It's said the smallest decision can set off a chain reaction that changes the world. There are infinite universes out there, each defined by one small, single change from the rest. So that raises the question:
What sort of change created a world like this?
Last night, six students went to bed in their dorms.
This morning, they woke up in either A) an abandoned building, B) unfamiliar apartments with unfamiliar school uniforms, C) a plush bedroom nicer than their entire house... or D) the League of Villains' headquarters, because of COURSE Izuku still manages to draw the shortest straw even when others are screwed over too.
UA tries its best to prepare its students for anything, but one topic it never covered: what to do if you wake up in an alternate dimension. Six students suddenly find themselves in an unfamiliar world where the balance between Heroes and Villains is more unstable than ever and they have no idea how they got there or to get home. All they know is that this world is horribly wrong, and they're largely on their own. (Well, except Izuku, but he thinks he'd prefer that.)
Ignite to the Call
is a My Hero Academia fic by CannibalisticApple.
Ignite to the Call contains examples of the following:
- Abled in the Adaptation: In the alternate universe Iida Tensei is still active as Ingenium, never having encountered Stain.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: Several characters by virtue of the changes that rippled out from All Might's earlier death than in canon. Notably, a good chunk of the counterparts of 1-A and 1-B wound up on the street after running away to prevent their families being targeted by Quirk traffickers to get at their strong Quirks.
- Himiko Toga. In canon, she lived a relatively normal life up until the end of middle school, when the distress caused by suppressing her Quirk-based instincts to drink blood eventually caused her to snap and become a serial killer. Here, she was approached by villains (not the Villain Alliance, notably) who abused her trust to get her to work for them, and implicitly kidnapped her and pressed her into further villainy when she got bored and tried to return home. She still eventually wound up joining the Villain Alliance of her own accord, but her understanding of what it's like to be forced into villainy makes her a willing collaborator in Midoriya, Bakugou, and Shinsou's plans to escape, even going so far as finding a spare explosive anklet for Hatsume to study so she could figure out how to disable them.
- Adaptational Villainy: Aside from himself, Midoriya notes that several of the villains he sees around the Villain Alliance headquarters or on wanted lists are people he recognizes as heroes from the canon timeline. Native is specifically mentioned. Tokoyami is also the sidekick of the villain Gentle Criminal in this world.
- Adaptational Wealth: Both Jirou and Uraraka come from rich families in the alternate universe. Especially notable in Uraraka's case, since she comes from a poor family in the original timeline.
- Amnesiac Resonance: The six transferred students show signs of retaining memories from their 'local' counterparts, beginning subtly but growing more common and concrete as time goes on. Midoriya seems to instinctively find his way to an abandoned warehouse when he wants to train, Mina vaguely recognizes Kuroe's name without knowing why, and Kaminari reflexively knows just the place to push on a jammed door to get Jirou and himself down from the roof of a building. A few seconds later, they realize that the building is home to his alternate self's apartment. This raises some interesting questions about how separate the main characters and their alternate selves are.
- Combo Platter Powers: Aiko. So far she's displayed the ability to drop Uraraka into some sort of pocket dimension, turn off a panic attack that Izuku was having, place a mental block that prevents Uraraka from talking to other people about the Villain Alliance, jump 20 feet into the rafters and land softly, and the ability to let her foot tear off when it was caught by a villain and reattach it later.
- Contrived Coincidence: Midoriya's counterpart suffers from recurring episodes of memory loss that can last for months at a time. This means that not only does he have a note from himself to help bring him up to speed, he also has a cover story already prepared if he slips up and someone catches on to his odd behavior.
- Crapsack World: The world the main characters find themselves in. For starters, All Might was killed in his pre-series fight with All for One rather than just being severely injured. As a result, pro heroes are forced to act far more covertly and villain attacks are far more common. Tokyo has been destroyed as a result of a fight between Endeavor and an unnamed villain. Children with strong Quirks are often kidnapped by villain organizations either to recruit them or to prevent them from becoming heroes. Students taking the UA entrance exam several years prior to the story were attacked and slaughtered by villains, forcing the school to close down. Downplayed in other ways, as Midoriya notes on his outing with Shigaraki that you'd never guess the dismal state of the world just from walking down the street and watching people go about their business.
- Creepy Child: Seiko. She's described as having an emotionless demeanor, appears out of seemingly no where when Midoriya least expects it, and generally leaves Midoriya feeling overall unsettled around her.
- Dead All Along: Mail is revealed to be a ghost well after he first appears. The details aren't explained outside it being a result of his Quirk, but he's stated to be categorically dead and a genuine ghost rather than just ghost-like.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: By the very nature of the alternate world, apparently many characters starting with All Might. Special shoutout to Endeavor, whose death isn't revealed until Chapter 49 despite his son being one of the main characters.
- Enslaved Tongue: Once Uraraka finally meets up with the rest of the dimension-jumpers, she finds to her horror that the promise she made to Aiko not to talk to anyone about the Villain Alliance is being enforced by some sort of Quirk, which makes her physically incapable of speaking or writing about the Alliance's members, location, or activities.
- Exotic Eye Designs: So far three different characters have this: Seiko's eyes have black sclerae with white irises; Anjou's irises are divided into four sections by a cross-shaped pupil that flicker in a spinning pattern when she uses her Quirk; and Aiko has blue eyes speckled with white dots that reminds Midoriya of a starry sky.
- Explosive Leash: The Villain Alliance has given both Bakugou and Shinsou explosive anklets to prevent them running away or causing trouble.
- Faking Amnesia: Used by Kaminari and Ashido to varying extents to help cover up any lack of knowledge about their new schools and friends. Kaminari and Jirou make a story about his Quirk overloading his brain and screwing with his memories to get Hatsume's help in navigating the school, but they'd rather not spread it. Played for Laughs with Ashido who openly claims to everyone to have randomly developed partial amnesia, without even attempting to explain how or why it might occur.
