What If Deku Had All Might's Quirk but wanted to be a Farmer instead of a hero

To the average person, dirt was just dirt. It was something to be swept off the porch, scrubbed out of fingernails, or paved over with cold, gray concrete.

 

But to fourteen-year-old Izuku Midoriya, dirt was a canvas. It was a living, breathing ecosystem, a complex matrix of minerals, organic matter, gases, and microscopic organisms. It was the absolute foundation of human civilization. Before there were heroes soaring through the sky in spandex, before there were villains tearing down skyscrapers, there was the soil.

 

Izuku knelt at the edge of the Aldera Junior High courtyard, completely ignoring the sounds of his classmates playing soccer nearby. He held a small, plastic pH testing kit in one hand and a pinch of dry, sandy earth in the other. He squinted behind his wild mop of green hair, muttering under his breath at a speed that would have sounded like a buzzing hornet to anyone walking by.

 

“—alkalinity is entirely too high, probably due to the concrete runoff from the recent renovations. The nitrogen levels are practically non-existent. You couldn't grow a weed in this, let alone a viable crop of Daikon radishes. If I were to introduce a localized compost tea heavily steeped in coffee grounds and eggshells, I could theoretically balance the pH within three weeks, provided it rains, though the meteorological data for Musutafu suggests a dry spell…”

 

He meticulously jotted this down in a thick, spiral-bound notebook. The cover read: Botanical Analysis for the Future, Vol. 13. It was covered in doodles of various root systems, soil strata diagrams, and a small, admittedly enthusiastic sketch of the Pro Hero Kamui Woods—not because Izuku wanted to be a hero like him, but because Izuku deeply admired Kamui’s arboriculture quirk.

 

Izuku Midoriya was quirkless.

 

In a world where eighty percent of the population possessed some sort of superhuman ability, Izuku was a statistical anomaly, a relic of a bygone era. Society had a way of reminding him of this fact every single day. The doctors had told him to give up. His mother had apologized through a river of tears. His childhood friend, Katsuki Bakugo, had turned the word "Deku"—meaning useless—into a brand burned into his very identity.

 

But Izuku hadn’t given up. He had just… pivoted.

 

If he couldn't have a quirk that allowed him to punch villains through brick walls, then he would cultivate a power that didn't require a quirk at all: the power to sustain life.

 

Heroes saved people from immediate danger, but who saved them from the aftermath? Who fed the thousands of displaced citizens when a villain leveled a city block and disrupted the supply chains? Who combated the silent villains of starvation, poor nutrition, and barren earth?

 

Farmers did. And Izuku didn't just want to be a farmer; he wanted to be the greatest farmer in the world. He wanted to engineer crops that could grow in the arid deserts of quirk-ravaged warzones. He wanted to feed the planet.

 

A shadow fell over his notebook.

 

Izuku flinched, instinctively curling his shoulders inward as the distinct smell of burnt caramel and nitroglycerin filled the air.

 

"What the hell are you mumbling about now, Deku?"

 

Izuku looked up. Katsuki Bakugo stood over him, hands shoved deep into his pockets, a scowl etched into his sharp features. Behind him stood his usual lackeys, snickering at the mere sight of Izuku kneeling in the dirt.

 

"O-oh, Kacchan," Izuku stammered, quickly closing his notebook. "I was just… testing the soil. The school courtyard is really lacking in proper nutrients, and I thought—"

 

"Soil?" Bakugo interrupted, his crimson eyes narrowing. He snatched the notebook out of Izuku’s hands before the green-haired boy could react. "Are you still on this pathetic farming crap? Look at this. Botanical Analysis? You’re even sadder than I thought."

 

"Kacchan, please give that back," Izuku said, standing up and brushing the dust from his knees. "I need those notes for my high school application."

 

Bakugo scoffed, a tiny spark popping from his palm. "Application? Oh, right. The teacher said you’re applying to Shiketsu High, right? The Agricultural Department." Bakugo’s face contorted in sheer disgust. "It pisses me off, Deku. You used to follow me around talking about heroes. Now you play in the mud. You think you’re better than me because you’re not even trying to compete with me anymore?"

 

"That’s not it at all!" Izuku waved his hands frantically. "I just… I know I can't be a hero without a quirk. I found something else I’m passionate about. Agriculture is a noble profession, Kacchan!"

 

"It's a job for extras!" Bakugo barked. He pressed his palm against the cover of the notebook. BOOM. A small explosion singed the edges of the pages, blackening the cover and sending a plume of gray smoke into the air.

 

Izuku gasped, reaching out, but Bakugo casually tossed the smoldering book over his shoulder. It landed with a pathetic splash in a nearby decorative koi pond.

 

"Listen to me, Deku," Bakugo said, leaning in close, his voice a menacing whisper. "I’m going to U.A. I’m going to be the number one hero, surpassing even All Might. And I won't have a quirkless, dirt-eating loser like you tarnishing my backstory. So do me a favor, go move to the countryside, plant your little carrots, and stay out of my sight."

 

Bakugo turned on his heel, his followers laughing as they walked away.

 

Izuku stood there for a long moment, his fists clenched at his sides. He didn't cry. He was too used to this. With a heavy sigh, he waded into the shallow koi pond, ignoring the cold water seeping into his red sneakers, and fished his notebook out. The pages were soaked, the ink running, and the edges charred crisp.

 

Izuku looked at the burnt edges, then touched the ash with his thumb.

 

"Carbon," he whispered to himself, a small, resilient smile breaking through his gloom. "Wood ash is highly alkaline. It’s actually a fantastic source of potassium and calcium. If I till this ruined notebook into the soil, it might actually help raise the pH level."

 

You couldn't destroy Izuku Midoriya. You could only compost him.

 

 

 

After school, Izuku took a detour. Instead of heading straight home, he walked a mile out of his way to visit Green Thumb Emporium, the largest agricultural supply store in Musutafu.

 

The moment the automatic doors slid open, Izuku took a deep, euphoric breath. The smell of damp peat moss, cedar mulch, and concentrated fertilizers hit him like a wave of pure nostalgia. To others, it smelled like a barn. To Izuku, it smelled like potential.

 

He navigated the aisles with the precision of a seasoned veteran, ignoring the brightly colored, overpriced residential flower pots. He headed straight for the industrial section in the back.

 

He was here for a very specific mission. He had been saving his allowance for three months. Tomorrow, he was going to start a guerrilla-gardening project on an abandoned, overgrown lot near his apartment, and he needed the heavy artillery.

 

He found it on the bottom shelf. A fifty-pound bag of Miracle-Yield Ultra-Nitro Blend. It was a commercial-grade, slow-release fertilizer packed with a dangerously high concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. It was meant for massive acres of corn, not a city lot, but Izuku had done the math. If he diluted it properly, he could turn that barren urban wasteland into an oasis of heirloom tomatoes.

 

He paid the cashier, an elderly man who was used to the green-haired boy's eccentric purchases, and heaved the massive burlap sack over his shoulder.

 

Fifty pounds was no joke. Izuku was skinny, lacking any real muscle definition. His arms trembled, and his knees buckled slightly under the weight, but he gritted his teeth and adjusted his grip.

 

"This is just... physical conditioning," Izuku panted, sweating as he stepped out into the afternoon heat. "If I want to... run a commercial farm... I have to be able to lift... bags of feed."

 

His route home took him under a shadowy, concrete overpass. The city noise muffled above him, replaced by the echoing drip of condensation. Izuku trudged along, his mind wandering to crop rotations and irrigation systems. He was so distracted by the thought of drip-lines that he didn't hear the wet, sickening sound of shifting sludge emerging from the manhole behind him.

 

"Well, well," a voice gurgled. It sounded like a man drowning in thick mud. "A medium-sized meat-suit. A bit scrawny, but it’ll have to do to hide from him."

 

Izuku froze. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He turned, the fifty-pound bag still resting on his shoulder, and his emerald eyes widened in absolute horror.

 

Rising from the sewer grate was a towering, amorphous mass of dark green, foul-smelling sludge. Two bulbous yellow eyes and a jagged, manic smile floated within the gelatinous body. It was a villain.

 

Izuku’s encyclopedic mind instantly assessed the situation. A mutant or transformation type quirk. Fluid body composition. Vulnerable to heat or freezing, but immune to blunt force. I have zero combat capabilities. I need to run.

 

But before Izuku’s legs could receive the command, the Sludge Villain lunged.

 

Thick, putrid tendrils of slime whipped forward, wrapping around Izuku’s ankles and yanking his feet out from under him. Izuku hit the concrete hard, the fifty-pound bag of fertilizer falling beside him with a heavy thud.

 

"Don't fight it, kid," the villain hissed, the sludge surging over Izuku’s chest, pinning his arms. "It'll only hurt for about forty-five seconds. Then it'll all be over."

 

The slime forced its way up Izuku's neck, covering his mouth and nose.

 

Izuku thrashed wildly, his fingers clawing at the thick substance, but it was like trying to grab hold of water. The sludge tasted like rotting sewage and sulfur. It burned his throat as it forced its way in, cutting off his oxygen. Panic, primal and blinding, set in.

 

I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

 

His vision began to spot with black stars. His lungs screamed for air, burning as they were denied. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes.

 

Is this it? Am I going to die here? I haven't even planted the tomatoes yet. Mom... I'm sorry.

 

Just as the darkness threatened to pull him under, a thunderous clang echoed through the tunnel. The manhole cover that the villain had emerged from was suddenly blasted across the pavement, skittering like a discarded coin.

 

A massive shadow filled the entrance of the overpass.

 

"FEAR NOT, KID!" a voice boomed. It wasn't just loud; it vibrated in Izuku’s chest, carrying a frequency of absolute, undeniable safety. "I AM HERE!"

 

The Sludge Villain shrieked in terror, whipping a tendril toward the newcomer.

 

Through his fading vision, Izuku saw a mountain of a man clad in a white t-shirt and cargo pants. Golden hair stood up in two prominent tufts. The man pulled back a fist wrapped in rippling, impossible muscle.

 

"TEXAS SMASH!"

 

The man threw a punch at the empty air. The sheer kinetic force of the blow compressed the atmosphere, creating a concentrated tornado that ripped through the tunnel.

 

The wind pressure hit the Sludge Villain like a freight train. The slime was blown apart, splattering violently against the concrete walls of the overpass. Izuku was freed, gasping frantically for air, coughing up foul-tasting residue as he collapsed onto his hands and knees.

 

As Izuku’s vision cleared, he looked up. Standing before him, gathering the scattered sludge into two empty plastic soda bottles with surprising speed, was none other than the Symbol of Peace.

 

All Might.

 

Izuku’s jaw dropped. He had seen the man on television thousands of times, but seeing him in person was different. The sheer physical presence of the Pro Hero was staggering. Look at the deltoids! Izuku thought, his mind racing. The core stability! If a man with that kind of muscle mass used a standard rotary tiller, he could turn a ten-acre field in under an hour without even breaking a sweat! What an incredible agricultural asset!

 

"THOUGHT I LOST THIS SLIPPERY FIEND IN THE SEWERS!" All Might boomed, capping the second bottle tightly. "BUT THANKS TO YOU HOLDING HIM UP, CITIZEN, I WAS ABLE TO CATCH HIM! ARE YOU INJURED?"

 

"I—I—" Izuku stammered, scrambling to his feet. He frantically patted his pockets. He needed an autograph. Where was his notebook? Ah, the burned one was in his bag! "A-All Might, sir! Could you please sign—"

 

"WELL, I MUST BE OFF!" All Might declared, ignoring the frantic boy. He tucked the bottles into the massive pockets of his cargo pants and crouched down, the concrete cracking under his boots. "I NEED TO GET THIS FELLOW TO THE POLICE!"

 

"Wait!" Izuku cried out. "I have a question! A really important question!"

 

"NO TIME FOR QUESTIONS, MY BOY! PRO HEROES ARE CONSTANTLY FIGHTING TIME AS WELL AS VILLAINS!"

 

All Might leapt. The force of his jump created a shockwave that kicked up dust and debris. He soared into the sky like a ballistic missile.

 

It was only when All Might was two hundred feet in the air that he felt a strange drag on his right leg. He looked down and his glowing blue eyes widened in shock.

 

Clinging to his pant leg, cheeks flapping wildly in the extreme wind velocity, was the green-haired boy. And miraculously, the boy was tightly gripping the fifty-pound bag of fertilizer with his other arm, refusing to leave it behind.

 

"HEY, HEY, HEY!" All Might shouted, blood rushing to his head. "LET GO! YOUR FANATICISM GOES TOO FAR! THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!"

 

"IF I LET GO NOW I'LL DIE! AND IF I DROP THE FERTILIZER IT'LL CRUSH SOMEONE!" Izuku screamed over the rushing wind.

 

All Might realized the boy was right. Cursing softly, the Pro Hero adjusted his trajectory, aiming for the roof of a nearby commercial building. They landed with a heavy thud, All Might absorbing the shock while Izuku collapsed onto the gravel roof, panting and shaking, clutching his bag of fertilizer like a lifeline.

 

"Good grief," All Might sighed, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. "You must understand, kid, that was incredibly reckless. Now, knock on the door down there, the building manager will let you out. I really must be going."

 

"Wait!" Izuku pushed himself up to his knees. His heart was hammering against his ribs. This was his chance. The one person in the world who could give him a definitive answer was standing right in front of him. "Please, All Might! Just one question!"

 

All Might stopped, his back to Izuku. A strange puff of steam seemed to rise from his massive shoulders. He grunted in pain, but Izuku didn't notice.

 

"I... I don't have a quirk," Izuku said, his voice trembling but growing louder. "All my life, people have told me I'm useless. That I can't make a difference. But I see the world suffering. Not just from villains, but from disaster. From poverty. From starvation. I want to save people, All Might."

 

All Might turned his head slightly, listening.

 

"Even without a quirk," Izuku shouted, tears finally spilling over his cheeks, "Can someone like me be a hero? Can I save people... by growing things? Can a quirkless person become the world's greatest farmer?!"

 

Silence fell over the rooftop, save for the distant sounds of city traffic.

 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the answer. Waiting for the Symbol of Peace to tell him that his dream, no matter how unconventional, was valid.

 

But when he opened his eyes, All Might was gone.

 

In his place stood a skeletal, emaciated man with sunken cheeks, wearing clothes that hung off him like a scarecrow. The man was coughing up a concerning amount of blood into a handkerchief.

 

Izuku shrieked, scrambling backward and nearly tripping over his fertilizer. "W-w-what?! Where is All Might?! Did you eat him?! Are you an imposter?!"

 

"I am All Might," the skeletal man groaned, wiping his mouth. He sighed, sitting heavily against the rooftop AC unit. "I assure you, kid. This is the real me."

 

For the next ten minutes, Izuku sat in stunned silence as Toshinori Yagi—the man behind the muscle—explained the devastating injury he had received five years ago. He showed Izuku the horrific, spider-webbed scar on his chest. He explained his time limit, the surgeries, and the illusion he maintained to keep society from collapsing into chaos.

 

"A Pro Hero must always be ready to risk his life," Toshinori said, his voice quiet, stripped of all its usual bravado. He looked at Izuku with tired, sympathetic eyes. "You asked if you could be a hero without a quirk. The reality is... villains are dangerous. They are ruthless. A brave heart is not enough to stop a bullet or a blast of fire. If you want to save people, kid... become a police officer. Become a firefighter."

 

Izuku stared at his hands.

 

"And as for your... other question," Toshinori rubbed the back of his neck, clearly confused. "Farming? Well. That's certainly a safe profession. I'm sure it's hard work, but it's not heroism, kid. It's just a job. The world needs food, yes. But it's not the same as putting your life on the line. Don't conflate a hobby with saving the world. It's time to be realistic."

 

The words hit Izuku like a physical blow.

 

It's not heroism. It's just a job. Be realistic.

 

It was the same thing everyone else had told him, just wrapped in a gentler package. Even the Symbol of Peace didn't understand.

 

Toshinori stood up, dusting off his baggy pants. "I need to get this slime villain to the precinct. Head down the stairs, kid. And keep my secret, alright?"

 

Toshinori opened the roof access door and slowly made his way down, leaving Izuku alone on the roof.

 

Izuku sat there for a long time. The afternoon sun began to dip lower in the sky, casting long orange shadows across the gravel. He looked at his bag of Miracle-Yield Ultra-Nitro Blend. He patted the burlap gently.

