What if deku was an immortal with Regenerative Abilities

Death, Izuku Midoriya learned at the tender age of four, was not a final destination. It was merely a doorway he was repeatedly forced to walk through, only to be violently shoved back out.

The day he discovered his Quirk was a Tuesday. The sky was the color of bruised plums, threatening rain over the neighborhood playground. Kacchan—Katsuki Bakugo—was leading their usual expedition across the highest peaks of the jungle gym. Izuku, as always, trailed slightly behind, his small hands slick with sweat against the chilled, rusted metal bars.

"Hurry up, Deku!" Katsuki shouted from the top platform, sparks popping harmlessly from his palms, a recent manifestation of his explosive Quirk that had cemented his status as the undisputed king of their playground. "If you fall behind, the lava gets you!"

"I'm coming, Kacchan!" Izuku squeaked, pushing his short legs faster.

He reached for the final rung. His fingers slipped. 

Time seemed to dilate, stretching into a sickening crawl. Izuku saw Katsuki’s red eyes widen in sudden, genuine terror. He saw the sky spin above him. Then, gravity asserted its cruel dominion. Izuku fell from a height that, for a four-year-old, was catastrophic. 

He struck the hard, packed earth of the playground with a sound that would haunt Katsuki Bakugo for the rest of his life: a wet, heavy crack. 

Izuku’s neck had snapped on impact. His spine fractured in three places. The darkness that swallowed him was absolute and instantaneous. He didn't feel the pain, at least not initially. He just ceased to be.

The playground fell into a horrifying, dead silence. The other children froze. Katsuki stood at the top of the jungle gym, his breath catching in his throat, his small hands trembling. "Deku?" he whispered.

Below, the broken boy did not move.

But then, the air around Izuku’s body began to shimmer. A low, hissing sound echoed across the playground, like water being poured over searing hot coals. Plumes of thick, white steam erupted from Izuku’s skin, obscuring his small, twisted frame. 

Within the steam, something horrific and miraculous was happening. Deep inside Izuku's body, his cells went into a violent, hyper-active state of overdrive. The shattered vertebrae fused back together, bone knitting to bone with audible, sickening clicks. Torn ligaments reattached like snapping rubber bands. Contused flesh flushed red, then pink, then perfectly clear.

The darkness in Izuku’s mind shattered into a blinding, agonizing kaleidoscope of pure white pain.

He gasped, a horrific, ragged intake of air, and his eyes snapped open. He sat up. The steam rolled off his shoulders, dissipating into the cool afternoon air. He looked at his hands, confused, crying from the phantom agony that echoed in his nerve endings, completely unaware that he had just died and resurrected in the span of thirty seconds.

Above him, Katsuki wasn't looking at a friend who had miraculously survived. He was looking at a ghost. A monster. 

That was the day the word Deku stopped meaning "useless" and started meaning something entirely different. It meant the boy who couldn't be broken. 

"Cellular Immortality," the doctor said a week later, adjusting his glasses. He sat across from a weeping Inko Midoriya and a deeply confused Izuku. The X-rays on the lightboard behind the doctor showed a perfectly healthy spine, completely devoid of the hairline fractures they had expected to find.

"It is... a highly unusual mutation, Mrs. Midoriya," the doctor continued, his tone clinical, though his eyes betrayed a deep-seated unease as he looked at the green-haired boy. "His body operates on a state of perpetual biological reversion. When his cells detect fatal or severe trauma, they multiply and regenerate at an incalculable speed. Oxygen deprivation, blunt force, lacerations, burns... his body simply resets."

"So he has a healing quirk?" Inko sniffled, clutching a tissue to her chest. "Like Recovery Girl?"

"No," the doctor corrected gently. "Recovery Girl accelerates the body's natural healing process using the patient's stamina. Izuku's quirk bypasses natural stamina. It seems to draw energy from the environment or his own hyper-metabolism. He doesn't just heal. He regenerates. Completely. Even fatal wounds."

"Is he... is he in pain when it happens?" Inko asked, her voice breaking.

The doctor paused. "Yes. The nervous system still registers the damage. If he breaks a bone, he feels the bone break. He will feel the pain of the trauma, and the immense sensory overload of the rapid cellular generation. It will hurt. Immensely. But he will not die."

Izuku looked down at his shoes, his small legs kicking back and forth beneath the chair. He had a Quirk. He wasn't Quirkless. He could be a hero like All Might! He could save people!

But when he looked up, the doctor wasn't smiling. And his mother was sobbing harder than ever.

Ten years later.

Aldera Junior High was an institution built on the foundation of the societal status quo. If you had a flashy quirk, you were royalty. If you had a weak quirk, you were a peasant. 

If you had Izuku Midoriya's quirk, you were an untouchable. 

Izuku sat at his desk, meticulously sketching a diagram of Mount Lady’s gigantification quirk in his Hero Analysis Notebook No. 13. He kept his head down, a practiced defense mechanism. At fourteen, Izuku had grown accustomed to the whispers, the stares, and the wide berth his classmates gave him. 

They didn't bully him the way they bullied the kids with weak mutation quirks. Their treatment of Izuku was rooted in a primal, visceral fear. 

He's the zombie kid, they whispered in the hallways. 

I heard a car ran over his leg in third grade and it just popped back out of his skin.

Freak. He's not human.

Izuku sighed softly, closing his notebook. The bell was about to ring. Up at the front of the classroom, their homeroom teacher slapped a stack of papers onto his desk.

"Since you're all third years, it's time for you to think seriously about your future," the teacher announced, a sly grin crossing his face. "I'll pass out handouts for your future plans now, but... you're all pretty much planning to go into the hero course, right?"

The classroom erupted into cheers, students showing off their quirks. Fire, elongated limbs, glowing eyes. 

"Yes, yes, you all have wonderful quirks," the teacher laughed. "But remember, no quirk usage during school hours!"

"Sensei! Don't lump me in with these bunch of losers," a loud, arrogant voice echoed from the back. Katsuki Bakugo leaned back in his chair, his feet propped up on his desk. "I'm the real deal. These guys will be lucky to end up as sidekicks to some busted D-lister."

The class erupted in angry protests. Katsuki laughed, miniature explosions popping in his palms. "Bring it on, extras!"

Izuku shrank further into his seat. Katsuki had grown tall, athletic, and fiercely powerful. His Explosion quirk was a marvel of destructive capability. But more than that, Katsuki was fueled by an intense, burning anger that seemed solely directed at Izuku.

It hadn't always been this bad. The shift had occurred in their second year of middle school. During a "sparring match" behind the school, Katsuki had lost his temper. He had unleashed a blast that was far too strong, catching Izuku square in the face. 

It should have blinded Izuku permanently. It had melted the skin off the left side of his face and carbonized his left eye. Katsuki had fallen to his knees, paralyzed by horror, convinced he had just permanently mutilated his childhood friend.

But then the steam came. The horrible, hissing steam. Izuku had stood there, screaming in blinding agony, blood and ash sloughing off his face. In front of Katsuki’s terrified eyes, muscle fibers rewove themselves. The eyeball regenerated in its socket. The skin knitted back together perfectly smooth, leaving not even a scar. 

When the steam cleared, Izuku, trying to reassure Katsuki, had offered a wobbly, blood-stained smile. "I'm okay, Kacchan. See? I'm fine."

Katsuki had thrown up in the bushes and didn't speak to Izuku for a month. When he finally did, his bullying took on a new, frantic edge. He pushed Izuku away with cruel words, perhaps out of disgust, perhaps out of a subconscious desperation to prove he could actually hurt the boy who couldn't be broken. 

"Oh, if I remember correctly, you want to go to U.A. High, right, Bakugo?" the teacher asked, checking his clipboard.

The class murmured in awe. U.A. was the national academy. The acceptance rate was abysmally low. 

"That's exactly why you guys are just extras!" Katsuki declared, standing on his desk. "I aced the mock test! I'm the only one at this school who could possibly get into U.A. I'll surpass All Might and become the top hero!"

"Oh," the teacher added, looking over his glasses. "Midoriya wants to go to U.A. too, right?"

The classroom went dead silent. 

Then, laughter. Nervous, mocking laughter. 

"Midoriya? No way!"

"You can't get in just by having good grades!"

"What's he gonna do in the entrance exam? Bleed on the robots until they rust?"

Izuku stood up, his face flushing violently red. "T-They got rid of the rule against my type of quirk! There's no precedent, but I could still—"

A massive explosion shattered Izuku's desk, throwing him backward onto the floor. The scent of ozone and burnt wood filled the air. Katsuki stood over him, smoke rising from his right hand, his crimson eyes blazing with a mix of fury and something that looked suspiciously like fear.

"Listen up, Deku," Katsuki growled, his voice dangerously low. "You're worse than the rest of these rejects. You're a damn meat shield. What the hell can you even do? You can't fight! You just stand there and get blown to bits!"

"I... I can save people, Kacchan!" Izuku stammered, scrambling backward against the wall. 

"By doing what?! Letting the villain chew on you while the real heroes do the work?!" Katsuki kicked the remains of Izuku’s desk. "You're disgusting. You going to U.A. is a joke. It's an insult to the school. Don't even think about applying."

Izuku stared at his knees. The familiar sting of tears pricked his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He knew Katsuki was right, in a way. His quirk offered zero offensive capability. He couldn't lift cars. He couldn't shoot fire. He couldn't punch through concrete. 

If someone shot him in the heart, he would simply heal, feeling every agonizing second of the muscle tearing and rebuilding. But what good was surviving a bullet if he couldn't stop the villain from shooting the person standing behind him? 

The bell rang, saving Izuku from further humiliation. He gathered his scorched notebooks and hurriedly packed his yellow backpack, eager to escape the suffocating atmosphere of the classroom. 

The walk home was a solitary affair. Izuku took a detour away from the main thoroughfare, preferring the quiet shade of a concrete underpass. He opened his notebook, running a hand over the scorch mark Katsuki had left on the cover. 

Meat shield, Katsuki had called him. 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut. It hurt. Not the physical pain—he was intimately, horribly familiar with physical pain. A broken finger from tripping? He’d pop it back into place. A deep cut from a kitchen knife? The steam would seal it in seconds. 

No, the pain in his chest was a different kind. It was the ache of a dream that felt impossible to grasp, no matter how hard he reached. 

"A medium-sized invisibility cloak..."

The voice was wet, gurgling, and echoed terribly off the concrete walls of the underpass. 

Izuku froze, his pen dropping to the pavement with a clatter. He turned around slowly. Rising from a manhole grate behind him was a mass of putrid, dark-green sludge. It smelled of raw sewage and rotting garbage. Two massive, bulbous eyes and a set of jagged, yellow teeth floated within the liquid mass. 

A villain. 

Izuku’s muscles locked up. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his legs wouldn't obey. 

"You'll do perfectly," the Sludge Villain hissed, lunging forward with terrifying speed. 

Before Izuku could even draw breath to scream, the sludge was upon him. It wrapped around him like a suffocating, wet blanket, slamming him into the wall of the underpass. Thick, foul-tasting muck forced its way into his mouth and up his nose. 

Can't breathe! Izuku’s hands clawed frantically at the sludge, trying to find purchase, but his fingers just slipped through the liquid viscosity. 

"Don't worry," the villain purred, the sound vibrating through the sludge directly into Izuku's ears. "I'm just taking over your body. It'll only hurt for about 45 seconds. Then, it'll all be over."

That was the moment Izuku realized the villain didn't know who he was dealing with. 

At 45 seconds, Izuku’s brain began to starve of oxygen. The edges of his vision went black. The agonizing, burning sensation in his lungs reached its peak. The natural human body would have shut down, surrendered to asphyxiation, and died.

But Izuku's body refused to die. 

As the cells in his lungs and brain began to undergo necrosis from lack of oxygen, the Quirk activated. It violently and aggressively replaced the dying cells. 

The process was sheer, unadulterated torture. Izuku’s body was essentially dying and resurrecting simultaneously, over and over again, rapidly cycling through the throes of asphyxiation. His chest convulsed violently. 

Suddenly, the sludge around Izuku began to bubble. 

"What the hell?" the villain gasped. "Why is it getting so hot?!"

Steam—thick, boiling, white steam—began to erupt from Izuku’s pores, venting out through the sludge. The water in the villain's body began to rapidly heat up, scalding the villain from the inside out. 

Through the haze of endless, looping death and rebirth, Izuku's green eyes snapped open. They were bloodshot, glowing with a desperate, feral light. He didn't just claw at the sludge anymore; he dug his hands into it, ripping it away from his mouth for just a fraction of a second to pull in a single, ragged gasp of air.

"Stop struggling!" the villain roared, trying to compress the boy tighter, but the steam was growing denser, hotter. "Why aren't you dying?! Just die!"

Izuku couldn't speak, but his actions were loud enough. He thrashed with the strength of a dying animal, completely uncaring if he tore his own muscles in the process, because they just healed instantly in bursts of scalding vapor.

Suddenly, the manhole cover rattled violently. 

A massive figure stepped out from the darkness of the sewer, casting a shadow that swallowed the entire underpass. 

"Have no fear, you are safe," a voice boomed, deep and resonant, echoing with absolute authority. 

Izuku’s thrashing paused. Even the Sludge Villain froze. Through the boiling steam and foul muck, Izuku saw the golden hair, the towering musculature, the iconic, unyielding smile. 

"Now that I am here!" 

All Might. 

The villain panicked, surging forward with a massive tendril of sludge. "Die!"

All Might simply pulled back his right arm, the muscles bulging to impossible proportions. "Texas... SMASH!"

The punch didn't even connect with the villain's body. The sheer wind pressure generated by the strike created a localized tornado within the confined space of the underpass. The force of the gale struck the Sludge Villain, tearing his liquid body apart at a cellular level. The sludge exploded outward, splattering against the concrete walls in a thousand useless drops. 

Izuku was thrown backward by the gale, collapsing onto the hard pavement. The steam rolling off his body immediately ceased as the threat to his life vanished. He lay there, coughing up foul water, his lungs burning, his chest heaving as he took in sweet, glorious oxygen. 

"A-All... Might..." Izuku managed to croak out, before the exhaustion of the cellular regeneration caught up to him. His vision blurred, and the darkness claimed him, this time not in death, but in a desperate bid for rest.

"Hey! Wake up! Thought we lost you there!"

Izuku was jolted awake by the feeling of a massive hand lightly tapping his cheek. His eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the bright afternoon sunlight. He was lying on the pavement outside the underpass. 

Standing above him, looking down with a mixture of concern and relief, was his idol. 

Izuku screamed, scrambling backward until his back hit a lamppost. "All Might?! The real All Might?!"

"Ah, good! You are okay!" All Might laughed, a hearty, booming sound. "Sorry about getting you caught up in my villain hunting! Mistakes like that aren't my style, but this is a new city for me! Anyway, I captured the villain! Thanks to you holding him off, I was able to strike!" 

All Might held up two large plastic soda bottles. Inside, the Sludge Villain sloshed around angrily, trapped and contained. 

Izuku’s mind was racing a million miles an hour. He patted his pockets frantically, finding his notebook. "An autograph! I need an autograph! Please, right here—!" He opened the book, only to find a massive, sprawling signature already taking up two full pages. "He already did it! Thank you so much! It'll be a family heirloom!"

"Well, I must be off!" All Might declared, tucking the bottles into his cargo pockets. "I have to deliver this guy to the police! See you on the flip side!"

"Wait!" Izuku stepped forward. His heart hammered against his ribs. This was his chance. The only chance he might ever get to ask the one person whose answer actually mattered. "Already? But... I have a question!"

"Pros are constantly fighting time and enemies!" All Might said, bending his knees. The concrete beneath him cracked under the pressure. With a massive leap, the Number One Hero launched himself into the sky.

