What if Deku had a God of Destruction quirk that's overpowered

 

 

 

The waiting room of the Musutafu Pediatrics and Quirk Counseling Clinic smelled of sterile alcohol wipes, stale coffee, and the faint, sweet scent of the cherry lollipops kept in a jar by the receptionist’s desk. To most children, it was a smell associated with the anxiety of vaccinations or the discomfort of a scraped knee. To four-year-old Izuku Midoriya, it was the smell of destiny.

 

Izuku sat on the edge of the oversized, vinyl-covered chair, his short legs kicking back and forth in a frantic, uneven rhythm. His oversized green sneakers squeaked against the linoleum floor. In his small, chubby hands, he gripped a limited-edition Silver Age All Might action figure. He twisted the toy’s waist, making the bulky plastic hero throw an imaginary punch, accompanying the movement with quiet, breathy “Smash! Smash!” sound effects.

 

Beside him, Inko Midoriya sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She was a woman of gentle features, with soft green hair tied half-up and a warm, albeit currently nervous, smile. She reached out, her fingers lightly brushing the chaotic mop of curls on her son’s head.

 

"Are you excited, Izuku?" she asked, her voice a soothing melody amidst the low hum of the clinic's fluorescent lights.

 

Izuku stopped his kicking. He turned to her, his large, emerald eyes shining with a brilliance that rivaled the stars. "Yeah! Do you think it’ll be a flashy quirk, Mom? Like Kacchan’s? Or maybe I can breathe fire like Dad! Or pull things like you!"

 

He demonstrated by thrusting his empty hand forward, fingers splayed as if attempting to summon a magazine from the nearby coffee table through sheer willpower. The magazine remained stubbornly in place. Izuku didn't care; his grin only grew wider.

 

"Whatever it is, sweetie," Inko said, her heart swelling with maternal affection, "I'm sure it will be a wonderful quirk. A hero's quirk."

 

A hero's quirk. The words echoed in Izuku's mind, a sacred promise. He looked down at his All Might figure, admiring the bright red, white, and blue paint, the fearless smile molded into the plastic. He was going to save people with a smile, just like him. He just needed his power to wake up.

 

"Izuku Midoriya?"

 

A nurse stood at the doorway leading to the examination rooms, holding a digital tablet. Inko stood up immediately, smoothing down her skirt, and took Izuku’s hand. The boy practically vibrated with energy as he hopped off the chair, his grip on his mother's hand tight and eager.

 

Dr. Tsubasa’s office was a clinical sanctuary filled with anatomical posters, glowing light boxes for X-rays, and a desk cluttered with medical journals. The doctor himself was an older man, bald with a bushy mustache and thick, round goggles that magnified his eyes to comical proportions. He sat in his leather chair, a set of fresh X-rays clipped to the light board behind him.

 

"Ah, Mrs. Midoriya, little Izuku. Please, take a seat," Dr. Tsubasa said, gesturing to the chairs opposite his desk.

 

Inko sat, lifting Izuku into the chair beside her. Izuku immediately held up his All Might figure, showing it to the doctor as if it were his official credentials. Dr. Tsubasa chuckled softly, though the sound lacked its usual warmth. He turned in his chair, gesturing to the illuminated X-ray of a small human foot on the board.

 

"Well, Mrs. Midoriya, I have the results of Izuku's quirk-factor screening and his anatomical scans," the doctor began, adjusting his goggles. "As you know, the presence of a quirk is historically linked to the evolutionary streamlining of the human body. The loss of the extra joint in the pinky toe is the universal biological marker."

 

Izuku held his breath. He knew this part. He had watched documentaries about quirk science online.

 

Dr. Tsubasa tapped the screen with a pen. "As you can see here, Izuku has only one joint in his pinky toe. His body is perfectly evolved. Furthermore, his blood work shows an extremely high concentration of Quirk Plus Alpha factors."

 

Inko let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, a tear of relief pricking the corner of her eye. "So... he will have a quirk?"

 

"Oh, absolutely," Dr. Tsubasa confirmed, turning back to face them. "In fact, given the density of the quirk factor in his blood, it is highly likely that his quirk is incredibly powerful. The delay in its manifestation is likely due to his body needing more time to develop the necessary physical pathways to handle it. A small spark could set it off at any moment."

 

Izuku felt as though he might explode. A powerful quirk! He looked at his hands, his small, unremarkable hands. Somewhere inside them, a superpower was sleeping, waiting for him to wake it up. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. The blood rushed in his ears, a rushing, rhythmic thumping that seemed to grow louder with every passing second.

 

A hero's quirk.

 

He squeezed his All Might figure tighter. His emotions swelled—joy, anticipation, an overwhelming desire to protect, to fight, to stand at the top.

 

Then, something shifted.

 

It didn't feel like a spark. It didn't feel warm.

 

Deep within his chest, something unlocked. It felt as though a heavy, iron door had swung open in the darkest, deepest part of his soul. A sudden, terrifyingly cold sensation flooded his veins. It wasn't the chill of winter; it was the cold of a vacuum, an absolute absence of heat, life, and matter.

 

Izuku gasped, his eyes going wide. The rushing sound in his ears warped into a low, resonant thrum. It sounded like a massive bass string being plucked underwater.

 

"Izuku? Sweetie, what's wrong?" Inko asked, leaning forward, alarmed by the sudden pallor of her son's face.

 

Izuku couldn't answer. He couldn't breathe. He looked down at his hands.

 

Surrounding his right hand, the one gripping the plastic toy, was a light. But it wasn't a hero's bright, golden glow. It was an otherworldly, violent shade of purple. It crackled like electricity, but it flowed like liquid fire, rimmed with a stark, terrifying black edge. The air around his hand began to warp and distort, the light bending as if gravity itself was collapsing around his small fingers.

 

"Doctor?" Inko's voice trembled, a sudden, primal panic rising in her chest. "Doctor, what is that? Is that his quirk?"

 

Dr. Tsubasa stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. He leaned over the desk, his magnified eyes wide with professional curiosity that rapidly morphed into deep, unsettling alarm. "Fascinating... the energy output, it's... it's distorting the light in the room."

 

Izuku stared at his glowing hand. The purple energy licked at his skin, but it didn't burn him. It felt like a part of him, an extension of his own will. But it felt angry. It felt hungry.

 

He looked at his beloved All Might figure, fully engulfed in the violet aura.

 

Izuku didn't squeeze his hand. He didn't apply any pressure. But as he watched, the plastic of the toy began to change.

 

It didn't melt like wax over a candle. It didn't catch fire and turn to ash. It didn't shatter into pieces.

 

It simply ceased to be.

 

Starting from the legs, the brightly painted plastic dissolved into millions of microscopic, glowing purple motes of light, which then instantly blinked out of existence. The erasure traveled up the toy's body. The legs, the torso, the smiling face of the Symbol of Peace—all of it quietly, silently vanished into absolute nothingness.

 

Within two seconds, Izuku’s hand was empty. He was clutching empty air, the purple fire still dancing across his knuckles.

 

The room was dead silent. The hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to have vanished, swallowed by the oppressive, heavy aura radiating from the four-year-old boy.

 

Izuku blinked, his mind struggling to process what had just happened. He looked at his empty palm, then up at his mother. "Mommy? Where... where did All Might go?"

 

Inko was frozen, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes wide with a terror she couldn't suppress. She had felt the air in the room drop by ten degrees. She had felt the hairs on her arms stand up, driven by a deep, evolutionary instinct that screamed at her to run.

 

Dr. Tsubasa slowly reached for a heavy, solid steel paperweight on his desk. His hand was shaking. He moved around the desk and knelt in front of the boy.

 

"Izuku," the doctor said, his voice stripped of its previous grandfatherly warmth, replaced by a strained, clinical caution. "I need you to touch this for me. Just... just tap it with your glowing hand."

 

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Inko whispered, her voice cracking.

 

"I need to be sure, Mrs. Midoriya. Please."

 

Izuku, wanting to be a good boy, reached out his glowing purple hand and pressed his index finger against the solid steel cube.

 

Thrum.

 

The moment his skin made contact, the purple energy surged, wrapping around the steel block. The heavy metal didn't resist. It made no sound of scraping or tearing. In an instant, the steel lost its structural integrity, turning into a cloud of purple dust that vanished before it even hit the floor. The paperweight was gone. There was no residue. There was no heat.

 

It had been erased from reality.

 

Dr. Tsubasa stumbled backward, falling onto his backside. He stared at the spot where the steel had been, then looked at the small boy sitting in the chair, the purple energy slowly receding back under his skin until his hand looked perfectly normal again.

 

"Matter..." the doctor breathed out, his voice trembling. "Total matter annihilation. It bypasses the laws of conservation. It doesn't convert matter into energy. It deletes it."

 

Izuku looked back and forth between his mother and the doctor. His mother was crying. Why was she crying? He got his quirk. He wasn't quirkless.

 

"Mom?" Izuku asked, his lower lip quivering. "Did I do something bad? Did I break it?"

 

Inko fell to her knees in front of her son. She didn't hug him. For a fraction of a second, her hands hovered over his shoulders, hesitating. She was afraid to touch him. That microscopic hesitation, that split-second of fear in his mother's eyes, carved a permanent scar into Izuku's developing psyche.

 

She finally grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him into a desperate, sobbing embrace. "Oh, Izuku... my baby... my poor, sweet baby."

 

Dr. Tsubasa pulled himself up, using his desk for support. He took off his goggles and rubbed his face, looking suddenly ten years older. He moved to his computer terminal and began typing with shaking fingers.

