Rintaro Nageki, street name Roll-On, never meant to be a villain.
He'd once wanted to be a hero, even passed the first hurdle into Isamu Academy. But his quirk — Roll — wasn't flashy. Not powerful. Just spherical joints that spun like wheels.
He'd tried to impress classmates once, rolling down the skeleton of a half-built coaster track at night. The structure collapsed the next morning, injuries mounting, expulsion swift. That was the end of his "hero dream." His parents gave up. His teachers gave up. His friends quietly stepped away.
Then came the older boy from the neighborhood — the one who laughed too loud, whispered too much. A "big brother" who promised liberation, freedom to use one's power, belonging. Maybe it was hunger for validation. Maybe it was loneliness. Either way, Rintaro listened. He believed.
Except "big brother" wasn't just a delinquent. He was Oxy-Man — a bona fide criminal with a rap sheet longer than a school year.
And now here Rintaro was, clutching a duffel bag full of Trigger capsules he barely understood. He only knew the tall tales Oxy-Man fed him: "One dose, and you're unstoppable. One dose, and you're finally more than the world said you'd be."
So when the raid hit, Rintaro panicked and jammed a trigger. Others did too, but his quirk gave him speed, mobility — enough to slip past the heroes.
His joints whirred into overdrive, body spinning, momentum carrying him forward in a blur. When his heels rolled along the train tracks, sparks bursting red, exhilaration surged through him. For the first time, he felt vindicated. Vindicated for the coaster stunt, for every illegal quirk experiment, for every failure. Look how it's paying off now.
Then came indignation. At parents who'd stared at him with tired eyes. At teachers who had written him off as hopeless. At friends who had quietly cut him loose.
And beneath it all, jealousy — sharp and bitter — for those who would succeed where he had failed. For those naïve fools swarming toward UA, clutching at futures he'd never have.
So he rolled faster, toward the UA Station. Toward the place that had once rejected him. The place teeming with hopefuls who didn't know yet what it meant to fall short.
He didn't notice how warped his thoughts had become, how far the Trigger had twisted him. He only heard the whisper rising from somewhere deep and desperate inside:
'I'm not insignificant… I'm not! I matter!'
------
Ingenium believed heroism meant reaching the danger before it could ever touch the people.
Steady judgment under pressure, swift action when seconds mattered—that, in his eyes, was the true measure of a pro hero.
But today was testing him.
This operation had pulled him off his usual Hosu City patrol routes and into Musutafu. It was an HPSC request—another Trigger bust.
Ever since the incident with Koichi and the villain factory, Team Idaten had become the commission's one of the go-to agencies for operations like this.
With the mobile unit Pit-04's deployment Tensei had launched himself in the feild via the Catapult system, before the villains even realized the perimeter was sealed. Other's fanned out, navigators fed positions, and every member where their single strength mattered most. That was the Idaten way.
Ingenium knew that the first rule of a Trigger raid is to expect the unexpected. Cornered criminals don't think straight; they'll often shoot up the drug, turning a routine takedown into a disaster. That's why good intel is so critical.
The Commission's intel suggested the two gangs involved were filled with mostly low-tier quirks, a handful of mid-tier ones, and two leaders who were hovering at an above-average level. One was a muscle enhancer and the other a wind manipulator. Enigma took on the elemental, and Tensei handled the brute.
It was a straightforward plan.
Except the intel had missed one. A stray. Mobility quirk.
And while Tensei locked down the leader, that stray panicked, jammed Trigger into his veins, and bolted. His speed was ragged, more lurch than stride, but fast enough to slip past the cordon. Fast enough to head straight for the city's busiest station. Straight toward U.A.
His stomach tightened. His thoughts leapt there instantly, to his brother. Tenya.
Selfishly, he found himself grateful for Tenya's almost obsessive punctuality. By now, he was almost certainly inside, probably frightening some poor examinee with his booming voice and knife-sharp posture.
Tensei should have been there that morning. He should have stood beside him before the exam, steadying him, softening his edges. Instead, he had been locked in prep — briefing sidekicks, checking comms, running drills.
He remembered Tenya's hand chopping through the air, his voice booming far louder than necessary:
"Don't worry, Tensei! I shall not let down the Iida name!"