He soared over the city, feeling the wind rush past his face. It was only when he looked down that he noticed the extra weight attached to his leg. 

"What the—?!" All Might stared in shock at the green-haired boy clinging to his thigh for dear life, his face flapping in the wind pressure. 

"I... I have... to ask you... something!" Izuku yelled, the wind stealing the breath from his lungs. 

"Hey, hey, hey! Let go! Your fanaticism is too much! You're going to fall!" All Might tried to pry the boy off.

"If I let go... I'll hit the ground!" Izuku squeezed his eyes shut. "I mean, I'll survive, but it'll hurt a lot! Please!"

All Might sighed, realizing the boy was right. He scanned the area and spotted a tall, non-descript office building. Adjusting his trajectory, he landed heavily on the rooftop, skidding slightly on the gravel. 

Izuku immediately let go, collapsing onto the roof, trembling from head to toe. "That was... terrifying..."

"Jeez," All Might sighed, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. "If you talk to the people downstairs, they'll let you out. Seriously, you have to stop doing reckless things. Now, I really must go."

"Wait!" Izuku scrambled to his feet. 

"No! I will not wait!" 

"Can I be a hero?!" Izuku shouted, the words tearing from his throat, raw and desperate. 

All Might paused, his back to the boy. 

Izuku clenched his fists, staring at the broad back of his idol. "Even if I can't fight... even if my quirk doesn't let me hurt villains... Can someone like me, who can only take damage, ever become a hero like you?!"

Silence fell over the rooftop, save for the distant sounds of traffic below. Izuku’s heart pounded in his ears. He was laying his entire soul bare. 

"My quirk," Izuku continued, his voice trembling but gaining strength. "It's Cellular Immortality. I can't die. No matter what happens to me, my body regenerates. It hurts, it hurts so much, but I always come back. But... people think it's creepy. They call me a meat shield. They say I can't save anyone because I don't have the power to stop the bad guys. I just... I want to know. Can a shield be a hero? Can I save people with a smile, just by putting myself between them and danger?"

All Might slowly turned around. The legendary smile was gone, replaced by a somber, heavy expression. Before he could speak, a violent cough wracked his frame. Plumes of steam suddenly erupted from the hero's body, much like Izuku's, but thicker, masking him entirely.

Izuku gasped, stepping back. When the steam cleared, the towering symbol of peace was gone. In his place stood a skeletal, emaciated man with hollow eyes and clothes that hung off him like a scarecrow. 

Izuku screamed. "What happened?! You deflated! Are you an imposter?!"

"I am All Might," the skeletal man sighed, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of a bony hand. He walked over to the edge of the roof and sat down, patting the space next to him. "Sit down, kid."

Bewildered and terrified, Izuku obeyed. 

"You know how guys at the pool are constantly flexing and sucking in their guts? I'm like that," All Might explained tiredly. He pulled up his oversized t-shirt, revealing a horrific, sprawling scar that covered the entire left side of his chest. It looked like the flesh had been scooped out and violently burned. 

"An injury I got from a villain attack five years ago," All Might said quietly. "My respiratory system was nearly destroyed. I lost my whole stomach. After all the surgeries, I've wasted away. Right now, I can only do hero work for about three hours a day. The rest of the time, I look like this."

Izuku stared at the wound, horrified. "Five years ago... was that when you fought Toxic Chainsaw?"

"You know your stuff. But no, that punk couldn't do this to me. I asked that this fight be kept under wraps to the public. The Symbol of Peace cannot be seen to be weak." All Might dropped his shirt. He looked at Izuku, his sunken blue eyes piercing right through the boy's soul.

"You asked me if you could be a hero with a quirk that only lets you survive," All Might said, his voice stripped of all its usual bravado. It was just the voice of a tired, broken man. "Pro heroes are always risking their lives. Some villains simply can't be reasoned with, and they can't just be stalled. They have to be stopped."

Izuku swallowed hard.

"Immortality is a staggering power, kid," All Might continued gently. "But think about this practically. Let's say a villain has a hostage. You jump in the way. The villain stabs you. You survive. But what stops the villain from simply stepping over your regenerating body and stabbing the hostage anyway?"

The words hit Izuku like physical blows. It was Katsuki’s cruel logic, validated by the greatest hero in the world. 

"To save people, you have to be able to remove the threat," All Might said heavily. "A shield is important. But a shield alone cannot win a war. If your body is your only weapon, and it lacks the offensive power to subdue an enemy, then you will only watch people die around you while you survive."

Izuku looked down at his hands. They were trembling. The tears finally fell, hot and bitter against his cheeks. 

"It's not bad to dream, young man," All Might said, standing up and walking toward the roof access door. "But you have to consider what's realistic. If you want to save people, become a police officer. They get flak for having villains delivered to their doorstep, but it is a fine, honorable profession. But a Pro Hero? I cannot honestly tell you that a boy who can only take a beating can save the day."

The door opened, and shut. All Might was gone. 

Izuku sat alone on the rooftop, the wind howling around him. The dream was dead. The verdict was in. He wasn't a hero. He was just a freak who couldn't die. 

How long he stood on that roof, Izuku couldn't say. He took the stairs down in a daze, his feet moving on autopilot. He wandered the streets of Musutafu, ignoring the bustling crowds, his mind a blank, gray void. 

He didn't realize where he was until the sound of explosions snapped him out of his reverie. 

BOOM! BOOM!

Izuku blinked, looking up. He was standing at the edge of a massive crowd that had gathered near a shopping arcade. Black smoke billowed into the afternoon sky, mingling with the stench of burning plastic and... raw sewage. 

Izuku's stomach dropped. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, ducking under the police tape. 

The alleyway was a warzone. Fires raged out of control on the adjacent buildings. Pro Heroes—Death Arms, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Backdraft—were on the scene, but they were doing nothing. They were standing at the perimeter, looking frustrated and helpless.

"It's no good!" Death Arms shouted, shielding his face from the heat. "I can't get a grip on him! It's that liquid villain!"

Izuku froze. The Sludge Villain? But All Might had him...

He remembered his frantic clinging to All Might's leg. Did the bottles fall out? Was this my fault?

"He's got a hostage!" Kamui Woods yelled. "And the kid's quirk is causing all these fires! We can't get close! Mt. Lady, can you reach them?!"

"I need at least two lanes to maneuver!" Mt. Lady cursed, stuck in her giant form outside the narrow alley. "I can't fit!"

"We just have to wait for someone with a more suitable quirk!" Death Arms declared grimly. "Keep the civilians back and contain the fires!"

Izuku stared into the inferno. Through the smoke and flames, he saw the undulating, disgusting mass of the Sludge Villain. And trapped within it, thrashing wildly, furiously firing off explosions in a desperate bid for freedom, was the hostage. 

Ash-blonde hair. Piercing crimson eyes. 

Katsuki. 

The villain had engulfed Katsuki up to his nose, using the boy's explosive quirk to keep the heroes at bay while he slowly hijacked his body. Katsuki’s eyes were wide, bloodshot, filled with a primal, suffocating terror. He looked at the Pro Heroes, his gaze pleading for salvation, but they were just standing there. Waiting. 

Then, Katsuki's eyes shifted, locking onto the crowd. He made eye contact with Izuku. 

In that fraction of a second, Izuku didn't see the boy who had bullied him. He didn't see the arrogant prodigy who had told him his dream was a joke. He saw a fourteen-year-old kid who was drowning in filth, terrified, and about to die. 

Before Izuku's brain could process what was happening, his legs moved. 

He vaulted over the police barricade and sprinted full-tilt into the burning alleyway.

"Hey! Kid, get back here! You'll die!" Death Arms roared, reaching out to grab him, but Izuku slipped past. 

Izuku didn't have a plan. He had no weapon. He had no offensive quirk. He only had the horrific truth of his own biology. 

He threw his yellow backpack at the villain as a distraction. The heavy brass clasp clipped the villain in the eye. 

"Gah!" the villain recoiled, his grip loosening just a fraction. 

Izuku didn't hesitate. He dove headfirst into the sludge. 

"Deku?!" Katsuki gagged, coughing up muck. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

"I don't know!" Izuku screamed, his hands plunging into the freezing, disgusting slime. He grabbed fistfuls of Katsuki’s school uniform and pulled with all his meager strength. 

"You?!" the Sludge Villain roared, recognizing the green hair. "The freak who wouldn't die! I'll tear you to pieces!"

The sludge whipped around, forming dense, hardened spikes. They drove themselves directly through Izuku's back, piercing his lungs and exiting through his chest. 

The Pro Heroes screamed in horror. The crowd shrieked. 

But Izuku didn't stop pulling. 

Instantly, the hissing began. Thick, blinding steam erupted from Izuku's chest. The wounds, fatal to any normal human, closed around the villain's spikes in milliseconds, fusing flesh back together in a burst of searing heat. 

The villain shrieked as the boiling steam scalded him. "What is wrong with you?!"

Katsuki, half-crazed with lack of oxygen, reflexively fired off a massive explosion from his right hand. The blast caught Izuku point-blank in the left shoulder. 

Izuku felt the skin incinerate. He felt the muscle tissue vaporize, exposing the white bone of his clavicle. The pain was astronomical, a blinding white flare that threatened to short-circuit his brain. But he clamped his jaw shut and bit down so hard he tasted copper. 

Pain is just a signal, Izuku told himself, repeating the mantra he had used for ten years. It's just my body telling me it's broken. But it's already fixing itself.

In front of Katsuki's horrified, disbelieving eyes, the charred ruin of Izuku's shoulder erupted in steam. New pink muscle fibers wove together like a time-lapse video of biological creation. Skin spread over the muscle, flawless and new. 

Izuku didn't let go of Katsuki. He braced his feet against the concrete and pulled harder. 

"Let go!" the villain screamed, thrashing wildly. The sludge formed blades, slicing into Izuku's arms, his legs, his torso. 

Every cut was met with instant, violent regeneration. Izuku was a blur of blood, steam, and unyielding momentum. He was essentially a human meat-grinder, taking catastrophic damage and neutralizing it through sheer, biological attrition. The sheer heat of his continuous regeneration was boiling the moisture out of the Sludge Villain.

"Why are you doing this?!" Katsuki screamed, his voice cracking, tears streaming down his soot-stained face. "I told you you were a useless freak! Why are you trying to save me?!"

Izuku looked at him. His eyes were wild, his uniform shredded, blood and slime coating his face. But he offered that same, wobbly smile he had given Katsuki all those years ago behind the middle school. 

"Because... you looked like you needed saving, Kacchan!" 

The words struck Katsuki harder than any physical blow. They struck the Pro Heroes, who were watching in stunned, paralyzed awe as a quirkless-looking boy endured agonizing, repeated death to pry a classmate free. 

And they struck the gaunt, skeletal man watching from the back of the crowd. 

All Might clutched his chest, where the phantom pain of his injury pulsed. He had lectured this boy on realism. He had told him that a hero needed power. Yet here was a child with nothing but an unending capacity for suffering, doing what five seasoned Pro Heroes were too afraid to do. 

Pathetic, All Might thought to himself, his blood boiling. I lectured him on what makes a hero, and I am standing here doing nothing!

Steam began to radiate from All Might's withered frame. 

In the alley, Izuku's grip was finally slipping. He had pulled Katsuki halfway out, but the sheer caloric demand of his hyper-regeneration was catching up to him. His vision was swimming. The pain was blurring into a dull, roaring numbness. 

The Sludge Villain reared up, forming a massive, condensed fist of sludge to crush Izuku once and for all. 

But a hand, massive and unyielding, caught Izuku by the back of his shredded collar and pulled him out of the way. 

"I really am pathetic," a voice rumbled, shaking the very air. 

Izuku hit the ground, panting heavily, and looked up. 

All Might stood between him and the villain, his massive musculature restored, steam venting from his nose like an angry bull. He grabbed Katsuki by the arm with one hand, and pulled back his other fist. 

"I told you the traits of a champion, but I failed to live up to them myself!" All Might roared, blood spurting from his mouth, ignored through sheer willpower. "Pros are always risking their lives!"

"DETROIT SMASH!"

The punch defied the laws of physics. The sheer concussive force created a shockwave that obliterated the Sludge Villain into microscopic droplets. The wind pressure blasted the fires out entirely, ripping the shingles off the roofs and forcing the clouds above to part, revealing a perfectly clear, blue sky. 

It started to rain. The sheer updraft had altered the weather. 

Izuku lay on the wet pavement, his body exhausted, his clothes ruined, but completely, miraculously uninjured. He looked up at All Might, who stood victorious, holding the unconscious Katsuki. 

The crowd erupted into deafening cheers. 

The aftermath was a blur. The police collected the scattered remains of the Sludge Villain. Katsuki, once he woke up, was surrounded by Pro Heroes who praised his tough quirk and endurance, offering him their cards and scouting him for future agencies. 

Izuku, on the other hand, got the exact opposite treatment. 

Death Arms and Kamui Woods dragged him aside, their expressions stern and unsettled. 

"Are you insane, kid?" Death Arms scolded, though he kept his distance, eyeing Izuku like he was a live grenade. "There was absolutely no reason for you to put yourself in danger! You threw yourself into a meat grinder! We had the situation under control!"

"You stood there," Izuku said quietly, his voice raspy from smoke inhalation. "He was dying."

Kamui Woods flinched. "We were assessing the situation. Your quirk... whatever that was, it's incredibly dangerous. You can't just throw away your own safety because you know you'll survive. It sets a bad precedent. It's reckless."

"Reckless," Izuku repeated numbly. He bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

He didn't stick around after that. He grabbed his scorched, battered backpack and slipped away through the crowd, ignoring the lingering stares of the civilians who had seen him put himself back together. 

The walk home was silent, lit by the fading orange hues of the sunset. Izuku felt hollowed out. His body had repaired the physical damage, but it couldn't repair the soul-crushing realization that the Pros viewed his heroism as a nuisance. 

"Deku!"

Izuku stopped. He turned around to see Katsuki sprinting down the street after him, panting heavily. 

Katsuki slid to a halt a few feet away. He looked entirely disheveled. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. He clenched his fists, his face twisting with a complex mix of rage, humiliation, and profound guilt. 

"Listen to me, you damn nerd!" Katsuki yelled, his voice cracking. "I didn't ask for your help! I didn't need you to save me! I was doing fine on my own!"

Izuku just stared at him, too exhausted to even flinch. 

"You're a freak, you hear me?!" Katsuki screamed, tears welling in his eyes. "You're a zombie! I don't owe you anything! Don't you dare look down on me! Don't you dare think you're better than me just because you can take a punch!"

Katsuki turned around and stormed off, wiping furiously at his eyes, his shoulders shaking. 

Izuku watched him go. He knew Katsuki wasn't angry at him. Katsuki was angry at himself, terrified by the fact that the weakest, most pitiable kid in school had shown more bravery than he had. 

Izuku sighed, turning back toward his house. "I guess... I really am just a freak."

"I am here!" 

Izuku shrieked, jumping three feet in the air as All Might suddenly slid out from an adjacent alleyway, posing dramatically. 

"All Might?! What are you doing here?! How did you get away from the reporters?!"

"Hahaha! I stand for justice, not soundbites!" All Might laughed, before violently coughing up a spray of blood and deflating back into his skeletal form. He wiped his chin, leaning against the brick wall. 

"Young man," All Might said, his tone entirely serious. "I came to thank you. And to apologize. If I hadn't heard your story, if I hadn't seen what you did... I would have been a fake in a muscle suit. You spurred me into action."

"No," Izuku shook his head frantically. "It was my fault. I distracted you. And the Pros were right... my quirk is just... it's just surviving. I didn't actually do anything."

"You did everything," All Might corrected softly. He stepped forward, looking down at the green-haired boy. "Of all the people there, all the heroes with their flashy, powerful quirks... you were the only one who moved. A timid, quirkless-looking kid with nothing to offer but his own flesh and blood."

