"Rise and shine, sleepyhead." A soft, melodic voice awoke him in a daze. His vision was nearly blurred beyond all reason, but he could tell that he was in a dark room only barely illuminated by candlelight. The grimy brick walls were covered in a wide assortment of papers with odd symbols drawn on them, and sitting in front of him with his chair turned around was a white-haired man dressed in all black, including his blindfold. "Which one am I talking to, anyway?"

"Whuh?" He tried to stand up, but found himself incapable of moving. It was only then that he realized he was not only in a chair instead of a bed, something that probably should have been given away by him not being in his room, but he was being restrained with large, heavy ropes tied around his arms that were covered in the same papers that were on the walls. "Wait, who are you?"

"Forget me, already? I'm Satoru Gojo, freshman advisor at Jujutsu High."

"Jujutsu—" It all came back to him in an instant. Every spot of pain, every scream of panic, every splatter of blood that wasn't his own; he wanted to vomit, but nothing was coming out. "What happened to them? The guy with the dogs… and Kacchan! Are they—Did I—"

"Calm down, everyone's fine. Well, fine enough, anyway. Besides, you don't really have the time to be worrying about others. After all, Izuku Midoriya, you've got a secret execution to get ready for!"

Nothing about that made Midoriya feel better about his situation, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of how or why it should have.

He usually took most things that happened to him in stride, but he couldn't help feeling nervous. There was the fact that he was sure he bombed the written test, or at least came very close to it. There was also the general enormity of the U.A. entrance exam, a test so hard that less than one in three-hundred applicants for the Hero Course actually made it every year. That fact led into the fact that was sticking with him the most: the fact that he was the least prepared out of everyone around him. He was athletic to the point of being gifted, he had been taking martial arts ever since he was in preschool, but all of those things were things a normal person could do. Nothing in his life up until a few weeks ago had been in service of becoming a Hero, so even with all of the help his teacher had given him, he had no idea how he was supposed to measure up to the kids who had spent their whole lives training for it. All of the facts piling up on top of each other made him feel like vomiting, and he probably would have done just that if he wasn't worried about splashback on his new shoes.

"And go!" Present Mic's sudden shout brought him out of his own headspace as he joined the other applicants in looking confused. "What, were you expecting a countdown?" He was, actually. "Heroes don't get warnings, they just go, so go!"

Well, guess I'm going! He joined the rest of the applicants in their collective dash into the testing site as the practical exam began in full force. The confusion that the sudden start brought about had faded, but that only served to bring back all of the anxieties he was feeling earlier with a vengeance.

As he was scrambling to deal with all of that, one of the One Point Villains Present Mic talked about showed up in front of him and talked about "destroying his pathetic bag of flesh." It reminded him that beyond being a test, everything he was doing right now was just one big fight.

Thanks to that, he could relax and get into it. He took a breath as his body was enveloped in pink light and he effortlessly jumped out of the way of a punch from the robot. The next time his feet touched the ground, he was behind the robot and already picking it up and shattering it with an enhanced backdrop.

"Well, that's one point down, and—How many do I need to pass? I hope it's not a lot." With that thought in mind, Yuji Itadori took off to look for more robots to destroy.

Gojo asked Midoriya to try and recall everything that happened the previous day, and although it made him feel sick, he did the best that he could. It was a cold, February afternoon, and Midoriya was heading home from school after taking a practice exam for U.A. that he knew he passed with flying colors. It was the first bit of reassurance that his dream was feasible in who knew how long. He was still scrawny, he was still uncoordinated, and worst of all, he was still Quirkless, but now he had undeniable proof that he could keep up with his peers in some way.

Not everyone felt that way, of course, most notably Katsuki Bakugou, his technical childhood friend. Bakugou saw him walking home with a smile on his face and took it upon himself to drag him into an alley and punch him in the stomach while his friends—lackeys, really—spectated and laughed.