 

"Doctor... what is it?" Inko asked through her tears, holding Izuku tight against her chest. "What is his quirk?"

 

Dr. Tsubasa didn't turn around immediately. When he did, his expression was grave. "Mrs. Midoriya, quirks are generally classified by their utility and danger level. Emitter, Transformation, Mutant. But there is a sub-classification used by the Hero Public Safety Commission and the government for quirks that pose an immediate, uncontrollable threat to human life and infrastructure."

 

He pointed to the screen. "Your son's quirk... it isn't fire breath. It isn't telekinesis. It is the spontaneous generation of an energy that completely erases physical matter. I am officially registering his quirk under the name 'Annihilation.' And I am legally obligated to flag his file."

 

"Flag his file?" Inko repeated, her voice hollow.

 

"Yes. Izuku possesses an S-Rank Lethal Quirk," Dr. Tsubasa said, his voice heavy with sorrow. "Mrs. Midoriya... this is not a quirk suited for a hero. It is a quirk of absolute destruction. If he loses his temper, if he has a night terror, if he accidentally touches someone while that energy is active... he won't just injure them. He will erase them. They will cease to exist. There will be no body to bury."

 

The words hung in the air, a death sentence pronounced in a sterile room.

 

Izuku didn't understand all the big words. But he understood "lethal." He understood "destruction." He understood that his mother was wailing, clutching him as if the world was ending.

 

He looked at his hands, resting against his mother's back. They looked normal. But beneath the skin, he could still feel it. The cold. The void. The hungry, purple spark waiting to be let out.

 

He wasn't a hero. He was a monster.

 

 

 

The drive home was silent. It was a suffocating, heavy silence that pressed down on Izuku's chest. He sat in his booster seat in the back, staring out the window at the passing city. He saw heroes on billboards. He saw the brightly colored costumes, the dazzling smiles, the hands reaching out to save people.

 

He looked down at his own hands. He kept them tightly balled into fists, resting on his lap. He was terrified that if he relaxed them, the purple fire would come back and eat the car, eat his mother, eat the world.

 

When they arrived at their apartment, Inko didn't take off her coat. She told Izuku to sit on the couch and not move. She went to the bathroom and returned a moment later with a first-aid kit.

 

Her eyes were red, swollen from crying. She knelt in front of him, opening the kit and pulling out rolls of thick, white medical gauze.

 

"Mommy? Are you hurt?" Izuku asked, his voice a small, broken whisper.

 

"No, sweetie," Inko sniffled, forcing a painful, wobbly smile. "Mommy is fine. Give me your hands."

 

Izuku hesitated, then slowly extended his small hands. Inko took them gently. Her hands were warm, trembling. She unrolled the gauze and began to wrap it around his palms, over his knuckles, securing his fingers. She wrapped them thick, layering the fabric over and over until his hands looked like small, white boxing gloves.

 

"Mommy, why are you doing this?" Izuku asked, tears finally welling up in his large green eyes.

 

"It's... it's to keep you safe, Izuku," Inko lied, her voice cracking. "And to keep everyone else safe. Your quirk... it's very strong. Too strong right now. We have to keep it asleep."

 

She finished wrapping the left hand and started on the right.

 

"But... but I want to be a hero," Izuku cried, the tears spilling over his freckled cheeks. "I want to save people. All Might saves people with his hands! I want to hold people and tell them it's okay!"

 

Inko stopped wrapping. She looked at her son, her heart shattering into a million irreparable pieces. She wanted to tell him he could be a hero. She wanted to tell him that he could be just like All Might. But the image of the steel block vanishing into nothingness flashed in her mind. How could he save anyone if his touch brought absolute death? Society didn't let things that destroy become heroes. They locked them away. Or worse, they turned them into weapons.

 

She couldn't lie to him. Not about this.

 

"Izuku," she sobbed, pulling him against her chest, careful not to let his bandaged hands touch her skin directly. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. You have to promise me. Promise me you will never use it. Promise me you will keep your hands wrapped. You can't touch anyone. You can't."

 

Izuku buried his face in his mother's shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. He didn't understand why the universe had played such a cruel trick on him. He had the heart of a savior, but he had been cursed with the touch of a god of destruction.

 

"I promise," he wailed into her shirt. "I promise, Mommy."

 

The bandages felt heavy. They felt like chains.

 

 

 

Two weeks passed. For Izuku, they were the longest, darkest weeks of his short life.

 

The Midoriya household had fundamentally changed. All the All Might posters were still on the walls, but Izuku no longer looked at them with unbridled joy. He looked at them with a profound, aching melancholy. He had stopped watching hero videos. He had stopped pretending to fight villains in the living room.

 

He wore the bandages every day. His mother changed them every morning and every night, a silent, somber ritual. She had bought special, thick leather gloves for him to wear over the bandages when he went outside, telling everyone he had a rare skin condition that made him sensitive to the sun.

 

It was a lie, but society accepted lies easier than the truth.

 

Eventually, Inko realized she couldn't keep him locked in the apartment forever. He needed fresh air. He needed to be a child. So, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, she took him to the local playground.

 

The park was bustling with children. The air was filled with laughter, the squeak of the swings, and the occasional flashy pop of a newly manifested quirk.

 

Izuku stood at the edge of the sandbox, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his shorts, his leather gloves feeling hot and suffocating in the afternoon sun. He watched the other kids play. They were building sandcastles, playing tag, holding hands.

 

Holding hands. It was such a simple, mundane act. But to Izuku, it was a luxury he would never, ever be allowed to experience again.

 

"Hey! Deku!"

 

Izuku flinched. He knew that voice. It was loud, arrogant, and commanded attention.

 

Katsuki Bakugo marched across the playground, a small entourage of boys trailing behind him like loyal subjects. Bakugo was only four, but he walked with the swagger of a seasoned general. Small, sharp explosions popped in the palms of his hands, drawing awe-struck gasps from his followers.

 

Bakugo had manifested his quirk a few weeks before Izuku. 'Explosion.' It was flashy, powerful, and undeniably heroic. Everyone had told Bakugo he was amazing. Everyone had told him he was going to be the number one hero. And Bakugo believed them with every fiber of his being.

 

He stopped a few feet away from Izuku, crossing his arms and smirking. "Where have you been, Deku? You haven't been at the park in weeks. And what's with the stupid gloves? It's the middle of summer!"

 

Izuku took a step back, his eyes darting to the ground. "I... I was sick, Kacchan. And my hands... they're just sensitive."

 

"Sensitive? Ha! You're so weak," Bakugo scoffed, stepping closer. "Did you finally get your quirk, or are you still a quirkless nobody?"

 

The question hit Izuku like a physical blow. Did you get your quirk? Yes. He had. And it was a nightmare.

 

"I... I got it," Izuku mumbled, still not meeting Bakugo's eyes.

 

Bakugo's smirk widened, his crimson eyes gleaming with competitive fire. "Oh yeah? What is it? Let me see it! I bet it's something lame like making bubbles. Come on, show me so I can prove my Explosions are still better!"

 

Bakugo reached out, grabbing Izuku by the shoulder of his shirt to pull him forward.

 

Don't touch him.

 

Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in Izuku's chest. His mother's sobbing voice echoed in his mind. If you accidentally touch someone... you will erase them.

 

"No! Let go!" Izuku yelled, panic overriding his logic. He violently twisted his body to break Bakugo's grip.

 

Bakugo stumbled back, surprised by the sudden resistance. Surprise quickly morphed into anger. No one told Katsuki Bakugo 'no'. Especially not weak, crying Deku.

 

"You think you can yell at me?!" Bakugo shouted, his palms crackling with orange sparks. "You think you're better than me now that you have a quirk?! I'll show you who's the best!"

 

Bakugo lunged forward, his right hand pulled back, intending to hit Izuku with a weak but painful explosion to put him back in his place.

 

Time seemed to slow down for Izuku. He saw the orange sparks. He saw the angry, distorted face of his childhood friend. But beneath the fear of the explosion, a deeper, more primal instinct flared to life. Survival. Defense.

 

The iron door in his soul blew off its hinges.

 

The cold rushed in.

 

Izuku didn't throw a punch. He didn't even mean to attack. In pure self-defense, he threw his hands up in front of his face, his palms facing outward.

 

The leather gloves he wore didn't just tear; they disintegrated instantly. The thick gauze bandages followed a millisecond later, turning into ash that didn't even have time to fall before it vanished.

 

Thrum.

 

The sound wasn't loud, but it vibrated through the ground, shaking the sand beneath their feet.

 

A sphere of brilliant, terrifying violet energy erupted from Izuku's bare hands. It expanded outward in a protective dome, a few feet in radius.

 

Bakugo's hand hit the barrier. The explosion he had generated, the concussive force, the heat, the fire—it met the purple aura and was instantly, utterly silenced. Nullified. Erased.

 

But the aura didn't stop. It expanded outward, pushing past Bakugo, narrowly missing the boy by inches as Izuku instinctively angled his hands away from his friend at the last possible microsecond.

 

The wave of purple destruction energy shot diagonally upward and to the right, crashing into the massive, ancient oak tree that shaded the playground.

 

There was no sound of splintering wood. There was no crash of falling branches.

 

A perfect, smooth sphere, roughly ten feet in diameter, was simply excised from reality. The middle of the tree's massive trunk vanished, leaving the upper half suspended in mid-air for a fraction of a second, gravity forgetting to act on it.

 

The purple light vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

 

CRASH.

 

Gravity reasserted its dominance. The top half of the massive oak tree plummeted to the ground, slamming into the earth with a deafening roar that shook the entire park. Leaves and dust billowed into the air.

