Disclaimer: I DO_NOT own "My Hero Academia" franchises. No profit is being made.


* AN: This story stub has not been beta-read.

* AN2: This idea is was inspired by reading several of the stories, such as "Shifting Gears", where OFA expresses itself as something other than enhancer stockpile when Izuku first gets it. And seeing how Smokescreen has been somewhat neglected by such stories, I've decided to write one and see just how far I can push it. Turns out, you can make it a pretty damn dangerous Quirk... Emperor's Blade approves.


My Hero Academia :: The Dominion of Smog

Snapping back to consciousness after an unknown amount of time in a thoughtless void was a strange experience, especially when surrounded by people one knew should be dead. But that was exactly what a group of either people - well, seven, really, as one of them was little more than a yellow human-shaped cloud of energy - were going through right now.

"It seems, we have the ninth." The only woman of the group observed.

"Indeed." A blond man with a pair of jagged scars running through his left eye agreed. Then he added: "And since we're somehow all here, it looks like One For All has passed the singularity and awakened us."

"Except the Ninth is a little idealistic brat too naive to even survive." A red-haired man with a cross-shaped scar across his nose hissed.

"Now, now, Second, the times have changed much since when we were alive." A sickly-looking white-haired man said. "And I like this one. We should be helping him."

"Absolutely not!" The redhead and a man with spiky teal hair shouted together. They were promptly ignored by the rest of the group.

"So, how are we going to do that?" The woman asked. "Thanks to Toshinori." She said, nodding towards the energy-ghost-man. "One For All is now a lot more powerful than it used to be. Even after all the training the Ninth has gone through, the full power of physical enhancement will break him. Possibly even kill him."

"That's not good, not at all." The blonde said. "And in a high-stress situation the Ninth appears to be right now, we can't be assured he will be able to tone down the Quirk's power to safe levels. Or that he would even know he needs to do that…"

"So, why don't we give another power instead?" A bald man wearing a set of fancy goggles and a leather jacket with a bandoleer asked. "Why not give him one of our Quirks stored by One For All instead of this super-strength thing?"

"But which one?" The woman asked. "Judging by the Ninth's thoughts, he is taking an entrance exam into a Hero school… UA? And he is nervous as hell right now."

"That definitely means my Quirk is out." The scarred blonde said. "Danger Sense probably won't be too useful for him at the moment, and the extra anxiety that comes with it might be too much for him."

"My Flight is a good Quirk, especially since it will be closer to true flight right now." The woman spoke again. "But Ninth will probably need some training before he can use it safely. He doesn't have that time right now."

"Blackwhip probably won't listen to Ninth either." The 'bandoleer' man said. "It was rather temperamental even before, and will be even more so now. With all that extra power behind it thanks to One For All." He then turned to a tall dark-haired man in a high-collared red cloak. "What about your Quirk, En?"

"Don't know how useful my Smokescreen will be to the Ninth." En replied. "But I'm okay with this. Let's give him my Quirk." He paused for a moment before addressing the white-haired man. "Do your Magic, First. You're the one who knows the most about One For All." The said man nodded.


Izuku Midoriya was riding on a bus to the training grounds Delta where the practical portion of his UA Hero Course entrance exam will take place, when thin purplish smoke began seeping through the skin on his hands.

His immediate reaction was to freak out - drawing some ire from other exam takers on the bus - but somehow the smoke stopped coming. Did he really make it stop? And what even was that? He knew he didn't have a Quirk of his own, so where did this smoke come from? After all, One For All stockpiled power…

Wait, could it be that One For All stockpiled more than just raw power?

Could it also be stockpiling other things? Like Quirks of its past users. That was actually a possibility, though Izuku had no idea why All Might never used anything other than super-strength. And, quite honestly, the greenette had no idea how to use that super-strength - the advice he had been given was …unhelpful, to say the least.

So, he will be taking the exam with a weird smoke-producing Quirk instead.

Well, he could make it work. Maybe. If he can figure out how to control it.

Meanwhile, the bus arrived at its destination and Izuku disembarked along with everyone else. He then quickly went to a corner of the waiting area in front of the training grounds and did some experiments.

Summoning the smoke turned out to be surprisingly easy: he had to just will it to come, and it would. Though it exploded into a small dense cloud he could barely see through. Definitely not ideal, but he could probably use it to sneak up on those robots.

"You should be using your Quirk outside of the testing area." That same tall bespectacled teen that chastised him for murmuring too loudly during the briefing on the practical exam's task said, suddenly appearing behind him.

"S-Sorry." Was all that Izuku could say in response. "I was j-just…" He was saved from further embarrassment by an announcement that the exam has actually just started right now. After all, just like Present Mic explained the next moment, there were no countdowns in real life.

Catching himself, Izuku rushed into the training grounds, for a few moments even staying ahead of the bespectacled boy - who, though, quickly overtook thanks to his incredible speed provided by his Engine Quirk. Was he an Iida?

Shaking his head, Izuku focused on finding some robots to fight. And it wasn't long before he came across a lone one-pointer. The machine played a very cliche villain one-liner before trying to attack him. The greenette responded by summoning a large cloud of smoke and quickly darting to the side in order to dodge the robot.

And as he did that, he discovered that while he couldn't see through the smoke, he could actually feel movements with it. He could tell where the robot was! So he charged back at the machine and punched it in its head. Which, apparently, was enough to K.O. it. Sure, All Might had said that he had become a lot stronger than he used to be, but… were these robots really that flimsy? Deciding not to dwell on this right now, Izuku headed deeper into the fake city, looking for more robots to destroy. He needed to score quite a few more points if he wanted to pass the exam.

