HELLO! It's been an eternity, hasn't it?
I'm not sure if there's anyone still interested in this story, but in any case, I finally managed to bring you a new chapter. So, if anyone wants to take a look, you are more than welcome.
To be honest, even I didn't expect to resurrect this story. My personal life has been a mess for a long time, and I practically couldn't even get near the platform. I moved, I got married, I got a demanding job, etc... And time just flew by. Anyway...
For those who are still interested, regarding this chapter: it focuses on improving the world-building I had left halfway in previous chapters, so you can expect a lot of text and dialogue. Also, this chapter takes place shortly after Izuku captures Toga at the hospital. Because of this, I will eventually move it so it becomes Chapter 4 or 5, ensuring a proper chronology.
Another important point: For those who still think this isn't a full crossover with Mass Effect, you're mistaken. I have fused both universes, though I've made some lore changes here and there to adapt them; for example, the matter of the Angara, though I'll explain that later (if I don't die before finishing this story... or at least giving it a decent ending, haha).
Oh, right! As compensation for not writing anything for two years and for bringing so much text and dialogue this time, I've left an Omake with some action at the end of the chapter.
To whoever reads this: I wish you great health and prosperity. The next chapter will be released in 15 days.
Best regards.
-o-o-o--o
Act I: Origins.
Mission 02: Prepare for First Contact: Terrain Reconnaissance (1)
-o-o-o-o-
At approximately 7:35 PM on a certain Sunday, Izuku arrived at an apartment in the Osaka district, on the fifth floor of a humble building in Musutafu, after having "stayed over" at his best friend's house all weekend.
When Izuku had messaged his mother via Telegrem the previous Friday night, informing her that he would be visiting and staying with the Bakugos for the weekend, the happiness Inko already felt for having Izuku back in her life skyrocketed.
For years, Inko hadn't seen Izuku personally hang out with Katsuki. Combined with the fact that the blonde had stopped visiting for over five years, she had come to believe their friendship was on bad terms. On several occasions, Inko had tried to get Izuku to talk about it, but whenever she asked if something was wrong with Katsuki, Izuku would always give a vague "everything's fine." A bad omen regarding that friendship had haunted Inko's heart for a long time.
A bad omen that began to fade after Katsuki brought those stacks of cash to help her…
…A bad omen that finally evaporated upon receiving that message.
"Without a doubt, whatever issues they had reached an end this weekend!" Or at least, those were the thoughts that led Inko to prepare a special version of Miso Katsudon for the dinner welcoming her son home. She made Miso Katsudon as a silent celebration of the reignited "flame" of friendship between Izuku and Katsuki.
-o-o-o-
"Mom, you outdid yourself again. This is delicious! This is the best dish in the galaxy!"
"Oh come on, sweetheart, don't be so hyperbolic~"
"I'm serious! Your Miso Katsudon would sell for thousands of credits on the Citadel! It would be a hit across the entire Milky Way, I swear!"
"...Citadel? Milky Way?"
"..." Izuku coughed several times after she asked that in confusion.
"Izuku, are you choking?!" Seeing this, she panicked, thinking he was gagging on a piece of meat. She was about to stand up and perform the Heimlich maneuver, but fortunately, Izuku spoke again three seconds later, preventing her from acting as an overprotective mother for the umpteenth time.
"Don't worry, Mom, I'm okay. I just burned my tongue a bit on the broth."
Inko let out a sigh of relief before speaking with the wisdom of a mother. "...My boy, wait for it to cool down a bit. Don't drink the broth if it's too hot, and don't swallow the meat without chewing."
"Yeah, I know. Sorry... it's just so good~"
"Hehehe. Hmmm..." Inko tapped her chin thoughtfully. She briefly remembered wanting to ask why he was mentioning the name of the galaxy nearest to Andromeda and what this "Citadel" was, but she didn't want to pry. She assumed he must have been watching one of those sci-fi movies or series she had recommended since he'd finally taken an interest in the genre after waking from his coma.
Moreover, the grey turtleneck sweater, the black leather gloves, and the denim jeans her son was wearing caught her attention again. "...Did you buy those clothes this weekend? I don't remember seeing them in your closet. Sweetheart, don't tell me you didn't even plan your visit to Katsuki-san's properly? You went to visit him without packing a change of clothes in your backpack, didn't you?"
"Well..." For some reason, a bead of sweat rolled down the green-haired teen's forehead. "...K-Kats... Kacchan and I didn't plan our 'camping trip' very well, so to speak. So, you're right, I only took my school uniform."
"Oh, Izuku..." Inko shook her head, her eyebrows knitting into an expression of tender annoyance. "You only had to call me. I would have brought you a change of clothes without any problem. It's still autumn, but I could have brought the All-Might coat you love using in winter so you'd be warmer overnight."
"No, no. I didn't want to bother you..." The bead of sweat on Izuku's forehead was now sliding down his right cheek. "...And besides, I've wanted to buy clothes like these for a few months. I want to experiment a bit with... Vintage fashion. Yeah, that's it... Vintage fashion caught my eye."
"Vintage fashion?..." One of Inko's eyebrows arched. "...Is that what they call that style now?..." Seeing her son nod, her confusion vanished almost completely. "...Well, maybe it's still a bit strange for me to see you dressed like that, but... I must admit, you look quite handsome. My boy looks good even in clothes a mature man would wear~" Inko smiled mischievously when she saw the blush of embarrassment she managed to provoke in Izuku.
She then checked her watch and struck her palm with her fist as she remembered something. "...Ah! It's almost time to start the dark laundry! Give me the uniform you took before it gets any later."
"Well..." A new bead of sweat formed on the forehead of the young man with the scar on the left side of his face. "...Kat... Kacchan's mom took it to the dry cleaners. Kacchan spilled a huge amount of... tomato sauce... all over my uniform."
"Tomato sauce?"
"Yeah. We were eating... pizza, and he accidentally spilled the pizza sauce all over my clothes. As compensation, Kacchan lent me clothes before I bought this outfit. And Mitsuki-dono told me she'd take care of dry cleaning my uniform. I didn't know red sauce stains were so hard to clean. That's why I didn't want to bother you to bring more clothes..." That new bead of sweat now traveled down one of the scars on Izuku's left cheek. "...In any case, the accident wasn't all bad. It motivated me to buy the clothes I've wanted for so long."
"..." Inko didn't know why, but something told her her son wasn't being entirely truthful. Maybe he'd had a different kind of accident that ruined his clothes, or maybe they were stolen, or maybe he'd left them at a woman's house; maybe Izuku finally had a girlfriend and that turtleneck was hiding hickeys?!... Okay, that last thought told a blushing Inko she was being way too paranoical again. She decided to set aside the seemingly harmless matter to focus on something she cared about even more: if the friendship between her son and Katsuki Bakugo had found a "second wind."