 

"He's wrong," Izuku whispered to the bag. "An empty stomach is just as deadly as a villain. It just kills you slower."

 

Determined, Izuku hoisted the fifty-pound bag back onto his shoulder. He wasn't going to let this stop him. He would prove them all wrong. He headed for the stairs.

 

 

 

By the time Izuku made it back down to the street level, a massive commotion was echoing from a few blocks away. Plumes of black smoke billowed into the sky, accompanied by the distinct, rhythmic THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of explosions.

 

Izuku's legs moved before his brain could process why. He followed the crowds, hauling his heavy sack of fertilizer through the throngs of panicked civilians until he broke through to the front of a police barricade at Tatooine Shopping District.

 

The sight before him made his blood run cold.

 

An alleyway was entirely engulfed in flames. And in the center of the inferno, towering over a dozen incapacitated Pro Heroes, was the Sludge Villain.

 

But how? Izuku thought, his eyes wide. All Might had him!

 

Then he remembered. The jump. Izuku grabbing All Might’s leg. The struggle in the air. The plastic bottles must have fallen out of All Might’s pockets when he readjusted his grip to save Izuku.

 

This is my fault, Izuku realized, terror gripping his heart.

 

The Pro Heroes—Death Arms, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Backdraft—were all standing on the sidelines, shouting excuses.

 

"I don't have the right quirk to grab him!"

"The street is too narrow for me to grow!"

"We have to wait for someone with a suitable quirk!"

 

The Sludge Villain was laughing maniacally, his fluid body surging and thrashing. And trapped within the translucent, disgusting mass of slime, struggling desperately for air, was a boy with spiky ash-blonde hair.

 

Katsuki Bakugo.

 

Bakugo’s eyes met Izuku’s through the crowd. In those crimson eyes, for the first time in Izuku’s life, he didn't see anger or arrogance. He saw absolute, unfiltered terror. Bakugo was suffocating. He was dying.

 

Izuku didn't think. He didn't analyze. He didn't consider the fact that he was quirkless, or that the Pro Heroes were doing nothing, or that All Might had told him to be realistic.

 

His feet pushed off the pavement, and he sprinted past the police barricade.

 

"Hey! Kid! Stop!" Death Arms roared, reaching for him, but Izuku was already dodging past the flames.

 

"Deku?!" Bakugo managed to gurgle, his eyes widening in disbelief as the scrawny green-haired boy charged into the inferno.

 

"What do you think you're doing, you little brat?!" the Sludge Villain roared, whipping a massive tendril of slime toward Izuku. "I'll kill you!"

 

Izuku ducked under the swinging slime. He was close now. Too close. The heat of the fire was blistering his skin. The sludge was preparing to strike again, a fatal blow.

 

What do I do? Izuku's mind raced. I have no weapons! I have no quirk! What do I have?!

 

He felt the heavy weight pressing into his shoulder.

 

The fertilizer.

 

Wait. Izuku’s encyclopedic botanical knowledge fired like a lightning bolt in his brain. Miracle-Yield Ultra-Nitro Blend. It’s highly concentrated synthetic nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium salts. Salts! Sludge is primarily composed of water and organic municipal waste. If I introduce a massive volume of raw, concentrated salt and nitrogen directly into his cellular matrix… it will cause extreme, immediate osmotic shock! It will dehydrate his cellular walls instantly!

 

It was a crazy theory. But it was all he had.

 

With a feral, primal scream, Izuku didn't throw his backpack. He gripped the bottom of the fifty-pound burlap sack with both hands, spun on his heel using the momentum of his sprint, and hurled the massive bag of fertilizer directly at the Sludge Villain’s face.

 

The heavy bag flew through the air and struck the villain square in the eye.

 

The burlap ripped open upon impact. Fifty pounds of coarse, white, highly concentrated nitrogen-salt granules exploded outward in a massive, dusty cloud, coating the Sludge Villain’s liquid body.

 

The reaction was instantaneous and violently effective.

 

"AGGGHHHHHH!" the Sludge Villain shrieked, a sound of absolute agony.

 

The moment the synthetic fertilizer made contact with the slime, rapid osmosis occurred. The moisture was aggressively sucked out of the sludge. The dark green liquid began to violently bubble, hiss, and turn a sickly, crusty brown as it rapidly dehydrated. The villain's form began to stiffen and crack like dried mud in the summer sun.

 

"MY EYES! MY BODY! WHAT IS THIS?! IT BURNS! IT'S DRYING ME OUT!" The villain thrashed wildly, losing his grip on his hostage.

 

Bakugo was thrown forward, gasping violently for air, hacking up slime. Izuku didn't hesitate. He grabbed Bakugo by the collar of his uniform and violently yanked him out of the drying mass of sludge, dragging him backward away from the flames.

 

"Deku... you..." Bakugo coughed, staring at him in shock.

 

"Are you okay, Kacchan?!" Izuku yelled over the roar of the fire. "I—I think I threw off his pH balance!"

 

The crowd was stunned silent. The Pro Heroes were frozen, their jaws slacked. A quirkless middle schooler had just neutralized a deadly villain with gardening supplies.

 

In the back of the crowd, a skeletal Toshinori Yagi watched with wide, trembling eyes. He had seen the boy run in. He had felt ashamed of his own weakness, his own inability to act. But seeing this quirkless boy—the very boy he had just crushed the dreams of—charge into danger without hesitation, armed with nothing but agricultural chemicals and a desire to save someone...

 

It ignited a fire in Toshinori's soul that he hadn't felt in years.

 

He didn't hesitate, Toshinori thought, gripping his chest. I am pathetic. I told him to be realistic. And yet... he was the only one who acted.

 

With a roar of immense willpower, Toshinori forced his battered body to expand, his muscles inflating with steam and golden light. He pushed past his limits, ignoring the agonizing tearing in his chest.

 

Before the dehydrated Sludge Villain could re-moisturize and counterattack, a massive shadow eclipsed the alleyway.

 

All Might grabbed Izuku and Bakugo by the scruffs of their shirts, pulling them safely out of the blast zone.

 

"I REALLY AM PATHETIC!" All Might roared, blood dripping from the corner of his brilliant smile. "I TOLD YOU WHAT MAKES A HERO, YET I DIDN'T LIVE UP TO MY OWN IDEALS! PRO HEROES ARE ALWAYS RISKING THEIR LIVES!"

 

He pulled back a fist. The air pressure in the alleyway dropped instantly.

 

"DETROIT SMASH!"

 

The punch didn't just hit the villain; it obliterated the very air around him. The wind pressure created a localized tornado that ripped the hardened, fertilized sludge into a million microscopic pieces, blasting the fire out instantly. The sheer force of the shockwave shattered the windows of the alley and created a vertical updraft so powerful that it altered the weather, summoning a sudden, torrential downpour of rain from the sky.

 

The villain was defeated. The fires were out.

 

Izuku sat on the wet pavement, soaked in rain and fertilizer dust, staring up at the sky. He had done it. He had saved Kacchan.

 

Well, technically, the Miracle-Yield Ultra-Nitro Blend had saved Kacchan, but Izuku was the delivery system.

 

 

 

The aftermath was chaotic.

 

Bakugo was surrounded by Pro Heroes, all praising his incredibly strong quirk and resilience. He ignored them, glaring furiously at the ground, unable to process the fact that Deku—quirkless, useless Deku—had saved his life with a bag of dirt food.

 

Izuku, on the other hand, was currently getting yelled at by Kamui Woods and Death Arms.

 

"Do you have a death wish, kid?!" Death Arms scolded, pointing a thick finger at Izuku's chest. "You have no quirk! You threw a bag of lawn care products at a lethal villain! You could have been killed!"

 

"It wasn't lawn care, sir," Izuku corrected politely, adjusting his wet shirt. "It was a commercial-grade agricultural crop accelerant. The high concentration of nitrogen salts forced an osmotic imbalance in the villain's cellular structure, depriving him of moisture. Technically, it was the most effective counter-measure available on the scene."

 

Kamui Woods blinked, utterly bewildered. "I... what?"

 

"Never mind that!" Death Arms shouted, his face red. "Leave it to the pros next time!"

 

Izuku bowed his head. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry."

 

He walked away from the scene, his shoulders slumped. He was exhausted. He had lost his fifty-pound bag of fertilizer, which cost him three months' allowance. The abandoned lot would have to wait. He felt a profound sense of failure, despite having saved Bakugo. All Might was right. He wasn't a hero. He was just a kid with a green thumb who got lucky.

 

The sun was setting, casting long, melancholic shadows across the suburban streets of Musutafu as Izuku walked home.

 

"DEKU!"

 

Izuku stopped and turned. Katsuki Bakugo was marching toward him, his face bruised and his eyes burning with a complex mix of rage and humiliation.

 

"K-Kacchan?"

 

Bakugo stopped a few feet away, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Listen to me, you damn nerd. I didn't ask for your help. I didn't need your help! I was fine! I would have blown that slime freak to pieces!"

 

Izuku said nothing. He just looked at Bakugo, his emerald eyes calm.

 

"You didn't save me!" Bakugo yelled, his voice cracking slightly. "You're just a quirkless nobody! So don't you dare look down on me! Don't you dare think you've won! Go plant your stupid tomatoes and rot in the dirt for all I care!"

 

Without another word, Bakugo spun around and stomped away, leaving Izuku alone on the sidewalk.

 

Izuku sighed. That went about as well as he expected. He turned to resume his walk home.

 

"I AM HERE!"

 

Izuku yelped, leaping backward as All Might burst from a side alley, skidding to a halt in front of him. The massive hero struck a dramatic pose, flashing a blinding smile.

 

"A-All Might?!" Izuku gasped. "What are you doing here?! Were you followed by reporters?!"

 

"HA HA HA! NO, MY BOY! I SLIPPED AWAY FROM THEM!" All Might laughed loudly. Then, a violent cough wracked his chest, and in a puff of steam, he deflated back into the skeletal Toshinori Yagi. He coughed up a mouthful of blood into his hand.

 

Izuku screamed. "AH! THE BLOOD! PLEASE BE CAREFUL!"

 

Toshinori wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked at Izuku. The playfulness was gone from his eyes, replaced by a profound, solemn respect.

 

"Young man," Toshinori said quietly. "I came here to thank you. And to apologize."

 

Izuku froze. "Apologize? To me? But I... I got in the way. The pros yelled at me."

 

"The pros are fools," Toshinori said, stepping forward. "If you hadn't been there, if you hadn't told me the story of your life... I would have stood by and watched that boy die. I was a fake. But you... you had no power. You had no quirk. And yet, when everyone else was standing around waiting for someone else to act, your legs moved on their own."

 

Izuku's breath hitched. Tears pricked his eyes.

 

"Isn't that right?" Toshinori smiled warmly.

 

"Yes," Izuku whispered, remembering the feeling. The terror, the heat of the fire, the absolute certainty that he had to do something.

 

"Top heroes have stories about them from their school days," Toshinori said, his voice rising, carrying the weight of destiny. "Most of their stories have one thing in common. Their bodies moved before they had a chance to think."

 

Izuku fell to his knees, clutching his chest. The tears he had been holding back for fourteen years finally broke free. He sobbed, heavy, ragged gasps that shook his entire body.

 

"You can become a hero," Toshinori declared, looking down at the crying boy.

 

Izuku wept. It was all he had ever wanted to hear. Not from his mother, not from a doctor, but from him. From the Symbol of Peace.

 

Toshinori let the boy cry for a moment before he spoke again. "And that is why... I have deemed you worthy of inheriting my power."

 

Izuku stopped crying immediately. He sniffled, looking up with a confused expression. "Huh?"

 

"My quirk," Toshinori explained, pointing a bony finger at his chest. "It is not a natural mutation. It is a sacred torch, passed down from generation to generation. It is called One For All. It is the crystallization of power, stockpiled by one person, and passed onto the next, to cultivate power and save those in need."

 

Izuku's analytical mind booted back up instantly. "Wait. You can transfer a quirk? That defies all known genetic laws! Unless it's an epigenetic trigger that overrides the host's DNA sequence, but even then the cellular rejection rate would be—"

 

"Stop muttering!" Toshinori laughed. "Yes, it can be passed on. And I want to pass it on to you. You have the heart of a true hero, Young Midoriya. You proved that today."

 

Toshinori held out a hand. "I offer you the power to change the world. Will you accept it?"

 

Izuku looked at the skeletal hand. He thought about the barren lot by his apartment. He thought about the articles he had read about widespread famine in the southern hemisphere due to villain-induced climate shifts. He thought about the power of the Texas Smash he had seen earlier—the raw, earth-moving kinetic energy.

 

If he had that power... he wouldn't need heavy machinery. He wouldn't need a tractor. He could dig irrigation canals with his bare hands. He could harvest a hundred acres in the blink of an eye. He could protect his crops from any pest, animal or villain alike.

 

Izuku wiped his eyes, a fierce, burning determination setting into his features. He reached up and grasped Toshinori's hand tightly.

 

"Yes," Izuku said firmly. "I accept. I will use this power to change the world."

 

Toshinori beamed, his heart swelling with pride. He had found his successor. The legacy of One For All was safe.

 

"Excellent!" Toshinori declared, striking a triumphant pose, even in his skinny form. "It will be a long, arduous journey, my boy! Your body is currently too frail to handle the power of One For All; if I gave it to you now, your limbs would blow off!"

 

Izuku paled slightly. "Oh."

 

"But fear not!" Toshinori laughed. "We have exactly ten months before the U.A. High School Entrance Exam! I will design a rigorous physical training regimen to forge your body into a vessel worthy of this power! We start tomorrow at dawn at Takoba Municipal Beach!"

 

Izuku blinked. The excitement on his face faltered, replaced by genuine, unadulterated confusion.

 

"U.A.?" Izuku repeated slowly, tilting his head.

 

"Yes! The premier hero academy in the nation!" Toshinori said proudly. "Where you will learn to harness this power and become the next Symbol of Peace!"

 

Izuku stared at him for a long, quiet moment. A warm evening breeze rustled the leaves of a nearby cherry blossom tree.

 

"Um... All Might, sir?" Izuku said tentatively, scratching his cheek.

 

"Yes, my boy?"

 

"I... I think there's been a misunderstanding."

 

Toshinori raised an eyebrow. "A misunderstanding?"

 

"Yes," Izuku said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "I'm not applying to U.A. High School."

 

Toshinori stared at him. "You... you're not? But... you just proved you have a heroic heart! You just accepted my quirk!"

 

"I did!" Izuku nodded enthusiastically, his eyes shining with passion. "And I am incredibly honored! But... I told you on the roof, All Might. I don't want to be a Pro Hero. Heroes fight villains. They punch bad guys and put them in jail. That's important, yes. But it's reactionary. I want to build something. I want to sustain people."

 

Izuku reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled, slightly damp pamphlet. He held it out to Toshinori.

 

Toshinori took it mechanically. The front of the pamphlet featured a picture of a smiling teen holding a giant turnip. The bold green text read: SHIKETSU HIGH SCHOOL - DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES.

 

"I'm going to Shiketsu," Izuku declared proudly, his chest puffed out. "They have the most advanced agronomical research facilities in the country. With your quirk, All Might, I can revolutionize farming! Imagine the plowing speed! The heavy lifting! I can single-handedly cultivate soil in quirk-devastated regions where machinery can't go! I can end world hunger!"

 

Toshinori looked at the pamphlet. He looked at Izuku. He looked back at the pamphlet.

 

"You..." Toshinori’s voice trembled. "You want to take One For All... a sacred power passed down for eight generations... a quirk designed to defeat the greatest evil the world has ever known..."

 

"Yes!" Izuku beamed.

 

"...and you want to use it... to grow vegetables."

 

"Not just vegetables!" Izuku corrected eagerly. "Legumes, grains, fruit orchards! The crop rotation possibilities are endless if I don't have to worry about manual labor fatigue!"

 

Toshinori Yagi stood absolutely still. His brain completely short-circuited. The weight of eight generations of heroes pressed down on his shoulders. He imagined his predecessor, Nana Shimura, looking down from heaven. He imagined her watching the inheritor of their legendary power using it to aggressively plant cabbages.

 

A horrifying, gargling sound bubbled up in Toshinori's throat.

 

"All Might?" Izuku asked, his smile faltering. "Are you okay? You look pale."

