One Week Later
"Toshi, I have a… request to make," Izuku started uneasily.
"What is it, my boy?"
"I really hate to ask this, but I'd like you to run for Prime Minister." Izuku immediately handed him a tissue for the sprayed blood.
"Why?" Toshi gasped out when the coughing subsided.
"There's only so much I can do as a dictator," Izuku said seriously. "I can reorganize the government, create laws that still work when Japan reverts to a representative democracy - but I can't be the one to make sure Japan keeps those laws afterward. I can't legally amend the Constitution to account for the deaths of the Imperial Family and add quirks to the anti-discrimination laws. And I need to let Japan stand on its own, without me micromanaging it, so this isn't something I can do myself. But that doesn't mean I can't ask someone I trust to help me."
"I suppose I could try," Toshi said slowly. "If anyone will vote for a washed-up old has-been."
"Are you kidding? Japan loves you. That's at least half the reason they accepted me." Izuku smiled at him encouragingly. "You know what you're doing, and you'd be great at the job. I know it's a lot of work, but… Japan needs a Symbol of Peace to let them know everything will be alright with the new government."
"You've already been that, my boy," Toshi said, "but I'll do it anyway."
"Supreme Overlord. I am sorry to bother you, but I request your… assistance."
Izuku put down his pen. "What is it, Shirakumo?"
"Minister of Intelligence Aizawa is acting strangely. He keeps staring at me and asking me if I remember anything." The smoke wisped off of him in a way that Izuku interpreted as flustered.
"Ah. He got his quirk back, and he's probably trying it out." Izuku couldn't believe how shy Hisashi had been about actually meeting Aizawa face-to-face, but Izuku had rejected his initial idea of returning the quirk while Aizawa was asleep.
"He… he did?"
"Yeah. So it doesn't work on you?" Izuku leaned forward in interest. "Your smoke must be a mutation quirk of some sort. What was the original warp quirk, then? Did it allow body parts to become portals? Whatever the combination was, there's incredible synergy. You probably wouldn't be able to warp with Aizawa-sensei's quirk active, but I wonder…"
"Ah, thank you very much, Supreme Overlord. If that's the case, then there should be no problems. I apologize for bothering you."
Izuku frowned as Shirakumo whisked out the door. Unethical as the experiments done on Shirakumo were, there were so many ideas to explore in combining quirks. Maybe he'd bother Hisashi about those later.
Izuku couldn't believe he was actually doing this.
"Kirishima, it's you against whoever wins this," he said sourly.
"Cool, man!"
Izuku sighed. He really should've shut this down, not joined it. But even Iida stopped by the basement sparring ring sometimes. Izuku was outnumbered. If that was the case, he might as well take advantage of it, as well as see Gigantomachia's skills in action.
"Let's both try not to knock down the building," Izuku told Gigantomachia, who stood across from him.
"Agreed, Supreme Overlord."
At least he wouldn't have to use that terrible title for much longer.
"Three, two, one, go!" yelled Uraraka from the sidelines.
One Year Later
"Toshi? What the hell happened?!"
"Well, Young Midoriya -" Toshi began, rubbing his neck.
"I thought the bill was to amend the Constitution to remove the ceremonial role of Emperor, not… not replace it with a Supreme Overlord title!" Izuku wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry hysterically. Either way, it would be hysterically. He thought Japan would've had quite enough of that title by now.
"They proposed a counter-bill in your honor, and it works well enough. They even made it an elected position and gave it some power." Toshi patted his shoulder. It was rare that Toshi had time off as Prime Minister, and Izuku was busy trying to reorganize his business empire and resuming his career as a hero. They still tried to meet as often as possible, though. Today they were on a bench in the gardens of the still-unused Tokyo Imperial Palace.
"Really? Elected?" Izuku said.
"Well… they wanted to instate you and make it hereditary, but I convinced them otherwise."
"Toshi, you will always be my Number One hero," Izuku said faintly.
Izuku still hated press conferences.
He wore a smile anyway as he stepped up to the podium temporarily set up in front of the building behind him. He waited for the applause to end. "Thank you, everyone, for your support. Today the Villain Amnesty Program officially ends, and I am proud to announce the public opening of the Second Chance Foundation."
As members of the public, the participants who'd finally left the program were still welcome to use the provided resources. But the bulk had already passed their reviews. The Second Chance Foundation no longer needed to focus solely on the remainder.