As the time progressed, he managed to amass sixteen points, five of which came from when he destroyed the bots trying to sneak up on other examinees. Those people needed help and he helped like a Hero should. That he got some points from it was just a bonus.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be good enough: he had heard others boasting about having more than twenty or, in one case, even thirty villain points. And the number of remaining robots was going down all the time, so obtaining more points was getting harder and harder. Still, he wasn't giving up and kept fighting.

Then, just as the countdown towards the end of the exam hit the three minutes mark, the very ground underneath his feet shook as a monstrous robot towering over the fake city rose from its hiding spot. The zero-pointer. Izuku could clearly see why it was labeled as an obstacle to be avoided by Present Mic during the presentation: taking it down would require a lot of power while not giving any points in return. It was far better to focus on hunting the other bots for some last-minute points than to engage in a show-off fight against this behemoth.

And the green-haired teen fully intended to do that.

But, of course, life had other plans: just as he was about to head away into the part of the fake city that was far away from the zero-pointer, a building about a block ahead suddenly collapsed, its concrete debris falling onto the street and trapping a girl underneath it. All the while other examinees in the area were running for their lives and paid that no mind.

So, Izuku quickly changed his plans and rushed towards the trapped girl.

"Are you alright?" He asked her.

"I… think I broke my ankle." She replied, some pain noticeable in her voice. And, indeed, it looked like a pretty large chunk of concrete had landed right on her left leg. Izuku couldn't tell if that would indeed break someone's leg, but it certainly would be bad regardless.

He tried to help the girl get from underneath that rubble, but unfortunately, even after all of his training on Dagobah beach, he just wasn't strong enough to move the biggest chunks. And to make the things even worse, the zero-pointer decided to come right towards them, putting this impromptu rescue mission on a hard timer.

Unless, he could somehow defeat the metal behemoth with his smoke Quirk.

And the possibility that he would just have to do that was growing by the second as despite his best efforts Izuku couldn't free the girl from under the debris.

"Do you need help?" That same bespectacled boy with engines in his legs that had chastised him earlier for 'using' his Quirk outside of the training grounds asked as he suddenly appeared from …somewhere.

"Yes, please." The young Midoriya replied. He didn't particularly like this boy, but at this moment freeing the girl and getting her to safety was the top priority. And together they were now actually making some progress. But not enough, as the zero-pointer kept getting closer and closer. It looked like someone needed to go and stall the colossal machine. "Can you keep on?" Izuku asked and, without waiting for the other teen's response, went to confront the big bot.

But what he could actually do against it with a Quirk that could only generate smoke? Izuku didn't really have an answer, but that wasn't going to stop him from doing something. So, he closed his eyes, clenched his buttcheeks like All Might had 'advised', and with a roar unleashed the biggest burst of smoke towards the zero-pointer he could manage.

Instead of a simple cloud, a 'pillar' of smoke burst from Izuku's body. It was completely opaque, appearing almost completely black, and dense enough to have a consistency of a liquid. And it slammed into the zero-pointer with enough force to shatter and break its external sensors, forcing the machine to engage safety protocols and shut down so that it wouldn't run over a random test-taker in its 'blinded' state.

The green-haired youth didn't get much time to celebrate this victory as moments later his body caught up with everything that had happened to it and he passed out from exhaustion and unbearable pain. Indeed, producing and expelling so much smoke had put a lot of strain on him, desiccating his body and tearing skin on his hands, chest and face into bloody mess.

~/ *** \~

"I had absolutely no idea that my Smokescreen could do this." En Tayutai or, simply, the Sixth as his fellow vestiges within One For All would call him, observed as he and the others watched the Ninth experiment with his powers. It's been a week since the UA Hero Course exam and the academy was yet to send him a letter with his results. And the Eighth apparently decided to go into a self-imposed exile and wasn't answering any of the calls and messages the Ninth had sent him.

Anyhow, while the vestiges knew that One For All had reached a Singularity - the very fact that they were conscious and aware meant it had happened - they were rather surprised to learn that so did at least some of the Quirks stockpiled within it.

And Smokescreen was definitely among those.

In the past it could, well, produce only a cloud of smoke with En being only able to control how large a cloud he produced, and maybe make it a little more or a little less dense. Now… Now the Ninth could sense things within his smoke. It wasn't quite a proper replacement for vision, but that certainly fixed one of the biggest drawbacks of the Quirk. And, in fact, this sensory ability allowed the Ninth to make an inventory of (larger) things under his bed while sitting on top of it and staring at the ceiling.

The Ninth also had a lot greater control over how dense a smoke he could produce, going all the way up to 'near liquid' levels. He could also control where the smoke he produced went and could even make it stay in place in spite of wind. He could also disperse the smoke he produced at will - something that En had never been able to.

At the moment the Ninth was trying to see whether he could alter the density of the smokescreen after he had released it, and only in certain parts of the cloud. It was… a work in progress, but it looked like the Ninth will master that skill at some point.

And the boy still had several pages of ideas to try scribbled in one of his notebooks. En and his fellow vestiges were impressed with what he had managed to accomplish - even if the Second and the Third would deny having anything but contempt for the 'soft brat who didn't know what the world was like back then'.

~/ *** \~

It had been almost two weeks since he took the exam when Izuku finally received a letter from UA with his results. And, of course, it wasn't a normal written-on-paper letter. Instead, it was a miniature projector that played a recorded video message. With All Might himself being the one who read the said message.

