Chapter Text
A green spark explodes into an inferno of Lightning, bright, almost searing.
Immovable object meets unstoppable force, kinetic energy slingshotting a human bullet against he impossible, the improbable, the inconceivable, the destiny of Nine different individuals culminating into One, magnificent moment of glory, as tears are lost to the friction, as the scream of pain and anger and grief and finality is lost in the resulting explosion.
On the sidelines, people watch, filled with horror and awe, at the spectacle, as the final chapter of this tragedy, the final boss, the final confrontation between good and evil, explodes in a spectacle of light, blinding, beautiful, incredible, until-
Until the light stops, and the Game is over.
Two corpses, carbonised, rest in their crater, almost embracing one another, as a gentle breeze blows across the battlefield, the bodies crumbling under the wind, their remains carried over by the zephyr, entwined once more.
The brothers, each in different, broken bodies, reunited at last.
Midoriya Izuku has just become the Greatest Hero Japan has ever known.
“Wha-”
Him, alone, refusing to stand down, refusing to make way for the overwhelming force of his enemy, one man alone against the demon king, against the tyrant, against the tide of change, warping history forever with his sacrifice, and saving his friends, his loved ones, his country in the process.
“Uh?”
A mournful yet hopeful tune starts, showing vignettes of the various onlookers, the people in the great hero life, crying, screaming, bawling at the sight. Here’s Uraraka Ochako, the love interest, crying as she beats her fists against the ground on which Izuku’s body once was, her screaming searing to the ears.
Behind her there’s Todoroki Shouto, his left arm gone, his brother dead at his feet, as he looks on with lost, vacant eyes to the spectacle, a green spark slowly floating down, resting on his outstretched palm as he tries to reach for a young man that isn’t there any more, dissolving into the ether as it comes into contact with his charred skin.
“Wait, hold on, hold on what-”
Iida Tenya runs toward the carnage, to slow, too late to do anything, as he falls to his knees behind Uraraka, eyes wide in uncomprehending horror as he weeps, openly, realizing now he wasn’t fast enough to save his best friend.
His mentor is looking at the stars above from his own crater, his body barely holding on as he sees a new constellation in the skies, green pinpricks of light, a mournful smile on his grim visage as he closes his eyes one final time, the last anchor that kept him tethered to this world, the last great responsibility his great power had brought him dying on the line of duty, because of him, because of the war he had thrown him into, as life fades from the once great hero.
“No no no, this- this wasn’t how it was supposed to go, no! I was the only one who-”
The scene shifts, showing crying, bawling individuals, seeing the scene from their own television screens, a child with a horn on her head bawling her eyes out, her quirk suppressed as a skeletal, bandaged, missing several limbs blind man hugs her, trying to keep her calm even as he himself weeps with her.
Another kid, heart filled with grief and anger, screaming and crying as his aunt tries to comfort him the best she can, a young woman on an island across the seas screaming as she trashes her laboratory, a young man with a bird on his shoulder looking on in abject horror, men, women, children, everyone Midoriya Izuku touched upon in his short yet eventful life, reacting to the news of their hero’s, their Deku’s demise.
“No, no please, please this- this was the only way PLEASE, what is this, stop STOP what is happening, why are you showing me this I did the right thing I DID THE RIGHT-”
Izuku’s mother is on her couch.
Silence reigns, even the music has stopped, as one, singular intake of breath is heard.
The remote falls from her hands, as does a single tear off her cheek, her heart breaking as-
And then the Credits start rolling.
“What.”
Life moves on, still vignettes of a life after Midoriya Izuku, his grave, his loved ones visiting it, photos in homes, empty seats at tables, Uraraka meeting Toga in during visitation day at the newly built maximum security prison, Todoroki becoming the number one hero, Iida and his brother talking at home, as a list of names and professions finish rolling up… the… screen…
“What?”
Midoriya Izuku isn’t dead, as the tune changes into a somewhat familiar tone, finding himself in an empty white void, not dissimilar to the one in his soul, the one he saw in his dreams.
There are no ghosts here however, no heroes of old there to pass on their Wisdom to him.
There’s only him, the music he’s facing…
And a Game Over Screen.
“WHAT!”
[Congratulation for completing My Hero Academia: One for All, All for One!] The screen reads as the credits come to a close, to a still image of Izuku’s grave, sitting alone on a cliff facing the sea at sunset, flowers resting on it, nine stars shining on the horizon, as a message box appears on the screen, [Your Game ID has been registered on the Global Rankings, please wait for the system to properly process the new data.]
Izuku, or at least what was left of Midoriya Izuku, stares dumbly at the words on the screen, as a loading circle appears on top the message box in front of him, circling once, twice, before disappearing, followed by a second box, a strangely familiar victory fanfare filling the air as it appears.
[Congratulations, SMALLMIGHT69!] The screen reads, and had Izuku not been as freaked out as he was already, he’d be choking on his own spit as he read the name, [You are the NINTH player who has managed to complete this Game! You are NOT eligible for our TOP 1, TOP 3 or TOP 5 programs, but have managed to become eligible for our TOP 10 Program, a not unimpressive feat! Would you like to-]
Three smaller boxes appear at the bottom of the main one, each pulsating in a low, green light.
[A) publish your score to your affiliated social networks, such as *GARBLED MESS* or *GARBLED MESS*?]
[B) Connect your Game to your *GARBLED MESS* Account, to become part of our Content Creator program next time you decide to stream our Game to your community?]
[C) Return to the MAIN MENU]
Izuku starers dumbly at the screen for what feels like an eternity, and it may as well be his tired eyes blinking at the sight in front of him, for once in his life at a loss for words.
It doesn’t last long of course, before his brain finally catches up to his eyes.
“This- ok. OK. Calm down Izuku, Calm- Calm down.” Izuku repeats himself, between slow, steady breaths, trying to make sense to his current situation, “This is an illusion, or a- a trick, yes a trick! All for One’s final trick before I could put him and Tenko down or- or after I put him down yes, he forced something on me before he died yes, that- that make sense, I’m probably in a coma right now yeah- y- yeah, he was always a toxic Gamer this seems like the sort of stuff that- S- soon, soon Nana or one of the others is going to break my fingers again and I’m going to snap out of it, yes, yes there is no other explanation, any time now- Any time now yes...”
Nothing happens for a long while, Izuku waiting, his anxiety growing grander by the second as he clenches his fists, the message box glowing mockingly at him.
“I- I must be dreaming then,” Izuku snaps back through gritted teeth, “No, no this isn’t a dream I’d be- I’d have less of a body then- then- then maybe I’ve mastered this ability to- no I- I have to- I accept it, yes, I must have d- died yes I- I was expecting this t- this was the sacrifice I N- Needed to m- make but- b- but- BUT! This can’t be- this can’t possibly be it there is no logical way this can be it there must be something else happening yes, YES who are you what is going on why are you doing this to me what did I do to deserve this is this- what is this someone ANYONE ANSWER ME!”
Izuku yells the last part out, expecting green sparks, dark tendrils, anything, and only receiving nothing in return, a scream of rage escaping his mouth as he punches forward, instinctively...
Only to hit the letter C in return.
Somehow.
“OPTION C selected, please wait as our operating system proceeds with SCORE CALCULATION to grant you the appropriate rewards for your next session!”
A second loading circle, green in colour, appears on the screen, making Izuku hastily retract his fist as if it was burned, his eyes widening in panic.
“No, no, crap, I- I didn’t want to do that, Crap what is going on?!” Izuku yells out in frustration, only to be met with more loading, until-
The message box veritably explodes in front of Izuku’s eyes in a bright shower of sparks, a mass of words and symbols and numbers erupting from the hole it left within the fabric of the white void, before engulfing Izuku’s non-being, his voice muted and muffled as he drowns in data, the hole in reality getting bigger and bigger.
The data stills, stopping in its vortex for one, blessed second, before the hole finally stops erupting.
And then the hole starts sucking everything back inside its maw.
Izuku Included, his screams cutting short as the hole closes shut behind him.
Leaving the now barren white void behind.
Izuku’s “eyes” open, his brain still scrambled by the brief, almost surreal experience he had just felt inside his dreamscape- for that was what it was he now realized, the place he went to when he was dreaming about the other members of One for All- only for relief to flood him instantly at the sight of an aerial view of Musutafu, as if he was floating high in the air.
He was alive, and outside in the world at large! He just needed time now, time to get back to the fight, to his friends, to fix everything, to be there for them to-
Izuku realizes just about that second, as he “pumps” a “fist” in the air that he’s still, in a sense, largely incorporeal.
As in, he doesn’t have any sort of body to speak of.
Not any more at least.
He “screams,” or at least tries to, no voice coming out of his non-existent mouth, realizing too as he tries to move his head that his “sight” seems to be fixed in place now, forced to watch the bustling city below, unable to move or interact with anything, unable to scream, cry, yell or-
“Oh-” Izuku thinks, a grim clarity overtaking him, “Then I really am dead, and this- This is-”
And then music starts playing.
It starts slowly at first, some notes on a piano, Izuku “ears” barely noticing them until they become more numerous, other instruments joining in soon after as a song starts playing all around him, cheerful and upbeat.
Which is, incidentally, when his vision starts moving.
Izuku tries to scream and, obviously, fails, as he’s dragged down to a nearby rooftop at distressingly high speeds, a young person wearing a familiar middle school uniform standing somewhere where it, incidentally, happened to shadow their face from view, looking toward someone Izuku instantly recognizes as All Might, the muscular man giving his back to the person with the face shadowed by darkness, hand outstretched-
The scene is then Mirrored, behind the person in the shadows, stands a second now, looking to the other side of the rooftop, where All for One stands, offering his own hand to him, as if to grab them-
And then the scene is flipped upside down, Izuku trying and failing to scream as he’s slammed against the floor, AFO, All Might, and the two identical middle schoolers painted on the rooftop’s floor in almost photorealistic detail, Izuku forced to look at the painting very closely as the music score raises-
The title “MY HERO ACADEMIA: ONE FOR ALL, ALL FOR ONE!” appears in “front” of him in bold, glossy letters.
Izuku would, if he could, stare slack jawed at this, but alas the “scene” shifts as Izuku is launched at high velocity through the roof, moving at high speed across a “montage” of several people he had knew during the course of his stay at UA appear on screen, small vignettes of their lives before meeting Izuku appearing in no particular order in front of Izuku’s eyes as what he now realizes is an opening song keeps getting further and further into a crescendo, until-
Izuku lurches to a stop, and he’s pretty sure had he had a body right now he’d be vomiting his guts out, as a climatic fight explodes in front of him, the middle schooler with the head bathed in shadows is now a young adult and wearing something Izuku recognizes as an approximation of his first hero costume, fighting at the USJ against many no name villains alongside his classmates.