"When I first announced that I was establishing this foundation, and its original purpose, I feared that the Japanese people would see it as a betrayal - offering aid to the undeserving. Instead, people across the nation have offered their support, and I can only be grateful to all of you who believed in my dream. Now, I'm delighted to open the services of this foundation to anyone who needs them. To the deserving, to the undeserving, to those who need another chance or were never given a chance at all, to anyone who can use a little help to find their footing - I welcome you to these doors.
"We already established branches in all major cities, but I'm proud to announce that the Second Chance Foundation will soon be starting its rural program, a joint effort headed by Kouji Kouda and Tenko Shimura. In Japan's lengthy state of crisis, rural areas have been neglected…"
Fifteen Years Later
"Hello, Toshi." Izuku laid his head on the table, eyeing the teacup next to his head.
"You don't seem happy, Izuku. Is this about…"
"The call for me to run for Prime Minister? Yes." Izuku turned his head to groan into the table.
"Why now? People have been calling for your election for years."
"Well, you know I've been busy. And I didn't really want to go back into the government. But Hisashi was getting antsy about some of the new regulations, and I don't want my work to be undone, either. I… have a better idea of what I'm doing now."
"My boy, you shouldn't push yourself into it if you don't want to. You wanted to learn to trust others to handle things without you, right?"
Izuku made a frustrated noise and sat up. "Yes, well, it's a way to help people, and it's hard to resist that."
"Because heroes help."
"Yeah. It took me a while to realize, but I think I helped a lot more people when I was nineteen than I ever have as… as a hero. We've got prisons that are completely empty now, Toshi, and when was the last time a train was held up because of a villain attack? Now the Second Chance Foundation can run without me, and Hisashi's behaving well enough to leave him alone for a few weeks if I need to, and people listen to me. I don't want to be All for One and force my own way on everyone, and I won't - I put the checks and balances there myself - but I want to see if I can give Japan… one final push in the right direction."
"You've always been a hero in everything you've done, Izuku, and always will be. I'm so proud of you, and if this is what you want I'll support you till my last breath." Toshi smiled gently and patted his shoulder. Izuku smiled back; the gesture always made him feel young again. Toshi was aging, but Izuku was glad he was still here. He probably wouldn't be, if Eri hadn't offered to turn back time on his injuries about ten years ago. Izuku was glad he'd accepted.
"How have things been with Hisashi, anyway?" Toshi changed the subject.
Izuku grimaced. "He's fine, mostly. I'm worried that he's getting bored. At this rate I'm going to make him open a shop just to get rid of the blankets he's stockpiling, and he goes through so much yarn. He's experimenting with the best quirk combinations to crochet faster."
"At least it's not the worst thing he could be doing."
"There is that. I should probably find him another hobby for when I'm running for Prime Minister, so he doesn't get bored enough to start internet PR campaigns or consider vigilantism. Again."
"Has he considered writing?"
"That's at the top of my list, actually."
"Todoroki! It's good to see you. So what did you want to meet up for?" Izuku smiled as Todoroki took a seat at the outdoor cafe.
"I heard you were running for Prime Minister. How would you feel about me aiming for Secretary of State?"
"Oh," said Izuku, eyes widening. "That would be perfect, actually." Todoroki would be a great ally. He'd worked as a hero for a while, but Izuku knew he'd never given up on his passion for hero reform. "Want to try to instate that watchdog organization you were telling me about?"
"One of the things I've been working on, yes. My brothers and I have been talking…"
"Kirishima, I'm not sure I heard you right. Did you just say that Gigantomachia applied to be a hero?"
"Yeah, man," Kirishima said. "He thinks he'd be good at it. I thought you said something to him, he was talking about how his 'Master' was talking about how it'd be helpful to clean up some criminal activity he was too busy to handle. That's you, right?"
Izuku massaged his temples. He needed to have a talk with Hisashi. He could already hear the man's excuse that he wasn't encouraging criminal activity, and inspiring one person to take up a legitimate line of work wasn't influencing society.
"He probably would be good at it," Izuku reluctantly agreed.
"Aizawa-sensei? What are you doing here? Not that it isn't good to see you, but…"
"I think you could stop calling me Sensei at this point, kid."
"You don't understand how much I can't do that. Why don't you come in?" Izuku opened the door to his house wider. He didn't usually invite people in thanks to the presence of the resident supervillain (even if retired), but Aizawa already knew about him, and was unimpressed. Izuku thought that was mostly due to the blackmail he held in the form of certain internet posts.
