"Can I still become a hero even with a quirk like mine?"

Izuku Midoriya was in over his head.

Toshinori Yagi, known to most of the world as the number one pro hero All Might, had regretted the thought immediately. His winning smile morphed into an uncharacteristic frown; it was cruel of him to even think that.

'Cruel,' he hesitantly admitted to himself, watching carefully the light shift in the shining eyes of a hopeful young man. 'yes, but practical.' The longer he suffered the consequences of his injuries, the more inclined he seemed to be to think in terms Mirai–Nighteye–would. How many times had his former sidekick lectured him about the faults of his idealism whilst the words moved in one ear and out the other?

'Dreams are intangible; they can't be crushed! Far be it from you or me to try!' Toshinori would rebut, laughing uproariously at his sidekick's incredulity. Practicality had never been his strong suit. His own dream of becoming a beacon of hope for the world had been a fool's errand at the time. Yet here he was, having accomplished his lofty goals only to fall so far. Izuku's hopeful smile brought with it a sympathetic pain from Toshinori's side. His muscles. His bones. Every part of him ached. He was tired.

Each look into the eyes of the boy in front of him was a ruthless reminder that he no longer saw that light when he looked in the mirror.

"You ask a difficult question, young man." Best to do it gently, Toshinori reasoned. The determination to grab the pro hero as he jumped and hold on would have been proportional to the disappointment that would follow, and that was no small feat. His eyes did not leave Izuku's. That precious, delicate light wavered; realization had set in like a cold slap from reality.

The pro hero All Might, number one in the world, the great 'Symbol of Peace,' opened his mouth and crushed the dreams of a young man.

"I cannot simply tell you, 'You can become a hero regardless of your power.'" He said, thickly swallowing the shame that followed. This was right. This had to be done.

"There are many things a hero must take into account. The danger one's quirk poses–to yourself as well as others–is one of those things. I must also admit, unfortunate as some may find it, that the public's view of you is often tantamount to your ability to rescue them. Vampirism-class quirks are rare and widely feared…"

With each word, the light left his eyes a little more. With each word, the hopeful, desperate smile that brightened his face approached an equally bitter and sorrowful frown.

"Do not despair, young man!" The false smile plastered on his own lips was repulsive. Toshinori clenched his fists. 'This is necessary.' He told himself again and found that his heart refused to believe his brain. Every wretched syllable was like acid on his tongue. The old All Might would have told this child that he could do anything he put his mind to with a smile and believed every word. It was revolting how cynical he'd become, but even that insight could not stop the flow of vitriol that spewed from his mouth.

"There are many opportunities in life! Perhaps something more attainable…" The implied 'Something that does not involve other people,' was left hung over their heads like a dark cloud. Izuku clenched his fists in response. They trembled, in sorrow or rage Toshinori momentarily considered before he once more immediately scolded himself; it was written all over the boy's face that he was absolutely crushed, not furious.

"There are…" even Toshinori's bitter determination faltered as his final words came to mind. His bottom lip quivered; every cell in his body told him not to finish his sentence. But, poisoned by his own self-doubt, he pushed on, "There are some things that are simply impossible."

He couldn't bring himself to say more, even if he wanted to. Of the two, Izuku was obviously the most affected but every line had dug a deeper hole for Toshinori to discard his pride and self-worth into, only to bury it at the end and mourn its loss.

He was not a good man. He wondered when that had changed.

"Thank you, All Might. I'm sorry to have held you up." The words tumbled out of Izuku's mouth with a hazy air that told Toshinori the boy might have been unaware he'd even said them. His tearful eyes were practically catatonic. Without another word he spun on his heel and stumbled to the roof's exit. Toshinori caught one last look at the young man stiffly marching down the stairwell before the door closed behind him with an awful sense of finality.

'You would be disappointed in me, wouldn't you, Nana?'

His muscular form suddenly collapsed in on itself, both the force of will and font of energy that powered it unable to cope. Toshinori raised a trembling, bony hand to his eyes for appraisal and found himself lacking. Blood leaked from his lips and was promptly wiped away.

Toshinori waited ten minutes for Izuku to clear the stairwell before he too stumbled his way down the steps until he found a floor with an elevator and admitted to himself that his emaciated form was not suitable for an excursion down thirty flights of stairs. He arrived on the street and wandered, unsure what to do with himself. He'd reached his limit for the day. Nezu was not expecting him at U.A. until the following morning.

An explosion from a few blocks away rocked his world. He stumbled along with the pedestrians around him and drew his gaze to the column of smoke that rose ominously into the sky.

'Another villain?' he thought as he approached the crowd that had formed around the street in question, not for the first time wondering when the world had become so wrong that danger such as this was enough of an everyday occurrence that civilians would stay to watch the show rather than flee in terror. His eyes widened at the sight of the villain in question.

'The slime villain? But I…' Toshinori's hands flew to his pockets and found them distressingly empty. When had he dropped the bottles that contained the villain? He thought back to his hasty escape from the site of the battle, to Izuku grasping onto his legs for dear life as they soared through the air. 'Damn. That was sloppy of me.' He should have noticed immediately the lack of weight in his pockets. He'd become too distracted, too complacent.

The villain had captured another young boy and held him hostage. He wreaked havoc in the street, denying the heroes on scene entry. Something he'd knocked over had erupt–the cause of the earlier explosion–and set alight whatever around that was flammable.

