Inspired by Telefunken, a Eugenesis epilogue by James Roberts.

My vision is awash with colour.

My eyes blink from the strain of light as I awaken into the cold new world. My arms and legs flex as I stretch my body and force myself out of my bed and into the cool air, as uncomfortable in the morning as ever. My bedroom is filled with my own aroma, so I go to the window and open it, taking but a split second to stare outside.

As always, the giant star of Alpha Centauri that we have come to know as our sun draws outlines amongst the jagged buildings and piercing skyscrapers in the pink and orange sky above, blue seeping in to slowly fill the canvas. Through the glare of sunlight I begin to map out the details of each individual building and all the people that walk between them, all as small as Ants from where I see them, with their faces plastered over by smiles and their sights enraptured by the heroes that stroll down the streets and stand at every corner.

I look through the bars that cover my windows and smile.

Today is the day.

I march through the streets with a stride in my step. The crowds around me bend at the sight of my guards as I move. I would rather not be with them, but these are dangerous times, and Aizawa, even in his old age, is nothing if not persistently stubborn.

But still, my guards make for less than pleasant company. There's too much of Aizawa in them. They used to be all boisterous and fun before, back when they were students. Now they're all serious, no talk or fun to them. Those fun personalities of theirs had been kicked and beaten out of them. The wars that had come before were not kind to Kirishima and Tetsutetsu in the years that they have been there.

Neither had been U.A., or Aizawa.

He still isn't kind to anyone.

I look to my side as we pass through U.A., and see a group of students running across a pitch, a full twenty compared to the ten students in Class 1-A last year. A group of hero instructors are yelling at them, almost screaming. The students are all fearful. As the new principal after Nezu's passing, Aizawa would've expelled everyone within their first moments of arriving at the drop of a hat. But thanks now to the new Hero Service Bill he couldn't.

The Hero Service Bill... it's a controversial act, even to this day. After that whole fracas with the first League of Villains, faith in hero society had gone on the decline, and the number of admissions to hero schools began to drop year after year. The Hero Public Safety Commission, still standing after the reveal of Nagant's crimes thanks to the Symbol of Hope's efforts to rebuild hero society, had enough one day and pushed the Japanese Diet to pass a new law, first conscripting all legacy children born from hero families into the hero schools to make up for the numbers, then children with strong quirks, then just as many children as they could into the schools. Soon enough, entire armies of children were taken away to be trained into the next generation of heroes, and the schools meant to train them were ordered to not expel a single one of them in order to make up for the current needs of hero society.

Aizawa couldn't expel any of them, so he settled for the next best thing. As the principal of U.A., he hired as many heroes as he could that shared something similar to his own views on herodom, including the likes of Iida and Shinso and others from the famous Hell Class of U.A., and ordered them to work their students to the bone, don't give them any chance to rest, don't give them any time to waste. Make sure that the proper conduct of hero work, and all the realities of the business, are beaten into them. Representatives of the HPSC are always a help with that objective, especially at other schools.

And so far, it's been working. Legions of heroes constantly march out of the gates of not just U.A., but all hero schools across the country like factory lines. Now it's all too common to find a pair of heroes on every street and one on every corner, ready to enforce the new laws against villainy that are being passed each and every day.

Some heroes had spoken out against these new laws. The likes of Shoji, Ibara, Tsuyu, and Ojiro, had protested against the new laws that were being put down. Those same heroes had disappeared soon after. Many said that they had retired in protest, but I have a feeling that they had been put down themselves.

I look up as we pass through the streets, through the checkpoints and armed guards on every street as they look me and my unwanted retainers over. I see a neon sign of two of the girls from U.A.'s Hell Class. Momo and Jirou. They're in an advertisement for soap. The clothes that they wear are skimpy, yet ironically Momo's is more conservative than what her managers actually allow her. In what she is wearing currently, I need to squint in order to make out the bones of her ribs and emaciated arms, and the thinnest of her waist compared to her oversized breasts and ass. I remember her crying to herself about it a year ago, vomiting up her food just so that her managers wouldn't be angry at her again for ruining her perfect figure.

Jirou is just as skimpily dressed as Momo, and speaking as seductively as she poses. I can see the dullness of her eyes alongside Momo's. The makeup that she wears covers the symptoms of drug and alcohol addiction. Jirou had been suffering from addiction problems ever since she was forcibly outed as bisexual by a journalist. Now her sexuality seemed to be the only thing that the media ever wanted to talk about when it came to her, always playing it up as some big heroic thing and not just a part of herself whilst half of social media seemed content on insulting her and sending her death threats about it. I'd lost count of the amount of times I've seen her sobbing to herself. It was a sorry sight.

I'm suddenly reminded of Ochako as I think of those two. She worked herself to the bone with trying to help rebuild after the calamitous war with the first League of Villains, and began to undereat and starve herself due to the constant pressuring from her own managers as well as the constant ridicule on social media about her chubbiness. I remember her funeral. It was a sad event.

At least it was better than the likes of the girls of Class 1-B. Since they were a less popular class brought lower still by that scandal in their third year when that Momona guy snapped and attacked and debilitated a member of 1-A (what was her name? Mona? Mena? Ah, whatever, she was dead now), no one was willing to look their way as the disgraced women were taken away and...

Well, rumour had it that that was where some of the children with those pretty powerful quirks had come from. Neo-Humans, that's what their offspring were called. The next generation of heroes. Rumours say that only that Kodai girl was able to escape from- from what? I'm not sure if I even want to know.

I weave through the crowds as they part like the Nile River and I am Moses. Up ahead is the religious district, where all the spiritual and superstitious folk gather to wax in the face of this brave new world. I had always imagined, when it was younger, that the world that we lived in would grow after the defeat of the first League of Villains. Instead, it has shrunk. The armed heroes walking along the imposing walls around the cities with guns aimed at the crowds below were proof of that. It was said that the walls were supposed to keep out the exiles and the villains and the mutants, but nowadays it seemed like all they were doing was keeping them in.