 

Silence descended upon the playground. The children stopped playing. The mothers on the benches froze.

 

Izuku stood breathing heavily, his small chest heaving. He looked at his bare hands. The purple energy was gone, but the air around his fingers still distorted slightly, the lingering heat of absolute destruction.

 

He slowly lowered his hands and looked at Bakugo.

 

Bakugo Katsuki was frozen. His arm was still outstretched. His eyes, usually so full of arrogant fire, were wide, dilated, and empty. He was staring at the fallen tree. He looked at the perfect, unnaturally smooth cut where the wood had been deleted from existence.

 

Then, slowly, mechanically, Bakugo turned his head to look at Izuku.

 

Bakugo was only four years old, but in that moment, he understood something fundamental about the universe. He understood the concept of a predator, and he understood the concept of prey.

 

He had felt the purple aura when his hand hit it. It hadn't been hot. It hadn't pushed him back. It had felt like staring into an endless, bottomless abyss that wanted to swallow his soul. If Izuku hadn't tilted his hands away... if that energy had touched him...

 

He wouldn't be hurt. He wouldn't be burned. He would be dead. He wouldn't exist.

 

A drop of cold sweat rolled down Bakugo's temple. His breath hitched. His knees trembled, threatening to buckle beneath him. For the first time in his life, Katsuki Bakugo felt true, unadulterated fear.

 

His explosive quirk, the power he thought made him a god among his peers, was nothing. It was a sparkler next to a supernova. The boy standing in front of him wasn't just stronger. He was on a completely different plane of existence.

 

Bakugo's mind couldn't handle the paradigm shift. His pride, the core foundation of his identity, fractured. To protect his fragile ego from the shattering realization of his own utter insignificance, his mind immediately built a wall of denial, cemented by toxic, desperate anger.

 

"You..." Bakugo whispered, his voice shaking. He took a step back, pulling his arm against his chest. "What... what did you do?"

 

"Kacchan... I..." Izuku stepped forward, reaching out a hand, wanting to apologize, wanting to explain.

 

"Stay back!" Bakugo shrieked, his voice cracking. He stumbled backward, falling onto his rear in the sand. He scrambled backward like a crab, scrambling away from a monster. "Don't touch me! Keep away from me, you freak!"

 

Izuku stopped. He looked at his hand, reaching out to his friend. The friend who was looking at him not with awe, not with rivalry, but with pure, undiluted terror.

 

The other kids started to scream. Mothers were running over, grabbing their children, pulling them away from the center of the playground, away from the boy standing amidst the dust of the fallen tree.

 

If you accidentally touch someone... you will erase them.

 

Izuku slowly pulled his hand back, pressing it tightly against his own chest. He looked around the playground. Everyone was staring at him. Their eyes were wide, white with fear. They looked at him the way people looked at villains on the news.

 

He had defended himself. He hadn't hurt anyone. But it didn't matter. The display of power was too absolute, too unnatural.

 

A dark, heavy realization settled over Izuku's young mind, crushing the last remnants of his childhood innocence.

 

A hero's power was meant to inspire hope. When All Might smiled, people felt safe. When they looked at his power, they felt protected.

 

When people looked at Izuku's power, they felt despair. They felt the cold inevitability of death.

 

He was a god of destruction in a world that prayed for saviors.

 

Izuku didn't cry. He felt too hollow to cry. He turned his back on the trembling Bakugo, turned his back on the fallen tree, and began to walk away, his head bowed. He tucked his bare hands under his armpits, terrified of the air, terrified of the world, terrified of himself.

 

He had a quirk. He was powerful.

 

But as he walked out of the park, surrounded by the whispers and terrified stares of the people he had sworn to protect, Izuku Midoriya realized a tragic truth.

 

He would never be a hero. Not the kind that people loved.

 

If he was ever going to use this power, he would have to become a shield. A dark, terrifying shield that stood between the world and the monsters that sought to break it. He would have to bear the sin of destruction so that others could live in the light.

 

The purple spark deep within his soul hummed in quiet agreement, waiting for the day he would need to erase the world.

 

 

 

The gloves were a marvel of modern quirk-suppression engineering, though to Izuku Midoriya, they were nothing more than a localized prison.

 

They were heavy, constructed from a hybridized weave of carbon-nanotubes, tungsten fibers, and a specialized quirk-dampening polymer developed by I-Island’s top researchers. The inner lining was soft, meant to prevent chafing, but the exterior was rigid, almost armor-like. They covered his hands entirely, extending a few inches past his wrists where they locked into place with biometric magnetic clasps. They were sleek, matte black, and utterly suffocating.

 

Izuku sat at his desk in the back corner of the third-year classroom at Aldera Junior High, staring at his covered hands. Ten years had passed since the incident at the playground. Ten years since a four-year-old boy had accidentally erased half of a centuries-old oak tree from existence. Ten years since he had learned what it meant to be feared.

 

He slowly clenched his right hand into a fist. The thick material of the glove resisted the movement, making it a deliberate, strenuous effort. Beneath the tungsten and polymer, he could feel it. The purple spark. It wasn't a spark anymore; it was a dormant, roiling ocean of destructive energy that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. It demanded to be let out. It hungered to consume, to unmake, to return the physical world to a state of absolute zero.

 

Suppressing it was a constant, waking nightmare. It was like trying to hold a reinforced steel door shut while a hurricane battered it from the other side. Over the years, the sheer physical and mental toll of holding the energy back had changed Izuku. He was no longer the hyperactive, easily excitable child who muttered a mile a minute. The effort required absolute, iron-clad emotional control.

 

Anger, panic, immense joy—extreme emotions were the key that unlocked the iron door in his soul. If he let himself feel too deeply, the purple fire would flare, and the gloves, as strong as they were, would eventually fail. So, Izuku had forged himself into a statue. His once bright, expressive green eyes were now calm, calculating, and unnervingly still. He rarely smiled. He never shouted. He existed in a state of perpetual, chilling tranquility.

 

"Since you're all third years, it's time for you to think seriously about your futures!"

 

The voice of Mr. Takeda, the homeroom teacher, snapped Izuku out of his quiet reverie. The teacher stood at the front of the classroom, holding a thick stack of career aptitude printouts.

 

"I could pass out these career trajectory forms, but... why bother?!" Mr. Takeda yelled, throwing the papers into the air, letting them scatter across the floor like confetti. "You all want to be heroes, don't you?!"

 

The classroom erupted. Students leapt from their desks, cheering and activating their quirks in a chaotic display of teenage exuberance. Water sprayed, rocks formed on skin, small fires danced across knuckles.

 

Izuku didn't move. He didn't cheer. He simply watched the display with detached, clinical observation.

 

Mr. Takeda laughed, though he subconsciously kept his distance from the back corner of the room. "Yes, yes, you all have wonderful quirks! But no quirk usage in school! Settle down!"

 

"Hey, teach!" a loud, abrasive voice cut through the noise. "Don't lump me in with these background characters. They'd be lucky to end up as sidekicks to some busted D-lister. I'm the real deal!"

 

Katsuki Bakugo leaned back in his chair, his feet resting casually on his desk. He wore his uniform with blatant disregard for the dress code, his ash-blond hair spiking in every direction.

 

The class grumbled, a few shouting half-hearted insults at Bakugo, but none truly challenged him. They knew better.

 

"Ah, Bakugo, you're aiming for U.A. High, aren't you?" Mr. Takeda noted, looking at a clipboard.

 

The murmurs in the room shifted to gasps of awe. U.A. was the pinnacle of hero education, boasting an acceptance rate of less than point-two percent.

 

Bakugo scoffed, standing up on his desk, reveling in the attention. "That's exactly why you guys are just extras! I aced the mock tests! I'm the only one at this crappy school who stands a chance. I'll surpass All Might and become the top hero, and my name will be carved into the highest tax brackets in the world!"

 

"Oh, right," Mr. Takeda said, adjusting his glasses and looking down at his list. "Midoriya is also applying for U.A."

 

The silence that fell over the classroom was instantaneous and absolute.

 

It wasn't the kind of mocking silence that usually accompanied a quirkless student declaring an impossible dream. It was a heavy, suffocating silence born of genuine terror. Every eye in the room darted toward the back corner, then immediately snapped away, terrified of making prolonged eye contact.

 

No one laughed. No one insulted him.

 

Bakugo froze on his desk. The smug grin slid off his face, replaced by a sudden, rigid tension. He slowly turned his head, his crimson eyes locking onto the calm, unblinking green eyes of Izuku Midoriya.

 

Ten years had passed, but Bakugo had never forgotten the fallen oak tree. He had never forgotten the bottomless, hungry void that had brushed against his hand. Bakugo was the king of Aldera, a tyrant of explosive power, but he knew, deep down in the darkest, most insecure recesses of his soul, that he was merely playing pretend in the shadow of a walking god of destruction.

 

Bakugo didn't lunge. He didn't spark explosions in his hands. He simply glared, his voice tight, laced with a venom that barely masked his underlying anxiety.

 

"You think a walking black hole belongs in heroics?" Bakugo spat, his voice echoing in the quiet room. "Heroes are supposed to save people, Deku. Not unmake them. If you take that freak-show power to U.A., you're not gonna be a hero. You're going to be a villain. Or a weapon for the government. Don't kid yourself."

 

Izuku looked at Bakugo. He felt the familiar, dull ache in his chest—the sorrow of lost friendship, the sting of being called a freak. A younger Izuku might have cried. A younger Izuku might have flinched.

 

The current Izuku did neither. He simply blinked slowly, his expression remaining placid.

