And here's another one, this time being a different kind of examination of All Might's status as the number one hero, showing what happens when one goes too far with their fan worship...

The Almighty

(Inspired by Ultrakill and Fear No Evil by katydid)

Some time after the Kamino incident, in Japan's underground, amidst the lost and the vagabond, there is a group that is gaining traction amongst the directionless and those that are lost for purpose. A religious cult, born from the dredges of hero society and made up of both heroes and former villains alike.

A cult called the Almighty.

A cult that worshipped All Might.

They worshipped All Might because, in the eyes of the people that followed the Almighty, All Might was more than just the number one hero of the world: he was the definition of mankind. He was strength, he was compassion, he was humanity.

To them, he was everything.

In their eyes, hero society already worshipped All Might as a deity. They were just honest about it.

Izuku would soon be approached by a member of the Almighty, a girl his age by the name of Aerial, whom had a particularly old-fashioned way of speaking. She had been chosen as one of the cult's Children of Strength because of her quirk Angel, which grants her Angel wings and angelic-like powers. Somehow, Aerial and the rest of the Almighty know that Izuku is one of the biggest All Might fans to ever exist, and they are eager to bring him into the fold.

Izuku refuses, and reports them to All Might himself back in U.A., who dismisses them as a bunch of looney fans.

However, down in the underworld, Shigaraki and the League of Villains find umbrage with the Almighty, as their very existence serves as the antithesis of everything that the League stand for, and their fanatical devotion to All Might only serves to enrage Shigaraki even more than normal.

Meanwhile, in U.A., Izuku and his friends begin to hear more talk about the Almighty, and are becoming more and more disturbed by the fanatical devotion that these cultists have shown to All Might: as much as they respect and admire him, they wouldn't devote themselves to him as religiously as these people do.

After school one day, Izuku is approached once more by Aerial, and this time he decides to humour her by sitting down in a café with her to try and find out as much about the Almighty as he can. As it turned out, the two of them actually got along well, with Aerial being able to match and keep up with Izuku in terms of All Might and hero trivia, as well as Izuku being able to decipher Aerial's literacy quotes and poetic language.

Soon, he begins to ask Aerial about the cult, and the prophet girl is eager to reply. The Almighty had begun twenty years into All Might's forty year reign as the number one hero across the entire world, founded by influential men and women who had been saved by All Might and had come to view him as the next coming of God, like the next Jesus Christ to walk the world. To them, he was walking proof of the existence of God. Since then, the Almighty had brough dozens, if not hundreds of members across the world to come and worship their new deity, bringing in more and more members to their fold each and every day for salvation.

Izuku is somewhat disturbed by their devotion, but fascinated by it as well, as he can't help but draw parallels to his own hero worship of All Might. When asked how they knew that he was an All Might fan, Aerial says that everyone is an All Might fan, but she could just tell that he was a special case, just like the rest of them.

Besides, the Almighty did its best to keep track of everyone who All Might saved.

Izuku is disturbed by the implications of that sentence.

He then asks her how she joined the cult, and is disturbed even more when she reveals that she had been born into the Almighty, much like many of the members her age, and had been brought up through the Almighty's teachings all her life alongside the rest of her peers. Izuku realises that she has essentially been indoctrinated and brainwashed into the cult, but does not say this.

Aerial goes to leave, but gives Izuku a card before she does, detailing when members of the Almighty are going to meet up. She says that she can't wait to see Izuku there, and leaves.

Sitting at another table in the café, Himiko Toga memorises the location on the card and goes to tell Shigaraki.

After contacting All Might and U.A., Izuku goes to the meeting place to join up with the Almighty members, but is surprised to see another student of U.A. there: Ibara Shiozaki. As it turned out, Ibara had been approached by the Almighty as well, leading to an intense religious debate between her and the representative that had spoken out to her. Ibara had little patience for false religions based on nonreligious idols, so she had come to the meeting place to gauge just what exactly the Almighty's deal was.

Soon enough, the two of them would fall silent as Aerial took to the stage of the meeting place, thanking them all for coming tonight and bringing forth one of the central founders of the Almighty, whom Izuku and Ibara recognise as one of the leading figures in the Japanese Diet.

