." he replied awkwardly. "That's...that's really weird to ask, Kacchan."

Katsuki shrugged. "Okay, fair enough," he admitted. "But did you at least think about it?" Izuku said nothing, but that was all he needed to hear. An awkward silence formed between the two of them as they continued playing their video game until the race ended.

"Do you wanna go outside and try?" he offered when the game moved to the 'character select' screen.

"...Kinda, yeah," Izuku admitted. Katsuki stood up and went to turn the console and television off. A few moments later, the two were now standing in the backyard, where Katsuki passed the time making small sparks on his hands while he waited.

"Okay," Izuku muttered to himself. "Making a person shouldn't be too different from all the small animals...I think." Setting down the large ball he was holding on the ground, he summoned Gold Experience, who proceeded to rest its hands on it. A moment later, the familiar sound that played when Life Giver activated softly resonated from the ball, before shifting into what Izuku had envisioned.

"Deku?" Katsuki asked, looking up. At seeing Izuku still standing there, he walked over impatiently, wondering what was taking so long. "You done yet?" When he stopped beside him, he froze in horror at the sight displayed.

In front of Izuku's feet, lay a severed copy of Katsuki's own head.

"..."

And then it promptly blinked.

"WHAT THE FU-"

Mitsuki Bakugō watched the two boys fidgeting under her unimpressed stare. "So," she began, hands on her hips. "What did we learn today?" Izuku awkwardly raised a hand.

"Not to try to make any copies of people I already know because people will think we hurt them?" he offered weakly.

Mitsuki raised an eyebrow. "Okay," she said slowly. "Anything else?"

"And Deku can probably make organs and sell them to the black market," Katsuki chimed in, raising his own hand, causing his mother to sharply turn to him.

"Katsuki!"

"What?"

Izuku just looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean, Kacchan?" he asked him. The other boy just shrugged.

"Well," he began. "You can make any animal you want, right? Obviously, that includes the things that make them work. So you should be able to make just those parts." Izuku thought about what the other boy had said for a moment.

"Wait, you're right!" he exclaimed. Mitsuki sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Katsuki," she said exasperatedly. "You know that's insanely illegal. Not to mention that'll land Izuku in prison for up to ten years."

"All right, fair enough, that's a good point," the boy relented. "But what about healing?"

"Well class," the teacher began, picking up a stack of papers. "Since you're in your third year of junior high now, you'll want to start filling out your career choice packets." He paused for dramatic effect, before continuing. "But I'm sure you're all aiming for the hero course anyway!" At that, the entire class began cheering excitedly, accidentally activating their Quirks and violating several rules.

"Oi, teach!" yelled a voice. The class immediately grew silent and turned to see Katsuki leaning back in his chair. "Don't lump me and Deku in with these extras!"

"Oh, that's right, the two of you are going to be trying out at U.A., right, Bakugō-kun?" the teacher asked, smiling. His question surprised the class, causing them to start whispering about the two boys' decision in schooling.

"Wait, they're going for U.A.?"

"The number one hero school in Japan?"

"Almost no one gets in!"

Katsuki smirked and rested his elbow on his chair, turning to face his classmates. "Well, none of you extras could get in-" He ignored their protests as if he never heard them. "-but me and Deku here," he said, pointing to Izuku. "We aced the mock exams easily. And that's not mentioning our Quirks, too."

"Yeah, that's true, Bakugō and Midoriya won't have much trouble getting in."

"Wait, why Midoriya, though? Isn't his Quirk really weak?"

"He's actually got that weird ghost thing if I remember correctly."

While Izuku stayed silent from these comments, Katsuki had to answer for him. "And don't you forget it," he said with a cocky expression. "Deku might not be as powerful as me-"

"Gee, thanks, Kacchan," Izuku muttered.

"-but his Quirk is a hundred times better than whatever you extras could pull out of your collective asses. We're gonna be the best damned heroes you'll ever see!"

"Deku." Izuku looked up from packing his bag to see Katsuki walking towards him. "You know you've gotta stand up to those trash-talkers sooner or later." Izuku sighed in exasperation at the topic once again being brought up.

"Kacchan," he began. "You know I don't care about whatever they say." Katsuki glowered as he readjusted his backpack.

"Yeah, well you should," he replied. "You have a good Quirk. I know you have a good Quirk. So why shouldn't they? All you have to do is show them what your weird ghost can do and they'll shut up."

Izuku grinned. To an outsider, Katsuki may come off as extremely arrogant, but he knew that the other boy just felt that he had to be that way, in order to become a hero that could protect his friends and family. That was why every time someone voiced their doubts about his Quirk, Katsuki always felt the need to defend him, even if he didn't need it. "For a moment there it sounded like you cared." The other boy just snorted in response.

"Pfft, don't get ahead of yourself," he said. "Just gotta make sure my number two will be able to keep up." He turned around and started to walk away, before turning back around. "You wanna go get some ice cream and hit the arcade?"

Izuku shook his head. "No, thanks," he replied. "I think I'm just gonna go home."

Katsuki shrugged. "Well, your loss, then." he turned back around. "Catch you tomorrow, I guess."

Izuku, left back to his thoughts, put on his backpack and proceeded to walk out of the classroom, thinking about his friend's offer. 'And it doesn't really compare to gelato,' he thought, before suddenly pausing. 'Wait, gelato?' he asked himself. He liked sweets as much as the next guy, but he knew for a fact that he had never had Italian-style ice cream in his life. He wondered how he was familiar with the foreign word, before eventually shaking his head and continuing on his walk home.

"Oh ho, what's this?" Izuku turned around in the tunnel he was walking through to see a mass of sludge suddenly growing larger. "It's a disguise I can use..."

"Huh?" he began, before his eyes widened in fear. "What-" he tried to yell out, but the villain had already pounced on him, and could only feebly struggle as he tried to stay awake.

"Now, now," the villain said softly in a mock soothing voice. "That won't do at all. Just relax and hold still, and it'll all be over soon." Izuku was slowly starting to lose consciousness the longer he struggled to breath.

'Gold Experience!' Izuku thought, as he continued to struggle, despite the villain severely blocking his respiratory system. The villain laughed as he felt the boy's frantic movements start to slow down, a sign that he was starting to lose consciousness.

'Looks like he's already given up,' he thought, chuckling darkly. 'Well, now I can just - huh?'

"WRYYYAHHH!" shouted a voice only heard by Izuku, who was struggling to stay awake. The villain turned to where he was being repeatedly punched, but found no one there.

'Then what's hitting me?!'

Before long, the invisible figure let out one final punch, before ceasing its attack. In truth, however, it did little to nothing, as the sludge villain's form was...well, sludge, meaning the consecutive punches didn't do anything to hurt him.

But that didn't mean Gold Experience's attack didn't do anything. It just didn't do what Izuku needed it to.

"Heh, it looks like he's finally given up," the villain said to himself, as he felt that Izuku's movements had slowed down to a stop. As he continued in his attempt to take over the boy's body, he felt something hit his back, and he turned around in annoyance to see who it was.

"Oh, shit," he said to no one in particular.

"It's okay now, young man," All Might boomed, though Izuku was barely able to comprehend the voice. "Why? Because I am here."

The villain had started panicking at the sight of All Might having finally caught up to him, and in his fear, tried to send out a punch. But it wasn't the sight of it being easily dodged that confused the villain. No, what confused him, was the sight of All Might slowly moving up to him, as he reared his fist back for a punch.

When All Might had woken him up some time later and proceeded to thank him for helping with the villain, Izuku couldn't believe what was happening. Last he remembered, he was fighting for his life from a villain, but there was nothing he could do, until the number one hero saved him. He thanked the man profusely for writing an autograph in his notebook when he was frantically looking for something for him to sign.

But Izuku, for the life of him, wasn't sure what made him latch on to All Might when he jumped away, but he knew he wasn't going to let go. Not at this altitude.

"Young man, I appreciate your enthusiasm as a fan," he yelled out. "But this is too much!"

Izuku continued to hold on for dear life as he and All Might soared through the sky. "If I let go, then I'll fall to my death!"

"...That's a good point," the hero conceded, before he looked back in front of him, and searched for a place to land. Once they landed on the top of a building, Izuku tried calming himself down from the adrenaline rush of the previous event. "Well it was nice meeting you, young man," All Might began, turning around to walk away. "But I really need to get going now." As he was about to jump away, a cloud of smoke instantly formed around him, and before long, it dissipated to reveal a skeletal and very gaunt man in place of the hero.

Izuku screamed at the sight.

The man grimaced at the noise, and when Izuku finally calmed down, began to explain that yes, he was All Might, and the muscular build he previously had was a different form that was similar to flexing a muscle. He then proceeded to explain the circumstances that had caused his injury, and of how he could only be a Pro Hero for only three hours a day. Once he finished, Izuku was left in shock at the fact that the number one hero wasn't as invincible as everyone made him out to be.

"By the way," the man - no, he was still All Might - said. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this. There's no telling what would happen if word got out about my injury. I know that villain activity would skyrocket for sure."

"O-of course!" Izuku promised. "But, I...I just have a question, All Might."

All Might stared at the boy for a few moments before he spoke. "All right, shoot," he replied.

Izuku nodded. "Since you're the number one hero and all, do...do you ever think about what would have happened if you became a villain?" At his quizzical expression, he explained why he had thought of it. "B-because you're so powerful and all..."

All Might sighed and looked up at the sky. "All the time, kid," he replied. "All the time. With power like mine, I couldn't just rule out the possibility of forcing everyone to fear me so they wouldn't commit crimes with their Quirks." He looked down and made a fist. "But after what I've seen and what I've been through, I knew that I had to do everything I could not to start using my Quirk for evil purposes. It's why I always wear a smile on my face when I'm in my muscle form, so that the people don't become scared of me." He looked back up at Izuku. "By the way, aren't you a bit young to be asking these types of questions?"

Izuku nervously laughed. "Well, it's just..." he began, scratching the back of his head. "It's just my friend, Bakugō Katsuki, has a Quirk called Explosion, and it's really powerful, so I was thinking how bad it would be if he turned into a villain. Not to mention all of the top heroes with their Quirks, too..."

"Ah," said All Might, as he nodded in understanding. "It helps to be wary at times when a lot of heroes could easily topple society as we know it. But you shouldn't be so pessimistic. It's why we have Quirk restrictions and hero programs - so that it doesn't come to that. It's also why there are still police officers - they may not have the influence hero agencies do, but they still do what they can to make a difference."

"I see," Izuku said, before bowing to the man. "Thank you, All Might."

"You're welcome," he replied. "It's very rare that I get to have these type of talks with someone who isn't a close friend or a colleague. Now if you don't mind," he started walking towards the stairs. "I'm gonna get going now. It was nice meeting you, uh, what's your name?"

"Midoriya Izuku, sir!" the boy replied.

All Might nodded. "It was nice meeting you, young Midoriya. I look forward to seeing you grow as a hero." He turned back around and started walking down the stairs, leaving Izuku to his thoughts, as he pondered what the hero had told him. After a few minutes, he came to a realization.

'Aw crap, I forgot to tell him I could heal him!'

Chapter Text

Izuku blamed himself for what was currently happening to Katsuki right now. While villain attacks happened almost on the daily, he knew for a fact that this particular one was his own fault. Watching his best friend struggle against the sludge villain, just as he himself had done just recently, Izuku was overcome with shock and regret.

'Why did I grab on to All Might?' he thought as he watched the chaos. Because of him, the soda bottle that housed the villain must have been dropped while he and All Might were sailing through the air.

But as he watched Katsuki look towards the heroes and the crowd of onlookers, fighting for his life as he was slowly being suffocated...

Izuku moved.

"Kacchan!" he cried out, pushing past the crowd and making a run for it. Before he could get far, however, he was restrained by a man grabbing his arm and backpack.

"Kid, what the hell do you think you're doing?" demanded the man who was restraining him. Izuku turned around and would have fanboyed at the sight of Death Arms talking to him, but there were more urgent things to worry about.

"That's my friend!" he replied. "I gotta help him!"

Death Arms maintained his iron grip on Izuku. "Kid," he said again, but softer. "What makes you think you can stop that villain if the Pros here can't?" He started to lightly drag Izuku back to the crowd. "There's nothing else we can do but wait for a better suited Pro to handle this."

"But All Might could!" Izuku began. "He could-"

"Yeah, well All Might's not here, is he?" the hero retorted, which caused Izuku to pause in his resisting.

'Because he's out of time...All Might's...out of time today.' He looked back to Katsuki, who was still struggling within the clutches of the sludge villain, and was now getting smaller and smaller as Death Arms continued to drag him back to the crowd.

'And Kacchan's running out of time.' It didn't matter that there wasn't a suitable hero that could help. Every second that passed was one more that lead to his potential death.

All because of him.

At the front of the crowd, Izuku turned to the hero. "Death Arms," he addressed him. When he turned to look at him, Izuku continued. "I'm really sorry, but I don't have time for this." Before the hero could ask him just what he was going to do now, Izuku summoned Gold Experience and commanded it to lightly punch him on his exposed midsection. And then he ran back to the villain, much to everyone's shock.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" someone shouted. Whether that was a bystander or one of the heroes, Izuku couldn't tell.

All that mattered was getting to his friend.

His heart unwavering, Izuku kept Gold Experience in his line of sight as he shrugged off his backpack and immediately threw it at the sludge villain. With the sound of reversing musical notes, all of the pencils and pens inside were then transformed into a collection of bees and wasps, which he commanded to attack what he assumed was the villain's only weak point.

His eyes.

The sludge villain was fully aware of Izuku running towards him, but he was too preoccupied in trying to gain control of the brat with the explosion Quirk. "You again..." he muttered, wondering how he'd try to save his friend. After all, the only reason he was saved was because of All Might having caught up to him and the villain, but it didn't look like he was anywhere nearby.

He opened his mouth to let out a taunt, but was immediately met head-on with a backpack, reflexively closing his eyes in pain as a book's corner nearly made contact with them. When he opened his eyes to begin a retaliation, the villain had only a second to comprehend the fate Izuku had left him to, before being overwhelmed by unimaginable pain at the sensation of multiple stingers making contact with his eyes and injecting their venom.

Izuku grimaced at the shrieks of pain the villain was making as he reached Katsuki, and briefly wondered if the decision he just made was the right one. A moment later, he discarded the thought at the sight of Katsuki's still being trapped.

"Deku..." his friend began in between deep breaths. "What the hell are you doing?" Izuku looked his friend in the eyes and saw that they were pleading for help. While Katsuki usually considered himself an alpha male who could do everything on his own, what was currently happening wasn't a usual circumstance.

"I've got you, Kacchan," he simply stated, looking for a way to reach in and try to pull Katsuki out. At first, the only opening Izuku could find was Katsuki's exposed head, but the sludge villain's grip slowly lessened and lessened, as he was focusing more on trying to relieve the pain from the copious amount of venom assaulting his eyes.

Seeing the barest hint of Katsuki's shoulders and upper biceps, Izuku commanded Gold Experience to grab hold of his armpits and pull him out. After a brief moment of hard tugging, Katsuki was eventually pulled free from the sludge villain's grasp, and was shakily standing up from the ground after unceremoniously tumbling out.

Izuku breathed out a sigh of relief at seeing his friend safe, before turning to look at the villain. "What do you say we finish the job, Kacchan?" he asked him. Katsuki let out a low growl and cracked his knuckles.

"Sure," he replied, then bared his teeth. "Let's get this fucker."

However, before the two boys could move and proceed to give the villain the beatdown of his life, they were stopped by two very large hands resting on their shoulders. They both turned around in mild annoyance (Katsuki more so), but were shocked to see a very familiar blond hero wearing a wide grin.

"I'll take it from here, you two," All Might said, trademark grin in place. "It's best you leave this to the professionals." After a moment of silent contemplation, the two boys relented, still in awe at seeing All Might at the scene. Taking a step forward, the hero began to walk towards the villain, before breaking out into a rush. "Detroit..." he began, rearing his fist back, then throwing it forward. "...SMAAASH!"

After the situation had been resolved and the sludge villain subsequently arrested, the heroes who sat on the sidelines began to reprimand Izuku on his earlier choice to run after Katsuki.

Death Arms was specifically not happy, especially how Izuku had managed to stun him using Gold Experience.

After he all but shouted how Izuku could have gotten himself killed, it took everything he had to fight down the urge to snap back a retort, as he didn't want to disrespect the hero. Death Arms continued to reprimand how rash his actions were, specifically how he handled the villain. Eventually, he ended up calming down enough for Izuku to point out how no one had moved to even try to save Katsuki.

"Well that was pretty eventful, huh, Kacchan?" asked Izuku, when the two boys were finally able to break free from the heroes and press, and were now on their way home.

Katsuki only grunted in reply. They continued to walk in a tense silence for a few moments until he decided to speak up. "Deku."

"Hm?"

"I could've beat his ass fine without you," he said, looking down and gritting his teeth. "...but thanks, I guess." He looked back up and jabbed a finger towards Izuku. "But next time I'm saving you, got it?"

Izuku smiled. "Of course, Kacchan," he replied. The matter settled, two boys continued to walk until eventually parting ways for their respective homes.

'Man, I sure am hungry right about now,' he thought. After such an eventful day, all he wanted to do was relax in his bed and eat a filling meal.

Preferably a bowl of katsudon. Or maybe two.

"Young Midorya."

Izuku looked up as his thoughts were interrupted at the sight of the massive hero. "All Might!"

All Might proceeded to attempt to flex a pose, but almost instantly deflated back into his skeletal form. "I have to commend you, my boy," he began. "Few were willing to take the initiative like you had to save your friend back there."

Izuku scratched the back of his head. "Oh, uh, thank you, All Might..." he replied, unused to the praise.

"However," All Might continued, his tone turning serious. "The way you went about it was unbefitting of how a hero should act."

'Not this again,' Izuku thought.

"I know..." he replied. "But I couldn't think of anything else to do at the time! The other heroes just stayed back with the crowd, while my..." He looked down at his shoes, clenching his fists. "While my best friend was slowly suffocating to death. I didn't have the time to just wait around, and it was my fault the villain got away in the first place!" He looked back up at All Might with a look of mild defiance, as if daring him to reprimand him further, but the man just sighed.

"I'd say I was the one more at fault," he began, to Izuku's surprise. "If you recall earlier today when you latched on to my leg, you were holding on to the left leg, while the villain was housed in my right pocket," he continued, patting the pocket mentioned. "While your decision to permanently render the villain blind is questionable at best, you were still the only one who made the attempt to rescue your friend."

"Uh, thank you," was all Izuku could say.

"Which is why I would like for you to be my successor."

"..."

"Okay, you clearly don't believe me, but just hear me out."

"...huh?" Izuku asked weakly.

To say that what Toshinori had just revealed was a bombshell had to be the biggest understatement of the century. He could only imagine what the boy's thoughts were. He could be thinking 'All Might's Quirk could be passed on?!', 'how does that even work', and 'how come no one had ever heard of it before', to name a few. All perfectly reasonable thoughts.

Oh wait, never mind, it seems Midoriya had been muttering them out loud.

"I understand this is a lot for you to take in," Toshinori eventually spoke up. "And I don't expect an answer right away. But I would just like for you to think about it." It really was a lot of pressure for the number one hero to ask someone to take his Quirk and eventually replace him as the Symbol of Peace.

"I..." the kid took a deep breath before looking Toshinori in the eyes. "I'm sorry, All Might, I can't accept your offer."

"Oh," he replied awkwardly. Okay, to be honest he really wasn't expecting that. "May I ask as to why you've declined?" Damn it, just when he thought he had found a good candidate for One For All, he surprisingly ends up turned down. Well, now at least he could check out that Tōgata kid Nighteye's been-

"Because I can heal you!"

Toshinori blinked. "...Come again?"

"You want to pass your power on because of your injury, right? I can just heal your wound and restore all of your missing organs!" Midoriya said.

"No, I heard you the first time," Toshinori quickly amended. "But I would like for you to elaborate."

Midoriya nodded and took a deep breath. "My Quirk, Life Giver, allows me to make plants and animals out of inanimate objects, and that includes all their organs, too. So all I would need is an object similar in size and some of your DNA, and then we can just book you a surgery at the hospital!"

Toshinori really, really didn't want to get his hopes up, but this felt too good to be true. Healing Quirks were extremely rare, with Recovery Girl regularly having to travel extensively in order to heal injuries from incidents like villain attacks and natural disasters. Could Toshinori be blamed for taking Midoriya's words with a grain of salt? If his organs were restored, then he would no longer have to rely on a three-hour time limit!

"Could you..." he began. "Could you show me?"

Midoriya nodded and took off his backpack, and proceeded to rummage through it for a suitable item to transform. He then stood up and was holding what Toshinori assumed was an eraser in his hands. After a brief moment of staring at it in concentration, a sound that he could only immediately attribute to music faintly played, before Midorya walked forward.

In his hands was a tiny heart, in place of the eraser.

To say that Toshinori was impressed had to be an even bigger understatement that the One For All reveal, but before he could tell the boy how impressed he was, he noticed that the heart had been beating.

"That's incredible," he breathed out. "Young Midoriya, I...I don't know what to say. Do you know how exceedingly rare your Quirk is?"

The boy grinned. "Yup," he replied. "I found out I could do this when I was experimenting with my friend Bakugō to see whether or not I could create humans, but it turned out my limit was at small animals. Never said I couldn't make organs, though."

Toshinori nodded in understanding. The human body was a very complex system, and it would have to take many years of research in order to create an organism that could properly function, let alone go through the stages of life. And that wasn't even including all of the ethical implications. "Does the local hospital know about this?"

"Of course," the boy replied. "One of the first things I asked my mother to do after I found out was to drive me to the hospital, and I've been donating organs regularly ever since." Well that was good at least, all the more reason for him to be the perfect successor for - oh. Wait, that's right, he refused.

'Damn it,' he thought. Now he really wanted to try and convince the boy to change his mind. And introduce him to Chiyo-obasan.

"This was how you handled the villain," he said softly. "Wasn't it?"

"...Yes," Midoriya admitted. "I used my Quirk to turn my school supplies into a bunch of bees and wasps that I directed to attack his eyes. I didn't care about the consequences because I knew I could fix his eyes immediately after."

'Yikes,' Toshinori thought, wincing. He had had his fair share of painful stings, of course, but it was only ever once at a time. But more than that, and concentrated on the eyes, no less...

He briefly noted to make a reminder not to do anything to make Izuku Midoriya angry.

"Midoriya, my boy," Toshinori continued. "I don't know if it would work for me, considering the nature of One For All, but I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this opportunity." He didn't want to get his hopes up, but he really wanted to be able to eat more and take larger breaths. Not to mention the three-hour time limit.

"But we haven't even gotten to the punch ghost yet!"

Now it was Toshinori's turn to be confused. "...Huh?"

Chapter Text

Toshinori nervously twiddled his thumbs as he sat, waiting for his surgery at Musutafu General Hospital. He had initially wanted to postpone the surgery so that he could think about Midoriya's offer. When he consulted Chiyo and Sorahiko on the matter, the former recommended he have it as soon as possible, while the latter suggested waiting a bit, because it was unknown if the new organs could handle One For All. In the end, Toshinori decided that it was worth the risk.

He really wanted to be able to breathe more again.

"Yagi-san?"

Toshinori stood up at the sound of his name. "Yes, that would be me."

The nurse who had called for him smiled. "Perfect! Now if you will just come with me, we'll get you all set up in a room." Wordlessly, the man followed her as they walked through the halls of the hospital, until he decided to speak up.

"To be honest," he began, trying to make conversation. "I thought this was too good to be true." The woman lightly laughed in response.

"Practically everyone thinks of that at first," she said. "But it's been years since Izuku-kun started donating here, and we haven't had any complications at all. It's because each organ is made using someone's DNA, which means there's no need for any medication, since the immune system immediately accepts it."

"I see," Toshinori replied. 'He truly is a remarkable young man.' Another minute passed where the two continued to walk in silence, until they reached a door. Opening it, the nurse led him into a room, telling him that it was where he would be staying after the surgery.

He repeated the words that Midoriya had spoken. "Punch...ghost?" The boy nodded and gestured to his side.

"This is Gold Experience," he stated. Before Toshinori could ask what a 'Gold Experience' was, he felt something poke his shoulder. Blinking, he realized that there was no way Midoriya could have been the one to do it, as his arm hadn't moved at all to reach towards him.

"Is Gold Experience an invisible companion of yours?" he asked tentatively.

"Not exactly," the boy replied. "For some reason, I'm the only one who's able to see him." Toshinori found that very odd, but chalked it up as an uncommon sort of quirk mutation. "I can summon and command him to do things, and through him, give objects life using Life Giver. Although," He started running around Toshinori at a surprising amount of speed, before stopping in front of him. "He doesn't seem to be sentient. He's basically like an extension of myself, for the most part."

Toshinori raised an eyebrow. "'For the most part?'"

"Well some things are autonomous with Gold Experience," Midoriya replied. "Like how he'll immediately try to block and counterattack if someone tries to sneak up on me. And since no one can see him-" He picked up a rock that began to float unsuspended in mid-air, almost like telekinesis. "That's why I call him a 'punch ghost.'"

"I see," Toshinori said, before pulling out his phone. "You plan on going to U.A., correct?" Midoriya nodded. "Well that settles it, then. Why don't we exchange contact information, and we can come up with a good day so I can start training you for the entrance exams?" He briefly cracked a smile at seeing the boy's expression. "And I suppose you'd want to bring young Bakugō along with you."

"Uh, yes, of course!" Midoriya replied excitedly, bringing out his own phone.

Toshinori slowly opened his eyes to see a figure beside him. When his vision cleared and his brain had caught up to speed, he recognized who it was that was sitting in the chair. "Midoriya-kun," he began. The boy woke up from having dozed off, and was now looking at Toshinori with anticipation.

"How are you feeling, Yagi-san?" the boy asked. Toshinori stayed silent for a moment, taking a brief moment to take a deep breath, but then took a much larger one when he realized that he could breathe more air in, feeling elated that he could do so.

"Better than I have in more than five years," he replied. "It's as if I was never injured in the first place." Izuku just chuckled and rubbed the back of his head.

"Well the organs having your DNA made up the most of it, so your body won't ever reject it," he explained. "And then I just had Gold Experience instantly heal the stitches, so you won't have to sit in the hospital for weeks. So uh, you should be good to go now."

Toshinori nodded. "I see," he said, noting the lack of life support equipment that he had previously needed when his lung and stomach had been removed during his final battle with All For One. And speaking of stomachs, he just felt his growl, causing him to softly chuckle. It was a sensation he had long since forgotten, but he welcomed it with open arms. He made a mental reminder to get some fast food on the way home. And a lot this time.

He draped his legs over the bed, before moving to stand up. "I'm going to try something now." Izuku's eyes widened as he realized what Toshinori was about to do.

"W-wait, Yagi-san, you only just got-" he said, trying to move to stop him, but Toshinori had already activated One For All, causing his skeletal body to inflate to that of his body as All Might, the physique that he used to have before his injury.

And then he waited.

One second became two, which then became three, and so on and so forth, as Toshinori anticipated the inevitable rupture of his new organs from One For All coursing through them, until he was sure that it wasn't the case, taking deep breaths the whole time.

He smiled at Izuku. "It seems that it worked, Midoriya-kun," he told him, before deflating and moving to envelop the boy in a hug. "Thank you," he said. "You don't know how much this means to me." Izuku just nodded silently, awkwardly patting Toshinori on the back.

"It's, uh, it's no problem, Yagi-san," he replied. Toshinori pulled back as he began to deflate back into his skeletal form, but he knew for a fact that it would only end up being temporary. Thanks to the young boy in front of him, he could remain a hero for even longer, until the time came for him to finally pass on One For All.

But it seemed that was still several years off.

"I'd still love to train you for the entrance exams," he continued. "If you want me to, that is."

Izuku nodded fervently. "Of course!" he said excitedly "I'd love to!"

"Perfect," he replied. "Now, what say you meet me at Takoba Municipal Beach Park in, let's say, a few weeks? I'll text you the day and time."

"Tch." Katsuki looked around at the massive piles of garbage that littered the beach with what looked to be disdain, before looking back at Toshinori, eyeing him with suspicion. "So you're Deku's new trainer?" Toshinori raised an eyebrow as the boy addressed him.

"I am," he replied. "Midoriya-kun helped me out of a tight spot a few weeks ago, so I offered to help him train his body and his quirk for the U.A. entrance exams, and the offer goes to you as well, should you accept it." From what he heard about the boy from Izuku, there was a very low chance he would end up rejecting the chance to train, especially when the exams were less than a year away.

Katsuki grunted as he motioned Izuku to follow him to a spot several feet away. "You know," he said, meaning to be quiet, but Toshinori was still quite skilled enough to pick up the conversation, albeit just barely. "When you said someone offered to train us, I thought you meant a Pro or someone cool was gonna train us, not this stick-looking guy."

Okay, he didn't know whether or not he should feel insulted by that, but the boy didn't have to say it like that. Sure, Toshinori looked sickly in his...'unmuscled form'...but he didn't think he looked that bad.

It would seem the boy needed more convincing.

"On the contrary, young Bakugō," he interjected, forcing One For All to course through his body and causing both boys to slightly flinch at his booming voice. Turning around, the two stared at the hulking figure of his muscle form, surprising Izuku and shocking Katsuki. "I'd say I'm more than qualified to train you."

"What the..." Katsuki trailed off as he stared at the man, before turning to Izuku and lightly whacking him on the arm. "Did you know?"

"Yeah," he replied, scratching the back of his head.

"Then why the hell didn't you say All Might was gonna be training us?!"

"Well I didn't think he'd show you right away!"

"What do you mean you think he wouldn't show me?!"

Toshinori awkwardly watched the two argue back and forth for another minute, wondering if this was how their friendship functioned.

He raised a hand to his mouth, "Ahem." This caused the two boys to cease their arguing and remember that there was a third person with them, and that person being the number one hero. Izuku's reaction was considerably tame, due to his previous interactions with Toshinori, as he was now sheepishly looking at him. Katsuki's, however, tried to appear stoic as he crossed his arms, but he could see that the boy was radiating excitement.

