Fanfic / Looping Back to the Beginning

Looping Back to the Beginning by Feneris is a My Hero Academia Crack Fic about Class 1-A being stuck in a permanent and infinite time loop.

Official Summary: Where Class 1-A finds itself in a time loop centered around their first year at UA. After getting over the usual angst, they decide that the best way to grow as heroes is by antagonizing dangerous villains for fun and amusement.

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Tropes:

• Arch-Enemy: Exploited. The kids rejoice at the thought of having one because it means they're basically set for life. Shigaraki, said prospective nemesis, is pissed at the idea of a bunch of high schoolers using him as a stepping stone for their careers.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Unawake Izuku manages to figure out Class 1-A's looping nature rather easily as soon as he notices something weird is going on (in one of the loops, it's because Katsuki actually thanked him for trying to save his life from the Sludge Villain). Toshinori was so impressed by his student's work that if he hadn't already chosen the kid to be his successor, he would've pushed him towards the police.
  • Himiko concludes that Shoto is a time traveler and that Izuku is a part of his group during the loop he spends with her and Dabi (with Izuku as a vigilante who happens to encounter the trio; it is immediately after this encounter that Himiko makes her conclusion).
  • Despite not being part of the loops, the final chapter reveals that Principal Nedzu figures it out almost immediately and considers it so obvious that he forgets it's not so for other people.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: After Shoto kills his father in one loop, Katsuki berates him - not for commiting patricide (all of Class 1-A figured it would happen sooner or later), but because he involved Izuku in before he got his memories back.
• Blatant Lies: Shoto's sister catches him sneaking out a window in the middle of the night with a sword and a bandolier of grenades. His excuse? "There's a raccoon in the garbage."
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • While their sense of morality hasn't gotten too skewed, Class 1-A is clearly not on the same wavelength as the rest of the (non-looping) world anymore.
  • Class 1-A hardly blinks at Shoto murdering Endeavour (they all figured that was going to happen eventually). They're more pissed at him for going to an Unawake Izuku for help. That doesn't stop them from helping him go on the run, either, or from voting him in as Class President that same loop. To top it off, Dabi is the person who sees how screwed up that is.
  • Shoto himself has no problem playing the part of a villain for the loop and neither do his friends.
  • Not even Aizawa is immune. During Shinsou's first loop, he let the kids do whatever the hell they wanted for a class project, as long as they didn't get arrested. Shinsou won the project with no property damage whatsoever, opting to hide with some civilian kids under a car (Aizawa counted it as 'protecting bystanders').
• Butt-Monkey: The League of Villains, especially Shigaraki. Kurogiri is the one exception due to 1-A using him to free Eri quickly and efficiently.
• Captain Obvious: Dabi gets one when the League of Villains shows up at the training camp, only to find a sign at the coordinates of the camp labeled "Caution: Landmines" with a stick-figure Shigaraki being blown up. This is after the League gets pizzas delivered to their hideout, in Shigaraki's name, with a message saying that they knew that the villains would attack the training camp.
  Dabi: I think they may be expecting us.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Monoma. After only one week of classes, the entirety of Class 1-B decides to ignore anything he says regarding "Class 1-A, the government, organized religion, and the overuse of turnips in the cafeteria lunch menu."
• Crack Fic: The story doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's a laughfest from beginning to end.
• Crazy-Prepared: Mei Hatsume has a submission form for time travelers requesting her assistance.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Chapter 2 focuses on Shinsou and his first loop with 1-A after replacing Mineta.
  • Chapter 3 focuses on Class 1-A trolling the yet-to-remember-Izuku during the ten months before the Entrance Exam (which Izuku keeps saying they need to stop). Katsuki is believed to be the kickstarter.
  • Chapter 4 focuses on Shoto, who is on the run after murdering his father in a fit of rage.
• Destructive Savior: Shinsou's first loop had an assignment where the students competed to see who could complete it with the least amount of property damage. Shinsou won, having no property damage whatsoever (he and a group of kids were hiding under a car, which Aizawa counted as 'protecting bystanders'). Second place was Kouda. With 1.5 million yen.
• The Dreaded: Aizawa is the only authority figure 1-A still obeys, and after Mineta does something particularly bad his classmates threaten to go to him for punishment. It's a pity Aizawa never actually enforces any restrictions on them (or not).
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Dabi is disturbed by the Blue-and-Orange Morality his little brother and the rest of Class 1-A have adopted.