It had made him laugh then. That fire, that earnestness—he loved that about his brother. But Tenya's rigidity sometimes cut too sharp. Stress could make him overbearing. Tensei still recalled the day Tenya had reduced half his classmates to tears, on his first day of primary school, over "Uniform Violations"—nothing but nerves, twisted sideways.
He'd wanted to remind him: Don't let intensity turn unkind. Don't forget to breathe.
But he hadn't gotten the chance.
Now, instead of steadying his little brother, he was sprinting after a Triggered criminal—praying this oversight wouldn't be the mistake that cost everything.
So he did what an Iida does best.
He ran.
'Turbo-speed Tensei, Turbo-speed.'
------
Izuku Midoriya had dreamed of being a hero long before he even understood what the word meant.
Even without a quirk — and with the silence, pity, and outright rejection that came with it — the dream still burned.
He stepped off the train into U.A. Station, the open-air platforms alive with chatter. Nervous examinees clustered in groups, civilians hurried across platforms, and in the distance the academy loomed. The H-shaped building stood proud on its plateau, just a fragment of the sprawling grounds beyond. Forests, mock cities, and colossal training zones stretched for kilometers behind it.
His chest tightened. Excitement pressed against fear, threatening to spiral into panic. He unzipped his backpack, thumb brushing the edges of his battered analysis notebooks. Still there. Still safe. They steadied him. Even without a quirk, with those notes he could guide, advise, coordinate. With a license, even authorize civilians for quirk use. That had been the plan. His plan to be a hero.
Until All Might chose him.
Izuku scratched his neck, remembering the rough scrape of a single hair sliding down his throat.
'He gave me his power. I just… don't know how to use it.. yet.'
A shout split the air.
Izuku's head snapped up. A man barreled through the crowd, eyes bloodshot, his spherical joints spinning so ferociously that they were whipping up whirlwinds.Two uniformed guards — strength-types, by the look of them — twitched on the ground, injection capsules jutting from their skin.
The man screamed, shoulders jerking back, finger joints whirling. Capsules gleamed between his knuckles. He flicked his hands forward. The shots cracked like gunfire, and four more people went down.
Leaves scattered, water burst from broken pipes, the floor fissured, lights flared and died.
Trigger, Izuku realized. A chemical enhancer. It overclocked quirks, boosting output but wrecking control. Not common knowledge — but Izuku knew. He always knew. He dug through forums, blacklists, obscure reports. He analyzed, connected dots, found patterns no one else bothered to see.
And now all of that knowledge told him exactly what was happening.
The villain turned toward a new group — fresh arrivals from Izuku's train. Both arms cocked back this time, capsules bristling between his spinning fingers. Twice as many shots. Twice the devastation.
Targets were a mother and daughter duo with flaming hair, a teenager sprouting extra arms, a tall fox girl, a boy with insect antennae—
Oh.
Izuku realized he was already sprinting.
His mind raced.
'I can't block them all. Half at best'.
His hands yanked at his bag strap. He swung it wide, timing the arc with his dive.
The capsules struck him. A sting, a burn. His body hit the ground hard. The bag thudded against the rest, intercepting what his arms couldn't. Relief flickered. Good. They're safe.
Face pressed to the ground, chest heaving, he tried, "Are you… are all of you fi—"
And then the pain hit.
White-hot. All-consuming.
'I'm quirkless. I shouldn't… I shouldn't feel this—'
The golden hair. The single strand swallowed that morning.
Realization drowned him a second before the true agony did.
Izuku's scream tore the air as the world began to change.
Minds shatter and voices echo in his mind, overlapping, urgent, calling him—
"Nine."
------
Yagi Toshinori did not liked the Symbol of Peace.
Oh, All Might appreciated its necessity.
But for Toshinori, the Symbol, once a life-goal in his younger years, became like a mask painted with grin pressed too tight, rubbing skin raw.
Had anyone asked—Mirai especially—they would have been astonished by how little admiration he held for his own creation. But Nezu was different. The Principal had always seen too much, and here he was now, perched across from him, on his sixth cup of tea and his tenth tirade about the HPSC's exam policies. The rat's sharp face hadn't softened once all morning.
It was about his successor—young Midoriya Izuku.