Well, at least that explained why the man had ignored all attempts to reach him that Izuku made. He was too busy with all of the paperwork the UA teachers dealt with. And under some sort of NDA probably.

Anyway, he had passed the written exam and, during the practical one he had earned sixteen 'villain' points. That alone wasn't enough to get him into the Hero Course, but he had also been awarded forty points for helping other students during the exam - the so-called 'rescue' points - bringing his final score to a very respectable fifty six. Not the highest score out there, but it was enough to earn him one of the coveted seats in the Hero Course.

Along with the acceptance letter from UA, the envelope also had a personal note from All Might, in which the Hero apologized for keeping silent for so long and asked to meet him at the Dagobah beach to discuss the 'new developments'. In other words, the strange way One For All had manifested with him.

The meeting actually went pretty well.

All Might assured him that he wasn't at all unhappy that One For All turned into something other than a physical enhancer after he had passed it to Izuku. In fact, in some way, the man seemed to be actually happy with this development. He had also done some research on the past 'Torchbearers' and apparently one of them, En Tayutai, indeed had a smokescreen Quirk.

And since One For All had assimilated a Quirk of at least one of its past bearers, All Might believed that with time Izuku might manifest Quirks of the others as well. According to the man, he himself had been Quirkless before his own mentor - Nana Shimura - gave him One For All. And Nana had a simple self-levitation Quirk called Float. The only other Quirk of the past 'Torchbearer' that All Might managed to find out was that of the Fifth, Daigoro Banjo - Blackwhip.

Izuku quickly noticed that both Blackwhip and Float, should he ever manifest them, could be explained as some application of his 'upgraded' version of Smokescreen. Hell, he might even be able to pass super-strength as one as well if he tried. That should help protect the secret of One For All from too nosy people.

As for the remaining time until the start of the new academic year, Izuku spent it mostly training with his Quirk as much as he could and trying out various ideas of what he might be able to do with the enhanced Smokescreeen.

That is not to say that everything went smoothly for Izuku.

In his infinite wisdom, the principal of Aldera Junior High decided to make a spectacle out of both Izuku and Bakugo passing the UA Hero Course exam. Which, of course, triggered the explosive blonde, who took quite an offense at Izuku 'ruining his origin story' by getting into UA as well. At least Izuku's lower score meant that Bakugo could still claim that he was the best, which soothed his ego a little bit. The fact that Smokescreen could be explained as some weird mutation of his father's fire-breath also helped the green-haired teen avoid the worst of his once-friend's wrath.

~/ *** \~

At long last, the new academic year started and Izuku couldn't be happier: he managed to get into the UA Hero Course, something he had always dreamed about, after all. But, of course, Life decided to give him some lemons: he was, once again, in the same class as Bakugo. And the Explosion user made it quite clear that he'd rather see 'the Deku' six feet under than as his classmate for the next three years.

At least the majority of the class 1-A seemed to be much friendlier. Even that strict guy from the exam, Iida Tenya. He was actually quite friendly, just painfully by-the-book when it came to rules of all kinds. He even wanted to know what happened to the girl the two of them had saved during the exam - she wasn't a part of 1-A as far as either he or Izuku could tell - but getting the answer to that question would have to wait until after orientation.

There, of course, were some exceptions, like that boy with white-and-red hair and a burn scar over his left eye. He definitely wasn't friendly towards Izuku or anyone else. But rather than being antagonistic like Bakugo, he was just cold and indifferent. Which was still a notable improvement.

Izuku's further attempts at studying his classmates were interrupted when he noticed something yellow crawl into the classroom. This something turned out to be a tired man with shaggy black hair in a yellow sleeping bag.

"Good situational awareness." The man commented moments after Izuku's eyes landed on him. "Get to your seats, everyone." All conversations immediately ceased and everyone hired to their assigned desks. "Ten seconds. Not great. You will need to do better in the future." The man said as he walked up to the teacher's desk. "Anyway, I'm Aizawa Shota and I will be your homeroom teacher." Then he reached under his desk and pulled out a stack of UA sports uniforms. "Take one, change into them and meet me at the training grounds Beta in fifteen minutes."

"But, Sir." Tenya protested. "What about orientation? And we don't even know where the changing rooms are yet? For everyone to change in this classroom would be very inappropriate." Several students nodded in agreement.

"We have just three years to train you into people who can do Hero's duties. We don't have time to waste on useless events like orientation." Aizawa-sensei replied. "And about changing rooms? Go find them if you wish. Consider this to be your first information-gathering challenge as future Heroes." And without giving anyone a chance to ask anything else, he walked out of the classroom.

His abrupt departure was met with stunned silence before everyone scrambled to get their sports uniform.

"I can create a wall of opaque smoke to give some privacy." Izuku volunteered. "We probably don't have time to waste on running around looking for the changing rooms right now." Tenya clearly wanted to say something about unlicensed use of Quirks, but he didn't get a chance as several of their classmates - of both genders - took Izuku up on his offer. And moments later, the classroom was divided into two halves by a wall of opaque black smoke.

Even with this, the 1-A barely managed to find their way to the training grounds Beta in the allotted time.

Aizawa-sensei then announced that they will be having a Quirk apprehension test. Basically, the set of standard physical exercises that everyone had been doing in their schools before, but this time they were allowed to use their Quirks to get the best possible results. And then he had Bakugo demonstrate it with a softball toss. And thanks to the power of his Explosion Quirk, the blonde managed to improve his result more than tenfold.

