Fanfic / My Hero Academia: Mechanical green

A girl and her robot therapy wolf^note Art by Feerocomics

Life after being diagnosed Quirkless has been nothing short of hell for Izumi Midoriya. Friends became bullies, teachers ignored her, and even her idol destroyed her dream. It all being too much, she tries to end it all, only to be saved and start getting therapy. Now, as she struggles to cope with the trauma and pain she's suffered for years, can this rising star one day fly with the angels?

My Hero Academia: Mechanical green is an Alternate Universe My Hero Academia fanfic by META2012 on Archive of Our Own, exploring an alternate take on the setting stemming from one main difference: the Great Offscreen War caused by one Dr. Paxton Frederick Jones and his robotic army. Following Izumi after her failed attempt at suicide, the canon plot is quickly set Off the Rails after she discovers a broken creation of Paxton's: a robotic wolf named Durandal.

In addition to the main fic, there is a canonical side-fic called My Hero Academia: Mechanical green 1-A chat room, a Chat Fic focusing on the students of 1-A, their teachers, and close staff members set in between the various chapters and detailing some of the more mundane elements of their lives.

Following raised issues of cast bloat and the like, META2012 announced they would be giving the fic a minor rewrite, removing certain elements from the fic. The original version of the fic would remain as is on Spacebattles, while the AO3 version would be edited to reflect the rewrite. Per META2012's request, this page will cover tropes pertaining to both the original and the rewrite but will be split into the appropriate sections.

Unmarked spoilers for Canon and up to Chapter 35.

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My Hero Academia: Mechanical green provides examples of:

In General

Tropes # — C

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Like canon, the setting here is one somewhat close to reality as a result of the Dawn Of Quirks causing technology to stagnate, but part of the setting being an Alternate Universe is that technology continued to progress following the Avalon War, seeing an increase in robotics, cybernetics, space travel, and even lunar colonies, all of which is decades beyond modern technological advances in real life. In both versions of the fic, someone confronts Izumi while lampshading the trope, prompting her to have Durandal look into it later. The official story being that, sixteen years ago, a man named Edger D. Henderson used his Quirk, "Advanced Mind", to come up with all these revolutionary developments, including a lunar colony he completed building only a year after announcing the plans to make it. Durandal's digging however revealed the biggest discrepancy though, an old Twitter post from when Edger was a child and his parents made a post regarding his "Quirk": that he's biologically Quirkless. Meaning not only did he lie about his "Quirk", he wasn't the one responsible for the various innovations. What's more, one of the people part of his inner circle, Jenson Edwards, was Paxton under another alias, meaning not only did Paxton have a hand in so many QOL upgrades, but he was there when whoever it was gave Edger those ideas. The thought alone terrifies Durandal, that there's someone out there responsible for changing the world so much lurking in the shadows, and is somehow even smarter than his creator.
• Accusation Fic:
  • Downplayed. While the fic has the tag "Sasaki Mirai | Sir Nighteye Bashing", the matter itself is properly dealt with early into the fic. Namely, Mirai is taken to task for his canon motivations and behavior regarding One For All and, after getting both "The Reason You Suck" Speech and a punch to the face from Toshinori and the threat of castration from Inko, he ends up mellowing out and becomes one of many mentors to Izumi.
  • Downplayed, but the canon reasoning for the students being involved in the Paranormal Liberation War, that the HPSC effectively instituted a draft and forced them to participate despite being students, is torn apart in the backstory for the Avalon War. Namely that they did something similar there, only it resulted in a lot of students dying, and it was pointed out that HPSC neglected using the much more experienced and fitting Japanese Special Defense Force for a literal war in favor of using Heroes they controlled, said actions being just one of the many nails in the HPSC's coffin and subsequent loss of power.
  • The whole concept of a "Symbol of Peace" is regularly torn apart in terms of practicality and logistics long before any of the canon issues that came from it could occur. In addition to highlighting how, by making himself into the symbol, Toshinori unintentionally gave the public unrealistic expectations of him and made any potential successor likely to be viewed as a Sketchy Successor, his means of trying to have Izumi initially be his replacement just put a lot of pressure of her shoulders, made worse by her already fragile mental state. Even after he realized the latter though, his attempts at trying to make the students ready for his inevitable retirement, while well-intentioned, were beyond feasible, and just put a lot of pressure on students before they should even have to worry about that. Everyone who finds out about this such as Durandal, Kaina, and Shota, while understanding of Toshinori's reasoning, can all agree the idea of having any one person try to take his place is doomed to fail regardless of who they are, since they won't be another "All Might". Something that's proven right when Toshinori does retire to conserve his remaining time limit, with many viewing the new Number 1, Moe Kamiji/"Burnin", as a Sketchy Successor, Villain attacks highly increasing due to "All Might" no longer being around to deter them, and Izumi unintentionally suffering a lot more due to being caught in many of those Villain attacks and being scrutinized by the public as both a potential better choice for the new Number 1, and lambasted as a fake or inferior to "All Might".
• Adaptation Deviation: The methods behind creating the Nomu differ from canon. In canon, the Nomu were effectively reanimated corpses, Dr. Kyudai Garaki having the corpses of subjects taken and experimented on to be capable of housing multiple Quirks, and then implanting Quirk factors into them, prime example being Kurogiri, made using the body of Oboro Shirakumo, who died during the events of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes as Shota, Hizashi, and Nemuri can attest. Here, the Nomu were explicitly living people, their minds broken thanks to the efforts of The Therapist before being experimented on, their bodies being converted into Nomu causing Death of Personality, and then further mutated using Mutator's gas.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Nezu's past of being experimented on is expanded upon by virtue of being connected to the Avalon War. Namely, Nezu was one of Paxton's experiments, his unhinged behavior a result of Paxton trying to break his mind. Nezu however managed to escape, and was the one who alerted the US as to Paxton's location.
  • Yui's nature as The Quiet One is expanded on, revealing she's more accurately a Shrinking Violet good at pulling The Stoic routine, admitting via the class chat that, like Koji, she has trouble speaking to others out loud, and via the girls chat that she's largely afraid to talk to others in general, Hitoshi in particular due to her crush on him, even having a panic attack just from thinking about it.
