What If Deku Was Darth Vader's Apprentice

 

 

The day the universe shifted on its axis began like any other: with the smell of burnt paper and the taste of ash.

 

Izuku Midoriya stared down at the koi pond, his reflection fractured by the ripples of the water. Floating among the orange and white fish was a charred, smoking notebook. Hero Analysis for the Future, No. 13. His life’s work. His anchor.

 

"Most top-tier heroes have stories about them from their school days," Katsuki Bakugo had sneered, his red eyes narrowing with an arrogance born of a society that worshipped power. "I’m the only one from this garbage middle school who will make it to U.A. High. So, do us all a favor, Deku. Take a swan dive off the roof and pray for a Quirk in your next life."

 

The words echoed in Izuku’s head, a relentless drumbeat of cruelty. Take a swan dive. Kacchan had always been mean, but telling him to kill himself? That was a new low, even for him. Izuku clenched his trembling fists, his blunt fingernails biting into his palms. He didn’t cry. Not yet. He was too hollowed out for tears. He fished the ruined notebook out of the water, gently brushing away the wet ash.

 

I will be a hero, he told himself, the mantra repeating like a desperate prayer in his mind as he walked through the underpass on his way home. I don’t care if I’m Quirkless. I’ll save people with a smile, just like All Might.

 

He clung to the image of the Symbol of Peace—the towering, golden-haired god among men who laughed in the face of danger. All Might was the sun, and Izuku was just a fragile moth fluttering toward the light.

 

Then, the shadows moved.

 

A sickening, wet gurgling sound echoed through the tunnel. Izuku stopped, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Slowly, he turned around.

 

From the sewer grate poured a mountain of dark, putrid sludge. It smelled of sewage, rot, and sulfur. Within the viscous mass, two bulbous, predatory eyes formed, locking onto Izuku with malicious glee. A jagged mouth stretched wide, revealing teeth made of compacted filth.

 

"A medium-sized invisibility cloak," the sludge villain hissed, its voice echoing with a wet, gravelly resonance. "Perfect."

 

Before Izuku could even scream, the sludge lunged.

 

It was like being hit by a tidal wave of wet cement. The slime forced its way into his mouth, down his throat, filling his nose. The sheer pressure of it was agonizing, crushing his lungs and blocking out the air. Izuku thrashed wildly, his hands clawing at the liquid body, but his fingers slipped uselessly through the muck.

 

I’m going to die, Izuku realized, his vision blurring at the edges, darkening into a vignette of terror. I’m going to die here, in the dark, and no one will ever know. I didn't even get to try.

 

"Don't worry," the villain chuckled, a vibration that rattled Izuku’s skull. "It’ll only hurt for about forty-five seconds. Then, it will all be over."

 

The darkness was closing in. The last vestiges of Izuku's consciousness were slipping away, his desperate struggles growing weak and pitiful.

 

Then, the sewer cover exploded.

 

A figure stepped from the shadows of the tunnel, radiating an aura so intense the air itself seemed to vibrate. Izuku couldn't see clearly through the sludge, but he heard a booming voice, deep and resonant, banishing the darkness.

 

"Fear not, young man! For I am here!"

 

All Might?

 

The golden hero moved with a speed that defied physics. He pulled back a gargantuan arm, muscles bulging against his white t-shirt. "TEXAS... SMASH!"

 

The wind pressure alone was like a bomb going off. The shockwave tore through the tunnel, instantly vaporizing the sludge villain’s cohesion. The slime was blasted apart in a hurricane of air, freeing Izuku. The boy took a gasping, desperate breath, filling his starved lungs before his eyes rolled back, and he plummeted into unconsciousness.

 

 

 

"Hey. Hey! Wake up!"

 

A gentle, but massive hand slapped Izuku’s cheek.

 

Izuku gasped, his green eyes flying open. Above him stood the impossible. The jagged, golden bangs. The impossible musculature. The eternal, blinding smile.

 

"Thought we lost you there!" All Might laughed, his voice booming. "Glad to see you're alright! Sorry about getting you caught up in my villain-hunting. I don't usually make mistakes like this, but I was in a new city and got a bit turned around!"

 

Izuku scrambled back, his heart hammering against his ribs. It’s him. It’s really him. In the flesh. He scrambled frantically for his notebook, realizing he needed an autograph. He flipped it open, only to find a massive, sprawling signature already dominating a two-page spread.

 

Izuku bowed so fast his spine cracked. "Thank you! Thank you! This is a family heirloom! I’ll treasure it for generations!"

 

"Well, I must be off!" All Might declared, patting his pocket, which now contained two large soda bottles filled with the captured sludge villain. "A hero's work is never done! Take care, young man!"

 

All Might crouched, the concrete cracking beneath his boots as he prepared to launch himself into the sky.

 

Wait, Izuku thought, a desperate panic seizing his chest. I still have to ask him. The one question I’ve needed answered my entire life. If I don't ask him now, I never will.

 

As All Might leapt, Izuku moved on pure, unthinking instinct. He vaulted forward, wrapping his arms around the hero’s thick, muscular leg just as they left the ground.

 

"Whoa!" All Might shouted as they skyrocketed above the city, the wind howling around them. "Hey! Release me, young man! This is too much fanboying!"

 

"If I let go now, I’ll die!" Izuku screamed, his face flapping in the gale-force winds.

 

"Right, right!"

 

They landed roughly on the roof of a three-story commercial building. Izuku collapsed to his hands and knees, hyperventilating, his heart threatening to burst from his chest.

 

"That was very dangerous," All Might scolded, though his voice lacked its usual booming resonance. He turned away, walking toward the roof access door. "Now, I really must be going—"

 

"Wait!" Izuku cried out, his voice cracking. He squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head toward the rough gravel of the rooftop. "Even if I don't have a Quirk... can I become a hero? Can someone without a Quirk be like you?"

 

Silence fell over the roof. The wind seemed to die down, leaving only the distant, muffled sounds of the city below.

 

Izuku poured his heart out, the dam finally breaking. "I... I don't have a Quirk. And people think I'm useless. They tell me I should just give up. But I want to save people. I want to save people with a fearless smile, just like you! I want to be the greatest hero—"

 

A wet, hacking cough interrupted him.

 

Izuku looked up and froze.

 

The towering, muscular god was gone. In his place stood a skeletal, emaciated man with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and clothes that hung off his frail frame like hand-me-downs. A trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

 

Izuku let out a high-pitched scream. "Who are you?! What happened to All Might? Are you an imposter?!"

 

The skeletal man wiped the blood from his chin with the back of his hand. He let out a long, heavy sigh, lowering himself to sit against the railing. "I am All Might," he said, his voice raspy, a pale imitation of his former glory.

 

He pulled up his shirt, revealing a horrific, starburst scar that devoured the entire left side of his torso. The skin was mottled purple and sunken, a crater of ruined flesh.

 

"An injury I got from a villain attack five years ago," All Might explained, his blue eyes distant and haunted. "My respiratory system was nearly destroyed. I lost my whole stomach. After all the surgeries, I can only do hero work for about three hours a day."

 

Izuku stared, paralyzed by the destruction of his idol's perfect image. "Five years ago? Was that when you fought Toxic Chainsaw?"

 

"You know your stuff, but no. I kept this one out of the papers. The world cannot know," All Might said, his tone turning grave. "A Symbol of Peace who saves people with a smile must never show weakness. I smile... to hide the fear inside. I smile to trick myself, and to trick the world. But the reality is... hero work is a dangerous, bloody business."

 

All Might looked directly into Izuku’s eyes. The golden glow was gone, replaced by a cold, harsh realism.

 

"You asked if you can become a hero without a Quirk," All Might said softly. "The answer is... no."

 

The word hit Izuku like a physical blow. The air rushed out of his lungs.

 

"If you want to help people, become a police officer. They get mocked for receiving villains on a silver platter, but it's an honorable profession. But a pro hero? No. You cannot be a hero without a Quirk. You have to be realistic, kid."

 

All Might stood up, dusting off his baggy pants. He pushed open the roof access door. "It's not bad to dream. But you have to make sure your dreams are attainable."

 

The heavy metal door clicked shut.

 

Izuku was left alone on the roof.

 

He stood there for a long time. The afternoon sun began to set, casting long, bloody streaks of orange and red across the sky. The city below bustled with life, millions of people going about their days, completely unaware that on this unremarkable rooftop, a boy’s soul had just shattered into a million irreparable pieces.

 

Be realistic.

 

The words looped in his mind, wrapping around his throat like a noose. His mother’s tearful apologies. Kacchan’s explosive sneers. The pitying looks of his teachers. And now, the absolute, undeniable decree from the god of this world.

 

You are nothing. You are broken. You are a genetic dead end.

 

Izuku dropped to his knees. The tears finally came, hot and bitter, staining the concrete. He screamed, a raw, guttural sound of pure, unadulterated agony that tore at his vocal cords. He slammed his fists against the roof until his knuckles bled, leaving crimson smudges on the gray stone.

 

He had nothing left. His idol, his dream, his reason for waking up in the morning—all of it was a lie. Hero society wasn't about saving people. It was an exclusive club of the genetically gifted, a lottery of birth, and he had drawn the losing ticket.

 

Eventually, the tears stopped. A profound, terrifying emptiness filled the void they left behind. Izuku stood up, his face devoid of emotion. His eyes, usually bright and full of nervous energy, were dead and dull.

 

He walked down the stairs, his movements mechanical, zombie-like. He didn't know where he was going. He just walked.

 

 

 

The sound of explosions brought him back to reality.

 

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

 

Izuku blinked, finding himself at the edge of a massive crowd. Smoke billowed into the twilight sky. The acrid smell of burning buildings and ozone hung heavy in the air. Out of ingrained habit, Izuku pushed his way to the front of the crowd to see which heroes were on the scene.

 

What he saw made his blood run cold.

 

It was the sludge villain.

 

But... how? Izuku thought, his mind racing. All Might had him. He put him in the bottles. Then, a sickening realization dawned on him. When he grabbed All Might's leg... the bottles must have slipped out of the hero's pockets.

 

This is my fault.

 

The villain had grown massive, towering over the alleyway, setting the surrounding buildings on fire. And trapped within the swirling, putrid vortex of sludge was a boy with spiky ash-blond hair.

 

Kacchan.

 

Bakugo was thrashing violently, setting off massive explosions from his palms, but it was useless. The sludge merely absorbed the blasts, using the collateral damage to keep the pro heroes at bay.

 

Izuku looked frantically at the heroes standing at the police barricade.

 

Death Arms, a man with superhuman strength, was holding his hands up to shield his face from the fire. "I can't get near him! There's no grip on that slime, and the fires are too hot!"

 

Kamui Woods, the rising star, was gritting his teeth. "My wood will ignite instantly. It's a bad matchup!"