Izuku realizes soon that something is wrong however, as the ground turns into a clear, reflective mirror, showing a specular yet completely different scene to him happening upside down, flipped and showing that same young adult wearing an approximation of his later, ragged vigilante costume, as he fights alone against his classmates, still at the USJ.
Izuku doesn’t understand what’s going on, even as he’s once more launched against the reflective mirror like surface of the floor, the images shown getting more and more outlandish in nature, Miruko standing between the “Evil” Izuku and someone Izuku is 99% sure was a Pop Star, “Good” Izuku going on what he assumes is a friendly meet-up (??) to a fancy restaurant (???) with Yaoyorozu (????) and making a fool of himself while fumbling the menu, making her (cutely) giggle at his antics (?????), behind her, unseen, Ochako, Tsuyu, Iida and Todoroki spying from their own table where he assumes they are having their own friendly meet up, Jirou hiding in the bushes behind them and also spying on him and Yaoyorozu for some reason…
And then, finally, the incomprehensible series of scenes disappears, only a few of them somewhat familiar to him, as a shot of Class 1-A is shown posing in front of UA, beneath their feet the same mirror like reflective floor showing, upside down, a lone “Vigilante” Izuku giving his back to the “camera” that was Izuku, the class bathed in light, the vigilante bathed in darkness, as the score reaches one last, final triumphant note, before, finally, ending.
Izuku “stares” at the scene in front of him with abject incredulity, only for a new box of text to appear in front of him, making him startle.
[Congratulation for having completed the Game for the FIRST Time!] The Box has written on it, much to Izuku’s bewilderment, [SMALLMIGHT69 has completed ONE session of the Game in TRUE PILLAR OF PEACE Difficulty, with 0 Manual Saves for the Session, and 0 Previous Automatic Saves.
SMALLMIGHT69 has earned the Achievements “ONE SHOT, MAKE IT GOOD” and “NO SECOND CHANCES WHEN THE WORLD’S AT STAKE.”
SMALLMIGHT69 has found 1 out of 999 Standard Endings, 0 out of 9 Golden Endings, and 0 out of 999 Bad Endings.
SMALLMIGHT69 has unlocked the NEW GAME + mode.
A) OK]
The final word is another, smaller box appearing on the bottom of the screen, making Izuku flinch at the sight.
He takes in deep breath, or at least would love to if he had a body, this time deciding to take his time and find a way out of this mess via calm, reasoned, logical deduction.
“Ok, ok, calm down Izuku, let’s- let’s analyse this situation,” Izuku mumbles out, the inability to produce a notebook and pen somewhat grating on him, “You are alone, trapped by some- strange, foreign quirk, one that clearly doesn’t know anything about you if it’d think you’d ever do any of the things it showed me, without a body or One for All. Fine. Yes, I can work with this, I’ll just need to- to calm down, and stop playing by this thing’s rules- yes, yes, I just need to-”
He sighs, trying to take in as much informations as he can from the box in front of him and the “group pose” behind it.
He stays exactly 5 minutes like this, noticing all the small differences from the “characters” in the group photo and the ones from his actual life, the different hair length, the small differences in the costumes, only for his vision to flicker out for a second, just to return to the top of Musutafu once more.
“Uh?”
The now familiar tune returns, Izuku’s non existent scream ripped once more out of his non-existent throat as he’s once more forced in the roller coaster that is this Game’s opening theme.
Turns out, the quirk looped the opening theme on prolonged inactivity on the main menu screen, something Izuku had learned the hard way by now.
As the box returns in front of him, Izuku, quickly, says the letter A out loud.
The scene flickers out as a dark void envelops Izuku, followed quickly by a green bright light. The “title” he had seen back then appears once more at the top of the new “screen” in front of him, below it the words [NEW GAME +] and [OPTIONS].
Izuku stares dumbly at it for a couple seconds, before remembering about potentially being sent back to the opening theme and quickly yelling out for Options. He might have a limited time before being “reset” back, but that didn’t mean he was going to not- test how things were going.
A new box appears, this one being the apparent options menu. Izuku had played some Games before, but he wasn’t exactly that big of a Gamer himself, meaning he was only tangentially aware of how a videoGame option menu was supposed to look like.
A bunch of dials are on the screen, and yet, instead of showing sensible things such as sound volume or screen brightness, they were showing- well, he thought nonsense was the right word for it.
One of Izuku’s inexistent hands coming to reach for the aforementioned dial and moving it from either side, one with a “bird” symbol on its side, the other with a “worm.” He feels no- difference from doing this, same for when he messes with other, equally mysterious dials. A couple are a bit more sensible sounding, so to speak, such as the button with “Superhero Brutality” written on top of it. “Clicking” on it leading to a second box with a couple potential settings for the thing, ranging from “yes” to “duh” to “you ain’t turning this off buddy.”
“What- what even is the point of any of this?!” Izuku tries to yell out in frustration, now occupied with fiddling with a dial for “Sword/Shield/Staff,” with no apparent explanation or distinction between the three settings for neither him or the world at large.
The Box stays silent, not changing in the slightest as Izuku tries to fiddle with other settings, to no apparent avail.
“Ok- ok, I guess- I guess I’ll have to get back to this later-” Izuku resigns himself, and If he had a head right now, he’s pretty sure he would be shaking it.
He looks down, finding at the bottom of the box another, smaller box with the letters ESC on it. He “clicks” it with his “finger,” and finds himself back to a-
Distressingly familiar vista of the city from above-
“Oh no oh fu-!”
Izuku’s silent scream is born less from fear and more from frustration this time as he’s hurled back against the rooftop’s floor.
Izuku screams in frustration, voice as silent as before, as he tries to trash around the menu screen, his incorporeal, inexistent body not allowing to even budge away from his fixed prospective toward the two boxes in front of him and the bold, mocking title above it.
He wastes all of his 5 allocated minutes on this, trying his best to get out, to do anything, and failing miserably at it. The “opening theme” is equally inescapable, and so is the- “congratulation” box before the menu. Thinking outside the “box,” so to speak, isn’t helping here, and Izuku doesn’t seem to be able to find any way to- “get out the Game,” meaning that, for the time being, he’s trapped here, with its- obscure settings, and its frustratingly catchy roller coaster of an opening theme.
So, finally, Izuku gives up, grumbling all the same before turning, finally, toward the NEW GAME + Box and, reluctantly, “clicking” on it.
The box shines in bright green light, blinding him momentarily as the menu disappears in a flash, leading to… A familiar vista over Musutafu-
“Oh come on!” Izuku yells out in impotent anger, nevertheless reading himself for yet another frustratingly fast music filled romp through his “life” as-
[CHINA, YEAR 20XX. A child is born with an extraordinary ability].
Words start scrolling on the screen in a bright yellow colour, voiced by a deep, baritone voice Izuku doesn’t recognise.
“Uh- this- this is new…” Izuku mumbles out, looking on as a brief history lesson is presented to him by the- Narrator, he guesses? The words on the screen skim over most of what Izuku knows already, the raise of quirk, the fall of civilisation, the raise of the modern hero society, the tidbit about how in the modern day a good chunk of the population had Quirks and so on.
It’s all fairly- rushed, if Izuku can put it into words, and quite simplistic, pedestrian at best really, as if someone wanted to give a really rough outline of recent history to someone who, somehow, wouldn’t be able to know about it already.
Which is preposterous of course, given how everyone knew about such simple concepts such as the dawn of quirks.
Izuku is almost- disappointed by this, by the implication that- whatever or whoever had trapped him here would think so little of his knowledge of history until, finally, a passage he didn’t expect shows up in front of him.
[JAPAN, YEAR 2XXX. A child is born with an extraordinary ability.
That child’s name?]
A box opens in front of Izuku. The surname, in all Caps, is written as the first word, and it’s all in a smaller box, one similar to the one he had seen in the settings menu.
The second name, therefore the actual name, is written all in lower caps, each letter on a different box, blinking in and out of the screen.
Izuku stares a for a bit at the sight, uncomprehendingly, as he tries to process what he’s seeing.
“Who the hell is-” Izuku mumbles out, and if he had a brow right now, he’s sure he’d be furrowing it in confusion, “Akatani... Mikumo? Never- Never heard of him? Is he supposed to be... someone important or something?”
Akatani asks out loud, to no one in particular, the box once more giving him no answer.
Akatani sighs and then, tentatively, hits the first box, opening a smaller menu with a small number surnames on it. He- doesn’t recognize almost any of them, aside from maybe one he’s pretty sure was his mother’s maiden’s name, until he finally finds MIDORIYA on it.
“Uh?” Akatani genially goes, staring in disbelief at the offending surname, “Wait, is that supposed to be my surname then?! That- That’s not my name!”
He hits the surname MIDORIYA, hastily, before whatever trapped him here decided it was a good idea to launch him back to the opening song. The box retracts, and now MIDORIYA is written on it as the surname, still followed by the name akatani.
“There, much more like it,” MIDORIYA Akatani grumbles out, before hitting the first letter for his name. The letter opening a small box with each letter and kanji written on it, as well as number and a blank spot.
“This seems- highly inefficient-” Ikatani grumbles out as he punches the letter I, changing each letter until becoming Izukuni, and then, finally, turning back into Izuku.
MIDORIYA Izuku stares at his now correct name before sighing, finally noticing the accept button below it. He “clicks” it with his non existent hand, leading the screen to disappear in front of him.
His name and surname, surname still annoyingly in all caps, appear on the opening crawl in front of him, the narrator only voicing the surname for some reason.
[Yes, this is the story of one MIDORIYA Izuku, a young hero with a very special power.
Behold, the hero of our story!]
The weirdly androgynous middle schooler from the opening song appears, face still obscured by darkness and, now, by a red baseball cap with a logo on it, shadowing their face and covering their hair.
Izuku stares disbelievingly at it, as the middle schooler becomes a high schooler now, in his familiar Aldera High School uniform, face still covered by the hat. He- can see a slight resemblance with him, or at least with the him back then, but mostly for the- meek posture and the hunched over, almost trembling frame, the- simulacra of the boy he once was, right in front of him as a cracked mirror of his past self.
It’s almost depressing in some way, the way this- this Izuku shifts and fidgets in front of him, as if expecting an assault at any-
[CHOOSE A GENDER TO IDENTIFY AS.]
Izuku screams as he startles at the sudden appearance of the box, inches away from his “eyes”. He calms himself down fairly quickly, chuckling at his own reaction at the sudden appearance of the new box, and reading the options below.