Ever since it came out that Midoriya was Quirkless, Bakugou had never let up about how much of a loser Midoriya was and how he had no right to even think about being a Hero, and with entry into U.A. on the horizon, the past year had seen him be even worse in that regard. Bakugou went out of his way to tear him down far more than he had before, was constantly setting off explosions mere centimeters away from his face to try and intimidate him, and just like he was right then, had started getting physical whenever he started looking too optimistic about his future prospects.

"Get it through your thick-ass head, Deku! A Quirkless loser like you will never be a Hero! Didn't I already tell you what to do if you're still hung up on this crap?" Bakugou most certainly did. As the months went on, Midoriya thought about all of that more and more often, no matter how much he didn't want to, but he did what he could to put it out of his mind and keep moving forward; some days were better than others, and Bakugou was making it one of the worse days.

"I think we gotta teach him a lesson that'll stick for real, bro!" Lackey A said. Lackey B reached into his backpack and pulled out a small wooden box; just looking at it made Midoriya sick to his stomach.

"What? You two morons really stole that thing from Sugisawa High? What did I tell you about doing crap that could come back to me?" Bakugou asked.

"Come on, man, no one saw us!" Lackey B said. "Besides, it was funny! My cousin goes there, and he says that the occult club there is always going on about how this thing's supposed to be cursed. It's a load of bunk, sure, but I bet it'd be funny to make Deku eat whatever gross thing's in here so he'll shit his pants!" Lackey B laughed as he tossed the box to Bakugou. Bakugou kicked Midoriya in the leg as he tried to leave before opening the box and pulling out a small object wrapped in bandages; looking at it made Midoriya feel even worse than before.

"What the hell even is this thing?" Bakugou grabbed a loose end and pulled on it ever so slightly.

"Drop that right now and back away!" Midoriya, Bakugou, and Lackey A and Lackey B turned to the entrance of the alley to see a dark-haired boy in a gakuran-esque uniform scowling at them.

"Huh? Who the hell are you?" Lackey A asked.

"That doesn't matter," the scowling boy said. "What matters is that your friend drops what he's holding and you all get out of here before things get bad."

"What, is Mr. Tall, Dark and Gloomy looking for a fight? I'm not afraid of your twink ass; I'll kick it six ways to Sunday if you want!" Bakugou said.

"K-Kacchan, maybe you should listen to him!" Midoriya said. "Something seems weird about him, and you don't even care about this thing—"

"Well, maybe I do, now!" He should have figured he would say something like that.

"I'm warning you, put that down. Now," the scowling boy said. He put his hands together in an odd position, and his shadow appeared to stretch out and rise up from the ground. It split in two and morphed into two large wolves—a black one and a white one—that howled and growled at them all.

"What, you think a couple of mutts scare me?" Bakugou asked.

"The fact that you can see them at all shows how serious this is, so take this as your final warning!" Midoriya didn't know what he meant by that, but he could tell that there was something off about the wolves. It was the same odd feeling he got from both the scowling boy and whatever was in Bakugou's hand; something inhuman; something that didn't belong in the world.

"Yeah? Well, you can take this as your final chance to go fuck yourself!" Bakugou unfurled the bandages, revealing the object to be a severed finger. The wolves charged at Bakugou, only for him to blow them back with an explosion that knocked them into the scowling boy.

"Whoa, what's that weird crap in the sky?" Lackey A directed everyone's attention to the sky, where there was a black swirling mass of energy with grotesque eyes and limbs poking out.

"This is some Sam Raimi shit! We gotta get outta here!" Lackey B said.

"Oh, no, not yet!" Bakugou shouted. "You assholes wanted a show, that twink didn't want a show, so we're not leaving 'till we get a show!"

"Kacchan, we really need to—" Midoriya was cut off by Bakugou slamming his head against a wall. He pried his mouth open with one hand, and Midoriya's eyes widened in terror as he lifted up the finger with the other.

"Shut up, Deku, and eat this!" Bakugou shoved the finger in his mouth without a moment's hesitation. By the time Midoriya could get himself to try and heave, it had already slid down his throat. Midoriya could hear Bakugou laughing, the scowling boy cursing him out, Lackey A and Lackey B screaming at whatever was in the sky, but all he could think about was how it all seemed to be fading away into nothing.