"So what's your story, All Might?," the latter asked. "And why are you so skinny?"

Toshinori then briefly explained how he received his injury, and how there was a time limit on how long he could use his muscle form. "But thanks to young Midoriya and his wonderful ability to create organs, I can now use this form indefinitely." He then deflated.

"All right," Katsuki replied, before taking a look around him. "So I guess you want us to clean up this beach?"

Toshinori nodded. "Yes. By clearing everything out without the use of your Quirks, your bodies will grow in strength, as you will be pushing yourselves trying to carry very heavy pieces of discarded equipment. I originally wanted you to get it done by the entrance exams, but seeing as how there's two of you, you'll more than likely get it done within half that time. So I propose-" He brought out a sheet of paper, which then unfolded into several more, connected by pieces of tape. "-this! My Aim to Pass: American Dream Plan. Along with cleaning up the beach, I'll have you both regularly sparring and training your Quirks." He folded the papers back up. "Of course, I have no doubt that you could easily get into the hero course as you are now, but it never hurt to always strive to go beyond." He inflated into his muscle form once again to shout a brief "PLUS ULTRA!" before immediately deflating.

"Now," he continued, looking back at the two boys. "Let's get started, shall we?"

"Mista!" a boy wearing a black tank top shouted, running towards a man wearing red and blue. All of a sudden, a pink mass of flesh jumped up towards a small model airplane that had been shooting at it, crushing one of its wings and causing blood to squirt out of the boy's arm and mouth.

"Trish!" a voice shouted behind him. Izuku turned to see a man wearing a white suit shouting at a girl next to him. "Hurry! You need to get inside the closet and lock the door!" The girl turned around and began to quickly run towards the back of the plane, somehow causing the pink mass to cease its attack on the airplane, and was now quickly crawling towards her at an astonishing speed.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" the man in the suit shouted, as a strange white and blue being appeared in front him, and moved to shoot out its arm in a vain attempt to distract it, but the action went ignored, as the mass kept moving at a rapid pace that was quickly increasing.

"TRISH! HURRY AND CLOSE THE DOOR!" As she was about to reach for the door, the girl suddenly stopped as she noticed the pink blob quickly moving in her direction, and then suddenly leaping for her.

"I'M NOT FAST ENOUGH!"

"TRISH!"

"MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!"

Izuku's eyes shot open as the sound of his phone ringing blasted his ears. Groaning softly, he rolled over and reached for his desk to grab the offending device. Squinting at the caller's name, he accepted the call and placed the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he asked groggily.

"Oi, nerd," began Katsuki. "I'm on my - wait, did you just wake up?" he nearly shouted, causing Izuku to wince and hold the phone away from his ear. "The exams are today, Deku! How the hell did you forget that?!" Izuku immediately sat up at what he had just been told, and was starting to panic as he looked over at his calendar, which had a particular day circled multiple times, and an arrow labeled 'ENTRANCE EXAMS'.

Which were today.

"Look, I don't care," Katsuki continued. "I'll be there in five minutes, and you better be ready by then!" The boy then hung up, prompting Izuku to nearly jump out of his bed and made a mad dash towards the bathroom.

After hastily getting into his slightly-wrinkled school uniform and stuffing his running clothes in his backpack, the doorbell ringed, to which his mother answered the door.

"Oh, good morning, Katsuki!" Inko greeted, hugging him. The boy just grunted as he pulled back and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Hey, auntie," he greeted in turn. "Is Deku ready? 'Cuz I'm about to leave without him if he isn't."

"Yeah, I'm here, Kacchan!" Izuku called out, as he rushed to put his shoes on. Taking a quick look at the contents of his backpack, he was relieved that he had everything he needed. Quickly walking for the door, he briefly hugged his mother goodbye. "Love you, mom!"

Inko tightly hugged her son back. "Love you, too, sweetie." As she watched the two boys walk away, she cupped her hands to her mouth. "Good luck on the exams, you two!"

"Seriously," Katsuki began, when he and Izuku were almost at the apartment complex's gates. "How do you forget it was today?"

"I really don't know," Izuku admitted. "I guess I must've been really tired last night."

"We finished clearing the beach two weeks ago!"

"And we were sparring two nights ago!"

"Well it's not my fault you let Gold Experience do all the work for you half the time! Whatever, let's hope we can get to the station before it gets crowded."

"Hello, listeners!" a voice shouted from the stage. Izuku was awed to see that it was Present Mic manning the orientation for the practical exams.

'Wow...it's Present Mic, the Voice Hero!'

"Oi, be quiet," Katsuki quietly reprimanded. "You're being loud." Izuku then realized that he had said his thoughts out loud, so he sheepishly nodded at him and tried to keep quiet. Except his excitement at seeing Present Mic, coupled with his extreme habit of muttering when he was thinking seriously, caused the other students around him to stare.

Present Mic then continued to explain how because there were so many applicants, there needed to be more than one testing area, which could be found on the ticket they received in the mail when they registered. Izuku noted that he was in Battle Center B, while Katsuki was in Battle Center A.

"I guess they don't want friends helping each other out, huh?" Katsuki quietly remarked.

"Yeah..." Izuku replied. "It looks like we'll be in different areas."

"Excuse me!" a voice interjected. Izuku turned to see a boy had stood up and raised his hand. "I have something to say."

Present Mic gave a thumbs up towards the boy. "All right, go ahead!"

The boy cleared his throat as he flipped through his orientation booklet. "It says here that there are four villains that we must face in the practical, but you have only gone through three. If this is a mistake, then U.A. as the highest-esteemed hero school in the country should be ashamed of themselves. And you! With the curly hair!" Izuku briefly noted how the boy had glasses, before realizing that he was pointing in his general direction. Looking around to see exactly who he was pointing at, he realized it was him the boy was talking about, before pointing a finger to himself. "You have been incessantly muttering this entire time! If you are only here to mess about, then you should just leave!"

Izuku quickly covered his mouth in embarrassment. "...sorry..."

"And what the hell are you doing?" Katsuki yelled out a retort. "You're making even more noise by just yelling!" The boy with the glasses then turned his sights on him with a glare, to which Katsuki just sneered back, as if daring him to continue.

"Well you see," Present Mic finally said, intervening before the situation could get worse. "The fourth villain you've mentioned is worth zero villain points, meaning that there's no reason to take them down!"

"I see," the boy with the glasses said, before bowing and sitting back down. "Please excuse my interruption!"

"Thanks, Kacchan," Izuku whispered, when Present Mic continued the orientation.

Katsuki just rolled his eyes. "Again, I say, Deku," he whispered back. "You need to stand up for yourself."

Present Mic then continued the orientation, up to the end. With a brief explanation of the school motto and a cry of "PLUS ULTRA!", he bowed and left the stage, followed by the lights coming back on. All of the students were talking among themselves as they filed out of the auditorium, but both Izuku and Katsuki were both silent as they walked down the stairs. Izuku was trying to come up with a plan for how he would use Gold Experience to dispatch the mock villains and therefore gain points, while Katsuki was simply resigned to just 'blasting them all away', and was instead thinking of where to get food once the exams finished.

"Well, good luck, Kacchan!" Izuku spoke up, when it was time for them to part ways towards their respective testing grounds.

"You, too, Deku," Katsuki replied, as he returned the fist the boy had held up, and turned around to walk away.

Chapter Text

The training he and Katsuki received from All Might over the previous ten months had been pretty strenuous. In truth, they didn't actually need it, per se, but neither of them were about to turn down training from All Might of all people. Each week had been divided up with days that were spent clearing the beach of all of the discarded junk, and days that were spent sparring with each other to improve their Quirk usage.

While Gold Experience would never have the raw power Explosion did, it made up for it in sheer versatility. When it came to its ability to give living things extra life, it almost always guaranteed a win when sparring Katsuki, but Toshinori advised that he not rely on it as a crutch, as there was always a possibility that it would actually have the opposite effect on someone or something (and also Katsuki was getting tired of being stunned every time he tried to get in close for a hit).

'Oh hey, it's that girl who kept me from tripping!' Izuku suddenly thought as he spotted her in the crowd, breaking him away from his previous musing. Before he could make his way towards the girl and thank her for helping him out, a hand was placed on his shoulder, firmly keeping him planted where he stood.

"You again..." muttered a voice behind him. Izuku turned around to see who was accosting him, but slightly froze at the sight of the boy who had attempted to call him out on his loud muttering during the orientation. "What are you trying to do?" Before Izuku could answer his question, he looked at the direction towards the girl he was looking at. "It's bad enough that you were being distracting during the orientation," he began. "But now you're looking to disrupt other students' chances of getting in? Shame on you. There is no place here for such a delinquent like you."

"W-wait," Izuku said, trying to diffuse the misunderstanding. "I wasn't trying to-"

"Okay, start!" a voice yelled out, causing the two boys to slightly jump. Looking up, they could see Present Mic looking down at the entire crowd with his arms stretched out in a grandiose expression. "WELL?!" he yelled out again. "What are you waiting for?! You're not getting into U.A. by just standing around, so GET. MOVING! Heroes don't wait for countdowns, you know!"

It was when he finished, that everyone had realized that the practical exam had already begun, so now the entire crowd was making a mad dash for the large doorway to the Battle Center, with Izuku getting caught up in the very back, having no way to try and get ahead of the large congregation of students.

Until he remembered what his Quirk was.

Imbuing his legs with Gold Experience's, Izuku gained a tremendous burst in speed, getting ahead of many of the other students, and was now right in front of the large doorway. Running through it without hesitation, he began looking around for the point-marked robots, before one suddenly appeared in front of him. Reacting quickly, he slid under the robot's legs in order to avoid colliding with it head-on. Briefly noting the large number two printed on one of its arms, he commanded Gold Experience to jump out in front of him and start attacking the robot.

"MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!" the golden being cried out, as it pummeled the two-pointer in a barrage of fists. However, he saw that it was taking too long for the robot to start caving in, due to the limited range it could stand in front of him. Changing his attack, Izuku then commanded that it use 'Life Giver' on the robot. Almost immediately, large vines began sprouting from its torso in all directions, until its head burst open, causing it to topple over.

"Two points," he quietly said to himself. Taking a moment to regain his composure, Izuku moved to look for more robots to gain points from. Almost immediately, however, he heard a loud, artificial voice boom behind him, causing him to stop in his tracks.

"Target spotted." Izuku whipped around in surprise, and recognizing the large number one painted on its arm, clenched his fist and yelled out a war cry as he rushed towards it.

"GOLD EXPERIENCE!"

Elsewhere, the various teachers and faculty of U.A. High School all sat in their respective chairs, watching the examinees with careful eyes. Some of them showed visible excitement at seeing the students' performances, while others mostly watched with indifference.

"It looks like we'll be having quite the number of talented students coming in this year," began Sekijiro - the pro hero Vlad King and the homeroom teacher of Class 1-B - who looked to his side towards a man wearing a bored and tired expression on his face. "Do you have any guesses as to who you'll be getting, Aizawa-san?"

Eraserhead shrugged. "I don't really care who gets who, so long as I don't get another problem class this time around."

"Well we know that he'll get somewhere pretty high," interjected the voice beside him, and Shota turned to look at a woman who was pointing at the large screen in front of her. "I mean just look at that Quirk. And those delicious abs of his, too~."

"Kayama, no," Shota reprimanded.

The woman known as Nemuri Kayama - hero name Midnight - dramatically pouted. "Well you're no fun," she said. "But you can't exactly blame me, can you? And besides..." She leaned in close to him, until her face was just inches away from his ear.

Shota's left eye twitched at the movement. 'No...'

"I prefer older males."

"Goddamn it, Kayama," Shota sighed, rubbing his eyes. His colleague, however, just quietly cackled in response. He hated her constant attempts at flirting, but he respected her too much as a hero and as a friend to actually do something about it.

Even if it did annoy him every time she did it.

Sekijiro looked at the two in amusement at their antics, well used to the dynamic their friendship functioned on.

"YES! That's how you do it, my boy!" shouted another voice, and the teachers turned to see the skeletal form of All Might pointing to a screen that displayed a boy charging towards a one-pointer, and then...just standing there.

While the lower half of the robot caved in. Repeatedly.

"Whoa, Is that telekinesis?" Nemuri began, slightly amazed at what she was seeing, before she realized what the man had said. "And what do you mean 'my boy'?"

"Oh! It's, uh, it's nothing, Kayama-san," Toshinori replied, quickly realizing the consequence of his outburst. "Forget I said anything."

Nemuri was unconvinced. "What, is he your secret kid or something?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

"W-what?" Toshinori sputtered out in shock. "Of course not! How would I have the time to have any children and raise them, when I was too busy being a hero?"

Before the two could continue, they were interrupted by someone clearing their throat. "Interesting as your conversation may be," began Ken Ishiyama, better known as Cementoss. "I suggest that you focus on evaluating the student-examinees," he continued sternly. "That's why we're here, after all.

Toshinori stayed silent for a moment before responding. "You're right. My apologies, Ishiyama-san." The matter settled, the teachers went back to spectating the students, with some maintaining their attention on the young boy casually defeating the robots while simply standing there.

Nemuri whistled as she saw him rip the head off of a one-pointer, before doing a double take as she saw vines begin to sprout out of a three-pointer. "Wait, what's that?" she asked rather loudly. "I thought his Quirk was just telekinesis! Yagi-kun, what's his Quirk?" Toshinori remained tight-lipped, oddly enough.

Meanwhile, Principal Nezu stared at the screen in deep thought, as he searched his mind for the answer. "Could it be?" he muttered. He had a fleeting suspicion on what the green-haired boy's Quirk actually was, but he wasn't entirely sure.

It seemed that he would need to make a phone call after the exam.

'But first,' he thought, a slight smile tugging at his lips. 'It's time to see how they'll handle the real challenge.'

Throughout the next seven minutes, Izuku had managed to rack up quite a substantial amount of points, as he ran around trying to find and destroy as many robots as he could (which about forty, if he could recall correctly). He had a good feeling that forty points would have been enough for him to pass, but training with Toshinori and Katsuki for ten months had instilled the importance of always striving to go beyond (and a memory of Toshinori flexing and yelling PLUS ULTRA!).

Or in Katsuki's words: 'Half-assing will never get you anywhere.'

The ground began to rumble violently, causing him and all of the other participants to stop what they were doing and look around for the source of the quake. However, a large shadow soon covered the ground, and they all turned towards the direction it came from. They could only stare at the sight of a gargantuan robot ominously wheeling towards them.

It looks like the zero-pointer had arrived.

Overcome with fear, the participants started scrambling in the opposite direction, desperate to get away from the monstrous beast. Izuku stared at the zero-pointer for a moment to ponder whether or not Gold Experience could stop it, before turning around and breaking out into a run.

'Nope.'

"H-help! Please!"

Izuku immediately stopped in his tracks when he heard the cry, and turned back around to see someone pinned underneath some large debris. Upon having a closer look, he then realized that it was the girl who had kept him from falling, back at U.A.'s entrance.

'Oh.'

Without thinking, Izuku imbued his legs with Gold Experience's, and broke out into a full sprint towards the girl. Once reaching her, he wasted no time and commanded it to lift the debris up, completely overturning it, before lifting the girl up and carrying her in his arms. With a brief glance towards the titan-sized robot, he quickly summoned the golden being back within him, before running as fast as he could in the other direction. After gaining a good distance away from the robot, he began to slow down to make a turn and gain even more distance away, when he heard a loud voice.

"And time is up!"

The loud voice of Present Mic, along with the blares of a siren, caused the intense rumbling from the zero-pointer to cease at it came to a halt. Momentarily freezing in place, its arm was left outstretched, before retracting back to its side. Ochako sighed in relief, before looking back to the boy who had carried her away. She briefly noted how safe she felt in his arms, before speaking up. "Um, you can let me down now."

The boy quickly looked back to her. "Oh! S-sorry about that," he said, before letting her down on her feet. However, when her feet made contact with the ground, she suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot up her leg.

"Ow!" she hissed, quickly grabbing on to the boy's shoulder for support.

"Are you hurt?" he asked in alarm, putting his arm around her waist to also help support her weight. Ochako would have blushed at the physical contact, but the pain overshadowed any current that thought.

"I think my ankle's sprained," she told him. He silently nodded as they continued to hold onto each other, before she felt a feeling of warmth travel throughout her leg. Ochako blinked from the sudden sensation, before noting how the throbbing pain had immediately ceased, Tentatively, she rotated her once-injured foot around, before fully placing it on the ground.

'It's...not hurt anymore...' she thought in surprise.

"Is your ankle okay now?" the boy eventually spoke up, and Ochako realized that he still had an arm around her waist. With a small blush, she pulled away from him.

(Why a part of her regretted this, she didn't know.)

"Did...did you heal me?" she asked, taking a few steps in place as she marveled at the thought of her foot suddenly being healed.

The boy smiled. "Yup!"

"Wow," Ochako began, her eyebrows raised. "I...thank you!" She quickly enveloped him in a hug.

The boy froze at the sudden movement, before awkwardly patting her back "Y-you're welcome..." Ochako then realized what exactly she was doing, and immediately pulled back, a large blush overtaking her face.

'Oh my gosh, I just hugged a boy.'

She briefly noticed how said boy was also blushing, but his was much larger. The two teenagers continued awkwardly staring at each other for a few more moments, before the boy cleared his throat and held out his hand. "I'm Midoriya Izuku. It's nice to meet you."

Ochako smiled and shook it with her own. "Uraraka Ochako. Nice to meet you, too!" She wanted to ask how it was he healed her, but before she could say anything further, the soft voice of a woman broke through the mass of students.

"Good job, everyone." Ochako turned to see a short, elderly woman walking around and handing something to the other students. "Is anyone hurt?" When the people around her kept shaking their hands and telling her no, she continued to walk around, until turning to Ochako's general direction. Lighting up, she walked over to where she was standing.

"Oh, hello, dears," she greeted. Before Ochako could reply, however, the woman turned to Midoriya and continued to speak. "You must be that young man Toshi never shuts up about."

Midoriya smiled sheepishly as he gave her a deep bow. "I'm Midoriya Izuku. It's an honor to meet you, Recovery Girl!"

The woman chuckled. "Oh hush, you." She reached into the bag she was carrying, and pulled out what looked to be gummy bears. "Have some gummies, you two." Ochako obligingly took some of the offered candies and popped them in her mouth, slightly enjoying the sweet taste. After a moment, she turned to Midoriya and motioned for him to follow her. "Well, I could certainly use your help patching up anyone who has any serious injuries."

"Of course!" the boy replied, quickly moving to stand beside her. Suddenly, he turned back around and waved to Ochako. "See you later, Uraraka-san! Hopefully we both passed!"

Ochako slowly waved back as she watched the two figures walk away. 'I hope so too...'

"Izuku? Is everything all right?"

Izuku blinked as he was brought back out of his thoughts by his mother. "Huh? Oh. Sorry about that, mom," he said, picking up a small bit of rice with his chopsticks. "I was just thinking about something."

"Is it the entrance exams?"

Izuku took a split second to consider his answer. "Yeah," he replied, partially lying. "I was just trying to think about whether or not I got enough points to pass." In the ten months that they had spent training, neither he nor Katsuki had thought to ask Toshinori what the minimum number of points required to get into the hero course actually were, since the two of them had promised each other to try their absolute hardest to pass.

Inko smiled. "Don't worry about it, honey," she said in a comforting tone. "I think you got more than enough to get in the hero course, what with you and Katsuki training and all."

"Yeah, that's a good point," he admitted, before going back to eating his dinner. He hated lying to his mother, but as a teenage male, there were just some things that he wasn't willing to share, no matter how close he was with his mother. Like what he was previously thinking about, for example. He had become lost in thought as he stared at his chopsticks, or rather, the color of them. The brown wood of the utensil reminded him of brown hair and a particular hairstyle.

Brown hair. Kind eyes. Pretty face.

Izuku sighed. He had had crushes on pretty girls in the past, that was for sure, but he just couldn't seem to get the face of the girl he had rescued out of his head. It was actually starting to keep him up at night, if he had to be honest.

(And part of him was seriously hoping they would end up in the same class together. He really wanted to see Ochako Uraraka again.)

Once he had finished eating, Izuku placed his dishes in the sink, and flopped onto the couch to browse the internet for any recent hero news. Raising an eyebrow at reading the title of a rumored romance between Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods, he tapped the link that directed him to the online tabloid. Eyebrows furrowing at the information, he laid there wondering just how the press were still able to get paid writing up such slander, before the frantic sound of his mother's voice rang him out of his thoughts.

"I-Izuku!"

Sitting up, he turned around and looked towards the open front door of the apartment. "Yeah?" he called out.

Inko scrambled to get inside as she shakily held up an envelope that displayed a wax seal with the letters U and A combined to occupy a single space. "The letter! It came!"

Izuku carefully took the envelope from his mother's hands, and quietly retreated to his room. Once settling into his chair, he stared at the envelope for a few moments, before taking a deep breath. Hastily grabbing it with both hands, he pulled at both sides, and eventually tore it open. The small metal disc enclosed within fell to the table with a brief clatter. When it finally settled, a brief beep played, before a hologram emerged, and from it, the face of a familiar man took up the majority of the floating screen.

"I am here as a projection! "

"All Might..." Izuku muttered, eyes wide in surprise as he saw the man who had trained him answering his acceptance letter.

"Midoriya Izuku," the hero began. "Along with passing the written exam, you had also managed to gain a total of forty-eight villain points in the practical, which means that you've made it into the hero course!" Izuku was feeling elated at hearing the news, but before he could cry out in joy, he was interrupted by the man suddenly raising his hand. "But before you celebrate, I must continue." He paused for dramatic effect, before continuing. "You see, even though you were told to neutralize as many villains as you could, there was actually a hidden factor when it came to the practical. A factor only a select few realized." he motioned towards the screen beside him, and the camera in front of him moved to center the screen, which began playing the footage of a very familiar scene.

It was of him rescuing Uraraka from the rubble and the zero-pointer.

When the video played up to the part where he had run well enough away from the robot, it paused, before the camera filming it moved back to All Might. "It was thanks to you, that Uraraka Ochako was able to come out of the exam unscathed, and so you have received..." he gestured towards the screen again, but instead of camera footage, a scoreboard was instead displayed, with his own name having taken the spot of second place.

"Rescue points!"

Izuku saw that along with the number forty-eight that represented the amount of points he had gained from villain kills, he had also been given a whopping forty rescue points, which brought his total up to eighty-eight points, just behind Katsuki's own ninety-nine points (seventy-seven villain points and twenty-two rescue points).

"After all," All Might continued. "What type of hero school would we be if we didn't reward one of the most important qualities of a hero?" The hero seemed to be grinning even wider than he already was, and was giving Izuku a thumbs up. "Stellar job, young Midoriya. I look forward to seeing you in the hero course, but for now, I bid you welcome, to your hero academia!" With that, the message came to a close, and the hologram disappeared back into the disc.

Izuku couldn't believe what had just happened. Letting out a sigh, he leaned back into his chair and began to slightly laugh, out of mild shock and overwhelming joy at the words his idol and trainer had told him.

He had done it. He was going to be a hero.

Chapter Text

Izuku watched the exchange between Bucciarati and the capo known as Mr. Pericolo with a stoic expression. While he was glad that the man had improved his rank in Passione and would continue to help him in his quest to overthrow the boss, he had to maintain extreme caution when it came to talking about Polpo or his reasons for wanting to join the mafia. There was just no telling what would happen if the circumstances for the man's death ever came to light.

He needed to see his dream and his goals through. For him, and for the man who saved him, all those years ago.

"While I know you've only just taken over Polpo's position," Mr. Pericolo began. "You will also have to take over any jobs that he had, and there's one that he's left unfinished. Is that all right with you?"

"There was a job he left unfinished?" asked the white-clad man known as Bruno Bucciarati. "What is it?"

"It's a direct order from the boss." Izuku sharply inhaled through his nose at the man's words. The others in Bucciarati's team were also surprised at the mention of the elusive head of Passione.

"The boss...?"

"The boss that no one's ever met, the boss?"

"And an order that he directly gave out..."

"Indeed," the capo replied. "Actually, I'll just tell you right now: you'll be guarding his daughter. This is arguably the most important mission he has ever given anyone, as no one else except myself even knows about it. And now, so have you." Izuku couldn't believe what he was hearing...the boss, the man that he and Bucciarati needed to overthrow to destroy the drug operation...had a daughter. This...complicates things. How much, however, he didn't know.

"Actually," he continued, turning around and motioning towards a young man holding a mop. "You'll be guarding her starting right now."

Izuku eyed him in confusion, before turning to his side as he came to a realization. "Bucciarati..." he began. "That guy behind Pericolo...that's not a guy at all. That has to be the boss's daughter." Collectively, the entirety of Squadra Guardie del corpo looked to the now revealed female in shock as she walked up to stand beside the capo.

"This is Trish Una," he said. "And you'll be risking your lives to protect her as you escort her to him. Even sacrificing yourselves, if need be."

"Pencils and pens?

"Check."

"Notebooks?"

"All of them including the 'Hero Analysis' ones."

"Snacks in case you get hungry before lunch?"

Izuku discreetly rolled his eyes from where Inko couldn't see his face. "They're in here, too." After checking that he had everything he needed, he zipped up his backpack and proceeded to put it on, before turning to face his mother. "It'll be fine, mom. It's still just the first day of high school."

When he looked back up, his mother enveloped him in a warm embrace. "I know," she replied. "I know I'm kind of overreacting here, but I can't help but be so proud of you!" Izuku softly smiled at his mother's excitement. "My baby boy's gonna learn how to be a hero! If only your father were here to see this..."

It was then that his smile turned into a frown, as his face morphed into a sad expression. "Yeah...I wish he was here, too..." He couldn't remember much of his father, but Inko had told numerous stories of how he had worked overseas to provide for his wife and newborn son, and how he'd always come back with a large smile on his face. But when he had turned three, Hisashi was one out of many that were killed in a violent villain attack.

His body was never found.

Before the happy-turned-sour mood of the mother and son could get worse, however, they were interrupted by a knock on the door to their apartment. Inko rubbed her son's back before letting go. "I'll get it. That must be Katsuki." Moving across the living room, she open the door to greet her son's friend. "Good morning, Katsuki!" Almost immediately after greeting her friend's son, she noticed the person standing semi-awkwardly behind him. "Oh, and who's this? A friend of yours?"

Izuku grew curious at hearing his mother's words, and so walked over to see who it was that his friend had brought him. When he realized who it was, he froze. "Uh, h-hey, Uraraka-san."

When she saw the person standing at the door, Ochako visibly lit up as she waved to him. "Hi, Midoriya-kun!" Izuku tried to maintain his composure as he saw her smile and heard her bright voice, but the truth was...

He was really happy to see her.

"As much as I'd like to ask you how you know this girl, Izuku-" Inko interrupted. "-it's nearing eight o'clock. You three are going to miss the train if you don't get moving."

Izuku quickly looked towards the clock on the wall of the living room to confirm what she had said. "Oh shoot, you're right!" Moving with haste, he put his shoes on and made his way out of the door, before briefly hugging his mother goodbye and rushing out of the door. Katsuki sidestepped out of the way to let his friend pass through, and was about to move to follow him and Ochako towards the complex's entrance, when he was stopped by a hand gripping his arm.

"Wait, Katsuki."

He looked towards Inko with a quizzical expression on his face. "What is it?"

"I know he doesn't really need it," she began after taking a deep breath. "But please. Look out for him, will you?"

Katsuki's expression softened once he saw how she was overcome with worry. "Always, auntie. Not that he needs it, but...always." She let go of his arm, and he proceeded to make his way towards the other teenagers, who were patiently waiting at the base of the stairs.

"What took you so long, Kacchan?"

"Had to tie my shoes," he lied effortlessly. Izuku nodded in reply and the three teenagers began to walk towards the train station.

After several moments of silence passed, Izuku made an attempt to strike up a conversation. "S-so, Uraraka-san," he began. "How did you, uh...know where I lived?"

Ochako rested a finger against her cheek as she thought of her answer. "Well, your place is on the way to the station, and I noticed that Bakugō-kun was wearing the boy's uniform," she said. "So I thought I'd say hi and that the three of us could walk together!"

"Ah," he replied, nodding slowly. Another silence befell them, as he put his hands in his pockets and was trying to think of something else to say. "So what do you think will happen once we get to class?" he eventually asked. Ochako repeatedly tilted her head sideways as she thought about how U.A. would possibly handle the first days of school.

"Well, there's the entrance ceremony..."

Katsuki, meanwhile, had settled into pace behind them, and watched the exchange between the two with a calculating look in his eyes.

Upon finally reaching U.A.'s entrance, Ochako let out a low whistle as they walked past the massive gate. "I still can't believe I actually made it in," she said, admiring the scenery of the school. Cleanly cut trees were spaced out throughout the courtyard, and several buildings the size of skyscrapers loomed over the three students.

"Yeah," Izuku agreed. "It is pretty amazing."

Katsuki, however, was busy noticing a detail he had admittedly forgotten to ask All Might about. "The view's nice and all," he cut in. "But do either of you see a map anywhere? 'Cuz I'm fairly sure they didn't give us a map in the acceptance letter." Izuku and Ochako paused when they realized that he was right, but when Izuku was about to suggest they find an upperclassman and ask them, Katsuki was already beginning to walk away. "Never mind!" he said loudly "I found it!"

After studying the map that was displayed in front of the buildings, the three students eventually made their way towards the elevator, and towards the direction of the classroom marked '1-A'.

Katsuki craned his neck upwards to see that the door was large enough to have even reached the ceiling. "That's a pretty damn big door."

"I think it's to accommodate for students with mutation Quirks that greatly increase their height," Izuku remarked.

"Or," Katsuki retorted. "It's there to look intimidating and remind everyone that U.A. doesn't fuck around." He reached for the handle, and upon opening it, they were greeted with the sight of several students chatting with each other throughout the classroom, while others were just sitting in their seats, either reading or attempting to sleep.