[ARE YOU:
A) A Boy.
B) A Girl.
C) Both.
D) Neither.
E) Prefer not to Answer.]
“Wait, girl?! I can be a girl?!” Izuku thinks, the- strange thought settling in his brain and deciding not to leave for some reason.
The second box blinks bright as the menu disappears in front of Izuku, a pink coloured female symbol appearing beside his name written above the simulacra of his high school self, no apparent change happening to their body as panic finally starts settling within Izuku as he realizes-
[WARNING!]
A red warning box appears in front of Izuku, making him startle once more in fright.
[Playing as a FEMALE CHARACTER is for EXPERIENCED USERS Only! The Game will automatically take on “FEMALE CHARACTER IN A SHOUNEN” Secret Difficulty, and you will be forced to play with a series of Negative Effects you WON’T be able to remove during the course of the session, such as “WEAKNESS TO CHLOROFORM,” “WEAKNESS TO REFRIGERATORS” and “WEAKNESS TO LOVE INTEREST.” Do you Wish to continue with this character gender selection anyway?]
Izuku blanches before, hastily, hitting the [BACK] Box, returning to the original gender selection box and, without wasting any time, hitting the first box for male.
It blinks out of existence, followed by the rest, as- almost nothing changes for the body in front of him, only difference being now the male symbol, blue coloured, appearing beside its name.
No warning appears this time, allowing a couple times for Izuku to reflect on what just happened.
Izuku hums, for a couple seconds feeling a bit stupid for not having picked any of the other options before picking Boy, just to experiment on what would have happened had he done so, before quickly catching himself in that thought.
He didn’t know if he could come back to fix it later like it happened with the warning when he picked Girl, even if right now it seemed the only difference between the two was the male or female symbol beside his name.
Or at least so it seemed.
[CHOOSE A BODY TYPE AND SKIN TONE].
Izuku stares at the selection now presented to him. The skin tone is varied, showing multiple textures of colour typical of the human skin as well as many non-human ones.
The Body type is a smidgen less varied.
There is a dark silhouette of a large, both in size and heigh, man, a somewhat average sized one in the middle, and a short, skinny one on the opposite side. Below them there’s actually a dial, right now in between the average sized one and the short one, and Izuku decides to fiddle with it for a couple seconds.
Izuku looks in wonderment as he sees the simulacra of “himself” in front of him change shape and size as he fiddles with the dial, growing bigger and smaller as he sees fit. He hums, before deciding to get to the average sized version, if maybe a bit bigger and more muscular than his actual physique, before clicking to what he thinks is a pretty good approximation of his skin tone, before moving to click the [ACCEPT] box-
The second he does so however, the BODY TYPE dial snaps back to its original position, in fact somehow even further toward the short and skinny body-type than he expected, Izuku startling as he accidentally hits the [ACCEPT] box still.
[WARNING!] The warning box appears in deep bright red, startling Izuku, [Simulation Levels 1% Unstable, resetting to a more manageable package size, we apologize for the inconvenience.]
Izuku stares dumbly as he sees the boy in front of him now somewhat shorter and skinnier than before, if not by much, making him grumble in frustration at the sight.
[SCULPT A FACE]
Izuku is shoved at high velocity toward the face of the person in front of him, baseball hat disappearing into static as he witnesses a blank, empty face with no hair or any sort of facial feature.
A series of Boxes appear in front of him, each with a myriad of options each, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre.
Izuku clicks on one, [LEFT EYE], only to have another myriad of boxes appear in front of him, ranging from [SCLERA’S COLOUR] to [EYELASHES LENGTH], and Izuku almost screams in frustration as he realizes he needs to recreate his face back from memory-
Until, blessedly, he notices another box, a bit to the side, hidden between [TONGUE LENGTH] and [DANDRUFF PROPENSITY], called [POSSIBLE PRESETS].
He hastily clicks It, a new box menu appearing on front of him, each, thankful, showing him a different face, each with a different title beside it to “describe” it.
The first one, for some reason, morphs the “person’s” face in front of him into a blue eyed, blonde haired man with a beard, the face preset being seemingly named “See that Mountain? He can Climb it!”
Izuku stares at the new him, before “shaking” his head, only for the puppet in front of him to shake his head instead. Izuku stares, trying to “move” his head he’s pretty sure shouldn’t exist right now, the motion mimicked by the person in front of him, a deep chill running down his non existent spine, a sensation mimicked by the simulacra in front of him.
“I guess now I know why he was- fidgeting like that-” Izuku mumbles out, realizing in grim horror the being in front of him is also mimicking his mouth movement, “This is so weird-”
He clicks on a couple other presets. [THE ORIGINAL] shows him a mirror version of him, eyes sunken with dark bags, hair black and slick. Izuku imagines this might be the “MIKUMO Akatani” that was presented to him as his “default” name.
Was this the “First” person who had been trapped here? Izuku remembers the first box he was presented with, the congratulation for having been the NINTH person to “complete” the Game for the first time, but for some reason Izuku assumed that must have been something about One for All, and he’s pretty sure, from what he remembered from the few scant time he saw the guy, that the first holder looked nothing like this man-
Although thinking about it, they did look both quite emaciated and depressed, so maybe-
Izuku shakes his head wildly, a movement mirrored by MIKUMO in front of him, before turning back to the pre-set menu. This had to wait for now, when he was in control of something resembling a body at least, and not at the mercy of whatever quirk or entity or person who kept throwing him back to that now accursed anime song.
Finally, Izuku manages to find “his” preset, named for some reason “Cute Face Big Secret,” whatever that meant, the face being- somewhat similar to him in high-school, if a bit softer maybe. Izuku shrugs, something mirrored by his fidgeting copy, before finally clicking [ACCEPT], not wanting to waste more time here.
[CHOOSE A VOICE TYPE.]
Izuku grumbles as a new box menu is presented to him, the disembodied boy still face to face with his clone, a feeling of frustration soon dispelled as he realized he was finally going to get his voice back.
The names for the voice samples range in utility, some simply named [MALE EVEN TONED], others having actual names on it, such as [NOLAN NORTH], whoever that was, while others were straight up gibberish to Izuku, like... [YAMATOSFX]? What the hell did THAT even mean?
Still, Izuku hits one of the voices, named creatively [MALE BOSS 3.3].
Izuku startles as the clone in front of him starts yelling a bunch of very colourful expletives in a deep, gravely, and most of all disturbingly British tone. Silence returns, the box for [MALE BOSS 3.3] still blinking, as Izuku tentatively hits a second box, this one having a name on it.
[WES JOHNSON 1].
“Do you mind? I'm busy doing the Fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind!”
The voice, still not his, this time is more- zany, if Izuku has to find a word, almost whimsical in a way, if in a somewhat sinister way. Noticing the 1 on the box, Izuku quickly scans the various other voices and hits in rapid succession, as he hits each other [WES JOHNSON] box, each new voice sounding completely different yet eerily similar to the other, ranging from gravely to authoritative to back to zany.
Izuku scoffs, still trying to find whatever voice was supposed to be his own. Even going by names, Izuku doesn’t seem to have much like, even following whatever insane naming logic these boxes were following.
Until, finally-
“I'm no longer the useless Deku who can't do anything right! I'm the Deku who gives it his all!”
Izuku sighs in relief as he finally finds “his” voice. He can almost excuse the title of the box, [MALE TWINK EAGER], too relieved as he is not to have to use whatever- abomination the other voices were going to force on him.
Then again some of them did sound pretty neat. The [LORENZO SCATTORIN] one for example was really cool in the way he kept yelling Smashes- Maybe he could make a small change to-
Izuku shakes his head, motion displayed by his copy as he accepts the [MALE TWINK EAGER] voice without a second thought. He still didn’t trust- whatever this was, and he had seen how trying to deviate from the “norm” was met before when he tried to tweak his height and body size earlier. No, he’d try to stick as close to himself as possible, so that, whatever this was not some illusion or afterlife, whatever he was really stuck in this- new body, so to speak, even after he was able to go back to his friends, he wouldn’t be too different from the Izuku- The Deku they knew.
Still, didn’t mean he didn’t find the naming convention a bit insulting right now.
[THE BODY PARAMETERS HAVE BEEN SET UP.]
The Box announces, Izuku’s “eyes” going wide, as do the one of his clone, as he sees his body being shoved toward him by an invisible force, Izuku’s yell this time voiced as his vocal chords start existing, a searing sensation pervading all of his body as he finds himself, finally, back inside a corporeal body, still floating above the vistas of Musutafu as before, the scrawling words in front of him still paused.
Izuku blinks, this time for real, as he tries to move his newfound limbs, unable to move from his spot on the sky, and yet able to move his limbs, his mouth, his head.
“Sa. Sa, sasasa sa.” Izuku mouths out, a sigh of relief escaping his lips as he hears his voice once more, “Oh thank god- I can speak again, I-”
A new box appears in front of Izuku, covering the opening scrawl once more, Izuku’s mouth snapping shut in fear a stray sound would be interpreted as- anything by the volatile system he was forced into.
[By choosing to start a NEW GAME +, you have decided to SKIP the opening TUTORIAL YEARS.] The screen says, making Izuku startle in alarm at the news.
“S- skipping the Tutorial?!” Izuku yells out, eyes wide, hands flailing from side to side. He might not have been the biggest Gamer in the world, but even he knew that was a terrible idea, “No no no wait, I- I never played this thing wait-”
[Please, pick what options for your Character you wish to follow in the following ABRIDGED PROLOGUE] The box continues, completely ignoring Izuku freaking out, as a second box appears in front of him.
[WOULD YOU PREFER FOR THE ABRIDGED PROLOGUE TO BE:
A) DEFAULT (This will set up the prologue with the default parameters)
B) CONQUEST (This will open a CONQUEST session to allow you to set up the PROLOGUE parameters.)
C) PERSONALITY QUIZ (This will set up the Parameters based on what questions you answer on a Quiz)
D) RANDOM (This will randomize the parameters)].
Izuku left eye twitch, unable as he is to pick any option allowing him to NOT not skip whatever tutorial or prologue this thing was forcing on him, least he missed crucial information or, more likely, a way out of this mess, before sighing and, obviously, picking option B, not trusting the system to choose sensible Randomized or Default choices, and definitely not trusting whatever “personality” they wanted to pick for him.
Izuku had no idea what “CONQUEST” was, but at least it seemed more- controllable than the other choices given the way it was worded, given how it said it would “allow him” to set up those “parameters” how he liked.
The Box blinks out, as the opening scrawl comes back into view.