 

Toshinori didn't answer. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and a massive geyser of blood erupted from his mouth, painting the sidewalk red as he tipped backward like a felled timber, passing out cold on the pavement.

 

"ALL MIGHT!" Izuku shrieked, dropping to his knees and shaking the man's shoulders. "STAY WITH ME! I KNOW CPR! WAIT, DOES CPR WORK IF YOU DON'T HAVE A STOMACH?! OH NO!"

 

As the sun fully dipped below the horizon, plunging Musutafu into twilight, Izuku Midoriya frantically tried to revive the Symbol of Peace.

 

He had secured the ultimate quirk. The power of a god was going to be his.

 

And the world's soil would never be the same again.

 

 

 

At 4:00 AM, the outskirts of Musutafu were draped in a heavy, bruised-purple twilight. The city was miles away, its neon glow reduced to a faint, artificial haze on the horizon. Out here, there were no sirens, no late-night hero patrols, no villains skulking in alleyways. There was only the wind whistling through the jagged valleys, the chirp of early-rising cicadas, and the deep, rhythmic thud of a steel hoe striking the earth.

 

THWACK.

 

A clod of dry, clay-heavy dirt flew into the air, disintegrating into dust before it hit the ground.

 

THWACK.

 

Another strike, this one shattering a subterranean rock into a dozen jagged splinters.

 

Izuku Midoriya wiped a thick bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of a calloused, dirt-stained hand. He stood at the edge of a massive, ten-acre expanse of land. Ten months ago, this area had been known to the locals as "The Barrens." A decade prior, a villain with a terraforming quirk had battled the Pro Hero Crust here, leaving the earth scorched, violently upheaved, and fundamentally stripped of all its natural topsoil. It was a wasteland of jagged boulders, dead vegetation, and compacted clay.

 

Because it was zoned as a hazardous post-combat zone and deemed agriculturally dead, the land had been appraised at practically nothing.

 

Izuku had taken the life insurance policy from his late father, combined it with every yen he and his mother had saved, and bought the deed outright. It was a gamble that had made his mother, Inko, faint three times in one afternoon. But Izuku had looked at the cracked, lifeless earth and seen a blank canvas.

 

Now, ten months later, the canvas was no longer blank.

 

Izuku took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the crisp morning air. He didn't look like the scrawny, trembling middle schooler who had clung to All Might’s leg less than a year ago.

 

Farming, as it turned out, was the ultimate full-body workout. While Toshinori Yagi had originally planned to have Izuku clear the trash off Takoba Municipal Beach to build his physique, Izuku had successfully argued that hauling discarded refrigerators didn't aerate the soil. Instead, Izuku had applied Toshinori’s intense "Aim to Pass: American Dream Plan" to the revitalization of his ten-acre farm.

 

The results were staggering. Izuku’s shoulders had broadened significantly. His arms were corded with thick, dense muscle, tanned a warm bronze from endless hours under the sun. His hands, once soft and prone to blistering, were now tough as leather. He wore faded denim overalls, heavy steel-toed work boots, and a straw hat that rested on his back, held by a string around his neck.

 

"Alright," Izuku muttered to himself, his eyes darting across the dark field, mentally projecting a grid over the landscape. "The southern quadrant's soil compaction is still too dense. The Daikon radishes will hit a hardpan layer at six inches and stunt. I need to break up the subsoil and introduce the compost tea to invite mycelial networks to establish a symbiotic moisture-retention system."

 

He tightened his grip on the heavy, reinforced steel hoe he had custom-ordered from a hero-support support company (under the guise that it was a polearm for combat training).

 

Izuku closed his eyes. He reached deep into his core, feeling for the spark of warmth that now permanently resided next to his heart.

 

One For All.

 

When All Might had first transferred the quirk to him via a rather unappetizing strand of golden hair, Izuku hadn't felt anything. But as the months of grueling physical labor dragged on, the power had begun to awaken. It felt like a miniature sun locked in his chest, radiating immense, volatile kinetic energy.

 

All Might had warned him. “If your body isn’t a proper vessel, the power will blow your limbs off.”

 

Izuku had taken that to heart. He didn't force the power. He coaxed it. He treated One For All the same way he treated a delicate seedling. You didn't drown it in water; you fed it slowly, allowing the roots to take hold.

 

"Focus," Izuku whispered. He tightened his glutes, braced his core, and planted his steel-toed boots firmly into the dirt.

 

He didn't channel the power at a hundred percent. He didn't even channel it at fifty. He imagined an egg in a microwave, keeping the wattage low.

 

Five percent.

 

Crimson veins suddenly flared beneath the skin of his arms and legs. A moment later, ethereal, emerald-green lightning violently crackled around his body, illuminating the dark morning in flashes of brilliant jade. The air pressure around him shifted, dust swirling in a miniature cyclone at his feet.

 

Full Cowling.

 

Izuku’s eyes snapped open, glowing with absolute, concentrated focus. He raised the steel hoe high above his head. The green lightning surged down the wooden shaft, wrapping the metal blade in raw kinetic energy.

 

He stepped forward, driving the blade down into the earth with the force of a falling meteor.

 

"DETROIT... PLOW!"

 

BOOOOOOOM.

 

The impact was deafening. The steel blade struck the compacted clay, but it wasn't the metal that did the work. The sheer, directed wind pressure generated from the strike shot forward in a straight line, ripping through the earth like a subterranean torpedo. A perfectly straight, three-foot-deep, two-foot-wide trench violently erupted across the entire hundred-yard length of the field. Boulders the size of washing machines were effortlessly blown out of the dirt, landing harmlessly on the perimeter.

 

Izuku stood at the head of the trench, green lightning still spitting from his shoulders. He adjusted his gloves, completely unfazed by the localized earthquake he had just caused.

 

"Excellent," Izuku muttered, pulling out a small notebook from his overall pocket. "The localized wind pressure perfectly aerated the surrounding topsoil without completely inverting the microbial layers. If I can maintain a five percent output for the next two hours, I can finish the irrigation canals before the sun gets too hot."

 

He reset his stance, moved three feet to the left, and raised the hoe again.

 

This was the secret of Midoriya Farms. Pro Heroes used their quirks to destroy villains. Izuku Midoriya used the absolute pinnacle of quirk enhancement to aggressively terraform.

 

 

 

By 8:00 AM, the sun was fully above the horizon, beating down on the newly plowed fields. The irrigation trenches were finished, running in perfectly symmetrical, mathematically flawless lines. Izuku had transitioned from earth-moving to his second daily task: livestock management.

 

Farming wasn't just about crops; it was an entire ecosystem. To properly naturally fertilize the fields, Izuku had invested in livestock. Specifically, he had purchased a flock of twenty genetically engineered, quirk-enhanced sheep that were known for producing incredibly nutrient-dense manure.

 

There was only one problem. The sheep, a breed known as Aero-Fleece, were incredibly fast, alarmingly bouncy, and fiercely independent.

 

"Come on, guys! Please!" Izuku shouted, sprinting across the pasture.

 

A large ram with a coat of fluffy white wool bleated mockingly, leaping ten feet into the air and bouncing off the side of the wooden barn, completely clearing the fence Izuku had built yesterday. The rest of the flock followed, a cascading waterfall of wool bouncing over the enclosure.

 

"No, no, no! The alfalfa field isn't ready for grazing yet! You'll pull the root systems out!" Izuku panicked.

 

He took a deep breath, the emerald lightning flaring to life around him once more. Full Cowling: 5%.

 

Izuku pushed off the ground, the earth cracking beneath his boots. He shot forward like a green blur, intercepting the lead ram mid-air. He didn't hit the animal; instead, he gently wrapped his arms around the massive sheep, absorbing its momentum, and spun in mid-air, landing softly on the grass.

 

"Gotcha!" Izuku cheered.

 

The ram looked at him, utterly unimpressed, and bleated loudly. Instantly, the other nineteen sheep scattered in completely different directions, bounding into the nearby woods.

 

"Ah! Herd mentality!" Izuku cried out.

 

For the next forty-five minutes, anyone walking by the farm would have witnessed a spectacle that defied all logic. A boy crackling with green electricity was ricocheting off trees, barn roofs, and boulders like a pinball. He was using the ultimate power of One For All—the quirk meant to rival the demon king All For One—to play an extreme, high-speed game of tag with sheep.

 

Izuku used his immense leg strength to vault over a stream, cutting off three ewes. He used a localized burst of wind pressure—a miniature Delaware Smash—to rustle the leaves of a dense thicket, scaring two more sheep back toward the barn.

 

"Five percent isn't just for power," Izuku muttered as he bounded off the trunk of an oak tree, catching a rogue lamb in his arms. "It enhances my kinetic vision, my fast-twitch muscle fibers, and my spatial awareness. It's perfect for predator deterrence and herd management!"

 

He didn't realize it, but the agility, precision, and environmental awareness he was developing by herding erratic animals was a higher level of combat training than most U.A. students received in their entire first year. Villains were predictable; they wanted to hurt you. Sheep were chaos incarnate; they just wanted to eat the forbidden alfalfa.

 

By the time he had successfully corralled the flock back into their reinforced pen, Izuku was panting, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He leaned over the wooden fence, feeding the lead ram a handful of premium oats as an apology for the roughhousing.

 

"Good boy," Izuku panted, scratching behind the ram's horns.

 

"I must admit," a deep, dry voice called out from behind him. "When I envisioned the successor of One For All mastering his agility, I pictured dodging deadly laser blasts or avoiding collapsing buildings. Not... wrestling livestock."

 

Izuku jumped, spinning around.

 

Standing at the edge of the dirt driveway was Toshinori Yagi. The retired Symbol of Peace looked remarkably different from his usual hero persona. He was in his true, emaciated form, but he wasn't wearing his oversized suits. Instead, he wore a pair of sturdy denim jeans, heavy work boots, and a red-and-black flannel shirt that hung loosely off his skeletal frame. A wide-brimmed straw hat rested on his blonde hair to protect him from the sun.

 

"All Might!" Izuku beamed, jogging over and bowing deeply. "Good morning! It's great to see you! Are you feeling okay? The train ride from the city wasn't too crowded, was it?"

 

"I am fine, Young Midoriya," Toshinori sighed, offering a weak smile. A small trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, which he casually dabbed away with a handkerchief. "Though, I must say, the walk from the station was quite the hike. You really bought land in the absolute middle of nowhere."

 

"It's not nowhere! It's Zone 7 for agricultural hardiness!" Izuku corrected enthusiastically. "The isolation protects the crops from urban pollution runoff."

 

Toshinori looked past Izuku, his sunken blue eyes scanning the massive expanse of the farm.

 

Ten months ago, this place had been a literal wasteland. Toshinori remembered it well. Now, the transformation was nothing short of miraculous. Perfect, symmetrical rows of dark, rich soil stretched as far as the eye could see. A complex, gravity-fed irrigation system utilizing the natural slope of the hill diverted water from the nearby stream perfectly through the fields. In the distance, a sprawling orchard of apple and peach trees was beginning to bloom. There was a sturdy, newly built barn, a chicken coop, and a large greenhouse constructed from salvaged glass and steel.

 

It was an empire of dirt. And a quirkless teenager had built it all by himself.

 

Toshinori felt a complex knot of emotions tighten in his chest. Pride, certainly. The sheer physical labor required to achieve this was astronomical. Izuku's body was now fully conditioned, absolutely ready to handle One For All without exploding.

 

But alongside the pride was a profound, aching sorrow.

 

"Midoriya, my boy," Toshinori said, his voice lowering, taking on a solemn tone. "The U.A. Entrance Exams are tomorrow."

 

Izuku stopped smiling. He looked down at his dirt-caked boots. "I know."

 

"It's not too late," Toshinori urged, stepping forward. "I have connections. I can pull some strings. You don't even have to take the practical exam, I can get you into the General Education course, and you can transfer to the Hero Course later. Or... or if you truly abhor the spotlight, we can train you for Underground Heroics! Eraserhead makes a wonderful living avoiding the press. You could be a vigilante of the night!"

 

Toshinori’s voice carried a desperate edge. He had passed on the sacred torch. He couldn't bear the thought of it ending here, in a cabbage patch.

 

Izuku looked up, his green eyes meeting Toshinori’s sunken blue ones. There was no anger in Izuku's gaze, only a deep, unshakeable calm.

 

"All Might," Izuku said softly. "Come with me for a second."

 

Izuku led the skeletal man away from the barn and toward the greenhouse. The interior was a humid, lush jungle of vibrant green. Rows upon rows of starter pots sat on elevated wooden tables, each containing a tiny, fragile sprout reaching toward the sunlight.

 

"Do you know what these are?" Izuku asked, gesturing to a massive tray of small, leafy green sprouts.

 

Toshinori squinted. "Weeds?"

 

"They're called Amaranthus viridis," Izuku explained, his voice filled with reverence. "It's a type of amaranth. It's incredibly resilient, drought-resistant, and can grow in soil with extremely high salinity. More importantly, the leaves are packed with protein, iron, and calcium."

 

Izuku gently brushed his fingers over the delicate leaves.

 

"Three weeks ago, there was a massive villain attack in the Hosu District," Izuku continued. "A villain with a decay quirk destroyed three city blocks. The Pro Heroes stopped him, of course. But the collateral damage destroyed the main municipal water line and the local grocery distribution center. Seven hundred families were displaced into temporary shelters. The government relief funds are tied up in red tape. Those people are hungry, All Might."

 

Toshinori lowered his head, a shadow falling over his eyes. He knew this. The ugly truth of heroism was that once the villain was in cuffs, the cameras turned off, and the heroes went home. No one televised the aftermath.

 

"I've been in contact with a local charity in Hosu," Izuku said, turning to Toshinori. "Next week, I am harvesting my first major crop of fast-growing amaranth and quirk-enhanced soybeans. I am driving a truck down there, and I am going to feed those seven hundred families. For free."

 

Izuku stepped closer to Toshinori, the aura of One For All practically humming in his blood, though he wasn't activating it. It was the aura of a true successor.

 

"You punch the villains, All Might," Izuku said, his voice steady and resolute. "You break the rocks. You stop the bleeding. But someone has to stitch the wound. Someone has to feed the people who are left behind. I'm not running away from being a hero. I'm just fighting a different kind of villain."

 

Toshinori stood in the humid greenhouse, surrounded by thousands of tiny lives. He looked at Izuku. Really looked at him.

 

For forty years, Toshinori Yagi had defined heroism by the strength of his fists. He had smashed evil into submission. He had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, forcing himself to smile through the agonizing pain, living in constant fear that if he fell, the world would fall with him. He viewed One For All as a weapon. A sword to be wielded against the darkness.

 

But looking at Izuku, Toshinori realized something profound.

 

One For All wasn't just a weapon. It was stockpiled energy. It was raw, unadulterated life force. And Izuku Midoriya was taking the life force of eight generations of martyrs... and returning it to the earth.

 

A single tear slipped from Toshinori’s sunken eye, catching the sunlight before soaking into his flannel shirt.

 

"You..." Toshinori’s voice cracked. He coughed, clearing his throat, trying to regain his composure. "You are a very strange boy, Izuku Midoriya."

 

Izuku smiled warmly. "I know. So... since you took the train all the way out here, and since I'm skipping the U.A. exams tomorrow to prepare for the Shiketsu Agricultural Entrance Exam next week..."

 

Izuku walked over to the corner of the greenhouse and picked up a spare, wooden-handled hoe. He walked back and offered it to Toshinori.

 

"...would you like to help me turn the compost in the southern field? It's really hard work, but it builds character."

 

Toshinori stared at the wooden handle. He hadn't done manual labor since he was a teenager on Takoba Beach with Nana Shimura. He was the former Number One Hero. He was tired. His body was broken.

 

But the greenhouse was warm. The air smelled of wet earth and growing things. It smelled like the exact opposite of blood, smoke, and ash.

 

Toshinori reached out and gripped the handle of the hoe.

 

"Lead the way, farmboy," Toshinori said, a genuine, completely unforced smile spreading across his gaunt face.

 

 

 

For the next four hours, the Symbol of Peace and his successor worked side by side in the dirt.

 

It was agonizing work for Toshinori. Without his muscle form, his skeletal body lacked stamina. His joints popped, his back ached, and his hands quickly developed painful blisters. Izuku had to constantly remind him to drink water and take breaks in the shade of the tractor.

 

But as the hours ticked by, a strange phenomenon occurred.

