Corruption of Power

One could only dream of being a hero, to be able to stand strong against obstacles, to protect those who were innocent, to be worth something. In this world though, that dream can be a reality. With a population that is teeming with unique powers at every face the Every child dreamed of it at some point in their lives, and no one dreamed harder than one boy who no one believed could do it.

Izuku Midoriya, a quirkless nine year old boy who had no special powers, but so desperately wanted to become a hero. He was laughed at, mocked, and even beaten by someone he called his best friend.

"So why couldn't you tell me about this sooner?" A woman with long green hair and pale skin pleaded with the boy sitting next to her by the campfire. He had a large bandage covering over his cheek, his hand itching the surrounding area. The shy attempt to hide behind his own emerald eyes behind his sacramento green curls didn't work with his mother.

"They're just playing."

"You're covered in cuts, bruises, and even burns." The mother grabbed the nearby marshmallows, stuffing them into her mouth as she tried not to think about the calories she continued to stockpile. "It's nice that you don't want them to get in trouble, but you have to tell a teacher about how rough they are."

"I did."

"You did? And what did they say?"

"They say 'they're only playing', 'stop provoking them', 'just because you don't have a quirk to play with doesn't mean the others should stop'-"

Distraught rose in her gut, the woman unable to take any more of the awful things she was hearing happening to her son. Now she really appreciated this trip out to the country, far away from the cities, because she couldn't even stomach to dropping him off at that school again.

Maybe she should start homeschooling him.

A distant rumbling made her look up, nothing but the crimson sky of the sunset illuminating the woods. It must have been the wind that-

*BOOM*

Something shot across the sky, splitting the clouds as it barreled over their heads.

"What was that?" Izuku's question beat her to the thought, Inko instantly worrying about the child who was prone to rushing off to hero fights.

"It might have been a meteor."

"Woooah." His awe was adorable, helping to release the fear that was momentarily present.

*BANG*

A ear shattering noise slammed into them, the air throwing anything not tied down across the grass. Inko nearly fell down, quickly grabbing the stump she was sitting on to not be thrown away. Izuku though, wasn't as lucky being less than half her weight.

He rolled between the trees, grass and dirt kicking against his small body as his limbs flailed to find a way to stop his momentum.

"ALL FOR ONE!" A fiery voice bellowed overhead. "I WILL END YOU!"

The voice was so familiar to Izuku, one he had listened to thousands of times, but never with such hostility.

But there was just a hearty chuckle in response. "Maybe in a couple of generations you would have enough strength to beat me, but your impatience to kill me has brought my brother back to me. A family reunion, too bad your mentor isn't here to-"

"SILENCE!"

A crack of the air leveled the forest in front of Izuku, his head shaking as it kept ringing with a high pitched scream. Twigs stuck into his skin, and he couldn't even feel them over the force that slammed into him.

"Kid, hey kid!"

He could barely hear the random old man who was shaking him. He was dressed like a hero, but none he recognized with the yellow cape and puffy banana gloves with boots.

"You gotta get out of here, now!"

Cane pointing away from the scene, Izuku couldn't really tell what he needed to be doing. Just nodding along, pretending to know what was happening as his body was starting to realize the damage it was suffering.

Then in a puff the old hero was gone, bounding between trees. Glancing to where the man pointed earlier, he started to shift his feet towards that direction to-

*CRASH*

Thrown away yet again by the unseen force, he couldn't argue against it as he tried to figure out what was up and what was down. The answer finally came as his chest thumped itself against the cleared forest floor, his lungs throwing out everything inside of them.

"GAH!"

Adrenaline was keeping him awake and moving, Izuku's small hands grabbing onto the mulch under him to pull against the forces of gravity. The ground was more wet than he first thought, and the brown was looking a lot more dark.

Rubbing his eye against his shoulder, Izuku tried to discover just what was happening. The forest was disappearing, the wind is using him like a rag doll, and there was something so familiar about it all. Yet there was so much dust he couldn't make out what any of it was.

"Hmm, such a stubborn quirk. No matter how far I dig in you I can't seem to pry it out-"

"RAAAAAHHHH!"

The ground left under Izuku's feet, any particle within a mile radius was ejected from existence all around him. Even if his ears didn't work, he was able to feel the sudden crack that rang through his body when he rediscovered the planet.