Toshinori's teeth clamped down and ground together. The ache that seeped into his joints as his bony fingers formed a weak fist brought a scowl to his lips. Even in his weakened form, if he had the energy to change into his muscular self, he could have finished this villain in a second.

'You're useless!' he berated himself. He was unaccustomed to sitting on the sidelines. That he was forced to do so by his own actions was merely salt in the wound.

'I shouldn't have overdone it!' From the back of the crowd, he helplessly watched the slime villain continue its rampage. 'I shouldn't have spent so long taking pictures with citizens on the street. I should have let the police or another hero handle that small fry purse snatcher earlier. I should have conserved my energy–

'I should have passed on One for All.'

The crux of the issue came upon him with soul-crushing clarity. He'd been selfish. What dregs he held onto now weren't much, but to pass One for All down to a successor would leave his body even weaker and he would be left powerless and unable to help. The thought scared him. What would the world do without him? What brought him true shame was the voice that asked in the back of his mind 'What would you do with yourself?'

'I don't know.' he would admit in his darkest moments. After having his life planned and set for so long, Toshinori did not know what to do for the first time in almost two decades. Without his work as a hero, was he truly nothing? He held his head down in shame. His fists unfurled; his fingers dangled limply by his side.

'What should I do, Nana? Please, give me a sign!'

"What the hell are you doing, kid!? Stop! Stop!"

Toshinori's head snapped up. A boy with a familiar head of green hair burst through the crowd and charged the villain with a strained cry.

'Midoriya… he told me that his quirk was a vampirism-class, right? He can't use it right now, so what is he doing?'

Izuku made contact. While the villain attempted to swipe him away with sludgy tentacles, the boy spun and hurled his bag as a makeshift weapon. The school books and writing utensils that flew from its opened top hit their mark in the villain's exposed eyes and left it reeling and temporarily blinded. Izuku futilely clawed at the slime surrounding the other student, desperately tried to free him even as he demanded to know what Izuku was doing. The young boy's mouth opened with an answer Toshinori hadn't expected.

"I-I don't know what I'm doing! I was running towards you before I even knew what was happening. My… my legs just moved on their own!"

Toshinori's eyes widened. Those words…

His eyes stung with tears of shame. Directly in front of him was evidence that what he'd done was not just disgraceful, but a severe miscarriage of the justice he stood for. He clenched his fist once more. With a mighty inhale and flex, his stature grew in proportion. The power of One for All flowed through him. His insides screamed with pain. He tasted blood on his lips. He would make this right.

With his signature smile plastered on his face, he charged forward. Another hero that emerged from the rooftops saved Izuku before he had the chance. It seemed his prayers had been heard after all.

'Thank you, Nana. I think you're right about this one.'


Toshinori would lie to himself regularly afterward. He would tell himself that it had been hard to locate Izuku in all of the confusion. That he did not want to invade his privacy by using U.A.'s resources to locate him. Truthfully, the shame of meeting the boy face to face after having unceremoniously crushed his dreams was almost too much. He didn't know if the boy would ever forgive him. Worse yet, he didn't know if Izuku had taken his words to heart and gave up on his dreams, even if his actions against the slime villain spoke to the contrary.

It was only when the boy had shown up at the U.A. exams that Toshinori was finally forced to admit that he was a coward and thanked his lucky stars–but mostly Nana–that by some miracle the young man's dreams had remained intact after a brutal letdown by the man who was, for all intents and purposes, that child's idol.

He watched Izuku with singular purpose. That voice in the back of his head–Nana's voice–told him that he had found his successor.

'I will find a way to tell him,' Toshinori thought grimly, swallowing thickly at the prospect. 'And then, when they are released for Summer break I will transfer One for All to him and begin his training.'


"My blood, Midoriya. Drink it."

All of that planning and consideration only for him to throw it all away in a fit of desperation. He was still a coward. He'd had more than enough time since Izuku's admission to U.A. to have that talk with him and apologize for his words at the very least. Izuku hadn't interacted with him personally in the entire week they'd spent in classes so far. Toshinori swore he could see resentment in those eyes and wondered if the boy truly thought ill of him or if he was merely caught up in a reflection of his own guilty conscience.

Unfortunately, there was no longer time for him to say what needed to be said. The pain on the left side of Toshinori's face was overwhelming. It had been years since he had taken a blow of that caliber–the first since the bout with All for One that had left him in this state in the first place. His weakened body had shattered under force that a decade ago wouldn't have left a scratch. Everything hurt. He couldn't move. The League of Villains would kill him as it seemed they had come to do.

But before they did, he would ensure that peace would not die with him.

"All Might, you… Okay. Yes, sir." Though he looked like he wanted to question the Symbol of Peace for his sudden apology, Izuku clenched his affirmation through his teeth. The skin of his right arm and the tape that covered it had withered away from his knuckles almost all the way to his shoulder and continued to work its way around his bicep and forearm. Whether by luck or design, the muscles and bones beneath his skin seemed unaffected. With a groan of barely-concealed agony, Izuku crawled on his knees to the fallen hero.

"Midoriya, I…" Toshinori's vision swam. Shadow crept in from the edges. His good eye struggled to stay open. He should have explained what he was truly asking for. He should have given Izuku a choice. A hollow one, death or inherit the duty of the world, but a choice nonetheless. It felt as though at each and every avenue he had failed the young man before him and the thought that he would never have the opportunity to make up for those transgressions was haunting.