"...Well, Mitsuki-san isn't wrong; red sauce stains are hard to clean, hehe. Hmmm, by the way, sweetheart, tell me... did you and Katsuki-san have fun like in the old days?"
"..." This time, as Izuku's lips formed sentences, two beads of sweat were born on his forehead and rolled down both cheeks. "...I wouldn't say we had fun like in the old days. We didn't go to the playground or for a hike in the Nishinomaru woods, if that's what you're imagining. But... we had a good time. Yeah... pretty good. He just got the XLR4 Cube-Sphere and the new... Warhammer remake. It has co-op... so at first... we had a great time exterminating Tyranids! We spent all Saturday exterminating dangerous aliens left and right~. And after that..."
Despite the fact that this "Warhammer" sounded like a very violent game, the rest of the conversation that followed managed to make Inko's myriad worries vanish almost entirely as Izuku recounted the various "activities" he and Katsuki did over the weekend. Hearing that Izuku had truly enjoyed himself with Mitsuki's son after so many years, Inko came to believe that the conflicts of their past had been resolved.
Because of this, she went to bed peacefully that night, falling asleep with ease despite knowing her salary was barely enough for her and Izuku to survive. Their family economy was in shambles due to the interest on medical debts she likely wouldn't finish paying for another 30 years—unless she found a better job or a miracle occurred.
-o-o-o-o
Shortly after dinner came to an end and after the guilt of lying to his mother finally left his senses, Izuku entered his room and tried to fall asleep early. However, he couldn't enter Morpheus's World even though he had slept practically nothing in the last 48 hours; he found it impossible to fall asleep because the events he had lived this weekend had touched many sensitive parts of his soul.
He was worried about Toga's safety, about her potential escape, and about not knowing what to do with her. And on top of that, for a certain reason he had begun to ponder deeply about what it meant to be a hero.
"..."- With those thoughts running through his head, he couldn't help but sigh in defeat when he realized that he wouldn't be sleeping peacefully today either.
A moment later, He got up from his bed and stood in front of the window of his room, which he opened in no time. The night wind immediately entered the room, shaking the green hair of Inko's son in the process, who at that moment had his focus directed to the big buildings that were part of the jungle of steel that could be seen in the distance.
"If I hadn't been there that day, how many people would have been killed by that psychopath?"
His monologue was interrupted by the distant sound of an ambulance.
A sound he would hear for at least two minutes.
For obvious reasons, Izuku didn't know if the person being transported to a hospital was suffering from injuries caused by a villain or if it was a person who had some kind of serious illness. But when he stopped hearing the sound of the vehicle, his eyes would focus on the silhouettes of the stars, the moon, and Eos depicted in the firmament and then he would further analyze what was bothering him:
"In 8 months, the U.A. entrance exam would take place. The start of university classes will not begin for another 2 months after the exam is taken. And a provisional license isn't granted until a heroic university student completes at least the first year of studies. So I won't be able to legally save any lives for about...2 years". A bitter expression was imprinted on his face after coming to that conclusion.
A conclusion he didn't like at all.
He then opened a drawer of the small chest of underwear cabinet placed near that window and immediately afterward he would lift from the bottom of the first drawer a small board that had the function of being a false bottom.
From the hidden slot in the drawer, he would take a high-quality photograph in which he could see an image of himself that appeared to be between 30~35 years old. A beautiful blue-skinned woman with small tentacles instead of hair was lovingly embracing him as she sat next to him on an elegant sofa, which was located in what appeared to be a luxurious apartment.
In the same photograph also appeared other people with human or alien appearances sitting on that sofa or behind it. They all seemed to be posing in their way for the shutter of a camera that someone, or something, had been holding.
Obviously, that photograph was the one that the Drone-A.I. called {Glyph} had taken of him, his beloved, and his friends at that party he had organized in his private apartment in the citadel in the milky way of Earth-2. This photograph — as well as other text and audio-visual files that were inside the memory of his omni-tool before he died in that parallel universe — had been brought to this plane of existence as a side effect of his original quirk, as well as almost all the cybernetic implants that Cerberus had placed in his body.
Or at least that was the most logical theory Izuku could come up with as to why his omni-tool had retained such data and/or why his eyes, kidneys, a lung, a heart valve, and part of his spinal cord were still incredibly advanced cybernetic implants.
But whether his original quirk was the reason for that or whether a god had been too magnanimous with his green-haired guinea pig, Izuku was indeed grateful for having been able to get his hands on the picture now in his possession.
When he realized that he still had this image within the data of his omni-tool, he didn't hesitate for a second to connect his futuristic orange device to his laptop to send it to print later to the printer at home; When the photograph became a physical material, soon the pain spread through every fiber of his being, since with this image he confirmed 100% that what he had lived on Earth-2, had been real and not just the crazy dream of a person in a coma. And therefore, by leaving that world, he had lost forever all his friends and the woman who had won his heart; a woman he had to let go of his heart little by little for the sake of his mental and emotional state.
However, although the pain inside his soul hadn't healed yet, the joy he felt for knowing that what he had lived had been real, was superior to the pain of the loss because he deduced that with the last decision he had taken, he had been able to save not only a galaxy and all the innocent beings that inhabited it, but also his loved ones; who surely after having accepted his death, were now living their lives in peace and harmony, in a universe whose future should be more than promising.
Anyway... Why am I talking to you about this, at a time like this?...
...Because by observing this image again on this day, Izuku would be able to make the following decision without a doubt, after he observed that mature version of himself in that photograph:
"2 years. The people out there need me right now, not two years from now...", The green-haired man's gaze became determined after he observed for an instant his adult version in that picture ,"...So the villains will meet the mysterious vigilante {Shepard} before Izuku-Midoriya gets his provisional license...", A wry smile was drawn the next instant across his lips ,"... Or maybe it would be better if as a vigilante I call myself {Spectre}? After all 'Zuku-Shepard' still followed most of the laws of the Alliance, hehe"
Once that decision was made, he closed the window and kept the photograph in that false bottom, but not before sliding his index finger wistfully over the image of the blue-skinned woman:
"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise...", A tear slipped from the corner of Izuku's left eye and fell on the photograph, sliding down the waterproof paper to the floor ,"...I couldn't return safely to raise a family by your side...", Izuku wiped the eye that had been moistened by his tears ,"...Liara, when you look at the stars, do you see the man you fell in love?. I often do it to see the woman who won my heart. I feel that way the stars connect us...but...", A melancholy sigh left the green-haired man's lips as he finally put the photograph away ," ...I also hope that you can move on without me. I wish that you can be completely happy even if I'm not there for you. I wish that my loss will not hinder the goals you had set for yourself....", Once the drawer was closed, he looked once more through his window at the stars drawn in the night firmament and then said melancholically ,"...I too will try to move on, as you would have wanted for me too", Having said that he smiled weakly as he took one last look at the stars.
