All Might considered himself to be a good man. He had strong ideals, and wanted to help as many people as possible. He didn't let adversity get him down, and he tried his best to overcome any obstacle on the road to peace. That, however, didn't apply to Toshinori Yagi. Toshinori didn't consider himself to be a particularly noteworthy man in any sense of the word. He was weak, physically and mentally, and was just about ready to give up on being a Hero in favor of finding a successor. He was well aware he didn't need one, since All for One was dead - he'd made sure of it - and that meant that One for All was no longer needed to combat him. That being said, it was a sacred torch that had been passed down for generations, almost a hundred and fifty years, by the estimate Nana had given him, and Toshinori wasn't ready to let that die.
So, he was at UA's entrance exams for the Hero Course to see which up-and-coming Hero would be best to receive his power. He wasn't only considering the first year students, as there were plenty of candidates that were already students at UA, but Toshinori had reasoned that it was best to pass it off to a first year over an older student due to the time it would take to master the Quirk if they didn't take to it like him. If they couldn't use One for All like he could right out of the gate, it would require a significant amount of time to be invested into training and learning about the power, and if he gave it to a third or second year, they'd still be trying to master it by the time they graduated and were out in the world of Heroics, and that wouldn't bode well for them. So, he was looking at the newbies.
Toshinori sat in the observation room with the rest of UA's staff, as they'd be his coworkers come April. He was sure he could see Eraserhead glaring at him from his corner of the dark room, but they'd have to have a talk later.
Instead, Toshinori honed in on a few of the students on the screens. He'd already made some mental notes about some of them, such as Katsuki Bakugou, who used explosions to take down the Villain bots. He seemed like a powerful young man, but a bit too focused on the combat aspect of Heroism to be a good Symbol.
There was Tenya Iida, the younger brother of Ingenium, who probably should've taken the recommendation exam, if Toshinori was being honest. The boy likely wanted to prove that he could succeed without help from his family, and that was commendable, even if it risked failure. Iida seemed like a good fit, but was likely too rigid and inflexible to take to One for All with any degree of proficiency.
Eijiro Kirishima seemed like a fairly well rounded individual, with defensive and offensive capabilities, as well as the will to help others even when it came to losing time for himself in the exam. Toshinori watched him with great interest, as he managed to get himself quite a lot of Villain and Rescue Points. Most applicants had Rescue Points, but none of them knew about it, and if they did, they were the vast minority. They made a point not to tell the applicants about them, due to the nature of the points themselves. They were meant to expose who had innate Heroic tendencies, even when they didn't know they counted toward their scores, and to see that Kirishima had an almost even split of points between the two varieties. Toshinori would have to follow up with this boy.
Another boy with a good chunk of both Villain and Rescue Points was Izuku Midoriya. Toshinori almost didn't catch him, even though he was collecting a large amount of points. He was a small boy, kind of plain looking, but he was good at using his Quirk and he took time when he could to help the other applicants. That was two checks in Toshinori's book. Something about the boy was nagging at the back of his brain, though. It was like he'd seen the boy before, but he just couldn't remember when. Maybe he'd saved this boy before, but he really didn't know.
What interested Toshinori about this boy the most was his Quirk. He could never truly see it in action, always seeing the aftermath. Midoriya would simply touch the robots they had employed as false Villains, and they'd fall apart under him. Maybe he had some kind of technopathy or ferrokinesis? Maybe he had super-strength, but it looked like he was barely swiping his hands over the bots, not hitting them with any amount of force. He gave them a touch and they just crumbled apart. Perplexing.
"An interesting bunch of applicants we've got this year, wouldn't you say?" Midnight asked someone, probably Cementoss due to their proximity.
"Indeed. Though, the real test is yet to come," Cementoss replied.
"Of course. True heroism can't be measured in just ten minutes, but I've found that this does the job fairly well," Nezu chirped from his smaller, more centred seat.