"It's alright, sir. I've got you." That smile. That shimmer in his eyes. It was as if he knew and accepted it, impossible though it was.

"When it is done," Toshinori gasped, "you must leave me to them. You must stay safe." One for All would take hours to digest and spread through Izuku's system. The boy would be long gone by then, safely locked behind U.A.'s walls with no knowledge of what was happening to him. Nezu would explain. He was good at that sort of thing.

"I won't leave you behind, sir!" Izuku smiled brilliantly, confidently, in spite of the fear that clearly showed in his eyes. He cupped a trembling hand beneath one of the Symbol of Peace's wounds, collected a palmful of blood, brought his hands to his lips, and swallowed.

Toshinori's world closed in around him, sudden fatigue setting in. For a moment, he thought that things may not have been so bad. The enemy was strong; despite what he said, Izuku would be forced to retreat. The Symbol of Peace could meet his end knowing that One for All had been passed to someone who would use it to make the world a better place.

'Take it, young Midoriya. It belongs to you now.' Izuku shared a comforting smile with the symbol of peace, an ethereal glow hidden in his eyes that hadn't been there previous. 'You remind me so much of her…' Toshinori grinned without thinking. In a rush of steam, his body deflated into his shrunken, emaciated true self. His eyelids fluttered shut, no longer able to fight to stay open. 'Show me once more what it means to be a hero…'


Izuku waited until All Might's eyes closed fully to let the panic consume him. His idol had just shrunk before him into a husk of a man and he didn't know why, nor was the man conscious to answer him.

"It's alright, sir. You can explain later." He needed to speak aloud, to feel the words on his lips and know that this was real life and not a terrible nightmare. Thankfully, All Might's heart was still beating. Izuku focused on the steady rhythm with his quirk and sighed with relief.

The hero-in-training stood and looked at his arm. Searing pain had been replaced with cold numbness as Hemokinesis' regenerative abilities quickly overtook the decay from Shigaraki's quirk. Scarred skin regenerated a few short centimeters before some of the distance would succumb once more, but the speed was so rapid that his arm was whole within moments. An experimental flex of his fingers brought with it a strange feeling. When he looked away, an arc of blue-green energy sparked at his fingertips.

'What is this…?'

A feeling of discontent spread through him. His quirk felt different. It didn't feel right. Why didn't it feel right?

"I have to say I'm a little disappointed, All Might." Tomura's dry cackle reminded Izuku that he had more pressing matters to attend to, though the sense of wrongness refused to leave his mind. The villain's grin contrasted with his frustrated body language; both hands scratched furiously at his neck in what Izuku had by then deduced was a nervous tic. "I wanted your end to be bombastic! The first and only successful raid on U.A.'s hallowed halls! The death of a legend! The end of an era! And yet here you are, sleeping on the job!" His voice nearly cracked as every ounce of venom and passion the man could muster bolstered his hysteria. Spittle flew from his chapped lips and he snarled furiously, bitter disappointment warred with utter disdain, "You were supposed to be better!"

The screech was accompanied by a childish stomp that Izuku recognized for what it was.

'Is he… throwing a tantrum?' It was all at once both eerie and absurd. Before Izuku stood a grown man–a villain who had threatened the lives of him and his friends–stomping his feet like a toddler who hadn't gotten their way.

But nearly as soon as it had started, it stopped.

"Nomu." Tomura's body suddenly stiffened, his raspy voice clear of the emotional turmoil from just moments before. With a hiss like cold steel, he commanded, "Finish off All Might. I have no use for broken toys. Now where did Kurogiri go?"

He stepped away dispassionately, not so much as turning to watch his minion end the life of the Symbol of Peace. Nomu's beady eyes pierced right through Izuku and bored into its target lying helplessly behind him.

It took a step forward, cracking the earth beneath its feet.

"I thought I told you…"

There it was again. That feeling. Izuku ignored it. His right glove had been all but destroyed, but the left was still functioning. He clasped a hand around the mechanism, repositioning any misaligned needles and reinjecting those that had become dislodged and their openings healed over by his quirk activation. A waterfall of red immediately gushed from his wrist and fell to the floor with a sickening squelch.

Nomu took another step.

Izuku's lips were locked in a snarl. His eyes glared directly into the vacant stare of his opponent. It continued to boil inside him; it bubbled from within his chest and with it came an overwhelming urge. Izuku's arm reeled back, his palm open to the ground with fingers splayed open like claws. Cyan lightning crackled into existence around his arm. From his shoulder to his fingertips, his skin glowed with power and his veins shone through a brilliant, gleaming ruby red. With every ounce of force he could muster, Izuku swung his arm underhand, snarling wrathfully with his mouth salivating.

"... I won't let you hurt anybody else!"

Izuku's world was rocked as the sound barrier broke directly in front of him. His sneakers slid almost five feet back and ground trenches in the dirt. His senses exploded with information that left him blind and deaf. Izuku's existence became nothing but pure white and a high-pitched whine, the taste of dust in his mouth the only reminder that he hadn't sporadically passed on to the afterlife

'I just…' the single instant of information his eyes had received before he'd lost sight had to have been wrong. He huffed, gritting his teeth against pain that suddenly radiated from his gums. 'Too much is happening at once.' He blinked rapidly, fighting for control. His vision righted itself as the pain subsided.