One student in particular, however, enthusiastically moved towards them. "Salutations!" he began. "I am Iida Tenya." He deeply bowed to them in a perfect ninety-degree angle. "It is a pleasure to meet you!"

"Uh, hi," Izuku greeted in return with a bow of his own, unsure of how else to respond to the other boy's enthusiasm. "My name's Midoriya Izuku."

"And I'm Uraraka Ochako!"

Katsuki silently nodded in greeting and grunted out a "Bakugō Katsuki."

It was here that Tenya had realized just who Izuku was. "Midoriya-kun, I must apologize for my behavior towards you during the entrance exams," he said, bowing once more. "It was highly rude of me to assume that you were there to disrupt the other examinees, but in reality, you had realized the true meaning behind the exam, and were about to tell them, didn't you? That was why you were the only one to move to rescue Uraraka-kun!"

"No, no, it was nothing like that," Izuku said, waving his arms in front of him as he tried to diffuse the misunderstanding. "I honestly didn't know about the rescue points until after getting the acceptance letter."

"Truly?" Tenya asked in astonishment, before pushing up his glasses and slapping his fist onto his palm. "Then I must endeavor to act as you do, so that I, too may eventually call myself a hero!" With a nod, he turned around to mingle with the other students, but suddenly let out an audible gasp when he noticed Katsuki. "Bakugō-kun!" he exclaimed. "This behavior is outrageous! You should not desecrate the esteemed facilities of U.A. by putting something as filthy as your shoes on the desk!"

Katsuki frowned. "You need to chill, Glasses," he replied. "It's not that big of a deal."

Tenya made an indignant expression as he moved to start chopping the air with his arm. "I will not 'chill'. It is a highly disrespectful act that tarnishes the memory of the student who sat in that chair before you! Honestly, I didn't expect such behavior to come from the student with the highest number of villain points."

Katsuki was getting increasingly irritated as the exchange between him and the other boy continued. He had initially wanted to rest his feet on his desk in an attempt to calm his nerves from the prospect of his first day of high school, but this hardass was making it near-impossible, and was now just complaining about simple things like predecessors. "And who are you to-"

"If all you're going to do here is bicker, then just leave and stop wasting my time."

At the sound of the tired voice, the ambient chatter of the classroom soon decreased into silence, as they all collectively turned to see a long-haired man wearing a black jumpsuit and gray scarf, along with a very bored expression on his face. When the room was finally silent, the man continued. "It took you five seconds to quiet down as soon as I spoke up. Not bad, but not good either. We'll have the rest of the semester to work on that."

He walked into the room as he was speaking, while also dragging what looked to be a yellow-orange sleeping bag. "Anyway, my name is Aizawa Shōta, and I'll be your homeroom teacher the whole time you'll be enrolled in the hero course." The man now known as Aizawa reached into his bag and pulled out a gym uniform. "I apologize for being sudden, but I need you all in your gym clothes and onto the field as soon as possible." With that, the man left the room, leaving the other students to start following him and file out of the classroom to walk towards the locker rooms to get changed.

Once all of the students had changed and were now standing on the field, Aizawa opened the wagon that he had seemingly brought with him, which was revealed to hold a numerous amount of softballs. "It's about time," he said, turning to face the class. "Today we're going to be doing a Quirk assessment test." At that, the entire class was surprised and confused at the activity, especially since it was out of the blue.

"But what about the entrance ceremony and the orientation?" Ochako asked him.

"It's a waste of time to spend hours just sitting around for such pointless events," the man replied, fishing out a softball and casually throwing it in the air. "If you want, I can assign you to read the school handbook. It's simpler, and it gets the job done much faster. The teachers here at U.A. can generally do whatever they want, so long as it's effective in teaching the students. The administration will only really step in and take over if we're doing a piss-poor job." Turning back around, he looked towards Katsuki. "Bakugō." At the sound of his name, the boy stood at full attention. "You ended up with the highest score in the practical exam. What was your softball throw record in middle school?"

"About sixty-seven meters," he replied.

Aizawa nodded and tossed him the softball and pointed towards a large white circle that was drawn on the field. "Now try doing it here, but this time with your Quirk. I don't really care what you do, so long as you stay in the circle."

With a nod, Katsuki walked over to the circle and proceeded to lightly stretch, before getting into a pitcher's stance, and then throwing the ball with a cry of "ORA!". A loud boom suddenly shook the field, and the ball was sent rocketing into the air (and even breaking the sound barrier), as he activated his Explosion Quirk to give it a large boost.

Aizawa nodded in approval at the display, before turning back to the class. "You should always know your maximum limits first. If you never try your very best, then there's absolutely no foundation in which you can grow to become a hero." With a beep of his phone, he held it up to show the distance the ball had traveled.

705.2 m

The class was shocked at seeing the large number, with Izuku smirking as he shook his head. 'Always leave it to Kacchan to go all out...'

"We get to use our Quirks however we want?! This is awesome!"

"I can't wait to see how I'll do here!"

"This looks so fun and exciting!"

Aizawa turned to look at the person who had made the last comment. "Really, now?" he said. "You think this gonna be fun? That this is gonna be some recreational icebreakers activity where you and the other students will get to let loose and have fun?" With a slight grin, he continued. "I'll tell you what, whoever ends up in last place...is who I'll be expelling. Let's see how fun you can make it."

"But that's not fair!"

Aizawa turned to look at Ochako with a blank stare. "Life is never fair," he countered. "In the world of heroics, mediocrity is forbidden. Failure to put in all of your effort out in the field could result in a villain's escape, or even worse: the death of a civilian." He then started to look at the class as a whole. "Many of you have sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears in order to be accepted into the highest ranking hero school in Asia," he continued. "But that doesn't even scratch the surface of what you'll be facing during your time here. Even if you find the odds stacked against you, you must always find a way to go above and beyond. That is what it means to go 'Plus Ultra'."

The mass of students were left in a solemn silence as Aizawa's speech sunk in, fully comprehending just what was in store for them, now that they were in the hero course. One student in particular, however, broke the silence with a sniff as he wiped a single tear from his eye. "That was pretty manly..." Izuku found himself nodding in agreement. Although Aizawa was being unnecessarily strict, that really was a cool speech he just did.

"Now," Aizawa continued, with a small grin breaking out onto his face. "Let's begin."

Chapter Text

Izuku had to admit, he was really excited to see his classmates' Quirks in action. Even though there was Aizawa's threat of expulsion for whoever came in last place looming over his head, this was still a learning experience to see how far his and Katsuki's training under All Might had paid off, and how far he could push himself with Gold Experience.

And also to see how the two of them compared in situations outside of fighting.

With great interest in Tenya's Quirk and seeing how fast he had cleared the running track, he began to stare off into a random area on the ground, as he became deep in thought. "Based on the mutation Quirk in his calves, there's a good chance he's related to Ingenium, meaning that his Quirk should be similar to a car engine's, with multiple gears. It looks like that's the fastest he can go in that distance, but..."

It was really a shame he didn't have his notebook with him.

Ochako, in the middle of walking over to him to try and make conversation, suddenly paused when she heard his muttering, and took a cautious step backwards. "Does...does he do that a lot?" she asked, turning to Katsuki.

"Just about every time he finds out about a new Quirk," he replied. "I tried to get him to stop talking to himself a lot over the years, but he gets pretty fanatic when it comes to studying Quirks. Fairly sure he's even got a couple pages dedicated to you, too."

Ochako looked away as she felt her face start to heat up. "O-oh." Deciding to instead turn her attention back to Izuku, she couldn't help find herself staring at his face as he continued to mutter up a storm, watching all of their other classmates run the track .

'C'mon, Ochako,' she thought, in an attempt to reason with herself. 'It's because he looks weird doing that...right?'

Slightly shaking her head, her thoughts then turned to Izuku's own Quirk. When he had told her the name of his invisible (to everyone but him, at least) companion, and how it would repeatedly yell out the word 'useless' as a battle cry, she was overcome with the strangest sense of déjà vu, although she couldn't seem to recall where she had heard the information before. She swore she had never seen nor heard of anyone who had done that before in her life, but there was a strange feeling of... familiarity to the knowledge.

Katsuki, meanwhile, had noticed her odd behavior, and was watching her out of the corner of his eye with a raised eyebrow, before ultimately deciding to ignore it.

Eventually, it came time for Izuku's turn to run the test. Walking up to the starting line, he took a deep breath and began lightly stretching and mentally preparing himself, as he bent down into a running start position. Turning to his right, he saw Katsuki doing the same thing. "Kacchan." At the sound of his nickname, the boy turned to see Izuku holding out a fist to him. "Ready to show everyone who's boss?"

Katsuki looked at the offered fist for a moment, before smirking and returning it. "You know me so well, Deku." Turning their attention back to the track, a few moments of silence passed, before the robot that oversaw and recorded each score began to speak the countdown.

"On your mark...get set..." With the sound of a gunshot, Izuku shot forward, with his legs imbued with Gold Experience's. Through countless hours of experimenting, Izuku had concluded that the speed at which Gold Experience could attack had to be somewhere close to, if not faster than the speed of sound, based on the fact that he couldn't even see Gold Experience's fists flying during a punching barrage. Unfortunately, however, it couldn't exactly apply to whenever he himself would use it to enhance his own body, because it had its own physical limits, and he could still vividly recall how painful that event had been.

One day during the ten months spent training for the exam, Izuku had tried to push himself as much as possible during a sprint exercise. And while he was able to run at a speed that far outclassed his middle school gym scores, it ended up with most, if not all of the muscles in his legs being torn apart from the massive strain. After about a minute of panicking from him, Katsuki, and Toshinori, they eventually remembered that he had the ability to heal himself, and so calmed down. Once he had repaired the damaged limbs, he received a stern warning from the man to be careful with pushing himself, and to count himself lucky for being able to undo any damage done with ease, which he had taken to heart.

At least it wasn't too bad, even if the memory did keep him up at night from time to time.

"4.13 seconds!" the robot loudly announced. It seemed that Katsuki was the one with the upper hand, as he used his Quirk to repeatedly ignite small explosions and propel himself forward, which eliminated the need to set his feet on the ground. Izuku wasn't too far behind, though, as he still managed to train his body up to the point of being able to run at a speed that was still impressive, managing to stay right behind him with a time of 4.46 seconds.

"Damn...it..." Izuku said, slightly disappointed that he couldn't beat his friend, but it was obvious that he would have the disadvantage no matter what. He briefly considered having Gold Experience throw him at full strength, but he didn't think Aizawa would appreciate the landing part.

After another moment of recovering his stamina, he made his way over to Katsuki, who was busy studying his hands. "Still don't regret not getting One For All?" the other boy jokingly sniped without turning around.

"Eh, it would've been nice to wait an entire three seconds seeing you try to catch up," Izuku deadpanned. The other boy just barked out a laugh in response.

Izuku stared at the grip device with a calculating expression, wondering what the best course of action was for this particular test. Obviously, if he tried to grip it as himself, he would end up getting a weak score, but it was a no-brainer that Gold Experience would be used here, so the question was how to use it. He could simply just have the golden being do the test for him, but to be honest...he liked freaking people out when it came to revealing the 'punch ghost'.

In the end, he opted to instead stack both his and Gold Experience's strength, which he hoped would give him a good enough score to-

Oh.

It seemed that in his haste to get the test over with, he forgot that Gold Experience possessed the strength to actually break the device, and rather loudly, at that. As he stared at the now-mangled piece of technology, Izuku briefly wondered if Aizawa would let this slide, before looking up and noticing the stares the people he was nearest to were giving him.

"Uh...whoops?" he said, in an attempt to break the awkward silence.

"Deku, it's a grip strength test, not a 'break everything' test," Katsuki snidely remarked. Before Izuku could let out a retort, he noticed a a flash of movement in his peripheral vision, and turned to see a boy with the mutation of a bird's head holding the device, with a large, shadow-like creature similar in appearance floating next to him.

Izuku's eyes widened at the sight and he suppressed a gasp, before quickly making his way towards him. "Wait, you have one, too?!"

At his excited words, the other boy just looked at him with confusion from the lack of context. "...What are you talking about?"

"Your Quirk!" Izuku summoned Gold Experience in his growing excitement at finally seeing another person with a Quirk similar to his. "Can you see mine?" he asked, enthusiastically gesturing to the space next to him.

He only received a blank stare in return. "I...I'm afraid I don't see anything."

"Oh..."

An awkward silence passed between the two of them, before the boy decided to speak up. "I am Tokoyami Fumikage," he began, then pointed to his shadowy companion. "And this is Dark Shadow." On cue, the being silently waved. "And you?"

"Midoriya Izuku," he replied, his disappointment making itself known in his tone of voice. "I apologize for disturbing you, Tokoyami-kun."

Fumikage noted the change in Izuku's behavior, and continued to speak in an attempt to make the situation less awkward. "Does your Quirk function similarly to mine?" At seeing his face light up, he mentally pat himself on the back for a job well done.

The two boys spent the next few minutes comparing their respective Quirks and the abilities each had. Izuku had found it very interesting to know that different levels of light directly affected Dark Shadow's power, and Fumikage was intrigued to know that Gold Experience's strength was dependent on Izuku's mental fortitude.

"...But I don't think Gold Experience is sentient," Izuku said, when the topic of control came up, and why he kept referring to his own companion as an 'it'. "And it always responds to what I'm thinking or feeling, but it'll usually move by itself if I'm in danger."

"Hm..." Fumikage hummed. "I usually have to verbally command Dark Shadow in order for him to do what I want. Generally, he's usually very compliant most of the time, but if there's very little light, then there is a high risk of him getting out of control."

Izuku nodded in understanding, before suddenly remembering something that was quite an important detail when it came to Gold Experience. "Wait, can everyone else see yours?"

Fumikage gave him an odd look. "...Yes? Why do you ask?"

"Because absolutely no one can see Gold Experience, and it doesn't make any sense! " he exclaimed. "Quirks are directly related to the physical body, so everyone should be able to see it! Ours function so similarly, but yours is summoned by floating out of your clothes, and mine just appears out of thin air and just stands there until I think of a command, or will it to go away." Well that certainly was odd, Fumikage noted. To be honest, he did wonder about how Dark Shadow would look with legs from time to time, instead of just floating there so-

Wait.

Fumikage's eyes slightly widened at the epiphany he just experienced. While the chances of it were very small, they were still there , and the characteristics of Izuku's Quirk lined up with the stories he remembered being told when he was younger, some years after he had first manifested Dark Shadow. "I see," he said neutrally, while his thought process started working at hyperspeed at the prospect of the true nature of Izuku's 'Quirk'.

Unfortunately, the one person he thought was best suited to talk to Izuku currently wasn't present.

Weighing the softball in his hand, Izuku thought of how to approach this next test using Gold Experience. While he could simply just have it throw the ball for him, it wouldn't really get him a good score. Oh sure, he knew he would get a better score than most of his classmates, but Katsuki had managed to get over seven hundred meters, and Ochako beat him with an infinity , just by sending the ball to space. Unfortunately, no amount of punching and turning things into animals would help him with throwing a ball.

Izuku's eyes lit up. 'Wait, that's it! '

With a sly grin breaking out onto his face, the faint sound of reversing musical notes played, and the softball was transformed into a alpine swift, which he then directed to fly for as long as physically possible. While Gold Experience's strength far exceeded that of a normal human's, Aizawa did say that the only thing he cared about was everyone staying in the circle.

"He just turned the ball into a bird. "

"Geez, just how many Quirks does this guy have?! "

"He's only got one, as far as I can tell, unless he's been lying to me the whole time I've known him."

Aizawa, meanwhile, simply stared off into the direction the swift was currently flying. With a nod of approval, he turned to Izuku. "How long until it reverts back?"

Izuku just grinned in response. "There is no time limit," he replied. "All of the objects that I've turned into animals can only turn back if I want them to, and I've never tested how far my effective range can go up to, but I can still feel a connection all the way from here. So I guess that means I'll just keep it going until I want it to stop, which is probably never, when it comes to this test."

Aizawa grew silent for a few moments before speaking. "Hm. I'll just give you an infinity and move on."

After all of the tests in Aizawa's 'Quirk Apprehension Test' had been completed, he directed the class to head back to the front of the field, where they were all eagerly waiting to see how they performed. "Whatever your total score will be is just all of the scores you got from the tests added together." Tapping on the screen of his phone, a large hologram was displayed for all the class to see, which displayed the individual students' scores and where they ranked when compared to each other.

After a moment of searching, Izuku found his name ranked at fourth place, with Katsuki and Ochako respectively being placed at third and eleventh. He moved to walk over and congratulate his friends, but then paused when he heard the sound of a panicking voice.

"Oh no. Oh nononono ." Turning around, Izuku saw a short boy with purple balls for hair holding his head in his heads, looking as if he were in the midst of the beginning of a panic attack. Reflexively, he turned back to look at the scoreboard, and saw that 'Minoru Mineta' was the name in last place.

"Um, Mineta-kun?" he tentatively asked. When the grape-haired boy looked up at him and confirmed his fears, Izuku felt pity begin to well up inside him, as the reality of the situation made itself known. It wasn't fair that that boy would be kicked out at the end of the day, because apparently it didn't matter how hard he had worked to get into U.A.

If he was unable to show he had potential, then there was no groundwork where he could improve on to become a hero.

"Mineta." The boy visibly flinched when he heard Aizawa speak. "While I did say I was going to expel whoever came in last place, you managed to show that you at least had some potential. So congratulations, you can stay."

"Oh, thank you, sensei! Thank you!" the boy exclaimed, bowing as deep as he could out of gratefulness to the teacher. When he stood back up, Izuku noticed that his posture and body language had visibly changed. "Well I think this calls for a celebration!" He turned around to face the crowd. "Hey Yaoyorozu! Uraraka! How bout we go to my place after school, and you two show me your goodies so we can...celebrate?'

At hearing his proposition, all of the girls (and a large portion of the boys) in the class were visibly disgusted, while the girls in question began to feel increasingly self-conscious.

"Okay, you know what? " Aizawa growled out. "Never mind." Grabbing the boy by the back of the shirt, he dragged him to the edge of the crowd, where he started to berate him. "Did you seriously think that kind of behavior's tolerable here?" Before Minoru could let out a reply, Aizawa cut him off. "Actually, don't say anything, I don't care." Dropping him, he turned around and made his way towards the locker rooms. "Get your things. We're going to the principal's office. Now. "

"B-but-"

"Do I look like I care?" While the man's volume was still somewhat quiet, his latent fury could be felt. "Let's go. "

"You know what?" Ochako spoke up, as she watched the two walk away. "I don't feel so bad, anymore."

Izuku nodded as he felt himself agreeing. "Neither do I."

After the debacle that was Minoru Mineta's sexual harassment and his likely expulsion, the rest of Class 1-A returned to the locker rooms to get dressed and went back to their classroom, where they found a stack of packets containing information about the hero course's curriculum. After mingling for a bit and everyone introducing themselves to each other, they all went their separate ways home, with Izuku, Ochako, and Katsuki all walking towards the train station.

"Excuse me!" someone yelled out behind them. Turning around, they saw Tenya doing his best to quickly walk up to them. "Do you mind if I join you?" he asked, stopping in front of them.

"Well, I don't mind, Iida-kun," Izuku answered, with Ochako and Katsuki nodding in agreement. The trio now becoming a quartet, Tenya fell into step beside Ochako, and they continued walking outside of U.A. High School's grounds.

A few moments of silence passed between the teenagers, before Tenya cleared his throat. "Uraraka-kun," he began. "I am sorry that you had to deal with such harassment on the first day of classes. I was not expecting such deplorable behavior at U.A. out of all places, but...there's a first time for everything, I suppose."

"I-it's fine, I guess..." Ochako said quietly, feeling herself start to grow ashamed at having been reminded about the earlier event.

Sensing the mood turn sour and awkward, Katsuki opted to change the subject. "Deku, Uraraka, and I are gonna go get some food. You wanna come with?"

Tenya thought about his offer for a moment, before coming to a decision. "While I appreciate the offer, Bakugō-kun, I have some matters to attend to at home. Perhaps another time." With a shrug from Katsuki, they continued to walk in silence.

"Can I call you Deku, too?" Ochako eventually spoke up, as she turned to Izuku. Looking to his other side, he silently asked Katsuki if he was okay with it.

"The hell you lookin' at me for?" he asked. He leaned forward slightly so that he could face Ochako. "It's just the other way you can read his name, Uraraka, so I don't really care if anyone else uses the nickname. But I will start throwing hands if you start calling me 'Kacchan'."

"Sounds good!" she replied, and the overall mood became much lighter, as Tenya started questioning them how they thought their performances in the entrance exam went.

Upon making his way outside of Class 1-A and towards the school's entrance, Fumikage spotted Midoriya, Bakugō, Uraraka, and Iida all walking together. He began to move towards them with the intent on joining them, but he was stopped by the sound of a male voice whispering in his ear.

"So what do you think?" asked Dark Shadow, who was now floating beside his head.

"He's...interesting, to say the least," Fumikage replied. "While some of his mannerisms are a bit much, I do think we could end up becoming good friends."

"I meant the Quirk, " the shadowy being reiterated. "Do you think Midoriya's Quirk could be one of those ?" Based on their interaction with Izuku earlier that day, Fumikage had a very strong suspicion as to the true nature of the other boy's 'Quirk', but he wasn't someone that had the ability or resources to find out.

But he knew someone that did , however.

He nodded. "I don't know for certain," he began, reaching into his pocket and pulling his phone out. Turning it on, he searched for a particular contact, and upon finding it, began calling the number, patiently waiting for it to be answered. "But even so, this is something that the Foundation would need to know about."

"Fumikage?" asked the man who was on the other line. "What is it?"

"Good afternoon, Uncle," the boy greeted. "I apologize if this is a bad time to be calling, but...I think one of my classmates may be a Stand user."

Chapter Text

As the bell rang throughout the school to signal the start of homeroom, the entirety of Class 1-A (save for one) settled into their seats, patiently waiting for their teacher to show up. However, a tense silence slowly filled the room, as they collectively remembered who it was that occupied the seat behind Izuku and in front of Momo Yaoyorozu, along with a few others glancing between her and Ochako.

Not a single one of them had missed Mineta's advances towards the two girls, along with the subsequent berating Aizawa had given him the day before, and were now anticipating the boy's arrival and the awkward confrontation. Needless to say, most, if not all of the students viewed him with disdain, but to some, it was particularly evident, primarily in Izuku. He had heard a few stories from his mother about how before meeting his father, she had received her fair share of leers and comments, along with a street thug's attempt to come onto her that was thankfully stopped by one of the local heroes.

The night before, he and Katsuki had talked about their suspicions on whether or not Mineta had been expelled, or if he was simply let off with a warning, though the latter seemed unlikely with how mad Aizawa had looked. Looking to his right, he saw that Ochako was keeping her eyes firmly glued to her desk, and briefly wondered if the girl sitting two seats behind him was doing the same.

Needless to say, Minoru Mineta had already become the 'black sheep' of Class 1-A.

When the door had finally opened, several students had tensed up in anticipation of seeing the pervert, but immediately relaxed at seeing that it was only their homeroom teacher. Closing the door behind him, he walked over to the desk at the front of the room, stopping in front of it. "I'm sure many of you are wondering what happened with Mineta, so I'll just tell you upfront; he's been moved to General Studies." At seeing several shocked expressions coming from the students, he continued. "We'll be down to nineteen students until someone else takes the spot."

"Don't you think he should've been expelled?" called out a pink-skinned girl named Mina Ashido, who was raising her hand.

"What I think and what's allowed are two different things when it concerns this, Ashido," he answered, before looking back towards the class as a whole. "Contrary to what I've told you all yesterday, only the principal has the authority to expel students. What I am allowed to do, however, is kick as many people out of my class as I want, meaning you'll only be seeing him in the halls and in the cafeteria from here on out."

"So will someone from 1-B be transferred here, then?" Izuku asked, raising his own hand. It felt rather odd to have to go through the school year with an odd number of students in their class.

"No," Aizawa said. "Because Vlad King handpicked all of the students for his class. Nezu and the other teachers put all of you with me. The only way for the vacancy to be filled in is from a General Studies student who performs well during the Sports Festival."

'Is that how he got into the hero course?' Izuku suddenly thought, intrigued by his teacher's words. An erasure-type Quirk would be just about useless when faced against robots in the practical exam, so he had to have joined the hero course somehow.

"So..." Ochako began with a quiet voice. "So you're saying there's a chance he could come back?"

Aizawa's tired expression slightly softened at her question. "It's highly unlikely, considering what he'll be matched up against," he replied, shaking his head. "After what he pulled, there's no way I would allow him back into the hero course this year, even if he did somehow manage to do well, so be ready to have a new classmate after the Festival ends." Soon after, a knock was heard coming from the door, and upon opening it, Present Mic - or rather, Hizashi Yamada - walked through the door, signifying the start of the first period: English class.

"Yo Deku, hand me some pepper."

Wordlessly, Izuku reached into his pocket and pulled out a pink eraser. Closing his hand in a fist, he concentrated for a few moments, and upon feeling a shift in his hand, opened it back up to reveal a small amount of black peppercorns in place of the eraser. "You owe me an eraser, Kacchan," he said, extending his arm out and over his friend's hand to prevent the spice from spilling on the table.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll give it to you when we get back," Katsuki replied, as he used his Quirk to discreetly create minute explosions in his hand to grind the peppercorn into a fine powder, before mixing it into his curry and taking a bite, satisfied at the new spice level.

Tenya, meanwhile, had seen the entire exchange, and was not happy at how nonchalant the two were being. "Midoriya-kun," he hissed. "I can't believe that you and Bakugо̄-kun would be so reckless as to be using your Quirks so carelessly, and in public, no less!"

Katsuki rolled his eyes in response as he continued eating his food. "Relax, Glasses. It's not like it's gonna hurt anyone."

"It doesn't matter if no one gets hurt," Tenya continued. "It is against the rules of U.A. for non-mutant-type Quirks to be displayed out in public spaces unless in emergency situations or authorized to do so. What if a teacher or faculty member walked by and saw?"

"Except that didn't happen, now did it?" Katsuki countered, refusing to back down from the argument.

Tenya sighed as he pushed up the rim of his glasses, feeling that he was going to get nowhere with the other boy. "Fine, I will concede," he said. "But I must implore that you use caution in the future."

Katsuki raised an eyebrow as he found himself feeling challenged, along with the urge to stand up. "Are you telling me I'm not already being careful?"

Ochako, sensing the situation starting to escalate, quickly intervened to keep it from escalating even further. "So who do you think the Basic Heroics teacher is gonna be?" she asked, slightly raising her voice.

Thankfully, this had the desired effect, as Katsuki visibly calmed down and continued to eat his food, while Tenya grew thoughtful as he thought of an answer to her question. "I am uncertain as to who exactly will be teaching us," he began "But there is no doubt that it will be a Pro Hero, just as how our teachers thus far have been such."

"Oh yeah, that reminds me, Iida-kun," Izuku chimed in, having been reminded about something from the day before. "Are you by any chance related to Ingenium?"

Tenya perked up at hearing his question. "Ah, so you've noticed the similarities between our Quirks? Well, to answer your question, Ingenium is in fact my older brother." He looked ahead towards a random spot on the wall as he held a fist close to his chest. "I desire to become a hero so that I may one day follow in his footsteps and make him and my family proud!"

Ochako let out a deep breath through her nose as Tenya spoke, satisfied that the exchange between him and Katsuki was interrupted before it could get worse.

"I AM...COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!"

Despite the bell already having rung, Toshinori decided to instead wait outside for a few more minutes, before making his grand entrance into Class 1-A. He had even made the choice to wear his previous costume from what the fans were calling the 'silver age', before he had cemented himself as the world's 'Symbol of Peace' and subsequently causing a new 'golden age' of heroics.

To be honest, he was kind of scared about the prospect of teaching twenty - wait, sorry, nineteen teenagers how Pro Heroes operate in the field. Aside from Izuku and Katsuki, the last person he had mentored had been Mirai, and he could still vividly recall how that had ended.

But considering how the two boys had managed to land the top two scores in the practical exam, surely it wouldn't prove to be too difficult.

Stopping in front of the room, he turned to face the class with his fists resting on his hips, in a pose similar to that of Superman. "Hello, students," he greeted. "And welcome to 'Basics of Heroics'! In this class, you will learn the very foundations of what it means to be a hero, as well as work together to face the various trials and tribulations that will come your way." He paused for a moment for dramatic effect, before raising a finger. "But fear not! Because I am here to guide you through this course, should you ever need it."

Seeing that he still had everyone's complete attention, Toshinori felt his trademark grin start to become more and more genuine. "Yosh! Now then-" He took a brief moment to consider his next decision, before inwardly shrugging and striking a strongman's pose. "Today, we will be commencing...battle training! But that's not all; today is also the day you will be receiving your hero costumes!" Picking up the remote on the desk behind him, he held it out towards the wall to his right, which caused the several compartments housed within to reveal themselves, containing multiple briefcases that were labeled numbers one-through-nineteen. "Many of your costumes were made in accordance with your Quirk registrations, as well as some specific requests you sent in before the school year started. Now, I understand you're excited to see what your respective cases hold, but I must ask that you be quick with getting dressed, as well as to meet me at Ground Beta. Now off we go! We don't have all day, folks!" With that settled, Toshinori marched out of the classroom and towards the mock city, leaving the students to gawk over what the support department had made for them.

After double-checking that he was wearing everything he needed, Izuku stored the briefcase containing his hero costume in his locker and moved to make his way out of the locker room, but not before taking a moment to stop in front of the large mirror beside the entrance and see how he looked.

His costume consisted of a dark green long-coat with a red zipper, white gloves, and black combat pants and boots. As for accessories, he also had three ladybug brooches, which were attached to the left and right sides of his torso, along with the third at the base of the zipper. A few years before, he had made a few sketches of how he originally wanted his costume to look, with an appearance that closely resembled All Might's, but when he showed Katsuki and asked him for his opinion, he was flat out told to go 'come up with something else that isn't as cringeworthy'.