  • "Late Bloomer" Quirks were largely just a convenient excuse in canon used by Izuku to justify why he didn't have a Quirk until the Entrance Exam. Here, it's acknowledged to be a legitimate medical condition, with plenty of other people admitting to being such, only unlocking their Quirks due to certain "factors", such as Chiharu only unlocking hers after her father died, or "The Mechanist" only unlocking his after half his body had been replaced with cybernetics.
  • The notion of students being able to transfer into the Hero Course via the Sports Festival is detailed further. Nezu and Horoguramu explain that, unbeknownst to all but the staff, there are a set of requirements regarding whether someone is chosen to be moved to the Hero Course. First, they must make it to the third round of the Sports Festival. Second, they must win at least one fight in the third round. Third, they must receive at least four internship offers from Pro-Heroes. Lastly, only a General Course student can transfer to the Hero Course, while any other course would have to take a dual-major. They outline this to both Mei and Chiharu as both meet all the requirements, with Nezu in turn offering them the option of dual-majoring in the Hero Course, and both accepting.
  • Downplayed. The existence of "Corrupt Heroes" was largely an Informed Attribute in canon, as none of the victims of Hero Killer Stain were explored in depth outside of Tensei Iida/Ingenium (I), who was not a Corrupt Hero, the closest anyone came to falling under the description Stain had being the secret Meta Liberation Army agent Slide N'Go, and Yoroi Musha who retired when approval ratings for heroes began plummeting. Here, it's shown there are numerous Corrupt Heroes, but there existence is largely restricted to narration rather than being directly shown, such as the Pro-Hero whose drunk driving resulted in Hitoshi's mother getting stuck in a coma, or the Pro-Hero that was trafficking Trigger into Japan leading Chizome to learning about Eri and rescuing her. What's more, the heroes Stain did kill here are shown to have been responsible for crimes such as sex trafficking, it's just Stain thought said crimes would be exposed post-mortem rather than buried.
  • Mei's No Social Skills are expanded to the idea she has legitimate issues with social graces and emotions, not understanding why she feels certain things, and throwing herself into her work so as to both not think about it and make sure those she cares about are safe, all but saying she has some form of ASD.
  • The students of the anime-original Seiai and Seijin academies wearing what looked like uniforms during the Provisional License Exams is explained here by Tensei noting they are their school uniforms, and that while UA and Shiketsu allow students to design their own Hero Costumes, just with the caveat that Shiketsu students include their schools hat into their costume, the uniforms of Seiai Academy and Seijin Academy are their mandatory Hero Costumes, and they are only allowed to design their own unique costumes once they've graduated.
  • Quirks that could seemingly convict or exonerate people in canon like Mirai's "Foresight" or Makoto's "Polygraph" would seem like they'd be especially useful in criminal cases. It's explained here however that the "True Words" law prevents evidence solely obtained from quirks like Mind Reading from being admissible in court without proper physical evidence to corroborate it, as there's no way to prove the evidence obtained with a Quirk is actually there and not just something the user made up. The rewrite would expand on the law further, exploring the Loophole Abuse that made cases pertaining to Mind Rape and Laser-Guided Amnesia nigh-impossible to prosecute due to no physical evidence of the crimes taking place.
  • In Vigilantes, what became of Kuin Hachisuka after the Queen Bee was extracted from Kazuho is unknown, last being seen kept in a jar as everyone focused more on protecting Kazuho from Nomura. Here, she somehow made her way back to All For One, and became a test subject of The Therapist before escaping.
• Adaptation Name Change: Thanks to having gotten married here, Emi Fukukado/Ms. Joke is instead Emi Aizawa. Shota still calls her "Fukukado" in public to hide the fact they're married, but Emi doesn't hide it and gladly calls herself "Mrs. Aizawa".
• Adaptation Personality Change: As a result of the Avalon War badly scarring her and so many other female heroes quitting due to caring more about sex appeal than heroics, Uwabami is a lot less vain and more professional here than in canon, focusing less on having her interns model with her and more on actually teaching the business side of heroics to them. When Itsuka actually asks about rumors suggesting internships with her would be more like canon, Uwabami explains that's more a misconception caused by Shoowaysha Publishing's attempt at discrediting her, and that the only ones who appear in commercials with her are her sidekicks. It's implied the change in personality partially stems from her being confronted by her own mortality, as she admits to her interns she's likely going to die in ten to fifteen years from the genetic instability being hit by Mutator caused, suggesting she wants to be an actual hero rather than just a model.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • In canon, despite being bullied by him for the better part of a decade, Izuku firmly considered Katsuki his friend and believed he was a good guy at heart, whereas Katsuki considered Izuku a "useless Deku" and despised him until multiple cases of Character Development forced him to see Izuku as his equal and, eventually, lead to his regretting everything he put Izuku through and apologizing to him. Here, in addition to having once been in love with Katsuki before he brutally rejected her, Izumi now possesses a crippling fear of him due to his bullying her and associating him with her failed suicide attempt, causing her to nearly break down just from seeing him. Katsuki meanwhile holds immense regret over nearly driving Izumi to kill herself and, after seeking therapy and anger management, completely rebuilds himself as a person, desiring nothing more than to apologize to Izumi for everything he did to her.
  • Canonically, Inko has great respect for All Might as a hero and person, and while she doesn't approve of the danger Izuku faces by attending UA, she is fully aware of how much All Might being his mentor means to Izuku and was willing to let Izuku continue attending UA only if All Might swore to live for Izuku's sake. Here, after learning about how Toshinori left Izumi on the roof that she tried to jump from, she is absolutely livid, with her respect for him all but disappearing, and outright admitting that, even if she can accept his apology, she could never forgive him for leaving her daughter alone to kill herself. That being said, she is at least aware of how much Toshinori wants to atone for his mistake, and in turn allows him to be Izumi's mentor, but she becomes his harshest critic and regularly calls him out whenever she feels he's being a bonehead. She also doesn't hesitate to join Gran Torino on trolling him.