 

Mt. Lady was complaining about the narrow alleyway. "I need a two-lane street to use my Quirk! I can't fit in there!"

 

They were just standing there.

 

They're waiting, Izuku realized, a profound sense of disgust bubbling up through his despair. They're waiting for someone with a better Quirk. They're letting Kacchan suffocate because it's inconvenient for them.

 

Bakugo's face breached the surface of the sludge. His eyes met Izuku's. For the first time in his life, Katsuki Bakugo’s eyes were not filled with rage or superiority. They were filled with absolute, primal terror. He was begging for help.

 

Izuku’s legs twitched. His body, trained by years of hypothetical heroism, prepared to sprint past the barricade. He prepared to throw his useless notebook at the villain’s eye, to claw at the sludge, to die trying to save his tormentor because that was what a true hero would do.

 

He took a breath. He leaned forward.

 

But before his foot could strike the pavement, the world... changed.

 

It didn't happen gradually. It was instantaneous. The roaring of the flames, the screaming of the crowd, the explosions from Bakugo's palms—they were all drowned out by a sudden, oppressive silence that was louder than a bomb.

 

The temperature in the alley plummeted. Izuku's breath plumed in the air. The raging fires that licked the sides of the buildings didn't go out, but they seemed to dim, as if the light was being choked out of existence.

 

The crowd went dead silent. The heroes froze in place, a primal, instinctual dread paralyzing their limbs.

 

From the dark mouth of an adjacent alleyway, a rhythmic, mechanical sound cut through the quiet.

 

Kooh... pah.

 

Kooh... pah.

 

It was the sound of a machine breathing, cold and rhythmic, completely devoid of humanity.

 

A figure emerged from the shadows, stepping into the dim light of the streetlamps.

 

He was a giant of a man, standing well over two meters tall. He was clad entirely in black armor that gleamed like polished obsidian. A heavy black cape billowed behind him, though there was no wind to move it. His chest was adorned with a panel of blinking, archaic technological lights. But it was his face that commanded the most terror.

 

It was a mask. A skull-like helmet with a prominent, triangular respiratory apparatus and twin black lenses that reflected the dimming fires. There was no flesh visible, no eyes to meet, no humanity to appeal to. He looked like death incarnate, clad in the armor of a forgotten, warlike god.

 

"Hey!" Death Arms shouted, though his voice trembled violently. "Stop right there! This is an active villain scene! Are you a pro?"

 

The dark figure did not even turn his head. He continued to walk toward the sludge villain, his heavy boots clapping against the pavement with the measured, inevitable tread of an executioner.

 

Kooh... pah.

 

"I said stop!" Kamui Woods yelled, firing a branch of wood from his arm to intercept the stranger.

 

The figure didn't stop walking. He didn't even look at Kamui Woods. He merely raised a gloved hand and flicked his wrist.

 

An invisible force, like a localized hurricane, slammed into Kamui Woods. The pro hero was launched backward with bone-shattering force, crashing through a brick wall twenty feet away. He crumpled to the ground, instantly unconscious.

 

The crowd shrieked. Death Arms charged, his fists raised, activating his strength Quirk. "You bastard!"

 

The black-armored man raised his hand, pinching his thumb and forefinger together in the air.

 

Death Arms stopped dead in his tracks. His hands flew to his throat. He gagged, his eyes bulging from their sockets as his feet slowly left the ground. He hovered in the air, his legs kicking frantically, desperately clawing at an invisible vice that was crushing his windpipe.

 

With a casual, dismissive wave of his hand, the figure tossed Death Arms into a parked police cruiser. The car's frame buckled upon impact, the hero slumping to the asphalt, gasping for air.

 

Mt. Lady took a terrified step back, her knees shaking. The police officers dropped their weapons.

 

Izuku couldn't breathe. The air felt heavy, viscous, like he was drowning in deep water. This man wasn't using a telekinesis Quirk. Quirks were biological; they required physical exertion, activation, sweat. This man was using something else. He was commanding reality itself, bending the world to his will with the ease of a man swatting away flies.

 

The sludge villain stopped attacking Bakugo. The monstrous entity of slime shrank back, recognizing the presence of an apex predator.

 

"W-Who the hell are you?!" the sludge villain stammered, its gravelly voice pitching up in fear. "Stay back! I'll snap this kid's neck! I swear I'll do it!"

 

The black-armored giant stopped ten paces away. The mechanical breathing paused.

 

When he spoke, his voice was deep, synthesized, and utterly devoid of mercy. It was a baritone rumble that vibrated in Izuku’s chest.

 

"You boast of power," the figure intoned. "Yet you hide behind a child. Pathetic."

 

"I warned you!" the sludge villain screamed, tightening its grip on Bakugo, attempting to force itself down the boy's throat.

 

The black figure raised his right arm, extending an open palm toward the sludge villain.

 

Izuku watched in morbid fascination as the dark entity slowly closed his hand into a tight fist.

 

The reaction was instantaneous.

 

The sludge villain let out an agonizing, ear-piercing shriek. Its entire gelatinous body was violently compressed. The invisible force gripped every molecule of the slime, squeezing it with unimaginable pressure. The villain's eyes popped like balloons. Its jagged teeth shattered.

 

The sludge was forced out of Bakugo's throat, ripped away from the boy's body. Bakugo dropped to the pavement, violently coughing up mucus and gasping for air.

 

The black figure kept his fist clenched. The sludge villain, once a massive wave of destructive muck, was condensed into a perfectly spherical, hyper-dense ball of slime no larger than a grapefruit. The pressure was so intense that the sludge was practically solidified.

 

With a careless flick of his wrist, the armored man threw the compressed ball of slime into a nearby brick wall. It hit with the force of a cannonball, embedding itself deep into the masonry, rendered completely inert.

 

Silence fell over the alleyway again, save for the mechanical breathing.

 

Kooh... pah.

 

Bakugo scrambled backward on his hands and knees, terrified of the towering black monolith standing before him.

 

But the armored man did not look at Bakugo. He turned slowly, his dark lenses scanning the crowd. The civilians shrank back, terrified.

 

The mask locked onto Izuku.

 

Izuku froze. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to run, to hide, to cower. But he couldn't move. He was pinned in place by an invisible, suffocating weight. It felt as though the man was staring directly into his soul, peeling back the layers of his mind and reading his every thought.

 

The dark figure began to walk toward him.

 

The crowd parted like the Red Sea, tripping over themselves to get out of the man's path. Soon, Izuku stood alone at the barricade, a small, trembling, Quirkless boy facing a titan of darkness.

 

Darth Vader stopped two feet away from Izuku Midoriya.

 

Vader looked down at the boy. Through the Force, Vader did not see a Quirkless loser. He saw a maelstrom. He felt the boy's emotions radiating like a dying star—a swirling vortex of agonizing betrayal, intense self-hatred, deep-seated anger, and a desperate, starving hunger for a purpose. The boy had been broken, shattered by the very society he idolized. The cracks in his soul were deep, raw, and bleeding.

 

It was the perfect soil in which to plant the seeds of the Dark Side.

 

"You..." Vader’s synthesized voice rumbled, low enough that only Izuku could hear it. "You possess a rage that you do not understand. A pain that has been inflicted upon you by the weakness of others."

 

Izuku’s breath hitched. "Who... who are you?"

 

"I am Darth Vader," the Sith Lord declared softly. "And I have watched this world. A society obsessed with biological parlor tricks. They call themselves heroes, yet they cower in the face of minor adversity. They lack vision. They lack discipline. They lack power."

 

Vader raised a gloved hand, gesturing toward the unconscious heroes and the groveling Bakugo.

 

"Is this the justice you seek?" Vader asked, his voice dripping with dark charisma. "Fools in costumes who wait for permission to save a life? A society that casts you aside because you lack their mutations?"

 

Izuku’s eyes welled with tears, but they weren't tears of sadness. They were tears of validation. For the first time in his entire life, someone was looking at him and not seeing a mistake. Someone was acknowledging the inherent hypocrisy of the world that had tortured him.

 

"The man you call the Symbol of Peace," Vader continued, his words striking Izuku like physical blows. "He told you that you are nothing. He abandoned you to your despair."

 

Izuku gasped. How does he know?

 

"I can feel your thoughts, child. They scream into the ether," Vader said. "Your idol failed you. Your peers tormented you. Your world rejected you. Because you are powerless."

 

Vader took a step closer, towering over the boy. The cold radiating from his armor was absolute.

 

"Their Quirks are insignificant next to the power of the Force," Vader said, his voice lowering into a dangerous, alluring purr. "The Force binds the galaxy together. It is an energy field created by all living things. And those who learn to command its darker aspects can bend reality to their whim. They can bring order to chaos. They can become true arbiters of justice."

 

Vader slowly extended his black-gloved hand toward Izuku.

 

"I can teach you," Vader offered. "I can show you how to channel your pain. How to forge your anger into a weapon that cannot be broken. I can give you the power to tear down this fragile, corrupt society and build something stronger in its place."

 

Izuku stared at the hand.

 

His mind flashed back through his entire life. The doctor telling him to give it up. Kacchan’s explosive palms burning his skin. His mother crying, saying she was sorry. All Might, bleeding and emaciated, telling him to be realistic.

 

Be realistic.

 

If this was reality—a world where heroes were cowards, where bullies were rewarded with praise, where a good heart meant nothing without the right genetics—then Izuku didn't want to be realistic anymore. He wanted to break reality.

 

He didn't want to save people with a smile. The smile was a lie. The smile was a mask to hide the fear.

 

He wanted to save the world with an iron grip. He wanted to make sure that no one could ever be victimized by weakness again. He wanted absolute, unbreakable order.

 

Izuku looked up into the black lenses of Darth Vader's mask. He felt the cold, suffocating weight of the dark side pressing against his skin, promising him strength. Promising him power.

 

Izuku Midoriya reached out, his small, trembling hand grasping the cold leather of the Sith Lord’s glove.

 

"Teach me," Izuku whispered, his green eyes hardening into chips of cold jade.

 

Vader's grip tightened around the boy's hand.

 

"Come," Vader commanded.

 

Without a backward glance at his childhood friend, without a second look at the terrified heroes or the burning alleyway, Izuku turned and walked into the shadows alongside the Dark Lord of the Sith.

 

The boy who wanted to be a hero was dead.

 

The apprentice had been found.

 

 

 

The Dagobah Municipal Beach Park was a graveyard of human consumption. Mountains of rusted appliances, rotting vehicles, and decaying industrial machinery choked the coastline, forgotten by a society that preferred to look away from its own rot. It was here, hidden within the labyrinth of jagged metal and salt-sprayed scrap, that Izuku Midoriya’s childhood officially ended.