Nezu, the tiny, furry masochist that he was, leaned over and pressed a glowing red button. Toshinori had almost laughed out loud when he had seen it, having thought that those kinds of things only existed in cheesy American movies, but it was there, drawing his eye every time he looked in its direction. The button was labelled as 'Next Level', and Toshinori suddenly remembered when he had faced the thing that the button released. It had been forty years, or close to it, since that moment, and he had just received One for All. It seemed like yesterday, but also a lifetime ago, which Toshinori supposed it was.
The staff watched as the Zero Pointer rose from the ground, throwing up chunks of concrete, glass and piping. Toshinori almost felt One for All fill him, but pushed back on the feeling as he settled back into his seat. He felt the ghost of adrenaline flow through him as he remembered his time participating in this exam, but kept a straight face. He had already let his future coworkers know that he was really a massive dork, even if he tried to hide it, so they didn't need to know anything more than that just yet.
Then, something strange happened. The debris thrown about by the Zero Pointer's rampage fell on an applicant. A single other applicant saw this and stopped, calling back to his peers for help, but none of them could hear him over the roar of the chaos. Wait, that was Midoriya! The one that had given Toshinori such a strange feeling before. Midoriya seemed to take a breath, calming himself. The boy then rushed toward the applicant that had been trapped, who Toshinori could see was a girl, Uraraka if the records were correct, when the camera changed, and tried to help her up.
A feeling of dread formed, swirling around Toshinori's stomach. What if Midoriya wasn't strong enough to lift the large chunk of concrete that had pinned Uraraka? What if he ran, leaving her for dead? What if he stayed, and they both got hurt trying to fight the Zero Pointer, or worse? A dozen things could've happened, but none of them did. Instead, Midoriya simply pressed his hands to the chunk of debris, and suddenly it was gone. Just like that, it was dust. Midoriya and Uraraka tried to run, but the pieces of concrete on top of the largest one that Midoriya had dusted came crashing down, almost hitting them. They were blown back, but unharmed by it.
Toshinori released his grip on the arms of his chair, not knowing when he had begun to tighten it. He looked around, noting the similarly tense and relieved expression on his fellow Heroes. When Midoriya collapsed, the tension came right back, the staff all wondering what could have caused it.
"Is that kid okay?" Cementoss asked.
"He saved that girl, but he sacrificed his own health to do so. That's some Hero material if I've ever seen it," Midnight muttered.
"He doesn't seem to care about that, though. He seemed like he had tasted heaven itself when he saw that the girl was okay," Cementoss said, an uncomfortable look on his face.
Toshinori stared at the boy. That Quirk. That was it. Izuku Midoriya was the kid he had said could never be a Hero with his Quirk. Here he was, though, being the savior of another applicant. Toshinori remembered when he had said those horrible words, and had seen the kid's heart had shattered before his eyes in real time. Toshinori remembered getting a flash of Nana in that moment, telling him of a Quirk that All for One had used to kill her predecessor. It was exactly the Quirk that MIdoriya had just used, and had been using the entire exam. He wasn't using super-strength, he wasn't using technopathy, he was using Decay, the power All for One had used to turn the sixth user of One for All into dust. It was why Toshinori had panicked that day, and had said what he said. It was why he had broken the boy's heart, even if he knew it was wrong. In many ways, Toshinori was just as immature and childish as he had been when he had tried to fight All for One when he had only just inherited his power, but he had grown. Not enough, apparently, but he had grown some.
"Shuzenji, we need your assistance in Battle Centre C. Look for a boy with green hair and the girl with him," Nezu said, loud enough that the microphone in the console in front of him could pick it up.
"I'm on my way," the voice of Recovery Girl came through the speakers.
Toshinori forced himself to breathe like a normal person. Considering his situation lung-wise, that was impressive. He took deep breaths, telling himself that it was fine, and that he'd finished All for One five years ago. He was dead, Toshinori knew it. This had to be a coincidence. Midoriya simply manifested a Quirk that was accidentally the same Quirk that All for One had used almost seventy years ago to kill a good man and an excellent Hero. It wasn't the same. It wasn't. It couldn't be, because All for One's activities had never come anywhere near Musutafu, right? Toshinori did some quick fact checking in his head, and concluded that no, he hadn't been physically able to give Midoriya his 'Decay' Quirk due to their locations not allowing them to meet. He'd have to look into it to be sure, though.