"What did you do!?" Tomura's voice quivered with unrepressed rage. It seemed that Izuku's attack had garnered his attention once more. Izuku groaned. The pounding in his head refused to let up. He blinked his eyes and watched shapeless colors return to form. Red. Why was there so much red?

It became apparent that his ears were no longer ringing; it was, in fact, the Nomu that was the source of the high-pitched screech that continued to assault his sense of sound. Its beady eyes darted to and fro, bloodshot and unfocused while it thrashed wildly, wailing like a stricken animal as its right arm grasped almost mournfully at the stump where its counterpart formerly joined at its shoulder. From Izuku's position, beyond the Nomu and a further forty yards that led into the manmade lake that comprised the Flood Zone, a trench had been gouged in the earth as if someone had taken a slice out of the world.

"How dare you do this to my Nomu!?" Tomura seethed. His hands scratched ruthlessly at his neck, body shook with frustration as he witnessed the beast he'd brought to defeat All Might futilely grasp at the blood that spilled through its fingers.

'I did that?' Izuku had no idea what was happening. He wasn't strong enough to do something like that. He tried to lift his arm to inspect it, but found that he couldn't. 'Why can't I…?'

A strangled sound escaped his throat. His entire arm was a mass of broken blood vessels and bones, discolored from bruising and bent out of shape in places he knew didn't have joints. As if the sight were the trigger, his brain stopped obstructing the pain signals and Izuku forced down a wail of pure agony. His mouth clamped shut; his tongue scraped carelessly on one of his upper canines and opened a cut that rapidly healed. His arm followed suit. Sickening cracks and snaps assaulted his ears; bone and torn sinew regenerated before Izuku's eyes until his arm was whole again. As he had earlier, Izuku clenched his fingers. This time he witnessed the sparks and his eyes widened.

'What's happening to me?' Something had changed. Izuku looked from his hand to Nomu, still writhing in agony, and recognized it then. The feeling that had been creeping up alongside whatever the hell had changed within his quirk.

'Blood.' His body called to him; a desire entirely his own and yet not. It chanted for him to feed it. He couldn't remember a time in his life the urge had ever been so strong, not even when the doctor in charge of his case at the Quirk Rehabilitation Center demanded he be cut off from blood for two months to see the effects.

'N-No… I got over this!' Izuku shook his head in a futile attempt to rid himself of unwanted thoughts. His gums ached. The sound of bone shifting on bone reverberated through his skull. 'I'm better than this!'

His tongue scraped a tooth again. This time it did not regenerate. The taste that filled his mouth was satisfying in ways that he couldn't describe, but only seemed to whet his appetite that much more. Izuku breathed heavily, his pupils dilated, fixated entirely on the being whose arm he'd severed. Blood and saliva mixed and fell from his lip. He felt positively ravenous.

Izuku pulled his arm back, fully prepared to do something he was bound to regret when Stendhal's voice called from his memory.


"Sensei, I…" Izuku huffed and wiped drool from his lip, eyed wide and fixated on Stendhal's arm, "... I'm not sure this is such a good idea."

"You won't make it as a hero if you can't control yourself." The vigilante's voice was harder than steel. Red eyes probed Izuku's face from behind his mask. "Maybe you could find a spot amongst the sycophants that ride All Might's coattails, but you would never surpass him."

'To surpass All Might…' Izuku swallowed thickly. The thought was almost enough to make him forget how ravenously hungry he felt staring at the blood that flowed down Stendhal's arm.

"There it is." Stendhal's grin was unusually subdued, the pain of experience hidden deep within his eyes, "A different kind of hunger."

"To be just like him." Izuku knew exactly what his teacher meant. He focused on that feeling, that determination that drove him to trudge out of his home every day at five in the morning and work till sundown. The one that kept him moving even when it felt as though he'd torn every muscle in his body and he could barely keep his eyes open. The one that made him forget what the rest of the world told him he should have been and instead reminded him of what he could be.

"No." Stendhal told him firmly, "Better!"

Better.

"I want to be…" All Might's smile flashed in Izuku's mind. Not the one from his favorite childhood video. No. The image in his mind was of that horrid, placating smile that he'd been given as his idol told him it would be better to find a new dream haunted his nightmares. He bore no ill will towards the symbol of peace, the man was probably just being realistic, but it still stung nonetheless. "... better." His gaze followed a drop of blood falling from Stendhal's fingertip to the ground. It splattered across the sand, a minute speck of red that sunk into the grains like it was consumed by the earth. He felt nothing.

"I want to be the best!" Izuku's voice echoed through the decrepit piles of refuse and appliances. Stendhal's grin grew wide, uninhibited.

"Yes!" His laugh pierced the air, a raspy, shrill call to a time yet to come. He shoved his bleeding arm in the face of his student, a wild look in his eyes, "Drink! Feed one hunger to soothe the other! Learn control. Use it to become better!"


Izuku stopped, his arm halfway towards launching another wave of blood at Nomu.

"Better." He whispered to himself, "I need to be better." It would only take one slip-up, one moment of weakness to do something he would never be able to take back. Intentions mattered just as much as–perhaps even more than–results. To crush another person's dreams was unforgivable. To do it with the intention of saving them a lifetime of heartache was mitigating. Izuku had forgiven All Might for not believing in him, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he hurt someone in an attempt to satisfy his lust for blood.