  • Izumi's core friend group is quite different than in canon. Whereas in canon his closest friends consisted of Katsuki (one-sided), Ochaco, Tenya, Shoto, Tsuyu, Minoru, Kyoka, and Yuga, only the girls retain close relationships with Izumi here. She both fears and hates Katsuki, she hates Minoru, Tenya is just a classmate to her, and she barely knows Shoto and Yuga. Ochaco meanwhile is her closest friend and later girlfriend, Tsuyu is a close friend and a member of the "Snuggle Squad", and while not as close to Kyoka as in canon after the Culture Festival, the two at least have a minor friendship starting a lot earlier than canon. Instead, the other members of Izumi's friend group include Neito and Hitoshi, both friends from her time at Nabu Middle School, Himiko, Momo, Mei, and Nejire, all having grown closer by forming the "Snuggle Squad" following the USJ, and Chiharu, having become Izumi's manager and close friend following the break-in by the Press.
  • In canon, the only connection between Lady Nagant and Snipe is that they were gunslinger Heroes, with Snipe admitting that Lady Nagant was Always Someone Better to him. Here, Kaina fell in love with and married Snipe four years before the main story, the two having twin children a year after that.
  • Downplayed. Canonically, Neito and Yui's relationship is largely confined to the databooks, the "Ultra Analysis" book revealing that, whereas the rest of his classmates have a more love-hate relationship with Neito, Yui just flat out hates him. Here, while they don't interact directly too much as a result of Yui's shyness, from what is shown they get along much better than in canon.
  • In canon, Shota's relationship with Emi Fukukado/Ms. Joke was more one-sided, as while they'd known each other for a long time and could be cordial, Shota's frequently annoyed by Emi's jokes about marriage proposals and attempts at getting him to laugh. Here, they're Happily Married, albeit they don't deliberately broadcast their relationship, to the point Minoru was the only one among the 42 Hero Course students who actually knew before they revealed it.
  • Canonically, Burnin was the leader of the "Flaming Sidekickers" under Endeavor, and had great respect and trust for the man, with that not changing even after Dabi exposed Endeavor's dirty laundry. Here, as she was only an Intern under him for about a month before his mental breakdown at the hands of Paxton and the exposing of his abuse, she doesn't care for him that much, at best acknowledging his efficiency and skill as a Hero, but disliking his crimes, instead caring more about Shoto and trying to act as a Cool Big Sis to her.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: The circumstances behind how Toshinori first met Nana are different here than in canon. In canon, Toshinori met Nana following a Villain attack, all set to charge in armed with only a lead pipe before Nana beat him to the punch, Nana initially dismissing his desire to be her pupil due to his being Quirkless until he impressed her with his ideals, convincing her to make him the Eighth bearer of One for All and become his mentor. Here, Toshinori was suicidal and attempted to kill himself by jumping off a building before Nana saved him, seeing in him a heroic spirit and taking him on as her disciple, Toshinori stating she was the first person who ever immediately believed in him.
• Adaptational Badass: The USJ Nomu is much stronger than in canon as a result of being created using Mutator's gas. In addition to it's "Shock Absorption" being mutated into "Shock Nullification", it displays slightly increased intelligence due to directly targeting Toshinori's scar from facing All For One, its exposed brain is durable enough to shrug off a point blank armor-piercing bullet, and none of the heroes actually manage to beat it. This causes it to actually be classified as a High-End Nomu unlike canon where, while tailor made to face All Might, it was still a regular Nomu. The only reason it's defeated is because of it suddenly displaying the capacity to feel emotions after punching Ochaco, upon which it quickly broke free from anyone controlling it or any programmed orders it had in favor of attacking Tomura and Kurogiri, necessitating Tomura kill it himself, it heavily implied the only reason that happened at all being due to a mysterious ability Ochaco has leading to her possessing it.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Downplayed with Zookeeper, as she'd always been nice, but was for a long time Brainwashed and Crazy. A few years before the story though, Ingenium managed to defeat and imprison Curator, freeing Zookeeper from his brainwashing and taking her in as one of his sidekicks.
  • Downplayed with Dabi/Toya Todoroki. While certainly a far cry from the Psychopathic Manchild he was in canon who only cared for ruining Endeavor and killing his entire family, he's still implicitly a Villain despite seeking therapy with Dr. Isa. According to Burnin, while they lack any concrete evidence outside of his running a cabaret club numerous villains are known to frequent, he is suspected of collaborating with numerous Villains, and for having left multiple victims with first and second degree burns. He does however appear to show genuine concern for his biological family outside of his father, and is much more content trolling Burnin with his singing than going around killing people.
• Adapted Out:
  • "Deku" being made into an Appropriated Appellation. As a result of her failed suicide attempt leading to her transferring to Nabu and Katsuki himself changing as a result of therapy, the only time the name "Deku" comes up is in relation to Katsuki and Aldera's treatment of Izumi in the past. Izumi instead choses "Usako" as her Hero Name.
  • As a result of the Avalon War exposing Endeavor's dirty laundry much earlier, the Todoroki family subplot has been all but excised, with Shoto being happily raised by Rei alongside Fuyumi and Natsuo, while Enji is stuck with a restraining order stopping him from going anywhere near his family. Even Toya seems to lack his grudge on his family now that Enji's fall from grace is out of his hands, as his only reaction to seeing Shoto lose the Sports Festival is "better luck next time", and seems to have made a successful life for himself all on his own.
  • As a side-effect of including Hitoshi, Neito, Himiko, Yui, and Inasa in Class 1-A, Katsuki, Shoto, Mezo, and Mashirao are put in 1-B, with several 1-B students being removed to account for theirs and Camie's inclusion. While the original version of the fic only ever identified 18 of the students in the class, the redux made clear that the ones no longer present in 1-B here were Nirengeki Shoda, Manga Fukidashi, and Kojiro Bondo.
• Age Lift: Canonically, Himiko Toga and Camie Utsushimi are a year older than the principal cast. Here, with both being in the first year Hero Course at the same time as Izumi and Katsuki, they're a year younger than canon.
• Ambiguous Situation: The circumstances that led the canonical members of the League of Villains to seek therapy with Dr. Isa rather than pursue their canon paths is unknown, particularly since it's heavily hinted most of them did go through versions of their canon backstories still.
