"Hello Mustafa District! This is your current number one local radio station reporting in from our recently repaired home studio!" An extremely energetic voice shouted out to their listeners. "My names Shu Tomo, and with me are my co-hosts and buds Rui and Holo here on a special feature all about the Rapture on its first anniversary!"
"It's hard to believe it's been a year since that fateful day where all who had Quirks suddenly disappeared." A calmer female voice spoke out.
"That's because it hasn't been a year for some of us, Rui!" Another, more playful female voice spoke out, presumably Holo. "You got released about a month after everything, but I only got out half a year ago!"
"Ladies! We can argue about our governments timeliness in returning everyone at a later date. Let's focus more on the event itself, yes?" Shu quickly pitched to the topic at hand. "Fortunately, yours truly didn't disappear for a moment, and can give this town the full scoop. As I said, one year ago everyone with a Quirk vanished. Speculation spread the world over by those that remained. The work of God? Government experiment gone wrong? Nay, for two weeks later, it was revealed by the United States that the mysterious perpetrators were in fact-"
"It was aliens." Rui interrupted tiredly.
"-Aliens! … did you have to ruin the moment." Shu complained.
"You we're taking too long." Rui replied.
"You do know I have to fill this segment for more than a minute, right?" The host complained, before remembering his job. "Err, yes! It was honest to God aliens. It turned out a lot of old legends of these extraterrestrials were more than just pop culture and rumours!"
"I still wouldn't believe it if not for all that stuff that I-Island published." Holo admitted. "Aliens are still crazy, but I'd believe a report from them about the sky not being blue, so aliens it is!"
"Quite." Shu agreed. "According to the reported story, the aliens had set up a secret base under Area 51 centuries ago. That is what captured everyone with a Quirk in the blink of an eye. Then one of their UFO's attacked I-Island, which then fled to its base and tried to escape with those it captured. It's only due to the miraculous intervention of All Might and Star and Stripe stopping this alien force that we all are here today."
"Don't you think you're forgetting the most important part?" Rui asked incredulously.
"Nah, you know he's just being dramatic and saving the best for last." Holo said with a laugh.
"Of course I am, my friends. For what story would be complete without its Hero?" Shu said with a dramatic flair. "And no one will likely have a better story in years than this new and upcoming Hero, Deku!"
/
"Aaand that's enough of this bullshit." Katsuki Bakugo said.
The hotheaded teen shoved his earbuds violently into his pants pocket, kicking a nearby can down the empty road. He didn't mind listening to some mindless radio talk to pass the time, but not if it was about them.
Fucking Deku.
He couldn't believe it. He disappeared for less than a month, and when he came back there was a Hero parading around with that stupid nickname he made for the nerd. He still wasn't convinced they messed up with the returning machine and dropped him into some sort of fucked up alternate reality where all his nightmares had come to life.
Deku, the 'you-can-do-it' Hero. Successor to the Mighty Agency. Adored by children across Japan. Awarded the highest honours in both Japan and America. User of more Quirks than you can shake a stick at.
It just pushed his buttons.
And the worst part is that he's sure that Deku (his Deku, damn it!) was eating this up, wherever he was. Every altruistic saying that came out of that masked Hero's mouth sounded just like him. And Katsuki could already see the stupid notebook going over every combination of Quirks he had. Damn nerd was probably following the goody two-shoes to every fight and living vicariously through him like the stalker he is.
At least, that's what he assumed Deku was doing. Honestly, he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the green-headed dork since returning. Their family's old numbers were unregistered, and when he finally went to ask the nerd what the deal was, their apartment had been sold.
He never showed up at school either. Though that just made Katsuki's life easier. Meant he could focus on being the only graduate from their shitty school to make it to U.A. High's Hero Course.
And you can bet your ass he did. He blasted through the remaining schoolwork at Aldera, retook the Entrance Exam without any extraterrestrial intervention this time, and kicked so much ass he got first fucking place!
So here he was, walking to U.A. High in his shiny new uniform for his first day of school.
Unfortunately, he was doing a lot of walking. Transit was a clusterfuck still, which meant if he wanted to get to school on time it was more likely that he'd get there by hoofing it for the last third. It was a gruesome trek, but he would rather be fucking dead than late for his first day of school!
Apparently U.A. was introducing dorms to deal with that issue. But like everything, it was behind schedule, meaning he'd be walking to school for the foreseeable future. Through the surprisingly boring and empty streets.
Most of the blocks he had walked by had been near abandoned. Most of the stores along the side of the roads either had not been opened back up or had closed due to lack of business. Even a year later, and things still weren't back to normal. He supposed he should be fortunate that his parent's business didn't meet the same fate.
As he reached the corner of the street, he suddenly froze on his feet as the hairs on the back of his neck shot up. He knew that feeling from Deku always tailing his ass. 'I'm being watched!'
He spun around on a dime, hands ready at his side to blow away some unfortunate pickpocket, only to find no one there. The street behind him lay bare, not a soul in site. Katsuki let out a huff. This ghost town must just be getting to his nerves.
"Hi there!"
"Jesus Fucking Christ!" He swiveled in panic at the female voice that suddenly appeared at his side.
Luckily, he held back from attacking, as standing next to him was a girl about his age in a U.A. uniform just like his (well, besides the skirt). She had brown bobbed hair to her shoulders, and parts of her cheeks seemed to be perpetually pinked. The girl looked apologetic as Katsuki turned to her.
"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to spook you!" She apologized profusely, bowing slightly. "I just saw your uniform and wanted to introduce myself!"
"Don't worry about it." He quickly shoved his hands in his pocket, trying not to accidentally lose his nerve and use Explosion in front of her. "This place was just giving me the creeps. You didn't do shit."
"Oh, that's good!" She let out a sigh, before looking around at the empty street corner. "But I can see what you mean. This place gives me the creeps! But the sacrifices we make to not pay transit faire, right?"
"What?" He gave the girl a funny look. "I'm just walking so I'm not tardy on the first day of school."
"O-Oh, right. That too, I suppose." The girl rubbed the back of her head nervously, before stretching out a hand. "Anyways, my name's Ochaco Uraraka! What's yours?"
He looked at the hand, half tempting to just ignore the girl. But then he realized that they were walking to the same place, and he would be stuck with her anyways, so decided to play nice. He took the hand and shook it once, before grumbling out his name. "Katsuki Bakugo."
"Nice to meet you, Bakugo!" Uraraka (he was totally going to forget that name, his one weakness) said with a smile. He noticed the way her little round blushes grew with the smile, and immediately decided on another name to remember her.
"Likewise." He responded to Pink Cheeks. "We should probably keep walking to class. Unless you want to stand on a spooky street corner all day?"
"No, you're right. Let's get going!" Pink Cheeks cheered as they both continued walking towards school. "I still can't believe I managed to get into U.A. High. How about you?"
"Nah, I nailed the Exam. You're looking at the number one placement." He boasted.
"You mean for the Hero Course?! That's pretty impressive. What's your Quirk?" Pink Cheeks asked, and he took one of his hands out of his pockets.
"Explosion." He let out a couple pops of his Quirk in the palm of his hand, and she stared wide-eyed at it.
"Wow. I can see how you got first place with a Quirk like that." She lifted her own palms, showing paw-like pads on the tips of them. "Mine's pretty cool too! If I touch something with all my fingers, I can remove gravity on them."