Izuku’s breath caught in his throat. 

"There are stories about every great hero," All Might said, looking up at the twilight sky. "How they became great. Most have one thing in common. Their bodies moved before they had a chance to think."

Izuku’s eyes widened. Tears, thick and fast, began to well up, spilling over his cheeks. He fell to his knees, his hands clutching the fabric of his ruined uniform. 

"That happened to you today, didn't it?" All Might asked gently. 

Izuku sobbed, nodding his head. It was all he had ever wanted to hear. Not that his quirk was cool. Not that he was strong. Just that his spirit, his desperate urge to help, mattered. 

"You can become a hero," All Might declared, the words ringing out like a gospel in the quiet street. "You are worthy."

Izuku wept, the sound echoing off the buildings. He bowed his head to the asphalt, overwhelmed by the sheer, staggering weight of validation. 

All Might watched the boy cry, a small, genuine smile on his face. "I deem you worthy of my power. My quirk is yours to inherit."

Izuku stopped crying. He looked up, his face slick with tears and snot, utterly bewildered. "Huh?"

"My quirk," All Might chuckled. "I am offering it to you."

"But... you can't give people quirks," Izuku sniffled, wiping his nose. "That's biologically impossible. Quirks are genetic."

"Mine is different. It is a sacred torch, passed on from generation to generation." All Might held out his hand. "It is called One For All. It is the crystallization of power, stockpiled and handed down, meant to shatter the darkness and save those in need."

Izuku stared at the skeletal hand. "Why... why me?"

"Because you have the heart of a true hero," All Might said. "But more than that... I realize now that you are uniquely suited for it."

All Might looked at Izuku’s small frame. "One For All is incredibly powerful. If passed to an unprepared body, the sheer physical blowback of the stockpiled energy would blow the recipient's limbs completely off. It would shatter their bones to dust."

Izuku paled. 

"But you," All Might smiled, a glint of awe in his sunken eyes. "You cannot be broken. Not permanently. Your body is a vessel capable of withstanding the absolute maximum output of the greatest power in the world."

All Might extended his hand further. "What do you say, young man? Will you accept my power? Will you become the Undying Symbol of Peace?"

Izuku looked at the hand. He thought of the pain. He thought of the agony of his bones shattering, of his muscles tearing, of the scalding steam that would undoubtedly accompany every punch he threw. 

But then he thought of Katsuki's terrified eyes. He thought of the people he could pull from the wreckage, the lives he could shield, the villains he could finally hit back. 

Pain was just a metric. Pain was temporary. Saving people was permanent. 

Izuku wiped his eyes, his gaze hardening with an unyielding, terrifying resolve. He reached out and grasped All Might's hand. 

"Yes. I accept."

The first thing Izuku Midoriya noticed the morning after he accepted All Might’s offer wasn't a newfound sense of destiny, nor was it a rush of heroic adrenaline. 

It was a hunger so profound and cavernous it felt like a black hole had opened in his stomach. 

He woke up at 4:00 AM, his body drenched in cold sweat. His stomach gave a violent, audible lurch. Izuku stumbled out of bed, his legs shaking, and practically crawled to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and began to eat with a frantic, animalistic desperation. Leftover rice, half a loaf of bread, raw eggs cracked directly down his throat, an entire pack of deli ham. 

It wasn't just hunger; it was a biological imperative. 

Cellular Immortality was not a quirk fueled by magic. It was bound by the laws of thermodynamics, specifically the conservation of mass and energy. When Izuku’s body regenerated lost blood, rebuilt incinerated muscle, or fused shattered bone, it required building materials. His hyper-metabolism scavenged everything available in his system to perform those miracles. 

Yesterday, he had regenerated fatal stab wounds, incinerated flesh, and a crushed shoulder. His body had exhausted its caloric reserves. If he didn't eat, his body would begin cannibalizing its own fat and non-essential muscle to fuel the quirk's baseline maintenance. 

By the time his mother, Inko, walked into the kitchen at 6:00 AM, Izuku was sitting on the floor amidst a graveyard of empty wrappers and Tupperware containers, gnawing on a block of raw tofu. 

"Izuku?!" Inko gasped, dropping her purse. "Honey, what happened? Are you okay? Did you get hurt yesterday?" She rushed over, her hands frantically checking his face, his arms, pulling at his shirt to look for the tell-tale patches of newly generated, painfully pink skin. 

"I'm fine, Mom, really," Izuku mumbled around the tofu, his cheeks flushed. "Just... grew a lot yesterday. A growth spurt, maybe?" 

It was a terrible lie, but Inko, accustomed to the terrifying anomalies of her son's biology, just sighed, her eyes welling with tears. She hugged him tightly. "I saw the news. About Katsuki. You ran in there. Izuku... my heart stopped. I thought... I thought you were going to use yourself up."

Izuku hugged her back, feeling the trembling of her small frame. He hated making her cry. But as he looked over her shoulder at the rising sun filtering through the kitchen window, he felt a spark of ironclad resolve ignite in his chest. 

I'm going to be a hero, Mom, he thought. A real one. I won't just be a punching bag anymore.

Dagobah Municipal Beach Park was a graveyard of human consumption. Mountains of rusted refrigerators, crushed cars, rotting tires, and broken furniture choked the shoreline, piled so high they obscured the ocean horizon. The stench of rust and stagnant seawater hung heavy in the air. 

"Behold!" All Might boomed, standing in his muscle form atop a rusted washing machine. "Your training ground, young Midoriya!"

Izuku stood at the edge of the sand, a massive duffel bag slung over his shoulder. "The beach?"

"It used to be beautiful," All Might sighed, deflating into his skeletal form with a hiss of steam, coughing slightly into his hand. "But over the years, the currents brought in trash, and people started using it as an illegal dumping ground. Heroes these days only want the flashy villain fights. They forget that community service is the bedrock of heroism!"

All Might pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his oversized cargo pants. "I call it the 'Aim to Pass: American Dream Plan'! I have calculated exactly how much weight you need to move, how many calories you need to burn, and how much rest you need over the next ten months to make your body a suitable vessel for One For All."

Izuku took the paper. It was incredibly detailed, plotting out weightlifting, cardio, and a specific diet. But as Izuku looked at the schedule, a small frown creased his brow. 

"All Might," Izuku started, tracing a finger over the document. "You scheduled three days of rest per week for muscle recovery."

"Of course," All Might nodded, leaning against a rusted truck door. "When you lift heavy weights, your muscle fibers undergo micro-tears. During your rest periods, the body repairs these tears, making the muscles thicker and stronger. It's basic biology. Overworking will only destroy your body."

Izuku looked up from the paper, his green eyes entirely serious. "All Might. My quirk."

All Might blinked. 

"I don't get micro-tears," Izuku explained softly, unzipping his duffel bag. Inside were dozens of high-calorie protein bars and energy drinks. "Or rather, I do, but my body repairs them the millisecond they happen. If I tear a muscle, it heals before I even drop the weight. I don't need three days of rest, All Might. I don't need any rest at all."

All Might stared at the boy, a cold prickle of realization washing over him. "Young Midoriya... what are you suggesting?"

"If I follow this plan, I'll gain normal muscle mass," Izuku said, walking over to a massive, waterlogged commercial refrigerator that must have weighed four hundred pounds. "But we only have ten months. And I need to be strong enough to hold your power without my arms blowing off. So, I have to accelerate the process."

Izuku grabbed the bottom of the refrigerator. 

"Wait, Midoriya, that's too heavy for you to lift properly—!"

Izuku pulled. He didn't use his legs properly; he didn't brace his core. He just pulled with sheer, desperate willpower. 

The sound was nauseating. It was a wet, heavy snap, like a thick nautical rope parting under immense tension. Izuku shrieked, a high-pitched sound of pure agony, and collapsed onto the sand. He had literally torn his bicep completely off the bone, the muscle rolling up his arm into a grotesque lump under his skin. 

"Young Midoriya!" All Might cried out in horror, rushing forward, his skeletal hands reaching out but afraid to touch the writhing boy. "Good god!"

But before All Might could even kneel, the air around Izuku’s arm shimmered. 

HSSSSSS!

A jet of scalding white steam shot out from the pores of Izuku's arm. Beneath the skin, biological magic occurred at a horrifying speed. The snapped tendon elongated, snaking its way back down to the bone, fusing instantly. The muscle fibers rapidly multiplied, knitting together, not just repairing the damage, but layering it, overcompensating for the trauma in real-time. 

In less than five seconds, the steam dissipated. Izuku lay on the sand, gasping for air, tears streaming out of the corners of his eyes. His left arm was flushed a deep, angry pink, and it was visibly thicker than it had been mere moments ago. 

Izuku slowly pushed himself up. He reached into his pocket with his good arm, pulled out a 500-calorie protein bar, tore the wrapper off with his teeth, and devoured it in three bites to fuel the caloric deficit the regeneration had just demanded. 

He stood up, his eyes bloodshot, his body trembling, and walked right back to the refrigerator. 

"Okay," Izuku panted, grabbing the underside again. "Again."

All Might stood frozen on the beach, the ocean breeze ruffling his baggy clothes. He had faced down monsters that could level city blocks. He had looked the ultimate evil in the eye and laughed. But watching this fourteen-year-old boy willfully subject himself to the agonizing torture of repeated biological destruction just to gain an inch of progress... 

It terrified him. 

"Young Midoriya," All Might whispered, his voice shaking. "You don't have to do this. It's... it's torture."

"It's training," Izuku corrected, gritting his teeth as he braced his legs. "Pain is just a metric, All Might. It just tells me the muscle broke. And if it breaks, it grows back stronger. I have ten months. I have to be ready."

Izuku pulled again. Another wet snap. Another scream. Another cloud of boiling steam. Another protein bar. 

That was how the ten months of Dagobah Beach were spent. It was not a training montage of sweat and triumphant music. It was a grueling, visceral meat-grinder. 

Normal athletes hit a wall of fatigue. Izuku bypassed the wall by driving his body into it at full speed, dying on impact, and resurrecting on the other side. He pulled trucks by ropes until the skin on his shoulders flayed off and the muscles in his calves ruptured. He screamed, fell, steamed, ate, and stood back up. 

All Might had to look away sometimes. The psychological toll of watching a child mutilate himself in the name of heroism was almost too much for the Number One Hero to bear. He began spending a massive portion of his personal fortune just buying food for Izuku, ordering catering trucks of dense, caloric meals directly to the beach to keep the boy from starving to death from his own hyper-metabolism. 

As the months passed, the piles of trash began to shrink, and Izuku began to change. 

The physical transformation was startling. Because his muscles were constantly breaking and repairing under maximum duress, Izuku packed on dense, functional muscle mass at an impossible rate. He wasn't bodybuilder-bulky; he was coiled, scarred, and lethal. While the scars from his quirk always faded eventually as the cells replaced themselves, during the training, his skin was a constantly shifting canvas of pink, newly generated tissue and faint white lines that mapped out where a bone had broken the day before. 

His pain tolerance, already inhuman, shattered completely. By month eight, Izuku was tearing his hamstrings pulling a rusted flatbed truck, and he didn't even scream. He just grunted, let the steam roll off him, ate a sandwich with his free hand, and kept pulling. 

To All Might, Izuku was no longer just an earnest fanboy. He was a force of nature. A boy whose willpower was so absolute it commanded his own biology to bend the knee. 

It was 6:00 AM on the day of the U.A. Entrance Exam. 

All Might drove his truck down the coastal road, expecting to find Izuku working on the final corner of the beach. Instead, he hit the brakes, staring out the windshield in absolute awe. 

The beach was immaculate. The miles of rusted steel, the mountains of rotting tires—gone. Every single grain of sand was exposed to the breaking dawn. 

Standing at the top of a seawall, silhouetted against the rising sun, was Izuku Midoriya. He was shirtless, his chest heaving, steam lazily curling off his shoulders into the cool morning air. He let out a primal, exhausted, triumphant yell that echoed over the crashing waves. 

"Oh my... oh my... GOODNESS!" All Might bellowed, instantly bulking up into his muscle form. He bounded out of the truck and leaped onto the seawall. "You finished it! You actually finished it, young Midoriya! Look at you!"

Izuku turned, offering a tired, brilliant smile. He looked completely different from the fragile boy on the rooftop ten months ago. He looked like a warrior. 

"I did it, All Might," Izuku said, accepting the shirt All Might handed him. "I'm ready."

All Might reverted to his skeletal form, a proud, profound smile on his gaunt face. "Yes. You are. You exceeded my wildest expectations. Your body is more than just a vessel now; it is a fortress."

All Might reached up and plucked a single, golden strand of hair from his bangs. He held it out between his thumb and forefinger. 

"This is it, young Midoriya. The culmination of your suffering and your resolve. To inherit One For All, you must consume some of my DNA." All Might held out the hair. "Eat this."

Izuku stared at the hair. The epic music playing in his head scratched to an abrupt halt. "Wait, what? I have to eat your hair?"

"It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's DNA!" All Might laughed, though he looked a bit embarrassed. "Come on, we don't have time! The exam starts in a few hours! Eat!"

Izuku swallowed hard, took the hair, squeezed his eyes shut, and shoved it into his mouth. He dry-heaved, grabbed a water bottle from his duffel bag, and washed it down. 

"Did it work?" Izuku asked, patting his stomach. 

"It will take a few hours for your stomach acids to break it down and for the quirk factor to merge with your DNA," All Might explained. "But you need to listen to me, Midoriya. Your body is uniquely suited for this, but One For All is volatile. When you use it, it will feel like a million volts of electricity running through your veins. You need to clench your buttocks, and yell 'SMASH' from the bottom of your heart!"

"Clench... my buttocks?" Izuku repeated, bewildered. 

"Just trust me!" All Might said, checking his watch. "Now go! Get home, shower, and get to U.A.! Today, you take your first step into the light!"

U.A. High School was a towering monument to heroism. Massive glass buildings shaped like an 'H' gleamed in the sunlight, surrounded by high walls and security gates. 

Izuku stood at the entrance, wearing his Aldera junior high uniform, staring up at the structure. He felt a strange fluttering in his chest. It wasn't just nerves. Deep within his cellular structure, something was shifting. The quirk factor of One For All was integrating into a body that constantly sought to revert to its baseline. 

For a terrifying hour that morning, Izuku had run a fever of 105 degrees as his Cellular Immortality fought the invasive DNA of One For All, perceiving it as a disease. His body had tried to burn it out. But One For All was stubborn, a stockpiled singularity of power. Eventually, the two quirks reached a violent, uneasy truce within his genome. He was a vessel made of meat and magic, and the pressure building beneath his skin was immense. 

"Out of my way, Deku."

The voice was a low, threatening growl. Izuku flinched and stepped aside. 

Katsuki Bakugo walked past him, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Katsuki didn't yell. He didn't set off explosions. Ever since the Sludge Villain incident, Katsuki had treated Izuku like he was radioactive. He wouldn't look at him. If they were in the same hallway, Katsuki would walk on the opposite side. The sight of Izuku’s unyielding, regenerating flesh in that alleyway had deeply traumatized the explosive boy, shattering his worldview. Katsuki wanted nothing to do with the "undying freak."

"Morning, Kacchan," Izuku said softly, but Katsuki just sped up, marching toward the auditorium. 

Izuku sighed and took a step forward. His foot caught on the edge of the paving stone. Given his newly acquired muscle mass, he wasn't entirely used to his center of gravity yet. He pitched forward, bracing for the scrape of concrete against his face. 

It won't hurt for long, he thought instinctively. 

But he didn't hit the ground. He stopped in mid-air, floating. 

"Are you okay?" 

Izuku flailed, righting himself as a girl with a short brown bob and permanent blush marks on her cheeks pressed her hands together. Izuku's feet touched the ground. 