It wasn't his eyes that weren't working anymore, it was his brain. It had to be, because only in the far corners of imagination could he be seeing All Might, the muscled hero with the long blond bangs, soaked in blood and kneeling before a suited body that was missing a head.

All Might huffed, a glob of blood and a chunk of flesh fell from his mouth. Carefully, he reached for the man's arm that was still lodged in his gut. Teeth gritting to the point of being audible, he ripped it out of himself along with spilling his literal guts.

"All Might!" Rushing to help the hero, Izuku ignored the pool of blood under his torn shoes. Coming closer and closer to the scene, a limp in his leg grew worse.

One of the mighty fists reached out to All Might's side, weakly grabbing the boy's outstretched arm. The blood rushing from his knuckles made contact with the cuts littering the noticeably smaller arm. "Is he dead?"

The eyes of the child briefly turned to the man under the hero, but they were still the eyes of a child, and they could have never allowed him to acknowledge this. "I-I-I don't k-k-know."

"Then…" All Might coughed, hardly able to keep breathing. "You…need to finish him."

The power held by numerous hosts found a new one, but its body was hardly able to hold everything it had. The will of heroes past, the fight that echoed across the centuries, the power that sought peace, the souls of those wishing for a future out of evil's grasp.

It was so much that there was no way the weak youth could carry it all.

So it adapted, instead of simply adding each and every strength, power, and compressed them into one single strand to fill the empty vessel. It had to let go of memories, of thoughts, of nearly everything that could keep their individuality. Finally, it had to go beyond the quirk gene, it had to embed itself into every fiber of his cells.

The results wouldn't be instant, and there was no guarantee it would be able to move to the next host after this. So, it would turn this one into the best wielder of One for All there could ever be.

"Mom!" Izuku continued to move his feet, no matter how much it hurt. He was scared, and not even sure what was happening anymore. The last he remembered was a campfire, and then it all hurt. "Moooom!"

"Izuku!"

He could still hear her, but she was nowhere in sight. Following her voice, he made his way through the dark night with the towering trees peering down on him.

Pushing past one of the branches, Izuku couldn't care about how it was a part of the dead tree that weighed thousands of pounds. It moved just as easily as a branch.

Stepping out into the dirt road, Izuku turned his head around to try and relocate the voice of his mother. The night sky began to grow lighter, shadows hiding the stars becoming vibrant red clouds.

"Mom?!"

"Izuku!"

Once spotting her son out in the open, Inko rushed over to embrace her son. "Oh Izuku! I was so scared for you! I don't know what happened or where you were, but YOU'RE COVERED IN BLOOD!"

The frantic mother ran over her boy with her hands, trying to find where the grievous injury was. Not his arms, not his torso, not his legs, nowhere on his burning skin could she find….any wounds. Placing one last hand on his cheek, she finally felt what was wrong.

He felt too warm, almost burning her hand.

Past the road, the sun was finally peering over the horizon behind the boy. Even with the light illuminating his skin, all she could worry about was his well being. "Oh, you must have gotten sick out there all night. Come on, as soon as I find a signal we're going to get home and get you to bed."

"Ok mom."

Inko latched onto his hand, the two walking with one another down the dirt road with the new day sun to light their way. It wasn't a paved path, but a rocky road that the two had no choice but to move down.

Six Years Later

Watching, waiting, and preparing was all they had done for years. Helping to maintain the peace that All Might established, that had been threatened in recent months. His career had been slowly lessening over time, his work as a hero shortening every day until not even fifteen minutes of the hero could appear in public.

The villain attack of UA, a student and a teacher dead.

Stains string of murders and the nomu attack at Hosu city, heroes and another UA student dead.

The collapse of I-island.

An attack at UA's training camp, even more dead and two kidnapping victims.

Now, a rescue mission turned worse as the one they feared arose from hiding and confronted All Might directly in Kamino Ward.

"I think we should use him." A hero with brilliant red wings, Hawks, advised the board of directors for the Hero Public Safety Commission. "He's passed every test so far."

"Except the social ones." One spoke, but as the wall of screens showed the ever shrinking form of the number one hero.

"We can't even give him battle tests anymore." Hawks pressed with a little more urgency. "All we can guess is that he's at least as strong and as fast as All Might used to be."

"And what if All for One takes his quirk?" Another man in a suit posed.

"From the early DNA samples we have of him before needles stopped working-" A middle aged woman in front of the others spoke up, unshaken by the buildings being blown apart. "-his quirk factor is unidentifiable, scattered throughout his genes to the point we can't even put it together without redefining what it means to be human."