"This is going to be so fun!" A pink-skinned girl - Ashido? - exclaimed. Aizawa-sensei didn't appreciate this form of enthusiasm. And announced that the Test will now be a 'game' with the student getting the lowest cumulative score getting expelled from the Hero Course for having 'no potential'. And any whining about this not being fair were met with rebuttal that the world wasn't fair either.

Izuku did quite well in pretty much all tests, though didn't dominate any of them. Smokescreen wasn't exactly useful for most of these, even if he did manage to use it to get a good distance on softball throw and managed to improve his previous results in the fifty meters dash and standing long jump with it. What really carried him through the tests was his general fitness from all of the training that he did under All Might over the past ten months.

Izuku ended up getting the eleventh spot. Which was definitely good enough.

The one to finish last was that Mineta Minoru guy: the short purple-haired boy did beat everyone at the sustained sideways jumps, but all of his other scores were just too poor to save him from the bottommost ranking. And he apparently was a pervert who wanted to be a Hero in order to be popular with girls. That lost him any possible pity points.

But apparently Aizawa-sensei lied about expelling whoever had the worst result. It was a motivational lie. That said, the man immediately admitted that he would've expelled anyone who didn't at least try to do their best and go beyond it, regardless of which spot they got. But since everyone met his minimum for 'having potential', no one was getting expelled. Today. He did warn everyone that they needed to keep improving if they wanted to remain in the Hero Course.

"Midoriya, a word." Aizawa-sensei then said once he dismissed everyone.

"Yes, Sir." Izuku said before walking up to his homeroom teacher.

"I would like to apologize." Not giving his student a chance to ask any questions, Aizawa continued: "The footage from the entrance exam painted you as someone who had no idea how to even use their Quirk while being arrogant enough to think that just having one made them a Hero material. People like that have no place being a Hero. I've been persuaded to give you a chance, though. And, given how much you have improved since the exam, I was clearly wrong about you. Just be sure to keep improving yourself, or I might change my mind about you having any potential."

"Ah… T-Thank you, Sir." Izuku said.

"Now get going." Aizawa-sensei barked.

~/ *** \~

The next day, in the afternoon, 1-A had their first actual lessons in Heroics. And their teacher was none other than All Might himself. Izuku already knew that his mentor was now a UA teacher, but he had honestly expected him to teach the third years. Not that he would say 'no' to being taught by the number one Hero, of course.

All Might began his class by announcing that they will be doing combat simulations today. Then he pressed a button on the teacher's desk, and a wall compartment containing twenty briefcases with the class's Hero costumes opened. Everyone then quickly grabbed theirs and headed for the changing rooms - they now knew where those were.

Originally Izuku wanted his costume to be something of a homage to All Might, but when One For All had manifested so differently with him, he had scrapped those plans and hastily designed a new one. This new costume was somewhat based on the clothes En - the sixth 'Torchbearer' - wore during this life.

There were some noticeable changes, though, even beyond the color scheme. Which was dark-green for Izuku instead of En's red. The ninth wielder of One For All didn't like his predecessor's all-buttoned-up way of wearing a coat, so he wore his more like a cape instead. He also added padded gloves, boots and something akin to an armored vest: even boosted, Smokescreen wasn't exactly suited for a melee fight, and Izuku wasn't stupid enough to think that he'd manage to avoid those. So he tried to give himself as much advantage as he could via his costume. He also added an utility belt for various useful gadgets and gizmos, though he had none at the moment. And while the end result lacked the cheerful colors many daytime heroes had, he gained a serious and, dare say, professional look in exchange.

The exercise All Might wanted them to do was a two-on-two indoor battle. The 'Hero' team would be storming a building with their victory conditions being either capturing all opponents, or touching a 'bomb' hidden somewhere inside the buildings. The 'Villain' team was defending the aforementioned 'bomb' and could win either by capturing the 'Heroes' or by timeout. The teams were assigned randomly, and Izuku ended up partnered with Mineta. And they were 'Heroes' going against 'Villains' Katsuki and Tenya.

"We're going to lose! We're so going to lose…" The diminutive teen whined.

"We have a chance." Izuku stated. "Ka- Bakugo will come after me and will ignore you as long as you don't stand in his way. I can probably take him on… At very least, I should be able to buy you enough time to deal with Iida. He doesn't appear to be that good in tight spaces, so you have a chance against him."

"You think so?" Mineta asked. Izuku nodded in response. Then he told the other teen his plan.


When the exercise actually started, things proceeded almost exactly like Izuku had predicted. He and Mineta barely made it inside the building when the angry blonde made his appearance, his partner nowhere in sight.

"Deku!" Katsuki roared, his attention focused solely on that green-haired menace. He didn't seem to even notice that Mineta was here. Or that the diminutive teen slipped past him and headed deeper into the building. "Ready to be put in your place? I'll make sure to grind you to dust!" And with that he charged straight at Izuku, propelling himself with small explosions.

Izuku, however, was quite familiar with the way his once-friend fought and, with a bit of effort, he dodged the lunge, before grabbing the Explosion user by his arm and throwing him onto the ground. Then, while the said teen was getting back onto his feet, Izuku released a cloud of thick smoke and retreated behind a nearby corner.

With an angry snarl, Bakugo gave chase and ran straight into the smokescreen, fully intent on putting Deku in his place. The smoke reduced visibility to almost zero, so when he saw something move ahead of him, he had no other option but to assume that Deku was trying to sneak up on him. So he attacked. But instead of hitting flesh, his fist sank into super-dense smoke that was more like a liquid or, perhaps, very loose fine sand at this point.