"It's my quirk," the girl smiled brightly. "Sorry I used it on you without asking, but it would be bad luck if you fell right before the exam, right?"

"I... uh... y-yeah!" Izuku stammered, his face immediately burning red. He had barely spoken to a girl in his life, let alone one this close. 

"I'm super nervous! But let's do our best!" She pumped a fist in the air and hurried inside. 

Izuku stood there, clutching his chest. I talked to a girl!

The written exam was a blur, but the true test lay ahead. 

The orientation auditorium was massive and dimly lit, filled with hundreds of hopeful applicants. Pro Hero Present Mic stood on the stage, screaming into the microphone, explaining the rules of the practical exam. 

"It's a ten-minute mock urban battle! You'll be deposited into a replica city! Inside, there are three types of faux villains, worth one, two, or three points! Use your quirks to destroy them and rack up your score!"

Izuku looked down at his hands, his heart beginning to race. 

Destroy them. 

He hadn't thought about this. He had trained for ten months to be a vessel, but he hadn't actually used One For All yet. All Might had told him to clench his buttocks and yell Smash. But how did he control it? How did he dial it down so he didn't blow up the entire street? 

I don't know how to turn it down, Izuku realized, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. If I use it, it's going to be at 100%.

"Excuse me!" A tall, broad-shouldered boy with glasses suddenly stood up, pointing a rigid arm at Present Mic. "On the handout, there are four types of villains! If this is a misprint, U.A. should be ashamed! Furthermore, you, with the unkempt hair!" 

The boy spun around, pointing directly at Izuku. "You've been muttering this entire time! It's distracting! If you're just here on a pleasure trip, leave!"

Izuku slapped a hand over his mouth, sinking into his seat as the surrounding applicants snickered. 

"Okay, okay, Examinee Number 7111," Present Mic placated. "The fourth type of villain is worth zero points! It's an arena trap! If you see it, just run away! It's not impossible to defeat, but there's no reason to!"

A trap. Izuku nodded to himself. Just focus on the smaller ones. He had immense physical strength now from the beach training. Maybe he could rip the robots apart with his bare hands without even activating One For All. 

Battle Center B was a sprawling, hyper-realistic replica of a modern city district. Izuku stood near the back of the massive crowd of examinees, wearing a simple green tracksuit. He was trembling. 

"Right, let's start!" Present Mic's voice blasted from hidden speakers. "What's wrong? There are no countdowns in real battles! Run, run, run!"

The crowd surged forward. Izuku, caught off guard, was left in the dust. He sprinted after them, entering the faux city. 

The air was already thick with the sound of explosions, shattering glass, and grinding metal. Lasers shot across the intersections. Izuku turned a corner and came face-to-face with a One-Pointer robot. It was a bulky, tread-driven machine with a glowing red optic and a massive metal fist. 

"Target acquired," the robot synthesized. 

Izuku froze. His instincts, honed by a decade of being a punching bag, screamed at him to brace for impact. 

The robot lunged, swinging its metal arm. The punch struck Izuku square in the chest with the force of a small car crash. The sound of Izuku’s ribs shattering echoed loudly down the alleyway. He was thrown backward, crashing through the display window of a faux boutique, showering the pavement in shattered glass. 

Two other examinees running past stopped in horror. 

"Oh my god! He's dead!" one of them screamed, seeing the boy lying motionless amidst the glass, his chest caved in. 

But inside the boutique, the familiar hissing began. 

Thick, blinding steam erupted from Izuku's ruined chest. The pain was excruciating, a white-hot knife twisting in his lungs. But as he coughed up a mouthful of blood, the fractured bones snapped back into place like a reversed puzzle. Punctured lung tissue sealed. Bruised skin vanished. 

Izuku stood up, wiping the blood from his chin. The steam rolled off his shoulders like a demonic aura. The two examinees outside backed away in sheer terror. 

Izuku launched himself out of the window, moving with a speed and ferocity born of adrenaline and pain. He tackled the One-Pointer. His muscles, denser and stronger from ten months of hyper-regeneration, strained. He didn't use One For All. He simply grabbed the robot's arm, braced his foot against its treads, and ripped. 

Metal groaned and snapped. Sparks showered the air. Izuku tore the robot's arm clean off, then swung the severed appendage like a club, smashing the robot's optic sensor to pieces. 

The machine sparked and died. 

Izuku stood panting, his hands bloodied from the sharp metal, though the cuts were already sealing themselves in tiny wisps of steam. 

One point, he thought frantically. But the others are way ahead!

He began to run. For the next eight minutes, it was a slaughterhouse—but mostly for Izuku. He lacked any ranged attacks or mobility quirks. To destroy a robot, he had to get in close, which meant getting hit. 

A Two-Pointer slashed his thigh open to the bone. Izuku hissed in pain, let the steam seal it in seconds, and tackled the machine, crushing its central processor with a rock. 

A Three-Pointer blasted him with a concussive shockwave, snapping his arm backward at a grotesque angle. Izuku screamed, grabbed his broken wrist with his good hand, snapped it back into place with a sickening crunch, waited two seconds for the steam to fuse the bone, and then tore the robot's treads off. 

By the time the two-minute warning sounded, Izuku had maybe ten points. He was exhausted, covered in engine oil and his own rapidly vanishing blood, his tracksuit torn to shreds. The other examinees weren't cheering him on; they were avoiding him. To them, he looked like a madman, a zombie throwing himself into a meat grinder and coming out unscathed, leaving a trail of steam and terror in his wake. 

It's not enough, Izuku thought desperately, leaning against a brick wall. I need more points. I have to find a group of them!

Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble. 

It wasn't a minor tremor. The very asphalt buckled. Windows shattered all the way down the street. 

At the end of the main avenue, the buildings seemed to part. Rising from the dust and debris was a machine of incomprehensible scale. It was as tall as a skyscraper, its massive treads crushing entire city blocks into powder. 

The Zero Pointer. 

"Less than two minutes remaining!" Present Mic announced cheerfully. 

Panic erupted. The examinees, who had been bravely fighting seconds before, turned and fled in absolute terror. The sheer size of the machine made fighting it suicidal. 

Izuku turned to run too. He knew his limits. He couldn't rip a building-sized robot apart with his bare hands. He needed to find a stray One-Pointer in the opposite direction. 

"Ow!"

The cry was small, cutting through the grinding roar of the machine, but it froze Izuku's blood. 

He looked back. 

A hundred yards away, directly in the path of the Zero Pointer's advancing treads, was the nice girl with the gravity quirk. Uraraka. Her leg was pinned beneath a massive slab of concrete that had fallen from a destroyed building. She was struggling furiously, trying to touch the concrete to make it float, but she couldn't reach it. 

The Zero Pointer raised its massive foot, preparing to crush her along with the entire intersection. 

The other examinees kept running. The tall boy with glasses paused, looked back with an expression of horror, but gritted his teeth and kept running. 

Izuku didn't think. 

He didn't weigh the odds. He didn't think about his lack of points, or the entrance exam, or the consequences. 

He just remembered the Sludge Villain. He remembered Katsuki's terrified eyes. He remembered the feeling of being the only one willing to move. 

Izuku planted his feet, turned around, and sprinted directly toward the colossal machine. 

"Hey! What are you doing?!" an examinee screamed at him. "Are you insane?! You can't heal from being turned into paste!"

Izuku ignored them. He kept his eyes locked on the girl, and the massive machine bearing down on her. 

I don't have time to pry the rubble off, Izuku calculated rapidly. The robot will crush us both. I have to stop the robot.

There was only one way. 

As Izuku ran, he closed his eyes and reached deep inside himself. He felt it. The stockpiled power of One For All, sitting in the core of his being like a dormant sun. He didn't know how to channel it slowly. He only knew how to open the floodgates. 

He pictured an egg in a microwave. He pictured it exploding. 

One For All: 100%.

The power surged through him. It was unlike anything he had ever felt. It wasn't just strength; it was an incandescent, furious energy that sought to escape. Red, vein-like lines of glowing power flared across his skin. 

He reached Uraraka, but he didn't stop. He bent his knees, channeling the astronomical power into his legs, and leaped. 

The concrete beneath him completely disintegrated, forming a massive crater just from his takeoff. The shockwave blew the surrounding debris away, momentarily freeing Uraraka. 

Izuku shot into the sky like a ballistic missile. The G-force pressed his lips back into a rictus grin. He soared up, up, up, until he was directly level with the Zero Pointer's colossal metallic face. 

This is it, Izuku thought, pulling his right arm back. The power All Might trusted me with. The power to save.

"SMASH!"

Izuku threw the punch. 

The moment his fist connected with the thick armor plating of the robot, two things happened simultaneously. 

First, the Zero Pointer's head imploded. The sheer, unfathomable kinetic force of 100% One For All struck the machine like a meteor. The armor buckled, shattered, and then the entire upper half of the robot was blown cleanly off, erupting into a massive fireball of sparking wires and twisted steel. The air pressure from the punch created a visible shockwave that blasted the clouds apart above the arena. 

Second, Izuku Midoriya's right arm ceased to be an arm. 

The human body was not designed to output that much kinetic energy. The Newtonian recoil was catastrophic. 

Inside Izuku’s arm, every single bone—from his phalanges to his radius, ulna, and humerus—shattered into a thousand jagged splinters, effectively turning into dust. The muscle fibers, unable to contain the explosive pressure of the quirk, violently ruptured, tearing through his skin from the inside out. His entire right arm blew apart in a horrific, bloody spray, reduced to a mangled, unrecognizable sack of flayed meat and splintered bone held together only by a few intact tendons. 

The pain was beyond description. It was a sensory overload so absolute that Izuku's vision went completely white. He couldn't even scream; the shock paralyzed his vocal cords. 

He began to fall from the sky, a broken doll plummeting toward the earth. 

But Izuku Midoriya was a vessel made of meat and magic. And his magic was relentless. 

As he fell, the air around him ignited. Not with fire, but with a massive, localized eruption of boiling steam. 

HSSSSSSSS!

To Uraraka, who was watching from the ground in stunned awe, it looked like a cloud had enveloped the boy. 

Inside the cloud, Izuku's Cellular Immortality went to war. It detected the catastrophic, near-amputative trauma and kicked into overdrive. The pain doubled, then tripled, as millions of cells violently replicated. 

The bone dust fused back together, calcifying in mid-air. The shredded muscle fibers lashed out like living vines, weaving back into thick, powerful bands. The flayed skin pulled taut and sealed flawlessly. 

By the time Izuku was halfway to the ground, his arm was completely healed, pristine and pink, though his sleeve was entirely blown away. 

I'm healed, Izuku realized through the fading haze of agony. But I'm still falling!

He looked down. The ground was rushing up fast. He had used One For All, and he didn't know how to use it again to cushion his fall. If he punched the ground, the shockwave would kill Uraraka and the other examinees nearby. 

He had only one option. 

Izuku positioned his body, feet first, and braced himself. 

He hit the asphalt at terminal velocity. 

The sound was like a car being dropped from a helicopter. The impact cratered the street. Both of Izuku’s legs snapped violently backward, the femurs completely fracturing, driving bone shards through his tracksuit pants. His spine compressed, and his head snapped back, cracking against the pavement. 

The applicants screaming in the distance went dead silent. No one could survive a fall like that. 

For three seconds, the dust settled over the broken boy in the crater. 

Then, the hissing started again. 

A geyser of hot steam erupted from the crater. The sound of wet, sickening clicks echoed out as Izuku's femurs snapped back into place. His spine realigned. 

A hand, perfectly uninjured, reached out of the crater and grabbed the edge of the asphalt. 

Izuku pulled himself up. He was covered in dirt, his clothes were rags, and his eyes were bloodshot from the sheer biological trauma. Steam rolled off his body in thick waves, making him look like a demon rising from the underworld. He coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the pavement, before taking a deep breath and standing perfectly straight on legs that had been completely pulverized seconds prior. 

"Time's up!" Present Mic's voice blared over the sirens. 

Izuku looked around. The Zero Pointer was a smoking ruin. Uraraka was safe. 

His caloric reserves completely tapped out by healing an exploded arm and two shattered legs back-to-back, Izuku’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he pitched forward, collapsing face-first into the dirt, unconscious. 

High above the fake city, in a darkened observation room, the faculty of U.A. High School sat in absolute, stunned silence. The massive monitors on the wall replayed the final moments of Battle Center B from multiple angles. 

Nezu, the chimera principal of U.A., sat with his paws steeped, his beady eyes wide. "Well. That was certainly... unexpected."

Midnight, the R-Rated Hero, covered her mouth, looking slightly green. "Did you see his arm? It literally blew apart from the inside. And the fall... he should be dead. He should be completely dead."

"Cellular Immortality," a gruff, tired voice said from the corner of the room. 

Shota Aizawa, Eraserhead, stepped out of the shadows, his eyes locked onto the monitor showing Izuku’s sleeping, regenerating form. He held a thick file in his hand. "Izuku Midoriya. Quirk registered as Cellular Immortality. He doesn't have a healing factor. He has an unkillable reset button."

"But that strength!" Present Mic chimed in, adjusting his sunglasses nervously. "That punch was at least on par with All Might! How does immortality give him that kind of power?!"

"It doesn't," Aizawa said coldly. "He's manifesting a secondary quirk, or his file is inaccurate. But that's not what concerns me."

Aizawa walked up to the monitor, tapping the glass where Izuku had thrown the punch. 

"Look at his face right before he jumps," Aizawa commanded. The playback paused on Izuku's expression. There was no hesitation. No fear for his own well-being. Just terrifying resolve. 

"He knew that punch was going to destroy his arm," Aizawa said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "He knew that fall was going to shatter his legs. He didn't have a plan to land safely. He just knew his quirk would stitch him back together."

"He saved the girl, Shota," a tiny, elderly voice spoke up. Recovery Girl, the school nurse, walked forward, her eyes filled with a deep, sorrowful pity. "He sacrificed his own body to protect a fellow examinee. Isn't that the essence of a hero?"

"There's a fine line between a hero and a martyr," Aizawa countered sharply. "A hero calculates risk. This kid relies on his inability to die. He throws himself into the meat grinder because he knows he'll crawl out the other side. That's a psychological red flag, massive and undeniable. He has absolutely zero self-preservation instincts."

"Can you heal him, Chiyo?" Nezu asked, looking at Recovery Girl. 

The elderly nurse sighed, shaking her head. "My quirk relies on the patient's stamina to accelerate natural healing. If I tried to use my quirk on him after he just forced his cells to regenerate an arm and two legs in five seconds, I'd drain whatever stamina he has left and kill him. Though... I suppose his quirk wouldn't let him die, it would just put him in a perpetual coma of dying and healing. No, I am useless to him. The boy is his own hospital. All we can do is give him an IV drip of pure calories and wait for him to wake up."

Nezu nodded slowly, looking back at the screen. "He scored zero villain points. But the rescue points... a unanimous vote from the judges?"

The faculty members slowly raised their hands. Even Aizawa, after a long, hard glare at the monitor, begrudgingly raised a hand. 

"Izuku Midoriya passes," Nezu declared. "Though I fear for the boy's sanity, U.A. will welcome him. Let us hope we can teach him how to survive without having to die first."

One week later. 

Izuku sat at his desk in his bedroom, staring blankly at the wall. The wait had been agonizing. His mother had been a nervous wreck, pacing the halls, cooking massive meals to fuel his recovery. 

He hadn't told her about the Zero Pointer. He hadn't told her about his arm exploding. He had just said the exam was hard. 

"Izuku! A letter! It's from U.A.!" Inko burst into the room, holding a thick envelope with the wax seal of the academy. She practically threw it onto his desk and ran out of the room, unable to bear the tension. 

Izuku stared at the envelope. His hands were shaking. He reached out, his thumb tracing the seal. He tore it open. 