I pass through the religious sector with my guards. Someone stands on a box to the side before a statue of All Might, people around him kneeling to pray. Members of the Almighty, it would seem. All Might has taken on a mythological status since his death. I've lost count of the amount of cults that are out there. Rumour has it that they're forming some sort of alliance, but those are just that, rumours.

Up ahead, a wall of scaffolding covers a shattered building. I stare at it in bemusement. A child had been crying for their mother and their quirk had turned his wailing into a supersonic scream. Everyone in the building died as the building shattered, including the child.

Just as quirks were becoming more powerful with each generation, people were reaching their quirk singularity more and more with each passing day, and younger and younger as they come. Hero society was still struggling to compensate as the rate of powerful quirks rapidly grew with each passing generation, and that just meant more harsh laws, tougher and tougher still, were being passed as time marched on. There were almost no quirkless people left anymore on top of it. A dead race, extinct.

In front of the shattered building, a man stood before a crowd, praising and worshipping All for One's name. My guards look to him with scorn, and I take the chance to slip away, even if for a moment. Someone waves to me around a corner and I approach them.

I know her. Hana Aoi, the Zookeeper. She passes me something and I nod to her with a reluctant smile.

The pocket watch that she gives me is nice to look at. Emblazoned with a phrase that is written in what I can only assume to be Latin. I nod to her and move back into the sight of my bodyguards (my keepers, my jailers). They walk away from the bloodied and beaten body of the All for One preacher on the ground, step over a homeless man wearing a sign proclaiming himself to be a Paranormal Liberation War vet, and harshly say, "Where did you go?"

"Not far."

"Where?"

"Away."

"Where?"

I shrug, "Here."

They clench their fists, "Let's go," Kirishima says to me. His teeth are jagged as he growls. All his charm and wit from when he was but a teen is gone, as is Tetsutetsu's. I nod to him and follow along. We pass by a trader trying to sell us a shoddy replica of the Symbol of Hope's glove. Clearly a poor man's fake. His entire stall was awash with merchandise dedicated to their new ruler.

My guards laugh, and when they are not looking I huck up a wad of phlegm and spit it out onto the man's merchandise. A token of my love for Deku.

A group of heroes will walk through this place soon enough to disperse the crowds and destroy the effigies to gods and deities alike. Why worship a god when you can worship hero society?

I keep my new pocket watch stuffed in my pocket. It's metal shell would do well to hide the bomb inside.

I know I should, but I do not expect to see a crowd outside of what was once Might Tower now Deku Tower, picket signs in hand as they kicked up a fuss about the usual injustices (their children being taken away from them and conscripted like child soldiers into an army, the rampant escalation of power for heroes, the stamping of personal freedoms of civilians, the growing instability of quirks in society, the usual riff raff). I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't been expecting that.

What I was expecting what was happened next though, as I watch Dynamight and his security team, the Bakusquad, march out of Deku Tower and unload their quirks into the crowd.

Protests turning violent are growing more and more common nowadays. I've lost count of the amount of times that I've born witness to another batch of corpses being sent off to the pits to be buried in as those who worship hero society and quirks cheer as they cart them off. Quirk worship, along with hero worship, is growing stronger with quirks themselves. The preaching of the MLA is not as squashed as many heroes would like to believe. I would dare say that it's grown stronger with time. Worse even. More insidious in its designs. The likes of Dynamight and Aizawa can probably attest to that.

Worse yet, its beginning to invade all aspects of life. First they destroyed the support companies for heroes. Because of the fact that many civilians, vigilantes, and villains back during the Paranormal Liberation War, as well as the events afterwards, used support items to boost their strength, there was a massive pushback against the industry, especially with a rising justification for their redundancy due to the increasing power of quirks themselves (which is an absolutely illogical argument, considering how quirks are becoming more unstable with their power, but it is all the argument that is needed nowadays), and many support companies were pushed out of business. Hatsume Mei lost hers in the first year of its creation. Last I heard she went underground and started selling on the black market alongside all those old scientists from I-Island before it sunk to the ground, but that's another story.

Then, it was religion. The MLA were already cultish enough as it was, but now they're beginning to use quirks, to use All Might's legacy as a way to push out other faiths and beliefs and dominate the minds of its subjects. Religious was being deconstructed and co-opted by a new synthetic form of faith, one that worshipped quirks as gods and heroes as their deities. It was madness.

Then it was jobs. Employment was already pretty biased towards quirks, but now? Now your quirk dictated your life. I've heard stories of adults being separated into working groups based on their abilities, of people who want to become doctors being forced away because they didn't have healing quirks and are shunted onto another form of employment, like manual labour, without any say of their own as well. I've heard rumours that many people are being conscripted into organisations and services based on their quirks. And as for the mutants of society... well, the less said about them, the better.

There are some old timers amongst hero society's ranks - Mirko and Ryukyu come to mind - that are trying to push back against the madness, but there's only so much that they can do against the coming storm.

Because a storm is coming. You don't need to be a quirk analyst or a tactician or even a hero to know that everything is going to hell. The World Hero Association is gearing up for the inevitable Hero Civil War that will break out in the next few years or so, and everyone's readying themselves for what is to come as quirks become more and more powerful. Eventually, they'll become so powerful that there will be no way to control them.

And then... extinction. Global annihilation at the hands of the powers that made so many of us.

I shudder to think about it.

Dynamight and his crew have finished cleaving through the crowds, and rubbish trucks are on standby to get rid of the bodies. My bodyguards guide me through the slosh of blood and viscera beneath me to the front entrance of Deku Tower. Its green walls and red-tinted windows suddenly feel more oppressive then I remember. I suppress the urge to vomit from the tension as I am shunted inside.