 

"The entrance exam is an objective assessment of capability, Bakugo," Izuku replied, his voice soft, even, and terrifyingly devoid of inflection. "I intend to pass it. What the world decides to do with me afterward is their concern. My goal remains unchanged."

 

Bakugo grit his teeth, a vein throbbing in his forehead. He wanted to shout. He wanted to blast Deku's desk to cinders. But he didn't. He looked at the heavy black gloves on Izuku's hands and swallowed hard. He stepped down from his desk and sat back in his chair, aggressively turning his back to Izuku.

 

"Whatever," Bakugo muttered, loud enough for the room to hear. "Just keep those damn gloves on."

 

The bell rang, signaling the end of the day. The students practically scrambled over each other to leave the room, eager to escape the heavy, oppressive atmosphere that always settled when Midoriya was brought to the forefront of attention.

 

Izuku packed his bag with deliberate, methodical movements. He slung his yellow backpack over his shoulder and walked out into the hallway. The crowds of students parted for him like the Red Sea. No one bumped his shoulder. No one met his gaze. He moved through a bubble of isolation, a solitary island in a sea of humanity.

 

 

 

The walk home was a daily exercise in endurance.

 

As Izuku walked through the bustling streets of Musutafu, he focused on his breathing. Inhale for four seconds. Hold for four. Exhale for four. Hold for four. Box breathing. It kept his heart rate steady.

 

His body ached. Having an S-Rank Lethal Quirk came with a steep biological cost. Dr. Tsubasa had explained it a few years ago. Izuku’s body was a biological vessel attempting to contain a localized anomaly in the fabric of reality. The purple energy—Hakai, as Izuku had privately named it, reading up on ancient myths of destruction deities—was constantly seeking an outlet. Because it couldn't escape, it wreaked havoc on his internal systems.

 

His bones had grown unnaturally dense to withstand the pressure. His muscles were constantly, microscopically tearing and healing, adapting to the immense, crushing gravity of the energy circulating in his bloodstream. He was incredibly strong and phenomenally durable, not because of a strength enhancement quirk, but because a weak body would have been atomized by the 'Hakai' years ago.

 

He walked past Tatooin Shopping District, pausing as he heard a commotion.

 

Explosions. Screams. The smell of burning sugar and melting asphalt.

 

Izuku stopped, his calm eyes shifting toward the rising plume of black smoke a few blocks over. Normal civilians were running away, covering their mouths and shouting about a villain.

 

Izuku didn't run away. He didn't sprint toward it, either. He simply changed his trajectory, walking toward the chaos with the steady, unhurried pace of a ticking clock.

 

When he arrived at the alleyway, a crowd had gathered behind police barricades. The situation was catastrophic.

 

Fires raged across the brick walls of the narrow street. In the center of the inferno was a massive, undulating mass of dark green, foul-smelling sludge. It was a villain, shifting and expanding, tearing up the pavement.

 

Surrounding the perimeter were several pro heroes. Death Arms, Mt. Lady, and Kamui Woods.

 

They were doing absolutely nothing.

 

"It's no good!" Death Arms shouted, coughing through the smoke. "I can't punch liquid! My fists just sink right through him!"

 

"I need two lanes for my size!" Mt. Lady complained, shielding her face from the heat. "I can't fit in there!"

 

"My wood will catch fire instantly!" Kamui Woods added, gritting his teeth in frustration. "We have to wait for someone with a suitable quirk! Where are the fire fighters?!"

 

Izuku observed the scene from the back of the crowd. His eyes analyzed the situation with cold, tactical precision. The heroes were bound by the limitations of their quirks and the fear of collateral damage. They were stalling.

 

But stalling cost lives.

 

Izuku's gaze shifted to the center of the sludge. Deep within the viscous liquid, a figure was trapped. A teenage boy in an Aldera Junior High uniform. Ash-blond hair. Crimson eyes wide with agony and terror as the sludge forced its way down his throat, suffocating him from the inside out.

 

It was Bakugo.

 

The Sludge Villain laughed, a wet, gurgling sound. "What a fantastic meat-shield! And such a powerful quirk! Once I take over this kid's body, not even All Might will be able to stop me!"

 

Bakugo thrashed, managing to rip his mouth free for a fraction of a second. He fired off massive explosions from his palms, but the blasts only fueled the surrounding fires and scattered the sludge temporarily before it reformed.

 

Bakugo’s eyes locked onto the crowd. He was looking for a savior. He was drowning in plain sight, surrounded by professional heroes who were watching him die. The arrogance, the pride, the explosive fury—all of it was gone, replaced by the naked, desperate plea of a child who realized he was about to die.

 

His eyes met Izuku's.

 

Izuku felt a faint, rhythmic thrumming in his veins.

 

He didn't think about the laws regarding unlicensed quirk usage. He didn't think about his mother's tearful pleas to stay hidden. He didn't think about the fact that Bakugo had told him to jump off a roof just earlier that week.

 

He saw a life that needed saving.

 

Izuku stepped forward. He didn't yell. He didn't throw his backpack to create a distraction. He simply walked through the crowd.

 

"Hey! Kid! Get back here!" a police officer yelled, reaching out to grab Izuku's shoulder.

 

Izuku didn't break his stride. He slightly shifted his shoulder, allowing the officer's hand to glance off him. The sheer, dense mass of Izuku's body made the officer stumble forward, gasping as if he had just tried to grab a moving train.

 

Izuku slipped under the yellow police tape and walked into the alley.

 

"Are you crazy?!" Death Arms roared, stepping forward to intercept the boy. "Get out of here! You're going to get yourself killed!"

 

Izuku ignored him. He kept walking, his eyes fixed on the Sludge Villain.

 

The heat of the surrounding fires licked at Izuku's uniform, singeing the edges of his jacket. The smoke was thick, choking the air. But as Izuku walked closer, an unnatural phenomenon began to occur.

 

The flames closest to him began to waver, leaning away from his body as if repelled by an invisible, suffocating pressure. The ambient heat plummeted.

 

With his left hand, Izuku reached over to his right wrist. He pressed his thumb against the biometric magnetic clasp of his glove.

 

Click. Hiss.

 

He pulled the heavy, tungsten-weave glove off his right hand and let it drop to the scorched asphalt. It hit the ground with a heavy, metallic thud.

 

The moment the skin of his right hand was exposed to the air, the world changed.

 

The roaring of the fires, the screaming of the crowd, the sirens in the distance—all of it seemed to muffle, swallowed by a low, vibrating thrum that reverberated in the chest of every person within a two-block radius.

 

A brilliant, terrifying aura of violet light flared to life, wrapping around Izuku's bare right hand. It wasn't a bright, illuminating light; it was a dark, heavy radiance that seemed to suck the color out of the surrounding alleyway. The air around his fingers violently warped and distorted, gravity buckling under the sheer, localized weight of absolute destruction.

 

The Sludge Villain stopped laughing. He felt the shift in the atmosphere. He looked down and saw a boy with dead, calm green eyes walking toward him, wielding a purple fire that screamed of death.

 

"What... what the hell is that?!" the Sludge Villain gurgled, his eyes widening in sudden, instinctual panic. He thrust a massive tendril of liquid muck toward Izuku, intending to crush him into the pavement.

 

Izuku didn't dodge. He raised his bare right hand.

 

The massive tendril slammed into Izuku's palm. There was no splash. There was no kinetic impact.

 

The moment the sludge touched the purple aura, it simply ceased to exist. A perfect, cylindrical hole was instantly bored through the entire length of the attacking tendril, the matter quietly deleted from reality.

 

The villain shrieked, recoiling the severed stump of his arm. But there was no blood, no fluid leaking out. The wound was perfectly cauterized by the void.

 

"What did you do?!" the villain screamed, terror overriding his greed. He tightened his grip on Bakugo, using the boy as a shield. "Stay back! I'll snap his neck! I'll kill him!"

 

Izuku stopped three feet away from the monstrous mass of sludge.

 

"You are composed of highly viscous, semi-sentient fluid, localized around a central nervous system and respiratory organs located in the ocular regions," Izuku stated. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried perfectly through the sudden, eerie silence of the alleyway. It was chillingly calm.

 

Izuku raised his glowing right hand, pointing his index and middle fingers directly at the center of the villain's mass, just below where Bakugo was trapped.

 

"If I destroy eighty percent of your fluid mass, sparing your upper cranial region, you will lose the physical capability to maintain your hostage, but you will survive."

 

The Sludge Villain stared at the glowing purple fingers, his mind incapable of processing the utter, robotic detachment in the boy's voice.

 

"Wait... no... don't—!"

 

Izuku's eyes narrowed a fraction of a millimeter.

 

"Hakai."

 

He didn't fire a beam. He didn't project an explosion. He simply willed the energy forward.

 

A silent, spherical wave of purple distortion pulsed outward from Izuku's hand. It moved faster than the eye could track. It swept through the lower half of the Sludge Villain.

 

There was no sound of tearing. No explosion.

 

The alleyway was suddenly blinded by a flash of violent violet light, followed instantly by a vacuum of air rushing in to fill the empty space.

 

When the light faded, the heroes, the police, and the crowd stood frozen in absolute, statuesque shock.

 

The bottom eighty percent of the Sludge Villain was completely gone. Deleted. Atomized into nothingness. The wet, sprawling puddle that had covered the street was erased, leaving the pavement underneath perfectly clean, dry, and untouched.

 

What remained of the villain was a pathetic, basketball-sized glob of sludge containing his two terrified eyes, plummeting to the ground with a wet splat.