A few blinks later, Izuku regained his composure after pinching his cheek. He put aside his sad thoughts and began to forge a plan as he sat down on his bed after picking up an astronaut helmet that sat on the dresser where he had a variety of hero toys he had collected during his childhood. The helmet was nothing more than a decorative item for his room that out of nostalgia he had bought a week ago after seeing it on the toy shelf of a supermarket when he helped his mother shop for groceries for the week.
As his face reflected in the polarized visor of the white helmet, a brainstorm hit the former Commander. If he was going to be a vigilante, he needed a secret hideout and a proper disguise—things that would prevent his identity from being traced back to his home. Japanese laws were harsh on vigilantes; if he wanted to keep his mother from finding out he was technically a criminal and ensure his hero career wasn't over before it started, he had to be a ghost.
"The abandoned hospital can work as a hideout for now. I can keep a close eye on Himiko, and maybe install surveillance cameras and support computers if the wiring isn't completely shot... My disguise... Should I use a wrestling mask and spandex? No, no, no! I'd look ridiculous!" He winced at the thought. "Full-body advanced armor would be perfect. I wish I'd studied engineering more deeply so I could build one. Hmmm... I've seen heroes like Ingenium use contemporary armor with thrusters... Should I steal it? No! What am I thinking?! Everyone would be looking for me! I'm already a police target for stealing blood transfusion packs..."
He rubbed his forehead in frustration, thinking for a few minutes until an idea struck. "What if I manufacture a novel toy or a simple tech item from Earth-2? I could earn a lot of money selling the patent and keeping a percentage of the royalties... That doesn't sound bad. With luck, it would be enough to pay off my mom's debts and commission a support company to build me a suit." He nodded. "Definitely, that has potential... But until then, I'll just have to buy a lot of black clothes and a balaclava to hide my identity, hehe."
As he lay back and finally felt sleep approaching, he thought of his mother's $70,000 debt. Someone he loved urgently needed his support; he wasn't just doing this for himself.
"Can I make this work? No, I know I can. I have the experience and the power to save others, and besides... I know how to hide from the authorities quite well. Extremely well, in fact."
Drawing from his experience in the slums of a megametropolis and his time as a soldier in a futuristic army, Izuku smiled with confidence. The vigilante about to appear in the dangerous cities of Japan's southeastern coast would be a hard nut to crack for any pro hero or police officer.
He thought briefly about how to improve his physical training and his Quirk, and what to do for Toga, before finally falling into a restful sleep.
-o-o-o-o-
A few days later…
Izuku sat at his desk, the blue glow of his laptop illuminating his concentrated face. Behind him, the room once belonging to an All-Might fanatic had been replaced by figures and images related to space and life beyond the stars. The old skin he felt no longer fit him had to go, though he kept his favorite poster of the Number 1 Hero as a reminder of one of the "bulwarks" that served as an example for him to press on in another world.
Before diving into certain web information that had caught his eye, the first few days of interaction with Himiko Toga at the abandoned hospital came to mind.
The week had been a test of mental endurance almost as grueling as N7 basic training. He had gone from feeding Toga and dressing her wounds to attempting conversations that didn't end in stabbing attempts or maniacal laughter.
Initially, he applied Alliance interrogation and psychological stabilization techniques; later, he simply began treating her not as a villain, but as a misunderstood teenager. He didn't trust her yet, and he knew she didn't trust him, but a bridge was being built, brick by brick, through warm food and shared silence.
Izuku sighed and turned his gaze toward the printer as it finished spitting out several sheets of paper.
"Right, this should work," he whispered, reviewing the blueprints.
Two projects rested on the desk. The first was the design for a Kepesh-Yakshi board, the complex Asari strategy game. Izuku had extracted the game's mechanics from his Omni-tool and used his own creativity to create blueprints for an alternative version. If he could bring this project to life, he wouldn't just earn the money he needed by selling the patent; he could also use it as a therapeutic tool to measure Himiko Toga's mental stability and planning capacity—provided she took an interest in the game.
The second project was less ambitious: a cheap commercial tablet that Izuku had completely gutted. He had replaced the standard lithium battery with a miniature hydrogen cell, based on the schematics of the simplest generators from Alliance colonies. It was a piece of engineering that would grant it weeks of autonomy. While hydrogen cell tablets already existed on Earth-1, they were prohibitively expensive; he planned to sell this patent not as a new product, but as a method to lower production costs by providing a more efficient manufacturing process for the cells.
"Soon, Mom's debts will be history," he thought with a surge of hope.
-o-o-o-o-o
Shortly after, Izuku closed his design folders and opened his laptop's browser. He felt a pang of guilt in his chest. He had spent months basking in the warmth of home, his mother's dinners, and the simple joy of being alive—so much so that he had neglected his most basic instinct: terrain reconnaissance.
He had often heard his friends or allies say: "Shepard always has a plan." However, in his current state of peaceful life, there had been no need to map out strategies for battle or war. He had simply dedicated himself to enjoying his second—or perhaps third—chance at life, savoring the small things he had missed for so long while serving on Earth-2.
"You've gone soft, Shepard," he reproached himself in a low voice, rubbing his temples. "You let yourself be seduced by peace and forgot that a soldier never ignores history or the map."
Izuku knew that if he was going to return to action, he needed to delve deeper into local history and geography. He needed to know exactly where he stood to move through the terrain with the smallest margin of error.
First, he needed to find a base—a place more secure than that hospital. He knew that, sooner or later, the hospital's small size and proximity to the district center would become a serious liability. Second, he needed to research a way to access armor and weaponry legally... and if there were no other option, do so illegally by confiscating equipment from the criminals he apprehended.
Third, he had to inform himself about local criminality: investigate the most relevant villains or gangs, their emergence, their motivations, who possessed a code of honor and who didn't, as well as their zones of influence. Above all, he needed clear data on their Quirks if records existed.
That was how his eyes first landed on the file for the Okawa Nuclear Power Plant in Kamagasaki. The disaster occurred forty years ago due to an alleged technical failure; the plant's core became unstable and nearly emulated the Chernobyl catastrophe, prevented only because the facility was sealed within hours of the incident. Later, Japan tried to redirect electricity from other districts to revive the city, but the damage was irreversible. Kamagasaki became one of the poorest neighborhoods in 23rd-century Japan, as the population and businesses fled in fear of latent radiation—despite the fact that a decade later, the unstable core was neutralized thanks to heroes with specialized Quirks.
However, even though the radioactive danger vanished and the government encouraged citizens to repopulate, the working class never fully trusted the government's promises again. For investors, the site became an exhausted mine. Currently, the only sources of work in the district consisted of waste processing or basic metal industries: junkyards, recycling plants, and water or metal treatment. Local shops focused on selling scrap, old clothes, meat of questionable origin, and electronics of dubious legality.