Up the stairwell I go. A pair of heroes take a blood sample of me that makes me shiver, suddenly reliving a memory that leaves me disorientated. None of the heroes pay any mind. I'm not Toga or Twice according to the scanners. I'm just me. They take a brainwave test next. I'm not being mind controlled by a quirk either. Everything that I do is of my own free will.

I go through a metal detector. The special lining around the pocket watch on my person leaves it undetected. Good. I slip in and make my way to Deku's office.

Todoroki, the number two hero, stands at the door. He's big and bulky and imposing and shoots me a harsh glare as Kirishima and Tetsutetsu step to the side. I stay still. His frame is almost identical to that of his father's, except his right side is covered in icy daggers whilst his left side spat fire from neon lines. He wore a goatee that was made from half fire and half ice. A constant trail of steam floated off him.

I had heard that Todoroki (what was his hero name again? Ah, whatever. It didn't matter) had come to admire his father in his later years... even after he had made his life a living hell. That didn't make sense to me, and I doubted that it ever would. My father was a bastard of a man, and there's nothing about him that I respect. Todoroki, though? Why would he come to respect his father, to emulate him so badly? It probably wouldn't make sense at all to me, so I don't bother asking.

"Is it that time already?" I am aware that Todoroki is trying come off as friendly, but he has still not quite mastered the concept of emotions so it comes across more as a blank statement. I nod to him, "He's waiting for you."

I move to step inside, but a hand places itself on my shoulder. Todoroki's. I suppress the well of fear inside of me as I look up to him. He's more imposing than I remember.

"When you get in there, keep it brief. He's not doing well."

"He's never doing well," I cannot help but say.

"That's not what you'll be telling everyone."

In my prison at U.A.? The prison you've locked me in for ten years? I think to myself, but all I can do is nod, "He's fine and healthy."

"Better than fine."

I nod again, "Keep it brief."

"That's the plan," he slammed his hand against the door and it almost makes me jump, "Let's go."

The doors open and I step through, suddenly assaulted by the smells of antiseptic and death The room is blinding, offensively sterile in its white walls and white lights. There were no windows to the outside world. Someone shuffles past me, a nurse. She leaves the room in a hurry.

Todoroki moves before me.

"Midoriya. You have a visitor."

I look to the table in the middle of the room. Actually, it wasn't a table. It was a bed. A bed with a person laying inside, connected to IV drips and metal harnesses and limb stabilisers and threads and needles sticking into his body and keeping him alive. A monitor next to his bed continuously pulsed with each beat of his heart.

Izuku Midoriya.

The man who helped save me looks even worse than the last time I saw him, which was only a month ago. His body was pale and weak, his muscles atrophying after countless tears and burns and cases of self-destruction. His bones under his frail skin look like jagged and shattered glass through the imprints of his thin flesh. His eyes are as dull as a rainy day, and just as wet as well. He looks like he has been crying constantly. Was he truly in that much pain?

It was all One for All's fault. That quirk should never have been given to him, and now it was killing him.

I want to cry at the thought of it.

Izuku has always been reckless selfishly selfless, and One for All definitely enabled those behaviours, but there's more to it than that.

One for All is a killer. It's grown more powerful with each generation that it was passed down to, and now it's at its peak in power. Quirk singularity. It has never meant to be held for long, and now it's stockpiling way too much power.

Add to Izuku's general reckless abandon with his own body, his own health, and his usage of all the quirks inside him, how willing he is to push past his own limits to be a hero, and how much he's willing to forsake his own wellbeing in the service of others...

It was too much. He's weakened his own body through his constant heroics back in the day - his body is riddled with aches and chronic pains that leave him in agony every single day, his bones are covered with cracks and fractures, his heart has to have a pacemaker attached to it due to the constant strain on his body thanks to his actions, his nervous system is shutting down from the constant stress and leaving him paralysed - and since Recovery Girl passed away, there was no one with the quirks necessary to heal him, or at least get him up and standing without the pain.

And now One for All, through all its power and experience and all the quirks attached to it, is tearing him apart from the inside out. I can make out the little crackles of green electricity that spark out across his body as he tilts his head and twitches his fingers. One for All is killing him, and he still uses it every single day, in the limited capacity that he could.

He's still giving it his all.

It's times like these that I realise how much I've come to hate the phrase 'Plus Ultra', how much I've come to despise the idea of giving it your all in a fight, of not holding back out of what? Respect for your opponent? What the hell does respect have to do with anything in a fight? The objective is to win a fight by any means necessary, not draw it out because of some demented sense of chivalry.

Izuku Midoriya has subscribed to that notion all his life, and now he's dying because of it.

I've come to realise, over the years of living within my gilded cage, how toxic the meaning behind 'Plus Ultra' truly was. The idea of giving it your all in a fight, of not holding back an inch out of respect for your opponent, is so incredibly stupid. It's self-destructive, it's suicidal, and it's a cruel way of convincing the most idealistic of their number to give their lives for a cause that should never have been their own.

The crippled man in the bed before her is living proof of that testament.

And now, look at the world. Aizawa was enforcing the idea of going 'Plus Ultra' as a militant decree within U.A., the HPSC and the Japanese Diet are using the phrase to justify their further clampdowns on the complacent people of hero society, all with the blind support of the people themselves cheering them on, and heroes themselves were throwing themselves wildly at any threat they see, whether it be true or false, a villain or a scared civilian undergoing a traumatic awakening, or even some villains themselves (not all of them) as they go to seek their own needs above all else, their own selfish desires above the people that they saw as weaker than themselves.

Plus Ultra has become the mantra of those who subscribe to the notion of Social Darwinism. It's sickening to consider.