"Well, this is unexpected." The second he could properly hear anything again, a deep voice sounded off in the air, and accompanying that was the environment around Midoriya completely changing. Gone was the alleyway Bakugou had dragged him into, and in its place was what looked like a dark cave with a river of blood flowing through it and a giant ribcage lining the walls and roof.

"W-What the! Where am I?"

"I think the better question is where am I?" There was the voice again. Midoriya looked around until his vision settled on a massive pile of horned skulls, and his eyes widened when he saw who the speaker was: himself. The voice was different, his hair was slicked back, he was wearing a light-colored kimono, and there were weird lines on his face and around his arms, but there was definitely another Izuku Midoriya in front of him.

"I've been waiting a good millennium for a new vessel, but I didn't expect it to be a shrimp like you," the other Izuku Midoriya said. "Gotta wonder how this'll factor into all of his plans in the end. Well, whatever." The lines underneath the other Izuku Midoriya's face moved to reveal a second pair of eyes; the imagery meshed perfectly with the utterly ghastly smile he was wearing. "So long as the small fry still know how to die and the women still know how to squeal, I can have plenty of fun with you!"

The next part of Izuku Midoriya's recollection of events could not be properly transcribed because he did not properly remember them. As hard as he tried, the memories of what followed would only come out in disjointed flashes. He remembered ripping his shirt off before jumping at the black mass in the air. He remembered it bursting apart at his feet. He remembered laughing as Lackey A and Lackey B ran for their lives.

He remembered bending down and licking the blood off of a large cut on Bakugou's body, making an obscene joke about wishing it was a woman. That was when Midoriya regained control of himself, almost as if someone or something had been taking his body for a spin.

The first thing he did with full control of himself, being able to fully take in all the sight of carnage and blood around him, was vomit.

"What the hell? What is this? Why did I—How did I? What was that thing? That guy, what did he—What did I—Kacchan!" Midoriya turned his attention back to Bakugou, still unconscious, still bleeding out. "Kacchan! Wake up! Please! I didn't—I wasn't—"

"Don't move!" Midoriya did just that as the two wolves jumped at his sides, their hot breath on his bare skin. Midoriya turned his head to look at the scowling boy, his uniform torn up a bit and various cuts on his body.

The second he turned to look at him, the white wolf bit his leg.

"I said don't move!" the scowling boy said. "Deku, right? You've been cursed by the deadliest cursed spirit known to man. This isn't your fault, and I'm sorry for you, but I need to exorcise you, right here and now." Midoriya both did and didn't understand what he was saying. He didn't know what he meant by cursed spirits and exorcisms, but one thing was clear: he was going to die.

"Hold on, hold on, let's not be so hasty, Megumi." Before Midoriya had the chance to cry, someone appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It was Gojo. Midoriya could now remember that that was when he first met Gojo.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Megumi asked.

"Well, the higher-ups got a little antsy after hearing that a special-grade cursed object was in play, so they sent me to lend you a hand, and here I am after a couple of hours of sightseeing!" Gojo said.

"Would it kill you to even try to do your job?"

"Yeah, probably." Megumi looked ready to say something, but before he could, Gojo said, "So, where is it, anyway?"

"This guy ate it. Well, his friend on the ground there made him eat it, anyway."

"What? Are you serious? That's messed up. What kind of crazy fads are you kids into these days? God, I miss planking." Midoriya couldn't follow the flow of the conversation at all, and before he knew it, Gojo was right in front of him, looking straight at him in spite of the blindfold.

"Ten seconds," Gojo said while doing some stretches.

"W-What?" Midoriya asked.

"Turn back into Sukuna and come back out in ten seconds."

"Sukuna? Is that the other me? How do you—No, I can't! I don't know what's going on, but I can't put that guy back in control! More people will get hurt if I do! Just look at what happened to Kacchan!"

"Yeah, he's pretty banged up, especially with that super nasty cut he's got, but you know what he still has? His life. And he has that because you managed to regain control before he could get too beat up. It's got me thinking that you're just a little bit stronger than you give yourself credit for, but just to be safe, I want to put it to the test, so how 'bout it?"

