Chapter 1: The Starting Line
Being told by his idol that he can be a hero was the greatest thing that had ever happened in Midoriya Izuku's life. In fact, it was so incredible and amazing that it compelled him to do something that experience had taught him from an early age to never, ever do.
He asked his teacher a question.
"H-hey, All Might…"
"Yes, my boy?"
"C-can you please teach me about how One For All works? So when you g-give it to me, I'll know what to expect? I… I want to be ready!"
That had been the start of it. A simple question, and the realization by Yagi Toshinori, known to the world as the pro hero All Might, that he didn't really have an answer to give.
Don't get things wrong: he had tried his best to give a good answer. But his words had sounded absurd even to him. Between the two of them, with Toshinori explaining and the boy trying to follow along, the best he had been able to come up with was to imagine you're an egg in a microwave, being heated evenly from the inside out, and try not to explode.
An egg in a microwave? Really? He's the Number 1 Hero, not just in Japan but in the whole world. He's widely considered to be the world's mightiest superhuman, perhaps even the strongest of all time. Was that the best metaphor he could manage?
Young Midoriya, bless his fanboy heart, had hung onto his words like they were some immense wisdom being handed down from on high. Toshinori had been in many embarrassing moments since he began his career as a pro hero, most of them unfortunately caught on camera, but he had never felt more embarrassed and stupid than he did at that moment.
The fact that the boy was so earnest and trusting somehow made it worse. He actually would have preferred if the child had been skeptical and sarcastic. He should have been laughed at for his half-baked attempts to explain how his transferable superpower, One For All, worked. Instead, the boy had pulled out a scrap of paper and written it down.
Maybe it was just his own nerves getting to him. Or that dull, creeping exhaustion, the tiredness that sleep couldn't fix he'd been feeling ever since he had sustained his major injury six years ago fighting the quirk-stealing supervillain, All For One. But somehow, the realization that he didn't have an answer hit him so much harder that he ever thought it would.
He didn't have an answer. He didn't. It was his quirk, his power, it had become his the moment Shimura Nana, his own mentor, had passed it on to him. One For All was the only superpower, or 'quirk,' in the world that could be passed on and given away, an inheritable strength that had kept the world safe for generations. A power that became stronger each time the torch was passed from master to student. He had carried it for 40 years, which was longer than any other previous user had ever held it. So he should be able to answer questions about how it worked. Shouldn't he?
He had cherished One For All as the last gift from a woman who had been a second mother to him. He had cherished it the way that only an angry, broken, quirkless teenager could. In a world where over 80% of humanity was born with some sort of superhuman ability, Yagi Toshinori had been born quirkless. Born without power.
But even though he was powerless, he had become sick to death of the fear and terror that filled society in those days. Organized crime and villainy had seized the throat of the world, and the heroes and law enforcement of his childhood had struggled to form any real response or counter. Every night there were gunshots and screams. People huddled in the illusionary safety of their homes after dark, praying that they wouldn't be next.
He couldn't take it anymore. He wouldn't stand for it. It was his resolution to become a living deterrent of crime, a so-called Symbol of Peace… or die trying. But until that moment where he had received One For All, a part of him had already accepted that he absolutely would die trying. That he wouldn't make it. That his dreams would kill him. He was a plucky kid without a quirk picking a fight with gangsters and organized criminals that had superpowers at their disposal. He knew what was going to happen to him. A shallow, unmarked grave on the side of the road was his final destination. His headstone would be a missing person's report on page 10 of the papers.
And Toshinori had made his peace with that. It was the hill he chose to die on, and he was willing to die for it. In a way, his career as a quirkless Symbol of Peace would be his own essay against a bitter and broken world. And it could probably uncharitably be called the longest and most elaborate suicide note in history. He knew that. He understood it. He accepted it.
Toshinori had been born powerless, and the only thing he had any control over was his own story and how it would end. He had control over what he would stand for, what he would put up with and tolerate... and what he wouldn't. He had made his choices. He had made his peace with himself. He wasn't afraid anymore.
And then Nana came. A pro hero. A person from that gilded, golden world of superpowers and superhumans that Toshinori had only ever been able to gaze longingly at through the window. And she told him that he didn't have to die to make his dreams come true. And that wouldn't have meant anything to an angry, depressed, borderline suicidal teenager, except she showed him a way to make it work.
She gave him the tools to build his impossible dream against all odds. And even though that changed nothing about his motives or his ideals, it changed everything. Because this story was no longer a tragedy, it didn't have to be, and in his deepest heart of hearts, Toshinori had been crying, because he didn't want it to end like that.
And suddenly, it didn't have to.
That's what One For All was to Toshinori. It was more than a sacred torch, or a gift from a dying mentor, or even a lifeline thrown to a drowning teenager. It was his entire life. He was a self-aware Don Quixote, a delusional knight chasing windmills looking to slay giants. He was fully aware of how stupid and suicidal it all was. But One For All had made slaying the giants that terrorized society possible. Toshinori had been prepared to die for his ideals. But Nana and One For All had shown him how to live for them instead.
And 40 years later, the world was a changed place. He was All Might, the most popular and famous hero in the world. He had done it. He had won. He was a living deterrent for crime worldwide. Don Quixote had won his war.
And yet, in spite of all of that, here he was, tripping over his own words on a polluted beach, realizing that even though he was entering the twilight of his own life and career as a hero, that he still didn't really understand the power. This innocent, trusting child who would have to shoulder the weight of the world one day was asking him how to use One For All, and he simply did not have any answers to give.
Toshinori took a long breath before letting it out slowly, watching as his determined successor pushed dry-rotted tires up the beach towards the parking lot. This wasn't working. He'd never taught anyone before in his life, children or adults, and his application to teach at UA, one of the most prestigious hero academies in the world, had been pushed through with the principal as a favor. It was to help find a suitable heir for One For All from among the student population. An heir he had already found. He wasn't going there to teach because he was actually good at teaching. Quite frankly, he didn't know what on earth he was doing when it came to teaching children and teens, and the conversation about how to use One For All was making his lack of talent in that area stark starkly obvious.