A small, metallic disk fell out onto the desk. 

Suddenly, a holographic projection sprang to life, illuminating the dim bedroom. 

"I am here as a projection!" All Might's voice boomed from the hologram. He was in his pinstripe suit, looking vibrant and powerful. 

Izuku gasped, falling back in his chair. "All Might?!"

"You did an amazing job on the written test, young Midoriya!" All Might began, his tone serious but warm. "But the practical exam... you scored zero points."

Izuku’s heart plummeted into his stomach. Zero points. Of course. The Zero Pointer didn't count. He had failed. He had endured all that pain, all that suffering, and it wasn't enough. 

"If that were all there was to it, you would have failed," All Might continued. "But look at this!"

The hologram shifted, showing a video feed. It was Uraraka, the girl with the gravity quirk. She was standing in what looked like the faculty lounge, talking to Present Mic. 

“Um, excuse me!” Uraraka's voice played through the hologram. “The boy with the messy green hair... he saved me! He took down that huge robot, but he broke himself doing it! Can I give him some of my points? Please! He would have had more if he hadn't stopped to save me!”

Izuku stared, tears pricking his eyes. She had gone out of her way for him. 

"A hero course that rejects those who do the right thing is no hero course at all!" All Might declared proudly. "This is a job that requires risking your life to put your money where your mouth is! Rescue Points! Given by a panel of judges! Izuku Midoriya... Sixty points!"

Izuku covered his mouth, a sob tearing from his throat. 

"And with that," All Might pointed directly at the camera, a smile so bright it seemed to light up the whole room, "you pass. Come, young Midoriya. This is your hero academia."

The hologram fizzled out, leaving Izuku sitting in the dark, the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. 

He had done it. He had opened the door. 

He looked down at his right arm. It looked perfectly normal. Unscarred. Healthy. But he could still feel the phantom echo of the bones turning to dust, the agonizing heat of the steam that rebuilt him. 

He clenched his fist. The power of One For All thrummed beneath his skin, dangerous and wild. He was a vessel made of meat and magic, and he knew, with terrifying certainty, that this was just the beginning of the pain. 

But as he looked out his window toward the distant, gleaming towers of U.A., he smiled. 

I'll break a thousand times if I have to, he promised himself. I will be the hero who always gets back up.

Izuku Midoriya stood before the full-length mirror in his bedroom, adjusting the red tie of his U.A. High School uniform. 

The fabric was crisp, stiff, and smelled of factory starch. It felt like armor. Or perhaps, more accurately, it felt like a costume he hadn't fully earned yet. He rolled up his left sleeve, staring at the skin of his forearm. It was smooth, unblemished, and pale. A perfectly normal arm. 

He closed his eyes, and phantom sensations flared to life. He could still remember exactly how it felt when the Zero Pointer’s metal chassis had met his fist. He could remember the feeling of his radius and ulna turning to dust, the agonizing, wet tearing of his bicep snapping like a taut rubber band, and the white-hot, scalding heat of the steam that had forced it all back together. 

He took a slow, deep breath, reigning in his racing heart. Pain is temporary, he whispered to his reflection. It’s just a metric. A signal that the body is broken. But my body doesn't stay broken.

"Izuku! You're going to be late!" his mother's voice called from the kitchen. 

"Coming, Mom!" he shouted back, pulling his sleeve down and grabbing his yellow backpack. 

The walk to U.A. was a surreal experience. For the first time in his life, he was walking toward a future that didn't feel like a locked door. He found Class 1-A with relative ease, standing before a door so massively oversized it looked like it belonged on a bank vault. 

Taking a deep breath, he opened it. 

The classroom was already buzzing with energy, but Izuku’s eyes immediately locked onto a familiar, spiky-haired silhouette. Katsuki Bakugo was sitting at a desk near the back, his feet propped up on the wood. Standing over him, chopping his arms in rigid, robotic motions, was the tall, bespectacled boy from the entrance exam. 

"Don't put your feet on the desk!" the boy scolded loudly. "Don't you think that's disrespectful to your upperclassmen and the people who made this desk?!"

"No, I don't," Katsuki sneered, his red eyes narrowed in profound irritation. "Which crappy middle school did you go to, you extra?"

"I attended Somei Private Academy! My name is Tenya Iida!" 

"Somei? So you're a damn elite, huh?" Katsuki scoffed, small sparks popping from his palms. "I'll have fun crushing you."

Iida gasped, taking a step back. "Crushing me? That's cruel! Do you truly aim to be a hero?"

Izuku took a step into the room, and Katsuki’s eyes snapped toward him. The sneer vanished from Katsuki's face, replaced instantly by a look of sheer, visceral revulsion. Katsuki abruptly pulled his feet off the desk, turned his body away toward the window, and scowled heavily, his jaw tight. 

Iida noticed the shift and followed Katsuki's gaze. "Ah! You're the boy from the entrance exam!"

The classroom went quiet as several heads turned. Izuku froze. 

Iida marched over, his posture ramrod straight. "Good morning! I am Tenya Iida. I must apologize. I completely misjudged you during the exam. You realized there was a practical application to that massive trap, and you threw yourself into danger to save a fellow examinee! It was a breathtaking display of heroism!"

"Oh, uh, no, not really," Izuku stammered, waving his hands frantically. "I didn't realize anything, I just... I just moved!"

"That boy with the messy hair!" a cheerful voice called out from the hallway. 

Izuku turned to see the girl with the brown bob—Uraraka—beaming at him. She bounded into the classroom, her cheeks flushed with excitement. "You passed! I knew you would! That punch was amazing! Though..." Her smile faltered slightly, replaced by a look of deep concern. "Your arm... and your legs... I saw them break. Are you completely healed? Your quirk is super scary!"

Before Izuku could attempt to explain the horrifying mechanics of his biology, a sluggish, muffled voice spoke from the floor behind Uraraka. 

"If you're just here to make friends, you can pack up your things and leave."

The three students looked down in shock. Lying on the floor, zipped up to the neck in a bright yellow sleeping bag, was a haggard-looking man. He unzipped the bag and stood up, revealing messy black hair, bloodshot eyes, and a gray scarf wrapped around his neck. He held up a foil juice pouch and took a slow sip. 

"It took you eight seconds to quiet down," the man sighed, his voice dripping with apathy. "Time is limited. You kids are not rational enough. I'm your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. Nice to meet you."

The class stared in disbelief. This guy is a Pro Hero?

Aizawa reached into his sleeping bag and pulled out a stack of blue gym uniforms. "Put these on and head out to the P.E. grounds."

The sun beat down on the sprawling athletic field of U.A. High. Class 1-A stood in a loose cluster, dressed in their blue tracksuits, staring at their homeroom teacher in confusion. 

"A Quirk Apprehension Test?!" the class echoed in unison. 

"What about the entrance ceremony? The orientation?" Uraraka asked, stepping forward nervously. 

"If you're going to become a hero, you don't have time for such leisurely events," Aizawa said coldly, his hands stuffed into his pockets. "U.A.'s selling point is how unrestricted its school traditions are. That's also how the teachers run their classes. You kids have been doing these standardized tests since junior high, right? Physical fitness tests where you weren't allowed to use your quirks. The country still uses averages taken from results devoid of quirks. It's irrational."

Aizawa turned his gaze to Katsuki. "Bakugo, you finished first in the practical exam. What was your best result for the softball throw in junior high?"

"Sixty-seven meters," Katsuki muttered, deliberately avoiding looking at Izuku. 

"Then, try doing it with your quirk." Aizawa tossed Katsuki a baseball. 

Katsuki walked into the pitching circle drawn in the dirt. He stretched his arms, a feral grin finally breaking through his foul mood. He wound up, and as he threw, he triggered a massive explosion from his palm. 

"DIE!" Katsuki roared. 

The blast propelled the ball into the sky like a rocket, leaving a trail of smoke. Aizawa held up a digital tracking device. It beeped. He turned the screen toward the class. 

705.2 meters.

The class erupted. 

"Over 700 meters? That's insane!"

"We can use our quirks as much as we want? This looks like fun!"

"Awesome! I can't wait!"

Aizawa's eyes narrowed. The air around him suddenly felt heavy, suffocating. "Fun? You have three years to become heroes. Will you have an attitude of 'fun' the whole time?" 

He smiled, but it was a cruel, terrifying expression. "Right. Whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential, and will be punished with expulsion."

The silence that followed was absolute. 

"Expulsion?!" Uraraka cried out. "But it's the first day! Even if it wasn't, that's totally unfair!"

"Natural disasters, massive accidents, and selfish villains," Aizawa listed off, his voice flat. "Calamities whose time and place can't be predicted. Japan is covered with unfairness. Heroes are the ones who reverse those situations. If you wanted to talk to your friends at McDonald's after school, too bad. For the next three years, U.A. will do all it can to give you one hardship after another. Go beyond. Plus Ultra. Overcome it with all you've got."

Izuku swallowed hard, his throat dry. 

Expulsion. 

He looked at his hands. The tests were standard physical fitness benchmarks. 50-meter dash, grip strength, standing long jump. He had gained immense physical strength from his ten months of hellish training on Dagobah Beach, but he was surrounded by prodigies with quirks tailored for mobility and power. 

And then there was One For All. 

He hadn't learned how to regulate it. If he used the quirk for a 50-meter dash, the concussive force of his legs shattering would propel him, yes, but it would also obliterate his uniform, bathe the track in blood, and leave him screaming in agony as the steam stitched him back together. He couldn't do that for every single test. His caloric reserves would be drained before they even got to the ball throw. 

He had to hold back. He had to rely purely on his baseline, quirkless physical strength. 

The tests began, and Izuku's dread deepened. 

In the 50-meter dash, Iida blasted across the finish line in 3.04 seconds using his engine legs. Izuku ran a 7.02. Good for a normal human, but pathetic in a class of superhumans. 

In the grip strength test, a boy with multiple arms named Shoji squeezed an incredible 540 kilograms. Izuku squeezed 56. 

By the time they reached the softball throw, the final test, Izuku was hovering dangerously close to the bottom of the rankings. 

"Midoriya's not doing so well, is he?" Iida noted, adjusting his glasses. 

"Of course he isn't," Katsuki spat, his voice trembling with a mixture of anger and anxiety. "He's a damn meat shield. His quirk only works when he gets hit. He has no offense. No utility. He's completely useless here."

It was Izuku’s turn. He stood in the chalk circle, holding the baseball. The weight of the sphere felt like an anchor in his palm. 

If I don't use it now, I'm going home, Izuku thought, his hands shaking. Aizawa-sensei said this school will give us hardship after hardship. I can't be afraid of the pain. I have to use it. I have to break it.

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut. He reached deep inside, visualizing the dormant sun within his chest. He pulled on it, letting the incandescent energy flood his right arm. Red, glowing lines flared beneath the skin of his forearm. The sheer pressure of the stockpiled power caused his muscles to bulge unnaturally. 

One For All: 100%.

He pulled his arm back, preparing to shatter his own bones to dust. 

I'll just heal it. I'll take the pain!

Izuku stepped forward and hurled the ball with all his might. 

He expected the thunderous shockwave. He expected the sickening crunch of his own skeleton disintegrating. 

Instead, the ball left his hand with a pathetic thwack and landed a mere forty-six meters away. 

Izuku blinked, stumbling forward. His arm didn't hurt. It wasn't broken. But the power... the power was gone. It had vanished right at the point of release. 

"I erased your quirk."

Izuku whipped his head around. Aizawa stood at the edge of the circle. His scarf was floating defying gravity, and his eyes were glowing a piercing, demonic red. 

"That entrance exam was definitely not rational enough," Aizawa growled, his voice vibrating with barely contained fury. "To think a kid like you was allowed to enroll."

"E-Erased?" Izuku gasped. He recognized the goggles hanging around Aizawa's neck. "You're the Erasure Hero, Eraserhead! You can cancel out quirks just by looking at them!"

Aizawa stepped into the circle, looming over Izuku like a shadow. "I saw your file, Midoriya. 'Cellular Immortality'. And I watched the footage of your entrance exam. You shattered your own limbs, reduced your arm to a bloody pulp, and relied on your body's inability to die to put you back together."

Aizawa grabbed Izuku by the collar of his gym uniform, pulling him close. The teacher's red eyes burned into Izuku's green ones. 

"You think that makes you brave?" Aizawa whispered fiercely. "You think destroying yourself to throw a single punch makes you a hero? If you blow yourself up every time you fight, you'll eventually face an enemy you can't stall, or a disaster you can't outlast. You'll become a liability. A hero who can only save people by dying is useless."

Izuku’s breath hitched. It was the exact same thing All Might had warned him about on the rooftop. The exact same logic Katsuki had thrown in his face. 

"I erased your quirk," Aizawa continued coldly. "But... there is an anomaly in your file. Your file says you have a regeneration quirk. But the power you were about to use just now... that was a physical enhancement. That was a stockpile."

Aizawa narrowed his eyes. "My Erasure can only target one quirk factor at a time. I chose to erase the one that keeps you alive."

Izuku's blood ran cold. 

Aizawa released Izuku's collar, the scarf settling back around his shoulders. His eyes stopped glowing red. "I've returned your quirks to you. You have one throw left. If you shatter your arm again, you'll be incapacitated, and I will expel you right here. Show me what you can do without using yourself as a disposable meat shield."

Aizawa turned and walked back to the group of students. 

Izuku stood in the circle, trembling violently. He picked up a second baseball. 

He's right, Izuku thought, staring at his reflection in the pristine white leather. If I use 100%, my arm will explode. Even if I heal it, the pain paralyzes me for a few seconds. I'll be vulnerable. It's not sustainable.

But how could he control it? He had only ever opened the floodgates all the way. He didn't know how to open a faucet. 

Wait. 

Izuku closed his eyes. He thought back to the entrance exam. When he threw the punch at the Zero Pointer, the power had flooded his entire arm, blowing the whole limb apart. But what if he didn't flood the whole limb? What if he concentrated the power into a smaller area, for a fraction of a second? The damage would be localized. It would still hurt, it would still break him, but it wouldn't paralyze him. 

It was a terrifying gamble. 

Izuku gripped the ball. He visualized the glowing red energy. Instead of letting it flood his arm, he pushed it all down. Past his shoulder, past his elbow, past his wrist, concentrating it solely into the tip of his right index finger. 

Just at the point of release!

Izuku wound up. He threw his arm forward. 

At the absolute last microsecond, as the ball rolled off his fingertip, Izuku unleashed One For All. 

SMASH!

The concussive boom shattered the air. The ball vanished into the stratosphere, leaving a visible shockwave ring in the sky behind it. The wind pressure blasted the surrounding students backward. 

Izuku stood in the circle, his arm outstretched. 

He didn't explode into a cloud of blood and bone dust. But he didn't escape unscathed. 

His right index finger was completely destroyed. The bone had shattered under the localized 100% impact, turning the finger into a swollen, purple, mangled mess that bent backward at a grotesque, unnatural angle. 

The pain was a sharp, blinding spike, but compared to his entire arm exploding, it was entirely manageable. 

Izuku clenched his jaw, refusing to scream. He turned to Aizawa, his hand trembling, and made a fist with his remaining fingers, leaving the broken one awkwardly protruding. 

"Aizawa-sensei," Izuku panted, sweat beading on his forehead. "I can still move."

Aizawa stared at the boy. The digital tracker in his hand beeped. He held it up. 

705.3 meters.

Aizawa's eyes widened fractionally behind his messy hair. He had expected the kid to blow himself up. He had expected him to fail. Instead, the boy had found a compromise. A brutal, self-mutilating compromise, but a compromise nonetheless. 

"This kid..." Aizawa muttered, a rare, chilling smile playing on his lips. 

Before anyone else could react, the hissing began. 