Kamagasaki had become one of the most dangerous slums in 23rd-century Japan. Izuku already knew this surface-level information, but after using his Omni-tool to accelerate his search for a future hideout, he received a massive surprise upon hacking the government database. His initial intent was to expand the search to restricted sites or those blacklisted by the police that didn't appear on the ordinary web, but what he found exceeded his expectations.
"Nana Shimura died fighting All For One?" he murmured to himself. "The shockwaves of the battle destroyed the containment walls and the core's safety protocols... The core overloaded as a result of the combat's aftershocks. What the hell? Why did they hide this? Who is Nana Shimura, and who is this All For One?"
Curiosity took hold of him, and he increased the decryption power. His fingers flew over the Omni-tool interface, infiltrating government security nodes that were impenetrable by local standards but as fragile as glass doors to Alliance technology.
Over the last few months, Izuku had realized that the technology of this world was, paradoxically, both superior and inferior to that of Earth-2. There were robotics and nanotechnology tools that surpassed what he'd seen in his previous life, yet other aspects remained primitive—like the use of physical cash, the absence of quantum cryptocurrencies to make bank robberies obsolete, or, in this case, cybersecurity protocols. Most companies and the police still used rudimentary blockchain encryption, and even the government employed basic quantum encryption.
Once Izuku bypassed the system in less than a minute, he searched for broader information on Japan's political and criminal landscape. The historical database glowed with red warnings. That was when the name of All For One and his faction reappeared. Upon deeper digging, another organization surfaced called "The Hand of God," linked to the name "Shigaraki" in classified files.
Izuku tried to create a timeline to organize the cascade of data; he understood he needed to reconstruct Japan's chronology since the start of the Quirk Era—about 250 years ago, following the first flash in China—to have a complete picture. He read with fascination the reports on restricted civil conflicts from the early years, records of battles that didn't appear in public or private academy textbooks.
A man capable of stealing an unlimited number of Quirks and redistributing them to create an army of loyal subjects: that was All For One.
A man capable of stealing a Quirk by killing his target in the process: that was "The Hand of God," who called himself "Shigaraki."
Midoriya analyzed a grainy archival photo from two centuries ago and was left perplexed. The villain called "AFO" possessed an appearance that defied any human record of the time: he was extremely tall and thin, with mostly black skin. Surrounding his skull was a white bony exoskeleton, like a natural crown of prehistoric appearance. His face was a dark, pale mask, noseless, with glowing yellow eyes that looked like lit bulbs in an inert face. He wore a long, elegant tunic of dark military green with black details and luminescent technological components. He didn't look like a criminal; he looked like a cult leader.
What was most disturbing was that his subjects in the photo shared similar traits, as if they belonged to the same species.
"They were all registered as mutants... Hmmm. Is it my imagination, or do they look more like aliens than anything else?" He paused for a second. "They don't look like any alien I saw on Earth-2... Maybe the government is hiding their origins and there was an alien invasion two hundred years ago? Oh, come on, Izuku! You see one thin mutant with long fingers and big eyes and you're already thinking of spaceships." He pinched his cheek. "Leave the conspiracy theories for another day. Maybe this AFO guy turned others into mutants like him by giving them the Quirks he stole."
Midoriya tried to find the most logical answer, quickly discarding the idea of an alien invasion since even the most secret files made no mention of such a possibility.
Later, he read about the rival faction: The Hand of God.
Its members generally seemed human (with the occasional strange trait) or anthropomorphic animals, highlighting a group of ten individuals they called "The Angara of the Hand of God." The records didn't explain what the title "Angara" meant; they only mentioned them as cousins and siblings, descendants of a person with a Quirk of autosomal dominant characteristics. They possessed an appearance similar to anthropomorphic felines and had electricity-related abilities.
"Anthropomorphic cats?" Izuku rubbed his chin in disbelief. "They look more like a snail fused with a monkey and a feline. If someone told me they were aliens, I'd believe it. Dammit, I'm going crazy... now I want to associate everything with extraterrestrial life."
Both the human-looking villains and the "feline" mutant ones (Angara) of this faction were led by a white-haired man named Shigaraki. Like All For One, his Quirk allowed him to steal another person's gift through the contact of his hands, but with a much more macabre condition: Shigaraki didn't just absorb the target's Quirk, but their entire life force as well. If he wanted a new power, he had to kill again, replacing the previous ability with that of the newly deceased.
"He's like a lethal version of Rogue from the X-Men," Izuku murmured, remembering the old comics he used to read before his life became a war zone. "But without the redemption part."
Izuku continued reading with intense interest, expecting to find that the "Hand of God" faction would eventually lose to AFO. However, despite Shigaraki's Quirk appearing weaker and more limited than his rival's at first, it was the white-haired man who finally defeated the bony-crowned mutant after a bloody final battle. Upon the battle's conclusion, Shigaraki manifested All For One's Quirk, inheriting the ability to steal and wield multiple gifts simultaneously. Furthermore, in an act of superiority and typical megalomaniacal arrogance, he claimed the title of the mutant he had murdered and, shortly after, betrayed most of his allies, stealing their Quirks.
Izuku frowned, his expression turning somber. A power of that caliber in the hands of a psychopath made him an Alpha +++ Threat, placing him on a threat scale practically equivalent to a Destroyer-class Reaper.
Recognizing this fact, he tried to dig deeper into the origins of All For One and Shigaraki (if such a thing even existed). However, he soon noticed something that made his eyes narrow even further: decades of missing information. Between the end of those wars and the establishment of the current hero society's foundations, there was an almost total documentary vacuum. The subsequent available records were catastrophic.
"Black clouds... radical climate change," Izuku whispered, analyzing reports from a hundred and fifty years ago. "Communication technology, power grids, and satellites across multiple regions of Earth were destroyed in a matter of months."
It was initially believed that the villain crises had triggered consequences in the planet's atmosphere and magnetic field, but Izuku knew that social chaos couldn't bring down satellites so systematically. He jumped to the astronomy archives and found clearer answers there.
Scientists described the sudden appearance of a spatial phenomenon of unknown origin in the solar system dubbed "The Scourge." This event caused devastating weather changes, mass extinction of flora and fauna in multiple regions, and technological annihilation across nearly the entire globe. Izuku would have compared it to a solar flare of titanic proportions, were it not for the reports mentioning that the Scourge was injecting black clouds loaded with radiation and dark matter into Earth's atmosphere, spreading like a toxic spiderweb.
Additionally, our hero discovered another disturbing fact: Earth-1's sister planet, Eos, had been habitable until the arrival of this anomaly. Midoriya compared a 20th-century analog photograph he found online—where Eos looked like a vibrant blue and green world teeming with life—to current images of a desolate and "scorched" wasteland, which left him intrigued.
"How could I have overlooked this information? It's incredibly fascinating."
