History Fanfic / WhenReasonFails

* DwindlingParty: The Suicide Squad head to Hosu in full knowledge of the fact none of them will survive. Their first losses were Tokoyami/Darkness and Ochako due to them arriving in the middle of the domain of a being on par with the Disaster of Despair, but since Ochako is a Stalker, she is able to reunite with her Izuku relatively quickly. Their next loss is [[spoiler:Saiko Intelli due to them getting attacked by a Wilderness Cult.]] In an abandoned town, [[spoiler:they lose Toxicity to Junkies.]]

** [[spoiler: Malice's demons leave Rai in horrific pain, but Hatsume plans to take advantage of that to power up the machines at the facility Malice made to turn what remaining members of their party they could into superhumans, improving their odds against Malice.]]

* MoodWhiplash: Chapter 110 is mostly lighthearted (with some angst on Ibara's part) before it ends with [[spoiler:Malice making a kidnapping attempt on All Might.]]

* MythologyGag: [[spoiler:Just like his Hero Name in canon, Shoto's Magister Name is his birth name]]. Izuku thinks he missed out on some joke.

* TheScapegoat: After learning the other Ancients turned on him, Malice thinks it's because he is their scapegoat for them to be able to make some sort of peace with the Principality of Mankind. He is forced to consider another theory after [[spoiler:he realizes Cogs hatred for him is ''personal''.]]

* SideBet: Moe and Fuyumi has a bet going on who the Suicide Squad loses first. [[spoiler:Fuyumi is upset to win, since she bet that they would lose one of the heavy hitters first, and they lost Tokoyami the Terminal Warlock.]]

** Chapter 126 reveals that [[spoiler:there are Lesser Aberrants of Malice around, a sign that the Suicide Squad could very well fail in stopping the revival of the Ancient of Malice.]]
** Chapter 128 shows [[spoiler:that the Suicide Squad hit the ''jackpot''. They found a huge vault of Dawn War relics that they can use on their mission.]]

* SuperSoldier: The last Dawn War had all sides fielding a large amount of supersoldiers. The Ascending Path had the Clockwork Soldiers that were created out of captured prisoners. In Hatsume's opinion, one of the best were Przeładowany, who were created with careful application of the Lore of Life. However, only a small minority of people can withstand the full treatment, and Shoto theorizes that they were Awakened Humans.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Izuku's attempts to prevent Rai from joining the suicide squad backfires because Rai did not in fact know about it to begin with but after learning about it from Izuku, he insists on joining.

** [[spoiler: Being an ace turns out to be a ''prerequisite'' for successfully becoming a Magister. You have to be talented to begin with to have any chance of surviving the process. That is why existing Magisters do not share the method publicly. Keeping it a secret filters out untalented Initiates so that the ones that can figure out the process and gather the resources for it are clearly the talented ones.]]

** Himiko Toga, rather than a villain, becomes a friend of Izuku's and Ochako's. She's still obsessed with him, though.

** There are huge question marks on Izuku's humanity. Yagi speculates that he is mostly human based on what they uncovered about his mother and that his humanity comes from his father. [[spoiler:However, further oddities casts doubt on whether his father is himself even human, which just muddles the question further for Izuku's own humanity.]] [[spoiler:It's later revealed that Izuku's father might be an awakened human, which brings its own set of rarities.]]

** [[spoiler:Outsider of Existence, while human-like in looks, is still incredibly alien, capable of counting up the length of its existence with precision counted in seconds in a heartbeat and having issues understanding simple concepts (like death). It's even implied to be capable of pulling its own understanding of concept of time out of itself, creating a potent artifact while losing ability to comprehend time before it has it explained to it again.]]

** Izuku could be considered one, given how he managed to not only survive [[OurGhoulsAreDifferent Himiko]] [[SerialKiller Toga]], but turn her into a friend[=/=]follower[=/=]lover.

** Ochako tells Izuku they went to the same school, but neither Izuku nor Katsuki remembers her. [[spoiler:This foreshadows the fact that Ochako was Izuku and Katsuki's childhood friend before a monster killed her at age fifteen and she transformed into a Stalker, which caused the Censor to erase her from the latter two's memories.]]

* GoodBehaviorPoints: A Black Course student, either full student or candidate, can earn Contribution Points by various deeds. Roughly, any deed that positively reflects on a student's ability to survive the magical world, or doing something to the benefit of UA, earns contribution points. Aizawa gives Izuku examples of killing something supernatural, learning a new spell, and surviving a danger-zone, but that is far from an exhaustive list. Izuku earned contribution points by successfully convincing Yagi in his personal capacity to investigate a mystery of personal interest to him, his Cabal earned contribution points by ''surviving'' an unexpected danger U.A. was not aware of that is far above their weight class, and bringing a potential attempted hacking to the attention of U.A. also earned them contribution points. After their [[spoiler:Elsewhere]] trip, the Cabal earns so many points that the teachers [[ObviousRulePatch have to lock most of it]] for [[spoiler:"Special Exclusion Zone development"]] to keep them from ''crashing U.A.'s internal economy''.
* GreatOffscreenWar: [[spoiler:The Dawn War, a war so obscure that even Toshinori thought it was a myth. Supposedly, it consisted of humans attempting to rise and fight the Powers and losing. The Mankind Liberation Front seeks to bring down the Censor so as turn all of humanity into "awakened", people so powerful that they can cause corporeal and sanity damage to Greater Aberrants, so humanity can win the next war.]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Katsuki is abrasive, kind of a jerk, and prone to come up with insulting nicknames for everyone around himself. He's also very loyal to his best friend Izuku to the point that one of the main reasons he becomes a Candidate is helping to protect his friend.