Class 1-A watched in horrified fascination as a jet of scalding white steam erupted violently from Izuku's broken finger. The sound of a wet, loud CRACK echoed across the silent field as the shattered bones forcibly snapped themselves back into alignment. The swollen purple skin flushed pink, then settled back to its normal pale hue. In three seconds, the steam dissipated, and the finger was perfectly healed. 

Izuku let out a long, shaky breath, rubbing his freshly generated knuckle. 

"What the hell was that?!" Kaminari, a boy with yellow hair, shrieked, pointing at Izuku. "His finger just popped back into place! And the steam!"

"I told you," Uraraka whispered, her hands clasped tightly together. "His quirk is scary."

But the most violent reaction didn't come from the background characters. It came from Katsuki Bakugo. 

Katsuki had stood frozen during the throw, his eyes tracking the ball. But when the steam erupted from Izuku's finger, something inside Katsuki snapped. The trauma of the sludge alleyway, the years of complex superiority and deep-seated terror, boiled over into pure, unadulterated rage. 

"DEKU, YOU BASTARD!" Katsuki roared. 

Explosions erupted from Katsuki's palms as he launched himself forward, sprinting directly at Izuku with murderous intent. "Tell me how you did that! Tell me how you got a strength quirk! You've been hiding it this whole time, haven't you, you lying piece of trash?!"

Izuku braced himself, raising his arms, fully prepared to take an explosive blast to the face and heal through it. 

But Katsuki never reached him. 

Suddenly, thick, gray cloth wrapped around Katsuki's torso, binding his arms to his sides and stopping his momentum instantly. Katsuki struggled furiously, but the cloth was like steel. 

"What the... this cloth is stiff!" Katsuki snarled, turning his head. 

Aizawa stood ten feet away, holding the end of his capture weapon, his eyes glowing red, his hair floating. "It's a carbon fiber woven with a special metal alloy. Stop using your quirk, Bakugo. My eyes are getting dry."

Aizawa released the cloth and blinked. His hair fell back to his shoulders. "We're wasting time. Whoever is next, step up."

Katsuki stumbled forward, rubbing his arms. He glared at Izuku, his crimson eyes swimming with a frantic, desperate confusion. He didn't say another word, but the promise of violence hung heavy in the air. 

At the end of the tests, Aizawa projected the holograms of the scores. Izuku came in last place. His incredible throw couldn't completely salvage his abysmal scores in the other events. 

Izuku lowered his head. He had tried. He had broken his finger to prove a point, but it wasn't enough. 

"By the way, I lied about the expulsion," Aizawa said dryly, turning off the projector. 

The entire class froze. 

"It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your quirks," Aizawa grinned, showing far too many teeth. 

"WHAT?!" the class screamed. 

"Of course it was a lie," a tall girl with a ponytail, Yaoyorozu, sighed, shaking her head. "If you just think about it logically, it was obvious."

Izuku collapsed onto the grass, a wave of profound relief washing over him, followed immediately by the staggering exhaustion of adrenaline and cellular regeneration. He had survived day one. 

But as he looked across the field, Katsuki was staring at him. And in Katsuki's eyes, there was no relief. Only a burning, obsessive question that demanded a violent answer. 

Day two brought the actual Hero Informatics class, taught by the one man Izuku owed everything to. 

"I AM HERE!" All Might boomed, bursting through the classroom door in his Golden Age costume. "COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!"

The class erupted in cheers. All Might was teaching! 

"Today, we will be conducting Battle Trials!" All Might announced, flexing a bicep. "And to do that, you'll need these!" He pointed a remote at the wall, and mechanical shelves slid outward, holding metal suitcases with numbered locks. "Costumes made based on your quirk registrations and requests! Change, and gather at Ground Beta!"

Izuku held suitcase number 18. His mother had made his costume. It wasn't flashy, and it didn't have high-tech gadgets, but it was made with love. 

When he emerged into Ground Beta, a massive replica city, he felt a swell of pride. The costume was a teal-green jumpsuit with a red belt, black boots, and knee pads. The cowl featured long, rabbit-like ears, a silent homage to All Might's hair tufts, and a metal respirator mask. 

"Oh, Midoriya! Your costume looks so cool!" Uraraka jogged up to him. She was wearing a form-fitting pink and black space suit. "It really suits you!"

"Y-You think so?" Izuku stuttered, pulling his cowl down to hide his fiercely blushing face. 

"Now that you're all here, let's begin the Battle Trials!" All Might announced. "This is an indoor anti-personnel training exercise! You'll be split into teams of two, playing either Heroes or Villains. The Villains are hiding a nuclear weapon in the building. The Heroes must either capture the Villains or touch the weapon before time runs out!"

Lots were drawn. Izuku felt a cold knot form in his stomach as the teams were announced. 

Team A: Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco Uraraka. 

Team D: Katsuki Bakugo and Tenya Iida. 

"And the first matchup is..." All Might pulled two balls from the lottery boxes. "Team A as the Heroes, and Team D as the Villains!"

The air between Izuku and Katsuki immediately turned toxic. Katsuki sneered, a feral, terrifying glint in his eyes, before turning and marching into the designated building with Iida. 

All Might looked at Izuku, his smile strained. He knew exactly what Izuku’s quirk did. He knew how gruesome it looked, and he knew how Katsuki felt about it. Midoriya, All Might thought worriedly, please, don't destroy yourself today.

"Midoriya?" Uraraka asked, noticing Izuku's pale face. "Are you okay? You look like you're going to throw up."

"I'm fine," Izuku lied, tightening the straps on his gloves. "We just have to be careful. Kacchan... he's not going to play by the rules. He's coming straight for me."

Five minutes later, the siren blared, signaling the start of the match. 

Izuku and Uraraka entered the building through a ground-floor window. The interior was dark, a labyrinth of concrete corridors and structural pillars. They crept down the first hallway, Izuku's senses heightened, every nerve on edge. 

He's close. I know he is.

As they rounded the first corner, the shadows above them shifted. 

"Uraraka, get back!" Izuku screamed, shoving her backward. 

A massive explosion shattered the corridor. Fire and smoke roared out from a blind spot near the ceiling. Izuku crossed his arms over his face, taking the brunt of the blast. The heat singed his cowl and blackened the forearms of his costume, but he held his ground. 

Through the clearing smoke, Katsuki emerged, a demon wreathed in ash and ozone. He wore a black tank top and massive, grenade-shaped gauntlets on his forearms. 

"A sneak attack?!" Uraraka gasped, coughing. "That's so unmanly!"

"It's a viable strategy," Izuku coughed, glaring through the smoke. "He aimed for me."

"Don't ignore me, you damn nerd!" Katsuki roared, launching himself forward with a blast from his right palm. He swung a devastating right hook. 

Izuku didn't flinch. He remembered Katsuki's fighting style. He remembered the right hook. 

Izuku ducked under the swing, grabbed Katsuki's extended arm, and planted his foot into Katsuki's stomach, using the boy's own momentum to throw him hard into the concrete floor. 

The impact knocked the breath out of Katsuki. He lay there for a second, staring up at the ceiling in absolute shock. 

He read me? Deku read my move?

Izuku stepped back, his fists raised. "I'm not the same punching bag I was in middle school, Kacchan. I analyze heroes. I've analyzed you for years."

Katsuki slowly stood up. The shock faded, replaced by a dark, bubbling hysteria. His eyes widened, a manic grin stretching across his face. "So you think you can fight back now, huh? Because you have some secret strength quirk? Because you think you can just heal whatever I do to you?!"

Katsuki raised his right arm, pointing the massive grenade gauntlet directly at Izuku. He wrapped his left hand around a small metal pin on the side of the gauntlet. 

"Let's see if you can heal from being vaporized!" 

In the monitoring room, All Might grabbed the microphone in a panic. "Young Bakugo, stop! Are you trying to kill him?! If you use that at this range, you'll destroy the entire floor!"

"He won't die if he dodges!" Katsuki screamed back, completely losing his mind to his fury. 

He pulled the pin. 

The grenade gauntlets were designed to store Katsuki's nitroglycerin-like sweat and compress it into a single, localized blast. It was artillery-level ordinance. 

A blinding, roaring column of superheated fire and shockwave erupted from the gauntlet, filling the entire corridor. 

Izuku had a fraction of a second to react. He could have dove out of the way. He had the reflexes now. 

But Uraraka was standing directly behind him. If he dodged, the blast would incinerate her. 

Izuku planted his feet, widened his stance, and threw his arms open, making his body a human shield. 

The blast hit him point-blank. 

The heat was instantaneous and absolute. Izuku's screams were drowned out by the roar of the explosion. The force of the blast blew out the windows of the building, sending a shockwave rippling across Ground Beta. 

In the monitoring room, Class 1-A watched in utter horror. 

"Sensei! Stop the match!" Kirishima, a red-haired boy, yelled, slamming his hands on the console. "Bakugo's crazy! He just killed Midoriya!"

Mina Ashido covered her eyes, trembling. Kaminari looked sick. Even Todoroki, the stoic boy with half-white, half-red hair, narrowed his eyes in shock. 

The smoke in the corridor slowly began to clear, drawn out through the shattered windows. 

Katsuki stood panting, his arm smoking, a crazed, terrified smile on his face. "See? He's gone. The freak is gone."

But a sound pierced the silence. A sound Katsuki heard in his nightmares. 

HSSSSSSSSS!

Katsuki's smile vanished. His pupils shrank to pinpricks. 

Standing in the center of a blackened, glassed-over crater was Izuku Midoriya. 

Half of Izuku's costume had been completely incinerated. The entire left side of his torso, his left arm, and part of his face had been blasted away. For one horrifying, gruesome second, the cameras in the hallway transmitted the image to the monitors in the viewing room. 

The class saw exposed white ribs. They saw the rhythmic, unprotected beating of Izuku's heart beneath a ruined lung. They saw the charred, blackened ruin of a skull where his cheek should have been. 

Several students in the monitor room gagged. Yaoyorozu turned away, looking faint. 

"Oh my god..." Uraraka whispered, sitting on the floor behind Izuku, completely untouched by the blast. She stared at his ruined back, tears streaming down her face. "Midoriya... you..."

Then, the biological magic erupted. 

A geyser of boiling white steam exploded from Izuku's ruined flesh, so thick and hot it warped the air around him. The students watched on the monitors as the gore was obscured by the vapor, but the sounds were unmistakable. The sickening, wet squelch of rapid cellular division. The snapping of bone calcifying in real-time. 

In less than five seconds, the steam began to dissipate. 

Izuku stood there, panting heavily. The incinerated half of his body was flawless, smooth, and painfully pink, devoid of any scarring. His costume hung in charred rags around his waist. 

He turned his head slowly, fixing Katsuki with a gaze so intense, so utterly unyielding, it looked inhuman. 

"Is that all you've got, Kacchan?" Izuku rasped, his vocal cords still recovering from the hyper-regeneration. 

Katsuki took a step back, his hands shaking violently. He wasn't looking at a classmate. He was looking at an immortal monster. 

"You... you..." Katsuki stammered, his bravado entirely shattered. "You're a zombie! You're a freak!"

"Uraraka," Izuku said, ignoring Katsuki, his voice deadly serious. "Go. Find the weapon. Leave him to me."

"B-But..." Uraraka hesitated, looking at Izuku's exposed, rapidly cooling skin. 

"Go!" Izuku ordered. 

Uraraka scrambled to her feet and ran down the hallway, bypassing the paralyzed Katsuki. 

Katsuki watched her go, then turned his frantic eyes back to Izuku. He gritted his teeth, pure adrenaline masking his terror. "Fine! You want to be a meat shield?! Let's see how much meat you have left!"

Katsuki lunged, using small explosions to propel himself in erratic, unpredictable zig-zags. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, unleashing a flurry of blasts aimed directly at Izuku's face and chest. 

Izuku didn't try to dodge. He couldn't outmaneuver Katsuki in close quarters. Instead, he embraced the pain. 

Katsuki's left hook exploded against Izuku's jaw, shattering the bone. Izuku's head snapped to the side, but he didn't fall. The steam hissed, fusing the jaw back together before Katsuki could even throw the next punch. 

Katsuki blasted Izuku's ribs. The ribs broke, and instantly healed. 

Katsuki blasted Izuku's shoulder. The muscle tore, and instantly rebuilt itself stronger. 

It was a horrific, brutal slugfest of attrition. Izuku was taking catastrophic damage with every blow, feeling the agonizing white-hot flare of pain every single time, but he simply refused to go down. He was a wall of flesh and steam, constantly advancing, pushing Katsuki backward down the hall. 

In the monitor room, the class watched in stunned, grim silence. 

"This isn't a fight," Tokoyami muttered, his shadowy quirk stirring nervously. "This is an execution of willpower. Midoriya is just letting Bakugo exhaust himself."

"It's terrifying," Kirishima whispered, though there was a grudging respect in his eyes. "He's literally unbreakable."

Down the hall, Katsuki was panting heavily, sweat pouring down his face. His arms ached from the recoil of his own explosions. He backed away, putting distance between himself and the steaming, unyielding boy. 

"Why won't you just stay down?!" Katsuki screamed, his voice cracking. 

"Uraraka," Izuku tapped the earpiece in his remaining cowl. "Are you there?"

“I’m here!” Uraraka's voice came through, panting. “I found the weapon on the top floor! But Iida removed everything from the room! I can't use my quirk on anything to distract him!”

"Where are you positioned?" Izuku asked, his eyes locked on Katsuki. 

“Right by the pillar near the window!”

"Grab the pillar," Izuku ordered. "Hold on tight."

Izuku turned off the comms. He looked at Katsuki. The explosive boy was raising his other grenade gauntlet, preparing to pull the second pin. 

Izuku couldn't let him fire that blast. But he also needed to give Uraraka an opening. He needed to alter the battlefield. 

Pain is just a metric, Izuku reminded himself. 

He widened his stance and pulled his right arm back. He didn't focus the power into a finger this time. He opened the floodgates completely, channeling the entirety of the dormant sun into his right arm. 

The red veins flared brightly, illuminating the dim hallway. 

"Don't mock me!" Katsuki roared, lunging forward to pull the pin. 

Izuku swung his arm. Not at Katsuki. He swung it directly upward, aiming at the ceiling. 

One For All: 100%! DETROIT SMASH!

The concussive force was apocalyptic. 

The shockwave erupted upward, completely annihilating the ceiling of the corridor. It tore through the third floor, pulverized the fourth floor, and blew the roof off the building entirely. The sheer kinetic energy created an updraft so violent it sucked the dust and debris right out of the building. 

Simultaneously, Izuku's right arm underwent catastrophic failure. The bones turned to dust, the muscles ruptured, and the limb exploded into a bloody, mangled ruin, leaving his arm hanging by mere threads of flesh. 

The pain was blinding, dropping Izuku to one knee. 

Above them, on the top floor, the sudden, violent destruction of the floorboards sent Iida flying off balance. The room was tilted, debris floating in the updraft. 

Uraraka, clinging to the pillar, saw her chance. 

"Improvised Special Move!" she yelled, touching a massive chunk of floating concrete. "Comet Home Run!"

She swatted the debris directly at Iida, who was too busy trying to find his footing on the collapsing floor to dodge. The debris hit him, knocking him backward. Uraraka launched herself across the tilting room, soaring through the dust, and slammed both her hands onto the faux nuclear weapon. 

"Retrieved!" she shouted. 

In the monitoring room, the siren blared. 

"Hero Team... WINS!" All Might announced, his voice echoing over the PA system. 

Back in the second-floor corridor, the dust began to settle. Katsuki had been thrown backward by the sheer wind pressure of Izuku's punch. He sat on the floor, staring up at the massive, gaping hole that reached all the way to the sky. 

He looked back down at Izuku. 