Toshinori could make a fitness schedule and diet plan just fine, he had a lifetime of experience at that. He'd even had recent refreshers, as he was forced to rebuild his own entire schedule and diet from scratch to recover enough from his crippling injury six years ago to still spend some time each day as All Might. He had the skills of a world class hero. He could be a gym coach, a personal trainer, and a fitness instructor. He could teach somebody how to handle the media, deal with hero paperwork, manage crisis situations, perform rescue heroism, and even use showmanship to their advantage in fights and on camera. He had spent 40 years being number one in an industry where most people retired after 20. He had a wealth of knowledge to share.
But it was the teaching part that was the problem. He simply had no real experience with it. And most of those skills were not things the boy needed right now. Right now, young Midoriya needed someone to teach him how to use One For All. And Toshinori didn't have a clue how to pass that on. Using the strength and abilities of the quirk had just come naturally to him. From the moment he had received it, he was able to use it like it was second nature to him. As easy as breathing. But he knew that hadn't been the case for Nana, she had told him it had taken her years to get a handle on it. And it probably wouldn't be the case for young Izuku, either.
He wished it could be. He could tell himself that it's because Nana had a quirk and he did not, he could argue with himself and say that Izuku also being quirkless meant he would also have no trouble using the power. But that excuse sounded weak and reckless even in his own head.
He had no idea how the quirk worked. Nobody really did. Not even All For One, and he had been the one responsible for it's accidental creation centuries ago. Could Toshinori really gamble with the boy's safety and future career on nothing more than a hunch?
And it got stronger with each generation. He knew that. At it's heart, One For All was a strength stockpile, a collection of the physical strength and abilities of everyone who had ever held it. Even if someone only held it for a brief period of time before passing it on, it still doubled in strength at a bare minimum. If the quirk was actually used and the stockpile of strength got 'exercise,' then it would get even stronger, like a muscle that had no upper limit to it's growth. Passing it on doubled it. Using it increased it's strength. It only ever became more powerful, it never weakened or regressed.
Only two of the holders had ever been professional heroes, as far as he knew, and he was one of them. And between himself and Nana, he had used the quirk far more. In fact, he had probably exercised the quirk more during his 40 year tenure as a holder than any other previous user ever had. The next jump wasn't going to be a doubling, a tripling, or even a quadrupling. It was going to be something much more dramatic. He could feel it.
His instincts told him that if young Midoriya could completely master even 10% of the true power he was going to inherit, that the boy would be a force that could match his own strength. And Toshinori had learned to trust his instincts.
But could he handle 10%? That was the question. And what were they going to do if he couldn't?
The emaciated blonde knew what he needed to do. He just didn't want to do it, is all.
But this wasn't about him anymore, and he knew that. It stopped being about him the moment he made his choice. One For All stopped being Toshinori's quirk the moment he made his choice earlier that week to train Izuku to inherit it, and this wasn't about Toshinori's wants or needs anymore. This was about Izuku, and what was best for him.
And when it came to teaching people how to use One For All, there was only one person alive who was really qualified. Shimura Nana's best friend, and Toshinori's own former home room teacher when he was a student at UA. The only man alive who had helped two different bearers of One For All adjust to their power. Third generation quirk expatriate from the Independent Republic of Texas, Sorahiko Torino, hero name Gran Torino.
In the background, Izuku was shoving a microwave into the back of the rental truck they were using to haul the trash. Toshinori did his very Plus Ultra best to try and stop his hand from shaking as he pulled out his phone and started dialing a number.
It rang five times before the other end picked up.
"H-hello?" the voice on the other end said, elderly and confused.
"Torino, it's me, Toshinori."
"Who? Who are you?"
"It's Toshinori, Gran. You remember me."
"I-I what? I'm sorry, I d-don't know anybody by that name." The voice was soft and sounded almost afraid. "Why are you calling me? Who is this?"
If anybody else had been putting on this kind of act, Toshinori might have rolled his eyes. Instead, he did his best to steady his nerves. Toshinori knew Torino and his often-vindictive pranks well enough to know that the other shoe was about to drop.
"It's Toshinori, Gran. I'm calling you because I've found a successor. I need your help."
There was a moment of silence.
"Then why the hell didn't you lead with that from the start, you imbecile!"
Toshinori flinched at the volume of the voice coming through his phone, and reflexively glanced out over the beach to make sure no one could overhear it. Fortunately, Izuku was halfway down the shoreline grappling with a pile of garbage bags, and as far as he could see, the two of them were still alone.
"Gran, listen, I'm sorry, but-"
"Sorry my ass you ungrateful monkey! You never call! You never text! You never visit!"
"I'm sorry, but I've been really busy with everything, and-"
"You leave everything I send you on read! I can understand ghosting that twit Mirai, after some of the fool things he's said and done, but what the hell do you think you're doing pulling that kind of stunt with me!"
Torino made it sound so easy. How was Toshinori supposed to explain to his old mentor that the man still terrified him?
"Listen, I can explain-"
"Can it, Toshi, if I wanted to listen to a gorilla stutter and make excuses I'd look up HeroTube videos of Endeavor's PR manager. Tell me one good thing and one bad thing about the kid you've picked."
Something good and something bad about young Midoriya?
"W-well, he ran out into the street during a villain attack to save another student from being suffocated, even though he is quirkless. The heroes and police on the scene were ignoring the problem because none of them had a quirk that would allow them to easily solve the situation without getting their hands dirty. He has the spirit of a true hero!"
"Quirkless, huh? Interesting. And of course he has the spirit of a true hero, Toshi, if he didn't you wouldn't have picked him!" the voice on the other line replied, the sarcasm dripping through the phone. "You're better than Mirai, I already know you're choosing him for the right reasons. I'm asking you to tell me something about him I can't just guess."
Something Torino couldn't guess that would be meaningful? Toshinori didn't have to think very hard about that.
"He has Nana's smile. And her compassion. I haven't known him for very long, but from what little I've seen, the teenager he saved is some sort of childhood bully. After the incident was over, the bully confronted him. They both thought they were alone, but I was watching from a rooftop. The bully screamed at him, told him that he was a quirkless weakling and that they didn't need any help, especially not from someone like him. And the kid smiled back. He ran out into the street to save somebody who hates him, and he did it with a smile. I've been faking it for my entire career, trying to imitate Nana as a homage. But his isn't fake, he's not imitating anybody. He has her smile."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. "I see." the voice said, oddly flat and emotionless.