[And so, our HERO begun his journey!] The opening scrawl continues as if it had never been paused by Izuku’s character creation, [A journey filled with GRIEF, TREACHERY, BLOOD and MADNESS, but a heroic journey nonetheless! For there is no COURAGE without FEAR, and there is no HEROISM without VILLAINY! A delicate balance, our hero will soon learn to maintain!
In this WORLD. His WORLD. His Game. His DESTINY...
HIS HERO ACADEMIA!]
“Jeez, tone it down a little” Izuku worryingly mumbles, scratching the back of his neck with a hand as the scrawl comes to a close, the letters disappearing in soft green light as a familiar tune starts playing-
“Oh no oh fuck YOU MOTHERFU-”
Izuku spits and heaves, mouth filled with gravel, ink, and clouds, somehow, as he finds once more face to face with the posing class 1-A from the opening theme. Fortunately, this does not lead to a closed loop where he’s once more stuck in the main menu, the scene, thankfully, quickly disappearing with a bright green flash as Izuku finds himself back in his soul void.
The white, endless room, is empty but for one new introduction to it, a large mahogany table, old looking, with maps and dices and papers and miniatures strewn about it.
“Uh, that’s new,” Izuku genially points out, ever the investigator, as he comes close to the table, noticing now an equally old looking wooden chair in front of it. He looks around, almost expecting eight more chairs to the table and finding none, before sighing and sitting down on it.
It seemed no one was coming to rescue him.
At least... not yet.
A box appears in front of him.
[Welcome to CONQUEST, the All New, Interactive Adventure Board Game that will allow YOU to shape your character’s stats and backstory!
First, take a look at the board!]
The pieces on the table move by themselves, Izuku yelping in surprise as what looks like a chessboard is dropped in front of him, dices and papers gathering at its side. On the Board, a single Green coloured Piece appears in the middle, shaped like your standard chess Pawn.
[This is YOU at 4 Years old].
Izuku’s eyes watch closely as more pieces appear on the board, a White Bishop, a Black King, a Red Queen, a- mess of tentacles Izuku is pretty sure isn’t wood but flesh, and a- Surprisingly well detailed Ork-Like miniature with boxing gloves on?
[YOU have not displayed any sign of your QUIRK yet, which is worrying both YOU and your mother!
CHOOSE:
A) You Go to the WHITE BISHOP, a Renowned Doctor, to check with him for potential quirks. You gain the DIAGNOSED QUIRKLESS Status, as well as an automatic loss to the Relationship Rank of anyone knowing this, randomized based on the person. No QUIRK will ever manifest naturally.
B) You Go to the BLACK KING, a Merchant of Evil, to check if he’s willing to part with a QUIRK for you. You have a 50% chance of being given a QUIRK. You gain the PILFERED POWER Status, as well as a random Mid-Level QUIRK, and the PAWN TO THE DEMON Status.
You have 50% chance of being rejected, and used as a Guinea Pig by the WHITE BISHOP. You gain the NOOMU SPECIES, as well as a collection of 3 to 5 mid-level QUIRKS and the SLAVE TO THE DEMON Status).
C) You go to the RED QUEEN, whose methods are vast and morals dubious, to FAKE a suitable Quirk for you on the registry. You gain the FAKING A QUIRK Status, as well as a Low-Level MENTAL QUIRK of choice).
D) You have a Traumatic Event in the Woods, Triggering your powers as it opens a connection with a mass of parasitic WORMS hidden away in a pocket of spacetime that will empower you with terrible, trauma filled powers for a not better specified secret goal. You gain the SHARD SYMBIOSIS Status, a Randomized High-Level QUIRK, and the PAWN TO THE WORM status. Your relationship with whoever caused the Trauma will be locked to 0).]
Izuku blinks at the choices presented to him in befuddlement. For one thing, neither of them seemed to explain the- the Ork on the board. Second, it seemed all the possible choices left him with some sort of bad deal.
Choice B was an obvious no, a chill running down Izuku’s spine as he realized that could have been him at some point if this was a possible option for him, much like it had happened to Aoyama. He had no idea what Choice D was even getting to but it sounded- bad, somehow, perhaps given the similarity between being a pawn to All for One or to this mysterious Worm thing, making it another hard pass even despite the promise of a powerful quirk.
And truth be told, if he knew his life well enough, he was pretty sure the person who was going to traumatize him hard enough to turn him into becoming a- slave to some alien parasite thing was probably going to be Kacchan, and- he really didn’t want to destroy his friendship with him like that.
Choice A was the… “Original Choice” his Mom made for him back then, and Izuku was half tempted to pick it again, only for a cold dread to settle in his stomach at the thought.
He didn’t know when this- thing was going to put him in an actual real life situation, or if the whole… “Game” was going to be here, but if that was the case, if Izuku was destined to be thrown back to his childhood at some point, to return being the scared Quirkless little kid that was bullied and ostracized and ignored as a kid, alone against the world…
He really didn’t want that to be a repeat like last time.
The only thing left was option C. Izuku had no idea who this- Red Queen was, he was pretty sure he had never met her in his previous life, but the option seemed not to have any sort of overtly negative repercussions on him, neither is seemed to have any requirement to submit himself to her, which meant all he had to do was keep people from finding out he had a “fake quirk,” whatever that meant.
Easy for someone who had spent all of his university life pretending he had had a quirk all along.
Still, there is something gnawing at the back of Izuku’s mind as he presses C, something he thinks he has missed from the explanation box, as the Black King and the White Bishop disappear from the board alongside the mass of flesh that was the Worms…
“Wait, didn’t that thing imply Doctor Tsubasa was the one making-” Izuku mumbles out loud, his eyes growing wide even as his voice interrupted by a ding as another Box appears in front of him.
Beside the board, a paper sheet is unfolded, floating in front of him beside the box. On top of it, the words CHARACTER SHEET are written in bold, black letters.
[YOU have gone to the RED QUEEN for help. You Gain:
FAKING A QUIRK: “You rascal you, you ate cheating the system! Unable to prove you have a Quirk yet, you have gone through not-so-legal means to have one recognized for you. LAWFUL and PARANOID people will gain 1 Point of Suspicion the first time they meet you, and have a chance to gain another one every time they interact with you based on personal relationship, your reputation, abilities and other such things. PARANOID LAWFUL Characters gain both points as well as a bonus third point instead.”]
Izuku blanches at that, the original description of the effect not being nearly as exhaustive when talking about its negative effects, especially given all the Law abiding or paranoid people he knew in his life. Still, there doesn’t seem to be any undo button for this, Izuku sighing and pushing forward as he keeps reading the box.
[RANDOM LOW-LEVEL MENTAL QUIRK: Given the nature of your power, by being told to fake an easily fake-able mental quirk, you have now acquired a randomized Low-Level MENTAL QUIRK. Please wait for Roll].
Izuku hears a dice getting rolled besides him, as he looks down and sees a number 18 being rolled on what looks like a 20 headed dice.
A smaller box appears in front of the bigger one, a small fanfare sounding in the empty room.
[You have gained the IDENTIFY Quirk. You can now tell what something is at a first glance! You have a +1 to Perception and have gained the IDENTIFY! Ability, which can be activated by yelling “Identify!” toward something or someone].
Izuku’s eyes widen as something- something weird starts blossoming in his chest. It wasn’t an- unpleasant sensation, just one he had never felt before, as if he was- somewhat “right” now, now that he had an actual quirk for himself… Not given to him by someone else, but- but actually is…
And then that sensation is gone in an instant as Izuku snorts.
“Yeah right,” Izuku mumbles out with a small, self deprecating smile, “As if I’d be so ecstatic over what would be a coincidence of fate, or maybe some strands of DNA in a genetic code. One for All was my Quirk, and has always been my Quirk, no the one I was born with, but the one I earned.”
The floating sheet beside the box starts getting filled, Izuku looking on as the words on the box are “written” by some invisible pencil on the paper, his new Quirk beneath the Quirks section, and his status as Faking a Perk beneath the Perks one. One of the numbers beside what he now recognizes as a stylized portrait of him in his old Aldera high school uniform tick one up, and the word Identify! is written beneath the Abilities bracket.
Instantly, Izuku’s eyes hurt, an ow coming out of his mouth as he scrunches them shoot, a dull pain throbbing behind his temples before, just as quickly as it had come out, it goes away. When Izuku opens back his eyes, the room is a smidgen less dark, and he’s pretty sure his sight sharpened a little.
Izuku blinks, the action not changing his new sight in the slightest, as he turns down to the table in wonder.
“Identify?” Izuku asks more than say, as a new Box appears near the table.
[TABLE].
Izuku stares dumbly at the- very obvious response, the box going away soon after, before he turns toward one of the dices beside him and tries to identify them.
[D20 DICE].
Izuku’s left eye twitches.
“I guess that’s what I get for talking bad about whatever quirk the sadist who stuck me here decided to give me,” Izuku grumbles out, trying to identify other objects on the table to equally disappointing results, down to the boxes in front of him being called [REDACTED].
Izuku sighs, the boxes disappearing as the board resets. He’s still a Green Pawn, and the Red Queen and the Ork are still on the board, except now a Red Knight, a white checker piece and a Pink Bishop have also showed up, each putting his pawn in “check,” so to speak.
[After your Diagnosis, YOU started living your life as a QUIRKED individual. Given the Low-Level nature of your quirk, your Reputation will be hit every time someone discovers your quirk, randomized based on the individual].
Izuku looks toward the sheet beside him, where the FACTION bracket is, right now having only “MIDORIYA HOUSEHOLD” and “ALDERA HIGH SCHOOL” on it, the household being 80/100, the Aldera one 34/100.
Izuku takes the time to notice the various other brackets on the sheet, most of them still empty, as well as his “stats,” he now realizes.
His stats read:
[STR: 4
PER: 7
AGI: 3
END: 5
CHAR: 2
INT: 8
WIS: 2
LCK: 10]
Izuku doesn’t know what’s the scale for these stats, if it’s out of 10 or even 100, and his new “Quirk” isn’t exactly helping on that front either, so he decides to drop it for now as he moves on to the next… “scenario” so to speak.
[Childhood is a time for making friends! Choose ONE kid to befriend:
A) The RED KNIGHT, a slightly older girl with haunted eyes and a fake smile. She hides the bruises well, but is not as good at hiding her canines. You will gain the WILLING BLOOD BANK Status, and gain a starting 50% increase in your relationship with the RED KNIGHT, as well as a +1 in the VAMPIRE Sub-Race. You have a 50% chance of being roped into a randomized QUEST with the RED KNIGHT while hanging out.