They had agreed: no contact, no favouritism, no extra pressure piled on a boy already carrying too much. Let the boy come to U.A. on his own feet, free of expectations. Toshinori's choice to transfer One For All on the very day of the exam still didn't sit well with the rat. Yet the he hadn't pressed further, perhaps because he understood Toshinori's reasoning.
All-Might judged the peak condition of both mind and body for his successor would be the perfect time. One For All was a storm, and even a fractional gain in the boy's muscle mass meant better odds of surviving it. Cleaning the beach—every bag dragged, every scrap hauled—wasn't just labor. It was proof. A feat that gave a boy drowning in self-doubt some belief in his own hands. That mattered as much as the power itself.
But the symbol of peace knew the truth. As predicted, substantial portion of his might had already faded with the transfer. The rest bled away daily, chewed by old wounds and time. You cannot be the pillar if all you can offer is a pale echo. So he had spent his remaining months multiplying the patrols, chasing every international case, tackling villains. He wanted, desperately, to narrow the void the Symbol would leave behind.
For Toshinori One-For-All was not merely a super power; it was a torch that light up the despairing sea of the quirkless boy with naïve grand aspirations. It was the last remnant of a mentor who had been, teacher, anchor, and most importantly a second mother. Passing it on was duty—but it felt like unthreading a piece of himself. Sometimes he thought he could still hear her—soft reprimands, a laugh—and he could still feel the warmth of her hand like a pattern along his skin. Of course he understood the duty. Of course he knew the torch must be carried on. But that did nothing to blunt the selfish ache of wanting to keep the feeling a moment longer.
Then the ember inside him shuddered. Not pain. Not fatigue. Something deeper. A ripple surged through his chest, nearly buckling him mid-conversation. A bony arm of golden fire flickered across his mind, unbidden, and his own body lurched upright as if his subconscious had seized the reins.
And then the scream.
It was a sound he would never forget, even if he lived another century. Pain so raw, so total, it rattled every scar and every grief he had endured. And beneath it, he recognized the voice.
"Young Midoriya".
He didn't wait for explanation. He didn't weigh logic. Heroes calculate—but this was not calculation. This was instinct. This was deeper than blood.
The chair toppled. He tore through the staffroom door, bellowing, muscles swelling as if refusing to remember their limits.
"Yagi!" Nezu's sharp cry followed. "Wait!"
But Toshinori couldn't wait. Every instinct screamed he was about to lose his successor.
He ripped through gates, sprinted through the corridor and then the courtyard, shattering the U.A. barriers, and hurled himself toward the Station. The air itself trembled with distant screams. Above, the sky churned—not cloud, not storm, but something else entirely, a pulsing maelstrom of energy that bent the world around it.
He shot toward it like a bullet, filled with determination.
Don't worry, young Midoriya.
"I am here."
------
Principal Nezu, chimeric rat and supposed genius, loathed the Hero Commission as much as any rational creature. But loathing them did not untangle the knot before him.
Aizawa, dependable in his yearly stubbornness, had once again petitioned for an admissions trial that wasn't stacked against students with non-combat quirks. And Nezu, of course, knew he was right. The current system favored the flashy and destructive: quirks that could tear, burn, melt, or blast robots into scrap. Cleverness, subtlety, quirks with human-centered applications—these were quietly filtered out.
Yet what choice did he have?
The villain-bot practical, paired with its rescue-point scenario, was not flawless, but it tested just enough combat and moral instinct to satisfy the present definition of hero work. The alternative—training and fielding live opponents—was a logistical nightmare and political suicide.
Thousands of hopefuls applied each year. Even with the mock-exam's ruthless 0.2% pass rate, managing that scale with human opponents would be chaos. Robots didn't sue. Robots didn't spend weeks in recovery. Robots didn't create scandals in headlines.
And then there was the law. Always the law.
The statute forbidding "outside interference in hero student admissions" had been written decades ago—ironically, by Nezu's own predecessor. Once, it had been a shield: a barrier to keep the Commission's claws from manipulating U.A.'s intake, preventing them from steering society's future like chess pieces.
But that same shield now caged him in. To alter the framework himself—even in good faith—would be to violate the very protection that had safeguarded U.A. for so long.
So Aizawa scowled. Students struggled. And Nezu, as always, drank his tea.
There was, of course, the Sports Festival as a countermeasure—entry into the hero course by merit of performance. The loophole that had once lifted Shouta Aizawa from General Studies. Small consolation.