Having 'seen' his trap succeed, Izuku pressed ahead and commanded his smoke to completely immobilize Bakugo while he himself prepared the capture tape. The Explosion user would have none of that, though.

"Like hell I'll let you do that, Deku!" He growled before releasing a powerful blast. It was enough to break his arms free. And while it didn't blow the smoke away completely, it cleared the air enough for him to spot the real Izuku. "There you are, bastard! Stop running away and just get crushed under my heel already!" He yelled before propelling himself at the object of his ire with rapid explosions.

With a bit of an effort, the green-haired teen dodged this attack and immediately went on counter-offense by slamming a pillar of his super-dense smoke into the explosive blonde, sending him tumbling down the corridor.

That didn't achieve much beyond making Bakugo even angrier, though.

"That's it! Enough playing around, Deku! Now I'm going to kill you!" The said boy growled as he pulled the pin out of his left gauntlet and pointed the grenade-shaped support item at Izuku. In an instant, the speakers hidden somewhere throughout the building came alive with All Might ordering him to stand down and not use a potentially-lethal move on his classmate. "He'll be fine if he dodges." Was Bakugo's response. Then he got ready to fire his explosion.

Izuku knew that one just couldn't "dodge" a powerful explosion in a rather narrow corridor, so instead he dropped flat on the floor, minimizing his profile, and summoned an angled wall of his super-dense smoke in front of himself to hopefully redirect at least some of the blast away.

This actually worked and the massive explosion didn't really do more than bath him in a wave of intense heat. On the other hand, the redirected blast blew a big hole through the walls, including the outer, bearing one. The building would probably not collapse for just that, but it was probably not safe to be inside anymore - at least not until a professional could verify that it wasn't structurally compromised.

Bakugo didn't appear to be at all concerned by that.

"Still alive there, Deku?" He asked while removing the safety pin from his other gauntlet. "Let's see if you will get lucky the second time."

He didn't get a chance to actually fire it as All Might's giant form appeared seemingly out of thin air behind him. And a blink of an eye later Bakugo found himself restrained by the Hero.

"The Villain team is disqualified for refusing to follow an explicit teacher's orders." The number one Hero announced.


Despite the match ending so abruptly, All Might still insisted on nominating an MVP for it. And Izuku ended up being picked as one, narrowly winning over Iida. Mostly because the latter didn't actually get to showcase anything but actually taking the exercise completely seriously, while Izuku's planning abilities and quick thinking had seen use.

Being praised as the MVP of his match by his classmates turned out to be such an embarrassing experience…

Anyway, since he wasn't hurt seriously enough to warrant an immediate trip to the Recovery Girl's office, Izuku was allowed to stay and watch the rest of his classmates' matches. And witness their cool Quirks in action. Too bad, he had left his analysis notebook in the classroom and couldn't take notes right now. Perhaps, he should add a pouch for a pen and his notebooks into his Hero costume?

Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

And not just for taking notes on Quirks he encounters. Having a pen and paper on hand could be useful in many situations, even if he'd rather not rip pages out of his analysis notebook to leave notes or whatever.

~/ *** \~

Aside from Aizawa-sensei giving his own evaluation and critiques of everyone's performance in the battle training the following morning, the next couple of days were rather mundane: mostly normal high-school classes, albeit taught by pro-Heroes, and even the special Hero classes were focused on Law and somesuch.

That is not to say that nothing exciting had happened during this time.

First, Aizawa-sensei asked them to pick a class president and their office. There was quite a bit of arguing over how to do that, and eventually 1-A followed Iida's suggestion of doing a secret ballot. Their sensei gave them an indifferent shrug when asked whether it was okay: the man didn't care how they picked their class president as long as they did pick them by the end of the homeroom, and did so without making too much noise.

Much to his surprise, Izuku ended up tied for second place - that of the class's vice-president - with Iida, both of them getting three votes while Yaoyorozu Momo got elected as the president with four. Since he had absolutely no experience with this stuff while Iida looked like he actually did, the Ninth Torchbearer stepped aside and let the other teen be the vice-president of 1-A.

That was proven to be the right decision just a couple of hours later when, during lunch, the press that has been besieging the UA's front gate since morning managed to get inside, triggering the intruder alarm. With some help from Momo, who created a megaphone for him, Iida was quickly able to get everyone's attention and made them stop panicking since it was just an overeager press and the school wasn't actually under the attack.


A few days passed, and it was the time for 1-A to have their first Rescue training class. Which was taking place at the Unforeseen Situation Joint off the main campus. And much to Iida's dismay, the bus they would ride to USJ wasn't what he had expected and his carefully-crafted seating arrangement turned out to be completely useless.

Upon arriving at the USJ, class 1-A was greeted by Thirteen, who went on a lecture about how many Quirks that were lethally-dangerous could instead be used to save lives. With their own Quirk - all-destroying Black Hole - being a prime example.

Then Thirteen led them into the huge dome to show the facility their rescue training will take place. And it indeed was a marvel with entire artificial environments that could simulate everything from a typhoon to earthquake to even an aftermath of a volcano eruption.

Unfortunately, before 1-A could get their first lesson started, some unannounced 'guests' decided to crash their party. Villains - actual, real villains - had launched an attack against UA. Aizawa-sensei immediately ordered evacuation before going down to the central plaza in order to fight the villains.

But before anyone could force their way through the suddenly-locked entrance gates, one of the main villains, a strange man seemingly made of black smoke, teleported to where the students and Thirteen were. He gave a brief and surprisingly-polite introduction, identifying the villain group as the 'League of Villains', before using portal powers to scatter students around the facility, sending them straight to rank-and-file villains lying in wait for them.