B) The WHITE CHECKER, a no name nobody you will never see again, but with whom you had a normal, healthy friendship and childhood. You will gain the STABLE CHILDHOOD Status, as well as the SOCIALLY WELL ADJUSTED status.
C) The PINK BISHOP, Madness and Genius personified, Daughter of the RED QUEEN YOU have met during your “visit” to the RED QUEEN Office, and she has decided to make YOU her assistant in her plan of a capitalist takeover of the planet. You gain the KRONK! Status. You gain a +25% increase in your relationship with the PINK BISHOP, as well as the KNOWLEDGE OF MECHANICS: BASICS, KNOWLEDGE OF ROBOTICS: BASICS and KNOWLEDGE OF SUPPORT SCIENCE: BASICS. You have a 33% chance of being roped into a randomized QUEST with the PINK BISHOP while hanging out, and will gain a +10% increase in the relationship with the RED QUEEN and her COURT.
D) Choose TWO options, you will be shown a combination reward between the two before accepting it].
Izuku hisses as if burned at the new choices, his eyes fixed on the first one. That, was obviously supposed to be Toga, his- stalker? Or was she Ochako’s now, he wasn’t so sure about that at the moment but- well, be as it may, the prospect of becoming the childhood friend of a future villain was-
Extremely tempting, now that Izuku thought about it.
His little grey cells starts whirring and rolling as he analyses a simple fact. Toga, she- she had professed multiple times how no one had ever been there for her when she needed it, leading to her psychological issues and later murder spree… if he was able to- be there for her from the start, to nip it in the bud before it was too late-
“This shouldn’t be a thing,” Izuku grumbles out, glaring at the boxes in front of him, “She- she should have gotten a true friend, one that believed in her, not someone who’d do it just to- to stop her from becoming Jill the Ripper in the future, this is just- wrong…”
And yet, he was a hero, and she was, at least in the past, a very vulnerable young girl, abused by her parents for what she was, much like- Eri was by Overhaul in a way-
Izuku ALMOST picks options A. ALMOST. Before his eyes scan down to the other two options too. Option C sounds… oddly familiar, and it takes almost a second for Izuku to connect the dots between the pink piece on his board and the pink haired support student from his university who had made his later costumes-
One half of Izuku’s brain goes on listing all the benefits of having her as his “friend,” the discounted prices, the bonuses he’d get from this, as well as the ability to meet this mysterious Red Queen too if she was supposed to be Hatsume’s mom…
The other half is a scared little kid, who had no one to protect him as everyone beat down on him, and who desperately wanted a friend, and who saw a brilliant young woman as she secluded herself from everyone and everything on her workbench, always alone at lunch, always alone in the few courses he took with her, always eager to talk about her interests to people who seemed to find her a nuisance-
Izuku does what he does best, and projects on her.
Hard.
“Option D, picking A and C, what does that give me?” Izuku says, his tone firm and steady, his mind set as a second box appears in front of him.
[OPTION A-C: You gain a 20% Increase in your relationship with the RED KNIGHT and with the PINK BISHOP. You Gain the KRONK! And the WILLING BLOOD BANK Statuses, as well as KNOWLEDGE OF MECHANICS: BASICS, KNOWLEDGE OF ROBOTICS: BASICS, KNOWLEDGE OF SUPPORT SCIENCE: BASICS, KNOWLEDGE OF BIOLOGY: BASICS and KNOWLEDGE OF ANATOMY: BASICS. You have a 75% chance of being roped in a QUEST while hanging out with either girl, and a 100% chance when hanging out with both. The RED KNIGHT and the PINK BISHOP gain a reciprocal relationship increase of 20%. You gain the THE GIRLS HAVE UNIONIZED Status. You Gain a randomized increase in reputation with the RED QUEEN].
Izuku blinks, not really understanding how this was supposed to be a worse deal for him compared to the two singular choices. Hell, he seemed to gain even more benefits from this, given the added knowledge in biology and anatomy he was sure was going to be great for his future as a hero, and the lack of a… “vampire race” addition, whatever that meant. Without even a second though, Izuku clicks on the accept button on the box, the boxes disappearing with a small jingle.
The Pink Bishop and the Red Knight each “eat” Izuku’s piece, the three pieces seemingly fusing together. The Pawn turns into a- very detailed miniature of a green armoured knight riding a red horse and wielding a pink coloured lance, as the white checker piece leaves the board.
“Goodbye nameless childhood friend I never had,” Izuku mumbles out with an almost wistful sigh, “I guess having emotional Intelligence is overrated when compared to saving people in need-”
Izuku suddenly yells as a sudden headache hits him, one hand coming to his temples and grabbing them, trying to massage the pain off the best he could. His eyes snap shut, but he still pries them open as he tries to understand what’s going on.
A new box has appeared, this one larger than the previous one, and seemingly displaying a video in front of him. A sequence of images is shown, as memories are almost forcibly shoved inside Izuku’s head, memories mirroring the images on the screen.
Here’s 4 years old Izuku, his mother talking with a somewhat gangly, twin tailed, green haired woman hunched in front of a computer while wearing some severe looking green, black and grey uniform.
A Printer is beside her, printing documents his mom is quickly snatching up and checking, a sigh of relief already on her lips at the sigh.
Here’s Izuku’s on the ground, looking devastated, no doubt having learned from the woman of his status as Quirkless, a radiography of his foot clutched in his hands. There’s a pink haired girl, a very familiar pink haired little girl, staring from behind the door at him, a toy robot clutched in her tiny hands.
Here’s elementary schooler Izuku, alone, finding Toga in a familiar underpass, sucking on a rat.
Here’s him being shaken and threatened by her, the little girl’s reaction to him finding her like that as she grabs him by the collar and shakes him, tears in her eyes, him shaking his head up and down as if to agree with her.
Here’s Izuku in elementary school, trying to defend a bullied kid from Kacchan. He’s not winning, as usual, and he’s left bloody and bruised resting against a tree in the playground. Toga is there, jumping off the tree branch, startling young Izuku even as she offers him a very colourful band-aid.
Here’s Izuku back at Hatsume’s mom’s- Office? Forge? Laboratory? Izuku isn’t really sure, be as it may he’s there being “coached” in faking his quirk by an adult he had never met before, as he points to stuff and, presumably, says out loud what they are. Hatsume is also there, in a corner, seemingly tinkering with her toy robot.
Here’s Izuku’s and Hatsume’s moms… having tea together? Izuku isn’t really sure, be as it may he and Hatsume are each playing with their own toy, his All Might’s, hers the Robot, by themselves together. When his mom comes to tell them Izuku needs to come back home, Hatsume pouts and stomps her feet down, as if to ask them to stay longer.
Here’s Izuku meeting Himiko on that same underpass, notebook in his hands as he talks with her, a somewhat unconformable look on her face little Izuku completely ignores. At some points, he uncovers a wrist, and offers it to her, making her freak out and run away.
Here’s Izuku in Middle School. Kacchan has just told him to kill himself after burning his notebook and throwing it out the window.
As small Izuku goes down the stairs to grab the notebook back, grumbling all the while, he doesn’t notice the small flying camera resting on a nearby window in the classroom, recording the scene, nor the girl with the pair of glowing cat eyes staring at the room from outside the window, the notebook clutched in her grasp.
Izuku’s serenely sleeping in his room, his notebook back on his night-stand as if it had never been damaged. Outside his window, the lamppost illuminated streets, a Middle Schooler Toga Himiko and a Middle Schooler Hatsume Mei are meeting, staring at each other for a long, tension filled while, before a pair of matching evil smirks appear on their lips.
They shake their hands, and a cold shiver runs down present day’s Izuku’s spine at the sight.
Toga’s parents, Stepford smiles shattering as they receive a visit from detective Tsukauchi of all people waiting outside the door with the same adult that was coaching Izuku on his fake quirk, two policemen, and Himiko, tears running down her cheeks as she hugs the detective, a smirk carefully hidden within the man’s side as she pushes her face against his trench-coat.
Hatsume’s Mom welcoming Toga to her office, the woman from Izuku’s training sessions with her, a smile on her face. Izuku and Hatsume are also there, Hatsume looking as innocent as she can be, while Izuku looks shocked to see her there with them.
Izuku offering once more his wrist to Himiko, this time in Hatsume’s mom forge, the older girl sighing and accepting it with a small, languid, almost intimate bite, Hatsume hiding behind a door and staring on the scene with somewhat rosy cheeks at the sight.
Izuku in High School at Aldera. He’s wearing his uniform, and trying to tie his tie and failing miserably at it. Toga slips in through his window with a crooked smile before, carefully and gently, pirouetting him so he was facing her before making his tie for him. High Schooler Izuku doesn’t look nearly as startled as modern Izuku would have expected from him.
Izuku, Hatsume and Toga (Or is it Mei and Himiko now?) are drinking milkshakes together at some cafe, Izuku in the middle, Himiko and Mei to his sides. Bakugou and his old gang barge in, being as obnoxious and as loud as possible, making Izuku flinch at the noise.
Bakugou getting shoved against a locker a school by a larger male student Izuku doesn’t recognize, Bakugou growling and almost exploding him with his quirk before the student shoves a phone with a surprisingly girly cover on it to his face, showing a video of him in middle school bullying Izuku and telling him to kill himself. Bakugou growls and glares, but doesn’t retaliate, even as the older student shoves him against the locker once more before dropping him in a heap on the ground, a hate filled glare directed at him.
The older student, a love struck look on his face and wearing somewhat clean and well fitting shirt and pants, having a causal date with Himiko at another cafe, her wearing a surprisingly elegant dress as she giggles and talks with him, two holes, consistent with Himiko’s canines, on the student’s wrist.
Mei, laughing maniacally as she works on- something, Izuku wearing a matching white lab coat and goggles as he hastily brings her tools and material to work with, fidgeting and getting anxious all the while.
Himiko, living in the same house with the woman who helped Izuku fake his quirk, having a sleepover with Mei and him. Izuku blushes slightly in his All Might pyjamas as he’s getting his hair done by Himiko, as Mei eats popcorn and watches the movie on the TV, a black and white pre-quirk comedy based on the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
Himiko’s graduation, Izuku and Mei there with her congratulating her as she raises a fist against the sky. The older student, he too graduating, is there too, a sad smile on his face as he looks at Himiko, Izuku and Mei talking, shaking his head with a fond smile on his face, a couple roses held behind his back in his tight fist. He doesn’t, awkwardly enough, give them to Himiko, and gives them to a startled Izuku instead as he takes him to the side, the older, larger student telling him something that only makes Izuku blush and sputter harder at his words, before leaving, completely missing as Mei and Himiko hide behind a corridor to the complete opposite direction, both also blushing scarlet red as they stare at anything but each other.