Izuku was still on one knee. Thick, boiling steam poured off his right side, obscuring his ruined arm. The sickening sounds of bone and muscle reforming echoed in the quiet aftermath of the battle. 

After ten seconds, the steam faded. Izuku stood up, his right arm perfectly healed, though his costume was practically gone. He looked exhausted, his chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot. 

Katsuki stared at him, completely and utterly broken. He had hit Deku with everything he had. He had fired artillery at him. And Deku had just healed, and responded with a power that could shatter buildings. 

Izuku walked over to Katsuki. He didn't gloat. He didn't look angry. He just looked sad. He offered his newly generated, unscarred hand to the boy who had tormented him for years. 

"I told you, Kacchan," Izuku said softly. "I'm not a punching bag anymore."

Katsuki slapped the hand away, scrambling backward until he hit the wall. He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent, humiliated sobs. 

The debrief in the monitoring room was somber. 

The class didn't cheer for Izuku. They looked at him with a mixture of awe, fear, and deep, profound concern. He stood before them wrapped in a blanket Recovery Girl had provided, sipping a massive, 2000-calorie protein shake to replenish the astronomical energy he had burned regenerating. 

"The MVP of this match is Iida," All Might announced, breaking the silence. "He was the only one who adapted to his role perfectly. Bakugo was driven by a personal grudge and launched an attack that could have killed his opponent. Uraraka let her guard down mid-battle. And Midoriya..."

All Might looked at Izuku, a deep sadness in his eyes. "Midoriya won the match. But he did so by willfully subjecting himself to catastrophic, self-inflicted damage. A hero must survive to save others, but relying on an immortality quirk to act recklessly is a dangerous path."

"It wasn't reckless!" Uraraka suddenly spoke up, stepping forward. Her hands were balled into fists, and she looked at Izuku with tears in her eyes. "He protected me! He took that blast so I wouldn't get hurt! And he made the opening for me to win!"

She turned to Izuku, her voice trembling. "But... but you're always hurting yourself! Every time you do something amazing, you get torn apart! Doesn't it hurt?!"

The class fell completely silent, waiting for his answer. 

Izuku lowered his protein shake. He looked at Uraraka, then at Iida, and finally at Katsuki, who was glaring at the floor in the corner of the room. 

"Of course it hurts," Izuku said, his voice quiet but echoing clearly in the silent room. "It hurts more than I can explain. Every broken bone, every burn... I feel all of it. Every single time."

He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. 

"But pain is just a metric," Izuku continued, his green eyes hardening with that same terrifying resolve he had shown in the alleyway with the Sludge Villain. "It's just a signal. It tells me my body is broken, but it also tells me I'm still alive. And as long as I'm alive, I can stand back up."

He offered Uraraka a small, gentle smile. "Pain is temporary. It goes away when the steam clears. But if I don't step in front of that blast... if I don't break my arm to make an opening... someone else gets hurt. And that kind of damage? That doesn't heal with steam."

He looked back at the monitors, at the ruined building he had shattered. 

"Pain is temporary," Izuku repeated, the words solidifying into the foundation of the hero he was destined to become. "Saving people is permanent. I'll take the pain, so you don't have to."

The class stared at him. The fear and revulsion that had simmered when they saw his gore on the screen melted away, replaced by a staggering, heavy reverence. They realized, in that moment, what Shota Aizawa and All Might already knew. 

Izuku Midoriya was not a monster. He was not a zombie. 

He was a boy who had weaponized his own suffering for the sake of the world. And that made him the most terrifying, unyielding hero in the room.

The bus ride to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, mercifully abbreviated to the USJ, was suffocated by a strange, heavy tension. 

Before the Battle Trials, the class dynamic had been relatively standard. There were the loud kids, the quiet kids, and the kids with flashy, powerful quirks who naturally gravitated toward the center of attention. Izuku Midoriya had been categorized as a timid anomaly—the boy with the gruesome healing quirk who cried too much. 

That perception had been incinerated in the fires of Ground Beta. 

Izuku sat near the back of the bus, quietly gnawing his way through a massive, foil-wrapped brick of dense calorie paste his mother had prepared. He needed to constantly top off his energy reserves. He could feel the eyes of his classmates on him. They weren't glaring, but their gazes were heavy with a mixture of reverence, caution, and morbid curiosity. 

"Hey, Midoriya," Tsuyu Asui, the blunt, frog-quirk girl, spoke up, breaking the low hum of the engine. "I usually speak my mind."

Izuku swallowed his bite of calorie paste. "O-Oh, Asui. What is it?"

"Call me Tsu. Your quirk... it’s Immortality, right? But during the entrance exam, and the Battle Trial with Bakugo, you unleashed this massive, destructive power. Does your Immortality give you super strength?"

The bus went quiet. Even Katsuki Bakugo, who was sitting near the front with his arms crossed and his eyes squeezed shut, seemed to lean back slightly to listen. 

"Ah... well..." Izuku stammered, his face flushing. He had practiced this lie with All Might, but executing it under the scrutinizing gaze of his peers was terrifying. "It's... it's a secondary manifestation. It’s like... a hysterical strength reflex? Since my body knows it can't die, it removes the psychological limiters on my muscles. But because my body isn't actually built to handle 100% of human potential, the recoil shatters my bones. So... I can only use it by breaking myself."

It was a brilliant half-truth. 

"That's so hardcore," Eijiro Kirishima muttered, holding up a hardened fist. "But man, having to blow your own arm off just to throw a punch? That's rough. My Hardening quirk isn't flashy, but at least it keeps me in one piece."

"I think it's incredibly pro!" Uraraka chimed in from the seat across the aisle. "You're like a knight! You take all the damage so everyone else can be safe!"

Katsuki clicked his tongue violently. "A knight? He's a damn meat shield. A suicidal freak."

"Bakugo, that is uncalled for!" Iida chopped the air rigidly. "Midoriya's willingness to endure suffering for the sake of victory is the hallmark of a true hero!"

"Shut up, Four-Eyes!" Katsuki snarled, though the venom in his voice was noticeably thinner than usual, hollowed out by the lingering trauma of the Battle Trials. 

Izuku looked out the window. A suicidal freak. Aizawa had said something similar. It was the tightrope he was forced to walk. He couldn't die, but he had to prove he was fighting to live, not just surviving to fight. 

The USJ was an architectural marvel. A colossal glass dome housing various disaster zones: a shipwrecked flood zone, a landslide zone, a raging fire zone, and a ruined cityscape. 

Standing before the class was the Rescue Hero, Thirteen, clad in a bulky astronaut suit. 

"Welcome, students!" Thirteen announced warmly. "Before we begin, I have one or two... or three... points. I am sure you are aware of my quirk, Black Hole. It can suck up and tear apart anything. However, it is a power that can easily kill."

Izuku listened intently, his gaze drifting to his own scarred hands. 

"In our superhuman society, quirks are heavily regulated," Thirteen continued, their voice echoing in the vast dome. "But please do not forget that many of you possess quirks that can go terribly wrong. One wrong step, and you can end a life. Aizawa's physical fitness test taught you your potential. All Might's Battle Trials taught you the danger of using quirks against others. Today, you will learn how to use your quirks to save lives. You do not have powers to harm others. You have them to help."

Izuku felt a lump form in his throat. He bowed his head. To help.

"That is all!" Thirteen bowed. "Thank you for listening!"

The class erupted into polite applause. 

And then, the lights went out. 

A loud, electrical popping sound echoed through the dome as the massive floodlights lining the ceiling sparked and died. The only illumination came from the sunlight filtering through the tinted glass panels high above. 

"Is the power out?" Kaminari asked, looking up. 

Down in the central plaza, the air began to warp. A pinpoint of purple and black mist expanded rapidly, tearing a hole in the fabric of reality. The portal grew to the size of a small house, its edges swirling with sinister, dark energy. 

A pale, disembodied hand reached out from the void. It gripped the edge of the portal, pulling forward a man covered in similar severed hands, his messy, pale blue hair obscuring his face. Behind him, dozens—no, hundreds—of terrifying figures poured out of the mist. Mutants, thugs, villains with glowing eyes and jagged teeth. 

And lumbering behind the man with the hands was a nightmare. A hulking, heavily muscled behemoth with pitch-black skin, its brain completely exposed within a dome on its head, its beak-like mouth permanently locked in a grotesque grimace. 

"Gather together and don't move!" Aizawa barked, his voice slicing through the confusion like a whip. He pulled his yellow goggles down over his eyes. "Thirteen, protect the students!"

"What is that?" Kirishima asked, taking a step forward. "Is this like the entrance exam? Does the training start already?"

"Don't move!" Aizawa yelled again, his scarf beginning to float menacingly around his neck. "Those are villains."

The word dropped like a stone in a quiet pond. 

Izuku’s breath hitched. He stared down at the plaza. The sheer number of them was staggering. But his eyes were drawn to the man covered in hands, who was looking up at the students with a posture of bored disappointment. 

"Eraserhead and Thirteen," the man scratched his neck lazily. "According to the teacher's schedule we retrieved yesterday, All Might was supposed to be here. Where is he? I brought this whole crowd... and the Symbol of Peace isn't even here?"

The man's eyes gleamed with a sickening malice. "Maybe if we kill a few of these kids, he'll show up."

"Villains?! No way!" Mineta, the shortest boy in class, shrieked, grabbing his head. "How did they get into a U.A. facility?!"

"Sensors are being jammed," Todoroki noted coldly. "They isolated us. This is a coordinated attack. They must have an objective."

Aizawa didn't wait. He leaped down the massive staircase, plunging directly into the sea of villains. He was a blur of motion, erasing quirks, utilizing martial arts, and using his capture weapon to slam thugs into each other. It was a masterful display of underground heroics. 

But Izuku, analyzing the scene with a tactical eye, felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. Aizawa-sensei is a stealth hero. He relies on quick captures and one-on-one combat. He's fighting an army of frontline fighters. He’s putting a timer on himself. He's going to run out of stamina.

"We need to evacuate!" Thirteen ordered, ushering the students toward the heavy steel doors they had just entered. 

Before they could reach the exit, a mass of purple mist erupted from the floor, blocking their path. The mist formed into a tall, ethereal figure wearing a tailored suit, his eyes glowing yellow. 

"I am afraid I cannot allow that," the mist villain, Kurogiri, spoke politely. "We are the League of Villains. We have come to U.A. High School to bring All Might, the Symbol of Peace, to his final breath. Since he is not here, you will have to serve as our playthings."

Katsuki and Kirishima didn't hesitate. They lunged forward, unleashing a massive explosion directly into the mist villain's center. 

"Did we get him?!" Kirishima yelled. 

"No! Get back!" Thirteen shouted. 

The mist merely parted around the blast, uninjured. "That was close. Yes, you are students, but you are also excellent golden eggs. And it is my job to scatter you."

The mist surged forward in a massive, overwhelming tidal wave, swallowing Class 1-A whole. 

Izuku felt the ground drop out from beneath him. He was falling through a void of purple smoke, his stomach lurching. Then, gravity abruptly reasserted itself, and he hit cold, rushing water. 

He breached the surface, gasping for air. He was in the Flood Zone. 

"Midoriya!" 

Izuku looked up. Tsuyu was clinging to the railing of a sinking shipwreck, holding Mineta by the collar. She extended her long tongue, wrapping it around Izuku's waist, and hauled him out of the water, dumping him onto the deck of the ship. 

"Thanks, Tsu," Izuku coughed, spitting out seawater. 

"We don't have time to relax," Tsuyu croaked, pointing down at the water. 

Surrounding the sinking vessel were dozens of aquatic villains, swimming like sharks, waiting for the ship to completely submerge. 

"They're going to eat us!" Mineta sobbed, pulling the sticky purple spheres off his head and throwing them uselessly into the water. 

Izuku forced his panic down. He was a vessel for One For All. He couldn't act like a frightened child. He analyzed the situation. They sent aquatic villains to the Flood Zone. That means they knew the layout of the USJ, but they didn't know our quirks. If they knew Tsu was a frog, they would have sent her to the Fire Zone.

"They don't know our powers," Izuku declared, his eyes hardening. "We can use that."

"Midoriya, your strength... you can blast the water away, right?" Mineta pleaded. 

"If I use 100%, I can create a whirlpool," Izuku nodded, looking at his right hand. "But my arm will break. If we don't escape on the first try, I'll be incapacitated by the pain for at least five seconds while I heal. In the water, five seconds is enough for them to drag me down."

"Then we make sure it works," Tsuyu said resolutely. "What's the plan?"

Izuku formulated a strategy in seconds. "Mineta, start pulling off as many of your spheres as you can. When I break the water, throw them in."

Izuku stepped to the edge of the ship. He didn't use his finger this time. He couldn't risk the lack of area-of-effect. He needed maximum displacement. He channeled the dormant sun into his right arm. 

He didn't punch the villains. He aimed directly at the surface of the water in the center of their circle. 

DELAWARE SMASH!

The concussive shockwave of 100% One For All slammed into the water. The sheer kinetic force displaced thousands of gallons of water in a microsecond, creating a massive, localized vortex. The aquatic villains were sucked into the whirlpool, shrieking as they were crushed together. 

Simultaneously, the bones in Izuku's right arm vaporized. The limb exploded in a spray of blood and shredded muscle, leaving his arm mangled and ruined. 

Izuku fell backward onto the deck, screaming through clenched teeth, clutching his ruined shoulder with his left hand. 

"Mineta, now!" Tsuyu yelled. 

Mineta hurled a barrage of sticky spheres into the whirlpool. As the villains were crushed together by the water pressure, they stuck to the spheres, effectively gluing them all together into a massive, helpless ball of bad guys. 

Tsuyu grabbed Mineta, wrapped her tongue around Izuku's waist, and leaped from the sinking ship with incredible leg strength, carrying them both to the shallow shore of the plaza. 

They hit the ground hard. Tsuyu uncoiled her tongue, panting. Mineta kissed the concrete. 

Izuku lay on his back, writhing. Thick, boiling steam erupted from his right arm. The sound of wet tearing and snapping bone filled the air. 

"Oh my god," Mineta gagged, crawling backward. "I heard the rumors, but seeing it... it's disgusting!"

Tsuyu watched with wide eyes as the ruined flesh knitted back together, flawless and pink. "It looks incredibly painful. Are you okay, Midoriya?"

"I'm... fine," Izuku gasped, the steam dissipating. He sat up, flexing his newly generated fingers. He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a high-calorie nutrition bar, scarfing it down in two bites. 

They looked toward the center of the plaza. The battle had taken a horrific turn. 

Aizawa was on the ground. The massive, black-skinned behemoth—the Nomu—had Aizawa pinned. The beast grabbed Aizawa's arm and snapped it like a dry twig. Aizawa's agonizing scream echoed across the dome. 

"Sensei!" Izuku yelled, his blood running cold. 

The man with the hands, Shigaraki, crouched next to Aizawa. "You're so cool, Eraserhead. But you're just a man. And this is a bio-engineered anti-Symbol of Peace. Nomu."

The Nomu grabbed Aizawa's head and slammed it brutally into the concrete pavement. The pavement cratered, stained red. 

Izuku felt the air leave his lungs. This wasn't a training exercise. This wasn't Katsuki throwing a tantrum. This was murder. Absolute, unfeeling malice. 

"We have to help him," Izuku said, standing up, his green eyes burning with a desperate, terrifying light. 

"Midoriya, no!" Tsuyu grabbed his arm. "We can't fight that thing!"

Suddenly, Shigaraki turned his head. Through the hands covering his face, a single, bloodshot eye locked onto the three students hiding in the shallows. 

"Oh," Shigaraki rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves grinding together. "Some of his kids are here."

Shigaraki vanished. 