Izuku searched his early childhood memories for any mention of the event, but there were only vague traces. The Scourge phenomenon wasn't classified information; today, it was considered old news and irrelevant, largely ignored by history teachers. Since Izuku had attended low-budget schools and focused on comics and superheroes as a child, it was understandable why he wasn't well-informed on the subject.
"Wait... what about this paragraph? By the Cosmos!"
Finally, when he reached the part of the secret report stating that the Scourge clouds seemed to accelerate the appearance of people with Quirks in infected regions, Midoriya was stunned. This was something never publicly disclosed: that the release of dark matter and radiation from the Scourge had accelerated human "evolution" in certain parts of the planet.
"So the interaction of dark matter with organic cells also triggers the appearance of superpowers in my universe?" Izuku reflected, complex emotions of incredulity and curiosity swelling within him.
Perhaps the dimensions of Earth-1 and Earth-2 weren't so different after all. However, a major question haunted him: if Eos was turned into a nearly dead world, why didn't Earth suffer the same fate?
Izuku found no precise explanation. Earth should have been annihilated, but the records mentioned an inexplicable event: a pillar of green light captured in an unknown area of Antarctica, followed by "green auroras" that enveloped the planet before vanishing. Shortly after, the Scourge clouds retreated until they were pulled back into the singularity located at the center of the solar system, leaving only the "branches" that still infected Eos.
"They say people with weather-control Quirks solved the issue, but there's no confirmation of who they were," Izuku thought skeptically. "And the Scourge isn't entirely gone. It's still there, touching Eos with its 'branches.' Olympus scientists describe it as a space-time anomaly releasing radiation and dark energy. It seems years of research have focused on cleaning Eos of the Scourge's vestiges to make it habitable again, with zero success."
Confused, Izuku theorized it was a cosmic dust cloud loaded with Element Zero, something he had seen more than once in the Earth-2 universe, though those clouds never behaved so aggressively or strangely.
Later, moved by a hunch about the similarities between both dimensions, Izuku searched for a keyword without much hope. When he found it, his stomach churned: a top-secret document from medical and government agencies confirmed the discovery of Eezo on both Earth and Eos. Apparently, the Scourge had caused the deposit or triggered the formation of said substance on these planets.
"Is this a damn joke?! Even the scientists on this Earth called it the same thing!" Izuku held his head in his hands, shocked by the astronomical coincidence. "Does that mean the theory of parallel universes is real? There might be differences, but between 'sister' universes, there will be historical facts and names repeated identically in both dimensions."
A sharp pain began to spread through his temple.
"Well... Earth-1 and Earth-2 both had Nazis, Hitler... and many other things in common. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised."
He took several deep breaths to calm himself, praying that the Reapers weren't one of the things Earth-1 had in common with Earth-2, and then continued reading.
The report on Element Zero detailed that, after years of conflict, Eezo was initially detected following mass contamination in a small city in Singapore with a population of 10,000, mostly Quirkless. The classified event detailed that a massive rock of Element Zero fell into the spring of the river that "fed" the population. Of the ten thousand Quirkless people exposed to the contaminated water, the vast majority developed cancer. However, a meager 3-5% of survivors manifested a Gift despite being born without one. And in those who already had powers, the Eezo acted as a booster at the cost of their sanity, triggering violent behavior, psychosis, or other psychiatric illnesses.
"That enhancement and psychosis... it reminds me of what happens when a biotic consumes Red Sand," he thought bitterly, realizing why this information was also classified. "They keep it hidden. They don't want the Quirkless to risk nearly certain death just for the hope of obtaining a power."
He closed his eyes with a pang of pity, thinking that if he had known this back then, he most likely would have tried to expose himself to Eezo in this universe if he had turned out to be just a regular human. It was ironic and confusing. A tide of emotions flooded him as he realized his original universe had a much stronger link to his life as a Commander than he had ever believed.
However, regarding Eezo, there was a crucial difference: while in Earth-2 Element Zero was the backbone of civilization, here they were barely discovering its mass-altering and propulsion properties. In terms of space travel and mobility, this world was technological centuries behind the Alliance.
After trying to calm his rushing emotions, Midoriya couldn't help but take one last look at the classified news that had led him to all these secrets. His fingers, almost by instinct, continued to delve into Japan's secret files.
The former Commander returned to the starting point, reviewing recent history. His eyes stopped on the record of Nana Shimura, the woman who nearly brought down All For One before falling in battle. The report detailed how she and Gran Torino trained "Toshinori Yagi" for a reason not specified in the records. Furthermore, Toshinori seemed to have a Quirk very similar to Nana's... except for her flight ability, of course.
"Toshinori... I feel like I've heard that name before." Izuku reclined in his chair, analyzing the nature of those gifts and digging through his memories. "Or maybe I'm just imagining things. Regardless, Mr. Might must have hidden his past for a good reason."
The report continued. All Might trained in the USA and later returned to Japan to save countless lives... and to defeat Shigaraki in a final battle that was completely erased from public history to prevent mass panic.
"No doubt All Might must have been in AFO's crosshairs after he defeated Nana Shimura... That would explain why he finished his training in the USA. Being away from Shigaraki, he could develop his Quirk to its full potential without interruptions. Hmmm. So he ended up killing AFO... And I thought his hands would never be stained with blood. It seems you sacrificed a pillar of your own morality to prevent more tragedies. You did the right thing there, Toshinori-dono."
After reaching that conclusion and nodding in respect—feeling even more admiration for All Might than he did at first—the former Commander's eyes landed on a classified file mentioning an alarming fact: All Might was gravely injured during that final battle, and his health had not recovered since. The Symbol of Peace was "bleeding" from a wound the world couldn't see.
"That's why he hasn't been as active lately... Now I understand why his arrest rate has plummeted over the last four years." After looking at a current photograph of All Might where, for a moment, he lost the confidence that characterized his eyes, Izuku recognized that look. He had seen it in Anderson and other veterans. It was the look of someone holding up the sky while their foundations crumble. "Toshinori-dono, you're working on borrowed time..." Izuku whispered with a mix of respect, pity, melancholy, and terror. "If you fall, Japan doesn't just lose a hero. It loses its axis."
Meditating on the loss of the Symbol of Peace took him back to the files of the Civilization Collapse at the beginning of the Quirk Era. Without All Might, the power vacuum would be massive. He envisioned the villains he had researched, the factions waiting in the shadows, and a government that relied too much on a single man. If that pillar broke, chaos in Japan would likely return with redoubled violence. Without a leader to maintain cohesion, Japan would become a battlefield of a thousand factions, and the entire world could follow suit.
"It's a ticking time bomb," he concluded, just as he finished drafting his timeline.
EARTH-1: QUIRK ERA CHRONOLOGY
Year 0: Birth of the "Luminescent Baby" in China. Start of the anomaly. Could a dark matter "bombardment" driven by the Scourge explain the origin of Quirks?