Round Cheeks quickly demonstrated by taking a flip-phone out of her pocket (Seriously? What year was it?) and touching it with the tips of her finger. It flashed a pink light, and when she let go it stayed floating in mid-air.
"Not bad." Bakugo admitted. It was an impressive Quirk, if one that would require a lot of technique to use effectively in combat. You could practically beat anyone with a single touch. "You going into the Hero Course too?"
"I planned to! I was even at the last Entrance Exam and everything before… Well, you know." She looked away sheepishly.
"What, didn't make the re-test?" Bakugo asked. The letter he got said that U.A. had sent offers to redo the test to everyone from before, but maybe they missed one. Wouldn't fucking surprise him.
"No, they sent me the offer. I just had a change in, well, priorities, you could say." Pink Cheeks said cryptically.
Katsuki let out a sigh as she looked down at the ground all glumly. He didn't have the energy for speaking in riddles and shit. "Well, you're obviously still at U.A., so what's the deal? I don't have time for twenty questions?"
"Right. Well, I know this might sound silly, but one of the reasons I wanted to become a Hero was because of the money. It's petty, I know, but my parents own a construction company that always had trouble making ends meet. I wanted to become a Hero to help them." Pink Cheeks's face lit up suddenly though. "But after the Rapture, they ended up getting a whole bunch of work! Demand is so high that they've been able to finally rake it in! And once they no longer needed my help, I thought about what I really wanted to do. I've always been obsessed with space and the night sky, probably due to my Quirk. My favourite Hero is Thirteen, after all. I always imagined using my Quirk and leaping all the way to the moon! But I quickly learned that was impossible. No one had been up there for over two hundred years after all, and it seemed the world had no interest in changing that."
"But then a bunch of aliens showed up and people started paying a lot more attention to the stuff above their fucking heads." He finished for her.
"Exactly!" Pink Cheeks agreed with a giggle, not seeming to mind the language. "Now, everyone's tripping over themselves to build new space programs! And with the technology that I-Island is said to be making, we could do it with a fraction of the effort they did back in the twenty first century. But since these space programs have been on ice for so long, they need to train a ton of new experts. So, I decided to join U.A.'s brand new Astronomy Course!"
"Seriously?" He looked over at the girl in surprise. "I heard rumours they were having trouble getting people to go to a Hero School for a field that hasn't been relevant in a couple centuries?"
"Yeah! They were so desperate to have people apply that they practically paid me to sign up!" She said, more excited than he would expect on the topic. "All dorm expenses are covered, along with any training and equipment expenses that would usually be paid by applicants. Even the tuition is basically non-existent, as long as you don't switch courses."
"That's… a good bonus." He replied. "Going to space sounds cool as hell, not that I'd every be allowed in a spaceship myself."
"What? Why not?" Pink Cheeks asked, and he gave her a stupid look as he used his Quirk again. "Oh, that."
"Yeah. I'm the TSA's worst fucking nightmare." Katsuki let out a sigh. He had enough trouble just being allowed on a normal plane for holiday trips.
"Well, I've heard that Anti-Quirk Handcuffs have improved lately. Maybe we could get you some modified bracelets? Or maybe you can skip the flight all together. I-Island recently revealed an idea for using the tech that captured us all as a way to teleport over long distances! Research is a bit slow though, just so there isn't a repeat of before." Pink Cheeks gave him a hopeful look.
He let out a sigh. "Still sounds like a long shot."
"Come on, I thought you wanted to be a Hero! Where's your optimism? You won't be able to climb the leaderboards like that!" She teased. "Or are you all bark and no bite?"
"Don't make me laugh." Katsuki stopped, leaning his face towards hers with deadly seriousness. "I'll be the Number One Hero in no time! I'll surpass All Might, and definitely overshadow that fucking Deku!"
"Is that so?" Pink Cheeks didn't back down, leaning forward and tilting her head up so that they were only a few inches apart, before giving a smirk. "Well, I doubt it'll be before I invite you on a trip to my personal Villa on Mars, that I will have built all by myself!"
"Is that a fucking bet, Pink Cheeks?"
"You bet your ass it is, Firecracker!"
…
They both froze, realizing what they had called each other, and jumped back to an appropriate distance.
"Don't get any weird ideas! I just have trouble with names is all!" He shouted.
"Yeah? W-Well I just called you that because it's the first thing I thought of upon seeing your Quirk!" She shouted back.
Katsuki straightened himself up before continuing his walk to school, Pink Cheeks quietly walking behind him.
'Firecracker, huh? I suppose it sounds a lot better than Kacchan.' He figured as he turned the approaching corner. 'Though anything would sound better when it's not coming from-'
He stopped himself as he looked at the two people in U.A. Uniforms standing just down the road. One was an obviously American woman, probably a year older than him and carrying some sort of mechanical briefcase. But the one standing next to her was easily identifiable by the mop of green hair, even without seeing the face. "Deku?!"
The teen standing down the street nearly jumped out of his skin, and when he turned it was clearly the innocent and freckled face of Izuku Midoriya. But there was a cross-shaped scar across the center of his face, along with ones along his arms. Surprisingly buff arms.
'The fuck?' Katsuki was fully confused by Deku's appearance as he stomped over to him. He had incredibly defined body compared to when they had last met, with odd red bracelets around his wrists and silly red shoes. 'I knew the nerd was working out before the Entrance Exam, but this is another level! And why does he look like he's been through an entire Mad Max trilogy?!'
"Deku? Where?" Pink Cheeks asked.
"Not that Deku!" He growled out, finally reaching the other two apparent U.A. students.
"H-Hi Kacchan." The nerd said nervously.
"Don't 'hi Kacchan me'! Where the hell have you been! The old hags been riding my ass asking about you disappearing!" Katsuki shouted out.
"I'm sorry, but it's been a really busy year!" Izuku apologized, looking apologetic, yet not shrinking and stuttering like he usually did. The nerd must have finally grown a spine after the Rapture. "We needed to move in order to get a bigger place for my sister, and I've never really had the time to go back and let you all know. I'm surprised you care so much. Kacchan."
"I don't! Like I said, it's just my mom making it my fucking problem for some reason." he quickly retorted, before realizing what Deku had just said. "Wait, sister? Please don't tell me you started picking up orphans during the Rapture like lost puppies."
"Of course not! But I ran into someone who needed help, and she didn't really have a family beforehand, so after everything got sorted out, Eri stayed with us." Deku took out his phone, showing the lock screen.
It was a picture Deku and the girl he was currently standing with sitting together, but more importantly was the younger girl with white hair and a single horn sticking out the top of her head sitting between them. They all had New Years Kimono's on, along with wide smiles as they bit into Candy Apples.
"Awww!" Pink Cheeks squeed as she looked at the image over his shoulder. "She's absolutely adorable!"
She sure was, Katsuki had to admit. Not that he would ever do so out loud. He had an image to maintain, damn it.
"I guess that's a decent excuse. But I'm still annoyed!" He quickly clarified. He wouldn't let the nerd get off that easy.
"Yeah, I guess I should have dropped by at some point." Deku just laughed him off, much to Katsuki's bafflement.
"Yeah, well… Whatever." He tried to collect himself. "What the fuck happened to you though? And who's the chick?"
"Oh, let me introduce you!" Deku quickly stepped aside with a smirk, presenting the blonde bombshell next to him. She raised a hand to shake, and Katsuki took it. "This is Melissa Shield, my girlfriend."