 

Deep within the heart of the landfill, hidden beneath a cavernous canopy of collapsed crane arms and oxidized shipping containers, lay the anomaly. It was a machine unlike anything built on Earth. Its twin, angular solar array wings were scorched and shattered, and its bulbous cockpit was fused into the sand. This was Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced x1, spat out by a chaotic hyperspace fissure that had torn the Sith Lord from his own galaxy and marooned him on this primitive world.

 

Using the ship's surviving power cells and salvaged Earth technology, Vader had constructed a makeshift redoubt—a fortress of shadows, sparking wires, and humming generators. It was cold, brutal, and entirely devoid of comfort.

 

It was perfect.

 

Izuku stood in the center of the clearing, shivering in the damp, briny air. He had not returned home. He had not called his mother. The thought of Inko Midoriya—weeping, frantically calling the police, entirely consumed by her fragile, helpless worry—pricked at his chest. But Vader had commanded him to leave his past behind, and Izuku had obeyed. To return to that cramped apartment was to return to being the victim.

 

"You are distracted, my apprentice."

 

Vader’s synthesized baritone echoed off the rusted steel walls of the clearing. The Sith Lord stood by a humming diagnostic terminal, his back to Izuku. Even at rest, Vader exuded a gravitational pull of dread.

 

"I... I was just thinking about..." Izuku started, stammering out of ingrained habit.

 

Whoosh.

 

Before Izuku could blink, an invisible, crushing weight slammed into his chest. He was violently thrown backward, his spine colliding with a rusted iron boiler. The breath exploded from his lungs. He slid into the sand, gasping, tasting rust and salt.

 

Vader slowly turned, his black cape dragging across the debris.

 

"You were thinking of your mother," Vader stated, not a question, but a condemnation. "You were thinking of the warmth of a home that pitied you. You cling to the chains of your old life."

 

"I... I left..." Izuku wheezed, struggling to his hands and knees.

 

"You left your physical dwelling. You have not left your weakness," Vader stepped closer, towering over the boy. "The Jedi—the so-called 'heroes' of my galaxy—preached detachment to serve others. The Sith practice detachment to serve ourselves. As long as you care what that weeping woman thinks of you, you are vulnerable. As long as you crave her comfort, you are weak."

 

Vader raised a hand, and Izuku was dragged by an unseen force through the sand, coming to a halt at the Sith Lord's boots.

 

"Pain is the only truth in this universe," Vader rumbled, staring down at the bruised boy. "Hero society taught you to run from it. To let others shield you from it. I will teach you to embrace it. You will be forged in agony, until there is nothing left to break."

 

And so, the nightmare began.

 

For the first three months, Izuku did not touch the Force. He was not allowed to. Vader decreed that Izuku's mortal vessel was pathetic, softened by years of cowering. To house the furious energies of the Dark Side, his body had to be remade into a weapon.

 

His training made the regimens of U.A. High look like children’s games. Vader forced Izuku to run sprints through the shifting sands of the landfill while carrying chunks of engine blocks. If Izuku slowed, Vader did not shout encouragement. He threw jagged pieces of scrap metal at the boy’s head. Izuku had to dodge or bleed. He bled often.

 

When Izuku collapsed from exhaustion, his muscles tearing and his vision swimming with dark spots, Vader would use the Force to lift him to his feet by his throat, holding him suspended until the boy kicked and fought for breath, reigniting his adrenaline through pure, primal terror.

 

"Your limits are a lie constructed by a cowardly mind," Vader would drone as Izuku vomited sea water and bile into the sand. "Stand up. Again."

 

Izuku was fed a tasteless nutrient paste synthesized from the TIE fighter’s survival rations. He slept on the cold steel floor of a gutted shipping container, wrapped only in a thin emergency blanket. Every night, his body screamed in agony. Every morning, he woke up with a burning hatred for his master.

 

But as the weeks bled into months, the hatred shifted. It wasn't directed at Vader anymore. Vader was simply a force of nature, like a hurricane or an earthquake.

 

Izuku’s hatred turned toward the city skyline that glittered in the distance across the bay. He hated the heroes sleeping in their soft beds. He hated his classmates who had mocked his frailty. Most of all, he hated the weak, pathetic boy who had cried on a rooftop.

 

His body changed. The baby fat melted away, replaced by dense, whipcord muscle. His hands, once soft and prone to frantic note-taking, became calloused and bruised, wrapped in dirty bandages. His wide, innocent eyes sank, adopting a cold, hollow thousand-yard stare.

 

He was surviving. But he was not yet a Sith.

 

The turning point came on a frigid night in November.

 

"The Force is not a Quirk," Vader explained, pacing around Izuku, who sat cross-legged in the center of the clearing, surrounded by a dozen heavy steel ball bearings. "It is not a biological mutation confined to the limits of your genetics. It is the blood of the universe. To command it, you must not ask it for a favor. You must subjugate it to your will."

 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, extending a trembling hand toward the nearest steel ball. He imagined it lifting. He pictured the mechanics of it. He hoped, he prayed, he tried to move it.

 

Nothing happened.

 

"You are asking," Vader sneered, his voice dripping with disgust. "You are reaching out with hope. Hope is a pacifier for the helpless."

 

"I'm trying!" Izuku barked through gritted teeth.

 

"Do not try. Command!" Vader snapped.

 

Vader extended his own hand. A sudden, piercing spike of pain drove itself into Izuku’s skull. Izuku cried out, clutching his head as Vader aggressively breached his unprotected mind.

 

"Let us see what blocks you," Vader whispered, his voice echoing inside Izuku’s own thoughts. "Let us look at the foundation of your pathetic existence."

 

The world around Izuku vanished, replaced by a suffocating darkness. Then, the memories flared to life, not just as images, but as visceral, waking nightmares.

 

Izuku was four years old again, sitting in the sterile doctor’s office.

“You should probably just give it up.” The doctor’s voice echoed, layered over the sound of a dropping X-ray.

“I’m sorry, Izuku! I’m so sorry!” His mother’s weeping washed over him, heavy and suffocating.

 

"Pity," Vader’s voice boomed from the darkness. "She did not believe in you. She mourned you as if you were already dead. She saw a defect."

 

The scene shifted violently. Izuku was in the middle school classroom. The smell of burnt sugar and ozone filled his nostrils.

“Take a swan dive off the roof and pray for a Quirk in your next life!” Katsuki Bakugo’s face loomed over him, eyes wide with sadistic glee, his palm popping with miniature explosions.

 

Izuku felt the heat of the fire, the humiliation of his classmates laughing.

 

"They laughed because you allowed them to," Vader’s voice sneered. "You cowered like a beaten cur. You worshipped the very boy who tortured you. You called him 'Kacchan.' A name of endearment for your abuser. Pathetic. Craven. Weak."

 

"Stop!" Izuku screamed, his hands tearing at his own hair.

 

The scenery ripped apart again. The blinding sunlight of the rooftop hit him.

The skeletal, hollow face of All Might stared down at him with cold, apathetic eyes.

“You cannot be a hero without a Quirk. You have to be realistic.”

The heavy metal door slammed shut, echoing like a gunshot.

 

"The god you prayed to threw you away," Vader whispered, the words slithering into Izuku’s ear like a venomous serpent. "He looked at your heart and declared it worthless. He left you to rot."

 

"Stop it!" Izuku roared, tears streaming down his face.

 

"Why should I?" Vader challenged, the mental pressure increasing to an agonizing degree. "You are nothing, just as they said. You are Deku. The useless one. The genetic dead end. You are a victim, and you will die a victim in this pile of rusted trash!"

 

No.

 

Something inside Izuku—a dam built over fourteen years of smiling through the abuse, of burying his resentment, of pretending he was okay—shattered.

 

A monstrous, scalding heat erupted in his chest. It was fury. Pure, unadulterated, blinding rage. He hated All Might. He hated Bakugo. He hated this world that sorted human beings by the random lottery of their biology.

 

I AM NOT USELESS!

 

Izuku's eyes snapped open in the physical world.

 

He didn't reach out with his hand. He didn't picture the ball bearings. He simply grabbed reality by the throat and screamed.

 

An invisible shockwave of kinetic terror exploded from Izuku’s body. The twelve heavy steel ball bearings didn't just lift; they shot into the air like bullets, violently embedding themselves into the metal walls of the surrounding shipping containers with deafening CRANGS.

 

But Izuku wasn't done. His rage was a wildfire. He turned his glare toward a massive, rusted steel I-beam lying thirty feet away, weighing over two tons.

 

Izuku threw his hand out, his fingers curling into a claw.

 

The I-beam groaned. Then, with a sound like tearing flesh, the metal buckled inward. Izuku screamed, his vocal cords tearing as he poured every ounce of his humiliation and trauma into the invisible grip. The two-ton steel beam crushed in on itself, folding like a piece of tin foil until it was a mangled, compressed knot of scrap.

 

Izuku dropped to his knees, gasping for air. The air around him crackled with static electricity, cold and sharp.

 

Vader stood completely still.

 

Slowly, the boy looked up at his master.

 

Vader felt a ripple in the Force. Izuku’s irises, normally a soft, bright emerald, were gone. In their place burned a sickly, luminescent yellow, ringed with a fiery, bloodshot red. The eyes of a Sith.

 

"Good," Vader rumbled, a deep satisfaction vibrating in his chest. "Your anger has unlocked your chains. The Force is yours to command. Now... you must learn how to kill with it."

 

With his connection to the Dark Side forged, Izuku’s physical training evolved into martial mastery.

 

"A Sith must be a warrior," Vader declared, handing Izuku a heavy, unlit training cylinder. "Quirks allow your enemies to attack from a distance, with fire, ice, and force. You must be the storm that closes the gap. You must be inevitable."

 

Vader instructed Izuku in the art of Form V—both the Shien and Djem So variants. Form V was characterized by power, aggression, and dominating the opponent through heavy, kinetic strikes. It was the form Vader himself used to batter his enemies into submission.

 

But Izuku was not a lumbering giant. He was small, fast, and agile.

 

Under Vader’s brutal tutelage, Izuku adapted the form. He utilized the aggressive parries and counter-strikes of Djem So, but incorporated rapid footwork, using the Force to augment his speed and agility. He learned to deflect incoming projectiles—be they bullets, debris, or blasts of energy—and redirect them back at his attacker with lethal precision.

 

Their sparring sessions were barbaric. Vader did not use a training saber; he used his actual weapon, though he dialed the crimson plasma blade down to a non-lethal, searing heat.

 

The beach echoed with the heavy, buzzing clashes of their weapons. Time and time again, Vader battered through Izuku’s defenses, leaving blistering burn marks across the boy’s shoulders, arms, and ribs.

 

"Your stance is too wide!" Vader boomed, sweeping Izuku’s legs out from under him and pressing the red blade an inch from the boy’s nose, singing his eyelashes. "You rely on momentum! Rely on the Force!"