The disused remnants of his attack splashed at his feet, its momentum rapidly declined without his quirk to power it. With a calming breath, Izuku turned his attention back to the villains he faced. Tomura's fingers had stilled along with his subordinate's thrashing. Nomu's head tilted curiously, its beady eyes unfocused. The skin surrounding the stump of its left arm bubbled and writhed in an act of extreme body horror. Muscle and sinew rushed from torn ends of skin and grew into a shapeless mass roughly the size of an arm. Bone calcified and snapped into place underneath. Finally, new skin stretched over what had been created. Within moments, the beast had grown an entire arm to replace what had been lost.

'High speed regeneration.' Izuku remembered Tomura having mentioned something along those lines under the beast's traits during its fight with All Might. 'So this is what he meant. Injuring it is useless.'

"Hmm, that took longer than I expected." Tomura calmed considerably with his minion back at full health, but still held rage in his eyes. "Did your tussle with All Might use up your energy reserves? You're supposed to be above that kind of thing!"

If Nomu understood that it was being berated, or cared, it did not show on the creature's face. With its pain gone and its previous orders seemingly forgotten after it was stopped from carrying them out, it stood stock still, eyes staring meaninglessly into space, awaiting a new command.

"Urgh. Even high-level minions have problems, huh? Such a pain." Tomura shook his head. He was treating the situation like a game he'd already won. He paced the battlefield, putting up a false pretense of leaving his guard down. But no matter how defenseless he tried to appear, there was no stopping the sense of murderous intent that accompanied his every movement.

Izuku searched for an opening, any opening. But the villain before him had none that he could see. When those red eyes turned away it was a ruse. Each stumble or shuffle of his feet bait. Given an inch, he'd take a life.

"Not going to charge me? You're not being as fun as before, life-eater." Tomura's mouth formed a crooked grin. "Should we play a game instead?"

Izuku fought the urge to snark back. No distractions. His eyes followed the villain's gaze to All Might, then to Aizawa, still unconscious at the fountain.

"You hurt Nomu, so that means you won't die if I sic him on you, right?" His eyes were cold. He'd been interested enough earlier to not immediately try to kill Izuku–it was probably the only reason he was still alive after being touched. But the stakes were higher now. He felt it. Tomura was willing to kill him if he wasn't strong enough to survive whatever was going to happen.

'I don't actually know if I can.' Izuku braced himself for what was to come. His fingers sparked with power. Blood flowed freely from his glove and surrounded him in a massive pool, ready to mobilize at a moment's notice. Using his power invited another wave of bloodlust to wash over him. With a growl, the young hero dragged his tongue along his tooth to open yet another wound. He let the blood and his determination soothe him and spat both at his opponent.

"I won't die!"

"That's just what I wanted to hear!" Tomura laughed, "Nomu! Crush him!"

Nomu's cry of affirmation rumbled in Izuku's chest. The hulking being immediately shot forward. Its heavy steps cracked the earth beneath its feet. Izuku raised his hands and roared with effort. The pool of blood around him rose in a tidal wave towards the charging villain. They met with a sickening squelch; the crimson liquid moved to encase Izuku's opponent, slowing it down, but the behemoth was merely slowed by the makeshift chains that attempted to hold it down as it struggled single mindedly toward its goal.

Izuku thought he might be sick, controlling so much blood at a single time and using it to hold back so much raw strength, but this was no time to hit his limits. His arms began to glow, followed shortly by his veins. He felt in real time the crush force whatever the hell was happening to his body applied to him and his bones that inexplicably continued to mend themselves even as they continued to break.

'More power!' He commanded himself. What blood remained on the ground formed itself into hooks and embedded itself into as many non-lethal spots in the body as Izuku knew and stuck into the ground like tow lines. Nomu slowed further. It howled in pain and thrashed harder as the bloody tentacles that trapped it continued to tighten. With a grunt of exertion, Izuku finally brought the beast to a stop.

'I did it.' Izuku's entire body shook with the effort that it required to maintain the bindings. His arms stopped glowing–and breaking–thankfully, as maintenance at least required less strength than arresting Nomu's momentum in the first place. The villainous thrall thrashed as much as it could and howled its frustration at being held back from its duty.

"Oh? I actually didn't expect you to be able to do that." Beyond the creature in Izuku's grasp, its master cackled cheerily. "But it's not over, of course. Kurogiri! You're here, aren't you?"

"Of course, young master."

The hair stood up on the back of Izuku's neck. The faint noise of unknown power rose up behind him. Dread circled him like a trapped animal. The one named Kurogiri's voice came from right behind him.

'I can't move.' If he turned to look at the villain at his back, Nomu would be on top of him before he could react. He could drop one hand and use it to cover his back, but it would be risky without being able to see what he was doing, and the teleportation quirk the man possessed could just pass through his blood anyway. 'I don't know enough about him. And Shigaraki's still a problem. If it's between me and the three of them I don't think I can–'

"Die!"

A sudden burst of outward force blew wind through the back of Izuku's hair. Something shot past his back and carried with it Kurogiri who–if Izuku was hearing that right–grunted in actual pain as he was dragged away.

"Kacchan?"

"No, it's Invisalign!" Katsuki groused sarcastically, "Did you hit your head and lose what's left of your marbles?" Izuku spared a look and found his childhood friend perched imperiously atop the gaseous villain. One of his sparking hands clutched a metal collar of some sort where the villain's neck would have been while the other popped dangerously with miniature explosions, a threat the volatile blonde would be all too happy to follow up on judging by the sneering smirk on his lips and boiling rage in his eyes.