  • Himiko retains her canon background of being forced to repress her Quirk-induced bloodlust for the sake of looking "normal" at the direction of her Abusive Parents. However, when Izumi first sees her, she's heavily disheveled and eating special gummies made with blood, accompanied by a woman implied to be a social worker, and she's later shown to be living in a foster home with Hitoshi, having discarded the "Toga" name and cursing out her parents upon being accepted to UA. This leaves it unclear if she ever suffered her canon mental breakdown and attacking of Saito before running away from home, or if something resulted in social services getting involved before that could happen.
  • Dabi/Toya Todoroki sporting his signature burn scars suggests he retains his canon backstory of burning himself alive at Sekoto Peak while trying to gain his father's attention before his near-dead body was found by All For One, left in a coma for several years, and then awoke before escaping from All For One's facility. However, he's later shown having made a life for himself independent of his hatred for Endeavor, a stark contrast to how Garaki stated the only thing keeping him alive was The Power of Hate he held towards his family.
  • Shuichi/Spinner was still a hikikomori and noted to have entertained the ideals of the Hero Killer Stain, but never actually went through with following them before meeting Dr. Isa.
  • Jin/Twice is shown to be wearing a paper bag over his head when Izumi first sees him, suggesting he still went through his canon backstory, including the Ambiguous Clone Ending, supported by Paxton noting he suffers from Other Specified Dissociative Disorder and Dissocciative Identity Disorder reminiscent of his canon behavior, but leaving it unclear if he ever met Giran or if he was still treated as a high profile criminal despite only being a petty thief due to the nature of his Quirk.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Hitoshi Shinso and Neito Monoma end up as Izumi's friends at Nabu Middle School and join her in 1-A, the two joining the main cast as a result. Himiko is likewise Hitoshi's foster sister and ends up joining 1-A alongside him.
  • Due to the changed rosters between 1-A and 1-B, Yui Kodai and Inasa Yoarashi are part of the principal cast here. In addition, their homeroom teacher is Kaina Tsutsumi/Lady Nagant, with Nejire Hado acting as their live-in teaching assistant, and Mei Hatsume living in their dorm rather than the dorms for 1-H after Higari Maijima/Power Loader refused to risk her blowing it up... again.
  • Downplayed with Native. In canon, he was simply a would-be victim of Stain's that Izuku, Tenya, and Shoto had to save during Hosu, with him afterwards becoming a Recurring Extra before he was Killed Offscreen during the Paranormal Liberation War. Here, he's the hero that Himiko interns under, the two staying at the Idaten Agency during the Internships, and as such gets to be a more active participant in the fic's Hosu equivalent.
  • With most of the canon members of the League not being available to join here, Giran instead presents Tomura with several different options. Specifically, Curator & Bearhead of the Wild Villains, and Volcano/Maguma Iwata & Gust Boy/Tsumuji Kazetani of the Volcano Thieves, all four being from the My Hero Academia: Clash! Heroes Battle arcade game.
• Call-Forward: During the Cavalry Battle, Izumi can hear Kudo commenting about Yuga Aoyama's "Naval Laser" Quirk, saying it seemed familiar to him. Not only is this in reference to the fact that said Quirk used to belong to All For One, but doubles as foreshadowing that Yuga is still the UA Traitor here.
• Can't Take Criticism: Following Izumi's public breakdown after the Slime Villain incident, the heroes present there all took a hit to their reputations for standing by and nearly letting Katsuki die, in particular Death Arms for chewing Izumi out despite her clearly being mentally fragile. Death Arms isn't one to take criticism well though, and while he did work hard to try and regain his standing, he doesn't like being reminded of that day or Izumi, outright stating "Usako" shouldn't be a hero upon seeing her take first place in the first and second rounds of the Sports Festival. Mt. Lady rightfully points out that he's more just covering for his damaged ego and taking it out on Izumi.
• Captain Ersatz: Several characters are clearly based off of existing pop culture characters, though how they are depicted tends to vary. The original fic had them as just Ersatz, whereas the rewrite opted to make several of them into flat-out transplants instead.
  • The underground hero "Shinigami" is pretty much a genderbent L from Death Note, wearing a similar outfit when Toru first meets her, walking around barefoot with a hunched-over posture, and asking to be called "Ryuzaki" much like L did when going undercover. It's implied this is an invoked case to hide her implied to be real identity though: Hana Shimura. She even offers Himiko a strawberry in exchange for keeping quiet about the fact she's basically a Death Note cosplayer.
  • The one "Dreadnought" shown so far is shown to essentially be Kylo Ren visually, down to wielding a Laser Blade with a crossguard. This is changed in the rewrite to make them more distinct, described more akin to a cross between Darth Vader and the Grim Reaper.
• Central Theme:
  • A large theme of the fic pertains to mental health, particularly trauma and how one copes with it. Numerous named characters, both Hero and Villain alike, are shown to be suffering from various forms of trauma that have shaped them into who they are, such as trying to take their own life, watching loved ones die in front of them, witnessing the consequences of what they thought were innocuous actions, etc. Many of the characters in turn are forced to address these issues, such as addressing them directly via therapy and surrounding themselves with a support group filled with loved ones, constantly fighting an uphill battle to make sure they don't relapse, and becoming aware of the biases that unintentionally blinded them as their means of coping. The Snuggle Squad in particular demonstrates this, as they all individually suffer their own traumas connected to either their backstories or the events of the fic itself, causing them to seek comfort from one another such as cuddling together to sleep. As they continue, they slowly become a support system for each other, allowing them to confide in them over their issues, help each other try and heal, and break down the emotional barriers they had put up.
  • A secondary theme to the fic is being able to see someone as not just their virtues nor their vices. Numerous characters are confronted with aspects of those surrounding them that demonstrate a variety of flaws or past behaviors that could easily damn them but are forced to see that they are not just their worst acts, that even those who have done wrong can still change for the better, and can be accepted Warts and All. This is demonstrated in particular via Toshinori, Katsuki, and Chitose, but also deconstructed via Dr. Paxton.