Midoriya didn't feel as if he actually had a choice in the matter, like the question was just a formality before Gojo went ahead and did whatever he wanted, but something about what he said still struck a chord with him. Something about how Bakugou wasn't dead because he managed to stop Sukuna, stop himself, from going too far. If that were true, then it was the only real evidence there would ever be of Midoriya having any true strength.

"I-If I do this, you're gonna get hurt, you know. Maybe even—"

"Don't worry about me, I'm super strong. Why, I bet even All Might couldn't beat me!" If Midoriya was in a better mood, he'd go off into a rant about why everything about that was wrong, but he wasn't, so he just emptied his mind and let that thing, that Sukuna, take control again.

Once more, only small flashes of recollections could be found. Midoriya remembered lunging at Gojo, Gojo dodging everything he threw at him, even making some rubble float in midair, and before he knew it, he was unconscious.

All of that brought Midoriya back to the present, where Gojo was telling him that it was his time to die.

Despite Yuji's earlier misgivings, the exam was going pretty well for him. With his own speed combined with the speed of One for All, it was easy for him to locate robot after robot, and with his own strength combined with the strength of One for All, it was easy for him to destroy every robot he came across. He still didn't know how many points he needed to pass and still hoped that it wasn't a lot, but he felt like he didn't have much to worry about at that point.

"And three more!" Yuji said to no one as he shattered a Three Point Villain to bits with a devastating kick. "That makes, um, a lot, I'm pretty sure. Should be enough to pass, I think." With that thought in mind, Yuji deactivated One for All and slowed his pace around the test site. He wasn't going to stop looking for robots to destroy, but with only a few minutes left in the exam, he didn't need to keep One for All continually active and exhaust himself; it would be fine if he just saved it for the moment he ran into something he needed to fight.

Before Yuji could take more than a few steps forward, a thunderous rumbling sound echoed through the air. The second he looked around to try and trace the source, he was met with the sight of a giant robot stomping around and destroying building after building in the artificial cityscape.

Is that the Zero Pointer Present Mic was talking about? Yuji thought. You're kidding! That thing's insane; it's like one of the Villains that was wrecking Shinjuku a couple months ago! As Yuji stood there in disbelief, applicant after applicant ran past him in the opposite direction of the Zero Pointer, most of them screaming for their lives. Yuji didn't feel like screaming, but running away seemed like a good bandwagon to jump onto. He probably had enough points to pass, and if he wouldn't be getting any points for fighting it, then there wasn't any point to stick around.

As Yuji turned around to leave, he heard someone cry out in pain. He turned back around to see a brunette with rosy cheeks collapsed on the ground with some rubble on top of her leg. That must have happened when the robot started destroying buildings, and that same robot was still on the warpath in her direction.

Naturally, Yuji activated One for All and ran back towards the robot. He could tell that everyone who was watching him thought he was stupid, and maybe he was, but he didn't care. This was the kind of life he wanted to live, needed to live, if he ever wanted to make his grandfather and his teacher proud.

Yuji had only ever had his grandfather in his life; he didn't know what happened to his parents, and he didn't want to know, because things were fine as they were. Yuji's grandfather didn't think the same, and Yuji always had to shut him up when he talked about how he wished Yuji didn't have to be saddled with a lonely life because of him. He kept talking about that even as he died, his last words telling Yuji to try and help people so no one would have to suffer needlessly and so he wouldn't die alone like he did. If that what was his grandfather wanted, for Yuji to be able to help people so that he and others could die good deaths, then he wanted to do it, but it was impossible. He didn't have the brains to be a doctor or a scientist, and he could become a policeman or a firefighter, but they could only do so much, especially compared to Heroes, and it's not like a Quirkless person like Yuji could become a Hero.

That was where his teacher, All Might, the Number One Hero in the country, ended up coming in. All Might had been a friend of his grandfather for as long as he could remember; he never questioned it, and because of it, he never ended up idolizing him like a lot of people did. To Yuji, All Might was just a normal guy, the kind of guy who would apologize to Yuji for not being there when his grandfather passed away. Yuji told him about the last conversation he had with his grandfather, and as Yuji was lost in thought about what he could do to honor him, All Might asked him one question:

"Yuji, my boy, what if I could help you be a Hero?"