And now I stand before one of the men who this all rippled out from. The Symbol of Hope. Not the root cause... but definitely one of them.

I should hate him. I really should despise the man who I see before me, the weak, frail man who contributed, even if unintentionally, to the suffering of not just myself, but so many other people as well...

But I can't. I should, but I can't.

Izuku shoots me a fragile smile and rasps something out.

"Eri..."

I can't bring myself to hate the man who saved me.

I step forward and do not bother wiping away the sad smile on my face, "Hi Deku," a part of me is happy to see him again - it's my monthly visit to him, after all. Of course I'm happy - but another part of me is sad about what is to come. My white hair flows down my back as the horn on my head suddenly feels itchy. My red eyes shimmer with regret. No one else notices.

Todoroki looks at me, sends me a passive stare that I can't pin down. He was fiercly protective of his friend, and it showed through the sudden increase in ice and fire that covered his body suddenly flared and flickered.

"Make it quick," he grounds out as he turns to leave. The door shuts behind me.

We are alone.

Izuku's mind seems to be lagging behind, probably talking to the voices in his head, as he stares at me for a few seconds before smiling.

"...Don't worry about Todoroki... he's tough, but he means well."

I step forward, aware of the camera watching over us, "He acts like Endeavour."

Izuku smiles, "...That just means that he respects him."

"He respects his abuser?" why did I say that? I shouldn't have. That was a slip of the tongue, that was beneath me.

Izuku blinks, then leans back into his seat, "...He's redeemed himself."

"Has he?" I can't help but ask rhetorically. I've already started, why stop now? "Imagine that, forgiving the person who made your life a living hell for years."

I still can't understand the relationship Izuku and Bakugo. The latter apologised, sure, but that doesn't make up for the hell that he put Izuku through, of which he still hasn't paid any proper penance. At least not to me.

And Izuku? All his life, he has idolised that man, Bakugo, even when he was being hurt by him. Sure, he says that there were parts of Bakugo that he hates, but the fact that he openly admires and respects that man so much... I don't know.

I'm not comfortable with forgiving abusers.

For his part, Izuku doesn't respond to my barbed comment. Not directly. The only retort he provides is a soft, "...You've never had a problem with him before."

I stop myself from saying anything more, consider my words, and then I say, "I've been thinking about things."

"...Like what?"

"I'd rather not say."

Izuku doesn't press any further. Instead he changes the subject (after another few seconds of mental lag. I'm beginning to think that no one's supposed to communicate with the eight voices in his head for too long. It's starting to get to him, fracture his mind, make his condition even worse) and asks me, "...How are you?"

I answer as best I can; with a lie, "I'm fine."

"...Eri..."

Don't look at me like that Izuku, please.

"I'm fine, really," I say more naturally, "I've just had a lot on my mind, recently."

"...Do you want to... talk about it?"

I shake my head, "Not really," that's another lie.

Izuku sends me a soft, kind smile. He looks so old, so withered. His muscles have been shredded and are atrophying. His voice is low and raspy. Medical devices cover him like a suit and poke into his flesh, bloating it with wires like veins. It's sickening to look at. I remember the face of the nurse who walked out of this room. Her face had been shivering with fear. Had it been because of Todoroki's ire, or was it because of the macabre sight before her?

(I wonder why that particular nurse, that particular person, was chosen. Is it because she's an empathetic person? Is it because of her personality? Or is it because of her quirk? I've seen a lot more of people being pushed into certain roles because of their quirks nowadays, a subtle new form of quirkism pushed by the powers-that-be. She'd heard rumours of people who wanted to be doctors being forced into combat roles because of the fighting ability of their quirks and vice versa, as well as whispers of people with utility quirks being conscripted into labour forces, regardless of whether they were villainous or not. Izuku has always preached that all quirks are equal in their capabilities, and that there was no such thing as 'Villainous' quirks. I can't imagine that he, in his right mind, would ever imagine his words to be used for something like this.

And what about those without quirks? I think to myself, but shake my head of that thought. There are no people without quirks. Not anymore. The quirkless are a dead race, one that either passed away from old age or were hunted down by the mobs and heroes and villains in culls that no one ever wants to talk about.

Everyone focuses so much on quirks nowadays that no one ever wants to spare a thought to those that got left behind.)

I turn my crimson-eyed gaze away from the sight before me for just a moment. Izuku, during this time, is passive. He seems to be too wrapped up in conversation with himself to comprehend the fact that I'm in front of him right now, before he tries his best to smile (flickers of green lightning around his cheeks and lips. I suppress my wince at the sight) and say, "...How are... you?"

"...I'm fine," I say after a short second. Izuku doesn't make any mention of it.

"...How is... U.A.?"

"It's-" I pause, trying to find my words, "Tough. Aizawa still isn't letting me into the hero course. Says I'm not cut out for it and that I should quit while I'm still ahead," I try to sound regretful instead of relieved. The idea of becoming a hero has long since lost its lustre for me, "Being principal of U.A.'s hasn't stopped him from being an ass, I guess."

Izuku blinks at me, "...Aizawa's the principal?"

I pause, "Yeah... he's the principal of U.A.."

"...Really?" I nod to him, "...For how long?"

"...For years?" I didn't mean to phrase it like a question. Aizawa being the principal of U.A. was old news at this point. Izuku should know this. Someone should've told him - hell, I've told him countless times, "I've told you about it before."

"...Have you?"

Something worms its way up my stomach. Bile? Izuku doesn't remember the fact that I've told him about Aizawa being in charge, despite the fact that I've at least made a point of mentioning it during our arranged monthly meetings? Why didn't he... was One for All... "Y-Yeah."

"...Oh," Izuku sent me the faint trace of an apologetic smile, "...Sorry, I... my mind's not been the same in a... in a while, I..." he paused again, "...Don't worry, I'm a-okay!" he rasped, before he head tilted back, "No, Nana, that's not..."