    • Toshinori has made a lot of mistakes when it comes to being a mentor to Izumi, and while those mistakes have hurt her, he does all he can to be better in the present, and while he still makes the occasional screw-up, Izumi is willing to accept that he's trying his best, she just can't put him on a pedestal like she used to.
    • Katsuki has accepted that he used to be a horrible person and wants to atone for the sins of his past, and while he's yet to find the opportunity to since Izumi is understandably terrified and hateful of him when the rest of the Bakusquad learn of his past, they acknowledge that, while he screwed up, he's far from the cruel bully he used to be, and are willing to accept him so long as he's serious about being better than he once was.
    • Chitose hasn't been the best parent to Chiharu, both due to improper handling of her grief over Akito's death, and being too preoccupied with work to care for her in person, leaving Chiharu resentful of her. Chitose, however, is working her ass off to be a better mother for Chiharu after all these years, with Chiharu in turn slowly beginning to accept her after realizing how she let her hatred blind her to how much Chitose loves her and made her forget about the happy memories they share, coinciding with her realizing she put Akito on a pedestal and tried to ignore his faults rather than admit it to herself, allowing the two to slowly, but surely, recover their relationship.
    • Dr. Paxton Frederick Jones is a deconstruction of this very theme. The man is responsible for a lot of atrocities via the Avalon War, particularly causing an untold amount of death and the collapse of several nations. However, the man is responsible for many good things, being the one who caused many Quality of Life updates to society via robotics and space travel independent of the Avalon War while under the alias of "Jenson Edwards", actively opposed those worse than him like The Therapist or the Heroic Public Safety Commission, was a firm advocate for mental health, and did a lot of good acting as the therapist "Dr. Isa Tsuneyo" to the point of giving up a year of his lifespan to make sure Izumi is brought Back from the Dead for no benefit to himself. However, the acts of destruction and death he brought via the Avalon War has left the man Hated by All, marked for death on sight should he be seen alive, and has created a cognitive dissonance in people that make them incapable of seeing him as anything but a heartless monster, to the point that even when presented with irrefutable evidence, Izumi is incapable of believing that Dr. Isa was Dr. Paxton since she can't fathom him reviving her for no benefit. To the world, Dr. Paxton can only be a monster filled with vices, the things he did incapable of being walked back from, and anything to the contrary of that image suggesting he has virtues is met with either disbelief or revulsion.
• Chekhov's Gun: The story of "Dr. Necro" initially appears to be just an interesting Noodle Incident from years prior, involving All Might and Midnight teaming up with heroes worldwide to stop a necromancer from creating an army of Nazi Zombies and reviving Hitler. It's later revealed however to be one of the many seemingly unrelated disasters "The Therapist" was responsible for, as he reveals to the imprisoned Mirai, and serves to highlight the wide-reaching effects and sheer scope of his actions. What's more, it's revealed to have also been an attempt at capturing Midnight, as The Therapist saw great potential in using her "Somnambulist" Quirk in his experiments.
• Connected All Along: While a prisoner of the League, Mirai meets "The Therapist", a former ally of Paxton's who was partly responsible for the creation of the USJ Nomu. He quickly begins claiming responsibility for numerous incidents, including Mutator's attack, aiding Dr. Necro, the bombing of the Kremlin, the Long Island Massacre, and Brazil's "Dark Rain" incident. Mirai is initially confused due to those incidents having nothing to do with each other and already being attributed to others, but quickly realizes that they all shared a common trait: green veins. Each of those incidents had either the perpetrators or their victims sporting green veins, with The Therapist admitting to being a bio-chemist interested in creating bio-weapons, and that all of those incidents had his involvement for the sake of gathering data for research purposes.
• Contrived Coincidence: Right as Izumi and Inko are giving Ochaco a ride back to the apartment she was staying in, they see a massive tank crashed through the upper floor of the building, caused by the criminal Mirai had been tracking using his Quirk to make a JSDF tank driver go temporarily insane, said driver having a Quirk that makes vehicles jump. Only one apartment was damaged in any way, Apartment 202...the exact apartment that Ochaco was staying at. Fortunately none of her stuff was damaged, but this forces her to stay with Izumi and Inko for the night, in turn allowing her to witness one of Izumi's trauma-induced nightmares and give her a Declaration of Protection. Durandal points out the absurdity of the events and how, in any other circumstance, it be would humorous.
  Durandal: I'd say it sounds like something from a comedy sketch, but considering what could have happened, I think it's best that no one found this funny.

Tropes D — N

• Death by Adaptation:
  • The Uraraka parents were both killed in the crossfire of one of Paxton's robot attacks during the Avalon War, leaving Ochaco an orphan. It's later implied that was only the cover story, as when Ochaco sees a Dreadnought in person, she can only think back to the night her parents died, and vaguely recalls seeing a figure like them that night, implying they were the ones who killed her parents.
  • Anan Kurose/Thirteen is killed at the USJ by Argonaut, a spear being thrown straight through her helmet.
  • The USJ Nomu is killed by Tomura after it suddenly turns on the League and attacks him and Kurogiri, Tomura having no choice but to kill it for the sake of surviving.
  • All of the mook villains brought to the USJ by the League end up being killed by Argonaut and the robots he brought, the sole exception being Bunny, who Nezu lists as deceased so he can recruit her into his villain rehabilitation program.
  • Goto Imasuji/Muscular and Moonfish are both killed following encounters with the Water Hose duo, both encounters having the duo nearly killed by the villain, only for a thought to be Dreadnought to appear and superheat all the water in their body, turning it into steam which then caused the villain to explode.
  • Giran explains that Konako Haizono/Dusty Ash of the Volcano Thieves was the only casualty of a prison riot a year before the story, much to Tomura's disappointment as he had wanted to recruit her for being a successful Hero Killer. Subverted, as Nezu subjected her to Death Faked for You and brought her into his "Villain Rehabilitation" program, now as the UA librarian "Konako Kokuu".