"Lookin' pretty slick there, Midoriya!"

Izuku turned around to see Eijirо̄ Kirishima walking up to him, wearing his own costume. Walking beside him was Tenya, who in turn was wearing a suit of armor that closely resembled that of his brother's, and was carrying a helmet in the crook of his arm. "I must agree," he said. "You do look rather stylish."

Izuku smiled at the words. "Thanks, you two. I really like your costumes, too! Are they styled that way with your Quirks in mind?"

"Indeed it was!" Tenya declared proudly, as he gestured to the golden engines on his calves. "My boots contain a special coolant, as well as other mechanisms, that allow me to use my Quirk for longer, as well as help augment its performance."

"And I know that it's kind of weird not having a shirt," Eijirо̄ spoke up. "But they're kind of useless to me, since I need to be up close and personal to actually get anything done."

"Oh that's right, your Quirk is hardening your skin, right, Kirishima-kun?" Izuku asked.

The other boy nodded. "Yeah, that's right."

"Oi, get out of the way," interjected a new voice. "You're all blocking the door." At the words, the three boys collectively turned to see Katsuki standing behind them wearing his costume, along with a pair of large grenades as gauntlets. Catching sight of Izuku's costume, he gave him a brief once-over, before nodding in approval. "Not bad. Better than your last one, at least. Now come on, All Might said not to take too long." With that, he walked out of the locker room.

"Bakugо̄-kun is right; It is time that we head out to the meeting point," Tenya said, putting on his helmet and following Katsuki out, with Izuku and Eijirо̄ close behind.

Stopping just outside of the large tunnel that led to the mock city (which was coincidentally the same one he had had his practical exam in), Izuku was mildly awed to see all of his other classmates wearing their costumes, as they all looked very unique and impressive. However, it seemed that there was someone missing from the mass of students.

"Wow, Deku-kun, your costume looks really cool!"

Ah, never mind.

Turning around to face Ochako, Izuku was about to thank her for the compliment, but instead froze at seeing the skintight bodysuit that was her costume. A pretty girl - one that he was also friends with - was wearing a skintight bodysuit.

Yup, looks like he lost.

"It really gives off the feel of an anime character, you know?" she continued, while absentmindedly pulling at the fabric on her forearm. "I probably should've been more specific with what I wanted...they just ended up giving me a bodysuit...I probably don't look too good in this..."

Izuku, however, was thinking the exact opposite. He already knew that Ochako was obviously very pretty, especially considering how he found himself attracted to her after only knowing her for two days. But seeing her now, and wearing that?

She looked utterly gorgeous.

"O-oh. Um, t-thanks..." Ochako managed to squeak out, bringing him out of his thoughts. She ceased her fidgeting with her arm, and was now suddenly staring down at the floor, her face turning redder and redder by the second.

Izuku was confused by her sudden behavior. 'Huh? Why is she acting like that all of a-'

His eyes widened as the realization of what he had just done made itself known to him. Apparently, it looks like he had accidentally said that out loud, instead of just thinking it.

...

Oh fuck, he said that out loud.

"W-wait, I didn't mean it like that!" Izuku exclaimed, as he felt his face start to heat up, along with frantically waving his arms out in front of him in an attempt to do damage control. "I mean, like, I don't think that you're not pretty, and, well - I just - uh..."

A bit farther away, Katsuki was watching the two teenagers interact with each other with a knowing smirk on his face. While he himself never really had much interest when it came to dating, he sure as hell wasn't blind. After all, how would anyone become the number one hero if they didn't pay attention to what was happening with the people around them? He knew about every single crush Izuku had had during middle school, and would often pressure him to just get it over with and make a damn move already (to which he always chickened out of), but he had a feeling that this new one with Ochako...was pretty different to the 'she's pretty' type of crush most teenagers had.

"Is it just me," began a voice to his right, causing him to turn and see Tenya with his hand resting against the opposite side of his face in a 'whispering' gesture. "Or does it seem like there appears to be something happening between those two?"

Katsuki chuckled as he turned back to face the pair, finding himself agreeing with him. "You and me both, Glasses. You and me both."

Chapter Text

Sometimes Izuku really, really hated his tendency to mutter his thoughts out loud. Sure, it really helped him collect his thoughts when taking notes for hero analyses, but out of all the things that he could have said, it had to be the single most awkward thing ever.

When All Might began announcing what it was that the class was going to be doing in the mock city, he felt an overwhelming urge to just walk up and hug his mentor, along with thanking every single god he currently knew the names of at the top of his head. Honestly, the man couldn't have chosen a better time to give Izuku the opportunity he needed to discreetly inch away from what was sure to be an awkward conversation with Ochako.

Why couldn't he have just kept his damn mouth shut? Instead of just thanking her for how she liked his costume, he ended up making her uncomfortable, just like Mineta had the day before. No doubt Katsuki was thinking of a way to make fun of him for 'pussying out', but what else could he have done? Tell a girl he had only known for two days in total that he had a weird crush on her?

He'd rather be Quirkless.

When All Might announced that they would be partnered up through the use of lottery, he almost breathed out a sigh of relief when he realized that he would have a lot of time to prepare himself for the inevitable conversation with Ochako. "However, before we continue," the hero began. "I must note that since there's an odd number of you, one of the teams will have to have three people, so I will give the person who does not get picked for a team the option of which one to join." Reaching into a small box, he pulled out two small slips of paper, where he began to read them out loud. "And for Team A, we have...Midoriya Izuku and Uraraka Ochako!"

Izuku sighed as he suppressed a groan. 'Why must you do this to me, Kami-sama?' This was the absolute last thing he wanted to happen. All he wanted was to have the rest of the day to regret everything in his life before walking with Ochako, Tenya, and Katsuki after school, but now it looked like he only had mere minutes.

One by one, All Might continued to announce the names for each team, until there was only one person left who had not been called. "Hm. Well, looks like you get to pick which team to join, young Tokoyami!"

Fumikage paused for a moment to consider his options. While he was interested in seeing Midoriya's power in a fight and comparing Gold Experience's strength with Dark Shadow's, he had only known about the other boy's power for a day, not to mention there would be other times to confirm if there was any truth to Jо̄shirо̄'s stories. "I will refrain from making a decision for now, Sensei."

All Might nodded. "Fair enough, but if you haven't chosen a team yet by the time the last two teams go up against each other, then I will have to pick for you."

"Of course."

"Do you have a plan in mind, Bakugо̄-kun?" Tenya asked, as he watched Katsuki pace back and forth in front of the false bomb they would be defending.

Katsuki grunted in reply as he continued his pacing. He didn't like admitting it, but when it came to a close-quarters battle, Izuku would always have the upper hand. It was bad enough that Gold Experience was invisible to everyone but its user, but just about every time they tried to spar with each other, all he had to do was use that damn Life Giver to stun him and win the fight, until Toshinori asked him to stop relying on it.

He glanced towards the large grenade-like gauntlets on his wrist. Thankfully, even if he ended up outmatched, at least he had some counter-measures Izuku's dominance in close range. It was a good thing he didn't have One For All, at least. Otherwise, Deku would have been virtually unstoppable.

He snorted as the irony of the nickname wasn't lost on him. While the word itself was generally used as an insult, he started calling Izuku that when they were four because it really was the other way of reading the kanji of his name, and he was far from useless. Where Gold Experience lacked in raw power (Katsuki had him beat there, at least), it more than made up for in its sheer versatility. Due to growing up together, he knew many of Izuku's weaknesses, and unfortunately, he knew his as well.

"All right, Iida, I've got something," he began, as he explained the plan he came with that would best be able to deal with Izuku and Ochako's Quirks.

"So," began Ochako, who was looking up at the building that she and Izuku were tasked to infiltrate. "What do you think they'll be doing, Deku-kun?" When she didn't hear a response, she turned to her side. "...Deku-kun?"

Izuku, meanwhile, was in deep thought as he thought of a strategy against the defending team, with a hand to his chin. "Kacchan and Iida-kun's Quirks are reliant on close range, so they'll have to get close in order to be effective, unless Kacchan has something planned for his lack of range, but knowing him, he'd try to play it safe, unless he wants to risk damaging part of the building..." He looked towards Ochako. "Uraraka-san," he began. "Their best bet is to try and split us up. When it comes to one-on-one battles, I'll be able to win easily, so they might try to-"

"Villain team!" interrupted the booming voice of the number one hero. "The time for the planning phase has now expired. Hero team! Your mission starts...NOW!"

'Well there goes the plan,' Izuku thought, as he and Ochako walked through the front door of the building.

"Deku-kun."

"Yeah?"

"Let's...let's talk later, okay?

"Uh, s-sure."

It was quiet as Izuku and Ochako slowly walked through the first and second floors of the practice building. A bit too quiet, if he had to be honest. By the time they reached the third, his suspicion was now starting to grow into paranoia. Standing at the top of the stairs, he held out a hand behind him and towards Ochako, in a gesture for her to stay where is she was.

"What is it?" she asked in a whisper. "Did you hear someone?"

Without a reply, Izuku pulled a brooch off of his chest, before throwing it to the ground ahead of him with a clatter. A short moment later, the brooch then transformed into a common garter snake, which he commanded to search for any nearby heat signatures. After about a minute had passed, it began hissing loudly, and he walked towards the edge of the room to see Tenya casually standing there.

"Well, well, well," he began, sarcastically clapping in sync with the greeting. "I'd say 'welcome', but I'm sure you've no patience for such pleasantries. I would congratulate you on deducing our locations, but I'm sure you're not the type for such pleasantries." Neither Izuku nor Ochako said anything in reply, causing Tenya to dramatically sigh. "And still, you don't speak? Very well. I will personally see to it that this building marks your final resting place, hero."

Izuku only had a split second to stick out a hand in front of Ochako and command Gold Experience to push them away as hard as it could, before Katsuki suddenly shot out from a nearby wall with his Quirk activated, having made contact with the area the two had just been occupying, causing the powdered debris to kick up and create a smokescreen.

"Uraraka-san, are you okay?" Izuku asked urgently, quickly standing up to defend his teammate.

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Ochako replied. "But how do we get past them?"

Izuku quickly scanned the grid-like structure of his surroundings before answering her. "I'm going to try and distract them, and I want you to try to see if you can flank around and go up the stairs."

"Got it!" With that, she went off towards the side of the room, leaving Izuku in the middle, as he dropped into a fighting stance in anticipation of the next attack. A few moments later, the smoke cleared to reveal Katsuki displaying a manic grin on his face.

"Fight me, if you're ready to die."

Izuku braced himself as the other boy ran towards him with his hand outstretched, commanding Gold Experience to stand in front of him and stop him in his tracks. Before he could attack, however, Katsuki shot out his other hand and fired off an explosion, changing his momentum and allowing him to vault over Izuku. Quickly turning around, he saw Katsuki pull the pin on the large grenade-like gauntlet on his arm, which triggered an extreme blast of energy to erupt from it, and was quickly destroying everything in its path.

Gold Experience yelled out a cry as it threw a fist to match the blast. "MUDA!"

Elsewhere, Ochako was busy running up the stairs towards the fifth floor, where the bomb the villains were tasked on guarding was supposed to be housed. When she finally reached the floor, she looked around in confusion at seeing nothing but an empty room. "C'mon, where is it, where is it...?" she muttered, as she walked around the room.

This wasn't making any sense. Was the bomb actually something that was small, and All Might didn't tell them on purpose? Or did they actually end up moving it to a different room?

Hearing a snort behind her, Ochako whipped around to see Tenya casually standing in the doorway. "Did you seriously think that we would leave the objective unguarded? If you wish to help your partner, then you will face me." He began to slowly walk forward, causing her to instinctively take a step back and look at her surroundings. Remembering his speed-oriented Quirk, Ochako knew that simply rushing to the doorway before he could would obviously fail, but seeing the large window to her left was starting to give her an idea.

Tenya, however, noticed her movements and quickly came to the same conclusion. 'She can't be serious,' he thought, assuming that she was only trying to come up with any solutions to escape her current predicament.

But it seemed Ochako really was serious, as she made a break towards the window, before jumping out of it. Tenya let out a rare curse, as he activated his Quirk in the hopes of intercepting her. Unfortunately, he was too far away, and was now looking down to see Ochako floating above the ground. "R-release!" she faintly cried out, before dropping to the ground and running back inside the building.

Tenya immediately turned around to make a mad dash back down to the third floor, as he put his hand to his ear. "Bakugо̄-kun! Uraraka-kun's figured it out and is making her way back to your location!"

Izuku cursed as he threw out a Gold Experience-enhanced fist, only for Katsuki to dodge it again and send a blast to his side. He knew that the other boy was well aware that he would end up winning the fight if he managed to get close, which was why Katsuki kept his distance and was dodging all of his attacks, almost always countering with his own, which the golden being thankfully kept tanking or parrying.

However, he wasn't sure if he would be able to keep this up. The ten months spent training with All Might (alongside cleaning the beach) was largely spent sparring to develop the use of their Quirks, and he had admittedly gotten lazy more than once, confident that Gold Experience would be able to take care of things for him. And now it seemed that mindset was coming to bite him in the ass.

Eventually, Katsuki ceased his attack and was now standing a few meters away, giving Izuku a few precious moments to rest. "Damn..." he panted, as he struggled to stay standing. "You...sure are relentless...Kacchan..."

Katsuki let out a low chuckle in response. "That's the point, Deku."

Izuku's eyes narrowed at the other boy's words. It made perfect sense for Katsuki to fight him instead of Ochako, considering that both of their Quirks were oriented towards combat and that they knew how each other fought the best, but seeing as how there's been no announcement of Ochako being captured or the bomb being secured...it meant that there had to be something else going on.

As if on cue, he heard Ochako's voice in his communicator. "Deku-kun! The bomb's on the third floor!"

Izuku's eyes widened as the reasoning for Tenya and Katsuki's attempt at an ambush wasn't on the top floor was made clear. But if the bomb was near his location, then where...

Katsuki noticed Izuku's posture shift into that of someone getting ready to run. "Now, Iida!"

Izuku whipped around, issuing a command to Gold Experience to protect him, but Tenya had managed to slam into him first, and was now quickly pushing him into the wall. Imbuing his entire body with the golden being's and bracing himself, Izuku hissed as his back impacted with the wall, making a small crater. But before he could attack in retaliation, he paused when he noticed that there was something oddly bright that stuck out like a sore thumb.

Tenya had wrapped the capture tape around his arm during his tackle.

"Nice work, Glasses," Katsuki said, who was casually jogging up to them. "Now, all we need to do is find-"

"The bomb has been defused!" boomed the voice of All Might. "Hero Team...WINS!"

After an anticlimactic ending to what was quite the decisive showdown, the two teams were met with cheers and applause from the majority of their classmates. When prompted by All Might, Ochako explained that she had waited for several seconds inside the first floor of the building, before floating herself up to the fourth floor, much to Tenya's chagrin. Although, he ended up being given MVP due to his diligently following Katsuki's plan, as well as not making decisions that would have set off an actual, fully armed bomb.

The rest of the class period passed by with the rest of the teams facing off against each other, and ended with Fumikage Tokoyami joining Momo Yaoyorozu and Tsuyu Asui's team, versus Rikido Satо̄ and Kо̄ji Kо̄da.

'I go to die,' Izuku thought, as he awkwardly walked with Ochako outside room 1-A and towards U.A.'s main entrance, with Katsuki and Tenya trailing behind from a distance.

"Tell me again why we're following them, Bakugо̄-kun?" Tenya asked, as he watched Katsuki 'discreetly' walking around, like in those spy movies he used to watch with his family when he was younger.

"Because I wanna see how this goes, that's why," replied the other boy, who immediately pushed Tenya behind the corner of a nearby building when he saw the pair finally stop walking.

"So..." Ochako began, as she turned to face Izuku in an attempt to ease into the conversation.

"...so..."

"That was a pretty eventful day, don't you think?"

"Yeah...it really was."

It was an immediate failure, as the two teenagers knew the real reason they were standing outside of the school's main auditorium, with a tense silence slowly filling the air between them, and Ochako knew then that it was either now or never. "Deku-kun," she said softly.

"Hm?"

Ochako cleared her throat. "Did...did you really mean what you said back there? That I looked..." She left the word hanging in the air, but it didn't take two brain cells to figure out what it was.

'Shit.' If he denied it right here and then, it was sure to do so much more damage as opposed to just admitting it, and he wasn't enough of a jerk to dodge the question and pretend that his mother was calling him. "I..." he began, before stopping himself and sighing. "...Yes, I thought you were...pretty...when I saw you back there..." he awkwardly trailed off.

Ochako, however, was in denial. "It's because of how my hero costume looked, right?" she found herself asking, just barely loud enough for Izuku to hear her. "You just thought it looked good." Or in reality, he was actually just looking at another girl and was just trying to be nice. Surely there was no way a boy like him would ever think of her like that.

...Right?

At hearing her words, Izuku felt a burst of courage swell up inside of him, and he doubled down on his answer. "No. It wasn't just because of that," he began, shaking his head. "I...I actually said that you looked gorgeous." He paused to consider his next words, before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. "And the truth is...you're one of the prettiest girls I've ever met."

Ochako was floored as she took in Izuku's words. Her entire life, she had thought she was just plain-looking, and that her parents' words saying otherwise were just to make her feel better. Not to mention how much her confidence dropped from the bullying she went through because of her family's financial situation. Because of that, she was never the recipient of a boy's confession during middle school (not intentionally, at least), but she wondered if this was what the popular girls would regularly experience. And while she hadn't known him for long, Izuku was this brave, kind boy who wore his heart on his sleeve and risked his life to save her from the titan-sized zero-pointer.

He could do so much better than just settling with her.

Even if she wanted to try and see if anything could happen between them, she couldn't forget the reason why she wanted to become a hero in the first place. She wanted to tell him 'thank you, but I think we should just stay friends', but as soon as the thought formed in her mind, she was overcome with a feeling of wrong, as if rejecting him would be the absolute worst decision she could ever make in her life.

'Why...do I feel this way about him?'

She recalled the feeling of being safe and comfortable in Izuku's arms when he carried her out of harm's way in the entrance exam, the sleep she had lost that night thinking about how he moved to save her and the need to see him again, and the happiness she that he lived relatively close to her apartment and was accepted into U.A.

Unlike all of the boys she used to have crushes on, Ochako felt a natural...gravitation towards the one standing in front of her.

Izuku was growing more and more dejected as the silence went on, feeling that it would soon lead to rejection. Feeling like it had gone on long enough, he decided to take initiative and deal with it in stride, as he turned around to walk towards the school's front gate. "I...I'm sorry for making you feel uncomfortable, Uraraka-san. I'll just...leave you alone-"

He was interrupted by a hand grabbing hold of his wrist, and turned back around to see Ochako staring at him, with a blush slowly growing on her face. Turning back around, he briefly looked at her in confusion, before wondering why she began leaning in towards him, with her face slowly inching towards his. Before long, she suddenly stopped, and he felt something warm and soft brush against his cheek.

'Oh.'

A few moments passed where Izuku was trying to comprehend what in the actual fuck was happening, before Ochako slowly pulled back. "Thank you, Deku-kun," she said, giving him a soft smile.

"I...you...wha?"

She giggled at seeing his stupefied expression. Eventually, Izuku managed to recover from his shock at Ochako having kissed him on the cheek, and was now awkwardly staring at her again. "So, uh...what now?" he asked, resisting the urge to touch his cheek.

"To be honest, I'm not really sure," Ochako admitted. "I haven't really done this sort of thing before."

"Well, neither have I," Izuku replied, scratching the back of his head, and thought about what he should say next. "Do you...do you wanna exchange numbers and go from there?" he asked tentatively. Ochako smiled as she replied in the affirmative, and the two of them gave each other their contact information, before heading to the train station.

(And if they started holding hands along the way, neither of them brought it up.)

A good distance away, Katsuki was watching Izuku and Ochako walk away, with the smirk on his face threatening to break out into a grin.

"They're going a bit fast, don't you think?" Tenya asked next to him.

"Nah, looks like they've been pining for each other for a while now, so I think they know what they're doing," he replied. "Besides, the nerd could use something else to focus on besides all the hero worship."

Chapter Text

Throughout dinner, Inko noticed that Izuku wasn't eating, and was just staring at his food with a strange expression on his face. "What's on your mind?" she asked with a bemused expression.

This seemed to snap Izuku out of his thoughts, as he quickly went back to eating his rice. "Uh, it's n-nothing. Sorry about that."

Inko's eyebrows furrowed as she remembered how he acted like this a few weeks before, on the night his acceptance letter came in. "Did something happen at school?" Oh dear. Did Izuku get in trouble standing up to a bully? She knew that he and Katsuki had a problem with bullies in their previous schools, although Izuku would sometimes get in trouble for actually trying to fight them a few times.

"Uh, no, it wasn't anything bad, but..."

"Is it a girl?" she asked suddenly. When she saw how Izuku froze up, the gears in her head continued to turn as she came to a conclusion. "Wait, is it that girl from yesterday?"

"What? No!" Izuku spluttered, but Inko just kept looking at him with a raised eyebrow. They continued like that for several moments, with Izuku fidgeting under her unconvinced stare, before he sighed. "...yes..."

Inko grinned. Looks like her son has a crush. "What was her name again? Uraraka?"

"Uraraka Ochako..." Izuku quietly replied.

Inko hummed as she ate some rice. "So...anything interesting happen?"

"N-nothing happened!" Izuku stammered out, but Inko just stared at him unconvinced. "Well, we kinda sorta...already gave each other our numbers," he admitted, before hesitating on his next words. "And she also, uh...kissed me."

...

Okay, wow, he works fast. She liked to think that she and Hisashi hit it off pretty quickly, but that was after a few weeks of interacting with each other in a business setting before he finally asked her out, and Izuku's only known this girl for a few days and she's already kissed him, and oh dear she got lost in thought and Izuku's just looking at her and-

"Uh, mom?"

"Sorry, honey, I got a bit distracted. You said she kissed you?"

"W-well, on the cheek."

Inko continued to stare at her son, before getting up out of her chair and moving to hug Izuku, with tears of happiness welling up in her eyes. "My baby boy has a girlfriend!" she exclaimed. "First you get into a hero school, and now you're already in a relationship. Oh, you really need to invite her for dinner one of these days. I'd really love to get my future daughter-in-law."

"Mom," Izuku said, his face being overcome with a blush. "I've only known her for two days. It's too early for you to think of Uraraka-san like that!"

Inko smirked as she twisted her son's words. "Oh ho, so you're saying it's gonna happen?"

"Mom!"

Izuku idly played around with a small ladybug that he had transformed from a button, watching as it repeatedly flew in and out of the spaces between his fingers. Since overthrowing Diavolo and taking direct control over Passione, things had been going swimmingly, to say the least.

For the first few months, he was met with subtle resistance from the other capos when he first attempted to put a stop to the narcotics operation, but after a few displays of Gold Experience's Life Giver (as well as a few 'subtle' threats), he had earned their begrudging respect after the respective revenues from their other sources had increased, which didn't exactly effectively mitigate the loss of billions of lira, but it was a start.

He had originally wanted to make Mista his underboss, but he still had that strange fear of the number four (tetraphobia, if he remembered correctly), so the position instead went to Polnareff, who he had already made his consigliere, thereby combining the two positions. In the end, Mista had agreed to become a capo and his third-in-command, and took over the responsibilities Bucciarati had once briefly shared with Polpo.

Eventually, the sound of the meeting room's door opened, and in walked Shiela E. - one of his personal bodyguards and a close friend. "Signore Kujo has arrived, messere," she said.

Oh good, it was finally time for his appointment.  "Grazie, Shiela," Izuku replied, to which she bowed and left the room. A few moments later, another person had entered the room, this time a tall, well-built man who wore a white overcoat and hat, along with a purple shirt underneath.

This man was Jotaro Kujo, and if the information Polnareff had given him was correct, also possessed quite the powerful Stand that had the ability to stop time.

It was a shame he didn't have the Requiem arrow on his person.

Stopping at the front of the room, the man gave Izuku a light nod as he began to speak. "Good afternoon, Don Giovanna," he greeted.

Izuku's eyebrow rose as he noticed how crisp and clear the man's Italian had sounded. He was fully prepared to have a conversation in English, but it seemed as if the man had lived in Naples his entire life. Perhaps it was due to some Stand ability. "The pleasure is mine, Dottore Kujo," he replied. "Now, what is it you would like to speak to me about? I have duties to attend to, after all."

Jotaro stayed silent for a moment before he cleared his throat and answered. "I was...wondering if you had an answer concerning my offer." Oh right, that. Well, it was only a matter of time before it would have been brought up, he supposed. Growing up, he had assumed that Dio Brando was just someone his mother either had a one-night stand with or had abandoned them, but when Polnareff had told him of the situation surrounding his feud with the Joestar family and his true nature...

'Bizarre' didn't even begin to encompass the outlandishness of the tale. However, considering the nature of Stands, Izuku supposed that Vampires weren't entirely out of the question.

He had feared Polnareff's ire from being sired from the man who was directly responsible for the deaths of his sister and friends, but the man (or ghost, now) had assured him that he was a better person compared to Dio, and that he would not blame their deaths on him.

"I do," Izuku replied, before leaning forward in his chair. "But tell me, signore, why is it that I should accept it?"

To his credit, Jotaro didn't back down from intimidation, and even met his gaze evenly. "I suppose 'a chance to connect with long lost family' isn't the right answer?"

Izuku chuckled at the question, and leaned back into his chair. "I suppose not," he answered. "After all, when concerning the circumstances of my upbringing, family - at least blood relations-" he fought the urge to spit the two words out as he was reminded of his mother and stepfather. "-isn't exactly high on things that I cherish. In truth, I consider the companions I've made since joining Passione and taking over as its Boss more as my true family."

He felt the tension in the room increase tenfold as he saw the other man's body language grow increasingly cautious, as if he were waiting for an opportunity to summon his Stand. Well, at least the message got through to him. "But seeing as how Polnareff speaks very highly of you and your grandfather," he continued. "I am willing to take a chance.  I will attend this 'Joestar family reunion' of yours, and I will be bringing two of my comrades along with me. But in doing this, I would like you to do something for me in return."

Jotaro stared at him intensely for several moments - possibly to consider his options - before finally speaking up. "All right."

"I'd like for you to tell me what you know about Dio Brando and Jonathan Joestar."

Ochako woke up to the sound of the alarm on her phone blaring from on her desk. She reached over her side to silence the offending device, while squinting from the screen's brightness. Setting it down, she stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, before taking a moment to stretch, groaning at the slight pain of having slept uncomfortably. With a sigh, she lifted herself out of bed, and walked to the bathroom to get ready for school.

As she absentmindedly stared at her reflection while brushing her teeth, her mind was suddenly filled with a strange but familiar image. 'What...'

She had another dream. One that she could still vividly recall due to her REM sleep cycle being interrupted. With haste, she finished brushing her teeth, before quickly walking out of the bathroom and back towards her desk, where she found the composition book she ended up calling her 'dream journal', where she recorded every dream that she thought was important.

Picking up a pencil, she flipped to a blank page and started to write. It's happened again, she began. I had another dream about the Blond Man. This time he was acting the same way Deku did yesterday, and even said the same things. I don't know why I keep dreaming about him, but for some reason he made me feel the same way I felt when Deku said them.

The Blond Man was a strange person Ochako would repeatedly have dreams about. His face was unknown to her, but she remembers feeling an odd feeling of familiarity in each dream she had about him, which she found odd. The only person with blond hair she actually knew currently was Katsuki Bakugō, but that didn't make any sense - she was in a...wait, what should she call what was happening between her and Izuku? She knew that she wanted to see if it could develop into a relationship, so it was...the beginning of one?

But those were questions for later. Now, where was she? Oh, right, the Blond Man.

The most recent dream she remembers having had before waking up was of Izuku having, uh, confessed (?) to her the day before, but with the Blond Man doing everything in his place. To be frank, it weirded her out. But the prospect of feeling that way towards a stranger aside, the man felt like everything but one.

As if...as if she had known him all her life.

When she closed the notebook, she took a moment to stare at its cover. While Uraraka Ochako was what was clearly written in kanji, the line above it was a scratch mark made with a pen in an attempt to conceal the mistake made, but the faint letters from the Roman Alphabet could still be made out, if one were to look carefully.

Trish Una

With a sigh, Ochako realized that she was running out of time, and dispelled herself from her thoughts, before standing back up to continue getting ready for school.

Class 1-A's third day of school passed by without too much fanfare, if the reporters' miraculous ability to destroy the school gate was not considered. Izuku was even somehow elected Class Representative, with Momo Yaoyorozu as the Deputy, but after Tenya had managed to calm down the panicked students during their struggle to leave the cafeteria, he felt that the position would be better suited to his friend.

On the fourth day's Basics of Heroics class, it was expected that the number one hero would announce himself again, but the class was instead met by the bored expression of their homeroom teacher. "All right, listen up," Aizawa began, as he moved to stand in front of the podium. "Today, we'll be going over some basic rescue training. Myself, All Might, and another teacher will be overseeing you."

At seeing several students start to become excited from the news, he held a hand in the air to silence them, before continuing. "I know that there are some of you that think your Quirks are better suited for rescue work, or that they're better suited for engaging with Villains, but the truth of the matter is that your Quirks can be good for both, if you put your mind to it and think outside of the box. That's what the focus of today's training will be on. Now get dressed; we leave in thirty minutes."

With that, he opened the compartment that housed the students' costumes and proceeded to leave the room, with everyone dutifully standing up to bring their cases to the nearby locker rooms. Thirty minutes later, everyone had changed into their hero costumes from the previous days, and were now idly standing at the front of the school.

"Hm?" Ochako tilted her head in mild confusion as she noticed how Katsuki wasn't wearing certain equipment on his arms. "Are you not gonna be using your 'grenade gauntlets', Bakugō-kun?"