Modern Izuku doesn’t really understand what’s going on with that.
Izuku and Mei training together on a very familiar beach as Mei keeps collecting trash and carting it off the beach toward… somewhere. Himiko easily manages to punch Izuku in the stomach before stepping on his chest to keep him on the sandy ground, a wild look on her face as she looks down on him, like a predator toward her prey, as he trembles and blushes at below her.
Then Mei barges in and tackle hugs Himiko with an uproarious laugh, breaking the moment.
Himiko doing the UA University Entrance Exam. She doesn’t hit as many robots as Izuku expected from her, but she is also pointedly trying not to drink from any of the other candidates, and he doubts either his or Hatsume’s blood would help her on that front. Still, she takes her time to help a couple candidates in tight spots, and manages to beat the shit out of a couple two pointers with a manhole of all things.
Izuku, Mei and Himiko watching together the hologram of Principal Nedzu. The three of them have teary looks on his eyes, who soon morph into jubilation and joy as Himiko, supposedly, gets admitted into UA in the Hero Course.
Izuku continuing to study in high school in his last year before university, a somewhat subdued Kacchan not bothering him as modern Izuku would expect from him.
Mei and Izuku shaking hands with serious looks on their faces before turning to a nearby console, pushing buttons and sliding dials as energy courses through their contraption. Soon, the machine explodes, blasting them off their shoes and against a nearby blast door. Both Izuku and Mei seem undeterred by this, the two simply scribbling on a matching set of notebooks and moving on.
Izuku and Mei having a video call with Himiko from her dormitory, the three of them chatting amiably together.
They look happy and content, and so does Izuku, this Izuku, the Izuku who got to live this life, the life Modern Izuku had just experienced at high speed, his memories not changed, not altered, simply… added.
“This- this isn’t fair,” Izuku mumbles out, a stray tears coming down his cheek “I bet- I bet it was fun living that, r- rather than just remember it a- all with s- stolen memories of a life I- I never lived for real...”
Izuku hastily wipes away his cheeks as the images on the screen finally fade away, and a new box appears.
[OPTION A-C Rewards:
YOU have Gained:
+20% Relationship Rank with TOGA Himiko and HATSUME Mei.
+15% Standing with the Hatsume Workers Union. +15% Standing with HATSUME Miku].
The last name must have been Hatsume’s mom name, Izuku humming in thought as his eyes scrolled down the list of new perks and feats, barely noticing as the Relationships and Factions brackets on his character sheet were updated by the new additions.
[KRONK!: The perfect mad scientist assistant doesn’t ask questions, follows each order to the letter, is capable of surviving every experiment and ordeal its thrown at them, and most of all, knows when it’s the perfect time to make themselves scarce as the peasants storm the castle gates.
You manage to meet… some of those requirements at leasts.
Since you have been the bumbling yet dedicated assistant of a mad scientist, you permanently have: +1 in Intelligence, Endurance, Perception and Luck, -4 in Wisdom.
There are 4 Possible Mutually Exclusive Upgrades for this Job.
This Job has 10 Possible Branching Jobs].
[WILLING BLOOD BANK: Ah yes, the Vampire Thrall, the first conventional step in the path of every creature of the night to become, one day, a full fledged Master of Shadows.
You are below that.
As a plaything, former or otherwise, of a Vampire aligned character, you permanently now have: +1 in Agility, Endurance, Strength and Charisma, -4 in Wisdom.
There are 3 Possible Mutually Exclusive Upgrades for this Job.
This Job has 10 Possible Branching Jobs].
Izuku blinks at the sight of the two- Jobs? That’s where the new effects were listed on his character’s sheet at least. He had no idea how those things worked outside of granting him more “stats,” so to speak, nor he knew how he would be able to “upgrade” them, or if he wanted to do so in the first place, given the… “villain-y” sounding nature of both of them, but he couldn’t do or say anything about that yet.
He witnesses the stats raising accordingly with what was written on the box, his eyes scrunching shut as he feels his muscles imperceptibly getting more toned, his eyes getting once more sharper, his movement a little bit faster. He didn’t feel- any different, Intelligence wise at least, nor he really was seeing how having a now negative Wisdom score was going to affect him, but Izuku guessed he just had to wait and see for that.
[KNOWLEDGE OF MECHANICS: BASICS, KNOWLEDGE OF ROBOTICS: BASICS, KNOWLEDGE OF SUPPORT SCIENCE: BASICS, KNOWLEDGE OF BIOLOGY: BASICS and KNOWLEDGE OF ANATOMY: BASICS: You have gained BASIC knowledge of the following topics. This will open new dialogue choices, and help you in tasks involving those topics or topics related to them.
Having gained 5 New BASIC Knowledge Pack, You gain the FOUNDATION TO A LEARNED MIND Perk, which grants you +1 Intelligence every 10 BASIC or BETTER Knowledge Pack you discover].
Izuku’s mind burns, the young man groaning in pain as he feels the new information searing itself into his mind, making him grit his teeth in the process.
The sensation is gone as soon as it’s come however, making Izuku sigh in relief.
“I- I guess I know how to fix a toaster if it breaks now at least,” Izuku mumbles out with a small chuckle, moving on to the next status he had been affected with, a little bummed for the fact he missed five more basic packs for a stat increase.
[THE GIRLS HAVE UNIONIZED: The cases are three:
Either YOU didn’t do it on purpose, in which case sorry, our bad, YOU did it without expecting this to happen, in which case that’s entirely on you, live with it, or YOU did it on purpose expecting this to happen, in which case damn, we respect your bold yet probably suicidal decision dear player.
Be as it may, it seems you are now outnumbered two or more to one, and that’s only going to get worse.
FEMALE identifying characters with a Relationship Rank higher than 25% with one another who also happen to have a Relationship Rank higher than 25% with you are now UNIONIZED.
Members of the UNION gain a flat increase of +1 to all of their other stats but lose -1 to Wisdom, gain an additional +1 to all their other stats but lose -1 to Wisdom while around you, with an additional +1 and -1 if their Relationship Rank with you is 75% or higher, and gain +1 to all of their other stats and lose -1 Wisdom while around each other, with an additional +1 and -1 if their Relationship Rank with the other person is 75% or higher.
This effect is cumulative and has no limit based on number of participants.
Members of the UNION may make demands or requests to you, based on Personality, History and other such Factors. There is no limit for number of members doing so in a group capacity.
Members of the UNION may try to change the Dynamics within the UNION based on Personality, History and other such Factors. Splinter factions within the UNION May appear, however never threatening the core unity of the UNION.
This PERK precludes you from the BEARER OF THE MILKSHAKES Perk for Balance purposes.
Appropriate changes have been made to the world and story to accommodate this].
Izuku blinks at the- somewhat strange perk he had just gained. The effect seemed quite powerful, allowing him to empower several people with enhanced reflexes, Strength, speed, Intelligence… all at the cost of some Wisdom, a stat Izuku had still not seen an actual application for, and therefore judged as obviously pointless.
Still, the wording of the perk seemed quite foreboding, both in the way it seemed to be almost a... punishment, for daring to befriend more than two people, and especially on the “changes have been made to the world” line.
That, was what was making Izuku worry the most.
“M- maybe things are- “changed” the s- same way this thing is changing them…” Izuku mumbles, thinking back at the new score of memories he had alongside his original ones, “M- maybe it won’t b- be nothing m- more than me meeting m- more friends- damn now I’m w- worried I hope that won’t make things worse!”
Still, as the box finally disappears (He assumed the part about the… “Quests” with Himiko and Mei was not included as a perk but as an implied effect on him), Izuku looks back at his new Stats, his worry momentarily sedated as he looks at his steadily improved abilities.
[STR: 5
PER: 8
AGI: 4
END: 7
CHAR: 3
INT: 9
WIS: -6
LCK: 11]
The board changes once more, the Red Queen leaving it, leaving only the Ork there for some weird reason.
Three Rooks appear on the board, one White, one Black, and one Red. Izuku waits with bated breath as another box appears in front of him.
[But youth isn’t just fun, Games and friendship, it’s also hard work and improvement of the self.
During those years in your youth, what did you do to improve yourself:
A) YOU went to the WHITE ROOK, a Dojo of martial prowess and discipline. YOU will gain KNOWLEDGE OF GENERIC MARTIAL ARTS: BASICS, YOU will gain KNOWLEDGE OF GENERIC MARTIAL ARTS: INTERMEDIATE. YOU will gain access to the faction and base WHITE TOWER DOJO. Due to your Low-Level QUIRK, you won’t automatically unlock any friends here, and will need to return here to build any relationships with them. Due to the MENTAL Nature of your QUIRK, standing with the faction and it’s members will start at 0. Due to your Training, YOU will gain +3 in Strength, Agility and Endurance, and -5 in Intelligence and Wisdom.
B) YOU went to the BLACK ROOK, a secluded library for knowledge and craft. YOU will gain access to the faction and base THE BLACK TOWER LIBRARY, which will allow you to peruse a book of choice every day, each containing a different INTERMEDIATE or LOWER Knowledge packs. YOU will gain QUICK READER and QUICK LEARNER. You will learn FIVE Randomized BASIC Knowledge Packs. There is NO ONE to meet here. Due to your days passed in the library, YOU will gain +4 in Intelligence and Wisdom, and lose -4 in Perception and Agility.
C) YOU went to the RED ROOK, a smoky den of debauchery and gambling. YOU will gain access to the LEAGUE OF VILLAINS BAR, where you’ll act as a low level informant under the RED QUEEN’s command. You will have 10 randomized encounters with EVIL, UNLAWFUL or DEPRAVED Characters, with randomized results. Due to your days passed here, YOU will gain +7 to Charisma and +7 to Luck].
Izuku blinks, grumbling something under his breath at these choices.
“It seems whatever is doing this to me wants to rail road me into something,” Izuku mumbles, taking in the three offered “trainings,” one obviously far more alluring than the other two, “Going to the League of Villains would be suicide, especially given the- either inconsequential or too risky nature of what it would grant me… I also have to ask myself why would Mei’s mom of all people tell me to do so? Is Mei’s mom a criminal? She- didn’t look like it back from my new memories, but she did forge my quirk certifications, so who knows…”
Izuku still decided to completely avoid option C, if not for anything at least for the danger being that close to Kurogiri and most importantly All for One would have brought him.