Apparently, All Might nearly died fighting someone six years ago; the muscular body most people were familiar with was just a transformation from his true form of a skinny, sickly man, the sight of which made Yuji do a double-take. His power was getting lower and lower every year, as was the amount of time he could spend fighting, and it wouldn't be long before he couldn't fight at all. Before that happened, he wanted to choose someone to be his successor not just in a metaphorical sense, but a literal one, as All Might's Quirk, One for All, had the power to pass itself and the massive power it held onto others, and All Might wanted Yuji to be the ninth person to inherit it.

Yuji couldn't believe what he was hearing, and he couldn't understand why All Might thought he was right for the job, but All Might wasted no time in explaining. He said that he had watched Yuji grow up into a strong young man with a kind heart who always made an effort to help those who needed it, and the fact that he was feeling so torn up about not knowing how to keep doing that left no doubt in his mind that he had the heart and soul of a true Hero. In his mind, there was no one who deserved to inherit his power more than Yuji, and while Yuji didn't know if he agreed with that, if All Might was giving him the chance to do right by his grandfather, to do right by other people, then he wanted to take it.

He had some reservations when All Might told him that he had to eat a strand of his hair to get his Quirk, but he kept to it, and one rolled up piece of cheese and a two-week-long training session later, Yuji was in his current situation, facing down a giant robot to protect a random girl as ultimate power flowed through his entire body. He wouldn't have it any other way.

"Don't know if it's really my thing, but SMASH!" With One for All flowing through him at full force, Yuji's fist collided with one of the Zero Pointer's metal hands. The robot fell back as fissures appeared across its body, and its collision with the ground was accompanied by an explosion that blew away its entire upper body. "Wow, I can't believe that actually worked!" Yuji turned to the girl and asked her, "Hey, are you all right?"

"Um, I think so," the girl said. "My ankle hurts and I can't get this stuff off of me, but a giant robot isn't about to kill me, so thank you for that!"

"Hey, no problem. Let me help you up." Yuji reached down to help the girl up, but he quickly stopped himself and said, "Nope, never mind. Pretty sure my arm is broken. Sorry."

The girl laughed out an apology as the practical exam officially came to a close.

"Now, I know that you're probably all geared up for an execution, but don't go washing your neck just yet, Izuku," was what Gojo said as Midoriya finished recounting all the horrors of what he just went through. "You're still gonna die, no changing that, but if you want, it doesn't have to be right now."

"W-What do you mean?" Midoriya asked.

"Well, you know that monster currently living it up in your head? That's Ryomen Sukuna. A thousand years ago, he was an evil sorcerer who killed countless people around the world for no reason other than being a sadistic bastard. It took the best sorcerers in the world to just barely bring him down, and that was the golden age of jujutsu, so that says a lot."

"Um—"

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Gojo read him like a book. "Okay, so everyone has negative thoughts, right? Well, when those negative thoughts get out of control and get mixed up with lots of other peoples' negative thoughts, they give rise to curse energy and create cursed spirits, or 'curses', for short. Curses are always trying to kill humans, and the only ones who are able to fight them are jujutsu sorcerers, people like me and Megumi who can wield curse energy as a weapon. That all make sense to you?"

"More or less," Izuku said.

"Good enough! Back to Sukuna, when he died, all that was left behind were his twenty fingers, five from each hand. Said fingers absorbed his leftover curse energy—and his consciousness, evidently—and turned into special-grade cursed objects." Gojo reached into his pocket and pulled out a finger nearly identical to the one Midoriya ate. "As of right now, we have six fingers in our possession, and as for why we haven't gotten rid of them—" Gojo tossed the finger in the air and held his hand in alignment with it, causing it to fly back into a wall with such force that a crater was formed. The finger, though, was completely fine. "That's why. These things are basically indestructible, so all they're good for is attracting curses and getting people killed, and they get better at that with each passing day. That's where you come in, Izuku."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You've fused with one of Sukuna's fingers, so if you die, that means the finger goes with you. The yellow-bellied higher-ups wanted to jump the gun and kill you right here, but I came up with a brilliant idea: have you eat all of Sukuna's fingers, then we'll kill you so that we can get rid of Sukuna for good. Pretty smart, right? It's all up to you, though."