 

Without the massive body of sludge holding him up, Bakugo fell forward, crashing onto the clean pavement on his hands and knees. He hacked and coughed violently, dragging greedy, desperate lungfuls of air into his oxygen-starved chest.

 

Izuku stood completely still. The purple energy around his hand receded, vanishing back beneath his skin, though his veins still glowed with a faint, angry violet hue.

 

He looked down at Bakugo. He looked at the shivering, weeping eyes of the Sludge Villain on the ground.

 

He had saved him.

 

Izuku calmly reached down, picked up his heavy tungsten glove, and slid it back over his right hand. The biometric clasps clicked into place, locking the monster back in its cage.

 

He turned around and began to walk back out of the alleyway.

 

No one cheered. No one clapped.

 

Death Arms, Mt. Lady, and Kamui Woods stepped back, giving the fourteen-year-old boy a wide berth. The police officers lowered their hands. The crowd remained dead silent, staring at Izuku with the exact same expression Bakugo had worn ten years ago at the playground.

 

They weren't looking at a hero. They were looking at an apex predator.

 

Izuku walked past them, keeping his head down, pulling the straps of his yellow backpack tight against his shoulders. The cold, familiar blanket of isolation wrapped around him once more.

 

 

 

High above the alleyway, standing on the edge of a three-story rooftop, a massive, muscular figure obscured by shadows watched the boy walk away.

 

Toshinori Yagi, the Symbol of Peace, All Might, felt a profound, heavy ache in his chest. And for once, it had nothing to do with the grievous respiratory injury hidden beneath his pristine white t-shirt.

 

He had arrived at the scene a minute too late. He had been out of time, his physical limit reached for the day, watching in agonizing frustration as the boy he had inadvertently dropped the sludge villain near was suffocated. He had gripped the railing of the roof, fully prepared to push past his bleeding limits, to shorten his own lifespan to save the child.

 

But then, he saw the green-haired boy step out of the crowd.

 

Toshinori had seen a lot of quirks in his lifetime. He had fought men who could level cities. He had fought the darkest, most terrifying evil the world had ever known.

 

But when that boy took off his glove, Toshinori had felt a primal, instinctual shiver run down his spine. The sheer density of the energy, the absolute, unyielding nature of the destruction... it was a power that shouldn't exist in the hands of a mortal. It was a power meant for a god.

 

Yet, Toshinori hadn't just watched the power. He had watched the boy.

 

He had seen the boy's eyes before he took off the glove. They weren't the eyes of a megalomaniac. They weren't the eyes of someone who enjoyed violence. They were the eyes of a prisoner.

 

Toshinori watched as the crowd recoiled from their savior in terror. He watched the boy put his glove back on, accepting the fear, accepting the isolation, all for the sake of saving a life.

 

He used a power that terrifies him, a power that turns the world against him, just to save a stranger, Toshinori thought, his heart clenching with profound respect and immense sorrow. He has the heart of a true hero. But he is carrying a burden that will crush him.

 

Toshinori coughed, a splatter of blood hitting his hand, and steam began to roll off his massive frame as he deflated back into his true, emaciated form. He wiped his mouth, his blue eyes sharp and determined.

 

He had been looking for a successor. Someone to inherit One For All. But as he looked at the retreating back of Izuku Midoriya, Toshinori realized this boy didn't need a quirk. He didn't need more power. Giving One For All to a vessel already overflowing with god-like destructive energy would be like throwing a lit match into a powder keg. It would tear the boy apart from the inside out.

 

No, Izuku Midoriya didn't need power. He needed something much rarer, and arguably much more important.

 

He needed a mentor. He needed someone to teach him how to carry the weight of the world without letting it break his spine.

 

 

 

The sun was beginning to set, casting long, orange shadows across the streets of Musutafu. Izuku walked alone, taking a detour through a quieter residential area to avoid the police who would inevitably want to question him. He needed to get home. He needed to take a painkiller. His right arm was throbbing, a deep, bone-deep ache where the Hakai energy had rushed to the surface.

 

"Young man!"

 

The voice was loud, echoing slightly in the empty street.

 

Izuku stopped. He didn't turn around immediately. He tightened his grip on his backpack straps, preparing himself for a reprimand from an off-duty police officer or a furious pro hero.

 

He slowly turned.

 

Standing a few yards away was a man. He was incredibly tall, but gaunt, with sharp, angular features, hollow cheeks, and unruly blond hair with two distinct bangs that hung down framing his face. He wore a baggy white t-shirt and cargo pants that looked three sizes too big for his skeletal frame.

 

Izuku blinked. The man looked incredibly frail, as if a strong gust of wind might knock him over, yet his posture was straight, and his bright blue eyes held a piercing, undeniable intensity.

 

"Can I help you, sir?" Izuku asked politely, his tone guarded.

 

The skeletal man took a few steps forward, stopping at a respectful distance. "My name is Toshinori Yagi. But you might know me better by another name."

 

The man took a deep breath. Suddenly, steam erupted from his pores, swirling around him in a thick cloud. His muscles expanded rapidly, his spine snapping straight, his shadow growing to dwarf Izuku. In a fraction of a second, the frail man was replaced by a towering mountain of muscle, clad in an oversized t-shirt, wearing a blinding, signature smile.

 

"I AM HERE!" All Might boomed.

 

Izuku's calm facade cracked for the first time in a decade. His eyes went wide, his jaw dropping slightly. "All... All Might? But... how? You were... you are..."

 

Steam hissed again, and in a blink, the massive hero deflated back into the coughing, skeletal man. Toshinori wiped a bit of blood from his chin with a handkerchief.

 

"A fake out, you could say," Toshinori smiled weakly. "A result of an injury I sustained five years ago. I can only do hero work for about three hours a day now. The rest of the time, I look like this."

 

Izuku processed the information with frightening speed. The Symbol of Peace was crippled. The pillar holding up society was crumbling. He kept his face neutral, but inside, his mind was racing.

 

"Why are you showing me this?" Izuku asked, his voice returning to its calm, measured cadence. "This is the greatest state secret in the country. You shouldn't be showing this to a civilian."

 

Toshinori chuckled. "Sharp boy. You're right. But I didn't track you down to show you my weakness. I tracked you down because I saw what you did in that alleyway today."

 

Izuku's posture stiffened. He instinctively pulled his gloved hands behind his back. "I broke the law regarding unlicensed quirk usage. Are you here to arrest me?"

 

"Arrest you?" Toshinori frowned, his blue eyes softening. "Good heavens, no. I'm here to thank you. Those pros were paralyzed by their own limitations. I was paralyzed by my time limit. If you hadn't stepped in, that boy would have died. You acted like a true hero."

 

Izuku looked down at the pavement. "They didn't look at me like a hero. They looked at me like a monster."

 

The words hung in the air, heavy with years of unspoken trauma.

 

Toshinori took a step closer, his expression deeply empathetic. "I know. I saw their faces. And more importantly, I saw yours. You didn't take off that glove to show off. You took it off because it was the only way to save him, even knowing they would hate you for it. That is the essence of heroism, Young Midoriya. Self-sacrifice."

 

Izuku looked up, genuinely surprised the man knew his name.

 

"I looked into your file after the incident," Toshinori admitted. "'Annihilation.' An S-Rank Lethal Quirk. Total matter erasure. A power that bypasses every physical law of conservation." Toshinori sighed, looking at the heavy black gloves. "That must be an agonizing burden to bear."

 

"It is... manageable," Izuku lied, his voice flat.

 

"Do not lie to me, boy," Toshinori said, not unkindly. "I can see the way you hold yourself. I can see the tension in your shoulders. You are a powder keg holding back a nuclear explosion every second of every day. If you take that power to U.A. without absolute control, it will destroy you before it destroys the villains."

 

Izuku clenched his jaw. "I have control. I use the gloves. I meditate. I—"

 

"You use restraints," Toshinori corrected. "Restraints can break. You need true, biological, and psychological control. You need a vessel strong enough to contain a god."

 

Toshinori straightened his posture, his blue eyes boring into Izuku's soul.

 

"I came here to offer you a proposition, Izuku Midoriya. My quirk, One For All, is a power passed down from generation to generation. It stockpiles physical strength and energy. I am currently looking for a successor to inherit it."

 

Izuku's breath hitched. Was All Might offering him his power?

 

"But," Toshinori continued, holding up a hand, "I am not giving it to you."

 

Izuku blinked, slightly taken aback, though a small part of him felt a profound wave of relief.

 

"Your body is currently at war with itself," Toshinori explained, pacing slowly. "The energy of your quirk is trying to consume you, and your body is constantly adapting to survive it. If I were to pass One For All to you, the sheer kinetic stockpile of my quirk violently clashing with the absolute destruction of your quirk would tear your physical form to shreds. You would literally explode."

 

"Then... why are you here?" Izuku asked, bewildered.

 

"Because I want to train you," Toshinori said, stopping in front of the boy, extending a bony hand. "I may not be able to give you my quirk, but I can give you my knowledge. I can train your body to the absolute zenith of human capability. I can teach you martial arts, physical conditioning, and mental fortitude. I want to build you into a vessel so strong, so perfectly disciplined, that your quirk becomes a tool in your hand, rather than a collar around your neck."

 

Izuku stared at the outstretched hand.

 

For ten years, everyone had looked at his quirk and seen a threat that needed to be locked away. The doctors put him on lists. The teachers ignored him. His mother wrapped his hands and begged him to hide. Bakugo told him to die.

 

Toshinori Yagi was the first person in Izuku's life to look at his terrifying, world-ending power and say, 'I can help you master this.'