  • Even when acting as villains, Shoto's group spares Tenya's older brother when they happen upon him and Stain (because Shoto, who concealed Ingenium while Dabi and Himiko had Stain distracted, said they only go after assholes and Ingenium was cool).
• False Confession: Class 1-A spent two entire loops gathering information on Monoma (and presumably the rest of Class 1-B) so they can terrify him into doing this. Monoma promptly confessed, even though he had no idea what he was confessing to. Neither did Class 1-A, but they didn't care. They just found the whole thing hilarious.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the loop where Shoto murders his father, he dyes his hair black to go on the run and notes how much it makes him look like Dabi. Dabi immediately shows up and tells Shoto that he's his older brother.
• Godzilla Threshold: Sending in Izuku to deal with a problem (usually All for One).
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: One that's gone on for so long that the kids have given up on finding the cause and basically just roll with it. They even have set times for when they get their memories for the loop and adjust their plans accordingly (with Shinsou apparantly taking Mineta's place).
• I Was Just Joking: When a bored Dabi and Himiko ask Shoto what they should do to pass the time, he jokingly suggests they should rob a bank. And that's how the prodigal son of Endeavor embarked on a career of villainy alongside his outcast older brother and a psychotic teenage serial killer.
• It Amused Me: The primary motivation for most of Class 1-A's antics. Shoto's Villain Episode specifically happened because he'd rather be a villain than stuck in hiding in a crappy apartment, dying of boredom.
• I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: During his villain loop, Shoto runs into Izuku being a vigilante. They both offer to pretend they never saw each other.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Class 1-A are the only ones that loop. When Mineta lost his spot in the class, he stopped looping, and Shinsou, his replacement, started looping in his stead. This is also how Shoto continued looping even after the loop where he was forced to go on the run after murdering Endeavour; despite having never attended a single class at UA, the administration never took him off the roster (with Aizawa deliberately choosing not to remind them to). Class 1-A even went as far as voting him in as Class President for that loop.
  • This is how Shinsou replaced Mineta in Class 1-A to begin with. Izuku tore through most of the robots at the Entrance Exam, but some of them were still functioning on some level. Shinsou, who was at the same site as him, grabbed a rebar and promptly destroyed those outliers. He wasn't even sure if what he did counted. By the next loop he realized that cooperation points are a thing.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Dabi is Shoto's older brother. Surprisingly, Shouto and the rest of Class 1-A didn't find out until the loop where Shouto murdered their father.
• Magikarp Power: There's a terrorist group called "Mother of Monsters" that creates monsters using sea creatures. Most loops they're defeated by the cops or the League of Villains before anyone hears about them, but if given enough time to themselves, they end up creating massive Kaiju that Class 1-A has to handle quickly.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Class 1-A includes Aizawa, who loops alongside them and has effectively stopped teaching them because there's literally nothing else they can learn from him after so many loops.
• The Nicknamer: Apparently Katsuki is this. Besides 'Deku' (Izuku) like in canon, there's 'Half-and-Half' (Shoto) and 'Photocopier' (most likely Momo).
• Noodle Implement: How Izuku plans on dealing with the Mother of Monsters group in the last chapter: using two bandoliers of syringe darts, an extra large bottle of monsters tranqs, a first aid kit, rocket-propelled grenades, a bundle of flower crowns, and a cage full of mice.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Whatever Mineta did that got him temporarily (which would later turn out to be permanently) removed from the class. Knowing Mineta and judging by how Kaminari was specifically singled out for not approving of it, it was probably something extremely perverted.
  • Apparently, the rest of the class has frequently screwed with Izuku before he regains his memories at the start of the loop (aka, when he gets One for All), to the point that he's told them to stop doing it. They apparently never listen, as the loop in chapter 3 is another round of it (presumably kickstarted by Katsuki).
  • Izuku's vigilantism. Villain!Shoto's run-in with Izuku indicates that particular loop wasn't the first time Izuku went down the vigilante path.
  • In his first loop with the class, Shinsou had to dig... something with Katsuki, and spent the whole time saying they were going to jail. He also knows exactly what it feels like to escape a cement mixer.
  • Whatever assignment Aizawa set for Class 1-A during Shinsou's first loop. The one thing known is that it ended with Koji Koda causing 1.5 million Yen worth of damages.
• Not So Above It All: Aizawa, who plays along with the class' antics and basically allows them to do whatever they want despite being literally the only authority figure they still listen to.