Across from him, Toshinori sat like a great boulder—silent, taut, forever taut these days. The Symbol of Peace had already made his choice, passing the torch the very morning of the exam. Nezu hadn't pressed. The reasoning was there: the boy's training, his physical readiness, the symbolic victory of clearing Dagobah Beach. All true. All logical. But logic never softened risk. And Nezu, more than most, disliked risk—especially when children bore the cost.
He was about to raise the argument again when Toshinori jerked.
The chair creaked. His frame went rigid, blanching as though struck by lightning. Nezu caught it, just for an instant—the vast ripple across his features. Not pain. Not strain. Fear.
"Young Midoriya," Toshinori whispered.
Then the embers of One For All flared, so violently Nezu felt it in his own fur, prickling like static. Wrong. Something was wrong.
Before Nezu could speak, Toshinori detonated into motion. The chair splintered. The door tore open.
"Yagi!" Nezu barked, claws clinking against porcelain as he slammed his teacup down. "Wait—!"
But Toshinori did not wait.
Muscle bloomed across his frame with a sound like breaking stone. All Might blitz through the corridor like a tornado unbound.
Nezu's paw hovered over the comms. The hero-net lit with Ingenium's alert: possible Trigger outbreak at U.A. Station. His mind, already a whirring through the implications.
Trigger x Newly transferred meta-quirk = chaos.
He pulled surveillance feeds, but the station systems were already fried. So he pivoted, tapping into perimeter cameras. What he saw confirmed his dread: a spiraling storm of raw energy, shredding the sky above the station.
And probably the boy—Toshinori's successor—was in the heart of it.
Nezu switched channels, voice sharp, orders crisp.
"Attention, U.A. Vanguard Squad: emergency at U.A. Station. Some of you have already seen Ingenium's alert. Power Loader—ready the Vanguard Carrier. Eraser Head, Midnight, Ectoplasm, Thirteen: board immediately and establish control. Hound Dog, Vlad King—secure the examinees in the hall. Present Mic, keep them calm. Cementos—reinforce the barrier breach with a temporary wall. Recovery Girl—stand by."
The staff responded without hesitation. Nezu, meanwhile, was already on his feet, scurrying for a deeper wing of U.A.—destination: The Containment Chamber.
If his deductions were correct, they would need it. Something akin to Quirk Awakening was unfolding.
But One For All was no ordinary quirk. Nezu had already predicted the eighth generation might push it to the edge of singularity.
And now—his mind raced toward the conclusion, cold and breathtaking.
'One For All was going beyond singularity.'
------
Shouta Aizawa disliked many things and liked very few.
Naps. Coffee. Cats. That was the short list.
Not that he'd ever admit the third aloud—you'd need a mind-controller for that.
Still, with a full night's sleep behind him and bitter black coffee in hand, today almost counted as good. If Hizashi or Kayama heard him admit that, they'd drag him to a psych eval. Or an exorcist.
But today was different. Today was the practical exam.
He'd cut patrol short, made sure he was rested. The late-night grind of scoring practical tests aside, there was always a chance some over-eager brat would let their quirk spiral out of control. Better to be sharp. Ready. That was why he hated the current laws around quirk use—too rigid, too sanitized, too disconnected from reality. He wasn't a follower of Destro's cultish nonsense, but even he could see the need for sanctioned spaces where kids could actually test the edges of their power.
His own life might have been easier if such a space had existed. Growing up with a quirk that erased quirks wasn't simple. Too many idiots believed quirks were fragments of the soul. Individuality itself. Delusional, in his opinion. Dangerous, too.
He sighed, sipped his coffee, and thought about his rejected proposals. Every year he tried to shift the exam format. Every year denied. The system stayed stacked against kids with subtle quirks.
Smash—Then the door exploded off its hinges, revealing All-Might.
The staff shrieked as All Might thundered past in full muscle form, not even pausing to breathe.
Aizawa didn't need context. Something was wrong.
He instinctively check the comms, confirming it: Ingenium's distress alert. Possible Trigger outbreak at U.A. Station.
Unbelievable. Of all the things...
