I AM HERE!
WITH ANOTHER IDEA!
A Change in Direction
(Inspired by Eternal Hunger of a Silent Mind by time_for_mango_showdown, Cain by aconstantstateofbladerunner, Venom, and the Spider-Man franchise)
The story begins as it does in canon, with All Might telling Izuku that he cannot be a hero and leaving the dejected boy to walk home on his own.
However, this is where this story diverges from said canon, as instead of going past Aldera, Izuku chooses to go another way back home to reflect on the choices left before him, meaning that he doesn't get his chance to impress All Might.
Instead, Bakugou would capture All Might's attention, as instead of Izuku helping to free him from the Sludge Villain, he freed himself, earning the praise of all the heroes around him and granting him a chance to be All Might's personal student and successor.
In the next ten months, Bakugou, his ego boosted by not just his public takedown of a villain and celebration by the heroes at the incident for his strong quirk, but also his new apprenticeship with All Might as his successor, ramps up his bullying of Izuku, making sure to keep him and his hopes down, and destroying any chances the quirkless boy tries to take to train himself and get stronger, keeping him weak and isolated from everyone else, all without any consequences from Aldera's quirkist staff and student populace.
Izuku, downtrodden and feeling worse than in canon, gives up on going to U.A., if only to get away from Bakugou, but finds that no other high schools other than U.A. itself will accept quirkless students due to various policies and conditions. He has no choice but to go to U.A. anyway.
So, he tries to train himself in whatever spare time that he can find and places applications to both the hero course and the general education courses. On the day that U.A.'s entrance exam, Izuku tries to keep his distance from Bakugou, who has only grown more prideful since the Sludge Villain incident, but is cornered by Bakugou and threatened, leaving him rattled and performing poorly during the hero course exam.
However, during the exam, he is picked up by a trio of examinees known as Yui Kodai, Manga Fukidashi, and Reiko Yanagi, and soon enough, he gains some confidence and begins to coordinate them and several other students together to take out as many villains as they can, earning him the nickname of 'Commander' from a few of them and granting him the brief attention of the teachers.
However, he is deemed a liability both because of his quirklessness and his lack of training and skill, and he is rejected from the hero course.
However, he is accepted into the general education course and nervously begins his time in U.A. there. He notices, during the orientation into U.A., that Class 1-A was not present at the gathering, and after seeing that Bakugou was not there as well, decides to keep his distance from 1-A for as long as he can, creating another divergence from canon.
During his first few days at U.A., Izuku does not talk much to his teacher, Thirteen, or his classmates in Class 1-C out of fear of being isolated for his quirklessness. But soon, he is approached by Yui, Manga, and Reiko once more, alongside their friends from the rest of Class 1-B, and invite their 'Commander' to join them, earning him new friends in the hero course.
At first, this serves to alienate him from the rest of his classmates in 1-C, as they view the hero course with a sense of distain and jealousy. However, during a brief incident during one of the early days of U.A.'s first year when the front gates into the campus are breached and the alarms flare, it is Izuku and Itsuka, as well as a few helpful gen-ed students, that calm everyone down, and through it, the two classes, through Izuku, begin to form a bond with each other.
Meanwhile, things are not going well in Class 1-A. Thanks to Izuku both not having had One for All and therefore not having the ability to save her, Ochako is left severely injured and crippled after the entrance exam and is therefore unable to attend U.A., and with Izuku not able to attend the hero course, this leaves 1-A without its two designated hearts. Worse yet, with Bakugou's ego having been inflated by All Might's apprenticeship, and without Izuku there to beat him in the battle trial, he does not suffer any losses and as such is not humbled by his experiences, especially when he wins his battle trial. Meanwhile, Shinso is brought into Class 1-A as Midoriya's replacement, but his frosty, anti-social attitude and general ire towards the rest of his classmates only serves to grate on them, especially when he brushes off their problems with him as relating to his quirk, which only serves to alienate him more and seemingly prove his point. Meanwhile, the student who had been brought in to replace Ochako was expelled on the first day by Aizawa, creating an air of distrust and uncertainty within the class and only adding to the negative attitude and dividing them further.
On the day of the USJ, it goes much like it did in canon. However, without Izuku's help, Tsuyu and Mineta are left crippled after the attack and are forced to drop out, leaving Class 1-A three students down.