"So-" Hawks stood in front of the screens. "-in other words, there's no definable quirk factor for the guy to take. Now, are we just going to let the system of peace collapse on live television, or put our own piece on the board while everyone is watching?"

Whispers and mutters were shared between them, but Hawks already knew what their answer would be. Getting out his phone, he sent a short text to his 'project' he had worked hard on with the HPSC.

Keigo: Get in costume

Punching Bag: Are we training? I thought we were done for the day.

Keigo: Don't forget the cape

Keigo: It'll be iconic

Punching Bag: It's a rip off

Keigo: Of a comic book character that nobody knows about anymore, now get dressed this isn't for fun.

"Here we are, yet again." The intimidating visage of All for One, wearing a midnight metal helmet over his head to hide his glee. He floated over the shriveled form of the number one hero. "I would've thought you would have had more of your strength, but it appears you have passed on my brother long ago."

All Might, as skinny and as scared as he was still stood on his shaking legs. The scowl on the hero's face couldn't be any deeper. His life had gone down hill so much lately, from the losses of students, colleagues, fellow heroes….and even one of his closest friends.

But he'll be damned if he's going to allow this monster to cause harm any longer!

Pushing just a little more of the embers of One for All into his legs, he leapt up to get into the man's faceless form. He stayed in place, and All Might would take advantage of it with a decisive blow!

Throwing out a fist to pummel the man's face in again, he fanned the lasting embers of One for All into his arm. It inflated, one final blow to eliminate the worst of the worst.

"Ah!" A panicked man suddenly took All for One's place, fear written all over him with the angered All Might about to pummel him.

He couldn't go through with it, not another life lost.

All Might had to let go of the strength, of the power that was going to defeat All for One, or else another innocent person would be lost. Latching onto the man, they both fell as the exhausted hero rolled with the drop.

"Noble." All for One lowered himself from the air. "Your final act as a hero wasn't trying to kill me, but saving someone else. Unlike all those who were before you. Allow me to make this small victory feel utterly defeating."

The villain's arm grew into a grotesque mess of flesh and metal, muscles bulging to the point of being monstrous. All Might got back onto one knee, placing himself between All for One, and a frightened citizen.

"I look forward to destroying your successor." With those last parting words, All for One dealt a killing blow that could destroy a city block.

*BOOM*

A mountain of rubble blew towards them, once and for all eliminating the symbol of peace from the world.

*WOOOSH*

With an array of sensory quirks, All for One discovered a new factor in his game. Someone had intervened, swiping away the cloud that covered the two would be corpses.

A young man with slicked back hair stood before the world, wearing an obsidian gray outfit with mint green cuffs, boots, and flowing cape. There was a white belt along his waist with more of the green lined within it. Finally, that same color was made into a symbol on his chest.

A bright emerald S in a diamond, matching the piercing eyes on the lad.

"Nobody else has to get hurt tonight." The teen announced in a stern voice.

"You think you can protect them from me?" All for One asked in an amused tone.

"I wasn't talking about them."

As cute as the overconfidence of youth was, it was always satisfying to crush it. Using a geokinetic quirk and several other enhancers, All for One threw an underhanded punch towards the boy's side with the remains of surrounding buildings following his commands.

*BOOM*

The boy threw a punch, decimating the attack with a powerful blow while keeping his gaze locked on the villain. A powerful strength quirk, it would make a marvelous addition to his-

The villain was shocked to see the boy rise into the air, matching his own elevation. Good, he didn't like simple quirks. Maybe it was a telekinetic one?

Barely reacting in time, All for One threw up every defensive quirk he could think of to stop the punch directed at him. It still forced him back, pushing him across the sky until he managed to catch himself five hundred feet away. It cost him the integrity of his left arm, it was practically a useless piece of meat hanging by his side.

Kicking in his regenerative quirks, he repaired the damage in an instant. He wasn't going to wait around gocking, he was going to relieve this nuisance of his life. The bones under All for One's other arm shifted, creating a blade the size of a bus.

Twelve speed enhancers, seven strength quirks, and eight durability additions to this bone weaponry quirk. Using all at the same time, he intended to slice the child in half.

Somehow though, the boy moved faster when reacting to his attack. He floated to the side, catching the blade in his palm despite not needing to, and broke it away from the villain's body.