There it was. The only reason he wasn't killed on the spot was that there was a chance for these people to use him as some sort of pawn to kill a sociopathic monster from a bygone era. Either he died after who knew how long it took to gather up all the other fingers or he decided to euthanize himself on the spot. It was hard to decide which one was better, and the only solace he had was an illusion of a semblance of agency. Of course, once the subject of agency was brought up, there was only one thing on his mind.

"I want to see my mom," Midoriya said.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Gojo said.

Midoriya didn't quite understand why his apartment door seemed so big to him. It might have been because he hadn't been back home in about a day, or maybe, most likely, it was because he knew that this was the last time he could go home before he died. Whatever it was, it took all he had to unlock the door and step inside.

"Izuku, you're home!" The second he stepped over the threshold, his mother, Inko, grappled him and pulled him into the hall. "What happened? You didn't call, no one knew where you were, and when Kacchan went to the hospital, I couldn't stop thinking the worst!"

"Kacchan—He's in the hospital?" He could feel sweat dripping down his face, his heart beating into a frenzy.

"He's going to be fine, but what about you? Where were you? And what happened to your face?"

My face? Midoriya thought. He felt around his face until his hand ran over two scars underneath his eyes. The same places where Sukuna's extra eyes opened up.

"Allow me to answer that, madam." Before Midoriya could stumble his way through a lie, Gojo had stepped into the apartment and gotten between the two of them. "Hello there, my name's Satoru Gojo. I'm a first-year teacher at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School." Gojo handed Inko a business card that, for whatever reason, was covered in glitter and had a holographic, cartoony image of himself.

"Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu—This is a Hero school? You're a Hero?"

"Technically." That was the first Midoriya was hearing about it, and he did his best to hide that. "You see, Izuku and his buddies ran into a Villain yesterday. Just some lowlife thug, but even they can be dangerous to untrained kids, as Katsuki's whole deal and these little cuts should have made clear. Izuku, believe it or not, managed to use his brains and what passes for brawn to hold him off until yours truly could show up and save the day! His phone got broken in the fight, though, and we were so busy questioning and filing reports that we forgot to call you, so sorry about that."

"Really? I guess that makes sense." Inko looked uncertain, but not so much that she would truly question Gojo's claims. Midoriya hated lying to his mother, but he couldn't help but be thankful for how trusting she was.

"And this part I just know you're gonna love, Mrs. Midoriya. Me and the other staff members at Jujutsu High were so impressed with how Izuku handled himself that we're offering him a full scholarship to our school!"

"What?" Inko asked.

"What?" Midoriya asked.

"Hey, why are you confused?" Gojo asked. "Yes, this little cinnamon roll really blew us away with all of his heroism and chutzpah, and we wanna snag him up before someone in the States or the Middle East catches wind of what he's got inside of him."

"I don't really know what that means," Inko said, "but is that even—You know that he's—"

"What, that he's Quirkless? Yes, we know all about that, and we don't care. We do things differently at Jujutsu High, and the people who graduate from us end up as the kind of Heroes who don't need to rely on their Quirks to save the day. We really think Izuku can be like that, and we hope you'll think the same."

Inko looked unsure of herself for a good moment, but soon enough, she turned to Midoriya and began to say, "Izuku, I know I haven't been the most supportive of your dream over the years, and I'm sorry for that. I've always been sorry that I couldn't do more to help you, to pick you up when you were feeling down, but that's going to change now. I don't know how to feel about all of this, but if you want to do this, then you'll have my support every step of the way because—because I want to believe you can be a Hero, Izuku!"