However, in the middle of his speech to the attendants, their gathering is interrupted by the League of Villains, led by an irate Shigaraki who kills the speaker and demands the deaths of all those who follow All Might. Izuku contacts All Might to let him know what is happening, and he and Ibara both leap into action to take down the League, with Izuku in particular using One for All to take down the Nomu and moves that he copied off All Might, something that Aerial takes notice of.

Soon enough, Izuku, and the heroes that arrive on the scene in response to the fight, are able to send the villains off on a retreat, with Ibara protecting the onlookers from any stray attacks. Once the villains are gone, the various members of the Almighty are cared for and made safe by the heroes, but Aerial keeps her eyes on Izuku.

After the event, All Might, Izuku, and Ibara give their reports and statements to the police, and U.A. and the police, with the support of Detective Tsukauchi, decide to use the death of the Japanese Diet member to investigate his connection to the Almighty. Izuku and Ibara are dismissed, and told to stay out of the case.

However, soon enough, Izuku is confronted by the police once again, and told that someone had accessed his medical files, and Izuku suspects that it is the Almighty who did it.

Once more, Izuku and Aerial meet up, with Aerial becoming a lot more hospitable to Izuku as they talk. Izuku mentions to her that someone tried to access his medical records, and he can tell that Aerial feigned her shock as she asked if it was the League of Villains. Aerial invites him to another meeting, this time one much grander and bigger than the previous, and Izuku agrees. When the meeting ends, Izuku contacts U.A. once more, and they agree to let him go to the event, but with Aizawa as a hidden agent inside. Ibara agrees to come along as well.

Meanwhile, the League of Villains discover the event location themselves by torturing one of the Almighty cultists that they had snatched off the street, and send Mr. Compress and Toga to infiltrate the party.

Soon enough, Izuku, Ibara, and a disguised Aizawa make their way to the meeting, in a lavish manor off the side of Musufatu, with golden walls and wide parties and dancers in masks and robes and All Might portraits on the walls. There are hundreds of guests in the manor, all from every walk of life, including Pro Heroes and former villains, and all of them are dancing to the music.

Aerial walks towards Izuku and Ibara and thanks them for coming, before pulling Izuku along to a private room not too far from the party. However, Ibara and Aizawa is barred from entry by the guards and loses track of the pair. Aizawa then decides to investigate the premises, leaving Ibara on her own.

Behind them, Toga and Mr. Compress disguise themselves as partygoers and decide to explore the property.

Aerial brings Izuku to her personal chambers and begins to show him her wears, revealing to Izuku that her room is as much a shrine to All Might as his is. She begins to talk to him, showing off the memorabilia that she has collected over the years and begin to appeal to his own hero worship of All Might. Izuku finds himself connecting to Aerial's familiar sense of fascination with heroes, but finds it tempered by Aerial's underlying note of fanaticism.

Aerial soon draws the conversation to Izuku, inquiring about his own family, about his mother, and about his father. A father that he hasn't seen in a long time. Izuku asks as to why she is asking these questions, and Aerial answers that she is only curious.

She is lying. Izuku knows this.

In another part of the manor, Aizawa finds a cornered off section and makes his way inside. Toga and Mr. Compress follow him inside.

In the main hall, Ibara finds herself becoming more and more uncomfortable with the partygoers' religious devotion to All Might and excuses herself to find Izuku and Aizawa. Guards move to follow her.

Meanwhile, in Aerial's room, Izuku cuts to the chase, and asks her as to why she is asking these questions. She diverts the conversation, retelling Izuku of his battle with the League of Villains.

Izuku's eyes widen. He asks her if she was the one who accessed his medical records. She coyly admits to it. Strange of a quirkless person to awaken a quirk so late in life, no?

She would be kind to him, though. She had no quarrel with the quirkless, unlike so many that seemed to fill their ranks. Why would she ever want to hurt him?

She could never hurt child of their god.

In the depths of the manor, Aizawa finds cages. Some empty, some filled with people. He finds Toga and Mr. Compress following him down. He assumes that they are with whatever the Almighty have going on here. They assume the same of him. The guards that find them assume that they are working together. Ibara has no idea what to think.