“The real choice then is between the dojo or the library,” Izuku mumbles, cursing the lack, among the many papers and dices and miniatures on the table, of a notebook and pen for him to scribble on, “Maths wise, the Library is offering a better deal, a flat plus eight versus the minus eight it would give me, versus the plus nine and minus ten of the Dojo, but my Wisdom stat is so abysmal even that plus four would lead to almost nothing gained for me. The possibility to study knowledge packages from books, as well as the perk about learning faster seem like the real treasure here.”
“As for the Dojo,” Izuku mumbles again, eyes narrowing slightly, “The fact the people there would apparently- not like me that much due to my quirk’s supposed Strength or nature doesn’t sit right to me. Imagine if they found out I was Quirkless? Then again, Martial Arts and a start on my physical training would help a lot for getting One for All sooner, but if I manage to get things to happen like they did last time that won’t even be necessary, with the training All Might is going to put me through again…”
Izuku hums, a fond memory flooding his mind, of him breaking his back cleaning up the beach for his training, a gruelling experience that, nonetheless, led him to where he was now…
“In a dark room playing a board Game that changes my memories of the past?” Izuku mumbles out, suddenly a bit less confident, “OK, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to bring up-”
Before he could get more doubts, he clicked on Option B, Izuku’s piece ate the black rook.
“Fuck it, I’ll go all in on more Intelligence for now,” Izuku justifies himself with a frown, “After all, it’s not like I can’t go to the Dojo too once I’m-”
Small lightnings hit the two remaining Rooks, making them crumble and break, startling Izuku from his thoughts as a new Box appears.
[The Dojo was later investigated for Quirk Discrimination and closed, much to the chagrin of its students. The Red Queen, seeing her daughter’s friend so studiously prepare for the future, smiled and shook her head, deciding not to burden him with the weight of reality just yet].
“Fine, whatever, I guess no Dojo for me,” Izuku grumbles in exasperation as a new box appears, already feeling the effect on his stats as he felt a little more sluggish, his eyesight a little worse than before.
[YOU Spent your days at the DARK TOWER LIBRARY.
YOU have gained:
QUICK READER: YOU can now read books at TWICE your usual speed. You learn KNOWLEDGE Packs from Books TWICE as fast as your usual speed.
QUICK LEARNER: YOU can now learn EVERYTHING TWICE as fast as your usual speed. You can master EVERYTHING TWICE as Fast as your usual speed. For every already learned SOMETHING tied to the SOMETHING you’re learning or mastering, you learn or master that something slightly faster].
Izuku Sighs in relief, the two perks doing exactly what he expected them to do if not more. Why would he need a Dojo to train for years, when now he could learn those same moves faster and more easily, and without getting discriminated as an added bonus?
The Box continued.
[YOU have learned the following RANDOMIZED Basic Knowledge Packs: COOKING: BASICS, HOUSE CLEANING: BASICS, SEWING: BASICS, MASSAGE SKILLS: BASICS, GARDENING: BASICS].
Izuku groans, cursing himself for speaking too soon on his good fortune with the perk, whatever random number god was out there deciding for him having saddled him with what seemed, quite frankly, like not so useful skills for a hero.
“Well, I guess I can cook and clean for myself while we’re at the dorms at least, not that I’m ever going to use any of those other skills there” Izuku sighs, shaking his head in disbelief as he continues reading the message box, “Who’s even ever gona ask me to massage them anyway?”
[YOU have gained: +4 in Wisdom and Intelligence, YOU have lost -4 in Agility and Perception. You have gained an additional +1 Intelligence for having accumulated 10 Knowledge Packs].
Izuku takes a quick look at his now updated character chart.
[STR: 5
PER: 4
AGI: 0
END: 7
CHAR: 3
INT: 14
WIS: -2
LCK: 11]
Izuku sighs, noticing his now zero Agility score, promising himself to raise it back up as soon as he was able to.
Two pieces, a new one and an old one, enter the board. The Black King, which Izuku now recognized as All for One’s, and a Gold Coloured One, one Izuku could already tell what was supposed to represent, each positioned on either side of the board, each on equal distance to Izuku.
Izuku’s focus sharpens instantly, waiting for the message box to come as the Ork piece, still on the board for some reason, finally moves, standing now “behind” Izuku’s piece.
The Box, finally, appears.
[We have an Origin, We have a Friendship, and We have a Training. As your final decision however, we now need a MENTOR for your final stretch before the start of your adventure.
It’s you final year at ALDERA HIGH, and Based on the Available choices, YOU:
A) OPTION UNAVAILABLE
B) OPTION UNAVAILABLE
C) Thanks to your ties to the RED QUEEN-]
Izuku chokes on his breath as he stares, wide eyed, at the two greyed out boxes, clearly each based on the Gold and Black Kings, All Might, obviously, and All for One. He stares, unblinkingly, not even reading the third option as he feels… something build slowly inside him.
“What?!” Izuku mumbles out, voice surprisingly soft to his ears. He clicks forward, hitting the first option, then the second, both giving out a loud buzzer noise, not closing the box, not moving the pieces, doing nothing.
“No. No no no no no-” Izuku starts mumbling, clicking now frantic, continuous, soon turning into straight up punching the unresponsive box, eyes wide, “No no no you can’t DO THIS TO ME, WHAT! NO! NO NO NO NO, do you have any idea what- NO!”
He jumps out his seat, climbing on the table, papers and pieces scattered around as he grabs the box, physical in his hands as he shakes it, hard.
“Give it back to me, give me back One for All! What do you mean unavailable?!!” Izuku yells, not even feeling the tears and snot running down his face, “That- I WORKED HARD ON IT, THAT’S- THAT’S MY QUIRK, MY REAL QUIRK, THE ONE I EARNED GIVE IT BACK GIVE IT BACK TO ME I-!!!”
A new box appears beside the one Izuku is shaking.
It takes a couple minutes for Izuku to, finally, notice it.
Izuku momentarily stops in his action, movements completely stilled, glaring at the offending box, eyes growing wider and wider as he reads, his fists closed on the first box, teeth clenched.
[We are sorry, but this USER does not meet the minimum requirements for the GOLDEN KING DISCIPLE Option.
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:]
Izuku’s breath catches in his mouth as he reads the missed requirements.
[1) Visit the WHITE BISHOP and be Diagnosed Quirkless.]
(One of his shining new implanted memories comes across Izuku’s brain, of him in Hatsume’s mom’s office, getting his Quirk forged by her).
[2) Have no one supporting your dream before meeting the GOLDEN KING]
(A memory of Izuku and Himiko sparring in the sand, a memory of Izuku and Hatsume reading his strategy journal as they ate snacks, a memory of Izuku’s Mom hugging him, a memory of-)
[3) You need to have been consistently bullied for most of your natural life by someone you either once considered or still consider a friend]
(A disguised Himiko blackmailing Bakugou, a lonely, yet left alone Izuku listening to class, his childhood friend, glaring at him from his seat but doing nothing else, his classmates, without a linchpin, simply deciding to ignore the kid with what they assumed was just a low level mental quirk, nothing worthy of bullying such as a Heteromorph or a Quirkless kid).
[4) Speak from your heart with the GOLDEN KING, moving him to action]
A screen appears in front of Izuku’s vision, a familiar underpass there. The Slime Villain erupts from it, looking around, seeking shelter, but finding no one as All Might explodes from the manhole behind him, capturing him easily, before jumping away. Izuku has already moved past the underpass by then, on his way home, his pristine, untouched, unburned notebook still in his hands.
The scene, somehow, rewinds, Izuku walking backwards to the underpass, as the video seemingly forces the slime villain attack on Izuku. Izuku witnesses himself get strangled once more by the monstrous villain, only for All Might to save him once more. The scene seems, somehow, to be a repeat of the original time Izuku met All Might for the first time, only for All Might to sign his notebook and jump off, Izuku starry eyed as he went back home, notebook clutched to his chest, a big smile on his face.
“I- I get it,” Izuku grumbles, voice low, even as he witness another rewind, Izuku on that one faithful roof talking to All Might, All Might, in his skeletal form, looking extremely suspicious of him and his words, acting guarded, as if he didn’t trust him.
Izuku’s anger is suddenly quieted as he lets go of the box in front of him, slowly getting down from the table.
He screams, kicking the chair behind him, sending it flying away from him, only for it to hit an invisible wall and shatter in thousands of wooden splinters, somehow. Izuku’s breath is ragged, his tears free flowing as he screams once more against the empty, cold, uncaring void.
He doesn’t know how much time it passes, maybe a couple seconds, maybe an hour, be as it may, when he finally calms down, a new wooden chair is there for him to sit on.
“I get it,” Izuku mumbles out, voice hoarse, “I- I wanted my life to be- a little b- better, maybe have a friend, s- save someone from becoming a villain, and I- I ended up trading away an entire legacy for it,”
The new box lingers for a couple seconds before, finally, leaving alongside the video showing all the ways it was now impossible for him to become All Might’s successor. He could try later maybe, while he was at UA, but could All Might even be teaching at UA if he wasn’t there for him? Would he be giving it to Mirio, condemning the boy to a slow and agonizing death as old age overtook him in his 20s? Would he even listen to him if he tried to tell him All for One was still alive, where he was, how his quirk truly worked? How was he-
“Can I go back? Can I- can I start this again?” Izuku asks, to no one in particular, “I- I promise I won’t do anything stupid, I- I’ll try to keep things as close as they used to be as possible, please, please… this- this was all I had, this was the only reason why I went to UA, the only reason I made friends, I- p- please…”
No answer, no new boxes, no rewind.
He made his choices, and he’ll have to live with them now.
Izuku’s sob is strangled, yet resigned as he, finally, decides to take a look at his one only option, eyes still blotchy and red with tears.
[C) Thanks to your ties to the RED QUEEN, your friendship with her daughter, and your decision not to enter her SYNDICATE for now due to your dedication to help those in need, the RED QUEEN has decided to get you in contact with THE GREEN MENACE!. THE GREEN MENACE! Agrees to train you, inspired by your secret Quirkless status, in the ways of OVERWHELMING VIOLENCE and INDISCRIMINATE BRUTALITY. You will gain +5 in Strength, Agility, Endurance and Charisma. You will gain the TONED PHYSIQUE and BATTLE SCARRED Perks. You will open a MENTORSHIP with THE GREEN MENACE!, starting at 25%. You will start the “Revenge for the Hyper Fist” QUESTLINE. You gain access to the VIGILANTE Skill Tree, as well as the VIGILANTE Quest Hub. You gain the NIGHTHARE Title. You gain the LOOPHOLE VIGILANTE Job].
Izuku stares, trembling slightly, at the only choice presented to him, lower lip wobbling.