Years 1-30: Collapse of governments and the first global riots due to the rise of Quirk users (Kosei).
Years 20-30: Generalized chaos. In Japan, All For One (AFO) unifies the underworld and clashes with Shigaraki's "Hand of God."
Years 30-60: Shigaraki defeats AFO and solidifies his position as the criminal sovereign of Japan. Vigilantes emerge to attempt to halt his advance.
Years 60-100: The Era of the Scourge. A spatial anomaly decimates global technology and Earth's climate. Decades of lost information. Eos turns into a wasteland under dark matter clouds. Earth is saved by a mysterious event, likely originating in Antarctica.
Years 100-130: Formation of the Hero Society. Shigaraki betrays a segment of his allies—the Angara—stealing the Quirks of the majority. For a few decades, Shigaraki appeared to become the absolute Demon King of Japan.
Years 130-150: The Hero Alliance begins to make Shigaraki's reign tremble. More Angara begin to appear worldwide. They reproduce rapidly, creating descendants with similar physical traits. After finding their DNA is identical to the rest of humanity, scientists categorize Angara Quirks as "Dominant Collective Quirks"—traits that manifest massively in individuals closely related to the first "Angara."
Years 150-200: The colonies of Olympus and Antargo are established on Eos and Antarctica, respectively. Tired of discrimination, a large number of Angara descendants worldwide migrate to Antargo; for some reason, they possess a high tolerance for extreme cold. Nana Shimura faces AFO and perishes. The Okawa Nuclear Plant in Kamagasaki is damaged as a consequence of the battle. Specialized drugs and support items are created to assist heroes. All Might completes his training in the USA.
Year 240-250: Present Era. All Might defeats AFO but is gravely injured. The balance maintained by All Might is now in jeopardy.
-O-O-O-
After assimilating the magnitude of the records, Izuku refocused his attention on the data from the old Okawa Nuclear Plant. He found it ironic how a simple search for a local hideout—something seemingly disconnected from the great threads of the world—had dragged him headlong into the epicenter of incredible secrets spanning centuries of hidden history.
"It's too much information..." Izuku muttered, snapping the laptop shut once he finished uploading his reconstructed chronology into an encrypted file within his Omni-tool.
His temples throbbed with a rhythmic intensity. That pain was a sharp, physical reminder that he lived in a world built on foundations of lies and buried sacrifices. For a brief moment, curiosity tempted him: he considered using the processing power of his Omni-tool to track down if alternative versions of his human friends from Earth-2 existed in this universe. Could there be a Kaidan, an Ashley, or an Anderson walking the streets of this world under their own or another identity? However, despite his intense curiosity, the sting in his forehead became unbearable, forcing him to stop.
First, he had to process the truth already laid before him. He needed deep rest, for tomorrow he had an unavoidable appointment with his own past.
"Tomorrow," he said to himself, attempting to massage the sharp pains in his forehead. "Tomorrow, I'll see Katsuki. And I will resolve, once and for all, this pending conflict from my first life. It's time for him to understand, as clearly as possible, that he is wasting his potential... and that he is not the pillar upon which the world stands."
With that final thought, he lay back in bed and closed his eyes tight. In that room, no trace of "Deku" remained. Now, there was only Shepard: the soldier, the strategist, the man who knew many of the secrets the stars tried to hide.
Omake: Echoes of the Past (1)
Sunday. A day for relaxation. Although for Katsuki Bakugo, relaxation was rarely part of his plans.
Warehouse 14 in the industrial district of Dagobah Beach was one of three concrete and steel corpses rotting near the shore of a beach that had long since become a municipal landfill. The morning sun filtered through broken skylights, casting dust-filled pillars of light that gave the place an unreal, almost sacred atmosphere. In the center of that desolate space, the air vibrated with the rhythmic crackle of sparks.
Katsuki Bakugo was not someone who knew how to wait patiently. Every passing second caused his body temperature to rise, and not just because of his Quirk. It was the bile, the wounded pride, and that sting of guilt he tried to bury under layers of arrogance.
Ten minutes after his arrival, he finally heard the echo of footsteps. They weren't the dragging, hesitant steps of "Deku." They were sharp, constant strikes, announcing the arrival of someone who didn't ask for permission to exist. That was something that both confused and infuriated the blonde.
Hearing them, Katsuki didn't turn around. He kept his gaze fixed on a twisted steel beam.
"You've got a lot of nerve showing up a week late, you damn Nerd. You disappeared from school, too; I thought you'd already run away like the coward you are," Katsuki spat. His voice was a low growl that reverberated off the empty walls.
Izuku Midoriya stopped about five meters away. His posture was relaxed but combat-ready. His green eyes weren't seeking Bakugo's approval; they were scanning the environment, evaluating cover, exits, and the stability of the floor.
"I never ran away... and it wasn't my intention to keep you waiting, Katsuki," Izuku replied. The use of his first name felt like a physical slap; Bakugo tensed. "But I had to ensure my mother was at peace. I also have a sick friend who requires special care. I've been helping her parents with her treatment; they can barely keep up."
Bakugo spun around abruptly. His red eyes were two burning embers.
"You think I give a damn how they feel?" Bakugo barked, though deep in his mind, an image of Inko crying in the hospital during Izuku's coma flashed by. He hated that image. He hated feeling like he owed that woman anything. "I know what you're doing, Deku. Hiding behind that stoic gaze, acting like this damn coma gave you the right to ignore me... to feel superior to me!"
The expression Izuku wore at that moment was, to Katsuki, far worse than the old face full of uncertainty and discomfort. Now, there was an irritating spark of confidence and defiance in those green eyes.
"Is that all you have to say?" Izuku remained motionless, observing Bakugo's outburst like a meteorologist watching a predictable storm. He decided words were unnecessary after the humiliation he had handed Bakugo three weeks prior. "Or did you only summon me here to waste my time with your spoiled brat tantrums?"
"Go to hell!" As expected, Bakugo's patience snapped.
In the next blink, the blonde propelled himself forward with a swift explosion from his right palm. He lunged for Izuku's shoulder for a takedown—a classic maneuver Midoriya had seen countless times.
"You always lead with your right flank, Katsuki! You've become predictable! I recommend finding better strategies!"
Izuku pivoted on his right foot with millimetric precision. In one fluid motion, he blocked Bakugo's right hand using his left forearm. The blast illuminated the warehouse, the heat searing Izuku's skin and smoke filling the gap between them.
Despite the second-degree burn on his arm, Midoriya didn't flinch. He bore the pain and took advantage of Bakugo's shock—who clearly expected Izuku to use his Gauntlet-Quirk—to seize his right forearm and hurl him toward a concrete pillar ten meters away. Bakugo slammed into it, his back partially bending the internal rebar.