"Attention, U.A. Vanguard Squad:," Nezu's voice snapped over the comms, sharp and calm at once. "Emergency at U.A station . Some of you have already seen Ingenium's alert. Power Loader—ready the Vanguard Carrier. Eraser Head, Midnight, Ectoplasm, Thirteen...
Aizawa was already moving, scarf coiled across his shoulders, boots hitting the floor in clipped rhythm. Staff scrambled around him as Nezu's orders ricocheted through the intercom—Cementos to reinforce barriers, Hound Dog to secure the examinees, Recovery Girl on standby. Midnight and Ectoplasm fell into stride beside him, Thirteen clanking behind.
By the time they reached the front gate, the grounds were already cleared. Power Loader stood ready beside his "baby," the Vanguard Carrier rumbling with energy. Above the distant station, a vortex of storm-cloud twisted the sky into knots. And just below it—a blur of red and gold, leaping, kicking the air, forcing himself higher.
All Might.
As they boarded, the carrier roared toward the station. In the growl of engines, Nezu's voice cut across the comms:
"Eraser Head—do not apply Erasure on the subject All Might is handling."
His eyes narrowed. Peculiar instruction.
Through the blur of clouds and wind, he saw it: All Might clutching a teenager wrapped like a mummy in writhing black tendrils of energy.
Instinct overrode instructions. Instinct to save. For just a second, Aizawa activated his quirk. Nothing. No effect. But a stab of headache flared behind his eyes.
What the hell?
When the carrier reached the station, the residual haze of volatilize Trigger's, becoming gaseous, spreading low, pooling at knee level. Team Idaten was already in action. He could practically feel the guilt radiating off Tensei's tense frame, but there would be time later for consolation. Right now wasn't it.
Thirteen's finger cap opened, suction drawing the gas into containment. Midnight's Somnambulist haze drifted wide. Ectoplasm split into a flood of clones, locking down the perimeter.
Aizawa scanned the civilians, eyes cutting red as he nullified the spiraling quirks of victims before they collapsed. The work was automatic, practiced.
Still, in the corner of his vision, his gaze kept dragging back to the mummified figure in All Might's arms. A child—barely more than that—bound in agony by something he couldn't ease.
His jaw tightened. He hated unknowns. He hated complications. And most of all, he hated that the ones paying the price were always kids caught in the middle.
'Definitely another problem child.'
------
Inko Midoriya loved her son more than anything in the world. That much had never been in doubt.
But sometimes, love was heavier than she could carry.
Izuku, her baby boy was gentle, kind, insatiably curious about everything—but mostly about heroes and quirks. His eyes had lit up like little stars whenever he saw All Might on TV, his tiny hands waving as though he could reach through the screen. He'd been fearless then, convinced he too would soar across skies and save people with a shining smile.
Then came the quirkless diagnosis. She had watched her son's world collapse at just four years old. She could still see it—clear as day: the light draining from his eyes, confusion twisting into despair. And her arms had wrapped around him, whispering apologies she knew were useless.
"I'm sorry, Izuku. I'm so sorry." Sorry for things she could not change.
Her husband, Hisashi, had become a voice on the phone when time zones allowed and a line on the bank statement once a month. At first she had told herself it was work, just work, but as Izuku grew taller, quieter, lonelier, Hisashi hadn't come back. Sometimes she suspected the reason was Izuku's quirklessness. Then she would remind herself—she hadn't married such a man. But distance had hardened into absence, and absence into detachment. Although not officially, husband and wife had mutually decided to separate.
She hadn't told Izuku. God forbid he ever thought their split was his fault. He had suffered enough already.
She had seen how children, once playmates, turned cruel once they realized he was different. The bruises. The tears he tried to hide. The whispers in the schoolyard, sharpened into barbs. And then Katsuki Bakugo—once a childhood friend—burnt notebooks, brutal words, blows that cut deeper than either.
Inko had tried. Meetings with teachers. Direct complaints. Useless. She had watched their sympathy curdle into dismissal: 'boys will be boys, don't make trouble.'
She had gone to Mitsuki, confiding what Izuku would never admit. Mitsuki had been outrage, vowing to 'teach the brat some lessons.'
For a while, things eased. Then it all slipped back again, like water through cracks. Izuku always came home insisting it was fine. It wasn't.
She had wanted to fight harder. But what weapon did she have?
Ten months ago, something shifted.