Meanwhile, All Might continues to train Bakugou to take on One for All, though finds himself continuously troubled by the boy's continuing anger issues and ego problems, as well as his troubles with connecting to the rest of his classmates. This wasn't anything new to him, though. Over the long course of his career, he had been forced to pull aside quite a few heroes with poor attitudes to correct them. Hell, before he had needed to find a successor, he had taken a younger Mirko under his wing to temper her anger and eagerness to fight when he had come across her in the underground fighting arenas under the alias of Tiger Bunny. She'd been kicked out of two hero schools previously, and it had only been because of his advice that she had been able to stick with U.A.'s course and pass to become one of the top ten ranking heroes, so to All Might, Bakugou's attitude wasn't anything new.
Still, it was beginning to trouble him greatly. Whenever he made a move to criticise Bakugou's performance, he only seemed to double down on his behaviour. It was certainly worrying behaviour.
He decided to give Bakugou a chance through the sports festival before giving him One for All. The boy in question is angered by this, but swallows it down and forces himself to cooperate.
Meanwhile, things have, for once, been going well for Izuku. He's got friends now. Friends in the hero course as well. Not only that, but he had friends in his class as well. Thanks to his efforts, either intentionally or unintentionally, the various characters of Class 1-B had begun to not just go and make friends with members of the general education course, but also other departments as well, allowing Izuku to make new friends in the other departments as well, including one Mei Hatsume in the support department.
Soon enough, Class 1-B and 1-C begins to bridge the gap between the hero department and all the other courses, and they all become somewhat popular amongst U.A.'s student population.
Class 1-A, however, begins to insulate and alienate itself. It's fractured state has only broken it apart and served to isolate the class from others.
In the aftermath of the USJ, the various members of Class 1-B and 1-C, their more antagonistic behaviour tempered by Izuku's intervention (whom many of them have taken to nicknaming their 'Commander', much to Izuku's embarrassment), decide to go to Class 1-A to see how they are doing after the attack, to try and build relations with them and to make sure that they are alright.
However, they are met by an antagonistic Class 1-A, too fractured, paranoid, and bitter about their circumstances to take the olive branch. Bakugou's blazing ego rails against the members of Class 1-B and C, Todoroki shrugs them off without a care, and Shinso simply insults and antagonises them.
However, Bakugou then spots Izuku in the crowd and screams at him, raging against him for getting into U.A.. Members of Class 1-B and C move to defend Izuku, and a tense standoff ensues before a pair of teachers break it up. A rivalry forms between Class 1-A and 1-B, but one that is more bitter and antagonistic than in canon.
In the aftermath, Izuku is asked about why Bakugou seemed to hate him so much, and he finally confesses to his quirklessness.
He is shocked when his new friends simply say 'So what?' and accept him anyways.
Soon enough, the Sports Festival comes about, and all of U.A.'s general population puts their bets in to Izuku, Class 1-B, and 1-C against 1-A. Their plan? To get Izuku and several others into the hero course, to get them into Class 1-B.
When the obstacle race begins, both classes unite together under the leadership of Izuku, Itsuka, Monoma, Hatsume, and a few members of 1-C. The race itself is messy and confusing for everyone involved, but the united classes are able to knock out much of Class 1-A from the competition, leaving them as the majority.
And through their efforts, they are able to push Izuku forward and render him, the quirkless student, as the winner.
Many cheer. Many more boo.
In the following cavalry battle, 1-B and 1-C once more unite together to acquire the maximum amount of points, trading bandanas with each other to get the likes of Izuku and his friends in 1-C into the tournament brackets. However, Bakugou, Todoroki, and Shinso's teams (Bakugou and Todoroki are forced to be on the same team and argue all the way) prove to be a hinderance to this plan, leaving the event as a boiling pot of messy emotions and aggression from all parties.
Soon enough, the tornament matches came about, and Izuku's team, made up of Hatsume and a pair of gen-ed students, were successfully able to pass, whist Itsuka's team, consisting of Kamakiri, Monoma, and Ibara. However, Bakugou and Todoroki's team (with Kirishima and Iida working with them), as well as Shinso's, are able to pass as well. The three members of Shinso's team, Tetsutetsu, Awase, and Reiko drop out in protest of Shinso brainwashing them into being his teammates, and they are replaced by Setsuna, Jurota, and Yui.