• Only in It for the Money: In one loop, the kids hire Kurogiri to rescue Eri. He assumes they're gonna use her as a hostage and/or that they'll betray him, but they offer him a lot of money and promise the cops will never bother his bar again. After (to his surprise) they actually pay him, he asks about the cops. Jirou casually says they just annihilated the League of Villains, so no one has any reason to be suspicious of his bar. Then a massive pillar of fire erupts, to which Jirou makes the comment behind the entry for Godzilla Threshold above.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Katsuki thanking Unawake Izuku for saving his life is what clues him in to the fact that "something is horribly wrong". Ten months later it turns out the rest of 1-A were trolling him for the umpteenth time.
  • The U.A faculty is convinced Aizawa is an impostor after he starts getting more sleep, stops threatening his students with expulsion, and allows them to slack off on their homework.
• Perspective Flip: The last chapter sees Class 1-A's antics through the eyes of everyone else. And since it's the loop where they troll everyone into believing that they're part of some conspiracy, it shows how paranoid their school is and how worried their loved ones are.
• Rage Breaking Point: Whenever the loop restarts for Shoto, he's always woken up by his father dragging him to their dojo for a particularly brutal training session. Shoto usually just maims him, but after a particularly bad loop, he finally snaps and kills him.
• Refuge in Audacity: Jirou falls through the ceiling of Class 1-B's homeroom in a black suit and carrying a listening device. All she says is that their pipes are broken then leaves with the device.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: It's implied that the reason why Class 1-A gets away with their antics is because Nedzu always figures it out at the beginning of the year and lets them do whatever they want, as long as it's within reason.
• Seen It All: Nothing surprises Class 1-A anymore. Nothing.
  A great primeval roar suddenly erupted from the direction of the ocean with enough force to make the entire building shake.
  "Fucking Mother of Monsters," Bakugou growled.
  "I knew we forgot someone," Izuku groaned.
• Showy Invincible Hero:
  • Class 1-A, after so many loops, are so absurdly powerful that very few villains are genuine threats to them anymore (those villains being All for One and a bunch of terrorists who summon a massive sea Kaiju to do their bidding).
  • One loop sees Aizawa taking a nap during the USJ incident while his students beat the crap out of the League of Villains (one villain going bouncing off the bus 1-A used to arrive there during said beating of the League). They even go as far as sending Thirteen on a prank rescue mission so they can fight uninterrupted.
  • They've taken to preemptively eliminating all threats at the start of a loop whenever they want to have a normal school year. Or when they want to be the only source of weirdness that year. They forgot about Mother of Monsters during the preemptive elimination phase of the loop in chapter 5.
• Spit Take: Inverted. In one loop where Unawake Izuku figures out the truth, Katsuki ends up inhaling half a granola bar when Izuku reveals he has deduced Class 1-A's secret. Katsuki was visiting Kirishima at the time.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Shoto dyes his hair black when he goes on the run after murdering his father. He notes that it doesn't look bad — in fact, it makes him look a bit like Dabi. Cue Dabi appearing a second later and revealing that he's Shoto's older brother.
• Super-Intelligence: Despite being Unawake, Nedzu is intelligent enough that he's able to easily figure out that they're in a time loop each time it resets. And he considers it so obvious he doesn't realize it's not the same of everyone else.
• Temporarily a Villain: Shoto had to be a villain for one loop after he snapped and killed his father, which the rest of 1-A saw coming.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: 1-A's default method of elimination for All for One involves a massive pillar of fire visible from the other side of the city.
  Jirou: You can never be too careful with All for One. Overkill is usually the best policy. If that doesn't finish him off we'll have to send in Midoriya.
• Troll: Class 1-A is this to everyone, up to and including each other. Their favorite victim is Izuku during the ten months before he regains his memories.
  Izuku: I TOLD THEM TO STOP DOING THAT!
• Tropaholics Anonymous: In the final chapter, the families of Class 1-A (and Present Mic) form a support group over how bizarre their children (and friend in the case of Present Mic) are suddenly acting.
• Vigilante Man: During Shoto's Villain Episode, he meets up with Izuku, who has become a vigilante during his absence. Izuku strongly implies that this isn't the first time this has happened.
• Villain Episode: Starring Todoroki Shouto (after he murders Endeavour), his older brother Dabi, and Himiko Toga.
• World's Strongest Man: Izuku, due to having mastered One For All loops ago.
  Dabi: Who the hell was that?
  Shoto: He's like All Might, only worse. We're better off not messing with him.
  Himiko's follow-up reveals she's realized Shoto and Izuku are both time-travelers

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