- Izuku plays with this trope. He plays it straight around Seiko so she will help fill in the blanks, but he's also trying to hide his fake amnesia from the rest of the League/Alliance since they'll become overprotective if they think he's having another "episode".
- Homeschooled Kids: Despite running away at age eight and effectively disappearing from all public records and thus unlikely to ever reintegrate into society, Midoriya is still expected to study on his own time by Kurogiri. Even Bakugou comments on how weird it is.
- Human Pet: An interesting example where neither the pet nor the owner are entirely thrilled about the arrangement. After 'rescuing' him from another villain group, Shigaraki gifts Eraserhead to Izuku, since he knows Eraserhead is one of his favorite heroes.
- It Amused Me: Per
Word of God, this is Seiko's reason for most of her actions. - Keeping Secrets Sucks: A recurring theme with pretty much all the displaced students. Particularly noteworthy for Jirou and Kaminari, who go to school with Yaoyorozu in this world. And Yaoyorozu's very concerned about her best friend Kyouka when she suddenly drops all contact.
- Morality Pet: Played with between Shigaraki and Midoriya in the other world. While Midoriya's presence isn't enough to make Shigaraki give up villainy, an internal monologue hints he would be willing to spare some heroes just because Midoriya likes them. The same monologue also hints that their bond has made Shigaraki more sensitive to Quirkless discrimination as a result of the glorification of heroes and Quirks, giving him other motivations to hate heroes and want to dismantle the system.
- Muggles: Kuroe appears to be this since he claims to be Quirkless, but given that people with powerful Quirks are constantly targeted this may be a lie.
- This world's Izuku was of course born Quirkless, and nearly everyone thinks he still is.
- Not in Front of the Kid: The Villain Alliance has a pretty strict stance on keeping Midoriya uninvolved in their activities, even though his analysis abilities would probably be useful to them.
- Ontological Mystery: Midoriya, Todoroki, Uraraka, Jirou, Kaminari, and Ashido go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning in the places of their counterparts from an alternate universe with no immediate explanation as to why or how they are there. From there, they have to work out not only what happened and how to get back in the long term, but what their lives have been like in this alternate universe so that they can pass themselves off as their counterparts.
- Overly Long Name: The General Analysis Team at the Nighteye Agency is also called the "Super Happy Fun Time Supernatural ESP Investigation Department". So named because the members include a psychometer, a guy with an illusory Quirk who likes to make the office space, and an actual ghost.
- Related in the Adaptation: Shigaraki decided to adopt Midoriya as his younger brother after his parents were killed in a plane crash.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: The six main characters, and apparently only them, remember the canon timeline. Unfortunately for them, they also have no memories of this new timeline they find themselves in.
- Secret-Keeper: Hatsume is currently the only one who knows about Jirou and Kaminari's vigilante activities.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Tokoyami has only shown up once in the story, in chapter 4, and has not yet appeared in person, but he has been driving a good chunk of the plot ever since then.
- The Runaway: Midoriya in his backstory after his parents died, before being found and taken in by Shigaraki. Todoroki and Dabi (who is Todoroki's older brother, Touya) are currently this. Apparently, it's incredibly common in this world for teenagers with powerful Quirks to run away in an attempt to keep their families from being targeted by villains, as seen with Shiozaki and Kouda.
- As of Chapter 16, this also applies to Uraraka.
- Come Chapter 40, Mina and Kirishima have also run away with the help of Mina's friend Anjou, who apparently has connections to the same runaway network that Shiozaki and Kouda are part of.
- Tomato Surprise: Endeavor is dead, as revealed to the readers in Chapter 49. Todoroki is literally the only one who doesn't know because he avoided looking up his father in this world.
- Trapped in Another World: The basic premise of the fic: six UA students are unexpectedly transported to a different version of their world overnight.
- Trauma Button: Aiko is Aizawa's, triggering memories of his previous captivity with her presence alone.
- Trust Password: Unintentional on her part, but it turns out that Mina has one of these for Kirishima. It's "Red Riot." He came up with that hero name when he was little, but didn't tell anyone for fear of being teased, and after UA was attacked he gave up on his dreams of being a hero altogether. He should be the only person on Earth who knows that name. The fact that Mina also knows it is enough to make him realize that either she's telling the truth about being from another universe, or there's some other weirdness at play. He resolves to join her when she runs away so that he can find out the truth.
- Uncertain Doom: A lot of characters' statuses are unknown in this world because most heroes either quit or went underground after a slew of heroes dying.
- Vigilante Man: Jirou and Kaminari decide to go the vigilante route to fight crime, since UA has been shut down and the school their counterparts attend doesn't have a hero program. Also, prior to being captured by the Villain Alliance, Shinsou acted as this.
- Later even more characters are revealed to be vigilantes, namely Monoma, Ojiro, Asui, and Mongoose Habuko, who are all part of the runaway network in Odawara.
- Villains Out Shopping: Shigaraki takes Izuku out shopping for video games in Chapter 12. This is also what leads to Midoriya and Uraraka reuniting and realizing that they're not alone, even if they can't immediately stay in contact due to this world's Midoriya's ties to the Villain Alliance.
- Wham Line: Chapter 95: Shinsou looked up again, his eyes full of conviction and despair in equal parts as he answered. "I can't use my Quirk."
- What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Seiko's exact role within the Villain Alliance is largely unknown. It's especially mysterious since she's described as younger than Izuku, with him pegging her at around ten, making her the youngest member of the Alliance AND the League of Villains. She doesn't seem to be related to any of the villains, and is knowledgeable enough about details like who's being held prisoner to suggest a more active role in their activity than Izuku.