He was caught off guard, again. This wasn't looking very good for his track record. Centuries, he was only surprised twice before this much. His brother's quirk, and All Might's tenacity. Now this child was doing more than anyone has succeeded in doing to get in his way.

Fine, then he would restrain the boy and take his quirk by overwhelming it. A multitude of snakes erupted from All for One's back, too many to count and all of them targeting the young hero.

The boy's eyes glew red, heat scorching from his gaze in two beams until it vaporized the serpents. All for One was surprised, normally a welcome change if it wasn't for the fact that it cut through twenty other quirks in the snakes.

It only made his hunger for this unique quirk rise.

"Fire with fire then." The tips of the villains fingers glew orange, but he didn't aim the quirk at him. No, he aimed it towards where All Might was trying to help the civilian.

Slamming it onto the ground, a wave of magma blew out of the ground and rose higher than forty feet. The area was bathed in an angry orange light as it threw itself towards the defenseless.

*WHOOSH*

A gust of freezing wind blew out from the teen's narrowed mouth, halting the raging inferno and silencing its movement. This was becoming such a complicated mystery, but All for One now felt the hardened gaze of the caped teen.

A snap of the air wasn't able to alert All for One in time, the fist meeting his gut with the shock absorption quirk unable to fully compensate for the punch. He passed through the clouds, the force clearing the dark night sky for the scene to be visible for all.

All for One tried to track his movements, to fight against the rapid series of fists that kept slamming into his body to keep him in the air. Each one was getting stronger, faster, breaking him over and over. It now occurred to the villain, that from the beginning the boy had been holding back at first, gauging how much strength to use. Maybe in his prime he could fight back, get the proper edge on this mystery.

The strength, the speed, the durability, the flight, the heat vision, the freezing breath.

It clicked as he was left to fall from the night sky, the moon highlighting his wounds that were doing their best to stitch him back together. He had seen all of these quirks before, each time they got stronger than the last.

Now, the strength that reminded him similar to All Might's prime was rocketing down towards him, All for One had finally found where his brother had gone.

*KABOOM*

The blur of green crashed his fists into his chest, dragging him down until burying him into a new crater in the mess of the ruins of the ward. Hovering above the body, the cape blew gently in the wind, the same symbol on his chest embroidered in his cape.

Cameras who had been watching had long since left the shrunken form of All Might, their 'Pillar of Peace' had left the walking skeleton to drag himself away with someone draped along their shoulder. Instead, they looked to the one who defeated the evil, who conquered what All Might couldn't.

"That turned out better than we hoped." The President of the HPSC relaxed, running her fingers through her slicked back blond hair.

"Thousands died." A younger board member reminded them. "This is the worst disaster to happen in Japan since the early quirk wars. The capture operation for the League failed, and the only thing that turned out right was rescuing the student. We didn't even do that, it was his own classmates."

"You're missing the opportunity here." With a press of a button, everyone looked on as every screen was enveloped by a different news station, each covering their greatest project. "All for One is in Tartarus, All Might has entered a forced retirement, and now the next symbol of peace is under our direct command. All Might brought Japan into his own direction, but now we can bring it to a more defined path."

"He isn't a symbol of peace." Hawks tapped one of the replays of the footage. "They're calling him a symbol of hope, since he came right as people were giving up and all that."

*snap* "That's good." A gentleman in a mustache pointed towards the screen. "I'lll get marketing to focus on that, spread the word that he's the new symbol, one better than the last."

"He may be strong." Another woman in her twenties hummed. "But he still can't handle interviews that well."

"Less is more." A wiser older gentleman spoke. "Too many heroes are spending more time putting on make up than actually on the streets. If we want him to stand out, then we simply don't do any scheduled interviews, no tv hosts, no movies, no shows, let the world believe in a pure symbol who doesn't spend time on any of that."

"Are you kidding?" A sleazy younger man chuckled at the idea. "That's where all the money is."

"We have plenty of money." The HPSC President announced with confidence. "What we need is control, and if we can get the public to put all of their faith in this symbol of hope, then we will have it."

"What if he doesn't agree?" The younger woman proposed. "To Hawks insistence, we haven't shown him just how far we've gone to gain such control."

"The kid has total faith in the hero system." Hawks interjected. "If we want people to believe him, what better way than having him believe it himself? He can't lie if he doesn't know he's lying about the HPSC."