"Yeah, I guess I did." Izuku couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. The backup from one of the strongest people he knew reinvigorated him. With clenched fists, he tightened his hold on Nomu even more. "Thanks for the help."

"Tch, like I could leave something this important to you." Katsuki scoffed. He leveled his narrowed eyes at the villain beneath him and, with a growl, told him, "You fuckers put me in a real bad mood, so how about this: you stay stock-fucking-still and I don't blast your ass all over the courtyard." He released a large explosion from his free hand which scorched the metal plate of the collar and elicited a groan from the villain, "And let me spell it out for you: they'll still be finding pieces of you when my goddamn grandkids attend U.A., got it?"

'Well, Kacchan always had a way with words, I guess' The colorful threat urged a grimace from the other hero present, but it was effective nevertheless. Kurogiri's struggles ceased near immediately, much to Katsuki's satisfaction.

"That's right. Down, boy." He sneered, "Deku, Four-eyes got out so the cavalry should be here soon. We hold this one here and they can't escape when the pros arrive, right?"

"Right."

Over Nomu's shoulder, Izuku locked eyes with Tomura. The man seethed, seemingly hyperventilating while he scratched wildly at his neck. The area grew red, then raw, then bled.

"No. No, no…. nonononononono NO!" The villain screamed and his voice cracked with emotion. "It wasn't supposed to go like this, Master! You said it would be different!"

'He's unhinged.' Izuku had already been well aware of that fact, but seeing the most volatile meltdown so far only served to reinforce it in his head. Tomura held his head in his hands as he thrashed it back and forth, still seething with childish fury.

Then, like before, the tantrum ceased as if it had never happened.

"I will watch you suffer." Tomura rasped. His head lifted so that he could stare directly into Izuku's eyes. The pure hatred that he saw made him sick. An indescribable feeling of evil followed Tomura Shigaraki around like the plague; it was never more evident than in that moment. "You! Get up!"

Tomura suddenly broke his glare in order to haul a disoriented villain to his feet. The man's shaggy brown hair was stained a rusty red on one side from a head wound that had stopped bleeding some time ago. His eyes weren't particularly focused, but they snapped to attention the moment he realized who had grabbed him.

"Sh-Shigaraki sir! I don't-I-I did good, right? Please! Please! I did what you asked! Please tell me I did good! I just want it back!" Far from a devoted follower, the man nearly sobbed as he was brought face to face with the man who led him to battle. Tomura's lips curled into a sadistic grin, his yellowed teeth a complement to his ghoulish countenance.

"One more little thing. Just one. And then you can have it back." His tone was almost sickeningly sweet coming from a man who'd moments before promised suffering to a child.

"Yes, oh yes! Anything, sir! Anything!" The villain in Tomura's arms almost sobbed in relief. His hands rose as if to hug the leader of the League before he thought better of it, swallowing thickly at the sight of Tomura's dangerously close pinkie fingers. If those digits closed in on him…

"Great! Take this," Tomura procured a knife from the body of another villain, this one entirely unconscious, "and go kill Eraserhead."

"No!" Izuku shouted, but his objection went ignored.

The villain looked almost gleefully between his leader, the knife, and the unconscious pro hero.

"S-Such an easy task? Gladly, sir!" With a savage grin and a crazed look in his eye, the villain took the knife and nearly stormed away. Tomura's voice calling after him stopped the man cold.

"Wait for my signal! If you do it before I'm ready, I'll kill you where you stand."

"Yes sir! Yessir!" The man hopped towards Aizawa with a crazed laugh, chanting 'I'll get it back! I'll have it back!' in a sing-song tone.

"Stop it!" Izuku grit his teeth. He tried to split his focus to watch both the villain approaching Aizawa and Tomura himself, but forced himself to stop when Nomu managed to move its foot another step. The creature was less than ten feet away, a distance it could cover in an instant if left completely unchecked.

"No, I don't think I will!" Tomura cackled. He, too, approached a downed hero, waltzing by Izuku to stand by All Might's prostrate form. "I told you I'd make you suffer, so let's get that started with a little game. This one's a favorite of mine." Slowly, Tomura lowered his hand until it nearly touched the Symbol of Peace's throat, "Who will you save? I've been watching you, life-eater. You don't have enough control to split between the three of us." He motioned first to Nomu and then to the subordinate villain he'd recruited, kneeling with a knife over Aizawa's chest, "Maybe you save two, if you're lucky, but a good hit from Nomu game overs your hero career for life if he breaks the wrong bone, isn't that right, Nomu? I mean, look at the top underground hero over there."

Nomu squawked something like affirmation and Tomura laughed once more. Izuku's teeth clamped shut and ground together. His eyes narrowed.

'He's right. I'm barely containing Nomu as it is. I don't have the focus to push both of them away and hold Nomu down enough that he wouldn't be able to land a clean hit on me. If I only shield one of them, I can probably throw up a shield to at least soften the blow, but the other is dead for sure. If I stretch myself too thin without knowing my limits, we probably all die.'

"Or you make absolute certain you live to fight me another day. You're going to watch me kill your idols over here so that you can one day take revenge for them. But of course, I can only kill them if you let me, so it's all your fault, isn't it?"