I do my best to stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. Izuku... One for All must be... the voices in his head, the vestiges... is he developing some sort of, what? Alzheimer's? The vestiges in his head are taxing his mind so much - especially in his weakened state where his body is failing bit by bit and his mind is the only thing he had left, that his memory is beginning to fall apart.

"Do you... remember who I am?"

"...Yeah," his pause is longer than I am comfortable with, "You're Eri, you... you visit me every... every..."

"Month."

"Month, yes... we met at... at..."

"You saved me," so did Mirio, and I haven't heard anything from him or the other Big Three of his school year in ages. They had been one of those who had protested against the new laws being pushed forward back in the day. They had no doubt been disappeared as well.

"Did I...? Oh I... my head's so fuzzy these days... we can barely keep up."

"...'We'?"

"...I... we... shh, let me... let me think..."

He stops talking altogether, lost in the haze of his own clashing thoughts.

I shudder. All other attempts at pleasant conversation escape me as I suddenly rush to the topic of conversation that Izuku and I have argued and disagreed about during each and every meeting.

"I can heal you."

Izuku looks at me. I press forward.

"My quirk, I'm better at it now. I can rewind you. Rewind your body. Rewind your mind. Make you better."

Even as I say this, I know that it's too good to be true. The damage to his body could be reversed, but his mind... his mind is too far gone. Lost to time. Even if his body could be healed, his thoughts are too jumbled and too dazed and fractured to be healed.

Izuku Midoriya is lost in mind and in body.

Still, I can't help but find myself pushing it forward, pushing the possibility of healing Izuku to the man in the bed with the wires sticking into his skin, "I can do it. I can rewind the damage. Make you better."

Izuku looks at me, and then shakes his head, "...I... I can't force you to-"

I already know how this conversation is going to go, "You're not forcing me. I'm offering it to you."

"...Eri-"

"What?"

"...I can't... this is... my burden..."

I growl, "You always say that," my hands throw themselves up into the air in my exasperation, "You always say - 'It's your burden'. What the hell does that even mean?"

Izuku's expression doesn't shift, "...Eri... this has always been... my burden to hold."

"One for All?"

Izuku shakes his head, "...No... I'm the... Symbol of Hope," I don't say anything, allowing him to continue on, "...The pillar for everyone... to look to... the number one hero."

He shakes his head again. Green sparks of light flicker across his face.

"...I have to... keep going... keep living... keep being who I am... otherwise... people will lose hope."

"At what cost?" I ask, "At what cost to yourself?" he looks at me and I throw my hands towards him, "Look at yourself, Izuku. You're dying. Do you hear me? You. Are. Dying," I approach his bed and wave one of my hands over the medical equipment poking into him, keeping him alive but weak and shrivelled, "Look at this, look at yourself! You can't be moved out of this bed without immense pain, your bones are fractured, you can't walk without using your quirk - a quirk that, let me remind you, is killing you more and more every time you use it! - and your mind is breaking apart more and more every single day!"

Izuku doesn't move. He simply looks at me in silence Only the gentle rise and fall of his chest and the beeping of the medical equipment next to it tells me that he's still alive.

"You can't leave this room at all," I continue, "Not at all. Not without disconnecting you from all the shit that's keeping you alive," I can't help the swearword that falls out of my mouth, "No one except me and a few others have seen you in years, Deku. Not in person at least. The only reason that anyone knows you're still amongst the living is because of the HPSC, and that's just because it's all propaganda!" I've lost count of the amount of times that I've seen this man's face, so much fuller and healthier and alive than the wilting thing that I see before me, "For God's sake, everyone thinks that you're off saving people across the world and not here-" I poke the bed, "-Laying in this cot and on the verge of brain death!"

"...Then... I can still be... of service," Izuku does his best to smile at me. When did they start looking so fake and false? "...I can still... help people-"

"'Help people'!?" rage is beginning to pour out of me, "You're not helping anyone in here! No one at all!"

He looks at me.

"Do you really want to die that badly!?"

Nothing is said.

I stop. I pause. I freeze. I feel a sickness well up inside of me.

I need to get him to agree.

I reveal everything.

"Your words, your actions, your ideals, they're being twisted," I seethe at him, baring my teeth. I imagine Todoroki looking through the security cameras in the room and panicking. They had never bothered to hide Izuku's medical equipment from me. They were arrogant enough to never judge me as a threat, "The HPSC and government, the one that you set up? They're using your words and philosophy to suppress Japan, to oppress its people! For God's sake, they're conscripting children - children! - into hero ranks and turning them into child soldiers!"

Izuku looks at me, then using his quirk to shake his head as his eyes widen and twitch. A harsh rasp and round of coughing leaves his throat and a line of phlegm and spittle dribble out the side of his mouth as he says, "...They wouldn't- wouldn't do that... no All Might, they wouldn't do that, they-"

I can't help myself, "Do you really not know what's going on outside!?" I've never told him myself in my previous visits, both due to my old admiration and love for the one who saved, fear of Todoroki (that had passed now), and the idea that he may already know and she didn't want to burden him, in his weakened state, with information that would tear him apart and leave him more hollow than ever.

No more.

"Deku... Izuku Midoriya," I say to him slowly, but not calmly, "The HPSC and Japanese Diet... they've turned dictatorial. They're stamping down on people's rights and are using the heroes as their own personal police force! Aizawa's turned U.A. into a military camp, and all the other hero schools have followed suit! Japan's become a surveillance state and everyone- everyone is cheering them on! People are dying out there, Izuku! Ochako is dead, your mother is dead-" I remember going to her funeral as well, "-Dozens of heroes who spoke out against the new regime are all dead, no one's seen the girls of Class 1-B in years, the rest of your year have become the government's personal enforcers, and- and- and it's all falling apart!