 

Toshinori fell into a rhythm. Lift, strike, pull, breathe. The repetitive motion bypassed his overactive, anxiety-riddled brain. For the first time in five years, since the horrific injury that had taken his stomach and half his respiratory system, Toshinori wasn't thinking about his time limit. He wasn't agonizing over the rising crime rates. He wasn't scanning the horizon for plumes of smoke.

 

He was just watching the dark, rich soil turn over beneath his blade.

 

"You see, All Might," Izuku chattered happily, casually hauling a massive wheelbarrow filled with three hundred pounds of compost with one hand. "The key to this compost tea is the ratio of nitrogen-rich green matter to carbon-rich brown matter. We use the sheep manure for nitrogen, and dried leaves and wood chips for carbon. If we introduce it to the soil now, the microbes will break it down over the winter, and by spring, this field will be perfectly primed for the heirloom tomatoes!"

 

Toshinori paused, leaning on his hoe, panting heavily. Sweat drenched his flannel shirt. He looked at the long row of turned earth he had just completed.

 

It was messy. It wasn't as deep or as perfect as Izuku's rows. But he had done it.

 

Toshinori felt a strange, bubbling sensation in his chest. It wasn't blood. It was a laugh. A quiet, breathy chuckle that evolved into a full-bellied, echoing laugh that startled a flock of crows out of a nearby tree.

 

"Ha ha ha!" Toshinori laughed, wiping his brow, his blue eyes shining with a light Izuku hadn't seen before. "Carbon and nitrogen! Microbes! I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, Young Midoriya, but I have never seen dirt look so beautiful!"

 

Izuku beamed, setting the wheelbarrow down. "It feels good, right? To see the immediate results of your work. It's peaceful."

 

"Peaceful," Toshinori echoed, tasting the word. It was a word he had fought his whole life to give to others, but had never allowed himself to experience. "Yes. It is."

 

"Alright!" Izuku clapped his hands together, dusting off his gloves. "The compost is turned. The sun is at its peak, so we should avoid planting the seedlings until it cools down. How about we harvest some lunch? The apple orchard on the east ridge has some wild, pre-quirk era Fuji apples that are finally ripe."

 

"Apples sound magnificent," Toshinori agreed, rubbing his aching lower back. "Though I fear my climbing days are behind me."

 

"Don't worry," Izuku smiled, the green lightning sparking playfully around his boots. "I'll handle the heavy lifting."

 

They walked across the sprawling farm, the tall grass brushing against their jeans, until they reached the eastern ridge. Overlooking the valley was a grove of massive, ancient apple trees. They were gnarled and twisted, having survived years of neglect in the barren soil, but thanks to Izuku's meticulous pruning and fertilizing over the last ten months, their canopies were heavy with bright red, flawless fruit.

 

"Wow," Toshinori breathed, looking up at the largest tree in the center. It had to be forty feet tall. "Those are some resilient trees."

 

"They have deep taproots," Izuku explained, walking up to the base of the massive tree. "They survived the villain attack years ago by pulling moisture from deep underground aquifers. But the best apples—the ones with the highest sugar content because they get the most sun—are way up at the top."

 

Izuku craned his neck, squinting at the canopy.

 

"I could use a Delaware Smash to shake the tree," Izuku muttered, tapping his chin in deep thought. "But the kinetic shockwave might bruise the fruit upon impact, ruining the cellular structure and causing premature rotting. I need to pick them gently."

 

"A ladder, perhaps?" Toshinori suggested sensibly.

 

"I don't have one tall enough," Izuku replied. "And I can't jump up there, I'd have no leverage to hold myself while I pick them."

 

Izuku stared at the top of the tree, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. He wanted those apples. He needed those apples. They were the crowning jewel of his first harvest. He imagined reaching up, his arms extending, grabbing the fruit with precision. He focused all of his will, all of his desire to harvest, into his hands.

 

Deep within the core of One For All, something stirred.

 

It wasn't the raw kinetic energy of All Might. It was something older. Something darker, yet protective.

 

Crack.

 

Izuku gasped.

 

Without warning, his right arm violently convulsed. The green lightning of Full Cowling flickered and died out, replaced by a sudden, intense surge of dark, shifting energy.

 

SHHHHK.

 

From Izuku's forearm, five thick, writhing tendrils of solid, black-and-green energy erupted outward. They shot into the air with the speed of a striking viper, hissing as they cut through the wind.

 

"MIDORIYA!" Toshinori screamed, falling backward in absolute terror. He recognized that power. He had read about it in the notes of his predecessor. It was a dormant quirk from a past user. But it wasn't supposed to manifest! The boy wasn't ready!

 

The black tendrils whipped violently through the air, chaotic and wild.

 

Izuku panicked for exactly one and a half seconds. His eyes widened, and he let out a short yelp.

 

But then, his analytical mind overrode his fear.

 

Wait, Izuku thought, watching the chaotic tendrils whip around him. These aren't attacking me. They're extending from my somatic nervous system. They are reacting to my emotional state. I was feeling a strong desire to reach the top of the tree. They are... tools. Like extra arms.

 

"Midoriya! Suppress it!" Toshinori yelled, frantically scrambling to his feet. "Your body can't handle multiple quirks! It will tear you apart!"

 

"It's okay, All Might! Look!" Izuku yelled back.

 

Izuku took a deep breath, forcing his heart rate to slow down. He stopped panicking and focused entirely on the image in his head. The apples.

 

Reach. Grasp. Pull.

 

Instantly, the violent thrashing of the black tendrils ceased. They smoothed out, becoming sleek and entirely under his control. Like a seasoned octopus controlling its tentacles, Izuku directed the five tendrils of Blackwhip straight up into the forty-foot canopy of the apple tree.

 

The tendrils slithered through the branches with incredible dexterity. They gently, almost lovingly, wrapped around five massive, sun-ripened Fuji apples at the very top of the tree. With a delicate twist, the tendrils snapped the stems without bruising the fruit, and brought them down to Izuku, dropping them perfectly into his waiting, outstretched hands.

 

Izuku blinked, staring at the five flawless apples, and then down at the black tendrils slowly retracting back into his skin.

 

"Fascinating," Izuku muttered, his eyes wide with scientific wonder. "It's an energy-based prehensile extension quirk. The tensile strength seems high, but the fine motor control is exquisite. Do you have any idea how fast I could harvest a cornfield with this? I could pick ten rows simultaneously!"

 

Toshinori Yagi stood absolutely frozen, his jaw hanging open so wide it practically unhinged.

 

He had just witnessed the spontaneous, premature awakening of a past user's quirk—a phenomenon that should have caused massive psychological and physical trauma. And his successor had immediately weaponized it for fruit picking.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, deep within the infinite, starry void of the Vestige Realm—the metaphysical space where the consciousness of the past wielders of One For All resided—absolute chaos had erupted.

 

Seven glowing chairs sat in a circle.

 

Sitting in one of them was Daigoro Banjo, the Pro Hero Lariat, and the original wielder of Blackwhip. A large, muscular man with a bald head and a leather jacket, Banjo was currently standing on his chair, pulling at his non-existent hair, and screaming at the top of his lungs.

 

"WHAT IS HE DOING?!" Banjo roared, his voice echoing into the void. "THAT IS BLACKWHIP! MY ULTIMATE MOVE! I USED THAT TO TEAR VILLAINS LIMB FROM LIMB! I USED IT TO SWING THROUGH THE CITY LIKE A VENGEFUL GOD OF THE NIGHT!"

 

"Calm down, Banjo," a cool, collected voice said.

 

Sitting across from him was the First User, a frail man with long white hair. He was leaning on his hand, a highly amused smirk on his face as he watched the scene unfold through Izuku's eyes on a massive, floating screen in the center of the void.

 

"I can't calm down!" Banjo shouted, pacing frantically around his chair. "The kid unlocked it early! The emotional trigger for Blackwhip is supposed to be intense, righteous anger! The desire to capture evil! Do you know what his emotional trigger was?!"

 

Banjo pointed an accusing, glowing finger at the screen.

 

"HE REALLY, REALLY WANTED A SNACK!"

 

Next to Banjo, a beautiful woman with dark hair tied in a half-up bun burst into violent, uncontrollable laughter. Nana Shimura, the seventh user and Toshinori's master, was practically crying, slapping her knee.

 

"Oh my god," Nana gasped, wiping a tear from her eye. "Look at Toshi's face! My poor boy looks like he's going to have a heart attack! This kid is incredible!"

 

"It is not funny, Nana!" Banjo groaned, burying his face in his hands. "My legacy! My terrifying, badass legacy! He's going to use Blackwhip to weed his carrot patches! The villains will laugh at me!"

 

"I think it is quite resourceful," said the Fourth User, Hikage Shinomori, a quiet man with scars across his face. "If he utilizes my Danger Sense quirk to detect aphids and locust plagues before they hit his crops, I would consider that a noble use of my power."

 

"You're all crazy!" Banjo yelled. "We are the defenders of justice! The ultimate weapon against All For One! We are not farm equipment!"

 

The First User chuckled softly, his white hair drifting in the ethereal wind. He looked through the screen, watching Izuku happily polish an apple on his denim overalls and hand it to a stunned Toshinori.

 

"My brother, All For One, seeks to consume everything," the First User said quietly, his voice silencing the bickering vestiges. "He destroys. He steals. He leaves nothing but ash and sorrow in his wake."

 

The First User smiled, watching the green fields of Midoriya Farms swaying in the gentle breeze.

 

"But this boy," the First User continued, his eyes softening. "He does not seek to destroy. He seeks to create. He takes the barren, ruined earth, and he makes it bloom. My brother cannot steal life that is freely given to the world. Perhaps... this is exactly the kind of hero we have been waiting for."

 

Banjo stopped pacing. He looked at the screen. He watched Izuku take a massive bite out of the apple, his face lighting up with pure, unadulterated joy.

 

Banjo sighed, his broad shoulders slumping in defeat.

 

"Fine," Banjo grumbled, crossing his arms and sitting back down in his chair. "But if he names his ultimate farming move 'The Blackwhip Harvester', I am going to haunt him until the day he dies."

 

Nana Shimura snorted, hiding her smile behind her hand. "Sure you will, Daigoro."

 

 

 

Back in the physical world, the sun began to dip low in the sky, painting the clouds in brilliant shades of pink and gold.

 

Toshinori and Izuku sat side-by-side on the tailgate of Izuku's rusty, second-hand pickup truck, overlooking the valley. They were both silently eating their apples.

 

The crunch of the fruit was the only sound for a long time.

 

Toshinori chewed slowly. It was, without a single doubt in his mind, the most delicious, crisp, perfectly sweet apple he had ever eaten in his entire life. It tasted like sunshine and hard work. It tasted like victory.

 

"Midoriya," Toshinori said quietly, watching the wind ripple through the tall grass.

 

"Yes, All Might?" Izuku asked, his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk.

 

"Tomorrow, thousands of kids will take the U.A. Entrance Exam," Toshinori said. "They will fight giant robots. They will prove their strength. They will take their first steps toward becoming heroes."

 

Izuku swallowed, looking down at his half-eaten apple. He felt a small pang of melancholy, a ghost of the dream he had let go. But then he looked up at his fields. He saw the irrigation trenches he had carved with his own two hands. He saw the greenhouse that would feed seven hundred starving people next week.

 

"I know," Izuku said softly.

 

Toshinori reached over and placed a large, bony hand on Izuku's shoulder.

 

"They will be heroes," Toshinori said, his voice filled with an absolute, unshakeable certainty. "But none of them... not a single one... will save as many lives as you will, Izuku Midoriya."

 

Izuku's breath caught in his throat. He looked at his mentor, his eyes wide and shining with unshed tears.

 

"Thank you," Izuku whispered, the weight of the words anchoring him to the earth he loved so much.

 

"Now," Toshinori smiled, standing up from the tailgate and stretching his aching back. "I believe you mentioned something about an entrance exam for Shiketsu Agricultural High School next week?"

 

Izuku's face instantly lit up, the tears vanishing, replaced by manic excitement.

 

"Oh, yes!" Izuku jumped up, pulling his battered notebook from his overalls. "The written exam is incredibly difficult! We have to identify soil compositions by touch and smell! And the practical exam requires us to successfully graft two completely different species of fruit trees within a thirty-minute time limit! I've been practicing with cherry and plum branches, but the vascular cambium alignment is so tricky—!"

 

Toshinori laughed, a deep, booming sound that echoed across the valley, startling the sheep in the distance.

 

Let the other kids fight robots.

 

His successor was going to conquer the earth.

 

 

 

A tempest of unbridled, scorching fury constantly roiled just beneath the surface of Katsuki Bakugo’s skin, a pressurized boiler perpetually on the verge of a catastrophic meltdown.

 

It was a Tuesday afternoon in Gym Gamma at U.A. High School. The massive, concrete-reinforced training facility echoed with the deafening symphony of adolescent quirks being pushed to their absolute limits. Ice shattered against steel, lasers scorched the synthetic terrain, and anti-gravity debris floated aimlessly toward the vaulted ceiling.

 

But the loudest sound by far was the rhythmic, concussive BOOM-BOOM-BOOM radiating from Sector 4.

 

"DIE! DIE! JUST FREAKING DIE ALREADY!"

 

Bakugo vaulted over a jagged outcropping of simulated rubble, his palms igniting with blinding, magnesium-white flashes. He spun mid-air, utilizing the centrifugal force of his rotation to hurl a massive, concentrated blast of nitroglycerin-fueled fire at a towering, three-point training robot. The explosion caught the automaton squarely in its optical sensors. The steel chassis buckled, superheated metal groaning in agony before the entire machine detonated in a spectacular fireball, showering the arena in a rain of charred shrapnel.

 

Bakugo landed perfectly on his feet, smoke wafting from his gauntlets, his crimson eyes glowing with predatory intensity.

 

It was a flawless execution. It was top-of-the-class performance. He had scored the highest on the entrance exam, he had dominated the quirk apprehension test, and he was currently terrifying every single one of his classmates with his sheer, unrelenting combat prowess. He was exactly where he was supposed to be: at the pinnacle, looking down at the extras.

 

So why did he feel so incredibly, sickeningly hollow?

 

"Bakugo!" a stern, perpetually exhausted voice called out over the PA system. Eraserhead stood in the observation booth, his eyes narrowed behind his capture weapon. "That robot was already incapacitated from your previous blast. Overkill wastes stamina and creates unnecessary collateral damage. Reign it in, or I'm benching you for the rest of the period."

 

Bakugo clicked his tongue, shoving his hands into the pockets of his baggy hero costume. "Tch. Whatever."

 

He stalked away from the smoking crater, ignoring the awe-struck whispers of Denki Kaminari and Eijiro Kirishima nearby. He didn't care about their praise. He only cared about one thing. Or rather, the distinct absence of one thing.

 

Where the hell is Deku?

 

For ten years, Izuku Midoriya had been a permanent, irritating fixture in Bakugo's peripheral vision. Like a stubborn weed growing through the cracks of a pristine driveway, Deku was always there. Muttering, taking notes, staring at Bakugo with those impossibly large, reverent green eyes, harboring that pathetic, delusional dream of standing on the same stage as him.

 

Bakugo had spent his entire life waiting for the U.A. Entrance Exam, solely so he could watch reality finally crush Deku into the dirt. He had wanted to see the exact moment the quirkless loser realized he couldn't play with the gods.

 

But Deku hadn't shown up.

 

He wasn't in the testing auditorium. He wasn't at the starting gates of the practical exam. He wasn't in Class 1-A, nor 1-B, nor even the General Education courses. Izuku Midoriya had simply vanished off the face of the earth.

 

At first, Bakugo assumed the nerd had finally given up. But as the weeks dragged on, the silence became deafening. It felt like an itch he couldn't scratch. An unanswered question. Bakugo's superiority complex required a baseline for comparison, and without Deku there to witness his ascent to greatness, the victory tasted like ash.

 

Worse yet, Bakugo had recently cornered Auntie Inko at the local grocery store, demanding to know what happened to her son. The plump, kind-hearted woman had simply smiled, a weird, serene glow in her eyes, and said, "Oh, Izuku? He's thriving, Katsuki! He found his true calling. He's a landowner now!"

 

A landowner.

 

What the hell did that even mean? Did the nerd inherit a shack in the woods? Was he playing hermit?