 

"Why?" Izuku asked, his voice trembling for the first time, a small crack in his immaculate armor. "Why me? I'm dangerous."

 

"Because a power that dangerous belongs in the hands of someone who is terrified to use it," Toshinori answered softly. "A man who loves his sword too much will eventually cut himself. A man who fears his sword will only draw it to protect. I want to help you protect the world, Izuku."

 

Izuku looked at All Might's hand. He slowly reached out with his heavy, black tungsten glove, and grasped the man's hand.

 

"Okay," Izuku whispered.

 

Toshinori smiled, a genuine, warm smile. "Excellent. We start tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM. Dagobah Municipal Beach Park."

 

 

 

The next morning, the sky was a bruised purple, the sun barely beginning to peek over the horizon of the ocean.

 

Izuku stood at the top of the concrete stairs overlooking Dagobah Beach. He wore a grey tracksuit, his heavy black gloves secured tightly on his hands. He looked out over the sand, or rather, where the sand should have been.

 

The beach was an illegal dumping ground. Mountains of rusted refrigerators, crushed cars, broken washing machines, and twisted scrap metal piled high, completely obscuring the shoreline. It smelled of rust, salt, and decay.

 

Toshinori stood at the bottom of the stairs in his skinny form, wearing a baggy tracksuit, blowing a whistle.

 

"Welcome to your training ground, Young Midoriya!" Toshinori called out cheerfully.

 

Izuku walked down the stairs, looking at the insurmountable mountains of trash. "You want me to clean the beach?"

 

"Exactly!" Toshinori nodded. "Your body has naturally hardened its bones and muscles to survive your quirk, making you vastly stronger than a normal human. But it's raw, unrefined strength. It's erratic. We need to unify your physical form. We need to build a perfect, unbroken circuit of muscle and bone."

 

Toshinori pointed to a massive, rusted pick-up truck half-buried in the sand.

 

"You have ten months until the U.A. Entrance Exam," Toshinori said, his tone growing serious. "Your goal is to clear this entire beach. Every scrap of metal, every piece of trash. But there is one absolute rule."

 

Toshinori walked up to Izuku and tapped the black tungsten glove.

 

"You do not take the gloves off. You do not use a single drop of your quirk. No erasing the trash. No using the Hakai energy to boost your strength. This is entirely physical. Bone, muscle, and sweat against iron and gravity. If you cheat and erase even a single tin can, I walk away. Understood?"

 

Izuku looked at the mountains of trash. It was a monumental task. It was physically impossible for a single teenager to accomplish in ten months.

 

But Izuku Midoriya was not a normal teenager. He was a cage trying to hold a god. And if he wanted to be a hero, he needed to make the cage unbreakable.

 

Izuku didn't nod. He simply walked over to the rusted pick-up truck. He bent his knees, wedging his gloved hands under the rusted bumper. He took a deep breath, executing a perfect four-second box breath.

 

Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold.

 

He braced his core and pushed.

 

The muscles in his legs strained, the fibers screaming in protest. The tires of the truck groaned against the wet sand. Slowly, agonizingly, the heavy metal beast shifted, dragging a few inches across the beach.

 

Toshinori watched, his eyes shining with pride.

 

The Hero of Hakai had begun his journey. Not to gain power, but to build a velvet glove thick enough to shield the world from the iron fist beneath it.

 

 

The roaring waves of the Pacific Ocean crashed against the pristine, golden sands of Dagobah Municipal Beach Park.

 

Ten months prior, the sound of the ocean had been choked by mountains of rusted iron, rotting rubber, and discarded appliances. Now, the horizon was clear, the morning sun reflecting off a shoreline that looked as though it had been untouched by human hands for centuries.

 

At the center of the beach, standing perfectly still as the cold tide rushed over his bare feet, was Izuku Midoriya.

 

He was shirtless, the morning breeze tracing the lines of a physique that defied standard human biology. He wasn’t massively bulky like All Might, nor was he chiseled like a bodybuilder. His musculature was incredibly dense, compacted like braided steel cable. Every fiber of his body had been broken down and rebuilt over the last ten months, forced to adapt not just to the grueling labor of moving tons of scrap metal by hand, but to the constant, crushing internal gravity of the S-Rank lethal quirk resting in his veins.

 

His skin was unblemished, but right above his heart, a faint, spidery network of veins occasionally pulsed with a dark violet hue—the only physical tell of the god sleeping beneath his ribs.

 

On his hands, locked tightly into place, were the heavy, black tungsten-weave gloves. He hadn't taken them off once during the physical labor. Not once.

 

"Time!"

 

Toshinori Yagi’s voice echoed across the sand. The skeletal man stood on the concrete retaining wall, holding a stopwatch, a thermos of black coffee resting by his feet. He looked down at the cleared beach, a profound sense of awe washing over him.

 

Izuku opened his eyes. They were calm, clear, and focused. He waded out of the water, grabbing his grey uniform shirt from a nearby bench and pulling it over his head.

 

"You did it, Young Midoriya," Toshinori said as Izuku walked up the concrete steps. "Ten months of pure, unadulterated physical torment. And you never once used your quirk to make it easier."

 

"Using it to make things easier is how accidents happen," Izuku replied, his voice maintaining its customary flat, even tone. "The goal was to build a cage. If I open the door every time I get tired, the cage is useless."

 

Toshinori smiled, though his blue eyes were heavy with a mixture of pride and sorrow. He stepped forward and placed a hand on Izuku's shoulder. The boy felt like a solid statue.

 

"Your body is ready. Your mind is disciplined. But today, you step into an environment you cannot control," Toshinori warned softly. "The U.A. Entrance Exam is chaotic. There will be hundreds of other students. Panic. Explosions. Adrenaline."

 

"I won't lose control," Izuku stated flatly.

 

"I know you won't," Toshinori corrected. "My fear isn't that you'll lose control and hurt someone, Izuku. My fear is that you will hold back so much to protect them that you'll fail the exam."

 

Izuku looked down at his gloved hands. He squeezed them into fists, hearing the faint creak of the tungsten fibers stretching against his immense grip strength. "If failing the exam is the price of keeping them safe, then I will fail."

 

Toshinori sighed, recognizing the absolute, unshakable martyrdom in the boy's eyes. It was a beautiful, terrifying trait. "Just... do what you must. Show them the hero I know you are."

 

 

 

The gates of U.A. High School loomed like a fortress. The massive glass H-shaped towers scraped against the blue morning sky, casting long shadows over the hundreds of prospective students pouring through the entrance.

 

Izuku stood at the edge of the crowd, adjusting the straps of his yellow backpack. He took a deep breath. Inhale for four. Hold for four. Exhale for four. Hold for four.

 

He began to walk. The crowd was dense, a sea of chattering teenagers boasting about their quirks. Izuku navigated through them with the grace of a ghost, his heightened reflexes allowing him to twist, duck, and sidestep so perfectly that not a single person brushed against him. Physical contact, even with the gloves on, was an anxiety trigger he preferred to avoid.

 

"Out of my way, extras!"

 

Izuku didn't need to look to recognize the voice. Katsuki Bakugo was stomping up the main pathway, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, his face locked in a permanent scowl. The crowd instinctively parted for him, sensing the volatile aura of the explosive teen.

 

Bakugo's crimson eyes scanned the crowd and locked onto Izuku.

 

For a fraction of a second, Bakugo’s stride faltered. The memory of the fallen oak tree and the obliterated sludge villain flashed in his mind—a purple void that promised absolute nothingness. Bakugo’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together so hard they audibly cracked. He forced himself to keep walking, marching straight toward Izuku.

 

He wanted to bump shoulders with him. He wanted to show everyone that he wasn't afraid of the freak.

 

But as the distance between them closed—ten feet, five feet, two feet—Bakugo’s body betrayed him. His instinctual survival mechanics overrode his pride. At the very last possible microsecond, Bakugo violently leaned to the left, giving Izuku a wide, two-foot berth as he passed.

 

"Don't get in my way today, Deku," Bakugo hissed under his breath, not making eye contact.

 

"I'm not here for you, Bakugo," Izuku replied softly, his eyes fixed on the entrance.

 

Bakugo sped up, practically jogging toward the auditorium to put as much distance between himself and the walking black hole as possible.

 

Izuku continued his march. Suddenly, a foot caught on an uneven paving stone just ahead of him.

 

"Whoa!"

 

A girl with short, bobbed brown hair and permanent pink blush on her cheeks pitched forward, her arms flailing as she plummeted face-first toward the concrete.

 

Izuku’s reflexes, honed by All Might’s brutal training, kicked in instantly. But his mind moved faster. Do not touch her skin. If the glove fails, she dies.

 

Instead of reaching for her arms or waist, Izuku’s hand shot out with blinding speed. He grabbed the thick canvas strap of her backpack. With a precise, measured tug, he halted her momentum instantly, leaving her suspended at a forty-five-degree angle over the pavement.

 

"Ah!" The girl gasped, squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for the impact that never came. She slowly opened one eye, realizing she was floating.

 

Izuku effortlessly pulled her back to her feet, releasing the strap immediately and taking a half-step backward.

 

"Are you alright?" Izuku asked, his voice monotone.

 

The girl turned around, her round eyes wide. She looked at the boy with the messy green hair and the heavy black gloves. "Oh! Wow, thank you! I thought I was going to eat concrete right before the exam! That would be bad luck, right?"

 

She smiled a bright, sunny smile. It was a stark contrast to the fear and hostility Izuku was used to. She took a step toward him. "I'm Ochako Uraraka! What's your—"

 

Izuku took another step back, increasing the distance between them. "Watch your step," he said simply, before turning on his heel and walking swiftly into the auditorium.