And something bad about him? Well. Toshinori could pretend he didn't see it, but pretending wouldn't help young Midoriya. He needed to be honest if the kid was going to make any progress.
"But he has serious confidence issues. He doesn't seem to have much self-value at all, and it's not surprising, because like I said, he's quirkless. I'm pretty sure that's why he's being bullied, the other kid outright said it. You and I are both on the same page about arrogant heroes, but he's all the way on the very opposite end of that, he has no self-confidence at all. It's going to be a problem that needs fixing."
There was another long silence. Toshinori started to sweat. He had given the best and most honest answers he could, but years of training with the older hero had instilled a certain fear in him. A quiet Gran Torino was a dangerous Gran Torino.
"Text me the details of where you're training the kid, and I'll be there tomorrow. What's his name?"
Toshinori let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. Whatever test this was, it seems he and his boy had passed it.
"Izuku. His name is Midoriya Izuku."
Izuku screamed bloody murder when he found the body.
Toshinori heaved a sigh when he heard the scream. Torino did this exact same stunt every single time he got new students. He vividly remembered his own first day at UA, when Torino had done this to his entire class. He had used a paper plate with sausage links covered in ketchup to fake being disemboweled, and allowed the class to find his 'corpse.' Torino called it situational awareness training.
Toshinori and the rest of his class had learned quickly that Torino's sense of humor was an experience, and the best you could do was buckle up and endure it. 'Situational awareness training' was code for 'being aggressively pranked and emotionally manipulated,' and if you were lucky, fake dead bodies shoved into lockers and air vents, glitter bomb traps inside desks or under toilet seats, and surprise attacks during other normal classes ('situational combat training') were as bad as it would get.
Lord help you if you managed to do something the former teacher considered to warrant a real punishment. Toshinori had once seen a particularly arrogant and disruptive student in a year below him get 'punished' by Torino arranging for over a dozen students in other classes that had lagging grades to gang stalk him for extra credit. He called it "stealth and reconnaissance training." Three weeks later, the kid was a nervous wreck, and he never bullied somebody for having a weak or villainous quirk ever again.
Some parents and a few of the more privileged students had complained about Torino's methods. But when, out of conditioned reflex from all the 'situational combat training,' a female UA student put six would-be molesters in traction during a weekend outing without even using her quirk in five seconds flat, it was hard to argue with the results. Torino had complimented her for her "sub-one second takedown speed," and told her to keep up the good work. She had.
A muffled "I'm alive!" was shouted from behind a pile of washing machines and discarded car parts, followed by several thumps and a muffled yelp. A few moments later, two figures emerged. Young Midoriya was pale and sweating, still shaking slightly from the shock, a long line of sand clinging to the side of his shirt from where he'd been knocked off his feet.
Toshinori sympathized. Immensely.
The other figure was slightly shorter than the teen. Torino had never been very tall, and he'd shrunk some in his old age. Today, the white-haired 80-year-old retired pro was wearing flip-flops with exercise socks, a bright tropical pair of swim trunks, and a palm-tree patterned Hawaiian shirt. A large red stain of what appeared to be a cherry ice cone with extra syrup had been smashed into the man's chest, giving a passable imitation of a stab wound. A maniacal grin and sharp, glittering eyes that had lost none of their edge to the passing of time completed the ensemble.
"I found your little hero embryo!" the old man crowed, wiping down the front of his polyester tropical shirt with some folded napkins. Naturally, the retired pro favored clothes and fabrics that didn't stain or get ruined when anything he might use to fake being dead got on them. "I know you said he had no experience, but you really meant none, didn't you Toshi? He didn't even try and dodge my leg sweep!"
Izuku let out a whine like a small, frightened dog.
Toshinori sighed. It was going to be a rough ten months.
It didn't take long for Torino to realize something very important about Midoriya Izuku. He was a massive quirk fanboy. They hadn't been talking for five minutes before the kid wanted to know what his own quirk was, and after a brief explanation of "there are air holes in my feet that let me jet around," it was off to the races with one question after another. Where did the air come from, could he fly, how high, what kind of air pressure could he output, what's the fastest he's ever traveled, were his feet tougher than normal or more fragile.
Some people might find such a barrage of questions to be aggravating, creepy, or even somewhat invasive of their privacy. After all, for better or worse, this was an age of superhumans. Most people these days saw their quirk as a fundamental part of their identity.
Sorahiko Torino was not most people. When he looked at Izuku's boundless curiosity and aggressive, analytical intelligence, he saw an unsharpened knife lying on the floor, just waiting for somebody to realize what it was and hone an edge onto it.
Toshinori, by contrast, was starting to realize just how much he stood to learn about teaching from watching his former teacher and co-mentor work with young Midoriya. Most people would have been overwhelmed by the questions Izuku was asking. They would have told him to slow down, or to stop entirely and focus on his assigned fitness training instead. Even he himself had done such a thing on the day they first met, telling young Midoriya to "quit nerding out" when Toshinori was trying to explain something to him and the boy kept asking more questions.
Instead, Torino forced structure onto the teenager. He used the boy's own inquisitive nature as bait, happily answering every question he could think up, for a price. One sit up per question. To Toshinori's shock, the boy did it. They were still new to the program he had put together, he knew the kid had not done any conditioning or core training yet. He hadn't scheduled anything like this until two weeks into moving trash around. And yet there the young man was, happily doing exercises ahead of schedule just to sate his curiosity.
Toshinori had the sudden impression that he should perhaps be taking notes for his future career at UA. This was an excellent practical example of spurring a student on using their personal interests as leverage. He had seen young Midoriya's notebook on heroes and their quirks during the Sludge Villain incident when he gave the boy an autograph. Perhaps he needed a notebook of his own?
Torino was leading the boy along, buying time. It was easy to fall back into old teaching habits, telling the kid to drop and give him a push-up or a sit-up for every question. He was stalling because he was re-evaluating what he was dealing with. Toshinori had called him to help teach the kid about One For All, to help him understand it. And to hopefully give him tips on how to use it without killing himself or everyone around him once he inherited it.