'That name sounds familiar…' He thought to himself, before the second half of the sentence registered. "Your what?"
"His girlfriend." Shield clarified with the fakest smile he'd ever seen, gripping his hand much tighter than was considered polite. "And you must be Bakugo Katsuki! Izuku's told me so much about you!"
"Ow! I mean, t-that's good to know." He stuttered out as he felt the blood begin to stop flowing to his hand.
The angry blonde then released her iron grip and turned to Pink Cheeks. "And who might you be? A friend of his?"
"Oh, no! We just met walking to school is all." The two women shook hands, and Katsuki could tell it was far more cordial than his was. "My name's Ochaco Uraraka! I don't mean to be nosy, but you're not a first year, are you?"
"Nope! Third year in the Support Course, though I'm transferring from abroad if it wasn't obvious." Shield revealed, and Katsuki couldn't help but flash Deku a disbelieving glance.
"Not through your accent, it's not! You almost sound like a native Japanese." Pink Cheeks praised. "But Support Course? That sounds cool. I joined the Astronomy Course myself."
Melissa gasped in excitement. "Then we'll probably be seeing a lot of each other. The curriculum shares a lot on the engineering side and…"
As the two chatted, Katsuki shuffled over to Deku's side again, trying not to draw the attention of his wrathful girlfriend. He leaned over and whispered to him. "How?"
"How what?" Deku asked, leaning down and speaking in a quieter voice. He gave the nerd a pointed look and he sighed. "It just kinda happened. I ran into her right after the Rapture, and I ended up saving her from some thugs…"
Katsuki groaned.
"And then it turned out that she was really into Heroes and Support Gear just like me…" Deku continued unaware.
Katsuki groaned even loader.
"And then we went through a lot together and ended up bonding over that- Are you okay?" Deku finally asked.
"Fucking fantastic. Seriously, did your Karma kick in once the Rapture happened and reverse your luck?" He ran a hand over his face. He really was convinced that he got brought back to the wrong world now. In what logical world did a Quirkless nerd like Deku get a girl like Shield? Though he supposed she must be Quirkless too if they met right after the Rapture. "Wait a minute… Shield?! As in… David Shield?"
Deku froze, before nodding slowly.
"You… I just can't right now." He sighed. "Though that explains how you got into U.A., despite not showing up at the Entrance Exam. You finally stopped being so ridiculous and decided to go for Support? Not a bad plan, I'll admit. Quirks won't matter for shit there compared to brains, which you certainly have if those annoying notebooks are any indication."
"Uh, thanks? But actually… Oh never mind. Now's probably not a good time." Deku seemed off-put by the compliment for some reason but brushed it off quickly. "Do you want a ride to school? We were actually waiting for a pickup here, but there should be room for you guys too."
He was about to tell him to screw off, but Pink Cheeks cut in and interrupted him. "That would be great, right Bakugo?"
"I- You…" He grit his teeth as the attention turned to him, and he eventually relented. "Fucking fine. If only because I wouldn't make it in time otherwise after you wasted so much of my time."
"You came to us though." Deku said deadpanned, and Katsuki huffed. He really wasn't used to Deku being so confident. Not that it mattered to him anymore if the nerd wasn't going to get in his way of becoming the Number One Hero.
"Oh, don't be such a tsundere!" Pink Cheeks said cheekily, slapping him on the back. "Just admit you like talking to your friend like a normal person, Firecracker!"
Katsuki let out a gasp of rage that quickly morphed to horror the moment Pink Cheeks uttered that nickname and he saw the way Deku's mouth quirked up. That's it, he had to kill the nerd. There was no way he was letting Deku utter those words to him.
"Deku-!" He raised a hand, ready to blow the boy in front of him sky high, only to freeze as a familiar feeling creeped up the back of his neck. In a second, he swiveled around, letting out a focused blast at the needle-like projectile that had been flying straight at Pink Cheeks back.
"What the-?!" She shouted as he pushed herself in front of her and the next set of projectiles, putting his hands together for his recently developed technique.
'AP-Shot!' He let out the blasts like bullets, knocking all three of the thin strands out of the sky. As the smoke cleared from his counterattack, a laugh could be heard from one of the abandoned buildings.
"I knew I wasn't imagining shit earlier." He muttered to himself, before shouting. "Who's there? If you're smart, you'll show yourself instead of continuing to hide like a chickenshit!"
"Oh? You've quite a mouth on you boy." A female voice said, and a striking woman with long red hair walked out of the shadows of a nearby alley on one end of the street. Her hair seemed to move on its own.
'Must be her Quirk. She can shoot them out like needles. I don't recognize her from any Villain Warnings though.' He quickly glanced behind him. Pink Cheeks was frozen with fear, but Deku and Melissa appeared hardly panicked, looking determined. Melissa handed her briefcase to Izuku, who stepped forward to Katsuki's side. 'The fuck do you expect to do, Deku?'
"Who are you people?" Deku asked while glaring daggers at the woman across from them.
"Are you fucking blind? There's only one of them!" He shouted at Deku, keeping his eyes on the Villain.
"No. There's three of you. There's a person with a Mummification Quirk hiding inside the run-down clothing store across the road." Deku said to the woman, pointing towards a seemingly innocent yet damaged store, before pointing the hand holding the briefcase towards the other end of the street. "And there's another person with a Chimera Quirk ready to block the other end of the street, boxing us in."
The woman seemed surprised, before letting out another laugh. "How fascinating! It seems we really got ourselves a couple of all-star students here. You heard him boys! Why don't you two come out and play!"
At her order, two figures emerged exactly where Deku had been pointing. From the broken shop came a man dressed like a crimson mummy, with a few of the objects inside being held in the air around him by the wrappings, along with a couple free strands that snaked forward menacingly. Around the corner of the street walked another man, this one standing over twice the size of the students and with a dozen different animal features, from a wolf head to bird claws to a lizard tail.
"How fascinating." The beast-like man looked to Deku, taking a drag of the cigar in his mouth. "Not only could you see us, but you already knew our Quirks. And the other boy managed to react surprisingly quick."
"They must be Hero Course students!" The mummy man said. "Even first years are to be exceptionally talented. Otherwise, it wouldn't be the number one Hero School in Japan."
"Now that you're all out, I'll ask again. Who are you people?" Deku turned his gaze over all of them calculatingly, before settling on the woman.
"I suppose I'll humour you. You deserve a reward for noticing us, after all." The lady bowed mockingly. "My name is Slice, and as you could guess, these are my compatriots, Mummy and Chimera. We do apologize for the inconvenience, but you four are to now be our hostages."
"Hostages? You must be fucking nuts if you think you can get a ransom out of U.A. before every Hero in Mustafa is on your ass!" He shouted, glancing at the unflinching Deku. One villain might have been possible, but three was absolutely impossible for him to manage, especially with the dead weight to protect. He needed to scare them off.
"We are after no ransom, boy." Chimera informed him. "We are after vengeance, for our leader. And you all will be the perfect bait. Do not worry. If you cooperate, you will remain unharmed."
"Oh yeah? Those hairs just now seemed to tell a different story." he barked back. "Forgive me for thinking you're talking out your ass!"
"Who are you after?" Deku asked them again.
"What's it matter to you?" Mummy asked.