In Aerial's chamber, Izuku protests her claim, but Aerial defends it. He is the child of All Might, for he has passed on his fabled quirk to him. He may not be All Might's son biologically, but he is spiritually, in the mind and soul. He is All Might's successor, the heir to his legacy, to his empire of thought and soul.

And she wants Izuku to join them.

Izuku protests this, but Aerial appeals to their shared similarities, their connection, and to his desires to be a worthy successor to All Might. They are the same creature, are they not? Izuku is to take All Might's place, and Aerial and the rest of the Children of Strength are to take the place of their elders when they pass and continue on their mission of delivering divine illumination onto the world.

Izuku blinks, and asks her what the Children of Strength actually are. Aerial happily replies that her and her fellow Children had been brought into the Almighty when they were but children. Her mother was a common street whore, and her father was a destitute thug. They had plucked her like a flower from the garden when All Might saved her from her father and mother, and had taught her about the meaning of worship. They had sent her to the cages, peeled her rot and revealed the shining gold underneath. They had pulled her away from her senses and let her be reborn to their new divinity.

Izuku realises the implications behind this, and Aerial promises the same cruel kindness to him.

Izuku breaks down the door to her chamber and escapes. Aerial is not concerned. He will fall into her arms eventually.

But the heretics, Aizawa and the villains, who had broke into their manor and sullied their blessed work? They would feel her wrath.

Aizawa and the villains are forced to work together to fight off the Almighty, and the latter take it to mean that they are in lockstep with each other. Ibara is caught in the middle, but is pulled away from the fight by the guards. Aizawa, Toga, and Mr. Compress try to make their way through the compound, but are stopped by a calm Aerial, who uses her Angel quirk to leap down from the manor walls and into the fray, easily disarming all three of the intruders and leaving them at her mercy.

However, Izuku is quick to intervene and challenges Aerial to a battle. One in which she easily bests him in, but he is able to buy Aizawa (and the villains) enough time to escape before he is forced to retreat, though he does try to find and save Ibara before he is forced to go on the run.

Later in the night, Aerial is punished and lashed by the elders for her failure, and she steels herself for the mission ahead.

The next day, Izuku reports what he found to All Might and the U.A. faculty, but find that the HPSC are not being cooperative with them, and their allies in the police force are being removed from the investigation. The Almighty have people inside both departments. To make things worse, Izuku still cannot find Ibara, and the Almighty's agents within the media have recontextualised the confrontation at the manor to be Aizawa and the League of Villains attacking an innocent social event, framing Aizawa as part of the League of Villains, inadvertently sullying U.A.'s reputation. There is no mention of Ibara at all.

Ibara, meanwhile, wakes up locked in a cage. She is pulled out by an old man, one of the founders. The pain soon begins.

And on the other side of Japan, Aizawa is brought into the League of Villains headquarters, and he is forced to temporarily work with them until he can clear his name, creating an uneasy alliance between Shigaraki and himself.

Back in U.A., the Almighty's positive public reputation begins to grow, and their faith begins to spread into U.A. itself. The remaining teachers and All Might himself try to curb this growing influence, but their ideals soon begin to spread into Class 1-A itself.

Izuku begins to grow uncomfortable in his own room at home, surrounded by all his All Might memorabilia, and is made even more uncomfortable by a guest speaker from the Almighty being sent in by the HPSC (the Almighty has a public face as a charity organisation). However, he is frightened when Inko calls him later that day, so say that a friend of his called Aerial had popped in for a chat, and was waiting for him back home.

Izuku rushes back home and finds Aerial in his room, admiring his collection. He demands to know where Ibara was, how she had found his home and why she was there. The answer to the second question was that she had found his address when sifting through his medical documents a few days ago. The answer to the third question was that she wanted to extend the offer back to him. The squabble that they had last night was just that: a squabble. Growing pains are to be expected when a family gains a new member after all.

Izuku says that they aren't family. Aerial begs to differ. He reiterates his first question, and Aerial responds that she is being taught the values of the Almighty. She is being taught about the true faith. Izuku is horrified by the implications, and demands that she be released. Aerial simply replies that soon, she will not want to be.