And Torino was going to do that. However. Some things had changed.
This boy was clearly intelligent. Much more so than Toshinori or even Torino himself had been at that age. Standing here and seeing it first-hand, the retired pro was a lot less surprised that Toshinori had swallowed his poorly disguised fear and called him in for help. It was, shockingly, the right move to make. Maybe you could teach an old dog new tricks after all.
In Torino's opinion, Toshinori should have figured out how to ask for help when he was in over his head about forty years ago. But better late than never.
Torino had come expecting to have to train a young gorilla, another muscleheaded punch hero. Plant claymore with front facing the enemy. Pure of heart and clenched of ass. The sort of person that twit Mirai keeps statuettes of in his office. Instead, he got this. The kid was smart, clearly. But how smart? That was the question.
After a few moments of answering questions about his own quirk, Torino thought he'd put together a good enough plan of attack. The kid was a fanboy who clearly knew a great deal about quirks. He could use that. He'd lead the kid into a discussion about quirks and quirk history, ask the kid some questions, and see how well he did. He'd start with questions the kid wouldn't know, and work his way down to the kid's level, wherever that was. It would be a measuring stick of where the kid stood, and he could also use it to help explain the history of One For All and what the kid should be expecting from it. Two birds with one stone.
"Tell me kid, what do you know about the Quirk Singularity?"
Izuku smiled so brightly that the old man regretted not bringing a pair of sunglasses to the beach. "You mean Dr. Garaki's theory on the Quirk Singularity, right? Or the Quirk Apocalypse Theory, as some people have called it? It was called the Paranormal Singularity Theory first, but then people started attacking his reputation and some people began calling it the Quirk Apocalypse Theory, which is really just an unfair misrepresentation of-"
Okay then. Scratch that. Torino had been expecting curiosity and confusion. Instead, the kid apparently knew Garaki Kyudai by name. So much for that plan. And the Quirk Apocalypse Theory? The only people who had ever used that name were Humarise, an obscure anti-superhuman cult that had been eradicated before Toshinori had even been born, and some of the last few remaining followers of Destro and the Meta Liberation army that had been mopped up in the last century. How did he know the term Quirk Apocalypse Theory? Where the hell did Toshinori find this kid?
Focus. Pivot. Adapt. He can work with this.
"Alright, kid" Torino said, interrupting the breathless rant of the teenager in front of him. "Let's try this. I want you to explain quirks and the Quirk Singularity Theory to me like I know nothing. I just stepped out of a time machine from the pre-quirk era or something, and it's your job to bring me up to speed. Start from the beginning, and try not to go off on any tangents. I'll let you know if you do. We'll do a light jog while you talk."
The teenager scrambled to his feet, all gangly arms and curly hair, and the two of them moved up the beach, off of the sand and away from the trash. Torino guided the boy up to the long sidewalk that ran parallel down the entire beachfront. Toshinori fell in step next to them as they started jogging and matched their pace, a look of curiosity on his face.
"It started about 200 years ago," Izuku said as he settled into his stride. "A child was born in Quing Quing, China. They had the power to emit light from their body. People called it the luminescent baby. Soon, children were being born all over the world that had strange powers. Today, we call these quirks, but back then, they were known as meta abilities or mutations.
"The sudden appearance of meta abilities caused chaos. Governments collapsed. Revolutions were staged. Several wars were fought. Some people started worshiping meta abilities, while others saw them as dangerous or even a kind of disease that needed to be cured. Some countries feared meta abilities so much they tried to hunt down the people who had them. The disruption of international supply lines and infrastructure caused famines all across the world, especially in developing nations or in heavily industrialized nations that relied on importing food.
"This period of time was called the Dawn of Quirks, and the chaos it brought lasted for over a century. Before the Dawn of Quirks, the human population was nearly nine billion. After a century, the population had dropped to slightly less than one billion. It was the largest die-off of humans in known history. China, India, and Africa bore the brunt of the damage, but every nation felt the effects to some extent."
Torino nodded as they rounded a corner of the beach and started jogging down a new stretch of the waterfront, just as polluted and trashed as the first area. So far, this was all correct, but barring a few details, it was also very basic. He'd expect any ten year old to be able to tell him this, or at least he hoped they could. Who knows what they were teaching kids in the schools these days.
Time to poke with some questions and see what kind of answers he got.
"When did meta abilities become quirks?"
"Destro," Izuku replied immediately. "Full name Yotsubashi Chikara, villain name Destro. Born in Japan around two decades prior to the end of the Dawn of Quirks. The quirk he possessed is unknown, I'm sorry, I tried to find out what it was once but everywhere I looked I couldn't find anything. I tried asking around, but-"
"Young Midoriya, you could not find it because it is classified information," Toshinori supplied gently, cutting off the teen's spiraling tangent.
"Yeah kiddo, don't worry about it. The fact that you couldn't find out what his quirk was means our tax dollars are working. For now, anyway. Tell me what Destro has to do with quirks."
"Um, sorry. Yotsubashi Chikara, nicknamed Destro. The Dawn of Quirks was chaotic, but the various governments of developed nations reasserting law and order is what ended it. One of the new laws put in place in Japan to maintain order was the Meta Ability Public Use Act, which restricted and regulated the usage of meta abilities. If you were caught using your superpower without a license or without government approval, you could be fined or even put in prison.
"Yotsubashi was opposed to this, claiming that using your own quirk was an inherent human right, and that as long as you weren't breaking the law with it, there was no reason you could not use your quirk as you pleased. He received a lot of support from mutant-type quirks, whose quirk is a permanent fixture of their body, as well as from people who have quirks that are always on and cannot be turned off. There were concerns about how a law forbidding public quirk usage would affect people whose quirk is something like bird wings or their hair being made of fire. As the law was written, it would effectively ban people like that from being in public at all."
"And that law hasn't been changed, either, just amended to allow 'reasonable' exceptions," Torino grunted.
"That's true," Toshinori added. "They pushed the responsibility off of the law and onto judges and police officers to decide what was or was not reasonable. It was a poor compromise that is open to being abused. But please, keep going young Midoriya."
Izuku nodded, collecting his thoughts before continuing.