"I presume that your target is a Hero teacher at U.A., considering you are after their students." Deku deduced rather easily. "I happen to know principal Nezu personally. If you promise to let the other students go, I can call him and help him arrange whatever it is you want."
'What the fuck?!' He glared at Deku like he was an idiot, which he was very much being. 'These guys are serious! They'll kill you for lying about that, you dumb fuck!'
"Your selflessness for your fellow students is heartwarming, but your lying needs some work." Slice said with a chuckle. "Besides, even if that is the case, it just means we know who's fingers we should send to the Rat first."
"Suit yourselves." Izuku sighed. "Can I at least ask who your leader is? No offence, but I don't recognize you all, and I'd like to know who I'd be losing these fingers for."
"No offence taken, young man, for we weren't exactly the most public group. We don't even have an official name. But we all have a singular goal." Slice spread both hands out. "We wish for a world where only those with power would matter, and nothing else! One where our leader, Nine, would stand at the top!"
"Nine?!" Deku seemed shocked, as if he knew the Villain. But Katsuki had never heard of them before, and he knew just about as much as the nerd. So where did he learn about some secret Villain groups leader?
"That's right. He had the power to move the heavens themselves and had nearly arrived upon perfection. He would have been invincible, had he not been defeated at I-Island and Area 51." Slice explained. "The government may have said it was 'aliens', but we know only Nine's Quirk could produce the storms that appeared there."
'Okay,' Katsuki thought as he glanced around at the Villains again. 'Either these guys are fucking nut-jobs, or I just got way in over my head.'
"So, you all followed Nine." Deku said narrowing his eyes. "Which means there can only be one Hero you're after. Deku."
"That's right! Nine was supposed to receive an operation to use multiple Quirks, including one that would let him see Quirk's so that he could steal the one he needed. Yet instead that little twerp showed up. With the ability to use multiple Quirks, including said sight and healing Quirk. We know Deku was involved in his defeat, so we're going to draw him out, rip him apart, and find out what happened to our leader!" Slice declared, the other two nodding along.
'Seriously! Even now things are revolving around that damn Deku?!' He glanced at his own Deku, only to find him looking rather annoyed. He just about told him to get back, only to be knocked back on his ass when the nerd swung his suitcase into his chest. "Gah?! What the fuck are you doing D-"
"Just stay there for a moment, Kacchan." Deku said, no, ordered, before stepping forward into the center of the street. Katsuki wanted to shout at him but was too stunned trying to figure out what the shit he was thinking! He held the mechanical suitcase in front of him, raising the heavy container like it weighed nothing. "If it's Deku you are after, then you are luckier than you know."
Slice stared at the boy with continued amusement. "And why is that young man?"
"Why, you ask? It's simple really," Deku began with a smirk before pressing a button on the suitcase handle, and the whole case came apart into dozens of pieces. The bands on his arms and wrists transformed, forming red armour from the elbow to hands and knees to feet, as a green bodysuit formed over the rest of his body. The pieces from the suitcase then floated around the new bodysuit, clicking into place to form additional white armoured segments. A final piece attached to his head, and it snapped down, revealing a bottom half that looked like a wide-eyed smile, and a top half of green with a pitch-black visor, two thick antenna pointing back like bunny ears. "Because I am here!"
Everyone on the street stared in complete shock, other than Melissa, who clearly already knew. No one dared speak at the reveal of the Hero standing directly in front of them. Deku took that as a signal to move himself, turning towards Slice as two golden lights appeared from behind the pitch-black visor.
"KILL HIM!" Slice finally shouted, snapping her allies out of their funk and launching a set of needle-like hairs at Deku. There was a blur of movement from the Hero, and all three hairs were now caught in his hands. She kept throwing more hairs, but Deku merely sprinted towards her, a blur as he closed the distance without letting a single projectile through. In only a couple seconds he was right on top of her, and she attempted to swing a sharpened section of hair at him.
But not fast enough.
"Detroit Smash!" Deku shouted, and the fist that had caught all her hairs slammed into Slice's chest so hard she went flying down the street and into the building at the intersection at the end. He tossed the caught hairs away casually as he turned back to Mummy and Chimera. "Either of you want to surrender yet?"
"Get real!" Mummy shouted, running forward and throwing the objects he held towards Deku. The Hero ducked around the projectiles and blasted them with lasers from his hands, running past Mummy from a fair distance. "Even a suit as fancy of yours will fall under my command at a single touch! Good luck landing a hit, Hero!"
One of Mummy's strands wrapped around an abandoned car nearby, and he chucked it at Deku, who caught the vehicle. A cyan flash of energy passed over it, and the car's momentum seemed to disappear instantaneously. Deku then raised the car up as a shield from further projectiles as he retreated into the same clothing store that the villain had emerged from. The moment he flew through the threshold of the shop, purple smoke began spilling out of it, billowing towards Mummy.
"Where is he?" Mummy cried, before the silhouette of a man appeared in the oddly coloured smoke. "Aha!" He grabbed the figure with his wrapping, only for another to appear. "What the hell?"
Mummy managed to grab six of these figures, before pulling them in and realizing they were mannequins, not humans, all being moved around by black tendrils connected to their backs.
"Mummy, above you!" Chimera shouted.
Enough of the smokescreen had faded to allow the wrapped up Villain to follow the black strands up to their owner, who was speeding towards him in a dive kick. Mummy tried to drag the mannequins above him as a shield, but they were being pulled away by Blackwhip, leaving him the only option of attempting to grab Deku with his wrappings.
But the wrappings failed to hit their target as three golden discs appeared layered under the Hero's feet, which deflected the material. The discs met Mummy's face, and he felt himself pushed flat against the concrete by the shield.
"Release!"
A cloud of dust shot up as Mummy found himself blasted into a new crater in the street, immediately falling unconscious. Deku merely hovered above the impact point, floating over to an undamaged portion of the street before stepping down.
"Last chance to surrender, Chimera." Deku said as he focused on the final Villain.
"You think you're so tough?!" Chimera growled, as he hunched over, and his body began to change. He doubled in size as even more animalistic features appeared on his body. "I'LL KNOCK YOU DOWN A PEG!"
Energy built in Chimera's mouth, and a concentrated beam of fire shot out directly at Deku, who summoned another couple golden shields as he pushed against the attack and marched right up to the final Villain.
Chimera swung a fist forward, but found it caught by a serpent-like appendage that emerged from Deku's back. He tried to bring his other hand forward to rip of the Hydra, only for a second head to grab it as well, pushing both hands to the side. Deku then floated up, so he was level with the Villains chest.
"St. Louis Smash!" Deku shouted as he delivered a roundhouse kick to his opponent's stomach.
Chimera grunted in pain, but found himself unable to use his arms, and the floating Hero was too high to kick. "Damn brat-Guh!"
"Florida Smash!" Deku attacked again with a palm strike, and then continuing with another strike, and another! "Texas Smash! Manchester Smash! Detroit Smash! Carolina Smash!"
The blows continued to come from Deku until a red energy built up in all four limbs. He then let the Hydra heads go as he descended back to the ground. He hummed as he looked over the Villain. "You're tougher than I thought. Guess you'll be the first Villain I get to use this move on. I call it the Four Corners technique!"
"SHUT UP!" Despite the ass-kicking Chimera had received, he was still looking for a fight, and reached to crash Deku. "DIE!"
"Arizona Smash!" Deku suddenly swept a low foot, and the red energy in his left leg exploded out, tripping Chimera up into the air as he moved under the Villain.