Izuku asks her how she can possibly stomach what she is doing to Aerial, and she simply replies that it is what is right, it is all that she has known. Izuku realises that, as she had been brought into the Almighty at an incredibly young age, she has no understanding of what right or wrong is outside of the morality of the cult, and has no way of knowing that what has been done to her is wrong. Izuku tries to explain this to her, but Aerial simply brushes it off. In her mind, what was done to her wasn't evil. It was nothing but just.

However, when Izuku tries to push his point onto her, the seed of doubt plants itself into her mind.

Aerial leaves Izuku's home peacefully, commenting that her time is nearly up, but still leaving the offer to join them on the table. Izuku resolves to find as much evidence as he can against the Almighty, but not before he finds the hidden microphone that Aerial had placed in his room.

Elsewhere, Aizawa and Shigaraki are forced to tolerate each other's existence (well, more Aizawa, as Shigaraki still thinks he's cool) as they investigate the Almighty, with Aizawa having to constantly hold Shigaraki back from happily murdering people as they looked into the various places from which the cult were pulling their funds, and then trailing it back to their operations and the people running them. Eventually, they begin to find evidence of connections between the Almighty and the disappearances of various children that are homeless or live in poverty ridden areas.

With Ibara, her will is being chipped apart piece by piece, and the old men that do it are smiling like All Might all the way through.

In the meantime, Aerial decides to look into the inner workings of the Almighty, but finds her access to the internet restricted by their founders, and the information that she is allowed to have is limited. She decides to go to outside sources for information, but the restrictive slab of metal inside of her does not allow it for too long.

And on the other side of the line, Izuku finds similar proof of the Almighty's wrongdoings and, unsure of who he can trust, goes to investigate himself, heading into the lower districts of Musufatu and discovering hidden Almighty agents stealing away children in the dead of night. Recording the information, Izuku links the events to a similar child slavery operation in lower Africa and contacts Aerial over the microphone in his room to show her it.

Meanwhile, the elders of the cult suspect that Aerial is wavering in her faith and activate the restrictive metal placed into her spine. It fills her with excruciating pain, and they order her to intensify her efforts to bring Izuku Midoriya into the fold, or else.

At the same time, Aizawa makes discreet contact with U.A., informing them of the information that he has uncovered, and whatever he could find out about the League of Villains through his reluctant partnership with them. However, he makes no illusion of not knowing that Shigaraki is listening in to their communications.

The next day, Izuku and Aerial meet up in the same café from before, but this time with Midnight and Snipe shadowing them. All Might is kept back because of the unpredictable possibilities of Aerial reacting to her object of worship. Not too far away, Toga, in disguise and under the orders of Shigaraki, keeps her eyes on the meeting as well. At the other side of the café, a hidden Child of Strength keeps watch over Aerial for the slightest signs of disloyalty.

Aerial once more presses the question of joining them, but Izuku stops her by showing her the evidence that he has procured over the course of his investigation, from the kidnappings of children to the child slavery to the ties that the Almighty have to the slave rings in Africa.

Aerial's reaction to the evidence before her is muted, but there is still something there behind her gentle smile. She asks Izuku why she is showing this to her, and he responds that she was always going off about their being a connection between them. If there is, then she should see what these people are doing and why it is wrong. Aerial says that it is simply their divine work, but Izuku turns the tables on her. She thinks that she can read him like an open book? He can say the same about her. They really are alike, at least in that way alone.

Aerial is thankful that he acknowledges that, but asks him once more what she is supposed to do with this. This is the work of the founders. Izuku jumps onto that. Whatever she may believe, Ibara is still missing, and the founders are doing to her the same thing that they did to Aerial, that they did to all the children they took from the streets. However legitimate she may believe her faith to be, the founders are using it, using her, as a front to support a child slavery ring. Aerial protests this, but Izuku pushes it forward. He can tell that her belief is slipping.

Izuku can tell that Aerial is a good person underneath her religious devotion. She a victim of the machinations of evil men using her belief for their own ends, not a villain like them. But right now, Ibara is who knows where under the thumb of those evil men, as are countless others. They need to find them, they need to save them, and right now Aerial might just be the key to not only saving dozens of lives, so if she really was just like Izuku, then she would help them find those missing people.

Aerial asked if she really was going to save them. Izuku said that he would save her too if he could.