"Yotsubashi lobbied to have the Public Use Act overturned, and nearly got enough support to achieve it, but then the newly reformed Japanese provisional government shut him down and labeled his political group domestic terrorists. Over two-thirds of his supporters were arrested or killed, and Yotsubashi and his remaining allies fled. While in exile, he took the name 'Destro," and his supporters named themselves the Meta Liberation Army. They declared their intention to overthrow the provisional government of Japan by any means necessary.
"After twelve years of terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare, the Meta Liberation Army was eventually dismantled and Destro was arrested. There were calls to have him publicly executed, but the provisional government of Japan was afraid that it would incite copycats, since Destro still had some popular support in spite of his terrorism. So instead they imprisoned him for life, hoping that he would rot away and be forgotten."
Torino glanced sidways at Toshinori as they jogged, gesturing at the teen jogging between them with his chin and raising a questioning eyebrow. Toshinori shrugged helplessly. The taller blonde looked just as confused and surprised at the teen knowing all of this as Torino felt.
"While in jail, Destro wrote a book called Meta Liberation War that was both his autobiography and his manifesto. In the book, he credits his mother as having coined the word 'quirk' in reference to meta abilities. Apparently, he had been persecuted as a child because his own quirk was dangerous and difficult to control, and his mother defended him by saying that his powers were "just another quirk of his." This is the first known usage of the word quirk to refer to superpowers. His mother was later lynched by a mob for defending him, and Destro credits her life and death as his inspiration for the revolution. As a result, Destro's mother became known as 'The Mother of Quirks.' So the word 'quirk' was first used by Destro and the Meta Liberation Army as part of what could be considered the creation myth of their political cult.
"However, in spite of how clean-cut Destro makes the events sound in Meta Liberation War, it was never that simple. I've done independent research on the topic by going through historical archives. His group was accused of domestic terrorism and shut down because numerous people affiliated with him were behaving like terrorists. Buildings were bombed, people were assassinated. Destro was winning a popularity contest against the Japanese government with a certain segment of society, but he was still committing crimes and murdering people. Destro tried to point the finger at the government for jumping the gun in his book, but that was a lie. He never cared that his own people were behaving like terrorists when it benefited him."
And now they were starting to get into the meat of things. The luminescent baby was known worldwide, and the general events of the Dawn of Quirks were common knowledge. When almost 90% of humanity dies off, people don't forget about it, and it's only natural that the information would make it into general education. That was typical.
But Yotsubashi Chikara's life story? That was another matter. This was not information your typical teenager, or even your average adult, would know. It was rough and unpolished, but the kid had just given the outline of what could probably be a graduate level paper on Destro, the Mother of Quirks, and the Meta Liberation Army.
And he was… how old was this Midoriya kid again? Middle school these days overran into what used to be high school, and most 'high schools' these days were what used to be university level in Torino's day, UA included. But even so, this kid couldn't be a day over sixteen. Seventeen at the very outside. Unbelievable.
The kid had read Meta Liberation Army. There was no way he hadn't, he'd practically admitted he had. Torino wondered where he got a copy. The kid had probably grabbed it off the internet somewhere. And then he had done independent historical research? On his own? Just to sate his own curiosity? Torino knew about those records, they were a dumpster fire. Good recordkeeping stopped sometime around twenty years into the Dawn of Quirks, and didn't start back up until decades after it ended.
Saying 'I looked up some things' about Yotsubashi Chikara is like saying he took a short hike up Mt. Everest. The kid would have needed to spend months sifting through library archives to find the court transcripts and public arrest warrants to refute Destro's story. He doubted any of it was online or digital, either, it would have been all analogue, actual paperwork that was stored and filed away.
Torino knew professional analysts and researchers who would balk at having to do that kind of legwork for a salary. And this kid did it for free. To sate his curiosity. Because he read a banned, taboo book about criminals with quirks, smelled something fishy, and needed answers.
Torino knew his contacts in the police department would kill him for poaching this kid for heroics. Those old foagies with badges and coffee mugs dreamed about police cadets like this.
Too bad. Finders keepers. Maybe Torino would throw his old drinking buddies a bone and get the kid a consulting license. It never hurt for a career hero to start helping the police early, and there was no age limit on those as long as you had a sponsor and could pass the tests. In an age of superhumans, a teenage PI would hardly turn heads.
"Alright then," Torino said as the three of them turned the last corner of the sidewalk lining the beach, and began jogging towards a distant cul-de-sac where they would have to turn around and go back. "So we get the word quirk from Destro's mother. So what's the singularity theory?"
Izuku's eye's sparkled, and his smile was blindingly bright.
"It's so fascinating! Dr. Garaki was born at the beginning of the Dawn of Quirks, and his quirk was a simple longevity power that slowed the rate at which he would age. It was a simple quirk, but it was so cool, because its simplicity made it strong! There were no drawbacks or anything! Dr. Garaki went into medicine, but because quirks were appearing all over the world, he also studied them. He survived through the entire Dawn of Quirks, and around eighty years ago he published a series of papers that contained all of his observations and findings on the phenomena of superhumans!"
The trio rounded the cul-de-sac at the end of the beach and started jogging back, seagulls crying from the rocks of the breakwall in the distance. "I assume that you've read those papers, then?" Torino asked, already knowing the answer to his question.
"Oh gosh, absolutely! You can find copies of all of his work online if you know where to look. I've got all of his published papers saved on my PC! Dr. Garaki is credited for identifying the two general trends of quirks, which is that they grow more powerful and more complex with each passing generation, not weaker or simpler! He's also the one who originally realized that quirks were hereditary, and that a child's quirk could be predicted by looking at the quirks of the parents! They aren't always the same, sometimes new functions or traits appear, or the powers of the parents combine in strange and unexpected ways, but the trend is still there!"
"So what exactly is the singularity then, kid?" Torino prodded, trying to keep the excitable teen on track. Clearly, the closer the topic got to quirks and how they work, the more energetic the kid became. A true quirk nerd indeed.