"Well, everyone. We've had quite the batch of applicants this year, but only time will tell who gets in and who does not. I'll leave you to your tasks," Nezu said, standing up. "On another topic, would you accompany me to my office to talk, All Might?"
"Oh, of course, sir!" Toshinori said.
Toshinori got up and began to walk behind the principal of UA himself. Nezu was something of a cryptid in the Hero community, but he was only truly terrifying to those who knew him. He was the smartest being in Japan, and that didn't even begin to cover just how intelligent this man was. Nezu was one of the rare animals that manifested a Quirk, and that meant that he was valuable to the Quirk analysts and scientists who were still searching for the cause of Quirks in humans. They did things to him, horrible things that he refused to disclose, but it drove him to become principal of UA, so that he could better humanity instead of hate it. He did hate humanity, Toshinori knew that well, but Nezu kept it under control. He only let his true feelings out when he was alone, or under extremely rare circumstances such as meeting with the Hero Commission. Toshinori would always remember how he chewed the Commission out when they suggested having the government have control of the curriculum for the Hero Course.
As the two walked toward Nezu's office, Toshinori wondered what the principal could possibly want to talk about. Was it about One for All and his increasing need to find a successor? Was it about his position as a teacher come April? Was this about something else entirely? Toshinori didn't really know, and he wasn't excited to find out, considering who he was dealing with.
When the two arrived at the office, they sat on opposite sides of Nezu's desk. The principal seemed to examine Toshinori, but the man didn't know why. After a moment of silence, Nezu spoke up.
"Would you care to tell me what caused you to tense up like that?" he asked.
"Ah, you saw. Of course you did," Toshinori muttered. "It was that boy, Midoriya."
"What of him?"
Toshinori took a deep breath in, preparing himself for the principal's wrath for his idiocy.
"I've met him before. I told him he couldn't be a Hero because of his Quirk," he said.
"The boy has an excellent Quirk."
"I know that."
That wasn't a lie. He did know that it could be a top-tier Quirk for Heroics if he trained it right. The issue was with him.
"So, what compelled you to say such a thing?"
His stupid fear.
"I was scared of it. That Quirk is exactly the same as the one that killed the sixth user of One for All. I was afraid that he might've been an associate of All for One, or the demon himself."
Nezu was quiet. That meant one of two things; he was plotting Toshinori's death, or he was trying to find a way to respond that made him seem like he wasn't a demon in the shape of a rat-bear-dog-thing.
"Well, there's nothing we can do about that now. What we can do though, or more accurately what you can do, is apologize to Midoriya and deliver his results to him," Nezu finally said.
"Deliver his results? The exams just concluded," Toshinori asked.
"Oh, I forget that you've never overseen an entrance exam! Yes, the exam just concluded, but since the points are automatically logged, we already have the results! Even without his impressive showing at the end, Midoriya would have gotten in. With it, he's our first place examinee this year!" Nezu clarified.
"Ah. Right. Well, I'll go and do that, then," Toshinori said.
"Midoriya is currently in Recovery Girl's office. You know where to go," Nezu said, a small twinkle in his eye.
Nezu waved him off, and Toshinori got up and left. On his way to Recovery Girl's office, Toshinori thought over what he was going to say. He thought of his classic 'I AM HERE' entrance, but that seemed a bit too much for the situation. That, and Chiyo would probably kill him if he woke the boy up before he was supposed to. Toshinori would admit to never knowing quite how to handle someone that doesn't want to be saved, but he'd never encountered someone who … he just wasn't sure about. Sometimes, things were easy to tell. He could read their body language, or their face and get a read on how they felt about him, but Midoriya showed no hesitation when rescuing Uraraka. It was like he didn't even … think. Huh.
As he arrived at the office of the best doctor in the country, Toshinori took a deep breath in. He steadied himself for what was about to happen. He had broken this kid's heart, and just left him alone to deal with it. That was horrible, but he was willing to make up for it now. He needed to, if he was going to call himself a Hero. He puffed up into his Heroic Form and opened the door.
This was going to be rough.