She remembered the timing clearly—it was when Katsuki had been taken hostage by a villain. She'd called Mitsuki in worry, because disliking the boy's behavior toward Izuku didn't mean wishing him harm. Mitsuki reassured her he was fine. "The brat, reluctantly admitted being saved by All Might, like the news said." Though Katsuki had clammed up when asked about the rumored stranger who'd also tried to save him.
Right after that day, Izuku had handed her a dietary plan. A training schedule. From his savings for hero-merch he'd bought weights and tools. He woke early every morning to train, came home caked in sweat and sand, devoured food like he was starving.
And she saw it—the faint spark back in her son's eyes.
Today was exam day. Izuku had come home from his morning training drenched, raided the fridge for drinks—"to wash out the horrid taste" (probably sand, she guessed)—and then left for U.A.
And she hadn't known what to say. Because all the emotions she had been carrying for months surged to the surface at once.
She was proud—because nothing had broken his determination.
She was anxious—because she knew the dream he still chased.
She was ashamed—because deep down she still wanted to tell him to stop, to protect himself, to rest.
And she was guilty—for not supporting his dream enough when he needed her most.
The words that came out weren't the ones she wanted, but the ones she could manage:
"Good luck, son."
A nervous smile had been her answer.
Ring! Ring!
The phone broke her thoughts. She sighed and picked it up.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"This is U.A. High. There's been an emergency concerning your son—Midoriya Izuku."
Her stomach dropped.
The tea cup rattled on the counter, tugged by her quirk. A mother's instinct: to pull, to hold, to never let go.
'Izuku, please... please be okay.'
------
Katsuki Bakugo will be a hero.
Not some charity case or a punching bag—the hero. The best. The strongest. He decided that the minute he could imagine a tomorrow.
The day his palms cracked with fire and sound, the dream hardened into fact. Teachers leaned in, murmuring about a "powerful quirk." Parents nudged kids closer to watch. Strangers smiled like they were witnessing destiny. Every look said the same thing: he was different.
Everyone else? Extras. Background character in his rise to the top.
Bakugo don't like extra's, those who stand around uselessly, without doing anything. He'd watched many of these idiots in All Might's fights—standing around, gawking, waiting for the real hero to saved the day.
Well, even though they were extra's, they know their lot in the world at least.
Except one. A green-haired nerd with blank fists and wide, stupid eyes. A Deku. Useless and powerless—an extra among extras. But he looked at Bakugo like he wasn't the center of it all, destined for the top. Like he was equal. That stubborn light in the kid's face scraped under his skin and made his teeth grind.
Then memory dragged up worse.
The sludge. Suffocating, clinging, freezing him in place. Lungs burning. Explosions disarmed. A damn hostage while the world watched. And Deku—of all people—moved when Bakugo couldn't. The thought of it was a hot coal under his ribs.
So he had pushed—harder, louder. If his legs couldn't keep up, then screw it—he'd blast his way forward. Every detonation became recoil, every recoil became propulsion, until he nailed a whole new way to fly.
And no way in hell was he ever getting trapped again. That's why he devised a new move—coiling the blasts, forcing them into a spin until he turned into a human warhead. A tornado of fire and fury. Like All Might's Oklahoma Smash—but better. His. With explosions tearing through every rotation.
Well, it wasn't complete yet, but when it's…
Screech—metal grinding. The train lurches to a stop.
Figures. Of course everything had to choke up on the one day that mattered. The carriage hums with nervous chatter—NPCs whining about delays, half-assed exam strategies, a few clowns trying to show off like it'll change fate. An announcement drones about a "Station incident." He was annoyed. Every wasted second gnawed at him.
This was his day. His chance to prove U.A. needed him more than he needed them. And being stuck on a train felt like a personal insult.
Then the voice on the carriage speakers gets specific: Services suspended, the car fell silent, then erupted in panic.
"Like hell it is, I have a exam to crush," he growled, sparks pricking his palms. He wasn't letting luck or junkies take this from him. This was his day—his proving ground.
Then the carriage PIS(Passenger Information System)feeds erupted:
Trigger outbreak at U.A. Station. Civilians injured. Villains on the loose.
With a growl, he checked his phone.
"The U.A. Entrance Examination is suspended as of now."