Izuku ended up being sent to the Flood zone, where he was lucky to land just a few meters away from the boat. It took the greenette a few seconds to recover from being teleported around and then falling into deep water from a considerable height, but he still managed to reach the ladder and climb out of the water before a shark-like villain could bite his leg off.

The said boat, thankfully, didn't have any villains aboard. Instead, Izuku found two of his classmates here. Tsuyu Asui and Denki Kaminari. The latter, apparently, has just been pulled out of the artificial lake by the former.

"You're here too, Midoriya?" The blonde asked. Upon receiving a nod, the Electrification user fired the next question: "Do you know how we can get out of here? This place…-" He said, pointing at the lake "-...is full of villains. They will tear us apart if we try to swim back to the shore."

"Well… I think we have a chance." Izuku said unsurely. "I mean, it seems that this 'League of Villains' doesn't know much about our class." He said, pointing at Asui. "I mean, if they did, they would've sent us to the areas where we would be at our weakest, but Asui… I mean, Tsu is pretty much natural in water. It would make no sense for them to send her to the Flood zone if they actually knew about our Quirks."

"That seems like a reasonable assumption." The frog girl said. "But while I'm a good swimmer, I don't think I can fight all these villains, in the water or even out of it."

"Understandable." Izuku agreed. "But since they don't know about our Quirks, they will be cautious and won't immediately attack us. It gives us some time to plan our escape off this boat." A moment later a large villain rammed the boat, causing it to rock. "Okay… maybe not that much time, but we can still come up with something." The Ninth Torchbearer quickly amended.

A minute and another couple of attempts by the aquatic villains to sink the boat they were on later, Izuku finally got an idea.

"I can't guarantee that it would actually work, and we can't really win this fight directly if it doesn't work, but… Water is really good at transmitting sound. So if we make some very loud sound underwater, it can stun the villains for long enough for us to reach the shore as we swim. This boat is made for training exercises, so it should have some equipment like loudspeakers and microphones. And Kaminari can power them with his Quirk if their own batteries are dead." The greenette explained this idea. It really wasn't very good but…

"Well, it's at least something. Let's try it!" Denki said. Tsuyu nodded along.

With their decision made, the three teens then hurried to implement Izuku's idea.

Turns out Izuku was wrong and there weren't any loudspeakers on the ship that they could use. But they did find an air horn, which served their purposes just as well. Removing it from the mast didn't pose a big challenge and once they had it wrapped in plastic bags to protect it from water, their acoustic weapon was ready.

The villains in the lake barely got enough time to wonder what the 'kids' they were tasked to kill were doing when a bundle the size of a microwave oven was dropped into the water. Then they were hit by a hundred-fifty decibel siren, supercharged to those levels by Denki's electricity. None of the villains were actually killed by that, but such a loud sound still did a lot of damage.

The three Hero students didn't waste this opportunity and swam to the shore - well, Tsuyu being by far the best swimmer of the three basically dragged them there. Anyhow, they managed to safely get away from the Flood zone and the aquatic villains lurking in it.

But that brought them to the Central plaza where Aizawa-sensei had been fighting the villains. Except that was no longer the case: their teacher had been defeated by a huge black-skinned mountain of muscle and was being quite literally curb-stomped by the said villain while the apparent leader of this 'League of Villains' - a pale young man covered by human hands of all things - gloated about this black hulking monster, Nomu, being an unbeatable weapon designed to kill All Might. There also were a few rank-and-file villains standing around and laughing at the defeated Eraserhead.

"W-We need to do something." Izuku whispered.

"What can we do?" Denki asked him back. "Those guys beat sensei, no way we can beat them." That much Izuku fully agreed with.

"I can distract them with my smoke. And while I do that, grab Aizawa-sensei and get away from here." He said.

"And what about you?" Asui asked.

"I'll be right behind you." Izuku 'promised', though he didn't really believe that he'd be able to get away from the villains that easily once he got their attention. Still, their sensei needed help and what kind of a Hero (student) would he be if he didn't even try? As Tsuyu and Denki nodded, he released a large cloud of very thin, barely-noticeable smoke that quickly filled the entire plaza. Then he snap-condensed that smoke into 'fists' to strike all of the villains there simultaneously.

The 'thugs' all went down to this surprise attack, unable to do anything to defend themselves against it. The Nomu, despite having made no move to dodge or protect itself, didn't appear to have even noticed the attack striking him. As for the 'hands' villain, he was the only one to actually notice the attack coming, and was quick enough to dodge it.

"Oh my… It looks like those NPCs I had added to my party couldn't deal with a couple of mobs." The apparent leader of the villains said as he surveyed the plaza, quickly finding the bushes Izuku, Tsuyu and Denki were hiding behind. "I guess I'll have to deal with them myself. Maybe it'll even help summon the raid boss!" And with that he darted towards the trio with incredible speed, his right hand outstretched as if he planned to grab them, or…

'Touch-based Quirk, almost certainly highly-destructive.' Izuku immediately analyzed this new opponent as he moved to place himself between his classmates and the villain, silently praying that a layer of 'liquid smoke' he was trying to cover himself with would be enough to protect him from the evildoer's Quirk.

Thankfully for the green-haired teen, it looked like his analysis was spot on: the moment the villain had all five of his right hand's fingers on his coat, it started turning into dust. But, at the same time, the layer of super-thick smoke prevented Mr. 'Hands' from directly touching him. And smoke being just a collection of tiny particles, was itself immune to five-point-activation touch-based Quirks.