Katsuki shrugged. "Thought about it," he replied. "Doesn't look like it'll do much for rescuing civilians."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Ochako hummed, before snapping her attention to the sound of a whistle, with Tenya going over his plan on how to smoothly get everyone seated on the bus.

"All my hard work...and it was all for nothing..."

Katsuki grunted as he spared a side glance to Tenya's lamenting form. "That's what happens when you overthink things."

On the other side of the bus, Ochako was having an internal debate on whether or not to make conversation with Izuku or her other classmates, when she suddenly found herself with a mild case of sleepiness from having stayed up the night before. Set on making a bold approach, she decided to lower her head until it was resting on Izuku's shoulder. The boy in question froze at the sudden display of affection, but soon relaxed into her touch, and even returned the gesture by interlocking her hand in his.

However, the brief exchange between the two happened in full view of one Mina Ashido. "Aww, you two look so adorable together!" she exclaimed, leaning forward in her seat. "How long have you been dating?"

"About two days," Ochako replied nonchalantly, nearly failing to suppress the yawn that threatened to escape her. Izuku hummed in response as he rested his own head against hers.

"Wait, really? How long have you two known each other?"

"Since the entrance exam."

"What?! And you're already in a relationship? You're telling me you skipped all the juicy buildup and just immediately went for it?!"

Ochako gave Mina a half-shrug as her other side was snugly tucked against Izuku. "Well...yeah. And I don't know about Deku-kun, but things just kinda clicked into place for me." She couldn't really come up with the right words to describe the strange connection she felt towards him.

"Yeah, that's kinda what happened with me, too," Izuku spoke up.

"It's love at first sight!" Tōru Hagakure exclaimed from her seat. "Like the red string of fate!"

Beside her, Momo fervently nodded in agreement. "Just like in romance novels..." she quietly said.

Izuku let out a small smile as he felt Ochako tense up beside him, but briefly tightened her grip on his hand. "Yeah, I guess you could say that," he said sheepishly.

With the conversation having now ended, several moments of silence passed between the students, before Eijirō spoke up with his own question. "Say, Midoriya," he began. "What exactly is your Quirk?"

Izuku sat up as he turned and leaned forward to face the boy, with Ochako making a small noise in annoyance from the cease of contact and having to change her comfortable position. "I call it 'Life Giver'. I can create any plant or animal I want, but I have to have a basic understanding of their biology. Plants are much easier for me to make, though."

"Sucks you can't make dinosaurs," Denki Kaminari interjected.

"Oh, believe me, I've tried," Izuku agreed. He considered telling them about how he could somewhat create humans as well, before changing his mind and continuing with his explanation. "The other part of my Quirk is called 'Gold Experience'. I can summon a sort-of 'spirit-guardian' that obeys any command I think of, but I'm not sure why I'm the only one who can see it."

"Like Tokoyami's Quirk, then?"

"Kind of? They're really similar in function, but I don't really know all the differences between ours."

Eijirō nodded in understanding as he looked down at his hand, briefly activating his own Quirk and holding it up in the air. "Still though, it's pretty nice having a flashy Quirk like that. Hardening is pretty effective and all, but it looks pretty boring."

"No way, your Quirk is perfect for both offense and defense!" Izuku exclaimed. "And besides, you don't need a flashy Quirk to inspire others and do good."

"Well if anyone's gonna be popular with flashy Quirks," Denki began. "I'd say it's Bakugō and Todoroki. They've both got that dark, broody, mysterious type going on, and a lot of girls actually dig that kinda thing."

"Does everything you talk about have to be about girls?" said Kyōka Jirō, who had looked up from idly browsing on her phone in annoyance at his words.

"Hey, I'm just stating the facts!"

"Pfft, I'm aiming for the top of the rankings," Katsuki replied. "I don't have time for any distractions like that."

"But Bakugō-kun," Tenya spoke up, having decided to add in his two cents. "Didn't you say you were - and I quote - the 'captain of the ship'?" This ended up getting a few laughs out of the other students, with Izuku and Ochako growing slightly embarrassed from the information.

"Wanting two people to get in a relationship is different from wanting to be in one yourself," Katsuki sighed, as he looked down at the floor and crossed his arms. "I just don't see it in my future, is all."

He was met with a comforting hand on his shoulder from Mina. "Don't be like that, Baku-kun! I'm sure you'll find the right person for you, someday!"

"Oi, quiet down," Aizawa finally called out from the front of the bus. "We're here." All conversations between the students then ceased, as they collectively turned to the windows to see a large, dome-like structure in the distance.

Chapter Text

When the students finally arrived at the rescue training facility, they were greeted at the entrance by a person wearing a space-themed costume. "Good afternoon, everyone!" said the voice of a woman, as she waved to the assembled students. "My name is Hirōki Anakuro, but you know me better by my hero name: Thirteen!" This was met with gasps of excitement from the majority of the class, but none more so than Izuku and Ochako, who were staring at the hero with awe. Turning around, Thirteen walked through the entrance, motioning for everyone to follow. "Please, let's get started."

"Hold on a minute, Thirteen," Shōta said, as he walked up to her with his hands in his pockets. "Have you seen All Might anywhere? He was supposed to get here before my class did."

"Ah, well, about that," she began. "It turns out he's running late. Said he got caught up taking care of small crimes."

"Hm," Shōta grunted. "That's disappointing, but as long as he shows up before the end of class, then we should be fine." All Might was being completely irrational. Surely the man knew there were other heroes who were perfectly capable of taking care of petty criminals? But then again, this was the same man who wrote an entire televised speech on how society had strayed from recognizing the qualities of a 'true hero'.

Turning around, he moved to walk back and address his class to get a move on, but suddenly paused when he heard the sound of a faint whoosh above him, and looked up to see something yellow increasingly closing in on his position.

"I AM HERE!" boomed the number one hero, as he pierced through the sky and landed just ahead of the students near the USJ's entrance, and struck a strongman pose to add to his grandiose entrance.

Shōta resisted the urge to facepalm at the man's theatricalism. This didn't seem like something he was going to get used to anytime soon. "It's about damn time," he muttered to himself, before turning to Anakuro. "We should get started."

"Right," Anakuro nodded, before turning to the class and raising her hand to examine it. "As many of you already know, my Quirk, 'Black Hole', is what allows me to perform highly-efficient rescue operations, by way of sucking up debris and turning it to dust. However, many people seem to forget that I can use it for just about anything, including people." She took a moment to look at several students' surprised expressions, before continuing.

"For many villains, killing or causing destruction can be just as easy as breathing, but saving people and doing the right thing? It's significantly harder. Now - I forgot what it was called, but I'm sure all of you have experienced a sudden impulse to do something violent, such as 'what if I jumped to my death' or 'what if I used my Quirk on this small child?'"

Anakuro paused in her speech to take a good look at everyone's reactions, taking note of how many were visibly uncomfortable with what she had told them. When one of the students raised his hand, she pointed to him. "Yes?"

"There is a term for that in French," the boy replied. "L'appel du vide - the call of the void."

Anakuro nodded. "Exactly. What's your name?"

"Aoyama Yūga, professeure," the boy replied.

"Thank you, Aoyama-kun," she said, before turning her attention back to the rest of the class. "The 'call of the void' is something everyone experiences, so don't worry about suddenly thinking that you're becoming evil. I can even say without a doubt that All Might has been subject to it before. However, it's how you respond to that impulse that truly matters. If there's one thing I want to stick in your heads, it's to be careful about how you go about saving someone, because all it takes is a single moment of giving in to that impulse, that temptation, before you've done something irreversible or unforgivable."

When Anakuro finally looked back to the class after admittedly becoming a bit passionate in her speech, she found them continuing to stand in solemn silence as they took in her words, with Toshinori and Shōta silently watching. Before the silence could get a chance to settle for too long, she bowed to the students. "Thank you for listening."

She was once again met with silence, until a single person could be heard clapping, causing everyone to turn and stare at a blond boy with a black, lightning-shaped streak in his hair. "...What?" he asked, as he slowed down his clapping to a stop. "It was a good speech."

Anakuro chuckled at Denki's words. "Now then, everyone - we really should get going." When she turned back around to continue walking, however, all of the facility's lights shut off, causing her to pause mid-stride and look up to the ceiling in confusion. Almost immediately after, she noticed something moving out of the corner of her eye, and looked to the fountain at the center of the plaza to see something small and black swirling in front of it, and was very quickly growing with size. She watched the swirling mass in confusion, before taking a step back as she saw a strange figure covered in hands walk out of it, along with numerous others.

"Oh, did it already start, like in the entrance exam?" Eijirō asked.

"I have to admit, Young Kirishima, I'm not entirely sure," Toshinori replied, before turning to Anakuro. "Was this what you had planned, Hirōki-san?" It seemed rather unconventional, and he couldn't recall reading about anyone with a warp Quirk in the lesson plan he had read the day before (and to be honest, he was getting a bad feeling about this), but if it was meant to mirror the abruptness of the entrance exam practical and real-life disasters, then he supposed it was fine.

"I don't-" Anakuro began, before she was interrupted by Shōta, who had already put on his goggles.

"No, this was never in the lesson plan. We're being attacked by Villains."

Toshinori's trademark smile immediately descended into a frown, as he walked up to the edge of the stairs to assess the situation. "I see." As he watched the mass of Villains slowly grow larger and larger as more of them poured out of the portal, he saw a hulking figure come out and stand next to the man that was covered in hands.

'Good God, what the hell is that?' After getting a closer look at the figure's jet-black skin, exposed brain, and beak-like mouth, he wondered if what he was looking at was even genetically human. As far as he was aware, no mutation Quirk could allow someone to live with their brain on full display like that, which had to mean that something else was at play here.

To be honest, it looked more...undead, than anything. An eerie reminder that stirred up a memory from another lifetime.

"Thirteen, protect the students! All Might, with me!"

"Understood!" Anakuro replied, as she turned back around to tell the students to run towards the entrance, leaving Toshinori and Shōta to neutralize and round up the Villains.

As they rushed down the flight of stairs to engage the intruders, Toshinori looked around for the nearest group of them, before leaping high into the air with his fist raised. "Carolina...SMASH!" As his fist made contact with the ground (making sure to keep his output of One For All below twenty-five percent), the resulting shockwave blew away and subsequently knocked out any and all Villains in his immediate vicinity.

It shouldn't be too difficult to handle the threat, he supposed. Maybe. Hopefully. Number One Hero or not, there was always a chance for something to go wrong.

"I say, we make quite the team, Eraserhead!" Toshinori called out, as he grabbed two Villains' heads and bonked them together.

Shōta grunted in response as he twisted to dodge an attack from behind, throwing a round kick to the attacker's face. "I'll take care of the grunts," he called out. "You take care of the leader and the big one."

Toshinori nodded, raising a fist to the side of his head as he heard someone rush towards him, only to feel a face make contact with it, knocking out his unseen opponent. He turned around to look at the crumpled body on the floor with slight amusement, before turning his attention and making his way towards who was most undoubtedly the ringleaders of the attack. "I'm going to give you this one chance to stand down and turn yourselves in." As he stood there staring them down, he kept his body tensed up, in order to keep himself ready for any sudden movements from the monstrous beast to the man's left.

"All Might..." the, uh, handy-man rasped out. "We've come to kill you."

Toshinori snorted in response as he raised an eyebrow. "Many have claimed that and have obviously failed."

The Villain let out a low laugh. "Well not me, exactly, but him?" He gestured with his thumb towards the figure beside him. "He's been engineered to match you at full power. We call him...Nōmu. He'll be your executioner." The beast standing next to him remained still as if waiting for a command, but kept its eyes trained on Toshinori.

'Engineered...?'

Finding himself beginning to grow cautious, his grin dipped ever so slightly. "Well I don't know if you've heard," he began. "But I've been getting back into shape recently, so I don't think any executing will be happening anytime soon."

Ignoring him, the Villain turned to the shadowy figure on his left side. "Kurogiri, you know what to do." With a nod, the Villain now known as Kurogiri immediately created a portal and stepped through it, leaving Toshinori with one less opponent.

A tense silence passed between them before he spoke up. "Oh? Should I be expecting your surrender soon?"

"Nah, just the kids' corpses."

Toshinori bristled at the other man's words. "And just what do you mean by that?" As if on cue, his ears were met by the sound of several screams coming from behind him, and turned around to see the top of the stairs covered in a cloud of smoke, and he realized just where Kurogiri had been sent.

'Shit, the students!' Toshinori immediately turned around and crouched down to leap towards the stairs. Hopefully, if he was fast enough, then maybe he would be able to-

"Nōmu, kill." The sound of an inhuman roar pierced through the air, and Toshinori only had a split second to roll out of the way and avoid the Nōmu's fist, and was now forced to defend himself against the monstrous beast.

The Nōmu snarled as it locked eyes with him, before letting out another roar and barreling towards him. Toshinori looked at it with a determined expression, before doing the same, raising his fist and pumping more of One For All into his upper body.

'Young Midoriya...Young Bakugō...everyone! Good luck...'

As the students of Class 1-A ran back towards the facility's entrance, they were stopped by a shadow suddenly springing forth from the ground in front of them, and was now looming over them imperiously. "Greetings," Kurogiri began. "We are the League of Villains, and our mission objective is to kill All Might, the Symbol of Peace. And now, you shall-"

He was cut off by Izuku jumping forward and throwing a Gold Experience-infused punch without hesitation, along with Eijirō and Katsuki immediately following up for good measure.

"Maybe you should think before you speak!" Eijirō yelled, a grin forming on his face. When the smoke had cleared from Katsuki's blast, the three boys were shocked to see Kurogiri still standing, and that their attacks had done absolutely nothing to harm him.

"It seems that you will indeed prove to be troublesome. No matter." With that, the man began to grow in size, before shooting out multiple wisps of black smoke towards the class, eventually surrounding them in a black, spherical cloud. "My own objective is to ensure you are unable to assist him, and to make your deaths easier to carry out. Now, begone!"

Using his hand to guard his face from the aggressive wind inside the sphere, Izuku realized that Kurogiri was going to separate them using his Quirk, and immediately summoned Gold Experience, commanding it to repeatedly punch the ground. "MUDAMUDAMUDA!" Almost instantly, a large tree immediately began to sprout from the ground, with thick branches spreading throughout all directions inside the cloud at an impressive speed.

"Everyone...grab on!" Izuku yelled, as he tightly wrapped his hands around the nearest branch. The students who managed to hear him immediately began frantically grabbing on wherever they could (which prompted the rest of the class who saw them to do the same), and Izuku tried to hold on even tighter when he felt the ground below him disappear.

This battle continued on for a few more moments, before it was ultimately proved useless when he felt the branch become detached, and opened his eyes to be met with the sight of nothing but open air, now plummeting into the body of water below him.

"Tch," Shōta grunted, as he dodged a kick from a woman with brown pigtails, before going on the offensive and using his capture scarf to pull her in close and slamming her into the ground. This repeated for the next few Villains, as he used his Quirk and superior combat skill to overpower them.

One would think that he would be helpless against those with mutation-type Quirks, but those who did were quickly shown that it was quite the opposite. What he didn't know, however, was that more of them ceased their attack, and were either waiting at the back of the crowd, or hiding behind cover, waiting for the right moment to strike.

When he heard the screams of his class coming from the top floor, he reacted by turning his head towards their location, but forced himself to ignore it in favor of the immediate danger in front of him. Left and right, he took down as many of the Villains as he could, until he could no longer resist the overwhelming feeling of dryness in his eyes, and was forced to finally blink.

That single moment of weakness was all that was needed to break his defense.

He tried to dodge the next attack, but he must have failed to erase their Quirk, because he suddenly found himself slipping to the ground after his next step, and then the Villain began hammering him with punches, and was then joined by two others, who were then joined by even more, until Shōta was completely surrounded by Villains who were beating on him mercilessly, and was unable to do anything but curl up in a fetal position and protect his head and stomach.

Toshinori grit his teeth as his fists once again connected with the Nōmu's. The punches he did manage to get in didn't seem to have an effect, as something would travel up its arms and disappear when it reached its shoulders every time. If this stalemate kept on for too long, then something was bound to go wrong, whether it be the Villain deciding to team up with the Nōmu, or (God forbid) if one of the students were to end up incapacitated. The likelihood of backup from the other U.A. faculty and other heroes didn't seem too high at the moment, either, unless someone (most like young Iida) was able to escape.

He needed to try something different; while this beast was able to match him in terms of pure strength and power, there were other ways to defeat an opponent.

With an idea in mind, Toshinori dodged the Nōmu's next punch, and quickly maneuvered to get behind it with the intention to grab it into a chokehold, but as he moved, he suddenly saw a group of Villains all huddled up together, and appeared to be surrounding something.

His eyes widened as he realized what was happening. 'Aizawa-kun...?'

His attention on his colleague was broken by the Nōmu immediately whipping around and throwing another punch, causing Toshinori to barely dodge it in time, irritated at his plan having failed. As he moved to try it again, he was overcome with a sudden epiphany, and almost cursed himself from the hindsight of how quickly this fight would have gone, had he just kept the thought of the Nōmu possibly being undead at the front of his head, which meant that there was one more option.

He needed to end this. Now.

"SMASH!" Pouring as much of One For All as he could into his next punch, Toshinori was able to knock the Nōmu a good distance away, which gave him a precious few moments to do what he needed.

'Now's my chance!' Toshinori thought, as he quickly dropped into a stance. 'Please, Aizawa-kun...just hold on for a bit longer!' Closing his eyes, he began to slowly breathe in through his mouth in a particular manner. The first time, nothing happened, but as he repeated the process again and again, a soft, orange aura began to surround him, moving akin to that of a ripple in a pool of water. As he opened his eyes, he felt his body and his Quirk become amplified, but was also beginning to feel a small amount of strain throughout his body, though not as painful as when he only had three hours to maintain his muscular form.

He needed to act fast.

As the Nōmu got back up and was quickly closing in on his location, Toshinori met the beast's movement with his own, his speed having been increased to a level that would have made Sorahiko proud, raising his fists and unloading all of his strength and power into his attack.

"Sunlight Yellow...OVERDRIVE!"

At first, the Nōmu's fists were able to tank the flurry of punches, but as Toshinori maintained his attack, whatever was keeping its body able to absorb and disperse the kinetic energy was eventually exhausted altogether, and the creature's arms were now beginning to glow a bright red-orange, but Toshinori wasn't done yet. While it was slow-acting, it was having the desired effect, and eventually, the Nōmu's entire body was now glowing from the combination of One For All and his original power, before finally liquifying and making a puddle on the ground.

Toshinori panted as he released his hold on his re-awakened power, as he could no longer maintain it due to the strain from the lack of use, before setting his sights on the shocked Villains in front of him. "My executioner, you said?" he said in a half-growl.

Tomura Shigaraki stared in shock at how easily his master's creation was able to be defeated so easily after that power-up All Might did. "You...you cheater," he hissed, feeling himself beginning to seethe with rage."HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO KILL THE NŌMU SO QUICKLY?!" He moved to rush towards the man with the intention of using his Quirk to do what the Nōmu couldn't when he was stopped by his name being said.

"Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri began. "We must make our retreat."

Tomura's breathing started to increase as his face began to get itchier and itchier. As much he wanted to kill All Might right then and there, he knew that their chances were now nonexistent after the loss of their most valuable party member. "The brats," he began. "Were you able to do what you needed?"

"Yes, but I am unsure as to how they would fare against the recruits." Those freaks don't matter, anymore. This entire operation was a bust.

Tomura clenched his fist as he felt the overwhelming urge to wrap his hands around the neck of the hero standing ahead of him, but had to refrain out of the prospect of being imprisoned in Tartarus or worse. "Fine," he sighed out, and Kurogiri created a warp gate for him to walk through. He began to step through it, but not before looking back towards All Might with a look of unyielding rage. "I don't know how you got your cheats, but nothing will stop me from killing you." With that, he stepped through the warp gate, and the leaders of the USJ invasion were able to escape unharmed.

At seeing the Nōmu killed and their leader abandoning them, a large amount of the Villains became demoralized and subsequently surrendered, but not before several more of them were knocked out from having taken part in beating on Shōta and rushing at Toshinori in a last-ditch effort.

Toshinori had brought his battered and nearly-unconscious colleague up the stairs, where he was met with the sight of Ochako, Mina, Rikidō Satō, Hanta Sero, and Mezō Shōji, and the girls sitting beside a badly-damaged Anakuro. Toshinori gently set Shōta down and told everyone to keep an eye on him, before setting off to find the rest of his students. Thankfully, however, it seemed that all of them were able to return on their own and relatively unharmed, and Toshinori let out a sigh of relief.

Several minutes later, Tenya had returned with a majority of the U.A. faculty in tow.

Nezu hummed as he took a sip of his tea. "I was led to believe that all of the Stone Masks had been confiscated along with the Stand Arrows." The information Toshinori had relayed to him had raised quite a few questions as to how exactly whoever had been behind the attack was able to acquire something that should have been long forgotten by the criminal underground, but considering the man's age, it was more inevitability, rather than probability.

In the two hundred years that had passed since the defeat of the Pillar Men by Joseph Joestar, the Speedwagon Foundation had made it a priority to allocate as many resources as it could to the seizure and study of the Stone Masks, along with the Stand Arrows that Joseph's grandson Jōtarō Kūjō had been tasked with retrieving. The only Arrow that the Foundation couldn't get to, belonged to Neapolitan mafia leader Giorno Giovanna, though the database records stated that he was someone that could be trusted with it.

When Quirks had begun to spread throughout the world in 2020, the Foundation's highest-ranking officials had opted to add it to the study of the Stone Mask and Stands, and created the Research of Supernatural Phenomena Division, which one Jōshirō Kūjō was now the head of.

"That's what I thought, too," the man replied. "But there's always something that ends up slipping through the cracks, even with our extensive resources."

"Still though," Nezu began. "This revelation is... quite concerning, to say the least. When you factor in something that has the power to grant immortality, it becomes rather obvious that All For One is still alive and is responsible for the creation of this...Nōmu." At that, silence befell the group as they processed the information.

"Good grief," Jōshirō said, as he pulled his hat down. "You had one job, Toshinori."

"That's impossible," Toshinori replied with a low voice, before raising it. "I know I killed him when we fought. There's no possible way he's the one behind this!" While he would concede that it was more likely a subordinate who wanted to carry on his plans, the very thought of him having failed to kill the man who terrorized the world and killed the woman he thought of as his mother, and becoming stronger, at that...

He clenched his fist. Even if Young Midoriya had been able to restore his organs, his ability to use One For All was still less than that of when he fought (and killed) the bastard, not to mention that he was very rusty when it came to his control over the Ripple.

The world did not need another Vampire that could wield an extra power; it had already seen enough when Dio had tried use to his abilities and Stand to take it over.

Jōshirō, however, just stared back at him with an unconvinced expression. "Well, did you confirm the kill?"

"I'm telling you, Jōshirō-kun, I felt his skull cave in. The chances of that bastard having survived are-"

"Did you, or did you not see the body and confirm he's dead?"

"..."

Jōshirō sighed as he pulled out his phone to briefly look at it, before placing it back in his pocket. "If he really is back," he began. "Then we'll need to figure out where the League of Villains' base of operations is located. I'll also need to warn Harumi and Fumikage about the potential danger."

Nezu nodded in approval. "Do what you think is best, as long as you don't tell too many people, Kūjō-kun."

"Of course," Jōshirō replied, before continuing. "But there's also another thing: I don't know if either of you were aware, but my nephew's told me that there's a strong chance of Midoriya Izuku possessing a Stand."

"Damn it, damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!" the voice of who could only be Tomura yelled from the screen. "All Might was supposed to be the juggernaut that ours would have surpassed, not the tactical nuke!" The sound of something colliding with wood (most likely his fists) was then heard in the background.

The man known as Norisuke Shigaraki - known to those who knew about his existence as All For One - quietly sighed as he protégé's words. "I take it the mission was a failure, Tomura?"

The sound of heavy panting could be heard from the boy as he calmed down from his tantrum. "Yes...Sensei...I've failed you..."

"It's all right," Norisuke said with a soothing tone. "As long as you and Kurogiri were able to escape relatively unharmed, then we can at least build up from where we did wrong." The Nōmu provided a good portion of the raw strength and power, so the loss had to have been something around that regard. "Now, what exactly went wrong with the Nōmu?"

"All Might..." Tomura quietly replied.

Ah. Well of course it had to have been him. "How exactly was All Might able to defeat it?"

"It really looked like it was going well at first, but then he just started glowing, and then the Nōmu just fucking melted like ice cream!"

"I...I see..." This revelation...complicated things, to say the least. He knew that a rematch between them was inevitable, but if All Might still had access to that, of all things, then...

That meant that he was healed to the point where he either received new organs, or was able to channel his original power. A power that was able to single-handedly decimate the Nōmu, even after Garaki had spent hours experimenting with the Stone Mask he had found almost half-a-century prior to remove that accursed weakness to sunlight, but it seemed that he failed to account for increased concentrations of it. A pity he still required the man's skills, otherwise he would have already had the man killed for overlooking such a simple concept.

But no matter. This loss would prove to be unimportant in the long run, and this particular Nōmu was only a test run, after all. There were still more to come, and they would be far, far superior to that of the one he sent with Tomura.

All For One chuckled as he suddenly recalled a particular memory, and reminisced on the similar feeling he felt when he discovered he could steal other Quirks and make them his own, to the one when he first used one of the Stone Mask to become a Vampire, all those years ago.

Oh, if only he still had The World, then his operations would have been exponentially easier.

"I look forward to our next meeting...JoJo."

Chapter Text

As he sank further into water, Izuku lay still in shock and disappointment from his efforts having achieved nothing, before he recollected himself and began to swiftly swim back up to the surface with the help of his Quirk. However, he was stopped when a villain suddenly entered his field of vision, and was quickly closing in.

Glaring at his attacker, Izuku waited for him to get within Gold Experience's range, when he was stopped by Tsuyu Asui, who landed on and pushed him back in the opposite direction by using him as a platform to push herself off, dragging Izuku along using her long tongue. After being lifted onto the nearby yacht, Izuku briefly checked himself for any damage, before looking over the side and reaching out a hand to his classmate. "Let me help you up, Asui-san."

"Thanks, Midoriya-chan," she replied, taking the offered hand. "But call me Tsuyu-chan." Oh. Well then. He wasn't even on a first-name basis with Ochako yet, and she was his-

Izuku closed his eyes and slowly exhaled through his nose. Now was not the time to get distracted. Right now, they had to find a way to safely get out of wherever they were and away from the villains surrounding them.

"Tsuyu-chan," he began. "Is your tongue the only long-ranged capability you have?"

"That's right, ribbit."

Hm. Well, it was obvious what would happen if they tried anything with that, but it wasn't like Izuku had anything in that department, either. The maximum range Gold Experience could manifest away from him was two meters, and Izuku would've had to have lost most of his brain cells to ever consider jumping down and face the Villains head-on, not to mention that the only aquatic animals he could make that were dangerous enough could kill them.

'Actually... '

He looked back at Tsuyu. "I think I have a plan," he said, summoning Gold Experience and commanding it to punch the wall.

"Uraraka-san!"

At the sound of her name, Ochako turned from her conversation with Katsuki and Tenya to see Izuku quickly walking towards her, and promptly ran over to meet him halfway with a smile. "Deku-kun!" she exclaimed, tightly wrapping her arms around him in a hug. It wasn't the first time the two had ever hugged since they decided to immediately try dating each other, but being this close with Izuku still made Ochako feel safe and content all the same, as her fears of him being hurt ebbed away.

The two teenagers stayed like this for a few more moments, before they finally separated. "Are you okay?" Izuku asked. "Did you get hurt at all?"

Ochako shook her head. "Iida-kun got me out of the way," she replied. "What happened with you?"

Izuku then proceeded to tell her how he and Tsuyu had gotten warped to the Shipwreck Zone, and how he used Gold Experience to break off large chunks from the ship, before throwing them down into the water where the Villains were waiting. Apparently, they were still in the exact same location surrounded by several sharks and piranhas constantly circling around them, while Izuku and Tsuyu sped off away from the Shipwreck Zone using dolphins.

Sometimes the best thing to do in a fight was to run away and avoid the enemy altogether, but the fact that just imagining it was so bizarre even with context made her giggle.

"Anyway," Izuku continued, as he suddenly grew nervous. "I know we've only been doing this for a few days, and we just got out of a Villain attack, but uh...do you...would you like to..."

"Are you asking me out on a date?" Ochako finished for him.

Izuku paused in his stammering, before clearing his throat. "...yes. Yes I am."

Ochako smiled and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. "There's my answer." When she leaned back, she found it cute how Izuku started heavily blushing like the last time she went for it, before she watched him shake his head and return the favor, making it her turn to blush.

The two continued to smile at each other for a moment, before their attention was turned to Tenya loudly clearing his throat. "Everyone," he began, standing in front of the entire class, before bowing deeply. "I would like to apologize. While I am relieved to see the majority of you all unharmed, the fact remains that I failed to do my part. It was my duty to bring backup from the school as soon as possible, and I was still too slow in that regard. I-"

He was interrupted by All Might putting a hand on his shoulder. "You did what you could, young Iida, and that's what matters, but don't sell yourself short! The threat was contained relatively quickly, though..." Here, his wide grin began to noticeably dip. "It wasn't without casualties."

Ochako grimaced at the memory of seeing Thirteen's suit being ripped apart by her Quirk, as well as seeing All Might carrying an unconscious Aizawa-sensei, beat-up from having been surrounded by the Villains. To her shame, all she did was sit by the Space Hero's unconscious form and cry with Mina, while she could have done something to help.

She clenched her fist as a wave of determination passed through her. The next time she faced a Villain (and there would be a next time; she was training to become a hero, after all), she wouldn't cower or flee, and follow Izuku's example when faced with the odds against him.

"All Might!" Izuku called out, as he quickly walked towards the hero. "I forgot to tell you I've been keeping some Villains stranded at the shipwreck area."