"Colorado Smash!" The energy in his right arm then burst forward in a forearm strike to the stomach, knocking Chimera into the air. Deku then vanished, appearing above where Chimera was flying towards in a spark of cyan.
"New Mexico Smash!" Red power flowed from the left arm now as Deku brought it down in a karate chop on Chimera's back, rocketing him back down onto the street below. Before the dust had even settled though, Deku was speeding down for the final blow.
"Utah Smash!" He shouted, falling in a dive kick. The crimson energy from his right leg streaked across the sky like a comet as he descended, before crashing into Chimera with a mighty explosion.
The ground shook as a plume of dust was kicked up, but a second later it was dispersed by a another burst of wind pressure from those golden discs, revealing the victor. Deku stood on top of the body of the unconscious Chimera, who was laying unceremoniously in a pit in the street three times the size that Mummy was lying in.
"Hmm, perhaps that was overkill. Tsukauchi's probably going to lecture me again…" Deku could be heard saying as he floated out of the hole and onto the street. He pressed a button on his wrist, then held out a hand as his hero costume began to disassemble itself, returning to its original form as a briefcase in his hand as his bodysuit and armour on his forelimbs retracted into the bands around them. He then presented the case to Melissa, who had run over to meet him. "Nice work with the suit Melissa! It's miles better than the old version!"
"Glad to hear! I was hoping to get some testing data from your classes first, but I suppose trouble just has a way of finding you, huh?" Melissa said with a laugh.
"Please don't tease me about that. You know I won't hear the end of it from the other Heroes when they show up." Deku said with a tired sigh, before turning to the other two students. "Are you two okay? None of the Villains attacks got near you, right?"
Pink Cheeks shook her head slowly as she stared gobsmacked at Deku, and Katsuki didn't even move. He hadn't even got up from where he had been knocked on his ass.
'Deku… is Deku?! They're one and the same? How the fuck?' Katsuki looked around at the defeated Villains. They all had to be A-Ranks at least, yet the nerd somehow kicked their asses without taking a single hit in return. And that power, it was just like…
"So you need a hand, Kacchan?" Deku asked, offering him a hand up.
"Hm…" He mindlessly took the hand as an odd nostalgia shot through him and continued staring at Deku. His mind was trying and failing to process what he had seen in front of him. "Ah…"
"Kacchan? Are you alright?" Deku asked with concern.
He tried to muster up the mental coherence to reply, but all were distracted at the sound of an engine blaring through the empty streets. The roar grew, until a black sports car drifted around the corner and sped towards them. The vehicle only narrowly avoided the pothole Mummy was lying in as it skidded to a stop in front of them. The door to the driver's side popped open, and out stepped motherfucking All Might.
The former Number One Hero was wearing a garishly hideous yellow suit and was looking down at Deku like a very disappointed parent.
"Young Midoriya," He began, crossing his arms and tapping his feet. "What did I tell you about Villain attacks?"
"N-Not to go looking for trouble on school days…" Deku audibly gulped as he stared up at the retired Pro. "B-But it wasn't my fault this time! It was random chance, honestly!"
"The worst part is that I know you're telling the truth." All Might shook his head. "I knew I should have picked both of you up from your homes instead of meeting halfway."
"I'm sorry." Deku said, as if he was apologizing over spilt milk, instead of being fucking attacked by Villains. "And now we're going to be late to school waiting for an officer to come and take our statements."
"Fortunately, we'll actually be able to arrive to School just in time!" All Might assured him, before wincing. "Unfortunately…"
The passenger side door then opened, and a rather plain looking man in a trench coat stepped out, giving Deku an even more disappointed look than All Might had.
"D-Detective Tsukauchi?!" Deku squeaked. "Why are you here?"
"I was going to U.A. to talk to Nezu about a case, and All Might offered me a ride." The detective's eyes narrowed as he looked around the street, the two holes in the road, and two destroyed stores, one with an SUV jammed through the front display. "I'm going to assume the street didn't happen to have perfectly sized craters for you to punt the Villains into. So, about that statement?"
Deku seemed to shrink in on himself, before letting out a tiring sigh and muttering under his breath. "Fuck…"
'Alright, that cinches it,' Katsuki decided. 'This is all in my imagination. The sludge Villain really killed me, and the past year has been nothing but an extended purgatory!'
Katsuki quickly decided, he was in fact, not dead. Though his current situation was making him consider the benefits of it.
"I can't believe we get to ride in All Might's car!" Pink Cheeks squealed to his right.
"Hercule's pretty cool, huh? My dad helped custom make it with Uncle Might!" Melissa said cheerfully to his left.
"Why the hell do I have to sit in the back!" Bakugo complained as he sat between the two girls in the back seats of the sports car. After the detective took Deku's statement, All Might offered to drive them the rest of the way for safety while the officer waited with a couple of local Heroes that showed up for his colleagues to come cart the Villains away. Deku took shotgun immediately, and Katsuki nearly had another aneurysm at the sight. On any other day, getting a ride from All Might would make it the greatest in his life. But after the recent events, it barely evened it out. "At least give me a window seat, damnit!"
"Sorry for the tight squeeze, young man. But as a teacher it would hardly be responsible for me to allow you to be late for the first day of school!" All Might said with a laugh as he sped down the road.
"Wait, you're teaching at U.A. this year?!" Pink Cheeks exclaimed, and Katsuki could see the realization on All Might's face.
He rolled his eyes at the Hero's sudden panic, as if they wouldn't be able to put it together that that's why he was going to U.A. dressed in a suit for.
"Y-Yes! I haven't announced it yet, but I'll be teaching Heroics this year!" All Might said with a nervous chuckle. "I hope you two can keep it a surprise for a couple more days?"
"Of course, sir!" Pink Cheeks nodded quickly.
"Yeah, whatever." he shrugged.
"I also must ask that you keep Young Midoriya's identity a secret for now." All Might asked, far more seriously. "It will probably get out soon now that he'll be taking part in Heroics classes, but we'd prefer that the civilian identity of Deku remained a mystery to the public as long as possible. We would prefer that he have the chance to have a normal school life for a little while, at least."
'That made sense.' Katsuki nodded, before realizing something. "Then how the fuck did those three know you were going to be at U.A.?"
Melissa let out a huff. "Probably those Purple Oni guys. We never managed to find them after they left Nine behind."
"Purple Oni's? Weren't those guys just some local Quirkless hooligans? How did they get involved in Villain shit?" Katsuki asked.
"It's… a long story." Deku (God that nickname made no sense now!) said cryptically, sharing a glance with All Might.
"Wait, were you even allowed to fight those Villains? Don't you need to have gone to school to get a Hero License?" Pink Cheeks asked, though Katsuki already knew the answer to that question. He'd let the nerd explain it though, as he couldn't be assed.
"There's multiple ways to get a Hero License, actually!" Deku (Nope, that didn't sound right to him for some reason!) began to laboriously explain. "While the standard way to receive a license nowadays is by passing tests and trials set up by the HPSC, licenses can also be given directly by the Prime Minister with next to no stipulation. This is called the Emergency Hero Approval Act, and was the method used back when the first Heroes were created, due to them not having a real system in place yet and needing to quickly approve those that could keep the peace. This act was technically never reversed, though it obviously hasn't been used to keep Heroics from being embroiled in party politics. I'm… the first person to be given a license by said act in over one hundred and fifty years."