 

Izuku snarled, his yellow eyes flashing in the red light. He didn't ask for mercy. He pushed the blade away with a burst of telekinesis, backflipped to his feet, and launched himself at the giant again.

 

He learned to feed on the pain of his burns. Every time Vader struck him, the pain fueled his anger, which in turn deepened his connection to the Force, making his next strike faster, harder, more vicious. He was becoming a machine of perpetual violence.

 

By the end of the tenth month, the boy who had kept a heroic analysis notebook was gone. He had learned the anatomy of the human body not to save it, but to dismantle it. He knew the precise angle to sever a limb, the exact amount of telekinetic pressure required to crush a windpipe, the fastest way to bypass a defensive Quirk and deliver a lethal strike.

 

He was ready. He only needed his weapon.

 

"The lightsaber is the heart of the Sith," Vader said, standing before a workbench inside the TIE Advanced. Spread across the metal table were various components Izuku had meticulously scavenged and machined: a sleek, cylindrical grip made from high-tensile starfighter alloy, an emitter shroud salvaged from a defunct hero-support drone, and a complex magnetic stabilization ring.

 

Vader reached to his belt and produced a small, crystalline object. It was clear, pulsating with a faint, pale light.

 

"A Kyber crystal," Vader explained, setting it on the table. "I salvaged this from the ship's hyperdrive regulatory system. It is alive, attuned to the Light side of the Force. A Jedi would meditate with it, forming a symbiotic bond of harmony."

 

Vader looked down at Izuku. "We are not Jedi. We do not harmonize. We dominate. You must take this crystal, force your will upon it, and make it bleed."

 

Izuku stepped up to the table. He picked up the Kyber crystal. It felt warm in his hand, humming with a gentle, serene energy that made his skin crawl. It felt like hope. It felt disgusting.

 

Izuku sat cross-legged on the floor of the ship, holding the crystal in both hands. He closed his eyes and reached out with the Force.

 

Instantly, his mind was pulled into the crystal's matrix.

 

He found himself standing in a void of pure, white light. It was peaceful. The pain in his burns faded. The constant, burning rage in his chest began to cool.

 

Stop, a voice echoed in his mind. Not Vader's voice. A voice made of chimes and soft wind. There is still light in you, Izuku. You do not have to walk this path. You can still be good.

 

For a fraction of a second, the image of All Might laughing in his prime flashed in Izuku’s mind. The image of his mother smiling as she made katsudon.

 

Izuku’s lip curled into a snarl.

 

Good? he thought, his mental voice dripping with venom. Good is a weakness. Good is what allowed me to be beaten, spat on, and cast aside.

 

He unleashed his dark side into the white void. He poured in the memory of the sludge villain suffocating him while the heroes watched. He poured in the agonizing months of Vader breaking his bones and burning his flesh. He poured in his hatred for Bakugo, for All Might, for the entire world.

 

He visualized a vice of pure, dark energy wrapping around the light of the crystal. He squeezed.

 

Please, the crystal seemed to cry out, the white light flickering.

 

Submit, Izuku commanded.

 

He fed it his feelings of worthlessness. He shoved the absolute, soul-crushing despair of the rooftop into the crystal's heart, forcing it to feel the agony of having its dreams violently murdered.

 

The white void began to crack. Black veins spider-webbed across the serene landscape.

 

Izuku screamed in the physical world, his hands trembling violently, blood dripping from his nose as he exerted absolute, tyrannical dominance over the living crystal.

 

SUBMIT!

 

In the void, the light shattered. A torrent of crimson blood washed over the landscape, drowning out the chimes, replacing them with a low, furious hum of predatory anger.

 

Izuku opened his eyes. He was gasping, his body drenched in cold sweat.

 

He opened his hands.

 

The Kyber crystal was no longer clear. It was a deep, jagged, pulsating crimson. It was weeping dark energy.

 

Vader nodded slowly. "Assemble it."

 

Izuku moved with mechanical precision. He placed the bleeding crystal into the housing, aligning the magnetic rings and the emitter matrix. Using the Force, he perfectly sealed the cylindrical hilt, binding the scavenged parts together with molecular tightness.

 

He picked up the completed weapon. It felt heavy, perfectly balanced, and thrumming with a violent, caged heartbeat.

 

Izuku stood up. He pointed the emitter away from his body and pressed the activation stud.

 

SNAP-HISS.

 

A beam of pure, incandescent red plasma erupted from the hilt. But it was not a smooth, elegant blade like Vader’s. Fueled by Izuku’s volatile, fractured emotions and the sheer trauma inflicted upon the crystal, the blade was unstable. It crackled fiercely, spitting sparks and arcs of raw, dark energy along its edges. It hissed like a cornered viper. It cast a demonic, flickering crimson glow across Izuku’s scarred face and yellow eyes.

 

It was a weapon of pure malice.

 

Izuku gave it a test swing. The air shrieked in protest, the blade leaving a trail of fiery after-images. He felt the power of it. It could cut through steel, concrete, and any Quirk this world had to offer.

 

Vader stepped forward, the red light reflecting off his black mask.

 

"The weapon is complete," Vader said, his voice solemn. "And so is the boy. Kneel."

 

Izuku deactivated the lightsaber, the blade retracting with a harsh snikt. He dropped to one knee, bowing his head before the Dark Lord.

 

"You have cast aside the frailties of your past," Vader intoned, his heavy cape settling around him. "You have unlearned the lies of heroes and embraced the truth of power. You have survived the forge."

 

Vader drew his own lightsaber, igniting it. He held the glowing red blade mere inches from Izuku’s shoulder, knight-ing him in the tradition of the Sith.

 

"From this day forward, the boy who wept for a Quirk is dead. You are an agent of the Dark Side. You are my apprentice." Vader paused, the mechanical breathing filling the silence. "By what name shall the galaxy know your fear?"

 

Izuku kept his head bowed, but a dark, twisted smile crept onto his scarred face.

 

He thought of Kacchan. He thought of the word that had been carved into his desk, spat in his face, and used to define his worthlessness for a decade. The word meant 'useless.' It meant a wooden doll that couldn't do anything.

 

He would take that word. He would twist it, corrupt it, and carve it into the flesh of hero society until they wept at the sound of it.

 

Izuku looked up, his Sith yellow eyes burning with unholy conviction.

 

"Deku," he whispered, his voice cold and raspy from the months of screaming. "They called me Deku because I was nothing. Now, it will be the last word they hear."

 

Vader lowered his blade.

 

"Rise," the Dark Lord commanded. "Rise... Darth Deku."

 

Darth Deku stood. He hooked the crackling lightsaber to his belt. He looked out past the confines of the rusted beach, toward the glittering lights of Musutafu.

 

The heroes were sleeping. The Symbol of Peace was bleeding out in secret. The world believed it was safe.

 

They were wrong. The era of heroes was over. The Rule of Two had begun.

 

 

 

 

The Dagobah Municipal Beach Park was unrecognizable. Ten months ago, it had been a monument to societal decay, choked by thousands of tons of rusted iron, rotting rubber, and jagged glass. Today, the pristine white sand stretched endlessly toward the churning ocean.

 

It was not clean because Izuku Midoriya had performed an act of civic duty. It was clean because Darth Deku had required targets. Every refrigerator, every rusted sedan, every discarded I-beam had been telekinetically crushed into hyper-dense spheres of slag and hurled into the Marianas Trench, or violently atomized by the searing crimson arc of his lightsaber.

 

Izuku stood at the shoreline, the salty sea breeze whipping his dark, unkempt hair. He was fifteen years old, but his eyes belonged to a veteran of a thousand silent wars. The emerald innocence of his childhood had been burned away, leaving behind a chilling, pale yellow ring around his irises. Beneath his dark clothes, his torso and arms were a tapestry of burn scars and pale, healing tissue—the permanent receipts of Darth Vader’s brutal tutelage.

 

"The time of preparation has ended."

 

Vader’s mechanized voice cut through the sound of the crashing waves. The Sith Lord stood at the edge of the tree line, his black armor absorbing the morning light.

 

Izuku turned, his posture rigid, his hands resting naturally at his sides, mere inches from the cylindrical hilt clipped to his belt.

 

"The U.A. entrance exam begins in three hours," Vader stated, stepping out onto the sand. "You know your objective."

 

"Infiltration," Izuku replied, his voice calm, clipped, and devoid of its former nervous stammer. "I am to enter the belly of the beast. Map their security protocols, analyze the Quirks of the next generation, and, most importantly, discover the vulnerabilities of All Might."

 

"Do not underestimate them, apprentice," Vader warned, the heavy kooh-pah of his breathing acting as a metronome for the boy’s pounding heart. "They are complacent, yes. They are blinded by their own arrogance. But they are not defenseless. If they discover what you truly are before we are ready to strike, the combined weight of their 'Pro Heroes' could prove bothersome."

 

"They will not discover anything, Master," Izuku said, his lips curling into a microscopic smirk. "They see what they want to see. They categorize the universe into neat, biological boxes. I will give them a box they can comprehend."

 

"Your cover identity?"

 

"A dual-type Quirk mutation," Izuku recited perfectly. "Telekinesis and Plasma Generation. The telekinesis covers my command of the Force. The plasma generation covers the lightsaber, though I will use a restricted output to feign biological limitations."

 

"See that you do," Vader commanded. "Hide your hatred, Darth Deku. Bury it deep beneath a facade of obedience. Let them think you are one of them. Be the Trojan Horse that breaks their walls from the inside. And when the time is right, you will tear their world apart."

 

Izuku bowed deeply. "Yes, Master."

 

 

 

The towering, H-shaped structural glass of U.A. High School gleamed in the morning sun. To the thousands of teenagers swarming its gates, it was a golden palace. The holy grail. The birthplace of legends.

 

To Izuku, it was a slaughterhouse wearing a crown.

 

He walked through the gates with measured, silent steps. He wore his black middle school uniform, but he had removed the bright gold buttons, preferring the absolute darkness of the fabric. He did not gawk at the architecture. He did not tremble with excitement. He analyzed.

 

Security cameras at thirty-meter intervals, he noted mentally, his yellow eyes tracking the subtle movements of the lenses. Reinforced blast doors hidden within the archways. Weight-sensitive pressure plates beneath the cobblestones. Impressive, but entirely reliant on technology. A single localized EMP or a targeted Force crush to the central mainframe would render it all blind.

 

"Out of my way, extras!"

 

The loud, explosive bark echoed from behind him. Izuku didn't flinch, nor did he turn around immediately. He simply stopped walking.

 

Katsuki Bakugo stomped up the pathway, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his face twisted into its perpetual scowl of superiority. He shoved past a group of trembling applicants, parting the crowd through sheer intimidation.