Aerial's eyes widen at his words, and she comments that All Might's prodigy really is a kind soul. Perhaps one worthy of the same worship as his forebearer.

Upon hearing her words, the Children of Strength in the corner makes his move. Having sussed out Toga in the crowd, the Child exposes her to a pair of passing heroes who move in to arrest her. Toga attempts to flee, and in the chaos and panic that follows, the Child of Strength grabs Aerial and drags her into the crowds and out of sight. Izuku, Midnight, and Snipe try to follow, but are stopped by police officers on the Almighty's payroll.

Back at the Almighty's headquarters, Aerial is brought before the founders and tortured for her failures. She asks them as to what Izuku has shown her, but they inflict even more pain onto her for it. Once the pain stops and they send her on her way, resetting the inhibitor device inside of her, she leaves, only to find Ibara walking amongst the Almighty's followers in pray, her eyes hollow and her skin mired by scars.

Aizawa and the League, meanwhile, have been making themselves busy with attacking Almighty compounds and bases across the various cities of Japan, eventually stumbling upon a processing facility run by the Almighty and freeing everyone within. This prompts the Almighty's Children of Strength, including Aerial, to respond, dragging many of their followers, including the newly broken Ibara, to repel them. Ibara, now blinded by her new faith, is more than willing to jump into the fight, but Aerial, now suffering from doubts and chronic pains from the torture, is now horrified by what she sees.

Izuku and Aerial soon contact each other over the phone once more, with Aerial discussing what she has found and trying to make sense of it all. However, another of the Children of Strength overhears her and takes her away to be tortured once more, whilst several of the Children of Strength are sent off to bring Izuku to them. He is barely able to fend them all off before All Might, with what little strength he can summon after his battle with All for One, shows up to defeat them. However, upon seeing him stand before them, the Children of Strength fall to their knees in prayer, and Izuku and All Might hatch an idea.

After a long and uneasy truce between them, Aizawa and Shigaraki finally come to blows and fight each other. However, this allows them to be captured by the Almighty and taken to their headquarters as captives. At the same time Aerial is tortured even further for her lack of faith, despite the founders clearly not believing in All Might as a deity themselves, and for trying to move against them. The inhibitor device in her spine is reset to a new time: if she doesn't bring Izuku Midoriya to them, so that they can break him and make All Might's successor their newest addition to their army of zealous followers, in the next twenty-four hours, then she will die.

Izuku and All Might set up a meeting place for the both of them to try and talk Aerial into cooperating with them, but before their plan can go ahead, and before All Might can even arrive there, Aerial arrives early, a forlorn and depressive look across her face. She reveals what has been done to her, and what she has to do in order to live, and apologises to Izuku. Before he can do anything to respond, Aerial attacks him, sparking a fierce fight between the two of them, with Aerial desperately keeping Izuku on the backfoot throughout the entire confrontation before she finally brings him down and holds him at sword point, apologising once more for what she has to do.

However, before she can take him away, All Might arrives, but in his deflated form. Aerial sees him and, in shock, falls to his knees in prayer, but All Might orders her onto her feet, clearly embarrassed by her worship. He asks them to tell her where Ibara and the others that the Almighty are, and Aerial is shocked to see his disapproval. She asks why, and he tells her that he is not a god, nor is he anything that deserves or desires worship. He never asked so many people to fall to their knees in front of him, and he never wanted to be worshipped like she does. He certainly didn't want people to use and exploit the faith of others like the founders of her cult had done. Aerial, on shaky knees, protested that the Almighty wasn't a cult, but All Might said that that was what they truly were: they were a dangerous cult founded on lies, nothing more.

Aerial is shaken, traumatised, and both Izuku and All Might plead to her to help them liberate the people that the Almighty have taken, but Aerial does not hear them. Everything that she believed in is a lie, and she is broken by it. She flees from the scene in a panic, her smiling façade broken, and Izuku and All Might are unable to follow.

Aerial returns to the Almighty's headquarters on the outskirts of the Almighty, but is met with scorn by the founders for her failure once more, and they promise to have her in constant agony for the last hours of her life. At the same time, All Might appears on live television and, thanks to Izuku and U.A.'s research, he exposes the Almighty for their crimes, and orders their arrests.