"Wow! Talk about an honour!" Pink Cheeks said. "What did you do to get that?"
"It's a… long story?" The nerd said just like earlier, and Katsuki couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"And let me guess, so is the reason you suddenly went from Quirkless to… what, a dozen Quirks?" Katsuki continued to ask, before letting out a laugh. "Seriously, were you abducted by aliens and given them or some shit?"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"Seriously?!" Katsuki's eyes bugged out as he saw the silent yet panicked look All Might, Melissa, and Deku (Nah, screw this, he wasn't calling him that anymore!) all had between themselves. "Fuck, I was kidding! What, is one of the Quirks All Might's too?"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"I'm…" Katsuki sunk into his seat as he massaged his forehead. "I'm just going to shut up now."
The rest of the short drive was mostly in silence as Katsuki did his best to put together all his jumbled thoughts into something that made sense. Unfortunately, the world seemed to have stopped making sense ages ago. They soon pulled through the gates of U.A., and they all stepped out of the car and looked up at the main building in awe.
Even after all of the bullshit of today, Katsuki still knew today wasn't a total loss.
He had at least made it into U.A. High.
"What's this I hear about you getting in a fight, young man!" An irate elderly voice spoke out, and Katsuki looked down to find Recovery Girl hobbling towards the group of students and teacher with an unimpressed glower. At her side was a woman in nursing garb with shoulder length black hair and not much else noticeable to her.
"It was just a minor scuffle, really!" the damn nerd said, trying to downplay the fight again. "I didn't even get hit!"
"Good! Just because you can heal damage doesn't mean you should take it!" Recovery Girl said pointedly, before turning to the rest of them. "Any of you young one's need a checkup?"
"Nope! They didn't lay a finger on us." Pink Cheeks said, glancing over at Katsuki for a split second.
'What the heck was that look for?' Katsuki thought as he nodded in agreement, and Recovery Girl let out a sigh of relief.
"That's good to hear. Honestly, to think a bunch of Villains would dare attack outside of U.A of all places. I'm going to have a word to Nezu about this!" the elderly Hero crowed, shaking her cane up in the air.
"Speaking of the principal, I should be meeting up with him shortly for the opening ceremony! Let us go together, Recovery Girl!" All Might said, turning to the students one final time. "Well now, I imagine we'll run into each other again soon, young men and women! So, for now, I'll just say welcome to U.A., and to your Hero Academia, err, and other Courses, of course!"
The two Heroes then turned towards the building, walking away. The nurse followed them after a quick wave to Melissa and the nerd (Seriously, does he know everybody?!). As they did, their idle chatter could be heard, their boisterous voices echoing in the empty plaza.
"Where do you get off retiring before me, Yagi?" Recovery Girl asked in an annoyed voice.
"You know you can do so at any time, Ms. Shuzenji!" All Might insisted.
"Not until Mirai here has her full medical license, I can't." The elderly woman grumbled, before looking up at the nurse next to her and speaking at a level that Katsuki could barely pick up. "You better hurry up so I can give you my Quirk and relax for once in my life."
'Give Quirks?' Katsuki raised an eyebrow as he stared at the unassuming nurse. She didn't look anything special, but if she was working under Recovery Girl of all people, she must have some fancy Quirk. 'Not that it matters to me.' He took a step towards the building as well to head to class, only to find someone blocking his way.
"What do you want, Pink Cheeks?" Katsuki asked, raising an eyebrow as she fidgeted at the nickname. Instead of immediately answering, she forcefully handed him a scrap of paper.
"I wanted to thank you, for saving me earlier, I mean." She said, rubbing the pads on her index finger together as she looked everywhere but at him.
"What are you talking about. Deku did all the Hero Crap." He replied in a huff.
"But you were the one saved me from that ladies attack, before they showed themselves." She explained, finally looking him in the eyes. "So thanks, Firecracker."
Pink Cheeks then turned on a dime and ran towards the main building, leaving Katsuki to stare at her retreating form. He eventually looked down at the piece of paper that had been hastily handed to him. "Wha-?!"
On it was a quickly scrawled set of numbers. A phone number, to be precise, along with a comment underneath it.
'It's Uraraka Ochaco, in case you ever forget. You'll just be Firecracker to me until you start using it!'
As Katsuki stared at the note, Melissa awkward shuffled away. "Um, I'm just going to head to class. See you after school Izuku?"
"Of course." her boyfriend said with a chuckle, and she left for the building as well, leaving him alone with Katsuki. After a few moments of silence, he eventually shrugged and walked over to him, handing him a note of his own.
"What is-?" Katsuki snapped out of his stupor.
"My new number. I know you probably don't want it as much as the other one you got there, but I figure you'd want to get Auntie Mitsuki 'of your ass', as you would say." The green-haired boy said with a chuckle. "Anyways, we should get to class. I don't mean to be dramatic, but I know our homeroom teacher, and he will expel us if we're late for the first day, Villain attack or no."
"Wait, Izuku."
Katsuki watched as the person he'd known for basically his entire life stopped and turned to him.
"What, not Deku anymore?" Izuku joked.
"Naw. As much as it pains me to admit, you're not that Deku anymore. And you can eat a dick if you think you can get me to call you by your Hero Name all the time when you're taking the same classes as me." Katsuki said, through great effort, before squinting at him. "With those Villains before, you could have stopped the initial attack yourself. Why'd you let me do it?"
"Because I knew you could handle it." Izuku admitted, much to his surprise. "You reacted almost as fast as me, even without a detection Quirk, and I didn't want to get in the way of something I knew you could handle."
"Well… Thanks for paying attention, I guess." Katsuki said awkwardly. He quickly refocused on what he had been meaning to say though, giving Izuku a serious look.
"Like I said though, you're not that kind of Deku any longer. But just because that's true, it doesn't mean I still can't be better than Deku! I told you that I would be the Number One Hero, and I still will be! Doesn't matter if the person I'm replacing is All Might or you! You're just ahead of me because you got a lucky head start! By the end of this year, I'll have made so much progress it won't matter how many Quirks you have over me, got it?"
Izuku stared bug-eyed at his declaration, but slowly stared back equally seriously. "Are you sure about that, Kacchan? I won't just lie down and let you pass me now. I'm not going to go easy on you."
"I'd kick your ass if you did!" Katsuki said with a smirk. "I was planning to surpass All Might. If you learned so much from him, then that'll just make it all the easier for me!"
The two continued to stare each other down, until Izuku snickered. Katsuki let out an amused huff himself, and soon the two were both laughing to themselves for seemingly no reason.
He wasn't sure why, but for some reason he found himself on the same wavelength as Izuku for the first time since they were kids, and it made him feel funny. Maybe that's why the two of them were laughing like fools all of a sudden. As they collected themselves, Izuku wiped a tear from an eye.
"It'll be fun to see you chase me for once." Izuku said with amusement.
"Get real! I was just going to say how fun it'll be now that I can actually get serious with you!" Katsuki replied, shooting him a scary grin.
Just then a bell ringed out across the courtyard, and both their faces fell. Katsuki whipped out his phone in horror as he stared at the time. That was the pre-class bell!
"Oh fuck! Aizawa's going to kill me!" Izuku said literally flying towards the school in a flash of cyan light.
"Oi! Wait up, you damn nerd!" Katsuki shouted as he sprinted after his newly declared rival. As he did, he thought about the two pieces of paper in his hand.