 

The training buzzer blared, signaling the end of the combat exercise. Bakugo aggressively stripped off his heavy grenade bracers, his mind made up. He had swiped a piece of mail from the Midoriya household's mailbox on his way to school—a utility bill with a rural address on it.

 

He was going to find the nerd. He was going to drag him by his stupid green hair, force him to explain why he ran away, and then blow him up for wasting his time.

 

"Hey, Bakugo-kun!"

 

Bakugo stopped, a vein throbbing in his temple. He slowly turned around.

 

Jogging toward him was Ochaco Uraraka, her pink cheeks flushed from exertion, and Tenya Iida, who was marching with rigid, perfect right angles.

 

"What do you want, Round Face? Glasses?" Bakugo snarled.

 

"We couldn't help but notice you seem exceptionally tense today!" Iida announced, chopping his hand through the air with mechanical precision. "As your class representative, I must remind you that harboring stress is detrimental to your academic performance! If you wish to discuss—"

 

"I don't want to discuss anything with you," Bakugo snapped. He shoved the folded utility bill into his pocket. "I have errands to run after school. Annoying, stupid errands involving a cowardly, quirkless loser who thinks he can just disappear without acknowledging my superiority."

 

Uraraka blinked, her curiosity instantly piqued. She had heard Bakugo yell the word 'Deku' in his sleep once during a nap in the common room. "A cowardly loser? Are you talking about your old friend?"

 

"He's not my friend!" Bakugo roared, a small explosion popping in his palm. "He's a pebble in my shoe! And I'm going to go kick him into a river!"

 

"Bakugo!" Iida gasped, deeply offended. "That is highly un-heroic behavior! You cannot simply assault a civilian off-campus! That violates U.A. charter section four, paragraph twelve! I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to embark on this violent endeavor alone!"

 

"Then I'm coming too!" Uraraka chimed in, pumping a fist. "If Bakugo-kun is going to do something mean, we should be there to stop him! Plus... I kind of want to meet this guy. Anyone who can make Bakugo this obsessed must be really interesting!"

 

"I'M NOT OBSESSED!" Bakugo shrieked, his face turning the color of a ripe tomato. "FINE! FOLLOW ME IF YOU WANT, EXTRAS! BUT DON'T GET IN MY WAY WHEN I REDUCE HIS HOUSE TO ASH!"

 

 

 

The journey to Midoriya Farms was an absolute test of Bakugo's fragile patience.

 

First, they had to take the municipal train to the very end of the line, leaving the gleaming, metropolitan sprawl of Musutafu far behind. Then, they had to board a rickety, pre-quirk era bus that smelled faintly of wet dog and diesel exhaust, which carried them deep into the rolling, forested hills of the agricultural district.

 

Finally, the bus unceremoniously dumped them at a dusty crossroads, miles from civilization.

 

"Are we lost?" Uraraka asked, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. She wore a casual pink hoodie and denim shorts, completely unbothered by the rural setting. In fact, she looked quite at home. "The GPS on my phone stopped working twenty minutes ago."

 

"We are significantly outside the urban development zone," Iida noted, adjusting his glasses. He was wearing his U.A. uniform, completely unwilling to dress down, despite the dirt road turning his polished black shoes brown with dust. "The lack of infrastructure is concerning. Bakugo-kun, are you absolutely certain your... acquaintance... resides in this wilderness?"

 

"Shut up and walk, Glasses," Bakugo growled, stomping down the narrow, winding dirt path bordered by thick oak trees and wild blackberry bushes.

 

For two miles, they walked in silence, save for Iida's occasional complaints about the lack of paved sidewalks. Bakugo’s anger simmered. He pictured Deku living in a run-down, dilapidated shack, surrounded by weeds, crying over his failure to become a hero. He pictured the nerd trembling in fear the moment he saw Bakugo’s U.A. uniform. The thought brought a cruel, satisfied smirk to his face.

 

But as they crested the final hill, breaking through the tree line, Bakugo’s smirk instantly vanished.

 

The trio stopped dead in their tracks, paralyzed by the sheer, staggering scale of the sight before them.

 

"Whoa," Uraraka breathed, her brown eyes wide with absolute wonder.

 

They were expecting a shack. What they found was an Eden.

 

Stretching out across a massive, sun-drenched valley was a farm of impossible proportions. It was a masterpiece of agricultural engineering. Perfectly symmetrical, vibrant green rows of crops stretched out for hundreds of acres, weaving around natural rock formations like a river of life. A massive, gleaming greenhouse stood near a pristine, red-painted barn. Complex, gravity-fed irrigation channels sparkled in the sunlight, carrying crystal-clear water through the fields. In the distance, a flock of unnervingly fast sheep were grazing in a meticulously fenced pasture.

 

The air smelled intensely of life. Blooming jasmine, damp, rich earth, and the sweet tang of ripening fruit. It was so peaceful, so flawlessly cultivated, that it felt like they had stepped into a different dimension.

 

"This... this is magnificent," Iida whispered, his hyper-organized brain short-circuiting at the absolute geometric perfection of the crop rows. "The sheer logistical planning required to maintain this level of agricultural efficiency... it's staggering. A corporation must own this land."

 

"No," Bakugo whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of disbelief and mounting rage. His eyes locked onto a small, hand-painted wooden sign at the entrance of the driveway.

 

It read: MIDORIYA FARMS. PLEASE DO NOT SCARE THE CHICKENS.

 

"He's playing a game," Bakugo hissed, his fists clenching so tightly his knuckles turned white. "He hired people. He must have won the lottery or something. There's no way that useless nerd built this."

 

They marched down the driveway, the crunch of the gravel announcing their arrival. As they rounded the side of the massive barn, they heard the distinct, heavy groaning of stressed metal, accompanied by a rhythmic, metallic clanging.

 

"Hello?" Uraraka called out cupping her hands around her mouth. "Is anyone—"

 

She stopped. All three of them stopped.

 

Parked in the shade of a massive oak tree was a heavy-duty, commercial-grade John Deere tractor. The machine easily weighed upwards of four tons, an absolute behemoth of steel and diesel engineering designed to pull plows through solid clay.

 

The front left tire was completely flat.

 

And standing next to the tractor, effortlessly holding the entire four-ton front chassis of the vehicle three feet in the air with his bare right hand, was a teenage boy.

 

He had his back to them. He was wearing faded denim overalls, the straps stretched tight over a torso that looked like it had been carved out of solid mahogany by a master sculptor. His skin was tanned a deep, rich bronze from endless hours under the sun. Thick, corded muscles rippled across his broad shoulders and back, gleaming with a light sheen of sweat.

 

With his free left hand, he was casually using a massive iron lug wrench to unscrew the bolts of the flat tire.

 

"Just a little... more..." the boy muttered. His voice was deeper than Bakugo remembered, vibrating with a relaxed, gravelly baritone, but the cadence of the muttering was unmistakable. "...tread wear is uneven, indicating I need to adjust the front axle alignment. If the plow pulls too hard to the left, I'll ruin the symmetry of the sweet potato furrows..."

 

He casually tossed the heavy iron wrench to the ground, pulled the massive, hundred-pound tire off the axle with one hand, and let it drop to the dirt. He didn't even look strained. He was humming a cheerful, upbeat tune.

 

Iida’s jaw dropped so far it nearly unhinged. Uraraka’s face flushed a deep, violent shade of red, and she covered her eyes with her hands, peeking through her fingers at the sheer, unadulterated display of masculine physique.

 

Bakugo just stood there, his brain completely flatlining.

 

What.

 

What the hell is that.

 

"DEKU!" Bakugo suddenly roared, the silence shattering like glass.

 

The boy flinched, startled. He turned his head, revealing a mess of wild, unruly green hair framing a face that was sharper, older, and dusted with freckles.

 

Izuku Midoriya blinked, his emerald eyes widening in genuine surprise.

 

"Kacchan?" Izuku gasped.

 

In his shock, Izuku accidentally loosened his grip on the tractor. The four-ton machine began to drop. But instead of panicking, Izuku calmly shifted his weight, slid his shoulder under the heavy steel frame, and gently lowered the tractor down onto a wooden support block with the quiet, controlled grace of a ballet dancer setting down a prop.

 

He dusted his massive, calloused hands on his overalls and turned to face them fully.

 

He was at least three inches taller than Bakugo now. His neck was thick, his arms resembling steel cables wrapped in tanned skin. Yet, despite his terrifying, titan-like physique, his face immediately broke into the softest, most innocent, blindingly pure smile they had ever seen.

 

"Kacchan! You're here!" Izuku beamed, jogging over to them. The ground literally seemed to shake slightly with each of his heavy, grounded footsteps. "And you brought friends! Wow, you're wearing the U.A. uniform! It looks so cool on you! How is the Hero Course? Have you learned a lot?"

 

Bakugo took a step back, instinctively intimidated before his pride viciously clamped down on his fear, turning it into pure, explosive rage.

 

"What the hell happened to you?!" Bakugo screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Izuku's chest. "Did you take steroids?! Did you undergo some illegal quirk-enhancement surgery?! Explain yourself right now, you damn nerd, before I blow you to kingdom come!"

 

Izuku tilted his head, completely unfazed by the threat. "Steroids? Oh, no. It's just the manual labor. Turning compost is a fantastic core workout, and carrying fifty-pound bags of feed every morning really engages the deltoids. Oh! Speaking of feed!"

 

Izuku turned to Uraraka and Iida, bowing politely.

 

"It's wonderful to meet you both! I'm Izuku Midoriya. Welcome to my farm! You must be tired from the walk. Can I offer you some refreshments? I just harvested a fresh batch of cherry tomatoes. They're incredibly sweet, almost like candy, because I balanced the soil's potassium levels perfectly this season!"

 

"Oh, um, yes please!" Uraraka squeaked, completely overwhelmed by the sheer, wholesome aura radiating from this absolute unit of a boy.

 

"Ahem," Iida coughed, trying to regain his composure and adjust his glasses. "I am Tenya Iida, and this is Ochaco Uraraka. We are Bakugo's classmates. I must admit, Midoriya-kun, observing your physical prowess just now... do you possess a strength-enhancing quirk? It defies biological logic for a human without a quirk to lift a tractor."

 

Izuku paused. He had known this question would come eventually. All Might had drilled him on his cover story.

 

"Oh, well, actually, I was a late bloomer!" Izuku lied smoothly, though he rubbed the back of his neck out of habit. "A super-strength quirk manifested a few months ago. It's tied to my adrenaline and physical exertion. But honestly, I mostly just use it for farming."

 

"A quirk?" Bakugo whispered.

 

The world seemed to stop spinning for Bakugo.

 

Deku had a quirk. A strength quirk. A quirk powerful enough to casually manhandle a tractor.

 

The realization hit Bakugo like a physical blow to the stomach. All those years of looking down on Deku. All those years of feeling superior because he was blessed and Deku was cursed. It was all gone. Deku wasn't just on his level now; physically, Deku looked like he could snap Bakugo in half like a dry twig.

 

And the worst part? Deku hadn't even bothered to come to U.A. to challenge him.

 

"You're mocking me," Bakugo seethed, his voice dropping to a dangerously low, raspy whisper. Small, popping explosions began to spark in his palms, leaving tiny trails of black smoke in the air.

 

Izuku blinked, confused. "Mocking you? No, Kacchan, I'm serious, the tomatoes are really good—"

 

"SHUT UP ABOUT THE DAMN TOMATOES!" Bakugo roared. The heat radiating off his body caused the air to shimmer. "You get a quirk—a powerful quirk—and you don't even show up to the Entrance Exam?! You hide out here in the dirt, playing farmer, while I'm busting my ass at U.A. to prove I'm the best?! You think you're too good to fight me, Deku?! You think this little hobby of yours makes you better than a hero?!"

 

Izuku’s smile slowly faded.

 

The cheerful, accommodating energy dissipated, replaced by something much heavier. The air around Izuku seemed to grow dense. Uraraka and Iida instinctively took a step back, feeling an immense, suffocating pressure radiating from the boy in overalls. It was the aura of the Ninth User.

 

"Heroism isn't the only way to save people, Kacchan," Izuku said quietly, his voice devoid of its usual stutter. "I chose Shiketsu Agricultural High School because this is where I can do the most good. I'm not hiding. I'm working."

 

"Work?!" Bakugo screamed, absolutely losing his mind. "You call growing vegetables work?! I fight villains! I put my life on the line! You're just a coward hiding behind a plow! Fight me, Deku! Right here! Right now! Show me this quirk of yours!"

 

Bakugo dropped into his combat stance, pointing his palms directly at Izuku.

 

Izuku didn't raise his fists. He didn't drop into a stance. He just looked at Bakugo, then glanced nervously over his shoulder toward a massive, meticulously manicured patch of soil enclosed by a small white fence.

 

"Kacchan, please stop," Izuku said, his tone shifting from serious to slightly panicked. "I can't fight you here."

 

"TOO SCARED?!" Bakugo taunted, a manic grin spreading across his face.

 

"No," Izuku said, waving his hands frantically. "It's the watermelons!"

 

"The... what?" Bakugo faltered.

 

"The prize-winning Densuke watermelons!" Izuku pointed desperately at the patch of dirt. "They are in the final, most delicate stage of their gestation! They require absolute serenity! The concussive shockwaves of your explosions will disrupt the cellular development of the rinds! The loud noises will stunt their growth!"

 

Uraraka stared blankly. "He's... he's worried the explosions will scare the fruit?"

 

"Loud noises induce stress in plant biology!" Iida nodded sagely, though he had absolutely no idea if that was true.

 

Bakugo’s eye twitched.

 

It was the ultimate insult. Bakugo, the prodigy, the top student of U.A., was challenging his lifelong rival to a duel to the death, and Deku was refusing because he didn't want to give his watermelons anxiety.

 

Something inside Bakugo permanently snapped.

 

"I'LL TURN YOUR STUPID WATERMELONS INTO ASH!"

 

Bakugo lunged. He didn't hold back. He channeled all his frustration, all his wounded pride, and all his intense combat training into a single, devastating, two-handed explosion. He aimed directly past Izuku, intending to scorch the earth of the sacred melon patch to force the nerd to fight.

 

"STUN GRENADE!" Bakugo roared, a blinding sphere of concentrated light and heat erupting from his palms.

 

"Bakugo, NO!" Iida shouted, reaching out, but he was too slow.

 

Time seemed to dilate.

 

In that fraction of a second, as the superheated blast of fire tore through the air toward the delicate vines of the Densuke watermelons, Izuku Midoriya stopped being a cheerful farmer.

 

He's attacking the crop.

 

Izuku’s eyes, usually warm and gentle, hardened into chips of glowing, radioactive jade. He didn't think about his training. He didn't think about the restraint All Might had taught him. He only thought about the six months of meticulous cross-pollination, the late nights measuring soil acidity, and the sheer love he had poured into those seeds.

 

He didn't channel five percent of One For All.

 

He pulled the throttle back.

 

Full Cowling: 20%.

 

VMMMM-CRACK!

 

An explosion of violent, emerald-green lightning violently erupted from Izuku’s core, blowing his straw hat off his back. The sheer kinetic pressure of his quirk activating caused the dirt beneath his boots to instantly crater, sending a shockwave through the ground that knocked Uraraka and Iida flat on their backs.

 

Bakugo’s explosion was fast. But Izuku, bathed in the power of a god, was practically teleporting.

 

Izuku vanished.

 

Before the blast of fire could travel even three feet from Bakugo’s palms, Izuku reappeared directly in front of him.

 

Izuku didn't throw a punch. He simply raised his massive, calloused right hand, coated in crackling green energy, and caught the explosion mid-air. The blast hit Izuku's palm and was instantly snuffed out, compressed by the sheer, overwhelming wind pressure radiating from Izuku's grip. The fire died with a pathetic hiss, leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke curling through Izuku's fingers.

 

Bakugo’s eyes widened in absolute, paralytic horror.

 

Before Bakugo could even process that his ultimate move had just been crushed like a soda can, Izuku moved again.

 

With terrifying, surgical precision, Izuku’s left hand shot forward, grabbing Bakugo by the front of his U.A. uniform. Izuku spun, using Bakugo’s own forward momentum against him, and drove him straight down into the dirt.

 

THUD.

 

It wasn't a violent slam. It was controlled. But it was immovable.