 

Uraraka stood there, blinking in confusion. "Well... he was fast, at least."

 

 

 

The written exam was trivial. Izuku’s mind, unburdened by the distractions of normal teenage social life, had spent the last ten years reading, analyzing, and absorbing information. He finished the test in half the allotted time.

 

Then came the orientation.

 

The massive auditorium was pitch black, save for the spotlight illuminating the hero Present Mic at the central podium.

 

"WELCOME TO MY LIVE SHOW, EVERYBODY! SAY HEY!" Mic screamed, throwing his hands up.

 

Silence.

 

"Tough crowd! Well, let's get right into the main event! The practical test!" Present Mic gestured to the massive screen behind him, which lit up with a map of several faux city centers. "You'll be conducting ten-minute mock urban battles! You can bring whatever you want! There are three types of faux villains in every battle center. You earn points based on their difficulty level!"

 

Silhouettes of robots appeared on the screen, labeled 1, 2, and 3 points.

 

"Your goal is to use your quirks to disable these villains and rack up a high score! But remember, anti-hero combat is strictly prohibited!"

 

Izuku sat in his seat, his eyes glued to the screen. A destructive point-scoring system. It was the worst possible scenario. The test rewarded flashy, destructive quirks. It rewarded chaos.

 

"Excuse me! May I ask a question?"

 

A tall, broad-shouldered boy with glasses and rigidly combed blue hair stood up, a spotlight instantly hitting him. "On the printout, there are four types of villains! If this is a misprint, U.A., the top hero academy in Japan, should be ashamed!"

 

The boy then spun around, pointing directly at Izuku, who was seated a few rows behind him. "And you! With the unruly hair and the heavy gloves! You've been sitting perfectly still, not reacting to anything! It's distracting! If you aren't taking this seriously, you should leave!"

 

A few students snickered. Izuku didn't blink. He simply stared back at the boy with glasses, his emerald eyes as cold and deep as a frozen lake. The boy with glasses felt a sudden, inexplicable chill run down his spine, prompting him to quickly turn back to the stage, clearing his throat awkwardly.

 

"Alright, alright, examinee 7111! Thanks for the great message!" Present Mic pointed finger guns at the crowd. "The fourth villain type is worth zero points! It's an obstacle! A massive gimmick that will rampage in close quarters! My advice? Run away from it! It's not worth your time!"

 

A massive obstacle, Izuku thought. A hazard meant to force evasion.

 

"That's all from me! I'll leave you with our school motto! Go beyond... PLUS ULTRA!"

 

 

 

Battle Center B was a sprawling, hyper-realistic replica of a dense urban district. Tall concrete buildings, paved roads, traffic lights, and parked cars littered the area.

 

Hundreds of students stood before the massive metal gates, stretching, shouting, and hyping themselves up. Izuku stood at the very back of the pack. He was adjusting the biometric clasps on his gloves, ensuring the magnetic locks were engaged to their absolute maximum setting.

 

He could feel the purple spark pacing like a caged tiger against his ribs. The ambient adrenaline in the crowd was affecting him. He closed his eyes. Box breathing. Keep the iron door shut.

 

"RIGHT, LET'S START!"

 

Present Mic’s voice boomed from the hidden loudspeakers. The massive metal gates slowly began to groan open.

 

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL BATTLES! RUN, RUN, RUN!"

 

The crowd surged forward like water breaking a dam. Explosions, lasers, and battle cries filled the air as the students rushed into the faux city.

 

Izuku didn't run. He opened his eyes, exhaled slowly, and walked through the gates at a calm, measured pace.

 

The moment he entered the city, chaos erupted.

 

A one-point robot, a sleek, single-wheeled machine with dual blasters, rounded a corner and locked its optical sensors onto him. "TARGET ACQUIRED."

 

It fired two rubber-tipped ballistic projectiles.

 

Izuku didn't dodge. The projectiles struck him squarely in the chest. Because his body had spent a decade compacting its cellular structure to survive a god-tier quirk, the impact felt like someone throwing a crumpled piece of paper at a brick wall. The projectiles bounced off harmlessly.

 

Izuku stepped forward. He didn't want to use his quirk. He didn't want to break the robots and send shrapnel flying into the nearby students.

 

He raised his gloved hand and gently, almost clinically, chopped down on the robot's optical sensor. The sheer, terrifying physical density of his arm, combined with his raw strength, crushed the robot's head into a pancake. Sparks flew as the machine shut down.

 

One point.

 

Izuku continued his walk. He moved through the streets, watching the other students. Bakugo was flying through the air, his explosions tearing robots to shreds, screaming with manic glee. A boy with a laser-navel was shooting down targets from afar. The brown-haired girl, Uraraka, was touching robots, making them float, and then releasing them to shatter against the pavement.

 

They are all so reckless, Izuku thought, his eyes narrowing. They aren't looking at their surroundings.

 

A three-point robot, resembling a massive metallic centipede, burst through a brick wall above a group of students. Debris rained down. The students scrambled, screaming in panic.

 

Izuku’s eyes darted to a jagged chunk of concrete falling directly toward a girl with a frog-like mutation.

 

He moved.

 

His feet cracked the pavement beneath him as he sprinted, clearing fifty yards in less than two seconds. He appeared next to the frog girl, grabbing her by the collar of her uniform and pulling her back just as the concrete slammed into the ground where she had been standing.

 

"Ribbit? Thank you," the girl said, blinking in surprise.

 

Izuku didn't answer. He looked at the three-pointer. It was charging its plasma cannons. There were too many students around. If he punched it, the shockwave of his physical strength might rupture eardrums. If he threw a piece of debris at it, it could ricochet.

 

He couldn't use physical force. He had to use the void. But only a fraction.

 

Izuku raised his left hand. He didn't unclasp the glove. He simply focused on the micro-pores of the tungsten weave. He willed the purple spark to rise just to the surface of his skin, pressing against the inner lining of the glove.

 

The glove didn't break, but the sheer, oppressive aura of the Hakai bled through the material. The air around his hand instantly warped, a heavy, suffocating pressure descending on the street.

 

The frog girl shivered violently, her amphibious instincts screaming at her to flee.

 

The three-pointer fired its plasma cannons—twin beams of searing blue energy.

 

Izuku stepped in front of the frog girl and simply held up his open palm.

 

The plasma beams struck the invisible wall of distortion radiating from his glove. They didn't deflect. They didn't splash against a shield. The beams were instantly, silently deleted as they entered the aura's radius. The energy simply vanished.

 

The robot’s optical sensors whirred, unable to compute the absolute violation of the laws of thermodynamics it had just witnessed.

 

Izuku took a single step forward, bringing his heavily suppressed, aura-coated glove to the robot's front chassis. He didn't punch it. He just touched it.

 

The localized destruction energy bled through the glove and interacted with the metal. A perfect, basketball-sized sphere of the robot's chest was silently excised from reality, severing its power core. The machine slumped forward, dead.

 

Four points.

 

Izuku lowered his hand, instantly pulling the energy back down deep into his soul. The oppressive weight vanished from the street.

 

"What... what was that?" the frog girl asked, rubbing her arms to warm herself up.

 

"Stay out of the middle of the street," Izuku advised calmly, turning and walking away.

 

For the next eight minutes, Izuku repeated this process. He didn't seek out robots. He walked the streets, prioritizing defense. If a robot attacked a student who couldn't dodge, he intervened. If a stray projectile threatened a bystander, he caught it or erased it with a micro-dose of his aura.

 

He had maybe 15 points. It wasn't enough to pass. Not even close.

 

Toshinori was right, Izuku thought, checking his watch. Two minutes left. I'm going to fail. But... nobody died. Nobody got hurt. I'm okay with this.

 

He stopped at an intersection, ready to ride out the clock.

 

Then, the ground beneath his feet violently heaved.

 

BOOM.

 

A massive, deafening explosion of dust and concrete erupted from the center of the city. The shockwave shattered the windows of every nearby building.

 

Students screamed, covering their ears and falling to the ground.

 

Izuku looked up.

 

Through the thick cloud of dust, a monolithic shadow rose. It was colossal. Taller than the highest skyscraper in the faux city. A treaded tank base the size of a city block supported a massive, humanoid upper torso covered in thick, dark green armor plating. A single, glowing red eye the size of a bus ignited with a terrifying hum.

 

The Zero Pointer.

 

It wasn't an obstacle. It was a localized natural disaster.

 

The massive machine raised an arm, bringing a fist the size of a house crashing down into a row of buildings. The structures crumbled like wet cardboard, showering the streets in deadly shrapnel.

 

"RUN!" a student screamed. "IT'S THE ZERO POINTER!"

 

The crowd of teenagers instantly turned into a stampede, a panicked mob fleeing desperately toward the gates.

 

Izuku stood his ground, the winds from the robot's movement whipping his unruly green hair. He analyzed the machine. Its sheer mass was absurd. There was no tactical reason for a school to deploy something this dangerous against children.

 

It's a test of character, Izuku realized instantly. A test to see who runs.

 

He turned around, prepared to join the retreat. He had no points to gain here, and engaging a target of that size would require a massive release of his quirk, creating a vacuum that would pull nearby students into the destruction zone. It was mathematically safer to leave.

 

"Ow! Please! Someone help!"

 

The voice was faint, barely audible over the grinding gears of the Zero Pointer.

 

Izuku froze. His head snapped around.

 

Through the clearing dust, near the base of the massive machine, a figure was pinned to the ground. It was the girl with the brown hair. Uraraka. A massive chunk of rubble had fallen on her leg, trapping her.