"Fuck you!" Katsuki helpfully growled from the sidelines. He just about summed up everything Izuku could have felt at the moment, but the blonde himself was stuck as well. The moment he released Kurogiri, the villain was free to teleport himself and the others to safety, and that was probably after they killed the two students for meddling.

'What do I do? I can't choose between Aizawa-sensei and All Might! But… do I really have to? 'Being a hero isn't about saving people only when it's convenient for you. Sometimes it hurts.' Isn't that what you told us, Aizawa-sensei?'

"Have you made your decision?"

Izuku steeled his resolve.

"I have."

"Ha! I can't wait to wrap my hands around your throat! Now!"

Izuku didn't hesitate. He dropped his hold on the majority of the binds that held Nomu down and threw his arms in opposite directions.

'It doesn't need to hold for long! Just enough for me to save them instead of me!'

All Might's blood was still in his system, which meant he still had access to a means of attack right under Tomura's nose. An arc of blood sliced upwards from All Might's body and forced the villain to dodge, but he evidently hadn't expected the attack to come from so close. A cry of pain almost diverted Izuku's attention, but he had bigger things to worry about.

At the same time as he had launched his attack on Tomura, a far less focused, and therefore less harmful, wave of blood launched from Izuku's remaining gauntlet toward the man threatening Aizawa. He was swept away by the tidal wave of blood but probably wouldn't stay down for long, if at all, but it was All Izuku could manage at the moment. As it was, his vision swam and he felt like he could vomit at any moment.

In the midst of his attacks, Nomu broke free of its binds and charged, a massive fist ready to crush Izuku into the dirt much as it had Aizawa earlier. Izuku's head turned just in time to catch the attack as it aimed for his head. Desperately, he jumped left and brought his arms up, willing with them any blood, what little he could find it in him to lift, to move.

It wasn't much. The paltry barrier that Izuku raised shattered like glass without so much as an ounce of resistance beneath Nomu's fist. It collided with Izuku's arms like a freight train; they were forced back into his head before momentum caught up to him. The bones in his forearms made an audible crunch as they fractured from the force and he was thrown back an indeterminate distance where he felt more bones break in his ribcage, legs, and shoulder. The pain was so immense that Izuku couldn't even find it in him to scream. Whether his mouth was opened or closed or his jaw was broken from his tumble was beyond him to even comprehend. His entire body was a mass of writhing agony.

"-ku!"

"Deku!"

Kacchan's voice in the distance came into focus after some time. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Izuku's eyes fluttered open, clinging desperately to consciousness in spite of the pain.

'I just need to…' he fought desperately against the encroaching darkness, willing the world to focus so that he could see what was going on, '... just need to know they're okay. Then I can rest. Then I can rest…' with his promise of relief, Izuku's eyes finally adjusted.

Far beyond his position, Tomura scrambled in the dirt, alternating between hiding his revealed face and nursing the stump where his left hand used to be.

"Mother! Mother! No! Why did you leave me? He hurt me, mother!"

The severed hand that had previously covered the villain's face had, ironically, also been sliced by Izuku's attack. It lay bisected just below the knuckle by Tomura's side, a clear sign he'd been leaning over his hand at the time of the attack, though Izuku was certain that the villain had been in no danger of being decapitated.

To the villain's left, Nomu stood still as a statue, lying dormant after its order had been carried out. Its eyes mindlessly wandered over everyone in the area, waiting for a new command.

Katsuki still kneeled atop Kurogiri, though his frustrated, rage-filled eyes betrayed his lack of composure. That and the colorful string of curses that he let out every so often when throwing a concerned? glance in Izuku's direction.

Finally Aizawa, now drenched in Izuku's blood but otherwise still breathing. It seemed that after being flung, Izuku had landed near the underground hero and his attacker.

'Good.' Izuku's eyes fluttered closed, he tried to smile, but he wasn't sure if it worked, 'Good. They're okay…' It was alright. He could rest now.

"YOU!" Tomura's screech snapped Izuku awake. The villain had seemingly righted himself from his temporary breakdown. His face was covered once more but, Izuku noted with horror, the severed hand that covered it now was his own. "I WILL… I WILL…" He stood to his feet and trudged towards Izuku's fallen form, on the way snagging the attention of Aizawa's attacker, who was by then regaining his bearings. "End the underground hero before I have the master give it to someone more deserving!"

"Y-Y-Y-Yes sir!" The man scrambled to his feet, searching desperately for the blade he'd dropped in the confusion. He found it in a puddle of blood and merely smiled when he grabbed it by the blade and the metal cut deep into his skin. He stood with a manic grin and gave Izuku's cheek a condescending pat as he passed by, smearing it with blood.

'No!' Aizawa-sensei wasn't supposed to die. No one was supposed to die! 'I said that I wouldn't let them hurt anyone else.' That he himself was not included in that declaration was an afterthought. If he wanted to be a hero, he had to be willing to lay his life on the line for others. Aizawa had done it, All Might had done it, Izuku had tried and… he couldn't be the only one to fail to save someone.

"I won't let you!" His jaw was working, it appeared. Though the amount of blood he coughed up with his words was troubling.

"No, no. I'm done with your little hero game." Tomura's approach was slow and meticulous, timed just right so that Izuku would have time to watch Aizawa die before the villain strangled the life out of the boy while he crumbled to dust. "I'm going to watch the life slip from your eyes. I'm going to listen to the voices of your peers scream your name and beg for mercy. I'm going to squeeze your throat until you can't breathe and then I am going to turn your windpipe into dust and watch you choke on it."