"The quirk doomsday theory, Izuku. It's real, and it's happening. There are no quirkless people anymore, and quirks are becoming more and more powerful with each generation! There's already mass amounts of destruction from quirk singularity awakenings outside, and the only response given has been to clamp down harder! We're approaching a civil war, Izuku. Hero society is about to march off to its own destruction, and by the time that it's done our own quirks will be the powers that kill us!

"And me?"

I chuckle mirthlessly.

"I was U.A.'s prisoners before, but no more... no more... I'm not going to be a prisoner anymore..."

I look down to Izuku-

"And Neither do you."

-And extend my hand to him.

"Please... come with me, Izuku. Let me heal you, let me save you like you saved me before...

"Let me be your hero."

Behind me, the doors bust open.

Time pauses around Izuku and myself, and he stares at me for a long time...

Before he shakes his head.

"ERI!" the bulky man known as Todoroki screams at me as a torrent of ice flows out his right side and rushes towards me.

I spin on my heal and hold my hand out to the ice. Rewind catches the ice and turns it into water, then to vapour and particles. The air fills with humidity.

Todoroki roars and rushes forward, throwing his left fist back as fire bursts out and-

I rush forward and slam my hands into his chest.

I rewind him.

His dark grey and turquoise eyes widen as he screams. First the scream of a man (this is the number two hero? Pathetic), then a teen, then a child, then a baby...

Then nothing.

I look back to Izuku. He looks at me with wide eyes. He's shaking, trying to spasm, but cannot move. He looks like he's on the verge of a fit.

Guards begin to crowd around the door and flow into the room. I grab the pocket watch and press the hidden button on it. It begins to tick and count down as, without looking, I toss it at the crowd. It explodes, scattering and neutralising the guards.

That bomb was meant for Izuku.

"Fine," I say as I move to Izuku's side and lean down, pulling open the box to his life support and see all the wires inside. There is no anger or malice in my voice. Only sadness and regret. I knew what his answer was going to be before I even arrived at the tower. This was all just me playing at fantasies, "You don't want freedom. Fine."

I grab at the wires. Izuku doesn't deserve to suffer anymore.

"But I will grant you peace."

I pull on the wires and rip them lose.

Izuku's life support splutters and shuts off.

The man in the bed splutters himself as he feels the pacemaker around his heart quieten and fail. I lean up and grab his hand with one of my own, pushing my other hand under his head and resting my forehead on his, cradling him gently and closely to me.

"Fine peace," I whisper to him as I plant a kiss on my hero's forehead. The frail man known as Deku, Izuku Midoriya, the Symbol of Hope, gives me one last look of regret, sadness, and betrayal (please don't. Please don't look at me like that), before his eyes go dull and his heart stops beating.

The heartrate monitor next to the bed flatlines.

Izuku dies.

I cry, sobbing to myself as I hug his body, unable to make note of the medical gear attached to him that jab and poke at my body. How long am I holding him before I realise I need to go? I can't say, but it doesn't feel like it's been long enough.

Izuku's body begins to grow cold.

I plant one last kiss on my hero's cheek and lower him back into the bed, closing his eyes and folding his hands together before I turn around and run through the smoke-filled entryway out of the room. I refuse to look back.

More guards begin to run up and down the building, including Dynamight's Bakusquad and security team, but they do not find me. I know this building better than anyone else. I worm my way through vents and corridors, down elevator shafts and tight airways, out of the building and out of the city.

Running all the way.

Weeping all the way.

Getting out of the city is easy enough. All I need to do is find a bribable hero guarding the walls and slip him a couple hundred Yen for him to turn the other way. Another few hundred for him to not ask about why my face is red and my cheeks wet with blubbered tears.

It's getting through the wasteland beyond the city walls that is the hard part. Overgrowth covers everything around me as I clamber over shattered mountains and toppled buildings. Hero society has seen plenty of destructive confrontations throughout the years since All Might's reign came to an end (but what would come next would top them all).

Not that I particularly care about All Might, though. He was never my hero.

I just murdered mine.

Miles and miles and miles away from any cities and outposts manned by heroes, I pull up a field of moss covering the ground and come upon an old-looking door. It's a faimiar sight.

I wrap my hands on it in a familiar pattern, and a mechanical eye pops out and scans over me with a blue light, confirming my identity. But for extra security, I present my hand out to it and allow it to protrude a sharp needle that punctures into my arm to draw a droplet of blood. I shiver, but force down the fear of needles as it confirms that I am real and genuine.

The door opens up, and I am greeted by a woman with green hair, wrapped in a black bodysuit with a green cloak. A quiver of arrows rests on her back. Her face under her mask is a litany of scars.

Beros.

"It's done," I tell her, "Deku is..." I can't bring myself to finish my sentence.

"Dead," Beros finishes it for me, "We all saw on the news."

She beckons me inside and I follow. The door closes behind me and seals shut. A layer of metal follows behind me, sealing the bunker.

"For the record," Beros says to me, a note of regret and sorrow in her voice as we march down the staircase, "I'm sorry about your loss. Deku... Izuku Midoriya was a good man... the purest of humanity's number. His only sin was to trust those in power who would betray us all."

His greatest sin was to trust anyone... including me, I think to myself, but all I can get out is, "Thanks..."

"You needn't thank me," Beros waves me off, "Not when I was the one to... put this task onto you. If there had been any other way-"

"There hadn't been, and we all know this," I say with fresh conviction, pained by regret and sorrow, "I was the only one of us to get close, I was the only one of us who could get to him without betraying the heroes' trust, and I... I was the only one who could do this, who could do what... needed to be done."

Beros nods, "...And we are all thankful for it."

I nod back.

"Did you at least-"

"Try to convince him to join us? Yeah," Beros does not scold me for my interruption, "I knew he wouldn't, but..."

