Izuku Midoriya wants nothing more in this world than to be a hero. His mother, a former pro hero herself, decides to put her disillusionment with heroics aside to help him achieve his dream. Absolutely no one could have imagined that he'd develop a quirk that may potentially make him more powerful than All Might himself.
Kaleidoscope is a My Hero Academia Fanfic written by DripBayless
that features Izuku being trained by Inko, who is a retired Pro Hero in this setting. As a result, Izuku ends up awakening a Quirk that changes everything about the story in several ways.
It can be read on FanFiction.Net here and Archive of Our Own here.
The story has the following...
- Accidental Innuendo: In-universe example. When talking about Kirishima's Quirk, Izuku encourages him to continue getting harder. The entire bus (save for Izuku) erupts into laughter.
- Accidental Murder: When the Sludge Villain tries to kill Izuku at the USJ, he instinctively activates his red fire, burning the villain to death in the process.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Inko was best friends with Rei Todoroki before she married Endeavor, which consequently leads to her detesting the man for what he did to Rei and their children.
- Adaptational Badass: Inko Midoriya is a retired Underground Pro Hero and also one who does not take crap toward her family lying down. When Hisashi came home to try and murder Izuku, Inko atomized him by pulling apart his atoms with her Quirk.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: The Meta Liberation Army shows up in the first chapters as being behind the discriminatory nature of Aldera, as well as hundreds of other schools.
- Adaptational Name Change: Izuku and Ashido have different hero names than in canon. Izuku is named Beacon and Ashido becomes Venus.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Hisashi attempted to murder Izuku because of his (supposed) Quirklessness. It is made obvious that he was also a member of the Meta Liberation Army.
- Oujiro Maishirao is revealed to be a spy for the Meta Liberation Army.
- Jurota Shishida is implied to the readers to be class 1-B's spy for the Meta Liberation Army. Downplayed as of Chapter 43, as it's strongly implied that he isn't a spy, but rather a young man who fell into a radicalization pipeline and is just parroting the MLA's ideology without fully considering the implications.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Played for Laughs. Miruko's reaction to Izuku (badly) copying one of her signature moves during the Sports Festival is to drag him out of his hospital bed in Hosu and practically beat him up under the guise of sparring. This does ultimately turn out well for him though, since he got to learn a lot from a superior combatant and even discovered a new flame color.
- Everyone Has Standards: Bakugo becomes disgusted and afraid that he could end up doing the same when Inko tells him the story of a hero (Endeavor) that, for the sake of becoming Japan's #1 Hero, engaged in morally horrible actions that ultimately only caused pain and damage to everyone around him.
- Groin Attack: In the USJ, Hagakure stomps on Shigaraki's crotch really hard. The scream is such that even the Nomu winces.
- Hero-Worshipper:
- Aizawa really, really worships Verdant. He tries not to show it, though.
- Mineta does the same for Izuku after he saved him during the Entrance Exam.
- Irony: The day Hisashi came to kill Izuku for being Quirkless was the day Izuku's Quirk fully awakened. Also, Hisashi attempted to burn Izuku's room but his Quirk makes him fireproof.
- Landslide Election: Izuku is elected Class Representative with 15 votes out of 20.
- Mythology Gag:
- Todoroki also thinks here that Izuku is the son of a Pro Hero - only, due to the nature of the latter's Quirk, he thinks Izuku is Endeavor's son.
- Even though he doesn't have One for All, Izuku, Asui, and Mineta do pretty much the same plan to deal with the villains in the Shipwreck Zone.
- Playing with Fire: Izuku ends up awakening a Quirk that allows him to manipulate fire with the added bonus that he can use different colors that each have their own unique properties.
- Red: is more or less a burst of pure heat, reaching very high temperatures that instantly turns Izuku's normal clothes to ash when he uses it. It can get so hot that even Izuku, who's fire and heatproof, can feel it when activated.
- White: serves as a massive boost to Izuku's intelligence, but overusing it gives him a migraine.
- Yellow: enhances Izuku's speed in short bursts, but overuse leads to straining his heart.
- Green: enhances Izuku's strength, but overuse leads to tearing in his muscles.
- Pink: allows Izuku to heal injuries, both on himself and others, but at the cost of his stamina.
- Orange: creates a shield that can deflect most everything, though sufficiently powerful attacks (like Miruko's kicks) can break through.
- Blue: gives Izuku a connection with death and a Shinigami named Matatabi, which apparently grants him some kind of "conditional necromancy". It's the least understood of Izuku's powers, but for now it allows him to see and speak to the ghosts of One For All and let him briefly make Nana visible to All Might.
- Purple: is a malleable type of fire that Izuku uses to create either spikes or ropes to attack or restrain his opponents with. It forms a sort of sword-and-shield combo with the orange fire.
- Black: potentially the strongest of Izuku's fires, it shows up when Izuku is beyond enraged. It's a fire so hot that it practically vaporizes metal, and can even overcome Izuku's fireproof nature, leaving him with severe burns after using it.
- Point of Divergence: Inko being a retired Underground hero and Izuku developing a quirk are the two main nails of the story.
- Unlike in canon, Inko was supportive of Izuku's dreams of being a hero from the start, leading her to train him for years and giving him a solid foundation in hand-to-hand combat than he had at that point in canon.
- Inko and Nedzu discovering that multiple schools, including Aldera Middle, are actually indoctrination sites for the Meta Liberation Army leads to them having the school shut down. Izuku becomes Nedzu's personal student for the rest of his middle school years and Bakugo transfers to the same school as Kirishima and Ashido.
- Without Izuku being there to distract him, the Sludge Villain managed to escape All Might, and gets mentioned several times in different chapters. He shows up at the USJ, where he tries to take over Izuku's body - only to get burned to death in the process.
- During the entrance exam, Izuku gets a huge number of both Villain and Rescue points, leading to him taking first place.
- Related in the Adaptation: Nana Shimura is Inko's mother, therefore making her Izuku's grandmother as well as making Kotaro his maternal uncle and Tomura Shigaraki/Tenko his maternal cousin.
- Scare 'Em Straight: Inko tells Bakugo the story of what Endeavor did to his family to make him realize what he could become if he focuses on his ambition to become the Number One Hero at the cost of everything else.
- Super-Intelligence: Even without the effects of his white fire, Izuku was always extremely smart for his age, which is apparently a mutation quirk he inherited from his paternal grandfather. This is Inko's first clue that Izuku was either misdiagnosed as Quirkless or that he's a late bloomer.
- Technicolor Fire: Izuku's quirk is "Kaleidoscope fire", which in its base state is a multicolor fire that he uses to burn things, cause small explosions, and throw as fireballs. It can also be separated into individual colors, with each one having its own unique ability.
- Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Izuku and Tokage engage in this when they discuss All Might vs Godzilla.