 

Then, Bakugo’s red eyes locked onto the back of Izuku’s head.

 

Bakugo froze. Ten months had passed since the sludge villain incident. Ten months since Deku had vanished from Aldera Junior High, presumed to be a runaway, or worse.

 

"Deku?" Bakugo’s voice cracked, a rare betrayal of his internal shock.

 

Izuku turned his head slowly, looking over his shoulder.

 

When their eyes met, Bakugo felt an instinctual, primal shudder run down his spine. The boy looking back at him was not the weeping, pathetic nerd he had tormented for a decade. The wide, tearful green eyes were gone, replaced by dead, predatory gold. The trembling posture was replaced by a stillness so absolute it looked unnatural, like a coiled viper waiting to strike.

 

Izuku didn't say a word. He merely stared at Bakugo for three agonizing seconds, dissecting the explosive boy with a look of utter, chilling indifference.

 

Then, Izuku turned his head forward and continued walking, leaving Bakugo rooted to the spot, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.

 

What the hell was that? Bakugo thought, his hands twitching. Why did I just feel like I was going to die?

 

Inside the massive auditorium, Pro Hero Present Mic delivered his booming, flamboyant explanation of the practical exam. Destroy the villains—robots worth one, two, or three points—and avoid the Zero Pointer obstacle.

 

Izuku sat in the darkness of the seating area, his arms crossed. He ignored the frantic note-taking of the other applicants. He ignored the tall, blue-haired boy—Tenya Iida—who stood up to obnoxiously interrupt the presentation and berate Izuku for simply sitting too still. Izuku had merely looked at Iida, projecting a microscopic wave of dark Force energy that caused the blue-haired boy’s vocal cords to seize up in sudden, inexplicable terror, forcing him to sit back down in a cold sweat.

 

When the applicants were bused to Battle Center B, the sheer scale of the mock city impressed Izuku, if only for the absurd waste of municipal funding.

 

He stood at the back of the crowd of applicants, who were stretching, slapping their cheeks, and hyping themselves up.

 

"START!" Present Mic’s voice boomed from the watchtower.

 

The other applicants hesitated, waiting for a countdown. Izuku did not.

 

He moved. But he did not run like a mortal. He called upon the Force, wrapping the dark energy around his muscles, defying gravity and friction. He blurred forward, a streak of black against the gray concrete, leaving a wake of displaced air that blew the other applicants off their feet.

 

"Hey! No countdowns in a real battle!" Present Mic yelled over the speakers. "Follow the kid in black!"

 

By the time the other applicants crossed the threshold, Izuku was already three blocks deep into the mock city.

 

Three One-Point robots rolled around the corner, their optic sensors flashing red as they locked onto him. "TARGET ACQUIRED."

 

Izuku didn't break his stride. He raised his right hand, extending his index and middle fingers. He didn't picture a Quirk. He commanded reality.

 

Crush.

 

With a sickening screech of tearing metal, the central chassis of all three robots imploded simultaneously, as if caught in the grip of an invisible giant. Sparks showered the alleyway as their internal batteries ruptured. They dropped to the pavement, dead.

 

Three points. Two seconds.

 

Izuku turned the corner, entering a main plaza. A group of Two-Pointers and Three-Pointers were engaging a group of applicants.

 

Izuku unclipped the cylindrical hilt from his belt. He had spent hours modifying his lightsaber for this exact scenario. He had introduced a secondary focusing crystal, one that severely throttled the plasma output and masked its true nature.

 

He pressed the ignition stud.

 

Snap-hiss.

 

A blade of pale, flickering red plasma shot forth. It looked less like the focused, lethal beam of a Sith, and more like a jagged, volatile construct of pure heat.

 

He leapt into the air, clearing thirty feet in a single bound. He landed directly on the shoulders of a massive Three-Pointer. Before the machine’s sensors could register his presence, Izuku drove the pale red blade straight down through its cranial armor, melting through the titanium plating and severing its central processor.

 

He backflipped off the falling chassis, throwing his left hand out. A concussive wave of Force energy blasted outward, lifting two approaching Two-Pointers off their treads and hurling them through the plate-glass window of a mock storefront.

 

The other applicants stopped and stared in absolute awe.

 

"What... what kind of Quirk is that?" a boy with hardened red hair gasped. "He's destroying them without even touching them, and he has a laser sword?!"

 

Izuku ignored them. He was a scythe cutting through wheat. In seven minutes, he amassed eighty-four points. It was mathematically sufficient. He deactivated his weapon and began to walk calmly down the center of the street, waiting for the timer to expire.

 

Then, the ground began to shake.

 

The asphalt cracked. The mock buildings trembled. From the center of the city rose a mechanical titan, towering hundreds of feet into the air. The Zero Pointer.

 

The applicants screamed, turning on their heels and fleeing in blind panic.

 

Izuku stood still, tilting his head. A massive, lumbering target. Vulnerable joints. A glaringly exposed power core in its chest. I could dismantle it in three seconds.

 

He decided against it. It was worth zero points. Striking it would draw too much attention to his upper limits.

 

He turned to walk away.

 

"Ow! Help!"

 

Izuku paused. Beneath the rubble of a collapsed building, a girl with a round face and short brown hair was trapped, her leg pinned by a massive slab of concrete. The Zero Pointer was rolling forward, its massive treads threatening to crush her into paste.

 

Izuku’s yellow eyes narrowed. The Light Side, the pathetic remnants of Izuku Midoriya, urged him to save her because it was the right thing to do.

 

Darth Deku silenced that voice instantly. He viewed the situation through the lens of a Sith.

 

Vader said to be a Trojan Horse. To infiltrate, I must be perceived as a hero. Heroes perform illogical acts of self-sacrifice. Furthermore, if I save her, I create a psychological debt. A pawn who owes me her life is a useful pawn to have inside the classroom.

 

Izuku moved.

 

He engaged Force Speed, blurring across the street. He didn't leap at the robot. He stopped right beside the trapped girl, Uraraka.

 

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "Please... I can't move."

 

Izuku didn't look at her. He looked up at the descending tread of the giant robot. He raised his right hand, palm facing the sky.

 

In the observation room, the Pro Heroes leaned forward, holding their breath.

 

"He's not running!" Midnight gasped.

 

"Is he going to try and catch it?!" Snipe yelled. "That's hundreds of tons!"

 

Izuku closed his eyes and channeled his hatred. He thought of the sludge villain. He thought of his weakness. He commanded the Force.

 

The massive, crushing tread of the Zero Pointer slammed down—and stopped entirely, three feet above Izuku’s outstretched hand.

 

The sheer kinetic force of the sudden stop caused the air to crack like thunder. The shockwave shattered the remaining glass in the street.

 

Izuku’s boots dug deep into the asphalt. His muscles strained, the fabric of his sleeves tearing from the bulging tension. He was holding up hundreds of tons of metal using pure, invisible telekinetic force.

 

Uraraka stared in absolute disbelief.

 

With a guttural snarl, Izuku swept his arm to the side.

 

The Force moved with him. The entire leg of the Zero Pointer was violently shoved to the right. The titan lost its balance. Its internal gyroscopes squealed in protest as the massive machine toppled sideways, crashing into a row of mock buildings with an earth-shattering explosion of fire and debris.

 

Silence fell over Battle Center B.

 

Izuku lowered his hand. He looked down at the concrete slab trapping Uraraka's leg. With a flick of his wrist, the two-ton slab flew into the air, landing gently twenty feet away.

 

He didn't offer her a hand up. He didn't ask if she was okay. He simply turned around and walked away as the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the exam.

 

 

 

A week later, the acceptance letter arrived.

 

Izuku sat in his dark, spartan room within the abandoned TIE fighter on the beach. He crushed the small metal disc, projecting the hologram against the rusted wall.

 

"I AM HERE AS A PROJECTION!"

 

All Might’s booming voice filled the small space. The golden hero wore a yellow suit, smiling his infuriating, blinding smile.

 

Izuku’s jaw clenched. The air in the room grew freezing cold.

 

All Might explained the scoring system. Izuku had scored 84 villain points. But the exam had a hidden metric: Rescue Points. For saving Uraraka, he was awarded an additional 60 points.

 

"A total of 144 points!" All Might cheered. "You shattered the previous record, Young Midoriya! Welcome! This is your Hero Academia!"

 

Izuku stared at the hologram. The hypocrisy was nauseating. The man who had told him on a rooftop that he was useless without a Quirk was now cheering for him, utterly blind to the fact that it was the very same boy.

 

Izuku reached out with the Force. The metal disc projecting the hologram crumpled violently, imploding into a spark-spitting lump of crushed circuitry. The hologram vanished.

 

"Fools," Izuku whispered into the darkness.

 

 

 

The first day of class at U.A. High.

 

Class 1-A was a cacophony of adolescent energy. Tenya Iida was chopping his arms aggressively, yelling at Katsuki Bakugo to take his feet off the desk. Bakugo was sneering, threatening to blow Iida to pieces. Uraraka was chatting happily with a boy with green hair—wait, no, that was someone else.

 

The massive door slid open.

 

The chatter died instantly as Izuku Midoriya stepped into the room.

 

He wore the standard U.A. uniform, but on him, it looked wrong. He wore it with the rigid, immaculate precision of a military officer. His posture was brutally straight, his expression cold and dead.

 

Bakugo’s feet slowly slid off his desk. The explosive boy’s red eyes widened. It wasn't a trick of the light at the entrance exam. It was real. Deku was here.

 

"Midoriya!" Iida marched over, adjusting his glasses. "I must apologize for my behavior at the orientation! I did not realize you had perceived the true nature of the practical exam—"

 

Izuku walked right past Iida, ignoring him completely. He found a seat near the back, by the window, and sat down in silence.

 

The absolute disrespect left Iida stammering.

 

Bakugo’s hands sparked. The sheer cognitive dissonance was tearing his brain apart. Deku was Quirkless. Deku was a pebble on the side of the road. How did he pass the exam? How did he get in here? Why wasn't he cowering?

 

"Hey," Bakugo growled, standing up from his desk. The classroom temperature seemed to drop. "Hey, you damn nerd. Look at me."

 

Izuku did not look at him. He stared out the window.

 

Bakugo snapped. Years of unchallenged superiority boiled over into blind, unthinking rage. "I SAID LOOK AT ME, DEKU!"

 

Bakugo lunged across the aisle, his right hand crackling with a massive, explosive charge, aimed directly at Izuku’s face.

 

The attack never landed.

 

Izuku didn't even turn his head. He simply raised his left hand, thumb and forefinger extended, and performed a slight pinching motion in the air.

 

CRACK.

 

Bakugo’s forward momentum was halted so violently his spine arched backward. The explosive boy let out a wet, strangled gasp as his feet left the floor. He hovered two feet in the air, suspended by an invisible, unbreakable vice wrapped tightly around his throat.