 

Bakugo found himself pinned to the ground, flat on his back. Izuku knelt over him, his massive hand pressing firmly against Bakugo’s chest. The weight of Izuku's hand felt like a steel I-beam. Bakugo gritted his teeth, activating the explosions in his palms to blast his way out, but Izuku merely tightened his grip by a fraction of a millimeter.

 

The pressure was staggering. It drove the breath completely out of Bakugo’s lungs. He was trapped. Utterly, helplessly trapped by the boy he had bullied for a decade.

 

Green lightning danced across Izuku's tanned skin, illuminating his face in the shadows. He wasn't smiling.

 

"Kacchan," Izuku said, his voice dropping into a register that commanded the very earth itself. "I tolerate a lot from you. You can yell at me. You can call me names. You can even burn my notebooks."

 

Izuku leaned in closer, his emerald eyes boring directly into Bakugo's soul.

 

"But if you ever," Izuku whispered, the threat palpable and absolute, "try to harm my crops again... I will plant you headfirst in the manure silo. Do you understand me?"

 

Bakugo stared up at him, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. For the first time in his entire life, Katsuki Bakugo felt genuine, primal fear. The boy pinning him wasn't Deku. This was an apex predator who had somehow disguised himself as a gardener.

 

Bakugo couldn't speak. He could only manage a small, jerky nod.

 

The green lightning instantly vanished.

 

The terrifying, suffocating pressure lifted. Izuku let go of Bakugo’s shirt, stood up, and brushed the dirt off his knees. The warm, blindingly pure smile returned to his face as if someone had flipped a switch.

 

"Great!" Izuku chirped cheerfully. He reached down and offered a hand to the stunned Bakugo. "Now, who wants those cherry tomatoes?"

 

Bakugo didn't take the hand. He scrambled backward, pulling himself up, his eyes darting wildly. He looked at his hands, then at Izuku, completely unable to reconcile the reality he had just witnessed.

 

Uraraka and Iida slowly picked themselves up from the dirt, brushing off their uniforms.

 

"That... that was incredible!" Uraraka gasped, her stars in her eyes. "Midoriya-kun, your reaction time! And you didn't even hurt him, you just completely neutralized his kinetic energy!"

 

"A masterclass in non-lethal subjugation!" Iida agreed, frantically chopping the air. "Your control over your strength quirk is phenomenal! You could easily be top of our class at U.A.!"

 

Izuku blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh, no, I'm just used to wrestling the sheep. They're much faster than Kacchan, honestly."

 

Bakugo made a sound that was half-choke, half-scream.

 

Faster than Kacchan. The sheer casualness of the insult shattered whatever was left of Bakugo's pride.

 

"Anyway!" Izuku clapped his hands together. "Since you're all here, would you mind helping me with a little chore? I need to move the new irrigation pipes from the barn to the eastern field, but carrying them one by one takes a while."

 

"I can help with that!" Uraraka volunteered eagerly. "My quirk is Zero Gravity! I can make the pipes weightless!"

 

Izuku's eyes practically turned into literal stars. He rushed forward, completely invading Uraraka's personal space. "Zero Gravity?! That is an agriculturally revolutionary quirk! Do you know how much soil compaction you could prevent if you used that on heavy machinery?! You could float tractors over delicate root systems! You could harvest apples from the highest branches without ladders! Uraraka-san, you are a walking logistical miracle!"

 

Uraraka flushed deeply, stepping back slightly, though a massive grin spread across her face. "Wow. Nobody's ever talked about my quirk like that before! Usually, people just ask if I can float cars."

 

"Cars are useless!" Izuku declared passionately. "Food is essential! Come on, let me show you the pipes!"

 

As Izuku and Uraraka walked toward the barn, chatting animatedly about the applications of anti-gravity in crop rotation, Iida walked over to the tractor. He noticed a clipboard hanging from the steering wheel.

 

Iida picked it up and adjusted his glasses. It was Izuku's daily schedule.

 

4:00 AM: Wake up, calibrate soil moisture sensors.

4:15 AM: Aerate southern quadrant (Full Cowling 5% stamina training).

6:00 AM: Feed livestock, calculate protein intake.

6:30 AM: Breakfast.

7:00 AM: Prune orchard (Blackwhip precision training).

...and so on, meticulously planned down to the minute until 9:00 PM.

 

Tears welled up in Iida's eyes. His lips trembled.

 

"It's... it's beautiful," Iida whispered, clutching the clipboard to his chest. "Such structure. Such discipline. He is not merely a farmer. He is an architect of time itself."

 

Bakugo stood entirely alone in the dirt.

 

He watched Deku enthusiastically explaining pipe fittings to Round Face. He watched Glasses crying over a piece of paper. He felt the phantom weight of Deku's hand still pressing down on his chest.

 

He's not playing a game, Bakugo realized, a cold, sobering truth settling into his bones.

 

Deku hadn't given up. He hadn't lowered his ambitions. Deku had just looked at the summit of the mountain Bakugo was desperately trying to climb, realized it was too small, and decided to build his own mountain instead.

 

Bakugo didn't yell. He didn't fire any explosions. He simply turned around and began the long, silent walk back down the dirt driveway.

 

"Bakugo-kun! Wait!" Iida called out, noticing his departure. "We must assist Midoriya-kun with his agrarian tasks! It builds character!"

 

"Leave me alone," Bakugo muttered, his voice devoid of its usual heat.

 

He didn't look back. He couldn't. Because if he looked back, he would have to admit the terrifying truth he now knew in his soul.

 

Katsuki Bakugo might become the Number One Hero someday. He might defeat villains and win awards. But no matter how strong he got, no matter how loud his explosions were... he would never, ever be as strong as the boy who grew the cabbages.

 

 

 

 

In the grimy, neon-lit underbelly of Kamino Ward, tucked away in a bar that smelled permanently of stale beer, ash, and decaying ambitions, Tomura Shigaraki sat on a ragged barstool and furiously scratched at his neck.

 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

 

The sound of his dry, flaking skin peeling away under his fingernails was the only noise in the dimly lit room, save for the quiet clinking of glass as Kurogiri meticulously polished a tumbler behind the counter.

 

"The board is shifting, Kurogiri," Shigaraki rasped, his voice a dry, venomous hiss. He stared at a corkboard on the far wall, covered in newspaper clippings and blurry photographs connected by red string. "The Symbol of Peace is getting slower. The media won't admit it, but I can see it. His time in the spotlight is ticking down. And yet..."

 

Shigaraki dragged a pale finger across a grainy photograph pinned to the center of the board.

 

"...the Master says there is a new piece on the board. Something lurking in the shadows."

 

"The underworld is rife with rumors, Tomura Shigaraki," Kurogiri replied smoothly, his yellow eyes narrowing within his swirling mass of purple mist. "Our informants in the agricultural sector have reported highly anomalous seismic and meteorological activity on the outskirts of Musutafu. Earthquakes with no tectonic origin. Localized windstorms powerful enough to alter weather patterns. And the yakuza foot soldiers speak of a 'Green Titan'—a being of immense physical strength operating entirely off the grid."

 

Shigaraki bared his teeth in a grotesque, dry smile. "The government is trying to hide him. They know All Might is failing, so they’re breeding a secret weapon out in the wilderness. A black-ops Pro Hero. Some ultimate meat-shield kept away from the press until he's ready to replace the Boss."

 

"That is the most logical deduction," Kurogiri nodded. "If U.A. High School or the Hero Public Safety Commission has a secret weapon in development, it would be wise to crush it before it can be deployed to the mainstream."

 

Shigaraki hopped off the stool, his red shoes hitting the sticky floor with a thud. "We take the mid-tier Nomu. We warp into this 'Green Titan's' coordinates. We turn him to dust, we leave his pulverized corpse as a warning to society, and we prove that no one can hide from the League of Villains. It's time to do some weeding."

 

 

 

Miles away from the festering malice of Kamino Ward, Midoriya Farms was bathed in the glorious, golden-syrup light of an autumn afternoon.

 

If summer was the season of grueling preparation, autumn was the grand, triumphant symphony of the harvest. The air was crisp, carrying the intoxicating, earthy scent of drying corn husks, sweet pumpkin vines, and the rich, loamy aroma of freshly turned soil. The leaves on the massive oak trees surrounding the property had turned brilliant shades of crimson and burnt orange, framing the valley in a fiery halo.

 

Izuku Midoriya, completely oblivious to the shadowy machinations of the criminal underworld, was currently engaged in a high-stakes, life-or-death struggle.

 

"Come on... please... just a little more..."

 

Izuku lay flat on his stomach in the dirt, his muscular arms buried elbow-deep in a dense thicket of sprawling green vines. Sweat dripped from his nose. His eyes were wide with intense, unblinking concentration. The green lightning of One For All—tuned to a hyper-precise two percent—flickered faintly around his fingertips.

 

He wasn't fighting a villain. He was attempting to extract an absolutely massive, record-breaking butternut squash from its vine without snapping the delicate pedicel.

 

"If I disrupt the vascular cambium before the squash fully cures, the shelf life will decrease by forty percent," Izuku muttered frantically to himself, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. "Blackwhip is too thick for this maneuver. I need absolute manual dexterity."

 

With a gentle, agonizingly slow twist, Izuku severed the vine.

 

He pulled his arms back, triumphantly hoisting a butternut squash the size of a small toddler into the air.

 

"YES!" Izuku cheered, rolling onto his back and holding the vegetable up to the autumn sun like a gold medal. "Look at the rind density! Look at the uniform coloration! This is going to make the most incredible soup for the local orphanage! I am an agricultural god!"

 

He sat up, brushing the dirt off his faded denim overalls, and carefully placed the prize-winning squash into a padded wheelbarrow already overflowing with autumn produce.

 

He took a deep breath, surveying his domain.

 

To the east, the massive stalks of heritage dent corn stood eight feet tall, a golden-green labyrinth waiting to be harvested for winter livestock feed. To the west lay his pride and joy: three acres of perfectly cultivated, organically certified edamame soybeans. They were in their final week of maturation, the pods plump and heavy, representing hundreds of hours of grueling, pesticide-free labor.

 

Izuku wiped his brow, a serene smile on his face. This was peace. This was what he had built. No explosions, no shouting, no villains. Just the quiet, undeniable reward of hard work.

 

FWOOSH.

 

A sudden, unnatural chill swept over the field, violently rustling the cornstalks and dropping the ambient temperature by ten degrees.

 

Izuku froze, his farmer's intuition instantly flaring. The wind didn't feel right. It wasn't the crisp breeze of autumn; it smelled of ozone, stagnant air, and something deeply, inherently foul.

 

He turned his head toward the western field—the soybean crop.

 

Hovering just inches above the pristine, organic soil was a swirling, vortex-like portal of purple and black mist. It tore through the serene landscape like a jagged wound.

 

Izuku’s heart skipped a beat. A warp quirk.

 

He didn't run away. He didn't call the police. He simply lowered the handles of his wheelbarrow, his eyes narrowing into a sharp, emerald glare. He reached into the back of his truck parked nearby and retrieved a massive, carbon-steel pitchfork with a reinforced ash-wood handle.

 

He began to walk toward the portal, his heavy boots crunching against the gravel path.

 

From the purple mist, three figures emerged.

 

The first was a towering, heavily muscled monstrosity with pitch-black skin, an exposed brain pulsing grotesquely against the autumn air, and a beak-like jaw filled with razor-sharp teeth.

 

The second was the mist-man himself, wearing an elegant bartender's suit.

 

The third was a pale, scrawny man covered in disembodied, grayish hands. He wore dark clothes and slouched with a posture so terrible it made Izuku's spine ache just looking at him.

 

Shigaraki looked around the farm, his red eyes taking in the vibrant fields, the gleaming silo, and the peaceful, rolling hills. He dragged a hand down his face, a look of profound, sneering disgust twisting his features.

 

"What is this?" Shigaraki rasped, kicking a clump of dirt. "Are the coordinates wrong, Kurogiri? Where is the secret military installation? Where is the hidden training ground? This is just... a farm. A pathetic, dirty little farm."

 

"My warp coordinates are precise, Tomura," Kurogiri replied smoothly. "The immense energy signatures we detected originated from this exact location."

 

"Well, whoever he is, he's hiding," Shigaraki grumbled, scratching his neck furiously. "Fine. If the 'Green Titan' wants to play hide-and-seek like a coward, we'll just have to smoke him out. And what better way to draw out a rat than by burning its nest?"

 

Shigaraki crouched down next to the edge of Izuku’s prized, organically certified soybean field.

 

He reached out a pale, dry hand, extending all five fingers.

 

"Let's see how long he stays hidden when everything he loves turns to dust," Shigaraki whispered.

 

He placed his hand flat against the earth and grasped a cluster of thick, green soybean vines.

 

CRUMBLE.

 

The effect was instantaneous and utterly horrific. A wave of gray, ashen decay violently erupted from Shigaraki's fingertips. The vibrant green vines withered, turned brown, and instantly disintegrated into fine, powdery dust. The decay spread like a localized plague, rushing down the row, obliterating twenty feet of the meticulously cultivated crop in less than three seconds. The soil itself cracked and turned barren, stripped of all its microbial life.

 

Shigaraki stood up, a cruel smirk playing on his chapped lips, waiting for the secret hero to burst forth with a cry of righteous justice.

 

But there was no heroic cry.

 

Instead, the air pressure in the valley suddenly plummeted. The birds stopped singing. The wind died completely.

 

From the edge of the dirt path, a voice spoke. It wasn't a shout. It was a low, vibrating baritone that sounded like two tectonic plates grinding together deep beneath the earth's crust.

 

"Do you have any idea," the voice said, the sheer malice in its tone causing the mist around Kurogiri to violently waver, "how difficult it is to balance the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in organic soybean nodules?"

 

Shigaraki blinked, turning around.

 

Standing thirty feet away was a teenage boy in denim overalls. He was holding a pitchfork. But he didn't look like a farm boy.

 

Izuku Midoriya’s head was lowered, casting his eyes in deep, terrifying shadow. Ethereal, violently crackling emerald lightning surged off his body in thick, jagged arcs, tearing up chunks of gravel around his boots. The veins in his massive, tanned arms bulged against his skin.

 

He looked at the pile of gray ash that used to be his soybeans.

 

Izuku’s mind didn't process the League of Villains. He didn't see an A-Rank threat. He didn't see the shadowy successors of All For One.

 

He saw pests. Extremely destructive, highly invasive, uncertified pests.

 

"I spent six months on those," Izuku whispered, lifting his head. His green eyes were glowing with the intensity of a dying star. "Six months of hand-weeding. I used ladybugs instead of pesticides. I sang to them."

 

Shigaraki let out a harsh, dry laugh. "Oh, I see. You're the groundskeeper. How pathetic. Nomu. Rip his arms off. I want to see the real hero."

 

The Nomu screeched—a horrific, ear-piercing sound that echoed off the hills. The massive beast crouched, the muscles in its legs bulging, and launched itself at Izuku with the speed of a bullet train. It raised a massive, black fist, aiming to decapitate the boy in a single strike.

 

Izuku didn't flinch. He didn't take a heroic combat stance.

 

He widened his base, driving his steel-toed boots into the dirt, rooting himself to the earth he commanded.

 

Full Cowling: 30%.

 

"You're trespassing," Izuku roared.

 

Izuku gripped the carbon-steel pitchfork with both hands. As the Nomu’s fist came down, Izuku didn't try to dodge. He swung the pitchfork upward, channeling the raw, stockpiled kinetic energy of One For All directly into the reinforced ash-wood handle.

 

CLANG!

 

The impact sounded like a cathedral bell being struck by a cannonball.

 

The Nomu’s fist, which possessed the strength to trade blows with All Might himself, collided with the metal tines of the pitchfork. The sheer, overwhelming force of Izuku's parry completely neutralized the Nomu's momentum. A shockwave violently erupted from the clash, flattening the grass for fifty yards in every direction.

 

Shigaraki stumbled backward, shielding his eyes from the gale-force wind. "What?!"

 

Izuku ground his teeth, his boots sinking two inches into the solid dirt. The Nomu pressed down, its unthinking brain trying to overwhelm him with brute force.

 

But Izuku was used to brute force. He had spent the last month wrestling a four-ton tractor out of mud trenches.

 

"Shoo!" Izuku barked.

 

With a twist of his hips and a violent surge of green lightning, Izuku swept the pitchfork to the side, redirecting the Nomu’s massive weight. He stepped inside the creature's guard, brought the heavy, blunt wooden handle of the pitchfork up, and drove it directly into the Nomu's exposed solar plexus.