 

She was reaching out, tears streaming down her face, as the other students ran past her without looking back.

 

The Zero Pointer’s colossal treads were slowly grinding forward, chewing up the asphalt. It was heading right for her. In less than ten seconds, she would be crushed into a red smear on the pavement.

 

Izuku’s heart stopped.

 

He didn't think about his score. He didn't think about his mother's tears. He didn't think about the fact that revealing his power here would paint a massive target on his back for the rest of his life.

 

He saw a girl who was going to die.

 

I am a cage, Izuku thought. But to save her... I have to open the door.

 

Izuku reached to his left wrist with his right hand. He dug his fingers under the biometric clasp.

 

Click. Hiss.

 

He ripped the left glove off and let it drop.

 

The moment the tungsten hit the ground, the air in Battle Center B changed.

 

The temperature plummeted twenty degrees in a single second. The sunlight seemed to dim, swallowed by a sudden, localized eclipse. The panicked screams of the fleeing students died in their throats as an invisible, suffocating weight dropped onto their shoulders. It was the pressure of an apex predator stepping onto the battlefield.

 

Bakugo, who was halfway to the gates, froze mid-stride. He felt the chill. He knew that chill. His eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing terror. He slowly turned around.

 

"No..." Bakugo whispered. "He's gonna do it."

 

At the center of the intersection, Izuku Midoriya was bathed in a pillar of violent, crackling violet light. The aura didn't look like fire; it looked like a tear in the fabric of reality. It surged up, wrapping around his arm, his torso, his legs. His calm green eyes were entirely eclipsed by a glowing, terrifying purple luminescence.

 

The Zero Pointer’s optical sensor locked onto the massive energy spike. It stopped moving toward Uraraka and slowly raised its gargantuan fist, preparing to crush the glowing ant in its path.

 

Izuku bent his knees.

 

He pushed off.

 

The physical force of his jump, augmented by the repelling nature of his god-like aura, annihilated the intersection. The asphalt shattered, leaving a crater thirty feet wide and ten feet deep.

 

Izuku shot into the air like a purple meteor. He moved faster than sound, a sonic boom trailing behind him, shattering whatever glass was left in the city.

 

He crested the height of the Zero Pointer, hanging suspended in the air right in front of its massive red eye.

 

The purple aura around him flared, taking the faint, translucent shape of something ancient and terrible—a towering avatar of pure destruction that dwarfed the robot.

 

Uraraka looked up from the ground, her breath catching in her throat. The boy who had saved her earlier looked like a deity descending to pass judgment on the world.

 

Izuku raised his bare left hand. He extended his index and middle fingers, pointing them directly at the center of the Zero Pointer’s colossal chassis.

 

He didn't shout. He didn't scream a battle cry.

 

He whispered a single word.

 

"Hakai."

 

A pulse of concentrated violet energy, the size of a marble, shot from his fingertips. It hit the armor plating of the robot.

 

For one agonizing second, nothing happened.

 

Then, reality broke.

 

There was no explosion. There was no shockwave. There was absolute, deafening silence.

 

Starting from the point of impact, the thick armor plating, the reinforced steel skeleton, the glowing red eye, the massive arms—they all turned into microscopic particles of purple ash.

 

The erasure spread outward at terrifying speed. It consumed the head. It consumed the shoulders. It consumed the torso.

 

In less than three seconds, the entire upper half of the multi-thousand-ton colossus silently ceased to exist.

 

A perfect, horizontally flat cut remained where the waist used to be.

 

Because half of its mass had been instantly deleted without any kinetic force applied, the physical laws of gravity violently reasserted themselves. The sudden, massive shift in the machine's center of gravity caused the remaining lower half—the treads and the severed waist—to violently tip backward, away from Uraraka.

 

The bottom half crashed into the street behind it, the impact finally breaking the eerie silence with a thunderous roar.

 

But Izuku wasn't done.

 

The sudden deletion of that much physical matter created a massive vacuum in the atmosphere. The surrounding air rushed inward to fill the void, creating a localized, hurricane-force vortex.

 

Izuku, still falling from the sky, saw the wind begin to pull debris toward Uraraka.

 

He flipped mid-air, bringing his bare left hand to his chest, suppressing the aura instantly so he wouldn't accidentally erase her. He landed directly over Uraraka, dropping to one knee. He positioned his incredibly dense body over hers like a human shield.

 

The vortex winds howled, ripping chunks of concrete and metal from the streets and pulling them through the air above them. The debris slammed into Izuku’s back, shattering against his hardened muscles, but he didn't budge. He stayed perfectly still, shielding her from the storm he had created.

 

Ten seconds later, the wind died down. The vacuum was filled.

 

The faux city was dead silent.

 

Hundreds of students stood at the edges of the street, their mouths hanging open. They looked at the perfectly flat, severed stump of the massive robot. They looked at the boy kneeling over the trapped girl.

 

Izuku slowly stood up. His shirt was torn, but his back was uninjured. He looked down at Uraraka. She was staring at him, completely unharmed, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock, awe, and an underlying, instinctual fear of what she had just witnessed.

 

Izuku didn't offer her a hand. He didn't smile.

 

He looked at his bare left hand, staring at the palm that had just unmade a mountain of steel. He slowly reached down, picked up his heavy tungsten glove, and slid it back on. The magnetic clasps locked.

 

The god was back in its cage.

 

"THE EXAM IS OVER!" Present Mic’s voice blared over the speakers, though it lacked its usual enthusiasm. It sounded shaken.

 

Izuku turned his back on Uraraka, turned his back on the ruined robot, and began the long, slow walk toward the exit.

 

 

 

High above the Battle Centers, hidden within the central tower of U.A., the observation room was dark, lit only by the glow of dozens of monitors.

 

The room was filled with Japan's top Pro Heroes. Midnight, Snipe, Cementoss, Vlad King.

 

None of them were speaking. None of them were moving.

 

On the main monitor, the footage of Battle Center B was frozen on the image of Izuku Midoriya pointing two fingers at the Zero Pointer, a split second before the machine's upper half was deleted.

 

A small, white, rat-like creature in a suit—Principal Nezu—sat in a high-backed leather chair. His teacup had slipped from his paws, shattering on the floor, the hot liquid staining the carpet. He didn't seem to notice.

 

"Total matter annihilation," Nezu whispered, his highly advanced brain calculating the physics of what he had just seen, and finding them completely, utterly broken. "No thermal output. No kinetic transfer. He just... deleted it."

 

Standing in the back corner of the room, leaning against the wall, was a man draped in black with a scarf around his neck. Shota Aizawa, the erasure hero, stared at the screen, his dark, tired eyes wide.

 

He reached up and rubbed his eyes. He had tried to use his quirk, Erasure, on the boy through the monitors the moment the purple aura appeared, an instinctual reaction to a dangerous quirk flare.

 

Even through the screen, just attempting to grasp the biological mechanism of that boy's quirk had given Aizawa a massive, throbbing migraine. It was like trying to put a lid on an exploding star.

 

"He destroyed the Zero Pointer with a single gesture," Midnight breathed out, her hand resting over her heart. "That power... it's not heroic. It's apocalyptic. If he sneezes, he could wipe out a city block."

 

"Look at his score," Vlad King pointed out, his voice gruff. "Fifteen villain points. He's at the bottom of the pack."

 

"Because he spent the entire exam avoiding conflict," Aizawa spoke up, his voice cutting through the tension in the room. He walked forward, his eyes locked on the playback footage.

 

Aizawa tapped the console, rewinding the footage to show Izuku crushing the one-pointer's head, pulling the frog girl to safety, and then the final, desperate leap to save Uraraka.

 

"Look at his body language," Aizawa instructed, pointing at the screen. "He isn't weak. His physical stats are off the charts. He could have torn those robots apart with his bare hands. But he didn't. He barely engaged."

 

"Why?" Snipe asked. "To show off at the end?"

 

"No," Aizawa said, his eyes narrowing in profound respect. "Because he was terrified."

 

The other teachers looked at Aizawa.

 

"Look at how he moves," Aizawa continued. "He hyper-analyzes his surroundings. He stays away from crowds. He wears those ridiculous, heavy quirk-suppressing gloves. He deliberately neutered his own score because he knew that using his quirk, or even his full physical strength, could cause collateral damage to the other students."

 

Aizawa paused the video on the frame where Izuku was shielding Uraraka from the wind vortex.

 

"He has the power to end the world," Aizawa said softly. "But he accepted failure, accepted zero points, to ensure not a single person got a scratch on them. And when a girl was about to die, he weaponized the void to save her, and immediately shielded her from the consequences of his own power."

 

In the darkest corner of the room, Toshinori Yagi stood in his skeletal form, a proud, sad smile on his face. You did it, my boy. You showed them your heart.

 

Nezu slowly climbed down from his chair, ignoring the spilled tea. He walked up to the console and looked at the frozen image of the green-haired boy.

 

"We teach heroes," Nezu said, his voice regaining its usual, cheerful composure, though it held a new layer of absolute seriousness. "We teach those who wield power to serve society. But this boy... he does not wield power. He contains a cataclysm."

 

Nezu turned to Aizawa. "Eraserhead. If we accept him, he will be placed in Class 1-A. You will be his homeroom teacher. Are you prepared to take responsibility for a student who could, theoretically, erase this school from the map?"

 

Aizawa looked at the screen. He saw the heavy black gloves. He saw the rigid, lonely posture of a child carrying a god on his back.

 

Aizawa smiled. It was a terrifying, feral smile.

 

"I wouldn't trust him with anyone else," Aizawa said. "Pass him."