The tournament matches are as listed below:
Monoma vs Shinso.
Kamakiri vs Yui.
Kirishima vs Itsuka.
Izuku vs Hatsume.
Gen-ed#1 vs Bakugou.
Gen-ed#2 vs Jurota.
Ibara vs Todoroki.
Iida vs Setuna.
The tournament matches begin with Monoma catching Shinso off balance with his own quirk and easily defeating him, and then with Yui shrinking the ground underneath her feet and leaving Kamakiri outside the circle and defeating him. Next, Kirishima and Itsuka fight a war of attrition against each other before Itsuka uses her giant hands to grab him and toss him out the ring, whilst Izuku helps Hatsume to demonstrate her babies (her inventions you filthy perverts) and wins the match for himself, all without Hatsume dropping out.
However, during his match, Bakugou is galled at the idea of a gen-ed student standing up to the likes of him and savages them, sending them out of the ring to the cheer of the crowds. In comparison, the second gen-ed student is able to trick Jurota into throwing himself out of the ring when he goes into beast mode. The next two rounds are wins for Class 1-A, as Todoroki covers Ibara in ice before she is able to make a move, and Iida gathers all of Setsuna's individual pieces before throwing them out of the ring.
The next round only serves to keep emotions flared:
Iida vs Yui.
Itsuka vs Gen-ed#2.
Monoma vs Todoroki.
And finally...
Izuku vs Bakugou.
No one was pleased with that last matchup. No one but Bakugou.
The first match is a long slog for Yui, almost verging on a bad matchup, but she is soon able to get Iida to build up his own momentum and throw him out of the ring by himself. After that, Itsuka and the second gen-ed contestant duel each other, but Itsuka is forced to bow out when the second gen-ed kid corners her in the ring.
After that, Todoroki and Monoma duel each other, and Todoroki is still grappling with the problems that he was dealing with in canon. However, the ever pragmatic Monoma, ignorant of Todoroki's issues and more than willing to take advantage of the fact that the son of Endeavour was holding back against him, took the opportunity to copy Todoroki's quirk and use it against him, covering him in ice and then using his fire to blast him out of the ring. Todoroki would leave the arena bitter as to his loss and more determined to reject his father's fire than ever before.
And Izuku and Bakugou's match...?
It was a one-sided slaughter.
Izuku tries his best to put up a fight, but Bakugou unleashes attack after attack onto the quirkless boy, ruthlessly picking him apart and tearing him down both verbally and physically. Soon enough, Izuku is left on the floor, and Bakugou knocks him out with an explosion to the face, rending him unconscious and Bakugou the victor to the cheering crowds.
Izuku is taken away to the infirmary, and his friends stay with him for as long as they can. Soon enough, the rest of the tournament plays out as expected. Yui wins her duel against the second gen-ed student and they part gracefully, whilst Monoma is savaged by Bakugou and sent out of the ring.
Soon enough, the final match comes about, Yui vs Bakugou. The latter expects this fight to last for a long time, for it to be drawn out and for it to be satisfying to take part of, an end to the tournament that he can be proud of, a battle that he has earned with blood, sweat, and no tears at all.
Yui, in an act of spite, walks off the stage and out of the match as soon as it begins.
Bakugou is rendered the winner of the Sports Festival by default, and he rages against it. He is barely able to stop himself from walking off the stage when the medals are handed out, only with the promise of One for All and the lingering satisfaction of beating Izuku into the ground.
In the aftermath of the Sports Festival, the bitterness that is left between Class 1-A and the rest of the school only continues to grow, but the members of Class 1-B and C try not to pay attention to it as they look to the responses to the letters that they had sent to the staff of the school, asking for Midoriya and a few others in Gen-ed to be promoted to join Class 1-B in the hero course.
The two other students are approved. Izuku's is rejected on the basis of his quirklessness.
Meanwhile, All Might finally gives Bakugou One for All.