Each word was spoken with a cold certainty. The kind of mania that could only come from a man who'd gone off the deep end and kept going. Tomura's soulless eyes drilled into Izuku's own and left him with a sense of terror that he had never felt before. The sense of unavoidable, oncoming death.

But there was one thing that Izuku wanted to accomplish before he died.

'If it's going to end, so be it.' His eyes drifted past Tomura to the man approaching Aizawa, this time ready to kill without waiting. 'But I won't break my word!'

Tomura knew by now how his power worked, but his hired help had obviously missed the memo. While excruciatingly painful, it didn't take much for Izuku to poke his tongue out of his mouth just enough to catch a drop of the blood that had been smeared across his face and the corner of his lips. When Aizawa's attacker suddenly staggered, he knew he'd gotten lucky, for the man had used the hand he'd cut on his weapon to taunt the hero.

'If he's slowed down enough, maybe I can…' Izuku tried to focus on his blood, still all over the area Aizawa was in, and push the villain away, but his every attempt was met with failure. He could move his fingers, but it wasn't enough. 'It's no use. I can't move my arms to control enough blood to push him two feet, much less incapacitate him.' His eyes stung with tears. Tomura was almost upon him. Aizawa's killer was mere steps away. 'I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to–'

"Hands off Deku you creepy fucker!"

Tomura was forced to duck an explosion as Katsuki sailed right over his head, palms splayed open and an unholy expression of rage gracing his features. Katsuki readjusted his angle on the fly and let off three rapid explosions in succession that launched him up into the air and back down with a heavy axe kick that, again, forced a dodge from the villain.

'Kacchan!' Izuku would buy his childhood friend every ounce of mapo tofu he could eat when they got out of this. But elation over not dying could wait. Izuku's eyes wandered from the fight between Katsuki and Tomura to Aizawa, who was moments away from death.

'I can't perform any acts of fine control.' Izuku thought, searching desperately for a solution, 'Using overwhelming force also isn't possible without use of my arms.' The villain readied his knife, prepared to stab Aizawa through the heart.

'The heart…?'

Izuku closed his eyes. His breathing picked up. He knew what he had to do. And he hated it.

"I'm sorry." Izuku whispered. His senses focused on the blood that he'd ingested. It flowed through the man's veins. It pumped with the beat of his heart. Tears welled up inside of Izuku and gathered at the corners of his eyes. He squeezed them tighter. "I'm sorry." He whispered again.

Izuku clenched his fist.

It felt so wrong. Everyone's heartbeat was different. The way that their blood traveled through their veins was unique. The moment everything stopped flowing, Izuku almost broke and opened his hand. But he didn't. He watched every moment as the flow ceased within the villain's body. The way its image changed as his heart was crushed by the self-same blood that it was meant to pump through his veins. The way his body collapsed, almost immediately succumbing to a critical lack of oxygen to the brain. He clenched his fist and waited. And waited. And when he was absolutely sure that he had killed a man, Izuku finally let go.

'I'm so sorry.'

Izuku finally let go.


Hey guys, it's me, hot garbage author man who is really bad with deadlines (thank god I didn't try to set one for this chapter cuz woof it's been 8 freakin' months).

Anyway new year new cliffhanger. This chapter is a whopping 8500 words pre-edit and author's note and may clock in at more once I'm done. Big boye chapter is my penance for making you wait so long and also so that I could actually, finally, finish the USJ arc. Next chapter we will be in a different, wonderful place where I don't have to agonize over fight scenes and how hot trash garbage I feel like I am at writing them. The first 4000 words of this chapter got almost completely rewritten 5, count them 5 times. Because I'm bad. And a bit of a perfectionist. Otherwise I would've had this ish done in like January or December. But I am super sadge that I won't get to write Shigaraki for a while because he's just super fun.

But at least I'm actually kinda happy with how the final product turned out. I had two (technically 3 if you count Manami) grand ideas going into this story. One: One for All enhances Hemokinesis to be way cooler than I originally wrote it and two: Izuku kills somebody. Willingly. But also kind of unwillingly. In the line of heroic duty not some edgelord "I think killing is cool and all heroes should do it!" BS that's in 90% of fanfiction. This is huge for a lot of reasons. Izuku's personality and psyche, his new position as successor to the Symbol of Peace warring with his new position as guy who has killed someone, and also also the kinda quirk racism against vampirism quirks in this AU. It's not going to be sunshine and rainbows, kiddos.

That said, what was sunshine and rainbows was getting to do All Might PoV at the start of the chapter. Between last chapter and this one I went back and rewatched the show (again) and man is All Might just super different in episode 1. He's kinda depressed, kinda rough around the edges. I have to say I may actually like him more than what he later turns into after Izuku gives him hope again. In other news this rewatch still did not reach season 6, though I am halfway through 5. No spoilerinos in the reviews please.

So yeah. Next chapter I'd like to cool down from this angst and drama with some more angst and drama (and like maybe a little bit of fluff idk man I miss writing fluff) while we set up for what comes next.

Reviews sustain my immortal soul as always so please leave one because I will love you forever. Also Ao3 version coming soon(TM) because I somehow completely forgot I said I was going to do that. My b.