Katsuki refused to scream. He wouldn't give that satisfaction to the "Deku" in front of him. He scrambled up in a fraction of a second as even more powerful explosions erupted from both palms.
"That's the spirit. I suggest you use your explosions to change direction several times before landing a hit when attacking from above. That way, your enemy will find it much harder to guess your point of impact."
Katsuki's teeth ground together like never before. Who did this "Deku" think he was, giving him advice and orders?
"Who the hell do you think you are?! Some hero academy instructor?!" Katsuki screamed with immense rage as he propelled himself forward at high speed. "It makes me sick that you want to be a hero now! You broke your arm at ten years old and quit!"
As Bakugo seemed to lose his mind, Izuku didn't retreat. He crossed his arms in an "X" formation, absorbing the explosive blows using a portion of his superhuman strength. His shirt sleeves carbonized instantly, revealing first and second-degree burns across his arms, but his eyes remained locked on Bakugo's, devoid of pain.
"You quit, remember?" Bakugo continued, hammering against Izuku's guard. "I hated seeing you try to compensate for being Quirkless with that comic book bullshit. Your notebooks, your plans to be a 'street hero'... it was pathetic. But at least back then, I could respect you for trying, before you shattered like glass and stopped fighting entirely. And now you come back with this air of importance? Who the fuck do you think you are?!"
Following Midoriya's advice—perhaps unconsciously—the blonde changed direction in mid-air with an explosion, finally connecting a non-explosive punch to Izuku's right cheek. The son of Inko staggered back a few steps, spitting out a bit of blood.
"You were playing the weakling just to fuck with me!" Katsuki roared, launching another flurry of explosive hooks that Izuku, this time, parried one by one with short, crisp hand movements. "And then you reveal you had a power just to make me look like a moron! You've been taking me for a fool all these years, Deku!"
At this, Izuku's eyes narrowed, taking on a cold, serious demeanor he hadn't expected to use against Bakugo. Complex emotions he had buried decades ago began to claw their way out of the grave.
Midoriya exploited an opening after an overextended swing from Katsuki. He caught the blonde's wrists in a lock that prevented the explosions from hitting him directly. The absurd strength he exerted easily overpowered the blonde's physical force, applying a cold, mechanical pressure that made Bakugo hiss.
"You're a damn idiot!" Izuku shouted, looking at Katsuki with disbelief. His voice wasn't a screech of rage, but the roar of a man filled with authority. It left Katsuki completely stunned; that green-haired teen had never dared to speak to him that way. "Are you insane?! You're wrong about every single word coming out of your mouth. My power awakened after the coma. I never hid anything from you, because I had nothing to hide. I was that kid with nothing, Katsuki. The one you beat, the one you ignored. I was real."
Izuku applied a wrist twist that forced Bakugo to a knee before shoving him away with a brutal kick that launched him against a rusted shipping container. The metal rang with a deep, hollow boom.
"And as for humiliating you..." Izuku stepped forward, his long shadow stretching across the floor. His breathing was slightly labored, and one eyebrow was raised in bewilderment, surprised that Katsuki had awakened the feelings of his first life. "Yes, I wanted to. I wanted you to learn your lesson. I wanted you to feel a fraction of the helplessness and contempt you made me feel all those years. It wouldn't have come to this if you hadn't treated me like trash for a decade. You sowed this hatred; you fed this distance. Don't complain now because the fruit is bitter."
Bakugo launched himself from the container, his face a mask of pure fury.
In a short time, the warehouse became a battlefield. Bakugo flew through the air, using directional explosions to attack from unpredictable angles, while Izuku used the environment; he took cover behind beams, used the inertia of Bakugo's attacks to redirect them, and only struck when he had a clear opening.
In a moment of chaos, Bakugo managed to flank him again and unleashed a massive explosion directly against Izuku's left hand. The blast was blinding. Izuku was thrown back, his left hand now covered in a third-degree burn, the skin raw and blistered.
Izuku grit his teeth but didn't scream. He wouldn't give that "pleasure" to his former abuser. He stood up quickly, his breathing rhythmic.
"You know? You're right about one thing, Katsuki," Midoriya said, looking at his charred left hand. His voice dropped to a dangerously calm tone. "You're right to think I was weak in the past. Far weaker than you could ever imagine."
Bakugo stopped, sweat dripping from his chin and palms smoking. The lack of hostility and the sincerity in Izuku's words caught him off guard more than any punch.
"After I broke my forearm and my left wrist at ten years old, I gave up," Izuku confessed, staring at his burned hands. "I thought about taking the easy way out. Being a support hero, hiding behind a screen, building tools for others because I didn't believe I was capable of fighting on my own. I was a coward who accepted the limitations that the world—and you—imposed on me. I was content with the crumbs of your dreams."
Izuku looked up, and Bakugo felt a shiver. The resolution in those green eyes was absolute, stripped of any human doubt.
"But that weak kid... that 'Deku' you knew, completely vanished after my coma. The man standing before you now has seen the abyss and returned. I couldn't even say I'm the same person anymore, Katsuki. My soul was rebuilt in a place where your explosions are nothing more than annoying noise."
Bakugo tilted his head, more confused than before. Izuku's sincerity felt too real. He wasn't bragging. He wasn't trying to sound "cool." He was reporting an existential fact, as if he truly believed he had lived through a literal hell.
"Hahaha! And you know what's the most ironic part of having lived by your side in my childhood? That despite everything you did to me... part of me, for a long time, always admired you!" Izuku shouted, and for a second, the mask of coldness cracked. "Your determination, your raw talent! I always wished I had a fraction of that to protect what I loved! And because I thought you were so incredible, I managed to survive that godforsaken hell in Akuze. Thinking about your 'absolute refusal to lose' and your explosions kept me sane when I was surrounded by darkness and death."
Katsuki stepped back, his eyes wide. Had the coma driven "Deku" insane? Had he had unimaginable nightmares that threw him into madness?
"Akuze?" Bakugo stammered. "What the fuck are you talking about? There's no place with that name... Stop talking crazy, nerd!"
"Yes, I know it doesn't sound like a place near Japan," Izuku stated, regaining his military bearing. "But for me, it was the mark of my survival. In any case, I don't expect you to understand. And like it or not, I'm getting into U.A. In fact, I'm not just getting in; I'm going to get a higher score than yours. I am absolutely certain of that. So you can keep screaming and kicking all you want, but eventually, the facts—that you aren't the Number 1 hero and that the world doesn't revolve around you—will spit in your face."
"Hehehe!" Bakugo let out a dry laugh. At this point, his rage diminished slightly, considering it increasingly likely that "Deku" had a few screws loose. "Take my Number One spot?" he mocked, regaining his mask of pride. "You know what, damn Nerd? If you're so sure, let's make a bet. Whoever gets the highest score enters U.A. The loser finds another school and disappears from the other's sight. Do you accept, or are you going to keep crying over your burns?"