  • With the exception of Beros, all of the Humarise cult are quickly killed following their being usurped by a mysterious quartet. The Quirkless members are executed outright, while the Quirked members are rendered braindead so their bodies can be puppeteered, the WHA discovering a train in Russia filled with dozens of unresponsive members, unable to get them on life support due to RAFT getting in their way and the Russian Government needing to act as mediator between the two. Flect Turn in particular would have his body taken over by the fourth usurper.
  • Mummy and Chimera are killed by Paxton's perfected Quirk Emulator, the former via an emulated "Decay" to the face, the latter via an emulated "Sonic Blast" to the head.
  • Mahoro and Katsuma's father, Hīringu Shimano, died in a villain attack while working at a hospital on the mainland a year prior to the fic.
  • Kendo Rappa was repeatedly killed and revived by Kai following Eri's escape to UA as a means of venting his anger, Kai eventually leaving him dead.
  • Kai Chisaki/Overhaul is reduced to Ludicrous Gibs by an unknown assailant the day after his failed attempt at recapturing Eri, said assailant believed to be the same Sematick responsible for killing Muscular and Moonfish.
• Death by Falling Over: The "Child of Blood" responsible for commanding the Nomu at the attack on the Idaten Agency dies this way, having been standing on top of the building when he slipped and hit the ground with a meaty thud. It's all but said Rolls used her telekinesis to invoke this as revenge for having the Nomu crush Himiko's head, with her, Izumi, and Native all agreeing he must have "tripped".
• Demoted to Extra:
  • With Hitoshi Shinso, Neito Monoma, Yui Kodai, Inasa Yoarashi, and Himiko Toga in Class 1-A here, the students they took the places of ended up being reallocated throughout the school.
    • Katsuki Bakugo, Shoto Todoroki, Mezo Shoji, and Mashirao Ojiro, all ended up in Class 1-B. Katsuki gets periodic focus for himself, but the others don't have too much presence, most evident with Shoto who was one of the rotating protagonists in canon, but is largely Out of Focus here due to the Todoroki Family subplot being Adapted Out.
    • Yuga Aoyama failed the Entrance Exam entirely, but had fortunately applied to the General Course just in case, appearing during the Sports Festival and leading his own team. He also retains his status as the UA Traitor, having undergone Adaptational Villainy due to lacking the Positive Friend Influence being in 1-A gave him.
  • Enji Todoroki/Endeavor was one of the most focused on characters outside of the main characters in canon once he began his redemption quest. Here, he's only spoken of in passing due to his crimes against his family being exposed much earlier, knocking him out of the Top 10 entirely and landing him with a restraining order from his former family. In his place, Moe Kamiji/Burnin, leader of the Flaming Sidekickers in canon, is the Number 2 Hero.
  • With the exceptions of Tomura Shigaraki and Kurogiri, who are still part of the group, and Himiko, who is in 1-A here, the canonical League of Villains take a drastically reduced role here as a result of never turning to villainy after seeing Dr. Isa. Several only end up making cameos as a result, with Dabi/Toya having made a life for himself, Kenji/Magne being seen as one of Dr. Isa's patients, and Mustard joining UA's General Course. Jin/Twice, Shuichi/Spinner, and Atsuhiro/Mr. Compress are the only subversions, Jin having been recruited by Paxton following their therapy sessions, Shuichi/Spinner becoming the intern to the Wild Wild Pussycats and in turn one of UA's staff members when they join the school, and the latter still joining the League.
  • The League of Villains themselves downplay this. Whereas in canon they were the main antagonistic group and had several encounters with both Class 1-A and the Pro-Heroes, here they are instead one of several major villainous factions fighting both the Heroes and each other, chief among them the members of Avalon, with both groups being treated as just as big a threat as each other, the League only having one direct encounter with 1-A, and an indirect encounter via giving minimal support to the "Children of Blood".
• Disabled in the Adaptation:
  • Anan Kurose/Thirteen lost an arm to one of Paxton's robots in the Avalon War.
  • Uwabami was badly scarred during the war, her three natural snakes covered in burn scars, the right half of her face badly burned, around the eye in particular, and she lost all but one of the fingers on her right hand. She was then caught in Mutator's attack, her entire body now covered in green veins, gaining a fourth snake that is badly malformed and covered in similar green veins, and suffering frequent flashes of pain due to her now unstable genetic makeup requiring stabilizing injections. She normally hides the extent of her injuries with copious amounts of makeup, but when Itsuka and Chiharu intern under her, they see just how bad it really is.
• Dramatic Irony: There are a lot of different perspectives and character focus happening simultaneously, and not every character is going to be privy to the details of other's perspectives. As a result, multiple cases of dramatic irony end up occurring due to, in no small part, most of the cast operating with only part of the story.
  • Durandal admitted to becoming quite fond of Dr. Isa in the short time he'd come to know the man while caring for Izumi, considering him a genuinely nice and altruistic person who put others before himself, and expresses contempt for whoever killed him. Unbeknownst to Durandal though, "Dr. Isa Tsuneyo" was merely a cover identity for the man he hates more than anything/his creator: Dr. Paxton Frederick Jones, and is not only still alive, but was nowhere near as nice and altruistic as he appeared to be.
  • Those in 1-A who know of what he did to Izumi have nothing but contempt for Katsuki, Ochaco especially, and want him to pay for hurting her so badly. What none of them realize though is that Katsuki himself hates what he put Izumi through, and is no longer simply The Bully, having gotten a wake-up call after Izumi nearly killed herself and he began taking therapy and anger management lessons, changing so thoroughly that the "Bakusquad" find it hard to believe at first he was ever a bully when he opens up to them about his past.
  • Upon viewing footage of Izumi fighting at the USJ, Dr. Paxton comes to believe Izumi was given a Quirk by All For One, as he knows she was born Quirkless thanks to acting as her therapist, Dr. Isa, leading him to believe she's one of All For One's agents, and that he was responsible for Durandal's turning up and now knows of his Quirk Emulator, all of which prompts him to scrap his original plans for Izumi and Durandal. He couldn't be any more wrong though, as Izumi only has a Quirk due to being the Ninth inheritor of One For All, she really did find Durandal by chance while cleaning the beach, and All For One has no knowledge of the Quirk Emulator Durandal possesses.