"Thank you." He followed Izuku to the living room.
"Give us a minute," Izuku said to the busily crocheting cryptid, who grimaced and left.
"Alright, Midoriya," Aizawa said when Hisashi was out of the room, though everyone involved knew the man was probably listening anyway. "I know you're a businessman, and I was wondering if you've ever considered investing in cat cafes."
"Cat cafes."
"The one I'm currently at is getting a bit crowded, and they're thinking of opening another branch. I'd like to run it as a sort of… retirement project," Aizawa said. "They're doing good work, and Shirakumo, Yamada, and Kayama all want to help out."
"There's got to be more to this than a cat cafe," Izuku said suspiciously.
Aizawa's grin widened. "On a… perhaps related note, I think it's time I introduce you to my information network."
Thirty Years Later
"Deku! You look like you haven't aged a day!" Uraraka jumped in to hug him.
Izuku laughed at her joking tone and hugged her back.
"Midoriya! Having a class reunion was a wonderful idea," Iida said, joining them.
"I thought it was time, and it was partly Momo's idea anyway," Izuku said with a smile. "We haven't seen each other in so long." He looked around the room. "Did… Kouda bring Shimura?"
"Indeed! He thought socialization apart from farmers and farm animals would do Shimura good."
"And Bakugou didn't complain?" Bakugou had stopped threatening the ex-villains every time he saw them, but that didn't mean he treated them any more pleasantly than he did anyone else. He'd never quite got over his dislike of Shimura especially. Though, rather than yelling, he'd just avoided Shimura ever since Shimura apologized for kidnapping him.
"Kirishima went to calm him down!" Uraraka said. "But I think Bakugou's fine with it. He just told Shimura to stay out of his way and stomped over to the food."
"That went better than I'd have expected."
"DEKUUUU!" he heard from the corner near the food.
"It sounds like he noticed me. Give me a minute."
"An autobiography. You want to write an autobiography." Izuku threw his hands in the air. "What if someone actually reads it?"
"That is generally the purpose of publishing books, Izuku," Hisashi said calmly. "I've finished the textbooks on business theory. I thought I'd try something else for a change."
Izuku took a deep breath, let it out, calmed himself, and thought. It probably wasn't as bad as it first sounded. "I guess there isn't much harm as long as you leave out anything sensitive. And information that could cause societal upheaval. And the fact that you owned half of the businesses in Japan. I want to proofread before you send it to anyone." Izuku had spent years selling the businesses a few at a time, keeping careful track of the owners. Societal views on quirk discrimination were slowly being revolutionized, but there was still danger of people losing their jobs should the wrong person buy the businesses in question.
"Of course."
Izuku sighed. "This is such a terrible idea but I can't pin down why."
One Hundred Years Later
The professor flipped to the next slide in the presentation and continued to drone on.
"Supreme Overlord Midoriya's humanitarian outreach, the Second Chance Foundation, stands to this day as Japan's top charity organization. It operates independently of the government, but as it was originally a political institution, it's inspired many changes in the political atmosphere of Japan - though of course not as much as Supreme Overlord Midoriya himself. Despite the origin of the title, most continue to associate it with his work rather than that of its original bearer.
"Seen here is a picture of Midoriya at the age of nineteen, the same age he was when he took the reins of power…"
A few minutes later, two young men left the classroom alongside the rest of the noisy horde of college students.
"Supreme Overlord Midoriya is actually pretty cool, I did a paper on him in high school," one of them said. "We still use a lot of his reforms. The man must've been a genius."
"I'm sure he had help," the other said.
"Yeah, but - he did all that in a few months. While he was nineteen. He looks so young in all the pictures, too. If I saw him in the hallways I'd think he was just another student. And then he just… does all that."
His friend laughed. "So you're saying you wouldn't want Japan dumped in your lap?"
"Nah, can you imagine? Supreme Overlord Yamazaki just doesn't have the right ring to it. Couldn't even run for the elected version we've got nowadays, who'd vote for that?"
"It's a stupid title anyway." His friend winked, brown eyes flickering to green for just a moment. "But maybe you should try. Who knows? You might make history too."
To the commenter who thought this needed an epilogue and to be marked "complete" after the last chapter - that was the plan all along mwahahaha
Yes, this is the end of this story. Thanks for reading! :)