'Well, at least I got something I want out of today.' Izuku's girlfriend may make a kick-ass suit, but I doubt she could take him on a trip to space. Now he was racing to become Number One Hero for a reason beyond just proving he's the best. 'Uraraka Ochaco, huh? Hope you can work fast Pink Cheeks, cause I'll be taking the top spot sooner than you think, and you bet a Martian getaway when I did!'
The Only Hero - The End…?
As the sun set in the sky, painting the halls of Jaku General Hospital in a wash of orange light, a short old man with a doctors coat walked along with a furrowed brow. He had only recently been freed from the prison that he had been trapped within, much to his annoyance.
The employees at the Returning Center had apologized profusely for the delay, stating the reason being that they had no knowledge he had a Quirk at all. Understandable, as Daruma Ujiko, Head of Jaku General Hospital and Quirk Expert, was supposed to be Quirkless.
Except that was just a sham. Only the latest of a dozen false identities he had set up for almost a century now.
Because in truth, he was Kyudai Garaki. Writer of the Quirk Singularity Theory, right hand of All for One, and creator of the Nomu.
A tired sigh escaped his lips, as he was sure his 'normal' employees all got a good laugh out of it. The man who can analyze and diagnose a Quirk in seconds, never even realizing he had his own.
Not like he could reveal his Quirk publicly. Lifeforce had extended his life greatly, but that very fact would be enough to draw suspicion to himself. It was well known by a certain set of Heroes that All for One had also been long lived, and if they dug too deep…
He shook his head as he tried to piece together what he had learned while on his way to the secret lab under his hospital. It appeared that much had changed in the year he'd been gone.
'I mean, seriously? Aliens?!' Kyudai pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Then again, it would explain why the small pieces of tech I managed to smuggle from I-Island all those years ago was so advanced.'
While proof of the extraterrestrials and their relation to Quirks fascinated the doctor greatly, it was counteracted by the fact that they had completely thrown his plans into chaos for who knows how long! And worst of all, they might not be the only ones to cause problems for him.
He slowly shuffled into the morgue, ensuring that there were no workers around to spy him entering. He used his ID badge (which was fortunately where he left it, he dreaded having to hack into his own system) on the door, and it opened to reveal the dark and dank path to his true work.
'Now, to see how much of a mess that wayward experiment made.' Kyudai braced himself as he began to descend through the passageway to his underground laboratory.
As much as the world's governments claimed the crisis was entirely alien done, some stories in Japan suggested a different story, although only to one with hidden knowledge such as himself.
There were reports of Villains before any UFO's showed up that targeting children who had recently awakened their Quirks. Among these Villains included so-called 'Frankenstein's Monsters' that acted mindlessly and apparently had multiple Quirks. According to the report, dozens of them appeared afterwards, forcing U.A to evacuate to I-Island.
These monsters were clearly his Nomu.
While this Villain attack was seen by many as unrelated to the alien encounters that happened later, Kyudai knew better. For the reports of extreme weather that appeared over I-Island and in the States could only be caused by a certain Weather Manipulation Quirk. A certain Quirk that belonged to a man who was in stasis along with the Nomu's.
'Nine… but how did he get out?'
Kyudai was certain that there wasn't any sort of failsafe that would result in Nine being automatically released. In fact, he had set up the exact opposite. If the stasis-system of a pod were to find itself unable to operate any further, it was set to kill whatever was inside, to prevent a potentially unstable creation being released in the depths of his lab.
Which meant either his own stasis and failsafe system had failed (Utterly inconceivable!), or the more likely yet more worrying conclusion that someone had broken into his lab.
Had his master avoided the Rapture, or possibly Kurogiri?
No, that was impossible. It was more likely that some Quirkless person stumbled upon his lab and got too greedy with their search and awakened Nine. But who would be knowledgeable enough to find the entrance to this place, or know what access they'd need to pass? He hadn't detected any signs of forced entry.
'Well, here goes nothing!' He thought to himself, as he cautiously stepped into the lab proper. The lights automatically turned on, and he could barely hold back a gasp of horror as he muttered to himself. "Egad… What happened here?"
All of the pods had been shattered, glass still laying on the ground in some places. The Nomu, all his life works, vanished in an instant (to him at least). He slowly continued forward towards the center of his lab, walking carefully around the destruction towards the center of his lab.
At the center was his main terminal, which, with luck, would at least contain information on what had happened in his absence. But right as he reached the computer, he heard a piece of glass behind him crack.
"D-Doctor Ujiko?"
"AAAH!" Kyudai let out a screech as he swiveled around as fast as his old bones would let him. He found a nervous nurse standing near him, glancing nervously at the architecture of his lab. He took a moment to recognize the girl, but when he did, he quickly tried to collect himself. "O-Oh, Ms. Mirai! Whatever are you doing down here?"
Kagome Mirai was an interesting pupil of his, at least on the legitimate side of things. She had published a truly lovely thesis on the feasibility of copiable and transferrable Quirks, being Quirkless herself. It stuck out to him greatly, if only because he had developed the very technology proposed within it ages ago. Unfortunately, the young woman lacked any of the miraculous technology from I-Island, or the enormous funding and test subjects the king of the underworld could provide, meaning her ideas were laughed out of school and prevented from moving up in the world of Quirk Science.
He had felt some nostalgic pity for the researcher turned nurse and decided to hire her on as an assistant at his hospital. She held the same drive that he had in younger years, not to mention her desire for a Quirk of her own made her a good candidate for moving to his more… shady work.
"I had heard you had returned, so I decided to come back and look for you. But then I stumbled upon this place." She looked down at him like a lost puppy. "What is this place?"
'Let's hope my observations of her were correct.' Kyudai prayed to himself as he cleared his throat and answered the poor girl. "This is my lab, my dear girl. I'm afraid that not all of my work is well liked by the public."
"D-Does that have something to do with how you have a Quirk?" Kagome Mirai asked.
"It does. You see, your work on copying and transferring was correct my dear!" He revealed dramatically, noticing the way her eyes lit up at his words. "In fact, I was able to do so myself many, many years ago. Unfortunately, my work was also ridiculed back in the day, so I was forced to complete it in secret."
"Really?" The Nurse looked around at the equipment nearby. "Then you can use this too…"
"To give other people Quirks, including yourself my dear." Kyudai said, moving to win her over, and keep her silence. "I have wanted to make such an offer to you for a while now, believe me. But you see, this work is hardly above board, so I needed to make sure you could be trusted with such a secret. But here you are now, so it must be fate!"
"You'll really give me a Quirk?" She asked in amazement.
"Any one you wish for, my star pupil!" Kyudai affirmed, nodding his head. "And as many as you wish!"
"I see. Then I think I'll start with yours."
"Huh?" He only had a moment to look back up at Kagome Mirai before her hand grabbed him by the head and lifted him up off the ground. A familiar energy gripped at Kyudai's core, and he felt his vitality drain from him. "I-Impossible!"
As Lifeforce left him, he felt his entire body begin to ache. After ensuring that the Quirk was indeed hers, the scared look on her face slowly morphed to total confidence. "Thank you, Doctor. It's nice to know you thought so highly of me." she said, before letting go of him. But instead of falling to the ground, he floated across the lab towards his chair, where two thugs had emerged.