"Cheater!" The villain raged when he finally realized that his Quirk was not working on the teen in front of him. "Why won't you…" Before he could finish whatever he was trying to say, he got interrupted by a strong kick to his stomach, which actually sent him flying away.

"Run!" Izuku shouted to Tsuyu and Denki.

"Nomu, kill this brat!" The villain yelled at the same time.

Izuku didn't know what prompted him to duck the moment he heard that order, but he was really thankful he did: a moment later Nomu's huge fist passed through the space his head had just occupied. And the sheer force of the creature's punch, even if it had missed, still made the young Torchbearer feel like his head was about to be torn off his body.

The Nomu just stared dumbly at the empty space it had just punched, which gave Izuku a chance to move away from it. Not that putting a little bit of distance would really help again something so fast and so powerful…

"Looks like you are one of those high-level mobs." The 'hands' villain spoke. "No wonder those NPCs I brought along couldn't handle you. But Nomu is different. Nomu is a miracle of bio-engineering made by the good Doctor as the Anti-Symbol of Peace." He boasted. "It was designed to fight and kill All Might himself. A small fry like you will not even be a warm-up for it."

Once again, Izuku moved on pure instinct. And once again it saved his life. And the teen knew it couldn't go on like that. He needed to do something about this Nomu or he'd be a red paste on the ground.

And the first, and probably the stupidest, idea he got was to create a 'clump' of smoke over Nomu's eyes to blind it. Or, at least make it a lot harder for the dark-skinned monster to see him. Or maybe it wasn't a stupid idea as it indeed made it much harder for Nomu to hit him. Didn't do anything about its inhuman speed and strength, though. And the villains' leader was still there, directing Nomu with his orders.

So a more …permanent solution was needed. And soon, as Izuku wasn't sure he could last even five more minutes in this dance with death.

Unfortunately, Smokescreen, even with all of the power boost it got from One for All, was just not powerful enough to bind or even significantly slow down a monster like Nomu. And with a 'puppeteer' to direct it, Izuku could do little more than do his best to dodge attack after attack from the black-skinned monstrosity.

And he couldn't even turn around and retreat: if he suddenly wasn't there to 'entertain' the villains with his struggle to survive, they would turn their attention to Tsuyu and Denki, who were doing their best to get Aizawa-sensei to safety, but couldn't go fast because of how hurt the man was. And they definitely wouldn't stand a chance of survival against Nomu. Thus, Izuku had no real option but to keep 'fighting'…

Izuku formed several ramheads out of his smoke and sent them at the black hulk. This turned out to be completely ineffective as Nomu didn't even flinch when struck by this attack. And even worse, the 'hands' villain found this amusing.

"You can't beat my Nomu with those pathetic attacks, stupid mook - it has Shock Absorption Quick powerful enough to stop All Might!" The villain boasted. And seemingly not without a reason. And if Nomu indeed had such a Quirk, blunt force was not a solution against it.

After he learned to turn his smoke into fake-liquid, Izuku had considered pushing it even further and solidifying it. But he had never actually tried that idea out. Maybe he should have done that as trying a new technique out for the first time in a life-or-death situation was very unwise. But what other options did he really have if he wanted to do more than just dodge?

Forcing Smokescreen to its limits, Izuku condensed some of the smoke into several spikes. They still weren't truly solid, but they were a lot denser than anything he made before. He then sent them flying at the charging Nomu. And this attack finally managed to do some damage, tearing through the humanoid beast's skin. Nomu still showed no reaction, but its 'boss' certainly did:

"Cheater!" The 'hands' villain cried in anger. "You have to be cheating! A mob like you shouldn't be able to hurt my Nomu!" He then quickly collected himself: "But no matter! Those scratches won't stop Nomu. Especially since the good Doctor gave it a regeneration Quirk as well! It won't go down no matter what you do!" He boasted.

And, indeed, the wounds Izuku's smoky spikes had inflicted were gone within a few seconds. Not even scars remained. That actually made the green-haired teen curse. It looked like he really had no way to deal with this monster, and his only option in this fight was to try and last long enough for the proverbial cavalry - the UA teachers and maybe other Heroes - to arrive.

That didn't mean he couldn't keep trying to be more …proactive.

And, actually, maybe he should start attacking the leader villain instead of limiting himself to taking potshots at Nomu? After all, it looked like Nomu didn't have any initiative of its own and only ever followed its master's orders.

Turns out, Nomu could actually do things without being ordered to. Or, maybe it could just follow the orders even if those were given to it some time ago. Either way, the moment Izuku sent a few smoke constructs flying at its master, Nomu disengaged from him and placed itself between the 'hands' villain and the incoming attacks.

"So you would attack an innocent bystander?" The villain taunted, conveniently ignoring the fact that being the leader of villains attacking USJ made him anything but an innocent bystander here. "You Heroes are all so quick to resort to violence. You really are no better than the so-called villains, it's just the government says you're the good guys and we're not. So annoying. After I kill All Might here, I'll tear this stupid system down next." He paused for a moment before ordering Nomu: "Kill him."

By some miracle, Izuku managed to avoid getting killed by the beast. Though, this time he wasn't lucky enough to avoid getting hit completely and a glancing blow shattered his right shoulder.

His vision going momentarily dark from pain, the Ninth Torchbearer lashed out, rapidly creating and launching numerous smoke constructs in Nomu's general direction. Most of these projectiles completely missed their intended target. A few did score a hit, though. And a couple of lucky shots even managed to cut into the monster's joints, robbing it of its mobility.