He didn't have a speed quirk, but his raw physical momentum was terrifying. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the distance between the center plaza and the shoreline. He materialized directly in front of Tsuyu, his hand outstretched, fingers splayed. 

Izuku remembered what Aizawa had said. A villain you can't stall. 

Everything moved in slow motion. Shigaraki's hand was inches from Tsuyu's face. 

I won't let anyone else die!

Izuku moved. He didn't use One For All. He used the raw, baseline physical speed he had built pulling rusted trucks on Dagobah Beach. He threw himself forward, putting his body squarely between Shigaraki and Tsuyu. 

Shigaraki's hand slammed into Izuku's chest, all five fingers making contact. 

"Decay," Shigaraki whispered. 

The pain was unlike anything Izuku had ever experienced. It wasn't the blunt force of a broken bone, or the searing heat of an explosion. It was the feeling of his very existence unraveling. 

Starting from the point of contact on Izuku's chest, the skin turned gray, cracked, and began to flake away into ash. The decay spread rapidly, eating through the fabric of his U.A. tracksuit, burrowing into his pectoral muscles, heading straight for his heart and ribs. 

Izuku screamed, a raw, primal sound of absolute agony. 

But Izuku Midoriya was an unkillable anomaly. 

The moment his cells detected the necrotic trauma, Cellular Immortality activated. 

The result was a horrifying, paradoxical stalemate. 

As Shigaraki's quirk turned Izuku's flesh to dust, Izuku's quirk violently and instantly replaced it. The ash blowing off Izuku's chest was immediately replaced by raw, bleeding, pink muscle tissue, which was instantly decayed, and instantly regenerated again. 

Thick, blinding steam erupted from the point of contact, mixing with the gray ash. The heat generated by Izuku's hyper-active cellular division was scalding. 

Shigaraki's eyes widened behind the severed hand on his face. He didn't pull away, fascinated and horrified by the violent biological war happening beneath his palm. The steam was burning his fingers, but he pushed harder. 

"What... what are you?" Shigaraki hissed, stepping back slightly as the sheer heat of the steam forced him to disengage. 

The moment the contact was broken, Izuku's chest sealed completely, flawless and unblemished, leaving a massive, gaping hole in his tracksuit. Izuku collapsed to his hands and knees, panting violently, smoke and steam rolling off his shoulders. 

"He... he survived my Decay," Shigaraki muttered, scratching his neck furiously. The scratching became frantic, tearing at his own skin until he drew blood. "That's a cheat. That's a glitch! You're an admin cheat code! Nobody survives a direct hit!"

Izuku looked up, his green eyes glowing with an unyielding, feral defiance. "I... won't let you... kill my friends."

Shigaraki stopped scratching. His posture slouched, his demeanor turning icy and utterly devoid of humanity. 

"Nomu," Shigaraki pointed a pale finger directly at Izuku. "Kill the glitch. Crush him until there's nothing left to heal."

The massive, black-skinned beast abandoned the broken body of Aizawa. It turned its exposed, brain-domed head toward Izuku. With a single, earth-shattering leap, the Nomu crossed the plaza. 

Izuku barely had time to stand. 

The Nomu slammed its fist into Izuku's stomach. The impact didn't just break bones; it completely pulverized Izuku's internal organs. His liver, stomach, and intestines were liquefied by the sheer concussive force. Izuku was launched backward like a cannonball, skipping across the surface of the water in the Flood Zone before crashing into a concrete pillar, snapping his spine in half on impact. 

He slid down the pillar, leaving a streak of blood, his body broken and lifeless. 

"Midoriya!" Tsuyu and Mineta screamed in unison. 

Shigaraki laughed, a dry, rasping sound. "See? Even a cheat code has limits when you format the hard drive."

But the water around the base of the pillar began to boil. 

HSSSSSSSSS!

A column of steam erupted into the air, so massive it looked like a geyser. The sound echoing from within the vapor was nauseating—the rapid, violent snapping of vertebrae fusing, the wet squelching of internal organs reknitting from scratch. 

Izuku stepped out of the steam. He looked like he had walked through hell. His tracksuit top was gone. His torso was a shifting canvas of deep red and pink as the newly generated skin settled. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was taking deep, ragged breaths, devouring another calorie bar he had managed to pull from his belt before the strike. 

"He's still alive?!" Shigaraki shrieked, tearing at his neck again. 

Izuku wiped blood from his chin. That thing is stronger than All Might, he analyzed frantically. If it hits anyone else, they'll die instantly. I have to hold the aggro. I have to keep it on me.

Izuku let out a primal yell, channeling One For All into both of his legs at 100%. He launched himself forward, crossing the water in a single bound, completely obliterating the concrete pillar he used as a launchpad. 

He appeared directly in front of the Nomu, pulling his right arm back. The red veins of One For All flared brilliantly against his newly generated skin. 

"SMASH!" Izuku roared, driving his fist directly into the exposed brain of the Nomu. 

The impact created a shockwave that parted the water in the Flood Zone and blew the remaining thugs off their feet. Izuku's right arm, predictably, exploded into a shower of bone dust and shredded meat, leaving the limb hanging uselessly. 

But as the dust settled, Izuku's horror peaked. 

The Nomu hadn't moved an inch. Its head hadn't even snapped back. 

"It's no use, glitch," Shigaraki gloated, walking closer. "Nomu has Shock Absorption. Blunt force trauma doesn't work on him. You just broke your own arm for nothing."

The Nomu reached out and grabbed Izuku's broken right arm, wrenching it violently. Izuku screamed as the beast tore the limb completely off at the shoulder. Blood sprayed in a massive arc. 

Tsuyu covered Mineta's eyes, turning away in absolute horror. 

The Nomu tossed the severed arm aside. It hit the pavement with a wet thud. 

But Izuku didn't retreat. He didn't run. Through the blinding agony, his Cellular Immortality flared to life. Steam erupted from his shoulder socket in a concentrated, scalding jet. Bone grew out of thin air. Muscle fibers snaked and wove together. In three seconds, a completely brand-new arm burst forth from the steam, fully formed and functional. 

Izuku immediately channeled 100% into his new left arm and punched the Nomu in the chest. 

Again, the shockwave rippled. Again, Izuku's arm blew apart. Again, the Nomu absorbed it without flinching. 

The Nomu retaliated, driving a knee into Izuku's chest, caving in his ribcage and stopping his heart. Izuku dropped dead on the pavement. 

Two seconds later, steam erupted. The ribs snapped back out, the heart restarted, and Izuku sprang up, punching the Nomu again, shattering his own fist. 

What followed was not a battle. It was a horrifying, perpetual motion machine of violence. 

Class 1-A students, who had managed to fight their way back to the edges of the plaza, watched in paralyzed, sickening awe. 

Izuku was locked in a brutal dance of attrition. He was hitting the Nomu with blows that could level skyscrapers, shattering his own body with every strike, dying and regenerating in the span of seconds, only to hit the beast again. He was a blur of steam, blood, lightning, and unyielding fury. 

"This is insane," Todoroki whispered, watching the steam obscure the fight. "He's literally dying over and over again."

"He's keeping it busy," Katsuki muttered, his hands trembling. He remembered this tactic. "He's letting it tear him apart so it doesn't look at us."

In the center of the carnage, Izuku was rapidly reaching his limit. 

Shock Absorption, Izuku thought frantically as a backhand from the Nomu shattered his jaw, which immediately healed. I can't out-punch it. And Shigaraki said it has regeneration too. It's an immovable object. But I'm not an unstoppable force. I have a caloric limit.

Izuku could feel his body eating itself. His hyper-metabolism, starved of immediate calories, was beginning to cannibalize his fat stores, then his non-essential muscle mass. He was literally shrinking, his body consuming itself to fuel the constant resurrections. If he ran out of energy, his quirk would stop, and he would die for real. 

I can't beat it here, Izuku realized, ducking under a massive swing that would have decapitated him. I have to remove it from the battlefield entirely.

Izuku looked up at the massive glass dome of the USJ ceiling, hundreds of feet above them. 

A vertical launch.

Izuku dodged backward, allowing the Nomu to advance. As the beast lunged forward to grab him, Izuku didn't punch. 

Instead, Izuku opened his arms and stepped into the beast's guard. He wrapped his arms around the Nomu's massive, barrel-like torso, locking his hands together behind its back in a death grip. 

"What is he doing?!" Shigaraki shrieked. "Crush him!"

The Nomu wrapped its massive arms around Izuku and squeezed. The sound of Izuku's spine, ribs, and collarbones snapping simultaneously was sickening. Izuku coughed up a massive amount of blood directly onto the Nomu's chest, but he didn't let go. He let the steam violently knit his bones back together while the Nomu continued to crush him, effectively welding himself to the beast through constant, looping regeneration. 

Izuku closed his eyes. He didn't channel One For All into his arms. He didn't channel it into his fingers. 

He channeled 100% of the stockpiled, cataclysmic power into his legs and his lower back. 

The red veins illuminated his entire lower half, glowing brighter than the sun. The sheer pressure of the energy caused the concrete beneath his feet to splinter and crack before he even moved. 

One For All: Full Body 100%!

"UNITED..." Izuku roared, blood spraying from his lips. 

"Stop him!" Shigaraki screamed, sensing the astronomical buildup of kinetic energy. 

Izuku bent his knees, ignoring the agonizing snapping of his own tendons, and leaped. 

"...STATES OF SMASH!"

The launch was apocalyptic. 

The recoil of channeling 100% through his entire lower body completely vaporized Izuku's legs from the mid-thigh down. His pelvis fractured. But the upward kinetic force was absolute. 

Izuku and the Nomu vanished from the ground, leaving behind a crater fifty feet wide and twenty feet deep. The shockwave of their departure blew Shigaraki backward, scattering the villains like bowling pins and shattering every remaining pane of glass in the USJ. 

A sonic boom cracked through the air. 

Izuku and the Nomu shot upward like a human missile, a blur of black skin and violently steaming green flesh. They struck the reinforced glass and steel of the USJ dome, obliterating it instantly, and soared out into the open sky. 

The G-force alone was tearing the skin off Izuku's face, but his immortality fought back furiously. His missing legs exploded in a geyser of scalding steam, bone and muscle rocketing downward to replace the vaporized limbs as they climbed higher and higher. The Nomu thrashed wildly, trying to break free, but Izuku’s regenerating grip was tighter than steel cables. 

They broke the cloud layer, ascending thousands of feet into the atmosphere. The air grew thin, freezing cold. 

Izuku’s energy was practically zero. His vision was going dark. The steam was thinning out. I got him out, Izuku thought, his consciousness fading. I protected them.

Suddenly, the air pressure shifted. 

A figure clad in gold and blue streaked up from the earth below, riding a shockwave of his own making, moving faster than the speed of sound. 

"FEAR NOT, YOUNG MIDORIYA!" 

Izuku opened his eyes slightly. Through the freezing wind and the thin atmosphere, he saw him. 

All Might had arrived. The Symbol of Peace was airborne, his eyes glowing with an intense, terrifying blue light, his massive musculature completely flexed. He had seen the trail of steam from miles away and jumped. 

All Might pulled back his right arm, a whirlwind of pressure gathering around his fist. 

"FOR I AM HERE!" 

All Might didn't aim for the Nomu's shock-absorbing body. He positioned himself above the ascending pair, aiming directly downward, targeting the point where the Nomu's brain met its neck. 

Izuku saw his mentor. In a final, desperate surge of willpower, Izuku released his grip on the Nomu and kicked off its chest, sending himself falling backward, out of the blast zone. 

All Might struck. 

"PLUS ULTRA!" 

The punch collided with the Nomu at the apex of its ascent. The sheer, unfathomable force of All Might's strike, completely uninhibited by the need to hold back for the sake of collateral damage, bypassed the shock absorption entirely. 

The Nomu was launched diagonally downward like a falling star, a streak of black friction fire against the sky. It missed the USJ entirely, crashing into the distant, uninhabited forest mountains with the force of a tactical nuke, sending a mushroom cloud of dirt and pulverized trees into the horizon. 

In the sky, All Might lost his momentum and began to fall. He spotted Izuku plummeting a few hundred yards away. The boy was unconscious, his body completely limp, the steam having ceased entirely as his caloric reserves hit absolute zero. 

All Might shifted his weight, diving headfirst to catch up. He reached out, grabbing Izuku by the remnants of his tracksuit, and pulled the broken boy against his massive chest, shielding him from the rushing wind. 

You did well, my boy, All Might thought, his heart aching as he felt how terrifyingly cold and thin Izuku's body had become from the muscular cannibalization. You held the line. You went beyond.

All Might rotated, taking the brunt of the impact as they crashed down just outside the U.A. campus walls. The earth cratered under the Number One Hero's landing. 

Back inside the ruined USJ, the silence was deafening. 

The villains were scattered, terrified by the sheer display of godly power they had just witnessed. 

Shigaraki stood at the edge of the massive crater Izuku had left behind. He stared up at the shattered dome, his body trembling violently. The severed hand on his face had been blown off by the wind pressure, revealing his scarred, unhinged features. 

"It's ruined," Shigaraki whispered, scratching his neck until thick streams of blood ran down his collarbone. "The anti-Symbol of Peace... launched out of bounds by a glitch. It's game over."

Before Shigaraki could order a retreat, the heavy steel doors of the USJ were blown off their hinges. 

"Sorry we're late!" Iida's voice rang out, standing at the entrance with Tenya Iida, Present Mic, Midnight, and a dozen other Pro Heroes. "I have brought the faculty!"

"Tch," Kurogiri materialized next to Shigaraki. "Tomura Shigaraki, we must leave. We are outmatched."

The mist enveloped the screaming, scratching villain, and they vanished, leaving their army of thugs to the mercy of the Pro Heroes. 

The aftermath was a blur of flashing ambulance lights and police sirens. 

The students of Class 1-A were gathered outside the USJ, wrapped in thermal blankets. Many were crying, overwhelmed by the adrenaline crash. Aizawa and Thirteen were loaded onto stretchers, both critically injured but alive, thanks to Izuku holding the Nomu's attention. 

Katsuki sat on the bumper of an ambulance, staring blankly at his hands. He hadn't fought the big boss. He had fought mist. The nerd had fought a god-tier monster, died a dozen times, and launched it into orbit. 

"Where is he?" Uraraka asked frantically, scanning the crowd of paramedics. "Where's Midoriya?!"

"He's with All Might," Detective Tsukauchi told the students gently, tipping his hat. "They landed outside the facility. We've already secured him."

In a secluded medical tent a hundred yards away, away from the prying eyes of the press, Izuku lay on a reinforced cot. He was unconscious, his skin deathly pale. 

Recovery Girl stood over him, monitoring a staggering array of IV bags. She wasn't pumping him with medicine; she was pumping him with pure, hyper-condensed liquid calories and saline. 

All Might sat in a folding chair next to the cot, deflated in his skeletal form, looking older and more tired than he ever had. 

"His quirk kept him alive," Recovery Girl sighed, adjusting a drip. "But barely. His body consumed almost twenty percent of its own mass to fuel that final regeneration. If he hadn't passed out, his quirk would have started breaking down his organs for energy. He essentially starved to death in five minutes."

"He saved Aizawa," All Might whispered, resting his bony hand on Izuku's cold, unscarred shoulder. "He saved the students. He faced a monster designed to kill me, and he didn't even blink."

All Might looked up, his sunken eyes shining with tears. 

"I was wrong, Chiyo. I told him a hero who can only take a beating is useless. I told him a shield can't win a war. But he isn't just a shield." 

All Might squeezed Izuku's shoulder gently. 

"He is an unstoppable force. A boy made of iron will and unending sacrifice. He is going to be the greatest hero this world has ever seen. Because no matter how hard they hit him... he will always get back up."

Izuku's chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. The steam was gone, the pain was dormant, and for the first time in hours, the boy who couldn't die was finally allowed to rest.