The residents of Class 1-B and C try not to let Izuku's rejection bring them down as the hero students head off for their studies, with Setsuna deciding to bring Izuku with her to her internship with a hero known as Clamp Down. However, upon hearing the pro hero's quirkist comments and poor attitude towards Izuku, Setsuna quits in disgust and heads back to U.A., Izuku in tow. On their way back to U.A., the two try to look for career paths that will accept quirkless people for Izuku's future, but continuously comes up short. Not even the police force or firefighters accept the quirkless.
Meanwhile, Hosu is wrapped in flame and Iida is killed by Stain.
And with Bakugou, during his internship with Gran Torino, One for All begins to reject him, forcing him to fight and suppress it. Something in One for All begins to darken and corrupt itself.
Upon returning to U.A., Setsuna relays what she has learnt to the rest of Class 1-B and C, and they decide that, when they become pro heroes, they will create their own agencies that freely accept, support, and hire the quirkless. This makes them even more popular with the rest of the school, all the while Class 1-A's infamy continues to grow now with the death of Iida in Hosu and the growing instability and self-destructive behaviour with Bakugou.
Soon enough, the final exams come about, and Class 1-B all pass to go onto the Summer Camp without anyone taking extra lessons. Class 1-A, meanwhile, fail for the most part, their morale crumbling under the constant losses and failures, and even Bakugou failing to overcome All Might despite the new quirk at his disposal, though winning by a technicality as Shinso brainwashes All Might into letting him pass. Bakugou is enraged by this, and his instability only continues to grow.
During their time at the training camp, the League of Villains attack, and Class 1-B and the few cooperative and able members of Class 1-A are barely able to fend them off. Worse yet, Ochako is now part of their number, having been promised support for her parents if she joined them. Soon enough, Bakugou is able to join the fight, but his growing inability to control One for All and the mental strain that it is taking on him makes him a danger to the heroes as much the villains.
The League of Villains deem Bakugou too much of a liability to abduct in this case, and instead settle for the two former Gen-ed students who had been promoted to Class 1-B. Using Dark Shadow's rampage in the darkness and Bakugou's growing instability as a distraction, fleeing with the two Gen-ed students and leaving the remaining heroes and students to clean up the mess.
Worse yet, soon enough, they kidnap Izuku in his home too.
Soon enough, the League of Villains attempt to manipulate Izuku and the two former Gen-ed students into joining them, only for them all to refuse. Better still, Izuku is able to convince Ochako into defecting from the League by helping her to realise that they will never help her parents and will probably kill her once it is all done, and by siding with them she is only betraying everything that she has ever believed in.
Then, the Kamino Incident begins, and All Might and the heroes raid both their hideout and the Nomu warehouse. Ochako is able to get Izuku and the two Gen-eds out of the crossfire before they are pulled away to the big battlefield, only to be saved by a group of Class 1-B students who had left to gone and save them.
Once they are out of the clear, All for One and All Might go to town on each other, and in the aftermath, All for One is defeated and captured.
However, All Might dies in the process, leaving him unable to mentor Bakugou and help him control One for All. Shigaraki leaves the battlefield wearing his cape as a trophy.
In the chaotic aftermath of the Kamino Incident, Ochako goes underground, but keeps herself in contact with Izuku, Vlad King, and the rest of Class 1-B, becoming U.A.'s hidden informant in the criminal underworld. Class 1-A fractures even more as Bakugou's instability grows, and several of them drop out of the school, leaving the class a shadow of what it once was.
Soon enough, Ochako would inform U.A. of whispers of an alliance between the League of Villains and the Shie Hassaikai, and the teachers there would use the information to further the official investigation to the latter organisation, allowing them to uncover several corrupt heroes that were in the criminal organisation's pocket.
Not trusting the heroes to take care of the person that the Shie Hassaikai were torturing, especially with the revelation of corrupt heroes working for them, Ochako swiftly frees Eri from her captivity and goes on the run the eve before the heroes raid the Shei Hassaikai's base of operations, letting Izuku and a select few others know what she is doing, but telling them to keep the heroes ignorant.
Meanwhile, Bakugou continues to try and train with One for All under both Gran Torino and Sir Nighteye. However, his growing instability, both mentally and emotionally, disturb them and his violent demeanour appals them, leaving it clear now to them that the anger issues and problems found within Bakugou now exceed Mirko's old problems tenfold. But when Bakugou learns of their plans to take One for All from him, he rails against them and
Soon enough, the joint training scenarios would begin, and Class 1-B, with C as their witnesses, would be openly eager about their chances at crushing Class 1-A, before noticing that their numbers are halved now and feeling sorry for them.