"Agreed." The president selected one of the images, enlarging it to cover all of the screens. "The less he knows about what we do with him, the less chance there is we'll have a Lady Nagant incident. I think I speak for all of us that Midoriya is the last person we want to go against."

The silence was her answer, the woman already making the necessary details to their plans to keep their status. There would be some road bumps along the way, making sure other branches of government didn't overstep their boundaries, and doing more sweeps to make sure no one would corrupt their new agent.

Of course, now that Midoriya was revealed to the world they would need to keep his image clean. He technically acted out illegally, but they can easily have heroes in the area vouch for giving him permission to act with his quirk. Well, they could push for the license exam for the hero schools to start early given recent developments.

That was the best way to get Midoriya his own license, letting the next generation see first hand who will be on top.

"Where is the child now?" The younger suited man questioned, looking to Hawks for the answer.

The hero went up to the keyboard, altering the screens to display captured video of the rescue operations for the survivors. Midoriya lifted a five story wall with one arm, tossing it to the side as he reached down with one arm to help pull a child out from a toy chest. Carrying the boy in his arms, he floated over to the medical station off to the side for those injured. After looking over the scene slowly, he waved to the kid before flying off.

"This is from ten minutes ago." The president noticed. "Where is he now?"

Hawks felt a vibration in his pocket, quickly peeping at the cause he smirked at the message. "He's visiting his mom."

"We shouldn't keep her around long." The mustached man fiddled with his facial hair. "She's could taint him, not to mention that house was expensive."

"It's pocket change compared to any of our paychecks." The youngest man reminded them, some seemingly more upset about that. "His mother brings mental stability, do we really want to take that away?"

"Let him have his reward." The president decided. "He did good today."

In a far cabin away from civilization in Japan, Inko was inside staring at the television. Her son had come so far, struggled so much. From that incident when he was nine, he had become overwhelmed with his senses, everyday items breaking in his grasp, experts said that mixed with PTSD and puberty hitting he was overstimulated.

Moving to the woods was the only option, even if it initially put her in massive debt. Anything to help her son and get him away from the abuse he suffered in school.

One day though, she woke up to Hawks knocking at her door with Izuku by his side. Supposedly he found Izuku sleep floating, and then he offered to make her son a hero.

She didn't like the idea of only seeing her son a few times a week, but the people at the HPSC had helped him so much, did more to raise him than she ever could.

Now he saved Japan, and here she was just accepting money and sitting at home.

*click*

Turning towards the front door, Izuku used his key to enter the house, a grocery bag in his grasp. "I brought some food. I stopped by a quick ramen place, and they were really nice. I wanted to pay but they insisted that…Mom?"

The woman couldn't help but shed a tear, approaching her son who was now taller than herself, now an accomplished hero he always dreamed to be. "I'm sorry, you just look so heroic right now."

Izuku set the food down, accepting the inevitable hug that was coming his way. Inko sniffled, burying her head into his shoulder.

"I thought you would be covered in dust." The mother humorly remarked.

"It usually comes off when I hit the sound barrier." Izuku casually said, briefly scratching his head.

The industrial grade gel holding his hair down came undone in the small act, his curls coming back alive and making him three inches taller. When Inko took a closer look at him, she couldn't find any of his freckles, his skin free of blemishes. "Are you wearing foundation?"

"Yeah…I talked with some image advisors and they said that with as strong as I am my appearance should match that. My freckles and curls made me look too-"

"Adorable." Inko brushed away the make up, revealing the boy behind the costume. "You're my adorable strong boy."

Alright, that's it, I am mentally unhinged. So many story ideas have popped into my head over time since I've been writing and this was probably one of the biggest ones. Hopefully by writing this chapter it will take the edge off so I can continue the others.

Oh why oh why can't I just finish my other stories like I want? I don't know, maybe if I don't actually stress about it then I'll suddenly have the urge to write updates to them.

Like, other random stories I have are the wielders of One for All take turns using Midoriya's body and can only use their own quirk. Typical reincarnation but inside Kurogiri, Kaminari, or Power Loader. Melissa becoming Iron Heart. Kaminari being able to possess machines and becoming a transformer. Or even Midoriya having a quirk that takes souls and puts them in inanimate objects like dolls and such.

I don't plan on writing those, and I don't have any real plans to update this. I might, not guaranteed though. If anyone wants to use this idea and run off with it then go for it.