 

CRACK.

 

The Nomu let out a gagging, choked squawk as the blow lifted its massive, eight-hundred-pound body completely off the ground. Izuku followed through with the swing, treating the bio-engineered monster exactly like a massive, unruly bale of hay.

 

The Nomu was launched backward through the air, skipping across the dirt path like a stone on a pond, until it crashed violently into the side of an empty, reinforced manure spreader, denting the half-inch steel plating inward.

 

Kurogiri’s yellow eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "Tomura... that boy... his physical strength is incomprehensible. I believe... he is the Green Titan."

 

Shigaraki stared at the boy in overalls, his brain short-circuiting. "Him?! A farmer?! He's just a dirt-eating extra! I'll turn him and this entire pathetic valley into a wasteland!"

 

Shigaraki slammed both of his hands into the ground.

 

He didn't target Izuku. He targeted the earth.

 

A massive, rolling tidal wave of gray decay erupted from Shigaraki's hands, spreading out like a fan. It rapidly consumed the grass, the dirt, and a wooden fence, turning everything into a blinding cloud of corrosive, ashen dust. The cloud surged forward, carried by the wind, heading straight toward Izuku.

 

Izuku prepared to jump back, but then he glanced over his shoulder.

 

Directly behind him, standing tall against the autumn sky, was the massive, aluminum grain silo. It was currently holding ten tons of processed winter feed for his sheep and chickens. If that decay dust touched the silo, the structural integrity would fail, the feed would be ruined, and his animals would starve in January.

 

The harvest must be protected at all costs.

 

Izuku dropped the pitchfork. He didn't have time to move the silo. He had to stop the wave.

 

He widened his stance again, planting his feet firmly in the dirt. He drew his right fist back. He imagined the sprawling metropolis of Musutafu. He imagined the crushing weight of the wind. He channeled the spirit of his mentor, filtering it through the desperate, protective soul of a farmer.

 

The green lightning around his arm shifted, turning a blinding, incandescent white.

 

"Stay away..." Izuku roared, his voice booming across the valley as he thrust his fist forward into the empty air. "...FROM MY SILO!"

 

"TEXAS SMASH!"

 

BOOOOOOOOM.

 

Izuku punched the atmosphere. The sheer, terrifying kinetic force of the blow compressed the air molecules in front of his fist, creating a localized, F-4 tornado.

 

The wind pressure exploded outward in a cone of absolute devastation. It hit the incoming wave of decay dust like a solid wall of invisible concrete. The dust didn't just stop; it was violently, aggressively blown backward.

 

The shockwave tore the top layer of topsoil completely off the dirt path. It ripped through the villain's side of the battlefield. Shigaraki let out a shriek of surprise as the gale-force winds hit him, lifting his scrawny body entirely off the ground and throwing him backward into the massive, eight-foot-tall cornfield. Kurogiri was similarly blown away, his misty form struggling to maintain cohesion as he was scattered into the stalks.

 

Izuku stood panting, his right arm steaming in the cool autumn air. The silo behind him was untouched. The decay cloud was gone.

 

"Right," Izuku muttered, cracking his knuckles. "Now they're in the corn. I hate it when pests get into the corn."

 

 

 

Inside the dense, rustling labyrinth of the corn maze, Tomura Shigaraki violently pulled himself up from the dirt, spitting out a mouthful of dry earth and a broken corn tassel.

 

His body ached. His ears were ringing. He looked around wildly, surrounded on all sides by towering, impenetrable stalks of green and gold.

 

"Kurogiri!" Shigaraki hissed, rubbing his bruised ribs. "Nomu! Where are you?!"

 

There was no answer. Only the eerie, rustling sound of the wind through the corn leaves, sounding a thousand whispering voices.

 

Shigaraki’s breath hitched in his throat. He was a predator. He was the successor of the greatest villain in history. He was supposed to be the one hunting the heroes in the concrete jungle. But out here, surrounded by nature, deprived of his sightlines and urban advantages, he felt completely, unnervingly exposed.

 

"I'll decay the whole damn field," Shigaraki snarled, reaching out to grab a stalk of corn.

 

THWACK.

 

A hard, unripe ear of feed-corn flew through the air with the speed of a fastball, striking Shigaraki squarely in the back of the head.

 

"OW!" Shigaraki yelped, stumbling forward. He spun around, his hands raised, but there was nothing there. Just more corn.

 

"You shouldn't do that," a voice echoed through the stalks. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Heritage dent corn has incredibly deep root systems. Decaying it from the top down will take too long, and you'll just end up burying yourself in ash."

 

"Show yourself, you overall-wearing freak!" Shigaraki screamed, blasting a wave of decay into the stalks in front of him, clearing a ten-foot circle of ash.

 

Nothing.

 

Deep within the Vestige Realm, the past users of One For All were watching the spectacle with rapt attention.

 

"He's using the environment," the Second User noted, his arms crossed. "He's hunting him."

 

"It's brilliant," Hikage Shinomori, the Fourth User, murmured. He stepped forward from his glowing chair. "The boy is surrounded by obstacles. He needs sensory enhancement to pinpoint the target without destroying the crop. It is time."

 

Back in the cornfield, Izuku was crouched silently in the shadows of the stalks. He wanted to wrap this up quickly. The longer they stayed in the field, the more damage they would do to the root networks. He needed to find the scrawny one with the hands, tie him up, and call the local authorities.

 

Suddenly, a sharp, piercing spike of pain erupted in the center of Izuku's forehead.

 

It wasn't a headache. It felt like a highly sensitive, localized alarm bell ringing directly in his cerebral cortex.

 

Izuku gasped, grabbing his head. The world around him seemed to shift. The rustling of the corn faded away. Instead, he felt a pulsing, dark, malevolent energy radiating from three distinct locations in his mind's eye.

 

One was a massive, dull, mindless thumping coming from the edge of the field—the beast.

One was a swirling, spatial distortion trying to reform near a tractor—the mist-man.

And the strongest one, a sharp, jagged spike of pure, concentrated malice, was radiating exactly forty-two feet to his left.

 

"Whoa," Izuku whispered, his eyes widening. "Is this... a pest-detection quirk? Oh, my goodness. This is revolutionary. I can sense the exact location of threats to the farm! This will make tracking burrowing moles so much easier!"

 

(In the Vestige Realm, Hikage Shinomori buried his face in his hands and groaned, while Daigoro Banjo patted him sympathetically on the back. "Welcome to the club, buddy," Banjo laughed.)

 

Izuku didn't hesitate. Trusting the new sensation entirely, he moved silently through the corn. He didn't break a single stalk. He moved like a ghost, weaving through the tight rows with the practiced ease of a boy who spent eight hours a day in these fields.

 

Shigaraki was hyperventilating, stalking through the corn, his hands twitching wildly. He was going to kill this kid. He was going to decay his face, his farm, his stupid tractor—

 

RUSTLE.

 

Shigaraki spun around.

 

Directly behind him, hanging completely upside down from the thick upper stalks of the corn like a predatory bat, was Izuku Midoriya.

 

Izuku’s face was framed by the dark green leaves, his emerald eyes glowing in the shadows.

 

"Found you," Izuku whispered.

 

Before Shigaraki could even raise a finger, five thick, black-and-green tendrils of Blackwhip violently erupted from Izuku's shoulders.

 

But Izuku didn't just use Blackwhip. During his pruning sessions in the orchard, he had discovered that if he channeled the energy tendrils through physical objects, he could reinforce them.

 

Izuku whipped out a spool of heavy-duty, commercial-grade baling twine from his overall pocket. He wrapped the Blackwhip tendrils around the twine, infusing the simple nylon rope with the unbreakable tensile strength of One For All.

 

SWISH-SWISH-SNAP.

 

Like a master cowboy roping a calf, the Blackwhip-infused baling twine lashed out. It coiled violently around Shigaraki's wrists, snapping his hands tightly together behind his back. Another loop secured his ankles.

 

"What?! Let me go!" Shigaraki shrieked, thrashing wildly, but he was completely immobilized. He couldn't touch the rope with all five fingers to decay it; his hands were bound too tightly.

 

With a casual flick of his wrist, Izuku hauled the bound villain into the air, carrying him over his shoulder like a sack of fertilizer, and leaped out of the cornfield, landing gracefully on the dirt path.

 

"One down," Izuku muttered.

 

His Danger Sense flared again. The dull, mindless thumping was approaching fast.

 

The Nomu, having finally recovered from being launched into the manure spreader, came charging down the path, its beak snapping furiously, intent on saving its master.

 

Izuku didn't even look at it. He simply sighed, clearly exasperated by the sheer lack of discipline in these invaders.

 

"I really don't have time for this," Izuku said. "I still have to milk the sheep."

 

As the Nomu entered striking distance, Izuku dropped Shigaraki onto the grass. Izuku crouched low, his right leg flaring with intense, concentrated green lightning.

 

Full Cowling: 45%.

 

Izuku stepped into the Nomu's charge, completely ignoring its swinging fists. He dropped his shoulder, getting under the beast's center of gravity, and grabbed it by the waist.

 

With a roar that shook the remaining leaves from the oak trees, Izuku performed a flawless, textbook suplex.

 

He lifted the eight-hundred-pound bio-engineered killing machine into the air, arched his back, and slammed the Nomu headfirst into the solid, compacted dirt of the path.

 

CRAAAACK.

 

The earth shattered. The Nomu’s head was driven three feet deep into the soil. Its massive legs twitched once, twice, and then fell completely limp, its shock-absorption quirk entirely bypassed by the sheer, unadulterated concussive force of the suplex.

 

Izuku casually pulled the rest of his spool of baling twine, infused it with Blackwhip, and hog-tied the unconscious Nomu’s arms and legs together with the practiced efficiency of a rodeo champion.

 

"Kurogiri!" Shigaraki screamed from the grass, wriggling like an angry caterpillar. "Get us out of here!"

 

A few yards away, the purple mist began to violently swirl together, attempting to form a warp gate. Kurogiri had realized they were completely outmatched. He needed to extract Tomura immediately.

 

"I don't think so," Izuku said sternly.

 

He marched over to the forming warp gate. Kurogiri tried to expand the portal to swallow the boy, but Izuku reached into his deep overall pockets and pulled out a heavy, reinforced, empty burlap feed sack.

 

Izuku coated his hands in Blackwhip to protect them from the spatial distortion, reached directly into the center of the swirling mist, grabbed the solid, metallic neck brace hidden within the vapor, and violently yanked Kurogiri forward.

 

Before the villain could react, Izuku shoved the heavy burlap feed sack over Kurogiri's head and mist-body, pulling the drawstring tight.

 

"Ah!" Kurogiri’s muffled voice cried out from inside the sack.

 

"Burlap is highly breathable, so you won't suffocate," Izuku explained politely, tying a tight knot at the top of the sack. "But the tight weave should disrupt your spatial coordinates, preventing you from expanding your mist enough to form a gate. Just sit tight."

 

Izuku tied the end of the sack's rope to the heavy iron bumper of his tractor.

 

Silence descended upon Midoriya Farms. The wind returned to a gentle, crisp autumn breeze. The birds tentatively began to sing again in the distance.

 

Izuku stood in the middle of the dirt path, dusting off his hands. He took a small notebook from his pocket and checked his watch.

 

3:45 PM.

 

"Well, that was a twenty-minute delay," Izuku sighed, shaking his head. "I'm going to have to skip my afternoon tea break to finish the butternut squash harvest."

 

He walked over to the ancient, sprawling oak tree near the barn. He grabbed the end of the baling twine connected to Shigaraki's ankles, tossed it over a thick, sturdy branch, and hoisted the leader of the League of Villains into the air.

 

He tied the rope to the trunk, leaving Shigaraki suspended upside down, dangling three feet off the ground like a macabre pinata.

 

"Let me down!" Shigaraki shrieked, his face turning red as the blood rushed to his head. "I am Tomura Shigaraki! I am the destroyer of society! I will turn you to ash! I will kill you!"

 

Izuku ignored him completely. He walked back to his wheelbarrow, picked up the handles, and pushed it past the dangling villain.

 

"Hey! Are you listening to me?!" Shigaraki yelled, twisting wildly on the rope. "Who are you?! What hero agency do you work for?! Tell me your hero name!"

 

Izuku stopped the wheelbarrow. He turned around, his expression deadpan, completely devoid of the fear or respect Shigaraki craved.

 

"I don't have a hero name," Izuku said plainly. "I'm a farmer. And you ruined forty feet of perfectly good organic soybeans. The police will be here in twenty minutes. Until then, you can act as a scarecrow. The crows have been eyeing the corn all day."

 

Izuku turned back to his wheelbarrow and walked away, whistling a cheerful tune.

 

Tomura Shigaraki, the terrifying leader of the League of Villains, successor to the demon king of the underworld, hung upside down in a tree, violently swearing at a flock of crows that had boldly landed nearby to mock him.

 

They had come searching for a god of war.

 

They had found a boy with a green thumb, and they had been decisively, utterly weeded out.

 

 

 

 

The convoy of heavily armored police transports tore down the winding rural highway at over ninety miles per hour. Sirens wailed, their wailing pitch cutting through the serene autumn evening like a jagged knife. Above them, two police helicopters chopped through the sky, their high-powered searchlights sweeping aggressively over the forested hills of the agricultural district.

 

Inside the lead transport, Pro Hero Eraserhead—Shota Aizawa—sat in tense, stony silence.

 

Ten minutes ago, the U.A. high-security quirk-registry system, tied directly into the national defense grid, had detected a massive, anomalous spatial distortion. The energy signature perfectly matched the warp quirk used by the League of Villains during the USJ attack. Moments later, seismic sensors had registered a localized shockwave equivalent to a small tactical yield explosive.

 

The League was making a move. A massive one.

 

"ETA is two minutes!" the tactical commander shouted over the roar of the engine, his face pale beneath his riot helmet. "Eraserhead, we don't have visual confirmation on the targets, but thermal imaging shows a massive heat signature near the silos! It could be a new type of Nomu!"

 

Aizawa's grip on his capture weapon tightened. "Tell the men to maintain a fifty-yard perimeter. We don't know what kind of ambush they've set up. If Shigaraki is there, do not let him touch the ground."

 

"Understood!"

 

The transport violently swerved onto a long, gravel driveway. The tires kicked up a massive cloud of dust as the vehicles skidded to a halt in front of a sprawling, picturesque farm.

 

Aizawa kicked the armored doors open, his eyes already glowing a furious, quirk-erasing red. His hair floated wildly above his head as he vaulted out of the transport, ready to plunge into an absolute bloodbath. He expected craters. He expected burning buildings, pulverized corpses, and the manic, triumphant laughter of Tomura Shigaraki standing over the ruins.

 

Instead, he heard whistling.

 

It was a cheerful, upbeat tune, carrying softly on the crisp autumn breeze.

 

Aizawa froze, his glowing eyes blinking in sheer confusion. His hair slowly settled back onto his shoulders.

 

The tactical police squad fanned out behind him, assault rifles raised, only to collectively lower their weapons in utter bewilderment.

 

The farm was... pristine. The greenhouse glass was unbroken. The massive red barn stood proudly against the sunset. The fields of corn swayed gently in the wind.

 

And standing next to a massive, perfectly manicured patch of butternut squash was a teenage boy in faded denim overalls. He was meticulously wiping down a carbon-steel pitchfork with a rag, humming to himself.

 

"Police! Freeze!" the tactical commander barked out of sheer habit.

 

Izuku Midoriya looked up, his emerald eyes widening. "Oh! Hello! Wow, that was fast. I only pressed the emergency rural response button on my farmhouse radio twenty minutes ago. You guys have fantastic response times!"

 

Aizawa marched forward, his boots crunching loudly on the gravel. His eyes darted around, searching for the threat. "Kid, we picked up a massive spatial distortion and a concussive shockwave right on top of this location. Where is the villain? Where is the League?"

 

Izuku pointed the handle of his pitchfork toward the large oak tree near the barn.

 

"He's over there," Izuku said politely. "But please be quiet, the sheep are trying to sleep."

 

Aizawa narrowed his eyes and turned his head.

 

Hanging completely upside down from a thick branch, swaying gently in the evening breeze, was Tomura Shigaraki. The terrifying, S-Rank villain responsible for the most coordinated attacks on hero society in a decade was wrapped tight in ordinary baling twine like a cheap holiday ham.