"Well, that's in Dr. Garaki's last paper. The papers before that were about his observations of quirks so far. His last paper was what he believed would happen with quirks in the future. In it, he claimed that since the trend of quirks is that they're getting stronger and more complicated, that eventually a generation of people would come about whose quirks are too powerful and too complex to be controlled. He used data from past generations of quirks to hypothesize that this would occur in the ninth consecutive generation of quirks intermarrying.
"He predicted that the seventh generation would be peak in terms of controllable power. That the eighth generation would be unstable and have a lot of random mutations and throwbacks to ancestral quirks whose powers hadn't manifested in generations. And that the ninth generation would be the tipping point, and over 90% of quirks on the planet would become uncontrollable threats to their users and everyone around them.
"Dr. Garaki didn't propose any particular solutions to these predicted problems, but did warn in his last paper that if solutions were not found and agreed upon ahead of time, that the human species as a whole could be in danger of extinction from out-of-control quirks. However, his papers were not well-received. It's so unfair! Everything in his last paper is simply a logical deduction drawn from things he already proved in his previous papers, nobody disputes that. But because the last paper warned that the singularity would be dangerous, people attacked his findings and slandered him!"
Izuku was gesticulating wildly at this point, waving his hand in consternation as he jogged. It would be obvious even to a blind man that he was appalled and offended on Garaki's behalf. "I've read the supposed rebuttals, none of them actually explain why his conclusions are wrong! They just beg the question, or attack his character! Some of them even accuse him of proposing mass eugenics to 'solve' an 'imaginary' problem! There's so many things wrong with that claim I don't even know where to start! For one, he never made any proposal on how to avoid the singularity, he just warned it was coming. For another, eugenics probably would fix it, but there are obviously other ways! It's just groundless accusations and slander made by people who don't want to face the facts!"
Izuku's shoulder's slumped slightly, the wind of righteous indignation seeming to stall and fall out of him. "Those papers were Dr. Garaki's life work, and publishing them ruined him. He withdrew from the public eye a few years after the fallout from his findings. I don't know enough about his longevity quirk to guess if he's still alive, but I imagine he would be. I've tried to look him up, to find more of his work or to even see if he's still involved in medicine and quirk analysis, but it's like he fell off the face of the earth. I don't really blame him, if something like that happened to me, I don't know what I'd do."
Torino turned to glance across to the other side of the jogging teen that had talked himself into a funk. Staring straight into Toshinori's eyes, he mouthed 'where did you find this kid?'
For the second time that day, Toshinori shrugged helplessly at his mentor. The shorter, older man rolled his eyes. Leave it to Toshi to pick one random reckless teen out of millions and somehow find the genius savant that reads medical papers and banned political literature for fun.
At least Torino had his answer to how smart the kid was.
"Alright, kiddo, good job. I'm pretty well informed on most of the topics you discussed," and the fact that the kid seemed to know details Torino didn't was a kettle of fish for later, not now, "and I think you did a pretty good job. So now it's time for a pop quiz."
The scrawny teen looked at the older man in curiosity as they started in on the final stretch of their jog leading back to their starting point.
"Given everything you've just told me and what you know about Garaki and his theories, why don't you use those fanboy powers of yours and guess how many people have held One For All before Toshi here got it?"
Izuku hummed, his eyes brightening at the challenge. "Well, I mean, my immediate guess would be that All Might is the seventh, right? Assuming that each hand off of One For All counts as a generation, which is the only reason you'd ask about the singularity in the first place. All Might said it gets stronger each time it's passed on, so obviously it must work the same as quirks naturally becoming stronger and more complex with each generation.
"But that's so interesting, it means that One For All is actually evolving faster than other quirks, according to Dr. Garaki's theories! Because you don't have to wait for children, you can just hand it off. So it would logically be seven, with how powerful All Might is. Dr. Garaki theorized that would be the pinnacle of controllable power. But… "
Izuku trailed off, a far-away look appearing in his eyes. Toshinori had seen that look before on both of his past sidekicks: his support technician David Shield and Sasaki Mirai, also known as pro hero Nighteye. Both David and Nighteye were geniuses in their own right, and that was the look both of them got when they had realized something important.
"You're the top hero in the whole world, but nobody actually knows what your quirk really is." Izuku mumbled under his breath. "It's widely considered to be the strongest quirk in existence, but nobody knows exactly what it does. I mean obviously I know now, because you told me: it's a strength stockpile that's become incredibly strong. But I've seen the arguments and debates about it on the internet. I've even participated in some of them! Everybody always guesses super strength or invincibility first, but that gets shot down because of all the weird things that have happened during your career. Any real All Might fan that's been paying attention knows about it!"
Toshinori smiled. "Yes, young Midoriya, a lot of very weird things did happen during my career, that's true."
Izuku nodded absently in agreement as they continued to jog back towards the truck and their starting point on the beach. "And that's why it's always been a huge debate about what the quirk really is. The obvious answer is super strength, but that's not it. When you fought Shockvolt, you slapped his lightning bolts away. You physically manipulated his lightning with your bare hands. During the fight with Toxic Chainsaw, you stopped falling, you actually floated for a moment to catch a civilian that was thrown out a window. I've seen so many internet arguments about that, it's why one of the most popular fan theories about your power is that you're a super-telekinetic. And there's that time during one of your hero tours in America where you managed to set your fist on fire with friction, which super strength might explain, but definitely not how you didn't burn yourself with it. Then there was that time you fought Buster Brute, and he actually managed to break your arm, but you just flexed and the injury went away!
"To say nothing of the fact that you can transform! You got crippled, you shouldn't be able to even be a hero anymore, but you can literally turn back into a healthy version of yourself in a puff of smoke! That's crazy! It also explains why nobody's ever seen you when you're off the clock, you're literally in a different form, but that's beside the point. That's like a completely different classification of quirk, just for that! There's so many little strange things that don't add up about the fights and rescues in your career, it's almost like…"
A lightbulb went on behind the teenager's eyes.
"… it's almost like you have a bunch of different random quirk effects manifesting at convenient times," Izuku said breathlessly, slowing down and turning to stare at his hero idol. "You're not the strongest seventh. You're the unstable eighth. You're the eighth user of One For All."