Aerial snaps.

As Almighty bases and hideouts are raided by an army of heroes, Aizawa and Shigaraki use the ensuing chaos to break out of their bonds and fight back against their captors, but eventually begin to battle each other as the Almighty's headquarters is raided by the heroes that were able to spot the fight taking place. At the same time, Izuku and dozens more heroes begin their raid on the estate, but Izuku comes into conflict with Ibara, who is still too wrapped up in her brainwashing to see reason, and he is forced to incapacitate her.

While the heroes busy themselves with fighting against both the remaining Almighty and the League of Villains at the same time, Izuku breaks into the estate building and looks for Aerial, desperate to save her as well...

Only to find Aerial in the main hall, utterly calm, almost tranquil and ethereal, as she plays the piano. Around the main hall are the scattered and gored corpses of both the founders and the other Children of Strength. The walls and floor, as well as the broken and damaged statues of All Might lining the edges of the grand hall, were splattered in blood. She was bathed in red.

Aerial stopped playing the piano and smiled at the traumatised Izuku. She thanks Izuku for coming, and walks before him to share what she has done to the founders and her fellow Children: she killed them. She killed them all. They were all sinners and apostates, and it was her duty to rid the world of sin and bring about its divinity. They had stood in the way of that goal, and as such they had to be rid of.

Izuku is horrified by what he sees, but he still tells Aerial that the Almighty is done. She's free. She can go and live her life now. Aerial shakes her head. The inhibitor device in her back has accelerated its time. She has about an hour left to live. There is nothing left for her now, but to give her worship to the one who deserves it the most.

All Might is dead, but Izuku is here to fill his shoes. All that she can do now is give her worship to the one she loved the most.

She kisses Izuku on the lips, and declares him to be her new god as she falls to her knees in prayer.

But Izuku stops her. He does not want to be worshipped. He does not want anything like that. He just wants to get her out of there and save her.

But this breaks what little composure and shred of sanity Aerial had left. Everything that she had believed in was a lie, and now that which she loved and worshipped was now ready to abandon her in the same way her old deity had.

She had nothing, and she was going to die in the next hour.

All she had left... was killing Izuku.

So she attacks him, and Izuku is forced to fight back. The battle between them is now on equal footing as they collide with each other, throwing punches and kicks and the blows of power and quirk against each other as they tear the hall apart and set everything alight around them, the two opponents eventually escaping the burning building and continuing their battle outside as they tear into each other.

Eventually, the League of Villains escape, and the remaining Almighty cultists are arrested, but Izuku and Aerial are still fighting in the air, weaving around each other in a grand symphony of combat, until, finally...

Aerial's inhibitor activates, injecting poison into her body. She falls to the ground and begins to die, and Izuku gently cradles her as she dies, letting her watch the sunset as her eyes close as she dies with a smile.

In the aftermath, the Almighty is brought down and its former followers and captives, including Ibara, are sent to be treated and deprogrammed from their false worship. U.A., meanwhile, rehires Aizawa, but is forced to have to deal with the fact that their reputation has been sullied by the fact that one of their own was forced into an alliance with villains, and faces an uphill battle in getting the people's trust back. The League of Villains, meanwhile, make it their mission to track down the remaining hidden members of the Almighty and kill them all.

Izuku is left to cope with the death of Aerial, a victim of the cult who had been forced into their service and died in his arms. A girl who, like she had said, indeed had a lot of similarities to him, but was too blinded by a faith built on a lie to see what was right before her. He resolves to make sure that something like this can never happen again, and promises to make sure that when he becomes the number one hero in the future, he will be seen by the public not as a deity, but as a human, just like the rest of them.

But later that night, he finds a letter suddenly planted on his bed. A letter from a fan that he didn't know he had.

A letter from a fan that calls themselves the Useful One.

A latter that reminds him a lot of Aerial...

I was so conflicted on whether Aerial should survive or die at the end of this story, so I decided to leave it as ambiguous. However, ultimately, the decision is up to you, should you decide to take up this story.

So if any of you want to use this idea, then by all means. Just send me a PM letting me know that you're using it, then it's all yours.

And as always, see you all next time!

Titanmaster 117 out!