Beros sighs as we reach the end of the stairwell, and into the bunker, "But it was worth a try anyway," she spins herself around and places a hand on my shoulder, "Thank you, truly. What you have sacrificed today is more than any of us can imagine."

I look to her, and then gently take her hand off me, "Don't thank me yet," I say, "Not until all this is done."

She nods to me and walks off to join the others in the wide room. I follow suit. There are many faces in this crowd. I don't recognise all of them, but a few of them I do, especially the three that are approaching me.

Kota, Mahoro, and Katsuma.

They surround me and pull me into their collective embrace, and I allow myself to collapse and weep in their grip as they hold me close.

Another long bout of time passes by, and I feel my hands clasp in their grip.

"I'm sorry," Kota whispers our to me, "He was my hero as well."

"Mine too," katsuma says to me in an equally hushed voice.

Mahoro says nothing, simply keeping me close.

It takes me a long time to cool myself and calm down, but eventually I do, and I look to the rest of my friends, the ones that I've grown up with for so long.

They're all like me, once children now adults, all bearing marks and scars that adorned them like medallions. Kota has a long line of pale skin running down his eye, marking him as a warrior. Katsuma is missing one of his pinkie fingers. Mahoro is missing the lower part of her leg, replaced with a metal prosthetic. They are fighters, warworn and all...

But they're not killers. Not like I am now.

They lead me to the table in the centre of the room, where we are joined by a dozen more individuals. People like me.

Villains.

I don't recognise all of them, but a few of them I do, especially one of the holographic images that flicker into existence alongside them. Zookeeper I know, real name Hana Aoi. She's my handler from back in the city. Curator and Bearhead, her former slavers, are dead now, so she's here of her own free will. Another villain that I recognise, who is in person with us, is Chimera, Chojuro Kon, one of that villain Nine's old crew. He's itching his side. He's stopped smoking a while ago, and it looks like going cold turkey is getting to him now. Another hologram is someone who never took a villain name, Takeshi Bushijima. The second to last person I know at the table is Tamao Oguro, who still wears an eyepatch over her left eye.

Around the room, I spot other people watching us. A few of them I do recognise. A few former students of U.A. and ex-heroes, Mawata Fuwa and Yuyu Haya, and Maina Furasu of U.A.'s Support Course, were crowded together around a table, whilst a former teacher by the name of Komari Ikoma watches over her adopted sons Sho, Takuto, and Tamashiro, after their parents were killed for resisting the heroes when trying to conscript their children. A former vigilante by the name of Kazuho Haneyama, formerly known as Pop⭐Step, polishes her knuckledusters as she slips her old All Might hoodie around her shoulders. She is helped by a former hero now defector by the name of Saiko Intelli. To the side, Hatsume Mei and Melissa Shield work together on the various inventions of our group of defectors and malcontents, a portable oxygen converter next to them to make sure that the smells and smokes from their tinkering didn't flood the room.

Then, the final member of the table marches forward and greets them, and my eyes widen at the sight.

So she did survive...

Yui Kodai, former hero name: Rule.

This was the first time that they had all truly gathered together in one way or another, and this was certainly the first time that their leader had been stepped out of the shadows to greet them. I'm surprised that she, the most quiet of all of Izuku's school year, was their leader, but the last few years have been a steady deluge of surprises.

I look over Yui Kodai, and she looks over me. Her skin is weathered from fighting and her hair, once a neat shoulder-length cut, was short, to the ears, and messy with lack of care. Her hero uniform is gone, replaced by a mercenary-styled suit covered in ballistic armour and messily spraypainted in her former colours. Under one of her arms is a helmet with a gas mask covering the face.

She shoots me the smallest glimpse of a nod and appreciative smile, barely breaking her tired stoicism, and then taps on a remote build into the table.

A holographic image displays itself from the table. A news channel, with the headline making itself clear.

Yui reads it out for us.

"Deku is dead," she says, shooting me a gesture and a nod, "One of our own has made the greatest sacrifice, and for that, we are eternally grateful.

Beros and the others join us at the table, and they all send me nods and soft smiles and faint words and gestures of comforts. I still feel sick to my stomach, but I force myself to move forward.

Izuku would've wanted that.

At least, I think he would.

Yui flips through the channels, each news report focusing on Deku's assassination. I'm not in any of them. I've been scrubbed from the record, it would seem. My involvement must've been covered up.

I'm both thankful and angry about that, and I'm not sure why.

"But now," Yui continues, "The hard part begins."

Another news channel. A people in mourning. The HPSC promising stronger crackdowns. Dynamight and his goons taking more people to the camps. A hundred statues of Deku being constructed through quirks and forced labour. Harsher penalties on all crimes big and small. More surveillance. More heroes on every corner.

"It was impossible to stop Deku from being turned into a martyr," Yui explains to us, "And it'll be impossible to think that we didn't give the HPSC and their supporters in the Diet the excuse that they need to clamp down harder," she shakes her head, "This was always going to happen."

A murmur of agreement from everyone at the table.

"And now, they're going to turn Deku's death into a weapon against us," she continues, "We've got one hell of an uphill battle to fight."

Another round of agreement.

"But make no mistake, a blow has been struck against the heroes," Yui said, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips, "Not only is their number one hero gone, so is their number two thanks to Eri," I nod to her, remembering that I had taken the life of Todoroki as well as Izuku. Considering how little I knew of him, I couldn't feel as sorry for him as I did my hero, "Thanks to her brave efforts, we're now down two of Japan's most popular and most renowned heroes before the war's even begun."

A chorus of thanks and claps and cheers greet me. Despite the hollow feeling inside me, I nod and try to thank them.