The gaunt civilian form of Yagi Toshinori smiled at the young man like he'd just won the lottery and was planning to buy his boy everything he'd ever wanted. Torino couldn't blame him, he was grinning too. The ascendant nerd. This kid could give Nighteye a run for his money. If they could teach the kid to weaponize analysis like that, he'd be unstoppable whether he had a quirk or not.
"Ten out of ten, kid," Torino said. "If you were a student of mine at UA, I'd give you full marks." The old pro grinned mischievously. "Now that you've figured that out, tell me, what do you think is going to happen when he gives this thing to you?"
For the first time since they had started, Izuku stopped jogging. His breath caught in his throat. He was staring off into the distance, seeing nothing, because he was blinded by all of the thoughts flickering past his eyes. No. Surely not.
"That's right, kiddo. Welcome to the future. You're going to be the first human in history to wield a singularity quirk, five generations ahead of schedule. That's why this gorilla called me in. I'm here to help you learn what you're going to need to have a chance of handling it."
Izuku's eyes were out of focus. His hands twitched, fingers flexing. Torino and Toshinori both watched him as he seemed to involuntarily reach for a notebook he didn't have before jerking slightly. A half second later, he reached up and tapped the side of his ear, like he was looking for a pencil that was usually perched there. His breathing slowed down, evening out. His eyes came back into focus, and he stared straight into Torino's own.
"I have so many questions," he said.
The geriatric pro grinned ferally. "I hope for your sake the first one is 'what do I need to do to get my body in good enough shape to inherit the quirk and pass the UA entrance exam.' Break time is over, zygote. This beach won't clean itself."
The teenager jerked slightly as he came back to reality. Glancing rapidly back and forth between the two men and the trash covered beach, he started stammering apologies as he ran back to where he had been cleaning before being surprise pranked by Torino's little dead body joke.
Sorahiko Torino sighed, watching the kid run off until he was outside of hearing range.
"Toshinori, what the hell have you gotten me involved with this time?"
The hero known to the world as All Might didn't have an answer for him. Truth be told, Torino wasn't expecting one. He didn't think either of them had quite been prepared for this.
Torino was on a mission. After meeting the teen Toshinori had chosen to be his successor earlier that morning, he had volunteered to walk the kid to school to make sure he made it there safely. Once the young man was tucked away in his classes, the retired pro had discreetly paid a visit to Aldera Junior High instead of leaving. His pro hero license may have expired, but his Private Investigator's license had not, and he had used it to speak briefly with several teachers and gain access to the school's academic records. It wasn't an unusual request, as high schools and finishing schools were often approached like this when students were leaving those institutions to apply for various hero academies.
Everyone there had assumed he was there to check up on some student named Bakugo. Torino was canny enough to allow them believe it. What he had found there made him angrier than he could remember being in a long time. The last time he had felt like this… had Nana still been alive?
She had been. The last time he had felt like this was when the two of them busted that human trafficking ring. The one that was kidnapping children.
Torino had questions that needed answers. He also had some ideas about Izuku's academic future that would need parental consent to work. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, he looked up a home address and decided to loop the boy's parents into things as soon as possible. Since the kid was still at school and would be for several hours, now was the perfect time for a home visit.
Double checking his phone to make sure he had the right place, the retired pro knocked on the door and waited. He had considered wearing his hero uniform for this, but opted for civilian clothes instead, since he didn't think dressing like a pro would help with first impressions. He had ditched the swim trunks and Hawaiian shirt from earlier that morning for something he typically wore on a more normal day. Work jeans, a plaid collared shirt, and cowboy boots with a leather belt completed his outfit.
Like all his shoes, the boots were custom made with vented holes on the bottom to accommodate his quirk. Sorahiko 'Gran' Torino had lived to be an old man with no seriously debilitating injuries in a field where good people died young and the talented often found themselves getting carried away from scenes on stretchers. He credited his health and old age to what he called 'rightfully justified paranoia.' He was a relic from a time when there was no distinction between the so called "daylight" and "underground" heroes, and he was always prepared to turn on the jets at a moment's notice, no matter where he was or what he was wearing.
It had saved his life more than once.
Torino smiled at the plump, middle aged woman who opened the door. "Hello! Would you happen to be Midoriya Inko? I'm here to talk to you about your son, Izuku."
"Oh no. Where is he!? Is he hurt!?"
The old man waved his hands, trying to calm the green haired woman down as she began to panic and tear up. "No, no, nothing's wrong! He's actually doing great! I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. Are you aware that your son has applied for UA?"
Several minutes later, the two adults were sitting down in the kitchen with a fresh cup of tea in front of each of them. It had taken several minutes to calm Inko down and get her to accept that nothing was wrong and that her son was safe. 'At least now I know where the kid's anxiety comes from,' Torino thought to himself. 'We'll have to work on that.'
Torino pulled out his expired Hero License and slid it across the table for the housewife. "As you can see, I'm a retired pro. I'm a friend of another hero by the name of Yagi Toshinori. You've probably never heard of him, but that's fine. He prefers things that way. Toshinori was injured quite severely during a villain attack a few years ago, and since then he's been on the lookout for kids with talent to mentor. He stumbled across your son, and he saw some potential in him. UA is Toshinori's Alma Mater, and I used to be a teacher there a long time ago before I got out of the hero business. So when we found out that it was your son's dream to attend and become a hero, we decided to help him out."
Torino took a long breath, and then let it out. Here was the hard part.
"Ma'am, we understand that your son was diagnosed as quirkless? We actually have reason to believe that your son does have a quirk. Or at least, that he will have a quirk very soon."
What remained of the teary-eyed and worried Midoriya Inko disappeared. The flinty-eyed glare that was left in it's place took Torino by surprise.
"Explain," she said, in a tone that brooked absolutely zero nonsense. Torino swallowed.
"Toshinori was also diagnosed as quirkless for his entire life, he has the third toe joint and everything, just like your son. But in his late teens he managed to spontaneously develop a quirk factor that had not been seen in him during the testing. It was a strength stockpiling quirk. The reason he was able to manifest it is because he was able to bulk up and become more physically fit. The professionals who examined him after it manifested believe that the reason it didn't show earlier is because his body couldn't handle the stress of the quirk coming in until he had improved his physical fitness. Most quirks these days come with secondary mutations that help them function. But not all do, and some experts believe the loss of the toe joint has something to do with that.