 

The class erupted into screams.

 

"Bakugo!" Kirishima yelled, jumping up.

 

Izuku finally turned his head. His yellow-ringed eyes locked onto Bakugo’s terrified, bulging red ones.

 

"You are loud," Izuku said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. It wasn't an insult; it was a cold observation of a nuisance.

 

Bakugo clawed desperately at his own throat, drawing blood from his neck, but there was nothing physical to grab. He aimed his palms at Izuku, trying to fire an explosion to break the hold.

 

Izuku simply twitched his wrist. The Force wrenched Bakugo’s arms wide open, locking them entirely in place, spread-eagled in the air. Bakugo’s face turned purple. His eyes rolled back in his head. The most aggressive, dominant boy in the school was being treated like an insect pinned to a corkboard.

 

"Midoriya! Release him at once! This is villainous behavior!" Iida shouted, rushing forward.

 

"What the hell is going on here?"

 

A tired, raspy voice cut through the panic.

 

Standing in the doorway was Shota Aizawa, Eraserhead. His eyes were glowing a bright, furious red, his hair floating around his head as his Quirk activated. He stared directly at Izuku, employing his Erasure Quirk to shut down the boy's telekinesis.

 

Izuku felt a strange, cold tingle wash over his body. It felt as though someone had thrown a damp blanket over him. But the Force was not a Quirk. It was not housed in his DNA. It was everywhere. It was in the walls, the air, the very atoms of the classroom.

 

Aizawa’s Quirk had absolutely no effect.

 

Izuku held Bakugo in the air for three more agonizing seconds, ensuring Aizawa and the rest of the class fully understood the power dynamic. Then, with a casual sigh, Izuku opened his hand.

 

Bakugo collapsed to the floor in a heap, coughing violently, hacking up spit as he scrambled backward away from Izuku’s desk.

 

Aizawa’s eyes widened, though he quickly masked it behind his scruffy scarf.

 

My Quirk is active, Aizawa thought, his mind racing. I'm looking right at him. His Quirk factor should be suppressed. But he held the hold. How? Is it a mutation type? No, he's manipulating gravity or space. What the hell is this kid?

 

Aizawa blinked, his hair falling back to his shoulders. "Enough," he growled. "Put these on and head out to the P.E. grounds. We're doing a Quirk Apprehension Test."

 

 

 

The P.E. grounds were bathed in sunlight. Class 1-A stood in a line, watching as Aizawa explained that whoever placed last in the physical fitness tests would be expelled.

 

Izuku felt a flicker of genuine amusement. Expulsion as a motivational tool. Crude, but effective. Still, this man lacks true conviction.

 

"Midoriya," Aizawa called out, tossing a softball to him. "You placed first in the practical exam. What was your farthest throw in middle school?"

 

Izuku caught the ball. "Sixty-seven meters."

 

"Try doing it with your Quirk," Aizawa instructed, pointing to the throwing circle. "Anything goes, as long as you stay in the circle."

 

Izuku stepped into the ring. He felt the eyes of the entire class boring into his back. He felt Bakugo’s seething, terrified hatred. He felt Aizawa’s deep, analytical suspicion.

 

I need to establish dominance without revealing my full hand, Izuku calculated.

 

He didn't wind up. He didn't adopt a throwing stance. He simply held the ball out in front of him, opened his hand, and let it fall.

 

Before the ball could hit the dirt, Izuku violently thrust his palm forward.

 

BOOM.

 

The air shattered. A concentrated, localized blast of telekinetic Force hit the softball. The ball didn't just fly; it was launched at hypersonic speeds. A massive shockwave kicked up a cloud of dust, blowing the hair back off the other students' faces. The ball vanished into the sky, leaving a faint trail of displaced air in its wake.

 

The machine in Aizawa’s hand beeped.

 

Aizawa stared at the screen. He turned it around for the class to see.

 

Infinity.

 

"Infinity?!" the class screamed in unison.

 

"He propelled it with a continuous wave of telekinesis," Aizawa explained, though his eyes never left Izuku. "It will not stop moving until it leaves the atmosphere."

 

Izuku turned around, his face a mask of stone. He walked past Bakugo, making sure to brush his shoulder aggressively against the blonde boy’s. Bakugo flinched, biting his lip so hard it bled, completely paralyzed by the realization that the hierarchy of his entire life had been a lie.

 

The rest of the tests were a dark comedy.

 

Fifty-meter dash? Izuku used Force Speed, crossing the finish line in 1.1 seconds, moving so fast the cameras merely caught a black blur.

 

Grip strength? Izuku didn't just squeeze the machine; he used the Force to crush the internal titanium spring into powder, destroying the device entirely.

 

Repeated side steps? He hovered two inches off the ground, bouncing side to side with frictionless, impossible speed.

 

By the end of the tests, Izuku stood effortlessly at first place. He didn't sweat. He didn't breathe heavily. He looked bored.

 

Aizawa dismissed the class, noting that the expulsion threat was a logical ruse. But as Izuku walked away, Aizawa’s gaze burned into the back of the boy’s head.

 

He's lying, Aizawa thought, pulling his scarf up over his mouth. He didn't use a Quirk. I tried to erase it during the fifty-meter dash, and he didn't even slow down. He's operating outside the biological laws of Quirks entirely. Who the hell trained you, Midoriya?

 

 

 

Lunchtime at U.A. was a bustling, chaotic affair in the massive cafeteria. Izuku sat at a corner table, chewing his rice methodically. He did not care for the food; it was ash in his mouth compared to the nutrient paste of his training, but he needed the calories.

 

"Um, excuse me? Midoriya?"

 

Izuku looked up. It was Uraraka, accompanied by Iida.

 

"Can we sit here?" she asked nervously.

 

Pawns, Izuku thought. "If you wish."

 

They sat. Uraraka smiled warmly at him. "I never properly thanked you for saving me during the exam. If it wasn't for you, I would have been crushed. You were amazing!"

 

"I acted because it was required," Izuku said coldly, not making eye contact.

 

Iida chopped his hand on the table. "Nonsense! It was a true act of heroism! Though, your behavior toward Bakugo this morning was highly concerning. A hero should not use their Quirk to suffocate a classmate, regardless of provocation!"

 

Izuku stopped chewing. He placed his chopsticks down on his tray perfectly parallel to each other. He looked at Iida.

 

"A hero," Izuku said softly, the dark side bleeding slightly into his tone. "Define a hero, Iida."

 

Iida blinked, taken aback. "A hero is one who upholds the law, protects the innocent, and maintains peace in society!"

 

"A hero is a state-sponsored mercenary," Izuku countered smoothly, leaning forward. "They are given a license to inflict violence upon those society deems 'villains'. But who draws the line? The laws you worship are written by politicians who require the illusion of danger to maintain their power."

 

Uraraka looked uncomfortable. "That's a bit dark, don't you think? Heroes save people because they want to help!"

 

"Do they?" Izuku turned his piercing yellow eyes to her. Vader had taught him how to read a person’s deepest insecurities through the Force. He felt Uraraka’s anxiety about money. "Why do you want to be a hero, Uraraka? For justice? Or for a paycheck so your parents can stop struggling in poverty?"

 

Uraraka gasped, her face flushing crimson. "How... how do you know about my parents?"

 

"It is obvious," Izuku lied effortlessly. "Your shoes are older models, meticulously repaired. You speak of heroism with the desperate pragmatism of someone who needs the financial stability it brings. There is no shame in it. But do not dress your financial desperation up in the noble cloak of 'peacekeeping'."

 

Iida was appalled. "Midoriya! That is highly disrespectful!"

 

Izuku stood up, picking up his tray. "Respect is earned, Iida. Not given freely because you wear a badge. This society is fundamentally broken. It worships flashy powers and ignores the rot beneath the floorboards. Until absolute order is established, you are all just children playing dress-up."

 

He walked away, leaving the two students in stunned, heavy silence.

 

As Izuku walked toward the disposal bin, he felt a sudden, sharp chill in the Force. A deep, simmering well of suppressed anger and resentment.

 

He glanced to his left. Sitting alone at a table was Shoto Todoroki. The boy with half-white, half-red hair.

 

Izuku’s eyes lingered on the burn scar covering the left side of Todoroki’s face. He reached out with the Force, brushing against the boy’s mind.

 

Hatred. Disgust. A vow to reject half of his own soul to spite his creator.

 

Izuku smiled, a small, terrifying shift of his lips.

 

Endeavor’s masterpiece, Izuku thought. A boy created solely to surpass All Might, broken by the very hero who birthed him.

 

Izuku walked over to Todoroki’s table and stopped, holding his tray. Todoroki didn't look up from his cold soba.

 

"Your fire is angry," Izuku said quietly.

 

Todoroki froze, his heterochromic eyes snapping up to meet Izuku’s.

 

"I don't use my fire," Todoroki said coldly. "It belongs to him."

 

"It belongs to you," Izuku corrected, his voice a hypnotic, dark whisper. "But you suppress it because you believe that denying your power is a punishment to the man who abused you. It isn't. It is only a punishment to yourself."

 

Todoroki’s left side ignited slightly, steam rising from his uniform. "You don't know anything about me, Midoriya."

 

"I know that the Number Two hero in the world acts like a villain behind closed doors," Izuku leaned in closer. "I know that Hero Society looks the other way because he catches muggers and signs autographs. The system you are training to protect is the same system that allowed your mother to be broken."

 

Todoroki’s breath hitched. His eyes widened in absolute shock.

 

Izuku pulled back, his face returning to its mask of stone.

 

"Think about it, Todoroki," Izuku said, turning to walk away. "Why protect a world that allows monsters to wear capes? When the time comes, perhaps you will realize that this world doesn't need to be saved. It needs to be conquered."

 

Izuku walked out of the cafeteria, slipping into the shadows of the hallway.

 

The infiltration was successful. The seeds of doubt had been planted in the strongest minds of the next generation. The foundation of U.A. High School was beginning to crack, and they didn't even know it yet.

 

Darth Deku smiled in the darkness. The real fun was about to begin.

 

 

 

 

The bus ride to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint was supposed to be a field trip. To the students of Class 1-A, it was a thrilling excursion into the practical applications of their Quirks, a step closer to the glittering spotlight of professional heroism.

 

To Izuku Midoriya—Darth Deku—it was a ride to the slaughterhouse. He just didn't know yet who the cattle would be.

 

He sat near the back of the bus, his posture characteristically rigid, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore the standard U.A. P.E. uniform, though it felt restrictive, lacking the heavy, protective weave of his Sith tunic. He kept his eyes closed, ostensibly resting, but in truth, he was extending his senses into the ether. Through the Force, the bus was a cacophony of bright, unrefined biological noise. He could feel Bakugo’s simmering, terrified resentment radiating like a space heater. He could feel Todoroki’s icy, stoic suppression.