Then one managed to strike its exposed brain.

It wasn't enough to kill Nomu, but it might as well have done that since it rendered the creature completely unresponsive to orders the 'hands' villain was screaming at it.

And since all these constructs didn't immediately dissolve back into normal smoke and remained embedded in its flesh, Nomu's regeneration, however powerful it might be, couldn't even repair the damages. It was defeated.

"Cheater! You must be cheating!" The Decay Quirk user screamed in utter fury once he realized that. "How could a no-name mob like you defeat my Nomu?! It was made to kill All Might!" He then launched himself at Izuku at astounding speed. "I'm going to kill you!" He screamed.

Izuku was still in massive pain and the lashing out he did against Nomu had exhausted him. He was just not able to do anything to defend himself against this assault.

But before anything could happen, All Might made his appearance, arriving at the scene so fast that one might think he was capable of teleportation. And in the next blink of an eye, the 'hands' villain was crashing into a brick wall on the opposite side of the plaza.

"Are you badly hurt, young Midoriya?" The Number One Hero asked.

"I'll live." Izuku grunted in response.

"Then rest and let Pros handle the remaining villains. Everything is going to be alright now, because I am here." All Might said then. He was about to jump back into action and capture the 'hands' villain, but before he could do anything, the warpgate villain that had introduced himself as Kurogiri appeared next to his 'boss'.

"Tomura Shigaraki." So that was the name of 'League of Villains' 'leader'. "Nomu has been rendered unresponsive and more Heroes will arrive soon. We should retreat while we can." Tomura didn't appear happy about this. At all. But despite acting like an entitled gamer that can't quite separate his games from reality, he wasn't too delusional to recognize that his plans had utterly failed.

"Grr…. You're right, the raid's a bust." He growled. "Get us out of here." Kurogiri nodded and opened a portal. "We will be back, and I will kill you, All Might!" Shigaraki promised before stepping through this portal and disappearing.

"Please forgive us, Heroes, but we will be taking Nomu with us." Kurogiri then spoke as another portal opened underneath the aforementioned bio-engineered monstrosity, quickly swallowing it and transporting it away. Then Kurogiri himself stepped through the first portal and both portals closed.

And with that the USJ incident was pretty much over. There still were some rank-and-file scattered throughout the facility that needed to be apprehended, but…

~/ *** \~

As he would learn from Recovery Girl later, Izuku passed out almost immediately after the 'League of Villains' retreated and spent the next two days unconscious. Which might have been a small blessing as it gave her and Nezu time to fly in doctors that could properly fix his shoulder after Nomu nearly destroyed it completely with a punch.

So, thankfully, he managed to avoid a career-ending injury before his Hero career could even begin.

Izuku was also happy to learn that most of his classmates came out of the villains' attack with only scrapes and other minor wounds. And those who did suffer more serious injuries still got off with nothing that an overnight stay at the hospital and a few healing Quirks couldn't fix. Aizawa-sensei and Thirteen weren't quite as lucky and both had been hurt quite badly by the villains and would need a couple of weeks of rest to recover from their wounds.

Or so the Recovery Girl said.

Aizawa-sensei, apparently, decided not to listen to her and showed up to class 1-A's next homeroom, still covered from head to toe in bandages and with one of his arms still in a cast. There, he announced that, despite the villains' attack on USJ, UA will still be holding the Sports Festival in two weeks.

Naturally, some of the students questioned whether this was a wise decision. Aizawa-sensei responded by saying that Nezu wanted to cancel the Festival but got overruled by the school's sponsors and the HPSC. He then added that the security systems around the campus will be upgraded and there will be numerous Heroes patrolling the area to ensure no villain can break in and ruin the day.

Once the homeroom ended, 1-A headed for the cafeteria to get their lunch, only to find themselves blocked by a large crowd that consisted mostly of the students from other Courses that wanted to see what 1-A was made of. Naturally, this triggered Bakugo's temper and the explosive blonde showed his displeasure by calling everyone in his sight 'useless extras' who 'don't know what a real Hero looks like' as he angrily pushed his way through the crowd.

That certainly didn't endear 1-A to the rest of the school.

And to make it all even worse, Aizawa-sensei then came and ordered everyone to stop blocking the way, dispersing the crowd before Izuku, Momo, Iida and others could even make an attempt to convince everyone that the rest of their class weren't arrogant douchebags like Bakugo.

Then, as Izuku finally made it to the cafeteria, All Might showed up and asked to speak to him privately. As it turned out, it was all about the upcoming Sports Festival:

"Are you sure I can do that?" Izuku asked after hearing his mentor's request. "I mean, One for All works really differently for us, and…"

"Young Midoriya." All Might said, cutting him off. "I never wanted you to be a copy of myself. You should be your own Hero." He paused for a moment before continuing: "When I asked you to tell the world that you are here, I wanted you to show the people watching the Festival that a new generation of great Heroes is coming and that you're among them. So, can you do that, young Midoriya? Can you stand at the top and the world 'I am here'?" The #1 Hero asked again.

"I can try, All Might." Izuku replied. "But I can't promise I'll be able to do that. I mean, everyone here has such amazing Quirks and… Can I really measure up to them? And…"

"Nonsense, young Midoriya. I know you will do great, you just need to believe in yourself." All Might tried to cheer him up. "You did great so far so I'm sure the Sports Festival will not be able to stop you either."

"Y-Yes." Izuku agreed. "I… I'll do my best to win the Festival and show everyone that I too will become a great Hero one day!"

"That's the spirit, my boy!" His Heroic mentor said.