"And now, people are standing up," Yui continued, her voice growing with strength, "Rising up. The more people that the heroes call villains, the more that they send to us, become sympathetic to us, become friends to us. Make no mistake, the Hero Civil War is coming. Global Quirk Singularity is coming. The Quirk Doomsday is coming. Originally, all we could do was attempt to survive these threats to all mankind."

She sends us all a smile.

"But now, we have a real chance of overcoming them and winning."

The clapping gets louder, more energised.

"Make no mistake, the coming days will be more difficult than anything we have ever faced, but now, with the HPSC wounded and lashing out, and with more people willing to look to our side, we stand a chance of not just weathering the storm, but triumphing over it. And if those in power, the heroes, the Diet, the HPSC, WHA, and so many others, wish to declare us as villains for fighting for a better future... then villains we shall be!"

She braces her fist against her chest in a salute-

"To the new League of Villains!"

-And I, and everyone else, join her.

"""""To the new League of Villains!"""""

My name is Eri Midoriya.

And this is the story of how I became the world's greatest (hero) villain.

In recent years, I feel like I've seen a lot more fics deconstructing various elements of My Hero Academia's (Or Boku No Hero Academia's) various elements, such as themes, beats, elements, characters, and so on. As well as that, I feel like I've seen a lot more authors willing to pick apart MHA's story and characters and point out things and details that they have found wrong with it. This certain upspike (at least in my mind) may be due to the fact that, ever since MHA enter its third and final phase, the general quality of MHA's manga and storytelling has depressed greatly, something which is generally agreed upon by the whole fandom.

As such, I have decided to throw my hat into the ring as well.

This particular fic was motivated by a lot of factors and elements that I've found myself dissatisfied with concerning the general story and worldbuilding of MHA. You can find a lot of these ideas and such that I found umbrage with back in the 'My Problems with MHA' piece, which I feel is still valid in its concerns even to this day. However, another pressing concern has entered my mind, Moreso now than ever when thinking about the story that we have been presented with:

There are so many ideas in MHA's canon story, so many loose ends and concepts that have been shoved into this story... that it almost feels impossible for them to be wrapped up and given satisfying endings for with the direction that Horikoshi is taking the last arc of this story.

For example: the Quirk Doomsday Theory.

This is a plot thread that has been in the background of MHA's story for a very long time, and it was even the motivation for Humarise's plan back in the third film. Hell, it was even referenced in the latest chapter, 393.

The Quirk Doomsday Theory is the idea that quirks will become more and more powerful with each passing generation, and soon enough, they will become so powerful that they will all inevitably destroy the world. I feel like there is an agreed upon consensus within the fandom that this theory has some strong grounds, and there is even evidence within the story itself that strongly suggests that this theory is becoming true beyond the constant talk about it, I.E. Eri's quirk and the idea of quirk evolutions and quirk singularities.

However, I do not feel confident that Horikoshi can resolve this particular plot bunny before MHA's story is over (whenever that will be, of course. Horikoshi seems to be stringing along and dragging out this final arc for as long as it is humanly possible).

Which is a damn shame, because this particular plot thread is a really interesting one, and has the potential for a lot of plot conflict and moral debate within the characters... but again, we don't see that, and I doubt that we ever will.

Another idea that I've found to be wasted is the idea of corruption within hero society and how it is seemingly dictatorial. I shan't go over all the details as I have done already in 'My Problems with MHA', but suffice to say I feel like there's tons of unexplored corruption within hero society, and the entire idea of hero society and the heroes in it really disturbs me.

Then there's something that really troubles me:

I'm not sure if our main characters and heroes have actually learnt anything from this.

Like, sure, they've learnt stuff about themselves, and Midoriya had that whole thing with Nagant where he said that the world is full of greys and all that... but has anyone truly learnt anything about hero society and the positions that everyone is in? Has anyone truly come to grasps with the social and political circumstances that have forced any of the villains into the situations that they are now, or are they just going to give 'Power of Friendship!tm' speeches try to redeem them or something?

It doesn't that, for all the supposed nuance that the villains have in their backstories and so on, most of them act like murderous pricks. The only real exceptions to that rule are Gentle Criminal, La Brava, and Nagant. They're the only ones who I feel have any real sort of nuance to themselves (and don't you dare say anything about Stain, who's victims apparently never committed any crimes, or the League of Villains, who, in my eyes, sacrificed any nuance to their character for murder. Like, seriously, Dabi admitted to murdering thirty innocent people who had nothing to do with his suffering. At that point, it's just a case of 'Cool motive, still murder'.

I just don't see any future for MHA's cast and story where things get better for anyone. I can only see them getting worse. I can only see Midoriya continuing to sacrifice himself and let One for All grow stronger each and every day to his own damnable detriment, I can only see quirks going stronger with each passing generation until they eventually become so destructive that they pose a threat to all mankind by their existence alone, and I can only see hero society responding to all of this by doubling down and clamping down.

All in all the other problems with hero society... and I don't see a time where this story comes out with a happy future. Not with some serious changes and societal reforms.

If Horikoshi comes out and reveals that this series is going to have a sequel/continuation like Naruto: Shippuden, then maybe I'll revise my opinions, but ultimately, I don't see any way that the people of this story and in hero society are going to be coming out of all this with a bright future. There's just way too much that's been presented in this story, too much bubbling and boiling under the surface, for this to have any sort of positive resolution or happy ending.

Hero society is a powder keg, and it's only just beginning to go off.

But anyway, with all that said and done, I'll leave it all to you. Please feel free to review and comment your thoughts. Did I get everything right? Did I blow up things a little too much? Maybe. Telefunken by James Roberts was a definite inspiration for this work, so I may have been leaning a little too heavily into that when I was writing this, but please feel free to post your thoughts as well.

And with all of that said and done, stay safe, stay healthy, and I shall see you all next time!

Titanmaster 117 out!