 

Shigaraki's face was a violent shade of plum-purple from the blood rushing to his head. He was currently in a heated, furious shouting match with a large black crow perched on a nearby fence post.

 

"I'll kill you! I'll decay your entire bloodline, you feathered rat!" Shigaraki shrieked, twisting wildly on the rope. The crow merely tilted its head and let out a mocking caw. Shigaraki spotted the police and his eyes widened in absolute, humiliated rage. "Don't look at me! Turn around! I am the symbol of fear!"

 

Aizawa stared. He rubbed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and looked again.

 

"Is that..." Aizawa's brain struggled to process the sheer indignity of the visual. "Is that Tomura Shigaraki?"

 

"Yes, sir," Izuku nodded, walking over with his wheelbarrow. "And the mist-man is tied to the front bumper of my tractor over by the silo. I put a burlap feed sack over his head to disrupt his spatial coordinates. He's been complaining about the smell of oats for fifteen minutes."

 

Aizawa slowly pivoted. Sure enough, tied to the heavy iron chassis of a John Deere tractor, was a lumpy burlap sack radiating faint wisps of purple mist, grumbling incoherently.

 

"And the Nomu?" Aizawa asked, his voice entirely hollow.

 

"Buried waist-deep in the dirt path, hog-tied, and currently unconscious," Izuku listed off cheerfully. "I'd appreciate it if your officers didn't step on my grass when they extract him. The root systems are winterizing."

 

At that exact moment, a thunderous sonic boom echoed overhead. A massive figure plummeted from the sky, landing in the center of the driveway with a localized shockwave that kicked up a veil of dust.

 

"I AM HERE!" All Might roared, his golden hair standing tall, his muscles bulging with absolute, righteous fury. "FEAR NOT, CITIZENS, FOR I HAVE COME TO STOP THE LEAGUE OF—"

 

All Might froze mid-pose.

 

He looked at Shigaraki dangling from the tree. He looked at the burlap sack on the tractor. He looked at the Nomu planted like a morbid carrot in the dirt.

 

Then, he looked at his successor, who was offering Eraserhead a perfectly ripe butternut squash.

 

All Might violently coughed, a small plume of steam escaping his mouth as he struggled to maintain his buff form. "Ah. I see. The... the situation is under control."

 

"All Might!" Aizawa sighed, stepping forward. "Look at this. We expected a warzone. This kid... he..."

 

Aizawa stopped talking and walked over to the edge of the dirt path. His sharp, tactical eyes finally noticed the environmental details he had missed upon his initial arrival.

 

He saw the scorch marks where Shigaraki had decayed the soybeans. He saw the massive, perfectly circular, fifty-foot crater where the Nomu had been suplexed. And he saw the distinct, incredibly sharp line where a gale-force wind had ripped the topsoil away to redirect the decay wave.

 

Aizawa traced the line of destruction. It stopped exactly three feet away from the aluminum grain silo. It didn't touch the barn. It didn't touch the greenhouse.

 

Aizawa turned back to Izuku, his eyes wide with profound, staggering realization.

 

"Kid," Aizawa breathed. "You fought three A-Rank villains... including a Nomu engineered to kill All Might... and you deliberately contained the kinetic fallout of the entire battle within a strictly defined, unplanted, fallow zone of your farm?"

 

Izuku nodded earnestly. "Well, yes. If the shockwaves had hit the eastern field, it would have disrupted the soil compaction for the winter wheat. I couldn't allow that. So I just directed the wind pressure away from the crops and caught the Nomu before he could trample the irrigation lines."

 

Aizawa stared at the boy.

 

Pro Heroes—even the top ten—caused millions of dollars in collateral damage during a fight of this magnitude. Mt. Lady would have crushed the barn. Endeavor would have burned the fields to ash. Even All Might would have leveled the silo with a stray shockwave.

 

But this teenager in overalls had exhibited a level of spatial awareness, physical restraint, and sheer, overpowering dominance that Aizawa had never seen in his entire career.

 

"What hero school do you go to?" Aizawa demanded, stepping closer. "With a strength quirk and precision like that, you should be at U.A."

 

"Oh, I don't go to hero school, sir," Izuku smiled warmly. "I'm a first-year at Shiketsu Agricultural High School. I'm specializing in agronomical engineering and quirk-enhanced crop yields!"

 

Aizawa stood in silence for a long time. He looked at All Might, who was currently sweating profusely and aggressively avoiding eye contact by pretending to inspect the tires of a police cruiser.

 

"A farmer," Aizawa whispered to himself. He looked back at the boy. "You took down the League of Villains to protect... winter wheat."

 

"And the silo," Izuku corrected politely.

 

"Right," Aizawa said, his soul suddenly feeling incredibly, overwhelmingly tired. He turned to the tactical squad. "Bag them up. Read them their rights. Be careful with the mist guy, keep the sack on his head. And for the love of god, don't step on the kid's grass."

 

As the police swarmed the villains, cutting Shigaraki down from the tree—much to the crow's disappointment—All Might quickly shrunk back into his skeletal form and scurried over to Izuku's side.

 

"Young Midoriya!" Toshinori hissed under his breath, his blue eyes wide. "Are you alright?! You used Blackwhip again! The baling twine... it's infused with the First User's energy!"

 

Izuku beamed. "I'm perfectly fine, All Might! Actually, it was a fantastic field test! By using Blackwhip as a reinforcing core within existing physical structures, I was able to increase the tensile strength of standard nylon twine by over eight hundred percent! Imagine using this technique for structural support during a barn-raising! It's completely revolutionizing my architectural plans!"

 

Toshinori buried his face in his hands, letting out a muffled, hysterical laugh. "You defeated my arch-nemesis's successor with gardening supplies and architectural theory. My boy, you are going to give me a heart attack, and I will die the happiest man on earth."

 

Izuku patted his mentor on the back with a heavy, calloused hand. "Don't say that, All Might. You still need to help me harvest the pumpkins tomorrow."

 

 

 

Deep underground, in a sterile, pitch-black laboratory filled with the rhythmic, mechanical hum of life-support systems, the most dangerous man in the world sat in silence.

 

All For One was hooked up to a terrifying array of tubes and wires, his eyeless, heavily scarred face illuminated only by the faint glow of the monitors around him.

 

Dr. Kyudai Garaki, the mad scientist behind the Nomu project, stood at the foot of the life-support chair, trembling so violently his clipboard was rattling against his lab coat.

 

"Speak, Doctor," All For One commanded, his voice smooth, cultured, and dripping with an insidious, creeping dread. "The tracker in the Nomu went dark. Kurogiri's signal vanished. Where is Tomura?"

 

"Master," Garaki stammered, wiping a thick layer of sweat from his bald head. "They... they were intercepted. The police have them in custody. Tomura, Kurogiri, the Nomu... they are all being transported to Tartarus as we speak."

 

The monitors in the room spiked. The rhythmic breathing of the life-support machine hitched.

 

"Intercepted?" All For One’s voice dropped an octave, vibrating the glass beakers on the nearby counters. "By whom? Did Endeavor track them? Did All Might lay an ambush? Which Pro Hero agency dared to touch my successor?"

 

"N-none of them, sir," Garaki whimpered, pulling up a police report on a glowing tablet. "Our informant in the precinct just transmitted the arrest report. They weren't defeated by a hero. They... they teleported onto private property. A rural sector outside Musutafu."

 

"And?" All For One pressed, his patience wearing dangerously thin.

 

"And they were engaged by the landowner," Garaki swallowed hard, reading the text. "A civilian teenager. A... a farmer, sir. The report says the boy incapacitated the Nomu with a single grappling maneuver, tied Tomura to a tree with string, and captured Kurogiri in a feed sack."

 

Silence.

 

Absolute, suffocating silence descended upon the laboratory.

 

All For One’s vast intellect raced, sorting through thousands of quirks, thousands of scenarios, attempting to process the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of the information he had just been given.

 

"A farmer," All For One repeated, the word tasting strange and alien on his tongue.

 

"Yes, Master. The boy cited 'aggravated crop destruction' as the primary motive for the counterattack."

 

All For One leaned back in his chair. The gears in his mind, which had perfectly manipulated Japanese society from the shadows for over a century, suddenly ground to a complete and utter halt.

 

For a hundred years, All For One had operated on a very specific understanding of human psychology. He knew how to defeat heroes. Heroes were driven by ego, by ideology, by a desperate need to be loved, or by a rigid, fragile sense of justice. You could break a hero by showing them the flaws in their society. You could tempt them with power. You could crush their spirit by threatening the masses.

 

But a farmer?

 

How do you psychologically manipulate a man who only cares about the pH balance of his soil? How do you tempt someone with limitless power when all they want is for it to rain on Tuesday? You cannot break a farmer's ideology, because their ideology is the earth itself. They do not care about society's flaws; they care about the aphids on their tomatoes.

 

A hero will hesitate to save a hostage. A farmer protecting his harvest is a primal, immovable force of nature.

 

"Doctor," All For One said, his voice unusually quiet.

 

"Yes, Master?"

 

"Cancel all operations in the agricultural district," All For One ordered, a cold, unfamiliar sensation settling in his chest. It was fear. Genuine, unadulterated fear of the unknown. "Do not send any scouts. Do not send any Nomu. Erase those coordinates from our database."

 

"B-but Master, shouldn't we retaliate? A boy who can defeat a high-end Nomu—"

 

"Is a boy we leave exactly where he is!" All For One snapped, the monitors flaring red. "If he wanted to destroy us, he would have come to the city! He is content in his fields. We will not poke the bear, Doctor. Let him have his cabbages. We will conquer the urban centers. But the countryside... the countryside belongs to him."

 

The ultimate evil had conceded defeat, not to a soaring hero, but to a boy with a pitchfork.

 

 

 

Four Years Later.

 

The blazing afternoon sun beat down on the sprawling, chaotic vibrancy of the Musutafu Grand Farmer's Market.

 

What was once a small, weekend gathering of local growers had exploded into an international event. Thousands of people packed the plaza, weaving between brilliantly colored stalls piled high with fresh produce, artisanal baked goods, and vibrant flowers. The air smelled of roasted sweet corn, fresh strawberries, and the salty breeze from the nearby ocean.

 

In the center of the market, occupying a massive, beautifully constructed wooden pavilion, was the crown jewel of the agricultural world: the Midoriya Farms Conglomerate stall.

 

Izuku Midoriya, now eighteen years old, stood behind the counter. He had grown into a true titan. He stood over six feet tall, his shoulders incredibly broad, his muscles corded and thick from years of unrelenting, quirk-enhanced labor. His green hair was still wild and unruly, and his face retained its bright, freckled warmth, though his jawline had sharpened into a rugged, handsome square. He wore a crisp, white, short-sleeved button-down shirt and his trademark green apron.

 

"Here you go, ma'am!" Izuku smiled blindingly, handing a heavy paper bag to an elderly woman. "That's three bundles of the Quirk-Enhanced Iron-Spinach. Remember, boil it lightly to retain the cellular structure! It's packed with enough calcium to improve bone density by twenty percent in a month!"

 

"Oh, thank you, Midoriya-kun!" the woman gushed, blushing slightly as she took the bag. "You're a lifesaver! My arthritis has practically vanished since I started eating your produce!"

 

"Just doing my job!" Izuku laughed, wiping his hands on his apron.

 

And what a job it was.

 

Over the last four years, Izuku had completely revolutionized global agriculture. With the limitless stamina and raw power of One For All, combined with his genius-level intellect and the advanced botanical training from Shiketsu High, Midoriya Farms had become an empire.

 

But Izuku didn't hoard his wealth. He weaponized it for good.

 

When a villain with a tsunami quirk devastated the coastal regions of the Philippines, heroes flew in to rescue the drowning. But it was the massive cargo planes bearing the green 'MF' logo that arrived the next day, dropping thousands of tons of hyper-nutrient-dense, quirk-enhanced rice and purified water to the starving survivors.

 

When a massive drought struck the plains of Africa, Izuku personally flew out, using his Detroit Plow to carve hundred-mile irrigation canals from the mountains in a single afternoon, followed by airdrops of his patented, drought-resistant amaranth seeds.

 

He had become a global phenomenon. A philanthropist. A savior. Time Magazine had recently named him "The Man Who Fed The World."

 

Yet, despite his immense wealth and status, he still spent his Saturdays standing behind a wooden counter in Musutafu, directly handing vegetables to the locals. Because to Izuku, the connection to the people was just as important as the connection to the soil.

 

"Hey! Deku!"

 

Izuku looked up from adjusting a pyramid of flawless, ruby-red apples.

 

Stomping through the crowd, parting the sea of civilians with his sheer, aggressive presence, was the newly minted Number Three Pro Hero: Dynamight.

 

Katsuki Bakugo looked phenomenal. His hero costume was sleek, armored, and intimidating. His crimson eyes were just as fierce as ever, though the unhinged, rabid rage of his youth had tempered into a sharp, focused intensity. The civilians parted for him, whispering in awe at the explosive hero.

 

Bakugo marched right up to Izuku's stall, slammed both of his gauntleted hands onto the wooden counter, and glared fiercely at his childhood rival.

 

Izuku didn't flinch. He just smiled. "Hi, Kacchan! Congratulations on making the Top Three this week! I saw the news. That triple-detonation you used against the Slime-Crawler was incredibly efficient!"

 

Bakugo grunted, crossing his arms over his armored chest. "Shut up, nerd. I don't need your agricultural analysis of my combat tactics. I'm on patrol. And I need supplies."

 

"Of course," Izuku reached under the counter and pulled out a massive, reinforced canvas bag that he had prepared specifically for Bakugo.

 

"Are the carrots in there?" Bakugo demanded, leaning over the counter. "Because last time you gave me those orange monstrosities, my night vision improved so much I couldn't sleep with the streetlights on."

 

"Three bunches of the Beta-Carotene-Max Carrots," Izuku confirmed, pointing to the bag. "Along with the Quirk-Recovery sweet potatoes, and the high-protein edamame. The potassium levels in the potatoes will help flush the lactic acid from your muscles after a long patrol. You need to keep your electrolytes up, Kacchan. Explosions dehydrate you."

 

Bakugo aggressively shoved a wad of cash onto the counter. "I know how my own damn body works, Deku! Keep the change!"

 

He snatched the bag with one hand, turning on his heel to stomp away. But before he took three steps, he paused. He looked over his shoulder at Izuku.

 

The anger in Bakugo's eyes was completely gone, replaced by a deep, unspoken, begrudging respect that had taken years to forge.

 

"Hey," Bakugo said gruffly. "I ran into All Might at the agency yesterday. He... he looked good. Healthier."

 

Izuku beamed, his heart warming. "I've got him on a strict regimen of antioxidant-rich blueberries and organic bone broth. His respiratory function is up twelve percent! He even helped me load the trucks this morning!"

 

Bakugo scoffed, shaking his head. "You turned the Symbol of Peace into a farmhand. You're out of your mind, Deku. See you next week."

 

"Stay safe, Kacchan!" Izuku waved.

 

As the explosive hero disappeared into the bustling crowd, Izuku leaned against his counter. He took a deep breath, smelling the sweet, earthy aroma of his life's work.

 

He glanced down at the morning newspaper resting near the cash register. The headline didn't feature a flashy villain fight, or a collapsed building, or a tragedy.

 

It read: GLOBAL CRIME RATES HIT HISTORIC LOW. EXPERTS CITE UNPRECEDENTED ECONOMIC STABILITY AND ELIMINATION OF FOOD SCARCITY IN IMPOVERISHED ZONES.

 

Underneath the headline was a small picture of a green 'MF' cargo plane unloading crates of food in a sunny, smiling village.

 

Izuku reached up, wiping a small smudge of dirt from his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked at the bustling market, at the healthy, happy faces of the people walking by. He saw children eating his apples. He saw elderly people walking without pain. He saw a society that wasn't just surviving, but thriving.

 

He felt the warmth of One For All thrumming in his chest. It wasn't a weapon anymore. It was a sun, providing light and life to everything it touched.

 

Izuku Midoriya didn't wear a cape. He didn't have a flashy hero name. He didn't punch villains on national television.

 

But as he looked out over the world he had cultivated, a deep, profound peace settled into his soul.

 

He had done it. He had saved the world.

 

Just one meal at a time.