Their teacher turned to look at him for a moment, before he nodded in reply. "Thank you, young Midoriya. The teachers and I will begin rounding up the other Villains momentarily. For now, why don't you go spend some time with young Uraraka?"

Okay, even though he was one of their teachers now, the very thought of the Number One Hero acknowledging their relationship was still pretty surreal.

After all of the Villains involved in the USJ attack had been arrested, and eyewitness accounts taken from All Might and Class 1-A, the students returned to the school to change back into their uniforms, before being allowed to go home for the next three days, as the school would be closed during that time to review security and how the 'League of Villains' knew the lesson plans.

It was also during the first of those three days, that Izuku found himself with nothing to do, and spent some time trying to figure out what to do with Ochako on their first date. He had never been in any romantic relationships before, and unfortunately, he couldn't get much help from either Katsuki or Tenya (neither of them had seen any point in being in relationships, but for some reason that didn't apply to him), and the advice they did give him was summed as just to 'be himself'.

And while Ochako had agreed to go on a date with him, they both agreed that it felt like that sort of thing was too soon, in light of having just survived a Villain attack. However, that didn't mean they didn't have to spend time together, and his mother (and Katsuki) would kill him if he left her alone for the entire three days.

"Hey, mom?" Izuku asked, walking out of his room to see his mother on the couch reading a book.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Can I invite Uraraka-san over for dinner tonight?"

Inko visibly lit up at the mention of Ochako. "Your girlfriend? I don't see why not," she replied. "I have been wanting to meet her again." Thanking his mother with a smile, Izuku went back to his room to get his phone and unlock it to call Ochako. After a moment of waiting, the call was answered by her cheerful voice.

"What's up, Deku-kun?" she greeted.

"Hey, Uraraka-san. Um, do you..." he began nervously, before he paused and steeled himself, and spoke a bit louder. "Do wanna come over for dinner tonight? My mom's been wanting to get to know you."

The other line was silent for a few moments before Ochako spoke up. "Oh. Well, I don't have anything planned, so yeah, I'd love to! What time should I be there?"

"Oh, uh, I was thinking of walking over to your place around 6:00 and walking with you."`

"Are you sure? I don't wanna have to make you walk so much."

"No, it's fine," he reaffirmed. "I've just been cooped up in here all day and just needed something to do, and it'd be pretty rude to make you walk all the way here and then back by yourself when you're the one coming over."

"...I guess you're right," Ochako conceded. "But you don't have to be such a gentleman, Deku-kun. I can take care of myself, you know." Well, naturally. She was training to become a hero, after all, except Izuku's reasoning was because he kind of missed holding her hand, but he didn't really know how to tell her that. "Ooh, I know!" she then said. "How 'bout we compromise? I go over there, by myself, and you can walk with me on the way back! Sound good?"

"...yeah, that sounds good."

"Great! I'll be there somewhere around six. See ya then!"

"Bye." Tapping on the screen, Izuku closed the call, before flopping on his bed as he tried to figure out how to occupy himself for the next three hours.

As the time moved closer and closer to six o'clock, Izuku, having already taken a shower and changed into a green plaid shirt and blue jeans, was currently sitting on the couch playing a game on his phone, in an attempt to distract himself from the increasingly-growing feelings of nervousness and mild excitement in his stomach. Not to mention that the smell of his mother's delicious katsudon being prepared wasn't helping the matter either.

Not long after the time just hit 6:05, the doorbell finally rang, prompting Izuku to stand up and open the door to see Ochako wearing a white dress and a light-blue denim jacket, along with some light makeup on her face.

"...Hi," she said with a soft smile.

Izuku could only keep staring as he took in her appearance. 'Cute...!'

Ochako giggled in response. "Why thank you, Deku-kun! You look good as well."

...

Yup, he really needed to work on not muttering his thoughts out loud.

Izuku shook his head as he realized they were standing at the doorway for too long. "Ah, sorry! Please come in." He stepped aside to let Ochako walk inside, before closing the door behind her and locking it. When he turned back around, he saw his mother walking up to them with a smile on her face.

"It's so nice to meet you properly, Uraraka-chan," she said, giving a slight bow. "And I have to say, I'm so happy my Izuku is with such a beautiful girl like you."

Ochako smiled in response as she returned the bow with a deeper one. "It's nice to meet you too, Mrs. Midoriya. Thank you for having me." Seeing as Inko was still finishing up in the kitchen, it was suggested that Izuku show Ochako his room for a bit, along with a stern reminder to keep the door slightly open, to which the two teenagers blushed profusely.

"That's...a lot of merch," was all Ochako could say at the enormous amount of All Might merchandise that decorated Izuku's room. Honestly, even though she was pretty obsessed with Thirteen, she didn't have a lot of her merchandise (mostly due to the fact that she almost never had the extra money to spend).

Izuku nervously chuckled as he scratched the back of his head. "Yeah...I'm a pretty hardcore All Might fan...I've even got some of the super rare stuff." He pointed to the wall just above his computer, where there was a signed copy of an All Might poster that had the hero wearing his debut costume.

Ochako blinked as she considered just how much everything in here was worth. "Huh." As she continued looking around his room, she saw a notebook lying on his desk labeled Hero Analysis for the Future, U.A. Edition. "Is this where you put your analysis of everyone's Quirks in our class?" she asked.

"Yeah," Izuku replied, picking up the notebook and handing it to her. "I've only written down what I've seen of them so far, but I'm hoping it can help them improve on them if they haven't already. I have your Quirk written on page four."

Ochako moved to the edge of his bed and sat down, flipping open the book to its first page, where a detailed description of Izuku's Quirk was neatly written. As she continued reading, the information was starting to become more and more familiar to her, as if she already knew everything about (including what Izuku hadn't already told her) and was just being reminded. When she flipped the page, she was met with a detailed drawing of Gold Experience in a standing pose.

Ochako was starting to get really confused (and maybe more than a little bit freaked out) at the drawing; it looked exactly like one of the figures in her dreams. There was simply just no way for her to already know what Gold Experience could look like, especially when she had never seen the being before when Izuku was actively using his Quirk.

But as she was about to voice her thoughts to Izuku, she was interrupted by the sound of knocking from the door. "Dinner's ready, you two," said the voice of Izuku's mother, prompting her and Izuku to stand up and move to the dining table.

She'd just have to bring it up with Izuku after dinner.

Dinner couldn't have gone better, in Izuku's opinion. Ochako had already had katsudon at U.A., but Lunch Rush's recipe was largely overshadowed by his mother's, which was something she gushed about when she took a bite of the fried pork. When the conversation turned to their ambitions for being heroes, Ochako explained her family's financial situation, and that she was currently living by herself, to which Inko passive-aggressively convinced her to come have dinner with them every night that she could.

Fortunately, they then started talking about more positive things, such as the shenanigans Izuku and Katsuki would get up to when they were younger. Ochako found the stories to be hilarious, especially the one where Izuku had tried to make various small animals and insects in his room. Even after they finished eating and the dishes were placed in the sink, Izuku and Ochako kept trading stories about their childhoods and Quirk accidents. Eventually, the time came for her to head back to her apartment, and he was going to make good on their compromise.

"Thanks again for inviting me over, Deku-kun," Ochako said, once they reached the entrance to her apartment complex. "Your mother is a really kind person."

"She really is," he agreed. "I really wouldn't be where I am today without her support." Even though Gold Experience's abilities would help mitigate the majority of injuries and dangers that came with being a Pro Hero, his mother never once suggested he try to do something else with his life, and supported his ambitions from the moment he first got his Quirk.

"I had a really good time today...call me tomorrow, yeah?" she asked, and Izuku smiled back at her as they shared a hug.

"Good night, Uraraka-san."

"Good night, Deku-kun."

Izuku turned around to walk back towards his own apartment, but after taking several steps, stopped to consider something. Because even though he considered tonight a massive success when it came to their relationship, there was still something that was missing. Something that needed to be done before he walked any further.

Something he was fairly sure Ochako would reciprocate, even if the idea of going for it didn't help at all to calm his heart rate down.

Izuku exhaled as his hand curled up in a fist. 'Fuck it.'

He turned back around to find Ochako also looking back at him, and didn't really pay any mind to the sudden reminder of pink hair when he saw her also moving to meet him halfway, until he found himself once again holding her in an embrace as their lips met.

It was everything he imagined it would be like and so much more, as if this singular moment made him realize he felt like he had been missing a piece of himself his entire life, and had only just found it again. However, as much as he wanted to stay like this for much longer, he eventually had to break away for some much-needed air. "Uraraka-san, I-"

Ochako stopped him by pressing a finger against his lips. "Call me Ochako," she said softly.

"...Huh?"

"We're already dating, so shouldn't you be calling me by my given name?"

"Ah...well, I guess you're right...Ochako-san," he conceded. "But please call me Izuku as well!"

"If it's all the same to you," she said with a smile. "I'd like to just keep calling you 'Deku-kun'. And..." Here, she bit her lip to consider her next words, before looking back to him. "I also have to tell you something."

Izuku stared back at her for a moment, before he nodded. "...Okay."

Ochako took a deep breath. "You're literally the first boyfriend I've ever had," she began. "But for some reason, I feel this...this connection with you. Back when I first met you at the entrance exam, I felt like I knew you from somewhere, and when I was reading about your Quirk, I got the strangest feeling of déjà vu, like I'm somehow already supposed to know about it, and...and for some reason, all of this feels right, like I was always meant to do this."

Oh. Well, he'd be convincing no one if he said he didn't at least reciprocate her feelings, but the fact that he felt the exact same way towards her, meant that there was possibly something else at play.

Izuku's eyes widened as he suddenly remembered something. "Ochako-san...do you believe in gravity?"

He was met with Ochako tilting her head sideways and looking back at him in confusion. "Gravity...? I don't..."

"Sorry, I worded that wrong," he quickly said, slightly waving his hands out. "Let me explain."

Gravity, according to Albert Einstein, was the result of planets warping the geometry of space-time around them, and was seen as more accurate than Isaac Newton's theory of gravity being the result of certain forces being attracted to one another. However, the latter was still what more people knew about (and what was taught in secondary education schools).

It was based on Newton's theory, that someone (Izuku couldn't recall the person's username - something about God) made a post in a forum he had stumbled across, saying that gravity was the direct cause of certain people being drawn to one another, whether romantically or otherwise, but in this case, it was in the context of fate.

Because of the strong attraction they felt towards each other after only a relatively short period of time, Izuku believed that there was a possibility that he and Ochako were fated to meet, and somehow, she agreed with him.

Chapter Text

"Ah, good morning, young Fumikage."

From his place on the stairs, Fumikage Tokoyami looked up to see a the familiar form of a lanky (though much less so compared to a year prior) blond man standing in the kitchen by himself and holding a mug of coffee. "Ancestor," he greeted in reply, standing up and making his way to join him. "What brings you by?"

Toshinori stared at him for a moment before he spoke. "...You know you don't have to keep calling me that, right? Just Toshinori works. Or even Jonathan."

Even after knowing about it for close to a year now, the knowledge that the Symbol of Peace himself had at one point lived as his ancestor was still quite heavy for Fumikage to wrap his head around.

When Jōshirō had first arrived come over for dinner one evening with a stranger named Toshinori Yagi in tow, he had assumed that the man was just a work colleague from the Speedwagon Foundation, but when he suddenly stood up and grew in size and muscle mass after dinner, Fumikage was left reeling with confusion, along with more than a little skepticism at hearing that reincarnation was proven to exist, mainly because of his atheistic upbringing.

But then All Might ended up talking about things like growing up in England, learning something called the Ripple, fighting Dio, that at the end of it all, Fumikage ended up with so many questions.

Were there more Joestars running about in the world?

What were the odds of Jonathan Joestar being reborn into a Japanese man?

Did Fumikage have a past life?

"To be honest, I'm still getting used to the idea of being related to you," he replied, taking a sip of water.

(Not to mention there was a certain aesthetic to it, but he wasn't about to admit it out loud.)

"I think it's pretty damn funny," his Quirk whispered in his mind, before manifesting and resting an elbow on top of his head.

"And Dark Shadow also finds it humorous," Fumikage added.

And then there was the nature of his Quirk. Being the only member of the Joestar-Kūjō bloodline to possess a Quirk that even remotely resembled a Stand, Fumikage welcomed the similarities, and even made it his life's goal to carry on his family's unspoken legacy as a Pro Hero.

While it was one thing for him to be the only one to understand Dark Shadow, it was also discovered that his Quirk shared the exact same vocabulary as his ancestor Jōtarō Kūjō's Star Platinum, it placed more than a little pressure on his shoulders.

Fumikage Tokoyami had a lot to live up to.

"Fair enough," Toshinori shrugged, and a few moments of mildly-awkward silence passed before he spoke again. "Have...have things been well, so far? I understand you must be shaken up from the attack."

In all honesty, the attack hadn't been too bad, to say the least. Sure, there had been the initial fear and adrenaline rush when he and Kōda had been warped to that burning city, but Dark Shadow made quick work of the Villains that surrounded them, not to mention the various rats, insects, and other pests that helped subdue any stragglers.

Fumikage took a deep breath. "I'm mostly fine. I'm not sure about the others, but I feel mostly fine."

Toshinori just looked at him with a look of concern for a moment before he nodded. "Of course. But if you need to, you always have the choice to talk to someone about it."

At that moment, the bathroom door at the end of the hallway opened to reveal Jōshirō sporting his usual hat and long, gray coat. "By the way, Fumikage," he began. "Were you able to find anything out about your classmate during the attack?"

Fumikage shook his head. "No. A Villain with a warp Quirk sent us to different places."

Jōshirō hummed and made his way over to the coffee machine. "Well, you might get a chance in two weeks, because the principal's given the go-ahead to host the Sports Festival."

"Giorno..." began the ethereal voice. "It's all right. From the moment when I first met you in Napoli, to when I finally turned my back on the famiglia...I was supposed to die that day...but you managed to keep me going, if only just a little bit longer. Thank you." At this, the spirit of Bruno Bucciarati began to float higher and higher into the sky, but not before turning back to look at Izuku with a peaceful smile on his face.

All Giorno could do was continue staring on in silence at the scene in front of him. Even though only a week had passed since his initial fight with Bucciarati and his introduction into Passione, there was already so much that had happened since: from finding friends and comrades in his teammates, him discovering more about Gold Experience, Trish awakening her own Stand...

But it was all thanks to Bruno, his brief mentor, his friend, that Izuku was finally so, so close to fully realizing his dream, to being one step closer to defeating and overthrowing Passione's Boss once and for all.

Part of him felt immense guilt for causing the chain of events that led to Abacchio, and Narancia losing their lives in the process (and in Bruno's case, extending it for a short while), but now wasn't the time to be mourning them.

A sharp gasp of pain to his left broke Giorno out of his thoughts, and he turned to see Mista's body about to come into contact with the stone pavement, causing him to reach out and catch him, before gently setting him down onto the ground.

"Hey, Giorno..." Mista began. "...it worked. Bucciarati...he did it..." he let out a weak chuckle, before immediately coughing as more blood forced its way out his throat and onto his shirt, prompting Izuku to move and ordered Gold Experience to begin healing his injuries. But just a few moments after some of Mista's wounds began to close up, he found his attention drawn back towards the sky.

"Bucciarati..."

"Bucciarati's still at the Colosseum, but he'll be back soon ," Mista interjected, but Giorno paid him no mind, as he watched as the Bruno's ethereal form slowly begin to merge with the surrounding clouds, with one of the most peaceful expressions he had ever seen on a person.

"You don't need to worry about me," the man spoke, sparing one last glance back. "This was always supposed to happen. Please...continue watching out for everyone...and give them my regards if you can. Goodbye, Giorno..."

The clouds began to surround him at the same time as the rest of his body seemingly began to dissolve into the air, until finally, there was nothing to be seen but the golden-like sheen of the clouds. Izuku, having suddenly reached out to the sky in awe at the display, saw the clouds envelop his arm, and it was to his shock that he felt something solid come into contact with his hand, and when the clouds finally dispersed, revealed exactly what it was he was holding.

The Requiem Arrow.

Bucciarati's final act of assistance.

But it wasn't over just yet. With Trish and everyone else in the surrounding area having been returned to their bodies, the threat of Diavolo was still at large, so the battle still had yet to reach its conclusion.

"Bucciarati..." Giorno whispered. "Thank-"

"-you for the food," Izuku mumbled.

Throughout the rest of the table, his friends began to dig in their meals with earnest, but quickly enough, it was Ochako who first noticed how something was off when she turned and saw he wasn't exactly paying any attention, because he continued to just stare at his plate. His palm was also resting on top of his chopsticks, like he was moving to pick them up, but then suddenly stopped for some reason.

"Um, Izuku?" she asked. "Izuku...? Are you okay?" At her words, everyone else's attention shifted from their own meals to Izuku's almost-still form, wondering what was going on with him.

"What, you regret not getting katsudon instead or something?" Katsuki snorted, but when he didn't get the reaction he expected, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Deku? You good?" He tapped Izuku's arm twice with the back of his hand, which finally seemed to break him out of his stupor.

Izuku blinked. "...Huh?" he startled, and looked around the table to see everyone staring at him, before realizing what exactly it was he was doing and finally grabbed his chopsticks. "Oh. Sorry about that." As he was shoveling rice into his mouth, Ochako and Katsuki briefly shared a look of concern, before turning back to him.

"Izuku?" Ochako tentatively asked. "Is everything all right?" He didn't really seem too shaken-up from the incident two days before, but mental trauma did affect everyone differently (and she also never noticed any signs when she came for dinner at his place and oh gosh, she must be a terrible girlfriend if she never thought about how he was feeling and what would her parents think of her and-).

"I...I guess there's just been a lot on my mind, that's all," Izuku replied.

Several more seconds of silence passed throughout the group before Tenya added in his own two cents. "You know, Midoriya-kun," he began, with his voice low. "It's okay to be scared. I would have never expected to have to deal with a Villain attack so soon, but this is what we signed up for. I understand there are some things that are too personal to share with friends, but I highly recommend at least talking to the guidance counselor."

Izuku really wanted to dissuade everyone's thoughts and clear things up, but ultimately decided it just wasn't worth the effort. "I appreciate it, Iida-kun," he said with a smile. Tenya nodded, and with that, everyone went back to focusing on their meals, but Izuku was left back to his thoughts. For some reason or another, he couldn't remember what it was he was so lost in thought about, but it had to have been something interesting, he knew that much, at least.

Sighing, he went back to finishing his rice, and hoped that they'd be able to get back to training since-

Arrivederci, Giorno...

His eyes widened.

There. That. What was that voice he was hearing? It was undoubtedly male, but...it sounded ethereal, in a way. And was that Italian?

Being an average Japanese teenager with a barely-intermediate knowledge of English, Izuku barely knew any other foreign languages (well he could read some Chinese, but that was a different story altogether), so why would he be having random thoughts in Italian?

But seeing as how the internet and pop culture were things that existed (not to mention the fact that Nintendo was still kicking after all this time), he'd obviously recognize it as the word for 'goodbye', but he was also reminded of a similar experience some time ago, although he couldn't remember exactly what it was.

But more importantly, who the hell was Giorno?

"So this is the famous Class 1-A," Hitoshi Shinsō drawled, as he forced his way to the front of the crowd that stood in front of the classroom. "Gotta say, I'm not exactly impressed."

Katsuki only continued to stare at him with a raised eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Hitoshi smirked as he stepped closer. "I've seen your type before, the way you carry yourself. You think just because you survived a Villain attack that you're hot shit?"

At the mention of the USJ incident, Izuku noticed Ochako stiffen out of the corner of his eye, to which he gently grabbed her hand and squeezed it, causing her to relax and look back to him with a grateful smile.

"You probably don't know this," Hitoshi continued. "But a lot of the people in General Studies are only there because they couldn't get into the Hero Course. If someone from the General Studies Course ends up doing well in the Sports Festival, there's a chance of getting transferred into the Hero Course, but since there's only nineteen of you, then that means it's guaranteed. And make no mistake, I will be taking that spot."

A few moments of tense silence passed before Mina piped up. "Well, as long as you're not a perv like Mineta, then I guess I'll root for you." The rest of the girls and most of the boys murmured their agreement at her comment.

Histoshi turned his gaze back to Katsuki. "You may have gotten the top score in the entrance exam, but don't think it gives you an excuse to be arrogant. Just letting you know." With that, he turned back around and walked through the crowd, leaving a a rather loud student from 1-B called Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu to take his place.

Later during the evening...

At Takoba Municipal Beach Park, Toshinori had spent several minutes walking along the shoreline thinking to himself, when he spotted the familiar figures of Izuku and and Katsuki walking towards him. With a brief wave, he made his way over to join them. "Thank you for coming," he greeted.

"Well, it's not like we would've said no," Katsuki replied, with Izuku nodding in agreement.

Toshinori laughed. "I guess not. You said you wanted to ask me something back at school, right?"

"Yeah," Katsuki replied. A moment passed where he closed his eyes and breathed in, before he opened them. "Some of the others in 1-A...they're saying you killed someone at USJ. Is it true?"

Izuku sharply turned to Toshinori in alarm.

Toshinori sighed. "There's...a whole lot you two don't know about," he explained. "Especially when it comes to what happened there. I know how it looks, but I can promise you that thing wasn't human. Not anymore, at least. All I can tell you is that it's being looked into by the higher-ups." After a few moments of ominous silence, he shook his head. "But enough about that! The Sports Festival is coming up! Exciting, isn't it?" At the two boys' enthusiastic nods, he continued.

"Well, I'm sure you already know the entire point of it is for the students to get internships with the Pros, but it's also so you can make your mark and tell the world 'I am here!' It's your first step to coming into your own as Heroes." Here, his expression grew But also, after the attack on the USJ, the League of Villains and other groups are starting to mobilize, and that's something I won't be able to help you with for long."

"Wait. what do you mean?" Katsuki demanded. "Aren't you the strongest hero? Why can't you just-"

"Kid, I'm pushing fifty," he interrupted, palm raised in front of him. "Even if I still have all my organs back, I can't keep doing this forever. I can only keep this up for maybe another ten, maybe twelve years before my body won't be able to handle my Quirk anymore."

"What's gonna happen to One For All, then?" Izuku asked.

Toshinori raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell you actually want it, after all."

"No, not that," Izuku replied, quickly shaking his head. "But wasn't the entire point of you coming to U.A. was because you needed to find a successor?"

Toshinori sighed and looked up into the night sky. "To be honest, with everything that's been going on, I honestly forgot about that. I only needed to find the next user because of my time limit, but since I can stay-" he pushed One For All through his body. "-like this indefinitely-" As quick as it came, he deactivated it, shrinking back down. "I don't know if I need to anymore." He turned to Izuku and Katsuki. "I told you how One For All stockpiles power, right?"

At both of their nods, he continued. "Well, because Quirks in general are getting stronger by the generation, that ends up making mine an eighth-generation Quirk. It's the strongest it's ever been, and with each user that comes after me, it'll only keep exponentially getting stronger until a user ends up killing themselves after their first punch."

"Oh...oh that's right, you mean the Quirk Singularity," Izuku said quietly. "I never thought about it like that."

Toshinori hummed. "Yeah...that's why I wanted to talk to you two in private. Because there will come a time where I'm going to be retiring." Dramatically, he turned back around and pointed to the two boys. "And eventually, I want you two to take up my mantle as the Symbol of Peace."

Izuku and Katsuki said nothing as they only looked at him in shock.

"Well, not the Symbol of Peace exactly," he backtracked. "They might end up calling you 'The Second Symbols' or something like that, but I want you to have your own identities. You obviously don't have to tell me what ideas you have right away, but I just want you to keep that in mind for the future."

"I mean...Symbol of Victory does sound pretty catchy," Katsuki admitted. Izuku, meanwhile, looked like he was in deep thought, which Toshinori caught.

"Something on your mind, Young Midoriya?"

"Yeah, I just..." Izuku looked up. "All Might...do you know anyone called Giorno Giovanna?"

Chapter Text

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen," Present Mic began. "To the moment you've been waiting for...THE THIRD STAGE OF THE SPORTS FESTIVAL!" From where he was standing on the arena platform, Izuku wiped his sweaty palms on his gym pants as he attempted to ignore his raging heartbeat, trying to instead focus on the good luck kiss Ochako had given him instead of the anxiety of being right about to fight his first opponent.

This was it. This was the part that mattered the most in showing the Pro Heroes what he could do.

For the Obstacle Race, Izuku had managed to secure a massive lead over most of the other students by making use of Gold Experience's enhanced speed at the beginning to dodge Shōto Todoroki's ice trap and rush through a large portion of the course. His lead stopped at the minefield portion, however, where he was eventually outperformed by Katsuki flying over and Shōto creating a frozen pathway, and managed to beat the latter and finish in second place.

In contrast, the Cavalry Battle ended up being pitifully easy. With a team consisting of himself, Fumikage, Ochako, and a girl named Mei Hatsume from the Support Course, it took almost no effort at all to rack up as many points as possible and form an impenetrable defense by using Gold Experience to completely shield his headbands, which confused anyone who made a go for them.

"Let me just say you're all in for a treat," Present Mic continued. "Because for the first match of this year's tournament, we'll get to see two people from the same hero class duke it out! We have...MIDORIYA IZUKU! Versus...TOKOYAMI FUMIKAGE!" Sparing a glance towards his friend on the other side of the arena, he saw Fumikage standing with his arms crossed and looking at the roaring crowd. When he met Izuku's gaze, he nodded to him, which he returned.

It was clear from their first interaction and their subsequent talks, Dark Shadow functioned very similar to Gold Experience. But even in the sunlight, Fumikage's Quirk still possessed enough speed and power to wipe the floor with most of Class 1-A without even breaking a sweat.

But the biggest advantage Izuku had over him was the fact that no one but him could see Gold Experience, and what it lacked in strength, it made up for in versatility. In spades.

"Are you two ready?" Midnight asked, and after receiving nods from both of them, raised her whip into the air.

"Then..." She stayed silent for a few moments, before bringing it down, with a crack! reverberating through the air. "Begin!"

Taking a moment to close his eyes and take a deep breath, Izuku looked back to his opponent and took his first step, the air around him shimmering as he summoned his Quirk.

"Gold Experience."

"Well, would you look at that?" Shōta Aizawa murmured to himself, as he read the files of each student who had qualified for the tournament stage. Apparently, this couldn't have been a more perfect matchup. With Quirks so similar to each other, it was hard to tell who'd come out on top, but it was clear that Midoriya had the inherent advantage here. It would be up to Tokoyami to properly manage his own Quirk in order to beat an invisible opponent.

Just then, his thoughts were interrupted by a large BOOM! coming from the arena below, and Shōta's eyebrows shot up at the sight of a massively-sized arm belonging to Tokoyami's Quirk erupt from the ground in front of Midoriya, before coming down hard.

"WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT?!" Hizashi Yamada cried next to him, but Shōta mainly paid attention to the fact that the man's overly-enthusiastic voice, coupled with his own sleep deprivation, caused his already manageable headache to become even worse.

"Goddamn it, Yamada," he growled. "Could you at least tone it down a little?"

"Huh?" Yamada turned to him, before giving him a sheepish smile. "Oh right, sorry 'bout that." He went back to commentating on the fight, and Shōta was left back to his thoughts.

When he looked back to the arena, it looked like Midoriya had been able to dodge the attack, much to Yamada's excitement. Having just read the information that his student had the ability to strengthen his own body with his Quirk, Shōta fully expected the outcome.

Now, he just had to see what else the two had in store.

"ORA! ORA!"

This was going to go nowhere. Fumikage ended up realizing too late that their opening attack, while definitely impressive (according to the noise the audience had made in response), caused Dark Shadow to end up overextending itself and using up a considerable amount of energy. Which meant that he had to be very careful in deploying his Quirk for each following attack.

Which was why Dark Shadow was now trying to hurl large pieces of debris at Izuku. Who was just dodging them. Easily.

Yeah...it wasn't exactly his finest moment.

"Dark Shadow, retreat," Fumikage sighed, and his Quirk drew back into himself, and his hands balled into fists out of frustration.

"So," his Quirk said. you got any other bright ideas?"

"I'm thinking," he replied, irritated. Truth be told, he had several ideas, but each of them involved having to get within melee range, and he didn't want Dark Shadow to contend with Gold Experience just yet. But it seemed the decision was taken out of his hands, because all of a sudden Fumikage was brought out of his thoughts by the crowd roaring in excitement, and turned to see a pair of cheetahs running towards him at full speed.

'Well...shit.' Resisting every urge to run away out of fear, Fumikage steeled himself as watched the cheetahs Izuku had created continue to get closer and closer, while silently telling- no, pleaded for Dark Shadow to keep waiting until the right moment.

"They're getting closer, Fumi!"

"I said not yet!" Fumikage growled. If Dark Shadow tried to extend itself to deal with the threat, then there might not be enough energy left to see the fight through, meaning the best option was to wait until the cheetahs were in its natural range.

So until then, they needed to stay put until the right moment.

Ten meters.

Eight meters.

Six meters.

At four meters, the two large cats suddenly leapt into the air...before turning back into the boulders they had transformed from.

At two meters, he finally called the signal. "NOW!"

Almost instantaneously, Dark Shadow sprung out from his sternum, and with speed and power that would have given Star Platinum a run for its money, met the boulders head-on with a flurry of punches.

"ORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!"

The first few punches quickly broke both boulders in half, but with each consecutive punch, they continued to break and break until they reduced them into pebbles and dust, before enveloping Fumikage in a cloud of dust. However, the boulders were large enough that Dark Shadow simply wasn't able to stop all of the debris, and Fumikage hissed as his arms flared with the pain of being cut open from the multitude of jagged rocks after using them to protect his face.

Using the little time he had while concealed from his opponent, he quickly took off his U.A. gym shirt (leaving him with a dark tank-top that he had been wearing underneath), and tore strips of the fabric off to clean and wrap around his arms as best he could.

Yeah, he really should have thought this through.