“So- this is what it led to,” Izuku mumbles out, slowly taking a deep, calming breath, “Overwhelming violence- I- I hope I can get this p- past UA- t- that’s if they don’t d- discover my quirk certificate is n- not true eh eh...”
Izuku cringes at his own mistakes, not having thought it out nearly as much as he thought he did, “I g- guess I know n- now what w- was the point of a Wisdom s- score...”
The Gold and the Black King fall as Izuku, finally, hits the button, checkmated by the Ork as it descends on Izuku. The Miniature moves, giant boxing gloves punching Izuku’s piece and shattering it. Inside it, a Green coloured King Piece is revealed, the Ork kneeling beside it before, somehow, disappearing into dusk.
The Green King piece stands, alone on the board, as Izuku sighs.
“It’s done I guess,” Izuku says, a sniff escaping his mouth, as the next and, hopefully, final box appears.
Instead, the screen opens once more, showing an almost 18 year old Izuku stare up at a gigantic, muscular men, wearing a green trench coat, a black mask and-
“I- is that…” Izuku mumbles out, blotchy, tearful eyes slowly opening back up, regaining vigour, focus as he, finally, concentrates on the man on the screen, his new memories already answering his incoming question as he recognizes-
“KNUCKLEDUSTER?!” Izuku yells, more like squeals, eyes wide and filled with something, perhaps fire, perhaps something else as he recognizes the infamously violent vigilante.
The Infamously Quirkless Vigilante.
“Holy shit.” Izuku breaths out, his grief somewhat sedated as he comes face to face with the one and only Quirkless individual out there who ever had a successful career as a crime fighter.
An illegal, incredibly unlawful and extremely violent one yes, but still a Quirkless one.
Izuku sees the images on the screen, his sudden cheer quickly dying down, replaced by worry as the gruelling training, him getting beaten up, forced to do push-ups with the titanically sized man on top of him, him… beating… the shit… out of-
“What.”
Izuku is beating the shit of a bunch of… he hopes those are criminals, but he doesn’t really want to judge by their choices of attire honestly, with the dark robes and the skull masks… Especially given what HE is also wearing there.
Izuku gulps in worry as he sees himself wearing a darkened, somewhat well kept version of his “Vigilante” costume, from back during his Dark Hero days. The ghastly visage, the unearthly grin on the mask, the green pinpricks for eyes, somehow replicated despite the lack of One for All, as he blitzes a bunch of people Izuku, finally, recognizes as Creature Rejection Clan members from a flag on the wall in their lair.
His counterpart is being brutal, far more brutal than Izuku had ever been, and yet far more efficient as he crippled and maimed with precise, direct strikes, one kick launching one of the cultists out a locked door-
Izuku, both the one in the screen and the one in the empty void, notice the cage hidden behind the locked door now.
And the naked, shackled Heteromorphs locked and muzzled inside.
For some reason, Izuku is pretty sure his face and the one of his counterpart on screen are perfect mirrors of each other as they take in the sight, frozen, paralysed, even if he can’t see it due to the mask…
A stinging pain hits Izuku’s back as he hisses, his counterpart on screen struck on the back by one of the Clan Members whips, leaving a dark, red gash on his back, Izuku’s ghastly mask turning, slowly, back to the men in the room, one hand coming to catch the next lash as he clenches his fist against the whip, hard.
Izuku shudders even as the scene abruptly ends the captured Heteromorphs sitting, dazed, on the street outside, being treated by Paramedics and questioned by the Police as Izuku and Knuckleduster look on from a rooftop.
Izuku can see his counterpart fist tighten so hard blood is being drawn as he stares down at the cultists, or at least the pulps they were now, being carted off to the hospital.
Seemingly alive.
Izuku gives out a relieved sigh at the sight, not having become a murderer at least, as the scene shifts back to more training, him working on goggles, probably the ones that were causing the green pinpricks in his eyes, alongside Mei (Mei was on it?), him showing a blushing Himiko (Himiho is on it??) his now scarred back, the lash from the Clan member having left a mark, him mending his own costume alongside his mom (His MOM was on it????),…
The small video ends, Izuku blinking on the last scene, him, looking on the horizon on a familiar, very familiar rooftop, with Knuckleduster behind him, a smirk on his face as he looks on Izuku.
The proverbial box appears, hopefully the last for now, as Izuku takes in the new memories that were now flooding his brain.
[YOU are now the APPRENTICE of THE GREEN MENACE!.
YOU Gain:
+5 in Strength, Agility, Endurance and Charisma.
OVERWHELMING VIOLENCE FIGHTING STYLE: Seneca once said “In times of war, the law stays mute.” Life is war as you have now understood it, pummelled to the ground by a man twice your size to put you into a rough fighting shape, and have decided to adapt this philosophy to your fighting style. You gain INTERMEDIATE level KNOWLEDGE Pack with HAND TO HAND, IMPROVISED WEAPONS, HAND WEAPONS, TORTURE, INTIMIDATION as well as a BASIC level KNOWLEDGE Pack in HERO, VIGILANTE and VILLAIN LAW. Your control over the style is based on your Wisdom stat. The Higher the Wisdom, the less LETHAL your fighting style is.
INDISCRIMINATE BRUTALITY FIGHTING STYLE: All your strikes have a low chance of inflicting one or more PHYSICAL or MENTAL negative statuses. EVERYTHING and EVERYONE now counts as an improvised Weapon as long as you have the Strength to wield it. You gain a randomized increase or decrease in your Relationship Rank with people witnessing you landing one of such negative statuses with one strike, or use a non-standard improvised weapon in a fight, based on the character in question].
Izuku sighs, new- knowledge, knowledge he never wanted in the first place flooding his brain as new memories already start forming. He was now even more surprised from his counterpart, as violent as he was, not having murdered those men of the Clan, especially with his negative Wisdom score-
“OK, now I GOT to raise my Wisdom score,” Izuku mumbles out, a headache already starting to form behind his temples, “Can’t become a hero if I kill every villain I fight- O- or I g- guess I can but I can’t risk every sparring session at UA ending with my opponent crippled for life or worse… Recovery Girl would Kill me!”
The box, seemingly ignoring Izuku’s machinations, continued with its “rewards.”
[TONED PHYSIQUE: Look at you, you have MUSCLES now! Not the bodybuilder kind no, and not even the underwear model one, but the real, hard, compact muscles of the Working Man, the one who fights and trains and works with his body to make the world a better place! You gain +2 Strength, Endurance, Agility and Charisma. People attracted to you who see you shirtless with have their Relationship Rank raised.
BATTLE SCARRED: A SCAR is a closed WOUND, and much like every closed WOUND, is a closed DOOR. You have ONE or more SCARS on your person. You gain +1 in Strength, Endurance and Charisma for every scar on you. People attracted to you who see your SCAR with have their Relationship Rank raised for every Scar they see. You currently have ONE SCAR].
Izuku blisters at the words on the screen, even as he touches gingerly his back, feeling the scarred tissue beneath his school uniform. He can also feel his muscles, nearly not even close to his previous, one for all physique, but still quite good all things considered.
“W- what is up with the… people attracted to me thing…” Izuku mumbles, blushing a fierce red colour, “W- who would even d- do that…”
[You have acquired a MENTORSHIP with the Quirkless VIGILANTE KNUCKLEDUSTER, Relationship Rank 25%. You can now ask for his counsel and help, which he will offer you himself too.
Whatever you like it or no].
“W- well that’s not ominous at all, eh eh-” Izuku tries to chuckle, only for it to come out as a strangled, nervous sound.
[“Revenge for the Hyper Fist” QUESTLINE started: By becoming the apprentice of the Quirkless VIGILANTE KNUCKLEDUSTER, you are now part of his quest for JUSTICE and REVENGE. To start, ask him about why he’s a vigilante once your Relationship Rank with him reaches 30%
You have now access to the VIGILANTE Skill Tree and the VIGILANTE Quest Hub once in the HUB WORLD].
Izuku blinks, a hum escaping his mouth at those words. No one ever really knew anything about Knuckleduster, only that he was Quirkless, and he was now quite close to the man, and apparently able, at some point, to be able to ask him QUESTIONS.
Izuku gulped, slowly, trying to contain his excitement as he remembered he was still the guy who, according to his memories, had just beat the shit out of him over and over to train him.
“Not so different from hauling fridges off a beach I guess-” Izuku chuckles out with a small, awkward smile, as the last box finishes its report.
[YOU have gained the NIGHTHARE Vigilante Name. Get it? Nightmare, Hare, Nighthare!]
Izuku cringes at the pun, hoping to be able to change his new “hero” name as soon as he could, if not be able to get rid of it entirely.
[CRIMES discovered committed while in costumes won’t be connected back to you, but will be attributed to NIGHTHARE. Unlawful and Lawful characters will attack NIGHTHARE on sight. You gain the Dark Hero: Deku (Quirkless Vigilante Variant) Costume. You gain +1 in Agility, Perception and Strength. People seeing NIGHTHARE have a low chance of receiving a low level MENTAL negative effect.
LOOPHOLE VIGILANTE: Did you know there is no law prohibiting what was once considered vigilantism? There is, yes, but the modern definition of Vigilantism requires the vigilante in question to use a Quirk.
Which you don’t have.
You can now defy the state’s monopoly on violence to your heart content. That is, if you don’t get killed by an overzealous hero or an angry villain before that of course.
You have +2 on all stats, but LAWFUL, UNLAWFUL and PARANOID characters who do not know your secret will gain ONE tick of Suspicion the first time they meet you, as well as every time you do something that would warrant their Suspicion.
There are 9 Possible Exclusive Upgrades for this Job. You can only get a Maximum of 3.
This Job has 3 Possible Branching Jobs].
Izuku sighs.
He’s a vigilante now, and a pretty violent one at that. He’ll have to rectify that as soon as he can, before someone got caught in the crossfire at least.
Izuku waits, barely a couple seconds, before the table and the board in front of him start disappearing, leaving only his green king piece in front of him as everything dissolves onto static and dust.
[CONGRATULATIONS, you have completed this Game of CONQUEST.
Good Luck, and most importantly, Have Fun!
Now, grab the piece, and start the Game]
The last box disappears, as Izuku, a determined glint in his eyes
"Moment of truth then," Izuku says, his tone as steady as he could muster, hand already clasping the piece tight.
As light erupts from Izuku's piece, blinding him once more, a familiar tune starts playing in his ears.
A chilling sensation runs up Izuku's spine, as he finds himself once more on top a... very familiar skyline.
"OH COME-!"
And Izuku is hurled against the rooftop's pavement once more.