Izuku paused. Silence reigned in the warehouse again, broken only by the hiss of steam still escaping Katsuki's arms. Midoriya tilted his head, processing the offer, and a cold, almost imperceptible smile crossed his lips.
"Sounds interesting, Katsuki," Izuku said, his voice resonating with an authority that made Bakugo tense. "But if you just leave U.A., I don't think it would grant me the right satisfaction. It wouldn't be a punishment fitting a decade of abuse."
Izuku took a step toward him, ignoring the pain of the burns on his arms.
"Counter-proposal: if you win, I'm out. I'll disappear from your life and you'll never hear from me again. But if I win... you stay. You stay at U.A. to watch how I surpass you every single damn day."
Bakugo frowned, confused by the lack of resentment in the bet.
"But there will be conditions," Izuku continued. "If I win, every time you address me, you will call me 'Commander.' No exceptions. And also... once a day, you will bring me a sandwich. Prepared by you, with the proper heating and toasting done with your Quirk's explosions. I want you to use that power you brag so much about for something useful—like serving me lunch."
Bakugo's face went from bewilderment to a beet-red fury. The veins in his neck bulged. The idea of being Deku's "errand boy," of recognizing him with a superior rank, and cooking for him was the ultimate humiliation. It was worse than being expelled; it was being his subordinate.
"You think I'm going to be your damn servant, bastard?!" Bakugo roared, sparks flying from his eyes and hands.
"If you're so sure of winning, you shouldn't be afraid of the conditions," Izuku replied with a gelid calm, extending a hand to seal the deal as real men do: with a firm handshake. "Or is the great Katsuki Bakugo already accepting defeat before the exam?"
Bakugo grit his teeth so hard it seemed they would break. Pride seized every fiber of his being.
"I accept, you damn nerd!" he shouted, extending a smoking hand. "But make sure you start looking for another school, because I'm going to bury you in that exam!"
"We'll see," Izuku stated. Then, to annoy the blonde a bit more, he used a certain nickname he knew Bakugo wouldn't want to hear. "But you'd better prepare with everything you've got, Kacchan. Because the man who returned from that coma doesn't know how to surrender to someone who still thinks being a hero is a popularity game."
With that, Izuku turned and began walking toward the exit. His burns stung, but his mind was already on Himiko Toga, the abandoned hospital, and the next steps of his ascent as a vigilante.
"Idiot..." Bakugo muttered behind him, his hands trembling with residual ire. "Don't talk to me like we're friends again."
Izuku stopped at the threshold, the sunlight enveloping his silhouette, hiding his face in shadows.
"We aren't, Bakugo," Izuku replied with a solemn air. "Friends trust each other. We're just two acquaintances from a past I left behind long ago."
-o-o-o-
When Izuku vanished into the morning light, Bakugo was left alone, surrounded by the echo of his own gasps and the smell of ozone. The silence of the warehouse became oppressive.
After a moment, Katsuki sat down and leaned his back against a mold-covered wall, rubbing the wrist where Izuku had held him with that inhuman strength. Then, his eyes landed on one of the concrete pillars near where they had exchanged the final blows. At the sight of it, he froze.
In the concrete structure was a perfect, deep crater, with the internal steel rebar bent as if they were silk threads. The structure was so unstable it was on the verge of collapsing. It was the spot where an Izuku punch had "missed" when Katsuki narrowly dodged. The concrete and reinforced steel had shattered like dry paper.
A sudden chill ran down Bakugo's spine as he reconstructed the battle in his mind with cruel clarity. He remembered the exact moment Izuku had diverted his final punch toward the pillar.
"He... he diverted it on purpose," Bakugo whispered, his voice cracking in the empty warehouse.
The realization hit him like one of his own explosions: Izuku hadn't missed. He had diverted the strike to avoid killing him or, worse, to keep the fight from ending too quickly. And now that his mind was no longer blinded by near-infinite rage, he also realized that Izuku hadn't used his Gauntlet-Quirk at any point.
The conclusion was obvious: Izuku hadn't fought seriously. He had limited himself to defending, evaluating, and toying with him like a veteran plays with a recruit before giving a lesson.
That realization was the final insult. A fury, darker and denser than anything he had felt before, erupted from deep in his chest. It wasn't just rage toward Izuku; it was a visceral hatred of his own weakness.
"Damn you, Deku!" Katsuki roared, leaping to his feet.
He walked toward the exit with a heavy step, his mind boiling with a manic resolution. He wasn't going to rest. He wasn't going to sleep. From that moment on, he would train like never before in his life. If Izuku was a commander, he would become a weapon of mass destruction.
As he stepped into the alley, he passed one of the hundreds of metal trash cans on Dagobah Beach. Without even looking at it, he unleashed a massive discharge of nitroglycerin from his palm. The blast was deafening; the metal tore and flew into a thousand pieces, scattering trash and ash across the pavement.
"Commander, my ass..." Bakugo hissed through his teeth, clenching his fists until his palms bled. "In the exam, I'm going to force you to use all that power you're hiding. I'm going to catch you, even if I have to burn all the trash on this beach and every other beach in Japan to do it."
Katsuki walked away along the shore, his face hidden by the shadow of his hair, leaving behind the smoke of his fury and the shattered concrete pillar as proof that, for him, the real war had just begun.
-o-o-o-
Izuku walked through the side streets of Musutafu, avoiding the main avenues. The pain from the burns was constant—a stinging reminder that the body of this universe, though enhanced by this reality's strange laws of physics, was still flesh and bone.
The adrenaline from the fight with Katsuki began to fade, leaving room for a dull exhaustion. When he saw a pharmacy in the distance, he approached and bought sterile gauze, saline solution, and burn ointment. He didn't use his personal card; he paid with the cash he always carried for situations requiring discretion.
When he reached the abandoned hospital, the stagnant air and the smell of old disinfectant welcomed him like a sanctuary. He climbed the stairs toward the area where he kept Himiko Toga. Opening the heavy metal door, the hallway light illuminated the dim room.
Toga was sitting on the corner of the sofa, her eyes gleaming with that usual mix of madness and boredom. But as soon as Izuku entered, she tensed. Her nose wrinkled, catching the scent in the air before even seeing the wounds.
"You smell like... like burnt meat," Toga said, tilting her head with a grin. "Has the great soldier returned with battle scars?"
Izuku didn't answer immediately. He set the bag of supplies on the metal table and began removing the remains of his carbonized shirt, revealing the blisters on his left hand and the redness on his torso.
It was in that instant that the silence in the room changed texture. Toga observed the wounds with a new intensity. It wasn't bloodlust that predominated, but a strange concern spreading through her soul. To her, Izuku had always been an immovable figure, a wall of ice, but one who treated her with great gentleness. Seeing him marked, wounded by someone else, left her feeling something akin to genuine worry for someone's safety.