Those were the words he had always wanted to hear. Midoriya was able to put up with his peers not believing he could be a Hero, but the one thing that truly hurt the most was his own mother not believing in him. To finally have her support now, of all times, it had to be the cruelest trick of fate anyone could imagine. There was so much he wanted to say, but all he could put out was a simple "Thank you" that sounded far more empty than he would have wanted it to.

"Well, glad we got all that squared away!" Gojo said, clapping his hands to break the tension. "Now then, there's just a couple of things I need to discuss with Izuku in private, but after that, I'll be out of your hair until it's time for him to move into the dorms next week. That sound good? Great. See ya!" Gojo grabbed Midoriya and dragged him into the bathroom. "This isn't your bedroom, is it?"

"Next door on the right," Midoriya said. Gojo wasted no time in properly dragging Midoriya into his room.

"Wow, look at all the All Might stuff in here," Gojo said as he flicked a limited-edition All Might action figure still in its packaging. "But not a shred of merchandise for little ol' me. I'm a little hurt, Izuku."

"How much of what you told my mom was true?" Midoriya asked, not even wanting to indulge Gojo.

"Most of it, actually. Jujutsu High is a Hero school as far as the general public is concerned, and anyone who graduates from there gets a Hero license to make it easier to work; curses and curse energy can only be seen by normal people when their lives are in danger, so being a Hero is the perfect cover. But you, well, you're probably not gonna get that chance."

"Because I'm going to die, right?"

"Yep. If you wanna die now, we'll send your mom some fake letters and texts for a few months before telling her you died in a work-study accident. Very tragic, completely our fault, please don't sue us, take this settlement check with so many zeroes that you won't have to lift a finger for the rest of your life. That's basically how it'd go down." Midoriya supposed he could at least be happy that his mom would be provided for after he died.

"And if I wait until I eat all the fingers?"

"Same thing, it's just that it'll happen at a later date. We'll probably give your mom more money in that case, and depending on how long it takes, you might even get the chance to work as a real Hero before you die! You'd like that, right?" Gojo had a goofy smile on his face; once again, Midoriya refused to indulge him.

"Do curses like Sukuna kill a lot of people?" Midoriya asked.

Gojo sat down on Midoriya's bed, not wrinkling the comforter in the slightest, and said, "This isn't a normal circumstance for us, but yes. Over ten thousand people die under mysterious circumstances every year, and those mysterious circumstances are being killed by curses. The lucky ones are the victims whose bodies are perfectly intact, so getting involved in this world means that you're gonna see some gruesome stuff. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you ended up like that one day." Gojo seemed to really enjoy stressing that he was going to die.

"But Sukuna's fingers attract curses, so if he's completely destroyed, it'll mean that fewer people will die, right?" Gojo said nothing for a few seconds before saying, "Of course." "Gojo-san, do you still have that finger?" Gojo tossed the finger to Midoriya without a word, and in a similar bit of silence, Midoriya swallowed the finger whole.

He felt sick again. The world was melting around him and coalescing into a pool of blood underneath his feet. Darkness clouded his vision and something both warm and cold began to embrace him.

"Well, you sure were quick to come back." It was Sukuna. Of course, it was Sukuna. "Did you want to have some fun again? I've been looking for another shot at that white-haired bastard, so I'm game."

"Stop it."

"Or maybe I should start by finishing off your friend. I just hate leaving people only half-mutilated, you know."

"Stop it."

"Your mom could be fun, too. A little on the chunky side, if I'm being honest, but I don't discriminate; so long as the woman can lie there and take it, anyone's fine with me."

"I said stop it!" Midoriya used all of his strength to shake Sukuna off of him. "You! You don't get a say in this! In any of this! This is my body, my life, so I'm in charge. I decide what happens, and I've decided that-that you're gonna die!"

Sukuna kneed Midoriya in the stomach and made him fall to his knees.

"Is that right? Well, good luck with that, little Hero," Sukuna said with a laugh.

All of a sudden, the pain in Midoriya's stomach was gone, and he was back in his room with Gojo staring at him.

"Had me worried there for a second, but it looks like you managed to pull through," Gojo said. "Not just anyone could do what you just did, you know, so you can be a little proud of that."