"Basically, if your body doesn't have the proper modifications for a quirk to function correctly, it might not function at all. So if Toshinori had never bothered to get in top physical shape, then his quirk might have never appeared, because being in shape is what was required for his quirk to function. His body didn't come with that feature, he had to create it himself."
"That's very interesting," the green haired mother said, in a tone of voice that made it clear she did not mean what she said at all. "What exactly does this have to do with my son?"
Torino took a sip of his tea, collecting his thoughts. This was a very well-rehearsed lie, and the evidence to support it had already been created and inserted into the system decades ago to help Toshinori become All Might. He had to make sure he kept his details straight.
"Toshinori was originally going to encourage your son to become a hero anyway, but after getting to know him a little better, he realized that your son was exactly like him. He had all the same signs and symptoms that Toshinori originally had. That's why Toshinori has taken a focused interest in training him personally. The workout routine, the meal plan that your son brought home the other day, that was all Toshinori's doing. It's not just about getting the kid into UA, though that's definitely our goal. It's also about helping your son get a quirk that he might never have accessed otherwise. We believe that your son will manifest a strength or energy stockpiling quirk of some kind in about ten months time, assuming he sticks to the schedule we've put together for him."
The green haired woman continued to stare at the old man for a long moment. Torino was deeply impressed with her ability to look intimidating while wearing sweatpants and a pullover sweater with kittens on it. "Do you what my day job is, Mr. Sorahiko?" Inko asked.
The grey haired ex-hero shook his head, curiosity in his eyes.
"I'm a lawyer," she said, sliding a card of her own across the table for Toshinori to look at. "And I'd like to know why I should think this is anything besides some kind of scam."
Toshinori glanced at the card, and he felt his blood run cold. She wasn't joking. Even as far removed from the hero game as he was, he had heard of her firm. They specialized in prosecuting cases against corrupt heroes, and they had gained a reputation as career killers. Just last year, her firm had taken out one of the top thirty Japanese pros, Wild Bolt. He had been embezzling agency funds and exploiting legal loopholes in the system designed to fund repairs for collateral damage caused during villain attacks and natural disasters to to get away with tax evasion. The profile for the case had been sky-high, and it had turned into a media circus when all of Wild Bolt's skeletons came falling out of the closet. It had been all the news had talked about for months.
When he had gotten up this morning, Sorahiko Torino had not been expecting to be sitting in the kitchen of one of the most notorious shark lawyers in the Japanese hero industry.
Fortunately, Torino was a professional, and like all professional, he could improvise with the best of them. He may not have come today expecting to face down one of the scariest 'Hero Buster' lawyers in the business, but he had come prepared to have his legitimacy questioned. And he had a trump card.
"I understand your concerns, ma'am, and I'm honestly happy you're suspicious of me. This certainly does seem too good to be true from a certain perspective. But I can assure you, it's not a scam." He reached into the hip pocket of his jeans and pulled out some paperwork before handing the papers across the table. Inko took them and began reading what he had given her. As the seconds ticked by, her eyes became wider and wider.
"As you can see, Yagi Toshinori is employed by Might Tower, All Might's pro agency. He may seem like an unassuming lunkhead, but he has a lot of connections in the business, and his reputation is clean. That paperwork also has the contact information for the Might Tower's front desk, just in case you'd like to call them and verify that he is actually an employee of the Might Agency.
"And I may be formally retired by virtue of not bothering to renew my hero license, but I should also still be listed under the Might Agency as a consultant with the credentials of a personal trainer, a quirk counselor, and a private investigator. So if you'd like to ask about me as well, feel free. You can also contact UA if you'd like, they will confirm that I taught there and that Toshinori is a former student and graduate in good standing."
Inko stood up from the table and pulled a cellphone out of her pocket. Glancing at the paperwork to make sure she had the numbers right, she quickly dialed before holding the phone up to her ear and stepping out into the hall. Torino sipped his tea and let his eyes wander around the kitchen while Midoriya's mother asked all of the questions Torino had expected a worried parent to ask, as well as quite a few questions that only a particularly good lawyer would think of.
His hearing wasn't good enough to eavesdrop on the answers, but he didn't need to. He already knew everything the front desk was telling her. Yagi Toshinori was an established alternate identity with an entire career's worth of credentials totally separate from the pro hero All Might. Even the deepest and most invasive background checks would show him as a modest hero with a strength stockpiling quirk that had a long but largely uninteresting history of minor street heroism and desk work at the Might Agency before being crippled by a villain attack several years ago, resulting in his pivot away from street work and into a part-time secretary position for the agency. His record wasn't made to be completely clean, because that would be suspicious, but besides a few parking tickets and a fabricated incident of getting thrown in the drunk tank of a Musutafu police office once twenty years ago, Toshinori's personal history was spotless.
This fabrication was also completely legal, as many underground heroes needed to keep their hero identities secret and separate from their public ones to protect them from the enemies they made on the job. This perk was also offered to any daylight heroes who had families or were worried about their own personal safety when off the clock, though not all of them accepted it, as it generally meant less fame and recognition. As Toshinori held an Underground Hero's License, his alternate identity was not only completely legal, but actively protected by law.
On top of that, All Might's own legitimate paperwork contained even further layers of deception that had all been expertly put together and backdated into the system to hide the existence of One For All. According to his official sealed and classified records, Yagi Toshinori had been misdiagnosed as quirkless when a child, and in his late teens he accidentally achieved quirk factor activation in a gym while lifting weights.
The incident of him throwing a three hundred pound barbell through the roof and several hundred yards into the air never happened, but it was well documented nonetheless.
From there, his documentation showed that he transferred into the hero course track at UA, graduated with honors, and became the pro hero known as All Might. The separate identity existed at his request as a top pro to give him some privacy in his personal life, and he held an Underground License to further insulate his civilian identity from media scrutiny and the public eye. Most people would never see this extra, equally false paperwork, but even if Mrs. Midoriya could somehow use her contacts as a hero lawyer to obtain the classified information hidden behind Toshinori's underground license, all it would accomplish is identifying Yagi Toshinori as the civilian identity of All Might. Which was something they were eventually going to have to tell her about anyway.