 

"Midoriya."

 

Izuku opened his eyes. The girl with the frog mutation, Tsuyu Asui, was leaning over the aisle, staring at him with unblinking, wide eyes.

 

"I say whatever comes to mind," Tsuyu croaked, tilting her head. "Your Quirk... it's telekinesis, right? But the way you use it feels... heavy. When you held Bakugo on the first day, the air in the room felt cold. It didn't feel like hero work. It felt like dying."

 

The chatter on the bus died down. Several students, including Kirishima and Uraraka, glanced over nervously. Bakugo, sitting two rows ahead, stiffened, though he refused to turn around.

 

Izuku met her gaze. His eyes, devoid of any warmth, stared straight through her.

 

"A Quirk is a tool, Asui," Izuku replied, his voice a calm, modulated monotone that sent a chill down the spines of everyone listening. "A scalpel can cure a disease or sever an artery. The tool does not care. It only matters whose hand holds it. If you felt death, perhaps you are simply unaccustomed to the reality of the violence you claim to want to police."

 

Kirishima let out a nervous laugh. "Man, Midoriya, you're always so intense! You talk like a veteran pro who's seen a hundred wars!"

 

"You have seen nothing," Izuku stated flatly, closing his eyes again. "And it shows."

 

The bus fell into an uneasy, heavy silence for the remainder of the trip.

 

When they arrived at the colossal, dome-shaped facility known as the USJ, the students' awe was palpable. The Space Hero, Thirteen, stood at the entrance in their bulky, astronaut-like suit, welcoming them.

 

As Thirteen delivered their impassioned speech about how Quirks could easily be used to kill, and how this facility was meant to teach them to use their powers to save lives, Izuku sneered internally.

 

Fools, Izuku thought, the dark side swirling in his chest. You build a multi-billion-yen facility to teach children restraint. You coddle them. Power is not meant to be restrained. It is meant to be harnessed, optimized, and unleashed upon the unworthy to forge order. You teach them to fear their own potential.

 

He felt it before anyone else did.

 

A ripple in the Force. It was dark, jagged, and smelled of ozone, decay, and unbridled chaos.

 

The lights inside the massive dome flickered. The electrical hum of the facility sputtered and died. Down in the central plaza, the water in the massive fountain suddenly cut off.

 

"Aizawa," Izuku said, his voice cutting through Thirteen’s speech like a knife.

 

Shota Aizawa turned, irritated by the interruption, but he stopped when he saw where Izuku was looking.

 

In the center of the plaza, a tear in reality had opened. It was a swirling vortex of deep purple and black mist, expanding rapidly into a massive gate.

 

"Gather together and don't move!" Aizawa yelled, his laid-back demeanor vanishing instantly as he pulled his capture goggles over his eyes. "Thirteen, protect the students!"

 

From the dark mist, a hand emerged. It was pale, sickly, and covered the face of a lanky man draped in black clothing. Behind him, dozens, then hundreds of figures began to pour out of the portal. Thugs, mutants, and deviants armed with weapons and malicious intent.

 

"Villains," Aizawa growled, his scarf rising like a nest of angry vipers. "No way could so many get into a U.A. facility this easily. They must have someone with a warping Quirk."

 

The students began to panic. "Villains?! No way! How did they get in?!"

 

Izuku did not panic. A slow, chilling breath escaped his lips. A dark, predatory euphoria blossomed in his chest.

 

Vader had told him to be a Trojan Horse. To observe and gather intel. But a Sith requires practical application. He needed to test his blade against flesh. He needed to see how the dregs of this world's criminal underworld fared against the absolute power of the Dark Side.

 

"Thirteen, begin the evacuation. Try calling the school," Aizawa ordered, leaping down the massive staircase toward the plaza. "I'm going in."

 

Before the students could even begin to run toward the exit doors, the purple mist expanded, appearing right in front of them, blocking the exit. The mist formed into a towering figure with glowing yellow eyes.

 

"Greetings," Kurogiri’s elegant, echoing voice boomed. "We are the League of Villains. Forgive our presumption, but we took it upon ourselves to enter the bastion of heroism to ask All Might, the Symbol of Peace, to draw his final breath. However, he does not seem to be here."

 

Bakugo and Kirishima roared, leaping forward with explosions and hardened fists to attack the mist, but their attacks passed through the incorporeal entity uselessly.

 

"My job is to scatter you all, and torture you to death!" Kurogiri announced.

 

The purple mist flared outward, moving faster than the students could react. It engulfed them in a dome of dark energy.

 

Izuku didn't try to dodge. He simply let the warp gate swallow him, closing his eyes and welcoming the descent into the abyss.

 

 

 

The transition was instantaneous.

 

Izuku found himself in free-fall, plummeting toward a massive, artificial lake. A heavily damaged mock-cruise ship floated in the center of the zone. Above him, he heard two distinct screams. Tsuyu Asui and Minoru Mineta were falling alongside him.

 

Izuku reached out with the Force. He didn't arrest his own momentum immediately; he calculated his trajectory. He extended his hand, wrapping an invisible, telekinetic net around Tsuyu and Mineta.

 

Instead of slamming into the water, the three of them were abruptly yanked sideways, gliding over the surface of the lake before being deposited roughly but safely onto the deck of the mock ship.

 

Mineta scrambled to the railing, hyperventilating. "Villains! Real villains! We're gonna die! We're just kids!"

 

Tsuyu looked around, her amphibious instincts on high alert. The water surrounding the ship was churning. "There are people in the water. Aquatic-type villains. They're surrounding us."

 

Izuku stood up slowly. He unclipped the heavy, cylindrical hilt of his lightsaber from his belt.

 

"They intend to sink the ship," Izuku deduced, his yellow eyes scanning the dark waters. "They believe we are trapped. They believe they have the advantage of terrain."

 

"What are we going to do, Midoriya?" Tsuyu asked, adopting a fighting stance. "If we go in the water, they'll have the upper hand."

 

"We do not go to them," Izuku said softly, his thumb resting over the ignition stud. "We invite them up."

 

Izuku walked to the edge of the ship. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. He felt the dozens of lifeforms in the water below. He felt their malicious glee, their confidence. It disgusted him. It was the arrogance of insects.

 

Izuku threw his left arm out over the railing, his fingers curling into a vicious claw.

 

He didn't target the villains. He targeted the lake.

 

With a deafening, groaning roar, the water in front of the ship erupted. Izuku commanded a massive, localized telekinetic displacement, forcing thousands of gallons of water upward. The geyser exploded into the air, violently dragging a dozen aquatic villains up with it.

 

The villains screamed as they were ripped from their element, suspended in the air.

 

Izuku pressed the ignition stud.

 

SNAP-HISS.

 

The crimson blade of plasma roared to life, casting a demonic red glow over the deck of the ship. The air instantly smelled of ozone and searing heat. Because he was no longer pretending for a camera, Izuku disabled the internal limiter. The blade thickened, crackling furiously with raw, unbridled dark energy.

 

Izuku leapt.

 

He used Force Speed, clearing the railing in a blur of black movement. He did not aim to apprehend. Vader had taught him that a wounded enemy returns; a dead enemy does not.

 

He collided with the suspended villains in mid-air.

 

The first villain, a man with shark-like scales, raised a spear. Izuku’s lightsaber sheared through the titanium shaft as if it were paper, continuing its arc through the man’s collarbone and exiting his ribcage. There was no blood. The plasma instantly cauterized the wound, sealing the horrific injury with burning, blackened flesh.

 

The villain's eyes rolled back, dead before he even hit the water.

 

Izuku twisted in mid-air, a dance of pure, mathematical violence. He parried a blast of pressurized water from another villain, using the Force to redirect it into a third thug's chest, caving in their sternum.

 

He landed on a piece of floating debris. A mutant with crab-like claws lunged at him from behind. Izuku didn't even look. He thrust the lightsaber backward, impaling the villain through the abdomen. He pulled the blade free with a sickening hiss of boiling fluids.

 

Tsuyu and Mineta watched from the deck in absolute, paralyzed horror.

 

This was not hero work. This was a slaughter.

 

Izuku moved like a phantom, skipping across the water by using the Force to create micro-platforms beneath his boots. Every swing of his crimson blade resulted in a severed limb, a cauterized torso, or a decapitation. The villains, who had approached with the confidence of predators, were reduced to screaming, panicking prey.

 

"Monster!" one of the villains shrieked, trying to swim away. "He's a monster!"

 

Izuku extended his hand. The fleeing villain was violently yanked backward out of the water, flying through the air directly toward Izuku. The Sith apprentice merely held his lightsaber out, letting the villain’s own forced momentum impale him upon the burning red blade.

 

Izuku deactivated his weapon, letting the smoking corpse fall into the water.

 

The lake was quiet. Fifteen villains were dead or irreparably maimed.

 

Izuku leapt back up to the deck of the ship, landing silently. He did not look winded. He merely clipped the hilt back to his belt.

 

Mineta was sobbing uncontrollably, backing away until his back hit the bulkhead. "You... you killed them! You cut them to pieces! Heroes don't kill!"

 

Tsuyu was trembling, holding her arms tightly across her chest. "Midoriya... what are you? That wasn't self-defense. You executed them."

 

Izuku turned his glowing yellow eyes toward them. The remnants of the dark side still radiated from his skin, making the air around him feel like the inside of a freezer.

 

"I brought order," Izuku stated coldly. "They came here to murder children. They possessed power, but no discipline. Weakness invites chaos, Asui. If a dog contracts rabies and tries to bite you, you do not lock it in a cage and hope it rehabilitates. You put it down. It is the only logical conclusion."

 

"But the law—" Tsuyu stammered.

 

"The law is a fairy tale written by cowards," Izuku interrupted, his voice echoing with absolute authority. "When the Symbol of Peace falls, your laws will burn. I suggest you adapt, or you will end up like the rabid dogs."

 

He didn't wait for a response. Izuku turned toward the central plaza. Through the Force, he felt a massive, terrifying void of energy near the fountain. Something unnatural was down there. Something that felt like death.

 

Izuku leapt off the ship, bounding across the water toward the shore.

 

 

 

The central plaza was a warzone.

 

Shota Aizawa was a broken, bloody mess. He was pinned to the concrete beneath a hulking, abhorrent monstrosity. It was a giant, muscular beast with black skin, an exposed, throbbing brain, and eyes that rolled mindlessly in its skull. The Nomu.

 

The creature grabbed Aizawa’s arm and snapped it like a dry twig. Aizawa screamed, blood pouring from his mouth.

 

Standing a few yards away was the man covered in hands—Tomura Shigaraki. He was scratching his neck raw, muttering in frustration.