** Discussed. Demi-Powers are god-like yet theoretically slayable by humanity, it just takes a lot of resources to do and generally considered not worth it unless they are rampaging Disasters. [[spoiler:Shoto explains that due to Aiko being a relatively young god, it is easier to slay her without an equal loss of potential gains from achieving the feat, which is why Izuku's Cabal have to keep her nature a secret from anyone they don't trust or can't keep a secret from anyway or UA would become a battle ground for various organizations going after the Outsider of Existence.]]

* SafetyInMuggles: A standard way for UA's Initiates student to protect themselves from other students is to hide themselves among the non-Initiate students, even though using the non-Initiate uniforms could lead to their expulsion. U.A.'s rules specifically forbid using magic against the non-Initiate students, and using non-magical means ''will'' be noticed by the non-Initiates and reported to mundane authorities. Doing either anyway will result in expulsion.

** When Izuku meets Ashido, he greets her with [[Film/ANewHope "Hello there"]], while Ashido replies with [[Film/RevengeOfTheSith "General Kenobi"]]. The same is repeated with Katsuki meets Ibara.

[[folder: ''Book Two'']]

* MoreDakka: Zigzagged. A lot of supernatural threats can be defeated by throwing as many guns and other military ordnance at it. However, for some threats, there simply isn't enough of that and government bodies have to jump straight to either the nuclear option or find some other way of dealing with it.

** Asa's foster mother is kept alive while he slowly removes body parts piece by piece. After over a year, her suffering is still on going.

* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Hatsume bangs her head against the wall in outrage over Izuku opening a door powered by pain and suffering by having hardcore bdsm sex with Ochako.

* MercyKill: After learning the Clockwork Soldier they found are created from prisoners of the Ascending Path during the last Dawn War, Izuku orders they be put down to end their misery.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: UsefulNotes/RomanVonUngernSternberg was a minor Initiate who eventually became "something between an Incarnation, an Ascendant, and a Heresiarch of Strife" that managed to conquer China.

* DeityOfHumanOrigin: [[spoiler:The Archon of Defiance was once a human, having become a Power through the very act of triumphing over Malice. Nedzu suspects several more Powers, excluding the Ancients, were also once humans.]]

* HolyHandGrenade: The Austro-Hungarian god-killers are special artillery shells that combines the magic of Primordials, Shapers, and Archons of Purity and War. It is the closest thing to pure holy power and intended for use on the Ancients.

* DwindlingParty: The Suicide Squad head to Hosu in full knowledge of the fact none of them will survive. Their first losses were Tokoyami/Darkness and Ochako due to them arriving in the middle of the domain of a being on par with the Disaster of Despair, but since Ochako is a Stalker, she is able to reunite with her Izuku relatively quickly. Their next loss is [[spoiler:Saiko Intelli due to them getting attacked by a Wilderness Cult.]]

* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:Saiko Intelli is killed via arrow shot by a... ''thing'' of Wilderness.]]

* SkinWalker: While facing the Wilderness Cult, Izuku realizes that the Heresiarchs of Wilderness are the origins of the Skinwalkers of Navajo myths when he notices that the Heresiarchs having animal traits that look like they were added on and likely the result of a Rite, which lines up with the Navajo myths of the Skinwalkers being evil magic practitioners who used dark rites to gain animal traits.

* SkinWalker: While facing the Wilderness Cult, Izuku realizes that the Heresiarchs of Wilderness are the origins of the Skinwalkers of Navajo myths when he notices that the Heresiarchs having animal traits that look like they were added on and likely the result of a Rite line up with the Navajo myths of the Skinwalkers being evil magic practitioners who used dark rites to gain animal traits.

* SideBet: Moe and Fuyumi has a bet going on who the Suicide Squad loses first. [[spoiler:Fuyumi is upset to win, since she bet that they would lose of the heavy hitters first, and they lost Tokoyami the Terminal Warlock.]]

* SideBet: Moe and Fuyumi has a bet going on who the Suicide Squad loses first. [[Fuyumi is upset to win, since she bet that they would lose of the heavy hitters first, and they lost Tokoyami the Terminal Warlock.]]

** Ashido Mina's magic is that of the Primordial of Water, which is why Shouto is confused when she throws ''acid'' around. He has various theories on how this is possible ranging from her receiving a blessing from a Demi-Power or Gift from the Primordial in question, to suffering from some combination of corporeal and sanity damage that altered her perception of her own magic.

* WrongContextMagic: The first eldritch being the Suicide Squad encounters in Hosu recognizes the Desire and Malice in Izuku and Asa, but is confused by the unfamiliarity of their Godling status.

* GoodNewsBadNews: After Hatsume identifies their location when they first land in Hosu, she declares that the good news is that the MLF can't reach them, and the bad news is that the MLF ''can't reach them'' for reasons that are bad for the Suicide Squad.