"I'll try and get to work on that," Midoriya said. "I don't want to do this. I don't want to die, I don't want to be part of whatever world this is, but I'm going to do it if it means that I can help people. Helping people even when the odds are stacked against you is what a Hero does, and I know that none of this makes me a Hero, but it's the closest I'm gonna get to it, so I'll make the most of it."

"That's the spirit! You're really growing on me, you know!" Gojo said with a laugh. He got off of Midoriya's bed, made his way to the door, and said, "Well, as I said, I'll be back next week to take you to Tokyo so you can join the other three kids I'll be teaching, so do what you want with that time. Bye-bye!" With that, Gojo left his room and left Midoriya all alone. He fell back onto his bed, where he had no concrete plans of leaving for the next week.

The U.A. entrance exam was set to happen in two weeks. He had planned to spend that time studying his heart out in the faintest hope of getting accepted. It would have been nice.

Eight days after the entrance exam, Yuji went to Takoba Beach—which he had spent a week completely clearing of trash after obtaining One for All—to meet up with All Might. All Might was in his true, sickly form, and while Yuji had only known about it for a couple of weeks, he had already gotten used to the idea of it being what All Might naturally looked like.

He could high five all the same, so that was a good thing.

"Congratulations on passing, Young Yuji!" All Might said.

"Thanks! Couldn't have done it without you!" Yuji said. "I still can't believe I passed with how much I bombed the written exam."

"Yes, we probably should have spent some time hitting the books instead of the sandbag, although I feel like the result would have been the same, either way." As much as he wanted to, Yuji couldn't disagree with that.

"W-Well, you're gonna be teaching at U.A., right? We can work on it, then! One for All, too! I kinda broke my arm near the end of the exam, and I don't think that's supposed to happen, right?"

"No, and I'm honestly surprised. You're about as strong as I was at your age, if not a little stronger, and you managed to get a handle on One for All rather quickly. Were you doing anything differently at the end there?"

Yuji thought back to the entrance exam for a bit, and soon enough, he was able to say, "I think that when I was saving that girl, I forgot about the thing where I spread One for All throughout my entire body and just focused it all into my arm. That punch felt, I dunno, ten times stronger than my normal ones? That's probably what did it."

"That makes sense, then. As unnaturally strong as you are, Young Yuji, One for All is stronger. Based on what you've said and what we've done, the highest you can go without hurting yourself is roughly ten percent. That'll change once you get a better handle on it, but at the very least, you should try to not focus it all into a single point like you did."

"Yeah, I get that; breaking my arm was not fun, you know. But I was able to help someone by doing that, so it all worked out in the end, right?"

"Haha! I guess it did!" That was all Yuji needed to hear to feel better about himself. "Don't get too okay with hurting yourself, though. Why, even after everything, I know that your parents—"

"Knock it off! I'm still not interested in hearing about that!" All Might looked oddly glum for a moment before going into his muscular form and patting him hard on the back.

"If you don't care, then I don't care! Live the way you want, my boy!" All Might said with a hearty laugh. Some people on another part of the beach took notice of All Might, so All Might led him away in a swift jog before they could get too close.

Yuji hadn't imagined his life ending up like this, but he couldn't complain about it, nor did he want to.

Top Ten Scores

Yuji Itadori Villain Points: 48 Rescue Points: 60 Total: 108

Katsuki Bakugou Villain Points: 77 Rescue Points: 0 Total: 77

Eijiro Kirishima Villain Points: 39 Rescue Points: 35 Total: 75

Ibara Shiozaki Villain Points: 36 Rescue Points: 32 Total: 68

Nanako Hasaba Villain Points: 55 Rescue Points: 11 Total: 66

Itsuka Kendou Villain Points: 25 Rescue Points: 40 Total: 65

Tenya Iida Villain Points: 52 Rescue Points: 9 Total: 61

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu Villain Points: 49 Rescue Points: 10 Total: 59

Fumikage Tokoyami Villain Points: 47 Rescue Points: 10 Total: 57

Yosetsu Awase Villain Points: 50 Rescue Points: 6 Total: 56