'Damn it.' Looking at the other side of the stage, Fumikage grit his teeth in frustration when he noticed that Izuku didn't seem to be tired at all. It was clear that he would just keep launching predator after predator towards him as much as he wanted, and Dark Shadow would keep trying to dispel the debris they would inevitably turn back into.

It would be a stalemate until Dark Shadow ran out of energy to stay manifested, or until Fumikage decided to take the risk of getting seriously injured and sending Dark Shadow to overpower Izuku. Except that would just cause him to maintain the transformation, not to mention that if it took too long, then Dark Shadow would also run out of energy. The fight wouldn't end until one of them was forcefully ejected from the platform or knocked out by the other.

It was clear that the audience wouldn't accept anything less than an epic conclusion. Neither would Fumikage's pride.

As if on cue, a group of clouds started to block the sun and a light shade covered the entire stadium and a good chunk of U.A.'s campus.

Under any other circumstance, the average person would glance at the sky for a brief second and then go on about their day. But because he possessed a Quirk that grew stronger in any and all levels of darker light, Fumikage embraced the appearance of shade with a sigh of relief, even if the increase in strength was only marginal at best.

While the shade wasn't dark enough to be favorable at all, the event caused Fumikage to be filled with an odd sense of peace and hope. That this fight, no matter the winner and how brief it was, helped him and Dark Shadow gain the unique sort of experience he didn't know he needed his entire life.

And after all, it wasn't like he hurt his chances of getting noticed by the Pros, right?

"Dark Shadow..." Taking a page from Izuku's book, Fumikage commanded Dark Shadow to form around his body, taking a second to admire the process of his arms and legs being reinforced by his Quirk's like a suit of armor, before he smirked from satisfaction and raised his fist to his face, looking back towards Izuku with a glint of determination in his eyes.

"...Cruel Moon."

As the cloud of dust was still obstructing his view of his opponent, Izuku stayed ready in case of any sudden attack, with a command given to Gold Experience to keep its fist aimed towards the ground for an immediate counterattack with Life Giver. But when the dust finally dissipated, he winced in regret at the sight of Fumikage having taken his gym shirt off and had wrapped strips of it around his arms, with blood still dripping down to his fingertips.

(He didn't think the debris would've done that much damage.)

He didn't pay any real attention to the sudden appearance of shade, but when he saw Dark Shadow start to bond itself to Fumikage just like how he would reinforce his own body with his own Quirk, Izuku unconsciously took a step back out of fear.

With the sharp, static-like appearance of Dark Shadow's form greatly giving the appearance of a dark aura on its user, it gave Fumikage a seriously menacing feeling to him as he slowly walked towards Izuku, as if he was looking at an angel of death. It was clear now that their fight was in the endgame now, and this was the last shot he had to give.

Truth be told, Izuku couldn't help but feel a newfound respect for his friend. It hadn't even been five minutes yet, but this fight had been quite the experience, especially against someone whose Quirk was so similar to his own.

"Tokoyami-kun," he called out. "Are you seriously walking to me?"

"Well, I can't exactly do anything without getting closer."

"Fair enough," Izuku snorted. "Then by all means, come closer." Once again imbuing his body with Gold Experience's in response, he made a fist as he walked towards Fumikage, eventually matching his friend's pace when he saw him break out into a sprint. When they were just a mere two meters away from each other, they both leapt into the air with their fists trained towards each other.

The fist-bump to end all fist-bumps, one might even say.

"ORA!"

"MUDA!"

A violent shockwave pierced through the air as Fumikage's and Izuku's powers violently clashed with each other, causing both of them to be forcefully knocked back to the ground. It was Izuku who was able to recover first, and it took everything he had in him not to scream from the pure, unadulterated pain that pulsated from his arm after having been effectively shattered.

He took a moment or two to watch Fumikage's prone form for any signs of movement, but when he found none, he breathed out a sigh of relief as he continued with his makeshift plan.

Because even though Gold Experience was outmatched by Dark Shadow in raw power (especially when it came to reinforcing its user with its own body), the one thing Fumikage seemed to have overlooked was that except for his head, only half of his body was reinforced. Something Izuku immediately caught onto and exploited when he commanded Gold Experience to use its other arm to make contact with Fumikage's exposed skin and imbue Life Giver into him, leaving him stunned for a few seconds.

With Gold Experience carrying Fumikage over its shoulder, Izuku moved towards the white line that made up the arena's border, but stopped when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. As he curiously turned to see what it was, he was left reeling at the sight of a purple star behind Fumikage's left shoulder.

No, not just a star, a star-shaped birthmark.

"What...?" Izuku just continued to stare at the birthmark in shock, as he was hit with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. He...he recognized that birthmark. Why would someone like Fumikage have a birthmark like-

His thoughts were interrupted by a groan coming from none other than Fumikage, and Izuku quickly remembered that he needed to get him out of bounds now, so he quickly ordered Gold Experience to gently lay him down on the outside of the white line.

Behind him, he vaguely heard the telltale crack of Midnight's whip. "Midoriya is the winner!"

From his place in the audience, Mirio Tōgata kept silent as he watched the matchup between the two first-years play out. While the fight itself was relatively short, there was just so much going on that he was kept on the edge of his seat, and when it finally ended, he joined in on the roaring crowd's applause.

"Tōgata-kun!" his friend Nejire exclaimed, once the noise finally calmed down enough for him to hear her. "Was that one of those Stand things you told us about?"

"I, uh...don't know, exactly," he replied. I know the thing that Tokoyami guy has isn't one, but Midoriya? I'm not sure."

All the signs throughout the fight pointed to Midoriya having a Stand, which left Mirio in a state of awe, because as far as he knew, there were no more Stand users left at this point in time.

However, he specifically remembered that there was only one person who could've had a Stand that could create life like Midoriya did, that the user, Giorno Giovanna died more than a century ago. And from what he remembered about working in the Speedwagon Foundation, Stands and their abilities were completely unique (with Jōtarō's Star Platinum being the obvious exception), what with them being tied to their user's soul and all.

But if Izuku Midoriya had that ability, too (and Mirio was positive that what he just saw wasn't a Quirk), then...yeah, he's going to need to tell Jōshirō and Old Man Toshinori about this.

There was a good chance they already knew, actually.

It made him wonder just how many other former Stand users were still kicking around in the world. Once upon a time, there had been an emptiness somewhere in him when the Foundation told him they couldn't find anything about his friends living a new life like he was, but most of it slowly went away after he was reminded that he still had Nejire and Tamaki, and when Sir Nighteye started helping him out with his Quirk.

But Mirio still felt that pang of loneliness every once in a while whenever he tried to think about the past.

And sure, Permeation was a pretty cool Quirk and all (especially once he finally got good at using it), but he really missed having Crazy Diamond with him sometimes.

Chapter Text

While Izuku held everyone who made it into the final section of the 1v1 tournament in high regard, he couldn't really say the same for most of the other matches in the first round. Hanta Sero was almost instantaneously immobilized by a massive ice structure from Shōto Todoroki, not even five seconds after it started. Momo Yaoyorozu, who desperately tried to keep the attack from Ibara Shiozaki's vines at bay with a pair of machetes before eventually being overwhelmed.

He couldn't help but chuckle at Tenya's predicament as he was left at the mercy of Mei Hatsume's support gear, who had spent the entire time advertising them to the scouts of various support companies in the crowd, before she finally forfeited. He also praised Mina Ashido's ability to easily dodge Yūga Aoyama's lasers and knocked him out with a single punch.

Watching Hitoshi Shinsō face off against Denki Kaminari, however, was what intrigued him the most. Like most of his classmates in 1-A, he was generally supportive of him being transferred and taking the empty seat behind him, but any hints as to what his Quirk was left him puzzled. The way he even won his match left him with even more questions, as not even ten seconds after it started, Denki just turned around and walked out of bounds.

Izuku respected the tenacity Eijirō Kirishima and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu had during their fight, even if it ultimately ended in a draw as they ended up knocking each other out at the same time.

He tried to comfort Ochako by holding her in his arms as she broke down into tears over her loss while on the phone with her parents. He felt bad for his girlfriend for having been matched up against Katsuki, but her odds of beating the powerhouse that was his best friend were low to begin with. It didn't really help his case when the audience was booing him for being merciless, but Izuku and everyone else in 1-A knew that all Ochako needed was a single hit to use her Quirk on him.

And Katsuki was (begrudgingly) in the right for going all out to keep that from happening. It didn't sit well with Izuku to have to listen to his friend being labelled as a Villain by some of the audience members, but it was either that or patronize and possibly humiliate Ochako by making her think she stood more of a chance than she really did.

"Begin!"

Not even five seconds after Midnight gave the call to start, Izuku was forced to throw himself to the side after seeing that Shōto had immediately sent a wave of ice towards, just barely managing to dodge the attack. Soon after, he was immediately picking himself back up to dodge another ice attack, but this time he wanted to see if there was any way he could stop it.

"MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!" Gold Experience cried, and while that seemed to momentarily block and keep the attack in place, Shōto had more than enough power to amplify it, forcing Izuku to cease the attack and figure something else out. But then all of a sudden, seeing the shards of ice that broke away seemed to trigger something in him.

For just a brief moment, he was suddenly reminded of something. He remembered driving a car with someone in the back seat, while everything around them (even the very air that they were breathing) kept freezing until they couldn't move, and Gold Experience wasn't able to do anything to stop it. He remembered as the man called Guido Mista fired his gun, before collapsing to the ground as his bullet ricocheted back towards him.

'White Album: Gently Weeps!'

Izuku's eyes widened. '...What?'

Before he could even begin to wonder what just happened, his attention was forced back to the fight, and let out a curse when he saw that his right leg was suddenly encased in ice, the flashback having been enough of a distraction for Shōto to capitalize on it. Almost as soon as it formed, Gold Experience was able to quickly hammer the ice away, and Izuku let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, before he threw himself to the side to dodge another attack from Shōto.

He needed a plan. An actual plan. By all means, he could try to do the cheetah thing like he did with Fumikage, but the odds of it working would just make it a waste of time. He could even try to just keep dodging each attack, but it would only be a matter of time before the entire arena would be covered in it, and he'd be backed into a corner of his own making.

He needed to figure out a way to force Shōto to play by his rules, within his range.

It was a given that the other boy's Quirk was just so much more powerful than his, but at the same time, this was Endeavor's son. Even if he was ultimately outclassed by All Might, the man's pure level of skill with his Quirk was nothing to sneeze at, based on how he had the most amount of Hero missions completed (not to mention the collateral damage that always accompanied them).

It was common knowledge among the Pro Hero community (and those who looked hard enough) that Enji Todoroki's youngest son was set to start U.A. Based on that (not to mention his heterochromatic hair color), it didn't take much to conclude that he at least had to have inherited the same level of strength potential when it came to his fire.

So where was it?

"So what's up with you just using your ice?"

Shōto paused his attack as he registered the words. "What?"

"Your left side," Midoriya said, from where he was standing on top of one of his ice structures. "Just about the only time you ever use your left side is for melting ice. I've never actually seen you try to use your fire yet."

"My reasons are my own," he replied. "Not that you would understand."

"You're right, I don't," Midoriya replied. "But I can guess why. It's because of your father, right? You must have something against him."

Shōto's eyes narrowed. "Be very careful with the next words you say."

"You don't use your fire not because you can't, but because you won't," Midoriya continued. "So what happens when the person you're trying to save ends up dying because you didn't use your fire? Are you gonna put the blame on Endeavor again? Daddy issues can only get you so far, Todoroki-kun."

Who the hell did he think he was, telling him what he couldn't do? He made it this far without having to resort to using that bastard's Quirk, hadn't he?

"Shut up," he growled, but his words only seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"If you're willing to sacrifice innocent lives just because of your childish grudge, then you don't deserve to be a hero."

"SHUT. UP!" Throwing his arm out, a massive wave of ice shot out, covering the arena in the biggest structure he had created so far. His opponent, Shōto noted with grim satisfaction, was completely immobilized all the way up to his neck.

Turning to Midnight, he waited for her to call the match, but when he saw that she wasn't going to do so, looked back to Midoriya in confusion, before his eyes widened at the sight of the other boy somehow having broken out of the ice.

What the hell kind of Quirk did he have?

Shōto admittedly hadn't been paying too much attention to the other students' conversations on the bus ride to the USJ, but what he did remember was that Midoriya's Quirk had two parts to it: the ability to create life and an invisible being similar to Tokoyami's that he could command. It didn't matter in the end, though; he'll just have to do it again and again until the other boy finally submitted or succumbed to frostbite, whichever came first.

But all of a sudden, a bizarre sound that Shōto could only describe as 'musical notes playing in reverse' filled his ears, and he very nearly fell on his ass as an honest-to-Kami dragon formed out of a very large chunk of ice.

This was the true power of Gold Experience, then. He'd ended up underestimating his opponent. Gravely.

The subsequent noise coming from the audience caused him to briefly move his attention towards them, and just barely managed to catch the sight of the dragon breathing in. It didn't take two brain cells to figure out what would be coming out.

With a deafening ROAR! that threatened to give him and everyone else in the stadium permanent hearing loss, a swirling torrent of pure, unadulterated fire spewed from its maw, and Shōto cursed as he desperately raised a wall of ice to block its path. At first, Shōto felt the slightest bit of hope when he saw it holding, only for it to turn to panic as the fire was very quickly melting into water that was being vaporized, forcing him to reinforce it with even more ice.

If he kept this up, then he would only have maybe another half-a-minute at best to continue blocking the incoming fire until he collapsed from Quirk exhaustion, or until he was roasted alive. Which left him the other option, the one that would cause him to break his vow. But it was a chance to completely match the beast's attack, and maybe even force it back altogether.

'Damn you...Midoriya...!'

Shōto grit his teeth as he realized what he needed to do, and he raised his left arm into the air as it glowed a brilliant orange.

Izuku had to admit: if he found out he could make giant mythological creatures during the entrance exam, he would have done so immediately. However, due to their size and the complexity of their biological structures, it made it so that he had to consciously focus on maintaining the transformation. So while Shōto was busy trying to keep the dragon's fire at bay, Izuku used that time to try and dig an underground tunnel to the other side of the arena as fast as possible with Gold Experience.

This plan obviously had several flaws, but Izuku couldn't figure out a better one in the amount of time that he had. After ten seconds of digging, he was already starting to struggle with equally dividing his attention and concentration, with the sheer urgency of the situation forcing Izuku to focus more on what was happening in front of him. After twenty, a violent SWOOSH! reverberated through the air, and he couldn't help but smile at the realization that Shōto was finally using his right side.

After thirty seconds, he heard an inhuman cry of pain from above, and Izuku realized that he was out of time. Finally ceasing his concentration on the transformation, Izuku felt the connection between him and the dragon sever as it eventually returned to ice. And using the final moments of confusion expected Shōto would have, he punched a hole above him and jumped out of it, ready to deliver a stun-shot with Life Giver.

Until he was suddenly stopped by an unknown force.

Izuku could only look on with a quizzical expression as he saw Shōto's face morph into a shocked expression, before he realized that he was looking at something below him, and looked down to see an icicle had embedded itself into the side of his abdomen and out through his back.

Oh, would you look at that? He's been impaled.

...

It was here that the pain finally made itself known to him, and Izuku could only let out a soft gasp as stumbled backwards, before collapsing to the ground.

Somewhere behind him, he vaguely registered the sound of Midnight's whip. "MIDORIYA HAS BEEN-"

"WAIT!" he yelled out in desperation. "I can...I can-" Tears welled up in his eyes as Gold Experience began to pull the icicle out, and he let out an involuntary cry as the pain rose to an excruciating level. After it was finally pulled out, the icicle was thrown to the side, and his Quirk then turned to the side, repeatedly punching the ground beside them. When there was enough debris, it moved to stuff the hole that was his open wound with it, with the faint sound belonging to Life Giver playing.

When it was all over, Izuku clambered to his feet as his injury became completely healed, and while the pain still remained, it quickly lowered to a dull ache. He also noticed how there was nothing but silence all around him as Midnight and Shōto, and by extension the entire audience, were all staring at him in shock.

"Can you keep going?" the heroine softly asked, after a few moments.

Izuku sighed. "Yeah, but I...I forfeit."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I just-" He paused, before looking at Shōto. "Todoroki-kun. If you really want to distance yourself away from your father, then you need to have the resolve to take your Quirk as your own. It was never his in the first place." Without waiting for a response, Izuku turned around and walked towards the locker rooms, ignoring the crowd's roar of applause.

After a brief checkup from Recovery Girl, Izuku went to rejoin the rest of his classmates in the stands, where he was met with a tight hug from Ochako, who told him how scared she had gotten from his injury.

"I have to agree," Tenya added. "I wasn't expecting you to handle it as easily as you did."

"Deku can handle a whole lot of things," Katsuki grunted. "You can throw anything at him and he'll always get back up."

Izuku just nervously laughed along as he sat down, putting his arm around Ochako's shoulder. In hindsight, his attempted surprise attack on Shōto hadn't been his brightest moment, but there also was no doubt in his mind that revealing his ability to heal himself ended up getting a whole lot of people's attention, for better or for worse.

He was already aware of his growing reputation in Musutafu General for regularly donating organs as much as he could for anyone who needed them, but even when they tried their best to keep his identity hidden, it was bound to come out sooner or later.

Nevertheless, that was a problem for another time. Right now, he just wanted to finally relax with his friends now and watch the rest of the tournament in peace.

And so the First Year Sports Festival continued with its second round. Tenya easily won by dodging Ibara's vines and pushing her until she was out of bounds. Hitoshi, unsurprisingly, won by using his unknown Quirk on Mina after provoking her to anger. Katsuki eventually overpowered Kirishima's defense by hitting him with multiple concentrated blasts.

For the semi-final round, Hitoshi finally met his end when Shōto immediately went for immobilizing him in ice. All Katsuki had to do was continuously dodge Tenya's Recipro Burst attacks by constantly flying over him until his engines stopped working, to which a single blast sent him out of bounds. And even though Izuku knew that Shōto finally ended up using his fire in their match, the same couldn't be said for the final round, when Katsuki utterly decimated his ice structure with his newly-dubbed Howitzer Impact.

Once the final winner had been called, and the medals given to the first, second, and third place finalists (sans Tenya, who had to leave because of a family emergency involving his brother Ingenium), the first year classes all went back to their respective locker rooms to change back into their school uniforms, before assembling outside where their homeroom teacher was waiting.

"Good job out there," Aizawa began. "All of you. I know that some of you didn't make it to the last part, but you all tried your hardest. Tomorrow we'll go over how you did with the Pros, but for now you're free to just enjoy the rest of the Festival or leave for the day if you want. Oh, by the way - Midoriya." He turned to Izuku. "The principal wants to speak with you. He didn't tell me what for, but he said it was about something important."

"We can wait for you outside by the stands," Ochako said to him, giving him a soft smile. Izuku returned the smile in thanks, and made his way to the principal's office with Aizawa.

"Ah, Midoriya-kun," Principal Nezu began. "Please come in."

Closing the door behind him, Izuku walked in to see a large desk and what he could only assume was the principal himself sitting behind it. And in one of the chairs in front of the desk, sat a strange man wearing a black jacket with a black hat.

"...Did I do something?"

"No, no, there's no need to get worried," Nezu replied. "We only need to speak with you about something." He nodded to the stranger, who cleared his throat.

"My name is Doctor Kūjō Jōshirō, Midoriya. I'm one of the head researchers in the Speedwagon Foundation."

Izuku blinked. "The-the Speedwagon Foundation?" He didn't know a whole lot about the Speedwagon Foundation, but what he did know was that it was a household name just about everywhere in the world.

It was the organization that pioneered the study and advancement of medicine, technology, and science (alongside creating the field of Quirkology). They were also single-handedly responsible for providing aid and relief worldwide in the aftermath of the Quirk World War, helping to stabilize the majority of countries that were part of the United Nations.

So what did one of their researchers want with a guy like him?

Kūjō smirked, and after opening the briefcase he had brought with him, pulled out a photo depicting an ornately-shaped arrow. "Tell me: are you familiar with the phenomenon known as a 'Stand'?

"Sensei."

"Yes, Tomura?"

"You remember how you told me about those 'Stand' things that showed up before Quirks did?"

"What about them?"

"The Midoriya kid. The one who could make plants and animals. I think he has one."

"Oh? Tell me more."

PARTE 1 FINE

Chapter Text

"And he was just...launched into outer space? Just like that?"

"Yep!" Joseph Joestar laughed rambunctiously. "Didn't think it'd actually work, but everything ended up going exactly how I planned it."

"I call bullshit," Trish said bluntly, and Giorno couldn't help but smirk. His fiancée had such a way with words.

"Hey, I never said the odds weren't against me, but us Joestars usually get way more than our fair share of luck when we need it the most. Like with that, uh—" he snapped his fingers. "—Diablo guy you guys fought."

"It's Diavolo," Giorno said. "Diavolo. Diablo is Spanish."

"Oh. Right. Sorry," Joseph chuckled. "Getting senile in my old age, you know?"

"It happens." It wasn't the old man's fault Spanish was more widespread globally than Italian—at least the two languages were mutually intelligible, which made it infinitely more bearable in dealing with most tourists or Passione's foreign connections.

But come to think of it, what did happen to Diavolo? No matter how many times he tried to get an answer, Gold Experience Requiem never once told him how it used its 'return to zero' ability on the former boss, but based on his Stand's persistent silence, it was obvious that it wasn't anything good. There was no doubt it was fitting, but there was a chance that it might be comparable to Kars's fate, even.

He was suddenly interrupted from his brief musing by the sounds of laughter coming from outside, and turned to see two people—one a little girl no older than twelve, and a young sporting a very prominent pompadour who looked much closer to Giorno's own age. They were shooting water guns at each other, with some of the water having spilled onto his shirt.

"Irene!" Holly Kujo exclaimed in Japanese. "What did I tell you and Josuke about using those things inside the house? Now, what do you say to our guest for shooting water at him?"

Josuke not-so-subtly rolled his eyes and gave Giorno a low bow, with Irene following suit. "We're very sorry for shooting water at you Mr. Giorno. Please forgive us," the two said.

Giorno couldn't help but chuckle at the display. "You two are forgiven." Reaching into his pocket, he fished out a fountain pen and presented it to Irene, and with a thought, transformed it into a sunflower. "For you, signorina." Irene took the proffered flower with an expression of surprise on her face, and ran off to the kitchen where Holly and Jotaro were busy cooking dinner.

"Hey, where's my flower?" Josuke asked, cheekily grinning. Giorno raised an eyebrow, and reached into the pocket of his suit jacket to pull out a five-thousand yen note. Josuke immediately cupped his hands together in gleeful anticipation, only for it to turn to disappointment as the note changed into a yellow carnation, much to Joseph's amusement.

"If you behave, I might consider changing it back," Giorno added, and Josuke shrugged as he put the flower in his pocket.

"Gotta admit," he began, "That's a pretty damn useful ability you've got there."

"It has its uses," Giorno agreed, nodding, but then he sighed. "Though I can't express how much easier it would have been if we had your Crazy Diamond with us three years ago." The 'we could have saved everyone' part went unspoken, with Trish reaching over to squeeze his hand. They shared a brief smile, and Giorno looked back up when he realized that the mood surrounding the living room was quickly turn sour, and inwardly kicked himself.

"So! Polnareff!" Joseph exclaimed, breaking the silence. "What's it like working for the mafia?" On the couch, the ghost of Jean Pierre Polnareff emerged from the turtle he was possessing, and before he could get roped into their conversation, Giorno excused himself and made his way outside, and walked to the small bridge just ahead.

Instead of a traditional structure, the individual rooms of the Kujo household were divided up on the land, such as the living room and kitchen being in the center building, and the bedrooms in the surrounding ones. But what Giorno was mainly here for was what was outside—the sounds of the small river flowing underneath the bridge as well as the chatter of the various small animals in the area made it a prime location for thinking.

And think he did. He thought of how Mista and Sheila E. were handling things back home, and how Fugo was doing on his assignment in the United States. It was already now close to a month since he last heard from him, but truth be told it was starting to get worrying. Before he could ponder on it some more, the faint clicking of high heels to his right brought Giorno out of his thoughts, and turned to see Trish walking up next to him.

"They're...pretty lively," she said. "But I think I might've started pulling my hair out if I had to listen to Polnareff talk about building 'Polnareffland' one more time." Giorno smiled in amusement, and Trish sighed as she leaned on his shoulder. "This place is nice. We should get a house like this. Just for vacations."

Giorno gingerly took hold of her hand and brought it to his lips. "One day, amore mio. One day."

He might not ever be able to retire from Passione until his death, but he would be lying if he said he couldn't see himself and Trish living a comfortable life in suburbia, with one or two little ones running around the place. Maybe. Possibly.

He never thought he would consider finding a new family outside of his comrades (alive and otherwise) in Passione, and to be honest it was foolish on the Joestars' part for accepting him so quickly, but...it was nice, having blood-relations he actually didn't mind spending time around. Even if the circumstances that led to it was one of the strangest stories he had ever heard in his life.

Tenya didn't walk with them to school today.

It had to have taken the world's biggest idiot not to realize that it was because of the news of his brother's injury was affecting him. The news never said the extent of it, but Izuku knew it had to have been life-threatening enough if it meant having to leave the Sports Festival. As it was, he was ready to offer his help, just like he did with Yagi-sensei, and immediately made a beeline for his friend as soon as he spotted him in the classroom.

"Iida-kun."

Tenya turned around, and it was obvious just how forced the smile on his face was. "Good morning, Midoriya-kun. I apologize for worrying you guys yesterday. It turns out my brother was just—"

"I saw what happened on the news," Izuku interrupted. "Sorry."

"Oh." Tenya's face fell as he closed his eyes and breathed in, before opening them and looking back at Izuku. "He was...stabbed in the back while tracking down the Hero Killer. He might be permanently paralyzed." The silence that followed was beginning to turn uncomfortably deafening, but for Izuku, the situation was actually far from hopeless.

"I told you how my Quirk works, right?" he asked. "How it lets me create animals from non-living things?"

Tenya snorted. "It'd be a shock if anyone in the school didn't." Yeah, that was a good point. It was a shock finding out that him creating a bona fide European dragon had ended up making international news, and he even spent the better part of the night reading conspiracy theories on whether or not he was gonna try to take over the world.

More than a few comments ended up disturbing him to the point where he just immediately turned off his computer and vowed never to look up anything referencing himself ever again.

"Okay, so it's not just the animals themselves," Izuku continued. "I can make individual body parts and organs, including human ones."

It only took a second for understanding to dawn on Tenya's face. "Could...could you really...?"

Izuku nodded. "I've only ever made organs and other things like hands, but it wouldn't hurt to try."

"I..." He watched as Tenya visibly sagged in relief, before giving Izuku a slight smile. "...Thank you, Midoriya-kun. Even if it doesn't work...I appreciate that you tried. I couldn't ask anything more of you."

"It's no problem. Just let me know when the surgery is and I'll see what I can do." Tenya nodded in thanks, and Izuku made his way back to his desk right before Aizawa-sensei walked into the classroom to start the school day.

In the years that had passed since he first started creating and donating replacements organs and limbs, Musutafu General Hospital ended up becoming very popular in the international medical community, but because Izuku was a minor who (unofficially) also had connections to the top Japanese Hero, the hospital staff—and by extension, the Japanese government, were legally (and morally) obligated to make sure his identity was kept anonymous.

And because he may or may not have threatened to stop because of how much it put his mother at risk.

Normally, a transplant surgery would take at least two weeks to a month to finalize the schedule and paperwork, but for Pro Heroes, law enforcement, and first responders, their dates would get much higher priority. Izuku understood that it was because of how dangerous their jobs were, but he didn't have to like the fact that a six-year-old kid who desperately needed a heart transplant had to wait almost two months to finally get his surgery because of how the bureaucracy did things.

(And for some reason, a part of him wished he could 'go back to running things himself,' which along with all his other 'moments' made no sense at all.)

It was more than a piece of cake on his part to heal All Might and countless others, so what was reconnecting Ingenium's spine compared to that?

When Aizawa-sensei announced that they would be coming up with their Hero names, the entire rest of the class began to buzz with excitement, but for Tenya, all he could do was clench his fist and be reminded of what his brother told him just the night before.

"If you're up to it...I want you to be Ingenium..."

The words echoed in his head like a chant that never would never dissipate, and Tenya wanted to do good by Tensei and continue his work...but he couldn't. Not like this. Not when there was still a chance he could walk again and continue being Ingenium.

There was rarely a moment in his life where he even entertained the idea of being a hero when his brother couldn't. Sure, their grandfather founded Team Idaten decades ago, but the names Tensei and Ingenium were always synonymous to Tenya, and and for him to just take that away from Tensei...it was too much. His brother was more of a hero than he could ever hope to be, and if he had a choice, it would have been him who was paralyzed by Stain instead.

Until Midoriya-kun made the offer of reconnecting Tensei's spine. It still seemed too good to be true, even if Tenya witnessed undeniable proof of it himself when the other boy seemingly healed the gaping wound that came from being impaled by one of Todoroki's ice spikes.

"I want to be known as Goldstar—the Life Bringer!"

...The name was fitting, at least. Clearly based on the name he gave his ghost-Quirk, and it had a certain ring to it. Tenya clapped along quietly with the rest of the class as Midoriya-kun proudly displayed his Hero name. Bakugō-kun followed right after, with his name being 'Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight'. He had to suppress the snort that would have otherwise made itself known and very likely insult his friend, but it just seemed so much like something he would do that it was just too funny.

But eventually, everyone else had already gone and given their names, and Tenya was the only one left who hadn't given his. Kayama-sensei was looking at him expectantly, and he realized that he needed to make a decision now. With a deep breath, he opened the marker to write, and then walked up to the podium presenting the name he chose.

'I'm sorry, nī-san, but I can't. Not when you can still be Ingenium.'

Given how their family's Quirk made them eternally predisposed for car-themed Heroes, Tensei would always joke about how Tenya was basically a human racecar, given how much he loved running around the track behind their house, and from it, came the name his brother had originally suggested for him.