However, it is then that they learn that the joint training has been cancelled because of Class 1-A's low numbers, and then are startled by another truth:
Classes 1-A and B will be merged together.
The stay at the dorms is tense, to say the least, as tensions that had been built for weeks and months on end between the two classes now as one finally reach their boiling point...
And then, they explode.
The two classes begin to argue with each other, shout, fight, show their verbal claws. Insults are thrown around with abandon, most of them aimed at Bakugou, Todoroki, and Shinso. The three boys would fire back barbs of their own, and Bakugou would begin to grow more and more violent with each passing moment as One for All, now corrupting more and more within him, would continue to try and reject and escape him.
Then, finally, Izuku enters into the dorms, one of his regular visits, and Bakugou explodes.
The mad bomber, now more mad and unstable than before, goes on a mad tirade against everyone, ranting and raving about everything that has gone wrong for him in U.A. so far, Izuku getting in, not winning the Sports Festival the way he wanted, even revealing that he has All Might's quirk and how he was going to use it to become the number one hero no matter what-
Then, One for All begins to violently reject him. Black tendrils whip from him as it seems like One for All is attempting to pull itself away from him, but Bakugou roars as he attempts to force it down. The rest of the students around him begin to panic at the strange display, but Bakugou just keeps ranting about how everyone was looking down on him, how Izuku was looking down on him, how much he hated the quirkless boy for ever daring to think that he was better than him-
What's left of Bakugou's sanity finally snaps. One for All surrenders to its own corruption, and Bakugou goes mad.
One for All explodes outwards into a horrific black mass, hovering above the ground and destroying both the dorms that the students were in and everything else around it. Bakugou is lifted up into the air and sends explosions out everywhere, destroying everything in his path as he continues to rant and rave like a lunatic, his sanity finally slipping away.
Soon enough, all the students and all the local heroes are forced to come together as the corrupted One for All-possessed Bakugou pursues Izuku with murder on what's left of his mind, still going off on a crazed, never-ending rant as he does so. The fight that follows tears up much of U.A. as the students try to get Aizawa in range to use his quirk, only to be rebuffed every single time.
Then, finally, Bakugou catches up to Izuku, and with one final mad scream, all shreds of sanity gone, Bakugou declares that he hates the green-haired boy and lunges.
But then, the corrupted One for All finally separates itself from Bakugou, and the boy falls to the ground, mindless and now braindead.
The corrupted quirk then lunges for Izuku, but Yui jumps out of the way, taking the blow. One for All absorbs itself into Yui and possesses her, turning her into its new host.
The quirk-possessed Yui then turns to Izuku and approaches her, calling him her Ninth in what can only assumed to be a loving voice and reaching out to embrace him, intent on spreading One for All to him.
Izuku rejects the approach and runs into the embrace of his friends and One for All leaves Yui's body and begins to skip from host to host, fleeing deep into the city.
One for All has been corrupted, mutated by a wielder whom it does not judge worthy. Its eight previous wielders and the one that it did not want as a champion now drowned out by the voice that had come to consume One for All, now seeking to claim he who is worthy of its quirk.
One for All has become parasitic, like a Symbiote.
One for All has become like Venom.
Hey, Izuku is inspired by Spider-Man, isn't he? I might as well give him one of his arch-enemies while I'm at it.
(At the time of writing this, I've only just realised that in this case, then Bakugou is the Eddie Brock of this story. Sweet.)
Honestly, this idea was inspired by something I've seen in both Shadow_Overlord's New Game Plus and 3PeopleInACoat's Ignited Spark fics, that Bakugou's development can only happen naturally and without any outside influence, as any cases of others trying to force him to develop will only result in him doubling down on his behaviour and refusing to compromise.
This fic was also inspired by another idea: Bakugou getting One for All.
I found these two thought experiments so fascinated that I decided to slap them together and BOOM! We get this!
Hope that someone picks this up. I really do.
As always, if you want to use any of the ideas presented in this little collection of mine, leave a review or comment, PM me that you'll be using it, and after that, go hog wild with the idea! It'll be all yours!