  • Shortly after Inko rescued Eri and Izumi met her, Izumi tries contacting Mirai to inform him since he's investigating the Shie Hassaikai, but can't get in touch with him, leading her to think he's ghosting her. As she learns from Toshinori on the second day of the Sports Festival, however, Mirai had gone missing before Izumi even made the call, with no one knowing where he disappeared to but hoping he's still alive. Readers will know though he had been kidnapped by The Therapist right as Izumi made the call, and was not only brutally tortured, but was mentally broken to the point he's Laughing Mad shortly before being taken to be converted into a High-End Nomu, effectively killing him.
  • Upon meeting and verifying the identity of the de-aged Chizome Akaguro/Hero Killer Stain, Izumi is instantly on guard with him, convinced he took Nezu's offer to join the villain rehabilitation program as an excuse to gauge the "worthiness" of students in the Hero Course, and tears into him for his killings and the actions of his followers, calling his accusations of corruption baseless and stating he's worse than Argonaut since the latter doesn't dress up his reasoning. Izumi isn't aware though that, not only is Chizome's desire for atonement genuine, his "followers" are more accurately a Cult of Personality that only pervert his message, and the heroes he killed were genuinely guilty of crimes like sex trafficking, only for said crimes to get buried rather than exposed like he thought they would.
  • Durandal is easily able to identify that "Jenson Edwards" is just another identity of Paxton's, noting that he'd never miss the facial features of the man who created him and that he loathes more than anything. Except he did, as he failed to recognize that Dr. Isa was Paxton too, just with false eyes and a wig.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Numerous characters that canonically joined the League of Villains following the events of Hosu are shown as patients of Dr. Isa's, most of them undergoing Adaptational Heroism in the process and showing up later on. Among the ones noted to be seeing him are:
    • Himiko Toga, who becomes Hitoshi's foster sister, discards the "Toga" name, and joins 1-A.
    • Dabi/Toya Todoroki, who has made a new life for himself.
    • Twice/Jin Bubaigawara, who would be recruited by Paxton as a result, Paxton revealing part of his reasoning for acting as Dr. Isa was to recruit more followers like Jin.
    • Spinner/Shuichi Iguchi, who became the Wild Wild Pussycat's intern and later a teaching assistant at UA.
    • Mustard/Sadao Atsushi, who joined the General Course at UA.
    • Mr. Compress/Atsuhiro Sako, who still joins the League of Villains.
    • Magne/Kenji Hikiishi, who has yet to appear again.
  • The Sports Festival arc would see regular perspective shifts to other locations, introducing numerous characters long before they become relevant. Among those shown include:
    • Saiko Intelli and her roommate/lover Rolls Royce Phantom at Seiai Academy, both expressing interest in 1-A, Saiko in particular demonstrating attraction to Izumi and Ochaco.
    • The students of Millennium Academy, namely Denki's second-cousin Harald Blitzen/Blitzkrieg, planning on meeting with Izumi, Ochaco, and Momo at the I-Expo.
    • The "Scion of Blood", decrying Izumi and Ochaco as more "fakes" that need to be culled, and preparing for the "Children of Blood" to join the League of Villains so they can go after their first targets: 1-A.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Inasa was never the biggest fan of Endeavor, especially after learning what he put his family like Shoto through, but even he thinks Endeavor didn't deserve to suffer Paxton's torture.
  • While Native is a Pro-Hero and isn't supposed to condone killing enemy villains in cold blood, he doesn't contest it when it's all but said Rolls used her telekinesis to make the man who had the Nomu crush Himiko's head "trip", as Himiko was his intern.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The fic's equivalent of the "Hosu Arc", the "Children of Blood Arc", only lasts roughly ten minutes In-Universe due to the sheer levels of incompetence the overzealous Cult of Personality displays. As a result, for most of the agencies they attacked, it was a slightly abnormal but otherwise inconsequential day. The only exceptions being the Idaten and Ryukyu agencies, the former due to Izumi, Rolls, and Native watching Himiko briefly die and come back, and the latter due to Ryuko and Nejire finding Ochaco having ended up on her own in a trance after being hit by numerous mental attacks, leaving the former foursome traumatized and the latter duo befuddled.
• Forgotten First Meeting:
  • And second meeting. Izumi doesn't realize it, but she met Gran Torino/Sorahiko Torino twice before she met him at the beach, both times thinking of him as only a "senile old man" focused on taiyaki.
  • Downplayed when Izumi formally meets Sadao Atsushi/Mustard, as she feels she did meet him once before, but can't place where. She actually met him at Dr. Isa's office, having noticed him because of the gasmask he wore.
• Fountain of Youth:
  • After saving Eri from the Shie Hassaikai, Stain and Inko are accidentally hit by "Rewind" and de-aged, Stain now roughly being 15, and Inko being roughly a decade younger. Stain likewise regained his nose and, thanks to his now younger age, was able to be accepted into Nezu's villain rehabilitation program. Inko meanwhile lost the weight and regained the height she lost from the years of stress following Izumi's diagnosis as Quirkless.
  • While checking on Eri and examining her, Recovery Girl and Gran Torino are both blasted by her Quirk when the former goes to take a blood sample, triggering Eri's trypanophobia and causing her to release her Quirk reflexively, the two both now being 30. Both take it in stride, more bemused that their retirement plans are out the window, with Gran Torino deciding to take up a teaching position at UA as he'd been planning already. Recovery Girl opts to put them on temporary medical leave though so they can get used to their new bodies, and asks Shota to have Inui on standby in case either starts suffering Body Dysmorphia.
• Gender Flip: Several characters have had their genders changed here, most prominently with Izuku, who was born female here and named "Izumi".
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: A lot of the girls in 1-A like plushies to different extents, and regularly use ones for comfort. Even Kyoka says not to insult the power of the comfort plush!
  • Izumi has a Durandal Plush Inko made for her, doubling as a Security Blanket for when she gets too stressed. The rest of 1-A end up falling in love with it too, Izumi letting others hold it when they need a bit of comfort, Momo making one for herself after she joins the Snuggle Squad and one for Eri upon meeting her, and the class using the chat to get Chiharu to help them figure out a way to mass-produce it. Not only can Izumi pull it out of the same hammerspace she keeps her notebooks in, but she ends up hugging it while giving her student pledge for the Sports Festival, turning her into a meme, and leading to increased demand for a mass-production version, Chiharu managing to successfully begin negotiations with a production company towards making more.