"Get ready for the newest addition to Team Idaten! Say hello to—"

"—The Racing Hero: Initial Drift, huh?" Kayama-sensei said, before smiling at him. "Well done, Iida-kun."

He had a lot of offers.

Obviously, Izuku knew that he had to have at least a few offers based on his overall performance in the Sports Festival, but the fact that he ended up getting a little over four hundred ended up throwing him for a loop at first. And yet it still paled in comparison to Katsuki getting over three-thousand, something he was just a little bit jealous over (not that he gave it much thought—there wasn't any point for feeling bitter over your best friend's hard work).

Part of him even expected for Yagi-sensei to send him an offer, but in hindsight, there wasn't really anything left to learn from him, besides inheriting One For All—not that it was still on the table, because it didn't really need to be passed on anymore.

At the end of the day, there was really only one choice that would get him the answers he was looking for.

'There it is.' The way the internship offers were listed in descending order based off of the heroes' individual ranking on the Japanese Hero Billboard Chart, and after skimming through the first hundred-or-so names, decided to skip all the way to the very end of the list. Just as he expected, the name he expected to find was dead last because it didn't classify on any Hero rankings.

409. The Speedwagon Foundation

"...What's a Stand?"

"Imagine a ghost-like being that can just appear in front of you whenever you want it to," Kūjō began. "You have the ability to control its every action within its limitations with just a single thought, from fighting outside of their physical range to wearing it like armor. And while you can see it clear as day, most, if not everyone else around you couldn't. Any of these ring a bell?"

Izuku didn't answer. How could he, when what the man in front of him described matched perfectly with his own experiences? Growing up, he and everyone else who tried to study Gold Experience always thought the way it functioned was unique to him, and here came someone who told him it wasn't all that special.

But how exactly could he have known about any of that? Did he have a 'Stand' of his own? In the span of a few seconds, Izuku decided to summon Gold Experience to get a reaction from the man, but when neither he nor Principal Nezu showed none whatsoever, he immediately recalled it.

Kūjō, however, continued regardless. "Have you ever wondered why it was that no one else could see your Quirk? How some kid from Musutafu could get a dual-aspect Quirk that wasn't the result of a Quirk marriage?"

Rhetorical the questions may have been, but Izuku answered with a question of his own. "How do you know about all this?"

"We've known about Stands well before you were born," Kūjō replied. "You could even say we were the first to document them. But what concerns me, is the fact that you, of all people, somehow developed one when there hasn't been a single record of any new Stand users for more than a century—not since Quirks first started showing up."

"So what, are you saying these 'Stand' things are a different set of powers from Quirks or something?" Izuku asked. Only a handful of the Quirk doctors he had been to over the years all told him he had the double-joint in his pinky toe, but that he also had the necessary genes for Quirk activation. So while he definitely wasn't powerless, did that mean he was technically Quirkless?

(For a moment, he wondered how Katsuki would feel about this information.)

Kūjō inclined his head. "You could say that. I could tell you more, but sharing extremely classified information."

Ah. He knew where this was going. "You want to run tests on me, and in exchange, you'll tell me anything I want to know about Stands."

"Precisely. To be specific, I'm personally extending an invitation for you to spend your internship week at our Hosu location."

Izuku blinked. "...My what, now?"

"Oh, right, sorry," Kūjō said, chuckling. "Looks like I just spoiled you."

"Has your class been told about what exactly the Sports Festival was for?" Principal Nezu interjected.

"Um...scouting, I think?"

Principal Nezu nodded. "Yes. Specifically, they're scouting for student internships that will be taking place in two weeks after the Sports Festival."

...Huh. That actually made a lot of sense, come to think of it. But that didn't really explain what a Speedwagon Foundation researcher was doing here, or why it was he was telling him that his Quirk was actually something called a 'Stand'.

"Why are you so sure I actually have a Stand?"

"Because all the signs point to you having one," Kūjō replied. "I wouldn't make this offer to just any teenager with an invisible ghost, kid. And besides, no one but us would have the resources available to help you fully make sense of your Stand. It's in the Foundation's best interests to understand as soon as possible why exactly there's been a new Stand user after all this time."

He shifted the rim of his hat. "I understand we're not exactly anyone's first choice in a Hero internship, and in the very unlikely event that it's proven you really don't have one, we still have the resources available to improve your proficiency with your...Quirk." The way he said 'Quirk' showed just how absolutely sure he was that what Izuku had wasn't one. "And there are several Underground Heroes directly employed under the Foundation, so you wouldn't be missing out on building experience for the Hero course."

Hm...it was tempting. Like really, really tempting. But did he really want to go through with this? Was there really no one else who could help him understand why Gold Experience was the way it was?

"Can I think about it?"

"Of course. But if you need a second opinion, you can go ask my nephew, Tokoyami Fumikage. I'm told you two are friends."

Wait, what?

They asked him if he was sure. He wasn't exactly sure, himself.

Katsuki couldn't believe he never actually picked any of his offers. Ochako wanted to know more about why the Speedwagon Foundation wanted him if it wasn't for the Hero internship. Fumikage just said that he would have to go there sooner or later, so it was best to just go now. Tenya asked if there was something both of them should be telling everyone else.

"Don't tell my uncle I told you this, but there used to be another way to get a Stand without having to be born with one. It's how several of my ancestors got theirs."

Fumikage then told him about the Stand Arrows, about how it was apparently an alien virus that was in the meteorite itself that made it possible for anyone to awaken one...as long as they were mentally and spiritually strong enough to fight said virus. If they weren't, then they died. But if they lived, then that meant they had a power unique to themselves. And in a world of Quirks, an un-documentable ability meant going unchecked, and then it was all a slippery slope from there.

Or so he was told.

He wanted to tell his friends everything. He really did. But Kūjō-sensei and Fumikage stressed multiple times about how important it was that Stands (especially the Stand Arrows) remain a secret, which didn't exactly make sense. If basically no one's ever gotten one over such a long period of time, then what was the harm in telling his closest friends about them?

Nothing, really. He wanted to at least tell Ochako about them and see what she had to say, but for some reason there was something that was telling him that she shouldn't know yet.

All it would take was for some random passerby to overhear, or for him to speak just a little bit too loud, or for one of them to slip up in front of someone. All it needed to take was for the wrong person to catch wind, and all of a sudden it meant that there was a chance at . And if said wrong person managed to get ahold of an Arrow, then that was bad. You could easily gain traction and influence in the criminal underworld.

And while it did qualify as his secret to tell, Izuku knew there were much larger things at play.

(But surely someone would have already done so at some point in history?)

It was either he spent his week studying and determining Gold Experience's true nature (and if possible, further training in how best to utilize it), or spending the internship with a Pro Hero who would help him with something he wanted in regards to Hero work, he had a feeling very few would be willing to help him with how to use what he had as a Hero, which was how soon after arriving at the Hosu train station, Izuku found himself sitting across Kūjō-sensei in a limo on the way to an SPW facility.

"We're obviously not going to be running tests for the whole week," he told him. "It'll mostly be cross-referencing with the information we already have for probably about a day at most, and then experimenting with how else you could improve with yours. You'll also have access to the gym and training facilities on-site."

"Okay," Izuku said. "But who exactly am I gonna be interning with?"

"You'll find out when we get there. He said he wanted to meet you himself."

'Okay, then.' The rest of the ride passed by in relative silence, with Izuku texting his friends on how their own internships were going, and looking out the window at the scenery of the city. A side glance at Kūjō-sensei showed that the man was busy in a call. Some more time passed, and Izuku could see in the distance a building so large with a dome at the top, that it looked almost like a clone of the USJ.

When the limo finally stopped at the front of the building, Izuku and Kūjō-sensei got out and walked through an automatic sliding door into the main lobby. But instead of walking up to the receptionist at the end of the hallway, they immediately went to an elevator. He watched as the man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a key, before inserting it into the elevator's control panel and turning it, then pressed some of the numbers.

The elevator started moving after that, and where he expected it to go up, it was actually going down, with the screen that displayed the floor numbers started going down from 1. When the number reached -4, the doors opened to reveal numerous workers, scientists, and other people bustling about the area.

"Welcome to the Research of Supernatural Phenomena level," Kūjō-sensei said. They continued walking, and Izuku saw how there were a multitude of things being experimented on and developed, from a group of people watching a chimpanzee playing the piano, to even someone shooting what looked like a laser rifle. But what really caught his attention was one window near the end of the hallway, where he could see a blurred shape inside a metal box with a single dark-tinted window.

Curiosity ended up getting the better of him. With a thought, he summoned Gold Experience to manifest over himself, and used its eyes to get a closer look at the object. Now that the sight was much clearer, he could see that it was actually a stone head surrounded by multiple blue-colored lights all throughout the inside frame, and that looked to be...broken off, as if someone took a hammer and broke off everything else. And what was more, he could even feel it in proximity to himself—but it couldn't be alive, could it?

And what was part of a statue doing being covered by all these lights?

"That would be good ol' Santana," Kūjō-sensei said, breaking the silence and answering his unspoken question. "Last of the Pillar Men. You ever heard of 'em, kid?"

Izuku looked at him in confusion. "Um, no...? I don't think so, at least." The 'Pillar Men' must have been the name of an old Hero group or something—but that still didn't explain what that bust was doing there.

"Well, depending on how everything goes, I'll tell you all about it." Turning around, Kūjō-sensei gestured for Izuku to follow him. "Now come on—we're kind of on a schedule here, so we'll need to get started soon."

Chapter Text

For a good chunk of his life growing up, Toshinori had always felt a bit...off compared to other children his age, with a teacher of his once mentioning that he tended to act very formal around classmates and adults. Being Quirkless wasn't all that rare back then, but his attitude combined with this apparent disability led to several adults treating him with a strange, sort-of delicateness at times.

The fact that he hadn't had the best (or even the most stable) home life didn't help, either. While his parents were reasonably well-off, both of them were also workaholics and preferred instead to leave him in the care of babysitters, and then in the company of video games and reheatable frozen foods once he was old enough to look after himself.

While it almost led to him developing extremely poor social skills, his near-constant access to the internet also opened his eyes to the state of the world, and ignited a desire to do something about it, Quirk or no Quirk.

Which eventually resulted in him meeting Shimura Nana—the hero Blackbird, and the mother he always wanted (his true mother, he would think to himself, when he had finally given up on having a good relationship with his biological one, after his parents had divorced and remarried). He confided in her his desire to be the kind of hero that people could look to and trust to keep them safe and be someone who could always be relied on.

Apparently that had been enough for her to decide to give him One for All, and passed it on to him some months before U.A.'s entrance exam. However, at the very moment the Quirk fully integrated itself into his body, it also helped to uncover something locked within the recesses of his psyche: the memories of Jonathan Joestar, as well as all the emotional baggage that came along with them.

The excitement of finally having a Quirk was almost completely overshadowed by the overwhelming grief at the realization that his wife and child were long since dead. Hours were spent wallowing in his bitter sadness, wistfully thinking of the life he could have had with the two of them, and even wishing he could trade this new life for more time in his previous one.

By pure chance, he ended up coming across the existence of the Speedwagon Foundation, and as he read through the organization's history and everything it had accomplished over the years (centuries, actually), his astonishment at finding out his once-friend Robert had made such a name for himself very quickly turned into curiosity, and then a burning desire to find out what had happened to Erina.

But as he expected, he found almost nothing regarding her, or the immediate days since Dio's alleged attack and his first death, all those years ago. But he did, however, stumble upon the short biography of George Joestar II (his son), numerous articles and internet entries of Joseph Joestar (his grandson), and the theses and published research of Kūjō Jōtarō (his great-great grandson).

(It was only much later on, when he became All Might and eventually revealed himself to the SPW of the modern era, was he able to find out the truth of the Pillar Men, Dio's survival, and Higashikata Josuke's parentage).

So much had happened with his family and friends, and he was content with the fact that they all had lived fulfilling lives, as much as he wanted to have been a part of them. So he decided to put that life behind him and instead focus on the future ahead of this one, but the pain of what he never could have had always stayed with him, no matter what.

When Nana was killed by All for One, Toshinori wondered what would happen to her son. His willingness to respect and heed her last wish to stay away from him heavily conflicted with Jonathan Joestar's caring nature and virtuous morality, but in the end, his respect for his mentor won out over Jonathan's desire to have a large family, for better or for worse.

But it wasn't until years later after making a name for himself in the United States and returning to Japan, that Toshinori was forced to confront both of his pasts once again, when he found his friend David Shield in possession of a bizarrely-adorned golden arrow, on the same day one Kūjō Jōshirō was sent to I-Island to retrieve it.

"I...I don't know what to say."

"How many times do we have to go over this, Toshinori?" his companion sighed.

Currently, he and Jōshirō were currently reviewing all the information the latter had collected on Midoriya Izuku, who was currently letting loose among several training robots. From the one-way mirror, they watched as he dismantled each and every robot with a combination of what, to an outsider, looked like a combination of enhanced strength and telekinesis. But obviously, the two of them knew the most likely truth behind the boy's power.

"Okay, Midoriya, that's good enough for now," Jōshirō called out into the intercom. "You're free for the next hour or two while we figure out a couple things on our end." He watched as Midoriya-shōnen gave him a silent thumbs up as he stood there and stretched for a moment, before he sat down and quickly started downing a bottle of water.

The clacking sound of a keyboard forced Toshinori's gaze away from his student, and he turned to see Jōshirō clicking and typing away at his computer, before he moved his hand to a white, circular pedestal on his right. After pressing a button, the small lights decorating the pedestal lit up, showing a holographic image of a golden, humanoid being.

"Everything Midoriya's said about Gold Experience matches Giorno Giovanna's Stand, down to the smallest detail," he said. "Hell, even the names are the same. If you're still not convinced that kid right there—" He tapped the window with his pen, before pointing to a photo of Giorno standing with Kūjō Jōtarō and his family. "—and Giorno are the same people, then I really don't know what to do with you."

Toshinori said nothing as he continued staring at the two-dimensional image hand-drawn by Kūjō Jōtarō, with his eyes going back and forth from it to the monitor that was now showing a transcription of Midoriya-shōnen's verbal description of his 'Quirk'.

A helmeted, golden figure that appeared to have small wings on its shoulders.

Several purple, ladybug-like brooches adorned throughout its body.

The fact that it repeatedly yelled out the word 'useless' as a battle cry.

("Don't you see, JoJo? Your Ripple training is useless, useless, useless, useless, USELESS!")

If the kid really was a Stand user, then he was the second one Toshinori had ever actually met in person, but all signs pointed to him having naturally manifested it like a Quirk in his case. And if Stands were supposed to be the personification of the soul's innate fighting spirit, then two different people sharing the exact same Stand could only mean...

"But he's..." The words Dio's son went unspoken, and yet it was clear by the other man's slow nod that he understood.

"And him being born in the first place was because Dio used Jonathan's body to do it. Your body," Jōshirō retorted. "You know this."

...yes, he did. When he first found out about Dio's true fate, he cursed his former brother's name over and over for roping Joseph and the rest of his family into his schemes and nearly killing them, but all he felt now was nothing but pity for the man who sought for nothing but power, and for the children he had left fatherless and whose fates were left unknown.

All except for one.

Intellectually, Toshinori had no clue as to why he was still so opposed to all this—for as much as he tried to stay impartial between both him and Bakugō-shōnen, he had long since started to care for Midoriya-shōnen in a way he felt only a parent could. Like how his own mentor cared for him.

So why was it he was still struggling so hard to think of him like a son now?

He tried to get his hands on as much information on Giorno Giovanna as he could, the first time he found out. Over and over, he toyed with the idea of meeting the man in his head, of how they could have had some sort of familial relationship, and whether or not he would have turned out to be more like Dio...or more like Jonathan.

"How...how could this have happened?" Toshinori whispered.

Jōshirō snorted. "You tell me," he replied, leaning back into his chair. "How did Jonathan Joestar and Higashikata Josuke end up reincarnating into the same relative time period when they died centuries apart?"

...and wasn't that the million-dollar question? He had been denied the chance to live out his days with Erina and watch George and Joseph grow up, and now, hundreds of years later, he now suddenly had the chance to get to know some of his descendants and someone who could maybe be his son? Why? What reason was there for him to be so fortunate?

He had never once believed in fate, or of any sort of divine guidance. As Jonathan, he couldn't subscribe to Christianity the more he learned about what the other people of the world believed in, and even in the face of life-threatening danger, he dismissed Dio's vampiric tirades of fate and providence as the ramblings of a madman.

So all of that, combined with Toshinori's Shinto upbringing, led to something that could only be defined as confusion. And it was at this point, that some miniscule, traitorous part of his mind wished he had never reawakened these memories in the first place—that Yagi Toshinori was all he was and will ever be.

What even was his life...?

A loud buzzer rang throughout the training area, signifying the start of the next wave in the exercise.

With the cacophony of whirring sounds reverberating all around him, Izuku took a brief moment to quickly check his sides and back, confirming that he was being surrounded on all sides by the training robots. Wordlessly, he clenched his fist in anticipation as he watched them move closer and closer (even faster than he anticipated, since it was the fifth wave now), but he still stayed calm and kept waiting for the right moment.

Not yet...

His eyes narrowed when he saw several of the robots' arms split apart and begin spinning, which made for a pretty menacing sight. But still, he stayed put. Even when two of the robots that were hovering off the ground started moving faster than the rest, he stayed put.

Not yet...

More and more, the robots came ever closer to him, but it wasn't until they were within arm's reach, did he finally make his move.

NOW...!

"MUDA! MUDA!"

With its signature battle cry, Gold Experience's arms flew forward at faster-than-lightning speeds. Izuku watched intently as his ethereal companion made short work of the robots in front of him, only needing to punch each of them once to disable them, before moving on to the ones on his sides. Consequently, this meant that the robot behind him would be dealt with last, but all it took was a simple recall and a command to attack behind him in order to neutralize it, in the end.

Where some of the robots had been standing or hovering, all of them were now nothing but piles of scrap metal on the ground, doing nothing but shutting down as the bright glows where their 'heads' were dimmed out, and the whirring sounds slowed to a stop, with the holes in each of them occasionally spurting out bursts of blue electricity from the torn-and-exposed wires.

"Okay, Midoriya, that's good enough for now. You're free for the next hour or two while we figure out a couple things on our end."

Izuku gave a silent thumbs-up to the large mirror (but was also obviously a one-way mirror), before he took a moment to stretch out his arms and torso a bit, and then moving towards the benches by the other side of the large room, sitting down and eagerly downing the water bottle he had left there when he first came in.

To be honest, this wasn't a bad workout at all. Even if he did have to start with constantly stress-testing what Gold Experience could and couldn't handle for the SPW's records (according to Kūjō-sensei), at least he was finally able to let loose somewhat after all of that. Even if it wasn't tailor-made for pure combat training like what U.A.'s private Quirk gyms, he could see that a lot of the tech used was either state-of-the-art or not publicly released yet, if at all.

Still, though, he concluded, looking down at his legs—did he have to make him run on the treadmill that fast? Through all his practice over the year spent training with Katsuki and All Might, he hadn't once been able to break through the increase the upper limit of how much he was able to handle when wearing Gold Experience over himself like armor, and his legs ached at the memory of having torn through most of the muscles and ligaments.

(It really wasn't something he'd like to go through again. Sorry if the data was a bit skewed because of it, Kūjō-sensei.)

He would, however, admit that it was kind of funny, when it looked like he could lift hundreds of kilos of weights, all on his own.

Izuku took a deep breath and audibly exhaled, then brought the bottle up to his lips and swished the water around in his mouth for a moment, before finally swallowing it. He then stood up and wiped himself down as much as he could with the towel he brought with him, before walking up to the trash bin to throw the bottle away and making his way back to his assigned room.

First a shower, and then something to eat. All that moving around left him with a pretty big appetite. It was still too early in the day for eating a substantial amount of food, but he figured he could make do with a light snack, especially since he most likely had more training and testing to go back to once Kūjō-sensei was done with whatever he was doing.

After a shower and subsequently wolfing down some premade onigiri he brought from school, Izuku was now back in his room and passing the rest of his break time by flipping through his notebook and trying to write down anything new he could come up with...the keyword being try, considering how he gave up not even a few minutes later.

...this was going to be a rough week, wasn't it?

Sure, given what this place was publicly known for (and after all the weird things he had seen after stepping onto the elevator), then he had no real reason to doubt Kūjō-sensei's words. That said, however, he was still pretty curious on what else he could learn about Stands, even if he would still get to intern under a Hero.

Which reminded him—when exactly was he supposed to bring that up? He didn't want to come across as rude and impatient if he decided to ask about that so soon after arriving here, but like...hindsight was twenty-twenty, after all, and what exactly could he get out of this besides practice that didn't exactly push his limits with Gold Experience?

The lack of being able to use his phone was seriously amplifying his boredom, he finally realized. He already knew that he wasn't allowed to record or take pictures of anything down here, but that didn't mean he had to like it—his hands were itching for some entertainment, and he didn't exactly have enough time to ask Kūjō-sensei if there was a library and permission to go to the upper levels.

Say, how was everyone else doing with their own internships right now? He already knew Ochako wanted to work on her hand-to-hand with Gunhead, Fumikage went with Hawks, and Katsuki wanted to try out interning with Endeavor, of all people alongside Todoroki Shōto.

But as for Tenya? He wasn't sure. Ever since he brought up healing his older brother's injuries, his friend had continued to be oddly distant with the rest of them, like he was thinking about something. And when Izuku tried to bring up internships, Tenya had simply brushed him off, telling him that he hadn't made a decision yet.

( "All Might...do you know anyone called Giorno Giovanna?")

And then there was that issue, Izuku remembered, clicking his tongue in annoyance.

He couldn't exactly remember the exact date when he started thinking about the foreign name, but after getting nowhere by searching it up on the internet, he ended up having to resort to telling All Might and Katsuki about it. Except that went nowhere, either—he tried to bring it up with All Might after the Sports Festival a few times, but he always either ended up being oddly evasive about it, or kept trying to change the subject.

And so that, combined with his Gold Experience actually never having been a Quirk in the first place, meant that there was another thing he wasn't being told about, but what? What else was there to himself that led to All Might starting to walk around tiptoes around him, and what did it have to do with 'Giorno Giovanna'?

He sighed. All of this was getting him more than a little irritated, to be honest. Maybe he should just go back to the training area until—

BWEEP! BWEEP! BWEEP!

...?!

Izuku's head snapped towards where he had heard the noise coming from: the small screen attached to the side of the door to his room. Once originally a sleek black when he first went inside, it was now repeatedly pulsing a bright red and displaying the words 'Emergency Call From: Lobby'.

With the rhythmic noises and lights only adding to his sense of urgency, he immediately stood up and quickly rushed to it, placing his finger on the green telephone icon and swiping right to answer it, and the screen changed to show the face of a woman, who he vaguely recognized as the main lobby's receptionist.

"Midoriya-kun!" she exclaimed. "There's been reports of a widespread Villain attack in the city! I was told to tell you to get changed and join the Heroes by the elevator, ASAP!" With that, she immediately hung up, ending the video call, and leaving Izuku to stand there dumbfounded as he processed what he was just told.

"...eh?! Under attack?!"

He only pondered the words for another second, before he finally shook his head to clear his thoughts so he could focus on the urgency of the situation and the fact that he needed to get changed. Immediately. Rushing over to the other side of the room, he picked up the briefcase containing his costume and placed it on his bed, before opening it and then taking his own shirt and pants off. Less than a minute later, he was fully dressed, and decided to give himself a quick once-over.

Boots fastened on tight? Check.

Bit of stretching to see if the new coat fit him? Check.

Jumping around and stretching to make sure he could move properly? Check.

The original design of his Hero costume had been too simplistic, and there was just quite too much green, because it was his favorite color. But right after the attack at the USJ, he wanted to add a few things to make it stand out more, even using a bit of inspiration from Gold Experience during the process. The result was something that was still the same general shape as what he was originally using, but now something that more closely resembled an archaic western military uniform.

With that, he opened the door and started jogging, using the directions of the signs on the walls to make his way to the elevator. Just as he made his last turn and slowed to a faster-than-normal walking pace, he suddenly stopped as he was met with the sight of multiple Pro Heroes (about eight of them) grouped up around the elevator and making conversation with each other.

He should introduce himself.

Izuku took a step forward. "Excuse—"

"Midoriya. You're with me."

A voice from somewhere to his right calling out his name stopped him in his tracks, and as Izuku turned to see where the (strangely familiar) voice had come from, his eyes widened when he saw who exactly called out to him.

Izuku could only do nothing but blink as he eyed the figure up and down. The person in question was wearing all black, from black military boots and combat pants, even to the black shirt, black gloves and something that looked like body armor (wait was that kevlar?). But when he saw the black mask with a thick, gray 'x' marked over where the mouth was, he finally realized the name of the Hero he was looking at.

"You're..."

Kūjō-sensei nodded. "Yeah. I'm Nostradamus." Without another word, he put the mask up to his face and fastened it, before moving forward and tapping Izuku on the shoulder as he kept walking. "Ask your questions later. Right now, we need to get going and help contain the situation."

Izuku continued to stare at him in shock for another moment, before he finally processed the words and blinked back into awareness.

"Uh, right!"

So the head researcher for the secret Speedwagon division was also a secret Underground Hero. Who'd have thought?

Without another word, he jogged forward until he was matching Kūjō-sensei in pace, and continued following the man as they reached the end of the hallway, but where he expected to go to where the elevator was located, they ended up actually going in the opposite direction, until they finally stopped at...

A wall.

A wall that Kūjō-sensei leaned into until his face was right up against it, to which he saw a faint but still noticeable beam of light shoot out and stay on his eyes for about a second or two, before it soon retracted. Almost immediately after, a large section of the wall seemed to just move in on itself, until it separated from the middle to reveal a small, rectangular room with built-in handrails.

Kūjō-sensei walked inside, making a gesture for Izuku to follow, and once he reached the end and turned around, was he finally able to see the panel of numbers and letters.

(Ah, so it was a wall that led to a secret elevator, probably even to a secret exit. At least that made sense now.)

Once Kūjō-sensei pressed a button (and the doors finally closed), the silence between them continued for a few more moments, before he finally said something.

"Since we're too far away from the main city to get there in time, we'll need to go by chopper. Also, you might want to hold on to those rails."

Izuku's eyebrows raised at the man's words. "What do you—woah!"

Whenever you went on an elevator, the usual experience was for a slight pushing sensation towards your feet since you were obviously being lifted up, and the same was true for the one they were in right now. Only, it was also lifting them up much faster than he expected. He even ended up almost losing his balance and had to use Gold Experience just to stay upright.

Kūjō-sensei, meanwhile, continued to stay calmly standing, and looked to be going through a last-minute check through his costume and gear.

(He would've asked if this was legal, but given the state of the entire floor they were just at, it wouldn't have exactly been a smart question.)

Around five seconds later, the speed felt bearable enough to where Izuku could now comfortably stand on his own, and after another five, the elevator quickly came to a stop, and its doors open, leading to the rooftop of the building. And true to Kūjō-sensei's words, there was a helicopter sitting right up ahead. The two of them walked out, and once they were stopped and stood right next to it, the two of them were led inside.

As the two of them fastened their seat belts, the slow thumping sound of the helicopter was now picking up, and before long, they were finally up in the air and racing towards downtown Hosu, and Izuku grimly noted how he could easily see the orange glow and the smoke rising up in the distance.

Chapter Text

This author's note is too long to include at the end of ch 17, so I decided to post it as its own thing.

In the three years since I started writing this fic, it very quickly turned into one of the most popular JJBA x MHA crossovers (at one point, it was the fastest-growing xover in its category). Suffice to say, that popularity really got to my head as a writer, and resulted in a whole lot of decisions I now regret making, because I was focused on maintaining interest surrounding this fic.

My increasing workload in school and desire to just play video games instead is largely what resulted in my extremely long breaks throughout the entirety of 2021, and the advent of a few new crossovers that I unfortunately can't take the time to properly develop into fully-fledged fics without taking time away from the ones I'm currently working on now.

This fic, overall, is the third fanfic I've ever written at the time it first came out (you can't find the first two since I deleted them), but as I came back to writing and regularly posting with my Re:Zero x MHA fic, I've noticed several glaring issues with the JJBA x MHA one.

1) Giorno!Izuku's personality early on

The way he is way too close to canon, especially considering that he would, at best, be a bit cocky because he lacked the mistreatment canon Bakugō and others would give him because he was Quirkless, but because he for all intents and purposes isn't, he shouldn't be so meek and passive in his daily life, because he would have been considered second to only Bakugō, and the fact that they grew up as best friends here would result in their personalities rubbing off on each other.

2) The near-constant use of summaries

I mainly did this so I could more easily churn out chapters when I was first starting out, and largely because I couldn't do my own spin on static canon events without following them to a T, so I always ended up either skipping them or very briefly summarizing them. Skill issue, I know.

3) Including important reveals way early on than is necessary

As of right now, chapter 11 is where this story has peaked, with the USJ attack resulting in the reveal of All Might as the reincarnation of Jonathan Joestar...and the reveal of All for One as Dio/DIO. Suffice to say, I regret this entirely. Not the reveal itself, but where in the story I placed it, because now the entire audience knows what's about to go down, and I can't take that back as a writer who got good in the year I've been on hiatus from this fic.

4) Buffing Gold Experience's ability to include mythical creatures

At the time, I pushed it off in the sense that I'll worry about it in the future, but now that that future is here, I'm a bit at a loss at what to do, because there needs to be a balance when it comes to the power creep and the power scaling of MHA's battle shōnen story formula.

Ultimately, I could just leave all the previous chapters as-is and address changes from chapters 17 and onwards in beginning/ending author's notes, but fuck all that. Even when I have even less free time than I did 2 years ago, I still want to look back on this fic and actually bear to reread it, because as of right now, it's a bit too cringe for me to sit through in one sitting.

So now I ask you readers this: should I go back and rewrite where I think this fic is lacking? Or should I only fix some of the formatting so that they're consistent with how my writing style is now?