 

"He's not here," Shigaraki rasped. "All Might really isn't here. Maybe if we kill a few of his precious students, he'll show up."

 

Shigaraki turned his head. Emerging from the water of the shipwreck zone was Tsuyu, carrying a weeping Mineta.

 

Shigaraki smiled beneath the hand covering his face. He moved with startling speed, closing the distance between himself and the two students in the blink of an eye. He reached out, his five fingers aiming squarely for Tsuyu’s face.

 

Tsuyu froze. Aizawa, pinned and broken, desperately tried to lift his head to erase Shigaraki’s Quirk, but the Nomu smashed his face into the concrete.

 

"Game over," Shigaraki whispered.

 

But his hand never touched her.

 

An inch from Tsuyu’s skin, Shigaraki’s arm violently stopped. It wasn't blocked. It was as if his arm had been encased in invisible, hardened steel.

 

"What?" Shigaraki grunted, trying to push forward. He couldn't move his arm a single millimeter.

 

From the shadows of the plaza, a rhythmic, purposeful footstep echoed.

 

"Your understanding of power is infantile."

 

Shigaraki slowly turned his head.

 

Izuku Midoriya walked into the light of the plaza. He had one hand outstretched, fingers curled in a tight grip. He was utilizing Force Stasis, entirely freezing Shigaraki’s arm in space and time.

 

"A student?" Shigaraki scratched his neck with his free hand. "Nomu. Kill him."

 

The Nomu released Aizawa, letting the broken hero slump to the ground. The beast turned its mindless gaze toward Izuku and screeched.

 

It moved with speed that defied its massive bulk, launching itself at Izuku like a missile. The concrete beneath its feet shattered from the force of its launch.

 

Tsuyu screamed. "Midoriya, run! It's too fast!"

 

Izuku did not run. He closed his eyes.

 

The Force allows me to see things before they happen, Vader’s voice echoed in his memory. Trust in it. Your eyes can be deceived. The Force is absolute.

 

To Izuku, the world slowed to a crawl. He felt the Nomu’s intent before the beast’s muscles even contracted. He felt the displaced air. He mapped the trajectory of its gargantuan fist.

 

Izuku casually sidestepped to the left, exactly one inch out of the path of destruction.

 

The Nomu’s fist slammed into the ground where Izuku had just been standing, creating a massive crater that kicked up a localized hurricane of dust.

 

Before the beast could recover its posture, Izuku drew his lightsaber and ignited it.

 

The crimson blade flashed. Izuku brought it down in a brutal, two-handed arc, aiming for the Nomu’s extended arm.

 

The lightsaber met the Nomu’s flesh.

 

Shigaraki smirked. "Idiot! Nomu has Shock Absorption! Physical attacks don't—"

 

Shigaraki’s voice died in his throat.

 

A lightsaber is not a punch. It is not kinetic force. It is a blade of magnetically contained plasma burning at tens of thousands of degrees. Shock Absorption was designed to mitigate blunt force trauma. It offered absolutely zero protection against localized, apocalyptic heat.

 

The crimson blade melted through the Nomu’s bicep with zero resistance.

 

The beast let out a horrific, ear-piercing shriek as its right arm was completely severed from its body, the stump instantly cauterized by the blade.

 

Izuku spun, using the momentum of his strike to deliver a telekinetic Force Push directly into the Nomu’s exposed chest. The beast was launched backward, crashing into the brickwork of the fountain.

 

Shigaraki stared in disbelief. "What... what kind of Quirk is that? He just cut through the anti-Symbol of Peace like butter!"

 

The Nomu stood up. Smoke poured from its cauterized stump. Then, with sickening, wet tearing sounds, muscle fibers and bone began to violently push out of the blackened flesh. In seconds, a brand new, fully functional arm had grown back.

 

Izuku’s yellow eyes narrowed. Super Regeneration. A biological impossibility designed in a laboratory.

 

"He's a hacked character!" Shigaraki laughed manically. "You can cut him all you want, kid! He'll just keep coming back! Nomu, crush him!"

 

The Nomu charged again.

 

Izuku fell into the heavy, aggressive stance of Form V. If it regenerates, he would simply have to cut it into pieces too small to regrow.

 

The clash was titanic. The Nomu rained down blows that could shatter buildings. Izuku wove through the attacks like a phantom, guided by Force precognition. Every time the Nomu swung, Izuku severed a limb. He cut off its left leg; it regenerated. He sliced its abdomen wide open; the organs knitted themselves back together in seconds.

 

The plaza was illuminated by the relentless, demonic flashing of the red plasma blade. The air grew thick with the smell of boiling blood, ozone, and burnt meat. Izuku was locked in a gruesome, perpetual loop of violence, a meat grinder of his own design.

 

He parried a punch, severing the hand, ducked a sweeping kick, and drove the lightsaber straight through the Nomu’s chest, aiming for the heart.

 

The Nomu didn't flinch. It used its remaining arm to backhand Izuku.

 

The blow caught Izuku in the ribs. Even though he instinctively threw up a Force barrier to absorb the brunt of it, the sheer, All Might-level strength behind the strike launched Izuku backward. He tumbled across the concrete, grunting as he felt a rib crack.

 

He flipped gracefully back to his feet, holding his ribs. He deactivated the lightsaber, breathing heavily. The Nomu pulled the cauterized hole in its chest closed, entirely unfazed.

 

A battle of attrition, Izuku calculated. It feels no pain. It does not tire. My stamina is finite.

 

"Checkmate," Shigaraki gloated.

 

Before the Nomu could charge again, the massive steel doors at the entrance of the USJ exploded inward.

 

The sheer concussive force of the entry stopped the fighting dead in its tracks.

 

Standing in the dust cloud was a towering, heavily muscled silhouette.

 

"Fear not," a voice boomed, completely devoid of its usual joyful resonance. It was a voice filled with absolute, primal rage. "Because I am here."

 

All Might stood at the top of the stairs. He wore his white dress shirt, his golden hair standing on end. He was not smiling.

 

In the blink of an eye, All Might was in the plaza. He grabbed Aizawa, scooped up Tsuyu and Mineta, and moved them to the edge of the fountain.

 

Then, All Might turned to face the villains.

 

But as the Symbol of Peace looked toward the Nomu, his glowing blue eyes locked onto the figure standing directly in front of the beast.

 

Izuku Midoriya.

 

All Might froze. The raging aura surrounding the hero faltered for a fraction of a second.

 

He recognized the wild, dark hair. He recognized the boy who had clung to his leg in desperation. The boy who had cried on the rooftop, begging for a chance to be a hero.

 

But the boy was gone. In his place stood a predator.

 

Izuku was covered in soot and the Nomu’s boiling blood. He held a silver cylinder in his hand, and his eyes... they were not the eyes of an innocent child. They were a sickly, piercing yellow, burning with a hatred so profound it made All Might’s breath catch in his throat.

 

"Young... Midoriya?" All Might whispered, the words barely audible.

 

Izuku looked at the Symbol of Peace. He felt the hero's confusion, his guilt, and his shock.

 

Izuku smiled. It was a chilling, cruel expression.

 

He pressed the ignition stud on his lightsaber. The crimson blade hissed to life, painting Izuku’s scarred face in demonic red light.

 

"You are late," Izuku mocked, his voice cold and commanding. "The society you claim to protect is already bleeding out on the floor. Look at what your 'peace' has invited."

 

All Might’s mind reeled. What is that weapon? Why are his eyes like that? The aura around him... it feels like evil incarnate. What happened to him?

 

"Nomu! Kill the Symbol of Peace!" Shigaraki shrieked.

 

The Nomu bypassed Izuku entirely, launching itself at All Might.

 

All Might instinctively pulled back a massive fist. "Carolina Smash!"

 

The two titans collided. The shockwave of their fists meeting tore the concrete plaza to shreds, creating a localized tornado that blew Shigaraki and the remaining villains backward.

 

Izuku stood at the edge of the crater, using the Force to anchor himself to the ground as the hurricane winds tore at his clothes. He watched clinically as All Might and the Nomu traded blows at speeds that broke the sound barrier.

 

"He's getting weaker," Izuku muttered, his yellow eyes tracking All Might’s movements. "His injury is acting up. The beast is matching him blow for blow."

 

All Might grabbed the Nomu by the waist, leaping high into the air and performing a devastating suplex, slamming the beast head-first into the concrete. But the Nomu had dragged All Might into a portal created by Kurogiri, locking its regenerative fingers deep into All Might’s bloody side—right over his weak spot.

 

All Might grunted in agony, blood spilling from his mouth.

 

"He's trapped!" Shigaraki cackled.

 

Izuku took a step forward, his thumb resting on his lightsaber. If he intervened now, he could sever the Nomu's arms again and free All Might. He could maintain his cover as a hero student.

 

But suddenly, the air pressure in the USJ didn't just drop. It collapsed.

 

The temperature plummeted below freezing. The fighting stopped. All Might, the Nomu, Shigaraki, and the students watching from afar all froze.

 

It felt as though a massive, invisible hand was pressing down on the chest of every living soul in the building. It was a terror so absolute, so suffocating, that even the mindless Nomu whimpered.

 

Izuku clipped his lightsaber to his belt and immediately dropped to one knee, bowing his head.

 

"No..." All Might gasped, looking up toward the ceiling.

 

The glass dome of the USJ ceiling began to groan. The metal struts warped and twisted under the strain of an unimaginable, invisible force.

 

With a deafening explosion of shattered glass and groaning steel, a massive fifty-foot section of the roof was violently torn away, hurled into the sky like a discarded toy.

 

Through the gaping hole in the roof, a figure descended.

 

He did not fall. He drifted down slowly, carried by the invisible currents of the dark side. His heavy black cape billowed around his massive, armored frame.

 

He touched down in the center of the plaza with a heavy, metallic thud that echoed like a death knell.

 

Kooh... pah.

 

Kooh... pah.

 

Darth Vader stood amidst the ruins of the USJ.

 

Shigaraki stepped back, scratching his neck so hard he drew blood. "Who the hell is the final boss?! Kurogiri, who is that?!"

 

"I... I do not know," Kurogiri stuttered, his misty form trembling. "But the pressure... it is suffocating."

 

All Might ripped himself free from the Nomu’s grip, clutching his bleeding side. He stared at the black-armored titan, feeling a profound sense of dread that he had not felt since his battle with All For One.

 

Vader slowly turned his masked head, surveying the broken heroes, the pathetic villains, and the kneeling boy.

 

"You play in the mud," Vader’s synthesized baritone rumbled, the sound vibrating in the bones of everyone present. "You call yourselves villains. You call yourselves heroes. You are all nothing more than insects fighting over scraps."

 

Vader raised a single, black-gloved hand toward the Nomu.

 

"Let me show you," the Dark Lord of the Sith declared, "true power."