Bakugo's blood went molten. Sparks skittered under his skin as rage crushed down into something white-hot. The old shame—being trapped, useless—flickered at the edges. He slammed it down with a thought and traded it for fury.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" He roars so the windows rattle. "Damn it—DAMN IT!"
Heads swivel—fear, pity, curiosity. He doesn't care. Let them cancel. Let them delay. None of it matters.
He'll blow through it. He'll incinerate every excuse and carve his name into the sky until no one dares look anywhere else. If they cancel today, he'll smash the next. Anyone who stands in his way will get blown off the map.
Because Katsuki Bakugo doesn't lose.
------
All For One, the Demon King, did not hate heroes.
His followers would be aghast if they knew. They imagined his nights filled with curses against pro heroes, vengeance and hatred burning in every breath. If they heard the truth—that he admired them—they would mistake it for weakness. They always did.
But his interest was never like the sycophant masses. Heroes entertained him, like ants scurrying with purpose. They were useful—giving him something to oppose, to manipulate, to define himself against. He liked heroes because they made him inevitable.
His pawns forgot that as he created villains, so too did he, in his early reign, create heroes. By giving power to the powerless, he had birthed vigilantes—the first sparks of the so-called "Heroic Era."
And then there was All Might.
The boy who grew into the Symbol.
The one who had not only destroyed his rule and toppled his empire, but also shattered his face.
He should hate him. And he did. He still remembered the day the fool located one of his strongholds. The battle was fierce, even for him. He remembered tearing open the boy's abdomen—only for the lunatic to swing through the pain and hammer him with nuclear force, shattering his skull. Both fell. Both went dark.
When he awoke, it was in the doctor's fluid chamber. His backup plan—body double, warped evacuation—had saved him.
Yes, he hated All Might. As much as a being like him could. But he also admired him. A worthy adversary. A pillar bright enough that All For One's shadow towered higher in contrast. That such a man had begun quirkless only made things more interesting. That fragile human spark had risen so high—only to break itself against him.
Quirkless people, to him, were blank tools: to be filled, molded, used, discarded. But the truth was, he saw the quirked no differently. Quirkless, quirked—they were all humans in the end. That was his secret. His pawns mistook him for a quirk supremacist, but they could not fathom the truth. Long ago, he had stopped seeing "people" at all. There were only quirks—glittering fragments of power. Flesh was irrelevant. Names irrelevant. Every quirk belonged to him, whether or not it yet rested in his hand. In truth, every quirk born in this age was already part of his harvest. All of them were his, waiting.
A sudden ripple, carrying a familiar sensation in the Vestige Realm, halted his thoughts. Once again, he lamented the loss of his ability to run parallel thoughts. Many of his mental quirks had been damaged alongside the obliteration of his brain.
He drifted deeper into the vestige realm, unable to ignore his reflection: the mangled face he still bore here. When he had first learned his ruined body carried over into this metaphysical space, he had been livid. But by now, he found the phenomenon… interesting.
Around him stretched the cathedral of shadows, lit by jeweled sparks. Quirks floated like dark, pulsating orbs, connected by tendrils. Their origins varied: some forcefully harvested, others offered in desperation or devotion, others traded for. They were all the same to him—destined to be his, simply not born in his grasp.
Well, there was one exception. The one thing he had possessed from birth—or perhaps even before. His brother.
Once again, he felt the ripple, veiled with his little brother's aura.
A smile crept across his ruined face as he looked up toward the crimson sky. There it shone dimly, something blocking its dazzle.
He guessed the phenomenon stemmed from the stockpile—or from their twin status. But at this moment, Zen Shigaraki had no will to analyze. He reached toward the star gleefully, trying to reclaim his brother.
But like an actual star in the sky, All For One could not reach it, no matter how he strained. He frowned, studying the light carefully, pondering.
It has been passed on. And in the process… it has reached singularity.
Judging by its veiled shimmer, his rebellious little brother was trying to hide it from him.
He chuckled.
"Oh, my foolish brother."
He had already predicted quirks would reach singularity.
With a smirk, he summoned a black orb into his palm. The quirk pulsed there. An electromagnetic field unfolded, catching a signal—the faint ping of a support-gear belt worn by a French teenager, currently seated inside U.A.'s examination hall.
For now, the pieces moved as they should.
"No one can stop the inevitable."
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