A skinny one with a mohawk let out a shrill laugh as he waved his hands to float Kyudai over to them telekinetically. "What have we got here, Dragon? The Boss Lady said we'd be entertaining a guest, not a shriveled up sack of potatoes!"
He found himself plopped down into the chair, and the larger man used his strength to wrap pure steel cables around him, preventing an escape. "I don't know, Komodo. Maybe she just needed help cleaning up the trash!"
"What is the meaning of this?!" he asked his former employee frantically. "Who are these people you are with?! And how do you have his Quirk?!"
"These fine fellows are the Purple Oni. I'd have introduced Chameleon to you as well, but they're busy keeping my Alibi up by studying in the U.A. Library right now." Kagome explained, gesturing to the two men at Kyudai's side. "They had originally been working for Nine, but after his unfortunate demise we came to a new arrangement. Isn't that right, boys?"
"Damn right!" Komodo agreed enthusiastically, shooting the Doctor a dangerous glance with his glowing eyes.
"We joined up with Nine for power." Dragon elaborated. "He may be dead now, but Kagome can grant our wishes all the same."
"Exactly. They are so handy to have help me with my work on the side. Being able to rub shoulders with Nezu and David Shield does wonders for my progress, but there are still some things that require a more… dubious touch." Kagome said with a sly look.
"That still doesn't explain how you got All for One's Quirk! How did you steal it from him?" Kyudai asked frantically.
"Steal it? Oh, dear doctor," Kagome chuckled. "He gave it to me."
"H-He did?! But why?" Kyudai couldn't comprehend it.
"To be fair, he also gave me his personality, so it wasn't like I was getting anything good at the time." Kagome elaborated further. "It's a bit of a long story, but all you need to know is that I ended up with his Quirk, and he ended up stuck in a spaceship heading to god-knows where for the next few millennia."
"Y-You lie!" He refused to believe his old friend had finally been bested.
Kagome scoffed. "You're free to not believe me, but it won't change what I have planned. All for One may have been everything I hate, but his and your inventions in copying and transferring Quirks will move things along for me a good decade ahead of schedule."
"All for One, everything you hate?" Kyudai raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I thought you wanted a Quirk of your own. What else could his powers and wishes be anything but perfection?!"
"I was referring more to the man than the Quirk." Kagome rolled his eyes. "I'm sure he told you of what his grand final goal was. The whole schtick of causing worldwide collapse to make the value of Quirks skyrocket, and using his Quirk as the sole bank that controls them? Let's just say I want the opposite."
"The opposite?" He didn't understand what the woman was implying.
"Exactly. He wanted to make Quirks incredibly valuable, whereas I want to… let's say, crash the market." Kagome raised a hand, and odd, red, double-helix pattern appearing on it. "I want to make it so easy to transfer and replicate Quirks that no one would be limited by some random factor of their birth, that they will be able to make choices for themselves not based on uncontrollable traits, but their own wishes."
"You want to make any Quirks available for anybody?" Kyudai said, baffled. "That's impossible! Only All for One has the ability to have multiple Quirks. Not to mention the ability to copy Quirks would be nowhere near the level required to accomplish what you wish. And how would you control such a system? It's infeasible!"
"That might have been true before, but the aliens have allowed me access to certain tools that change that. Genetic Manipulation, for one, is extremely useful." Kagome said, the red helixes spinning on her arm again. "Using it to find the genetic markers involved with All for One's ability to hold multiple Quirks will take time manually, but once we crack more of the Alien technology it'll be child's play. Same for your cloning technology. You were able to the impossible with just a couple scraps from them, so what do you think the source will allow me to do?"
Kyudai still tried to argue. "That amount of powers freely in the hands of others is-"
"Incredibly dangerous, and foolish to just hand out. But one of the many alien Quirks I have is one that allows you to set permissions and control the holders of copies of it. With some modifications, I could set up a system that makes it so that any given Quirk has a Controller attached to it that can shut of the Quirk Factor with a flick of a switch. The exact system would be more complicated, but my personal experiments on the subject have proved… fascinating." Kagome gave him a smug look as she explained her plan.
As much as Kyudai wanted to deny her, it seemed she wasn't entirely short-sighted. Maybe he should have attempted to get her involved far sooner. He stared at her with his sunken eyes, aging body aching with each twitch. "So, what are you planning to do with me? Am I going to end up as one of your experiments as well?"
"Don't worry Doctor, I have enough of those already." Kagome assured him as Dragon undid his restraints. "You have a much more important role to play, after all."
"And what role would that be-Eeei!" Kyudai shrieked as he was lifted up in the air by Komodo's telekinesis again.
"You see, Nine and All for One made quite a mess of things by releasing those Nomu everywhere. The Heroes are still looking for where they came from after all, and if something got dragged back to me, that could be problematic for my work." Kagome snapped her fingers, and something slowly emerged from the shadows. It was a doglike Nomu, nearly twice the size of a normal man. One of his incomplete Near High-Ends. "And speaking of work, I need to be able to publicly use your own work to advance mine. It'd be mighty suspicious if I suddenly made these breakthroughs out of the blue. So I'll have to make sure someone stumbles upon this lab while chasing this Nomu they missed… And you as well, of course."
Kyudai realized what the woman was implying and turned to his creation. "Nomu! Kill these people!"
But the Nomu didn't even hear him. Kagome let out a chuckle. "Like I told you earlier, we have a shapeshifter in our team. Getting past and disabling your program was like child's play. Now then Doctor, I believe this is goodbye. Thank you. Your work has taught me so much."
"No! Wait! Please!" Kyudai pleaded as he floated away into the darkness, where the Nomu slowly followed, its teeth glistening in the shadows. He was dropped from the air, and the moment he landed, the beast pounced. "NO- AAARGH!"
Grueling sounds echoed across the lab as the brain-dead monster of the Doctors own creation finished him off. Kagome let out a sigh as the two Purple Oni gave her a look.
"You seem pretty calm, Boss. Really wanted to end him that much?" Dragon asked.
"No. I'm just finally glad that his potential to ruin my plans is finally gone." Kagome said happily, turning to leave. "He was the only one with enough knowledge and power to prevent me from completing my goal legitimately. Now I can focus on playing the goody-two-shoes and focus on my true work."
"Were you serious earlier? All that shit about anyone having any Quirk?" Komodo asked curiously.
"Of course!" Kagome nodded as she smirked wistfully. "This is a new age, my friends. With the world turning its attention to the stars again, the age of Heroes and Villains will slowly dwindle to an end. Once my creation is fully realized and I spread it across the world, things will change! A repository of every Quirk, that people will be free to use for themselves, if they use it responsibly! Everyone will be able to heal, to fly, to turn into animals or turn invisible!"
"But why would that stop Heroes and Villains from being a thing?" Komodo questioned further.
Kagome just scoffed. "Villains are just criminals that use Quirks. We make them out as some great evil, but now that everyone has a Quirk of their own, that specialty is pointless. And Heroes? Who needs to worry about training hundreds of kids with lucky Quirks across Japan, when you can just give a package of relevant Quirks to the right professionals? The Wild, Wild Pussycats all individually have Quirks that make them amazing together for mountain rescues, but imagine if you could give every Search & Rescue personnel in the country all four of their Quirks at once! Everyone will be Superheroes with my work! And when everyone's a Hero…"
"…No one will be."
The Only Hero - The End!
Bonus Chapter: Deku's New Hero Notebook #1 + Extended Author Notes