  • Himiko has a lot of plushies in her possession, to the point one of the tags for the fic is "Himiko's plushie addiction", at one point using an army of them to topple Ochaco's mochi empire. Upon finding out about Himiko's collection, Nejire reveals she has a similar addiction.
  • Mina has a Xenomorph plush in her room, saying it "scares so good".
  • Kleiner of Millennium Academy, when discussing Izumi, is more interested in where she got the Durandal Plushie than anything, hugging her own wolf plushie while asking. Said wolf plushie is later shown to serve a similar purpose for her, as she was hugging it fiercely to cover her nerves while sitting in on a meeting with the German Bundeswehr.
  • Koji and Denki are gender inverted cases, Koji's room having several animal plushies on his bed, and Denki having a Pikachu plush given to him by his cousin.
• Great Offscreen War: Paxton's war against multiple nations eleven years ago caused a lot of destruction and death, the effects of which are still being felt in the present. Numerous characters make reference to either experiencing the war itself, or having their lives irrevocably changed by the side-effects of the war, whether it be from the death of love ones, the physical and mental toll of fighting Paxton himself, or the fallout from his causing multiple nations to collapse in on themselves, nearly succeeding with the United States too.
• Hated by All: Kai Chisaki/Overhaul quickly lands on the shitlist of everyone that meets Eri and learns what he did to her. The entirety of 1-A, Mei, Nejire, Chiharu, Inko, Hisashi, Gran Torino, and all of the Staff at UA are pretty much out for Kai's head now, and will gladly kill him and anyone else who tries to hurt Eri ever again. Kota joins them soon after meeting Eri, wishing one of the "Dreadnoughts" did to Overhaul what they did to Muscular. Even Shuichi, who is initially against the idea of heroes plotting murder, quickly changes his tune upon learning what Kai did, even asking Snipe for lessons in using firearms so he can go after Kai himself.
• Hero with an F in Good: Blast Off, a Hero partnered with UA for Internships, and the one Katsuki and Neito are stuck interning under after their other choices got taken. Despite the two not liking each other, they can both agree Blast Off sucks as both a mentor and Hero, constantly crashing into things when rocketing off places, rushing off without them and then getting pissed at them for not keeping up with him, absolutely sucks at fighting, and is a Glory Seeker who only partnered with UA for the prestige and cares more for his rank than actually saving people. According to Burnin, not many heroes in the area like him, and both Katsuki and Neito agree he's exactly the kind of "Hero" Stain would hate.
  Katsuki: How the hell did that guy become a hero?
• Honorary True Companion: While not actually members of 1-A, Mei, Nejire, and Chiharu quickly end up becoming honorary members thanks to their forging bonds with the class, all three even being invited to the 1-A class chat to solidify it. Mei and Chiharu are later elevated to sixth rangers after joining the Hero Course proper.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: During the Battle Trials, Mina and Eijiro were set to face Kyoka and Denki, Mina enthusiastically saying they got this. One "10 Minutes Later" bit later, and Mina is groaning over how they did not have it.
• Internal Reveal: Before the start of the school year, the only ones aware that Durandal was created by Paxton were the Midoriya's, the staff of UA, and Paxton himself. Two students have to be brought into the loop though as the year goes on: Nejire and Mei, the former due to Durandal revealing it himself after declaring his intent to kill Argonaut for killing Anan, and the latter finding the Avalon Incorporated brand on Durandal's positronic brain while doing maintenance on him. Both swear to keep it a secret upon finding out.
• It's Personal: While plenty of people have more than enough reasons to despise Paxton and his followers, it's very personal for Ochaco, Durandal, and Nezu. The former due to her parents dying in the crossfire of the Avalon War, the latter two due to both being his creations that he tortured with his experiments, and both having thought they got rid of him years ago. All three share the same reason for despising Argonaut though, his killing of Anan, Ochaco's idol and Nezu's close friend, and yet another death at his hands for Durandal.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Much to Toshinori's misfortune, Burnin is romantically interested in "Toshinori Yagi, secretary to All Might" but has absolutely no interest in "All Might" himself. So when he shows up to the Sports Festival in his civilian form to conserve his time limit, he has to deal with her relentlessly flirting with him while hiding the fact he's All Might.
• Mauve Shirt: Chapter 50 introduces Cain and Zakk, the former a soldier with RAFT tasked with escorting Zakk from Russia to Japan, Zakk seeking asylum with the HPSC in exchange for providing them access to his intellect and abilities. Neither survive by the chapter's end due to an ambush set up by Slice, specifically aiming to kill Zakk, and making sure to leave no witnesses.
• Mêlée à Trois: There are plenty of factions preparing for war by the time of the Sports Festival. In addition to the canonical factions like the Pro-Heroes, the League of Villains, the Shie Hassaikai, the Meta Liberation Army, and Humarise, there are several new factions to deal with. First of course is Dr. Paxton and his army as they continue plotting in the shadows, declaring war on both the heroes and the LOV by attacking the USJ. Then are the "Dreadnoughts", a mysterious group of individuals being investigated by the WHA for vigilante executions dating back 50 years. Lastly are the "Children of Blood", fanatical followers of Stain who take his dogma to the extreme and believe all heroes are fakes needing to be purged, their leader, the "Scion of Blood", planning on having their number join the League of Villains if only as a means to an end.
• Misplaced Retribution: Himiko doesn't have the best impression of Seiai Academy due to her "parents" wanting to force her to attend there so they'd teach her how to be a "proper" young lady, i.e. force her to adhere to societal standards and repress her issues even more than they were already forcing her to. So when Himiko meets Rolls, a second year of Seiai, she's initially frosty towards her due to her impression of Seiai, until Rolls makes clear not only are her parents very much misinformed, since Seiai is where Mirko and Burnin went to school, but she herself is very kinky.
• Nanomachines: With cybernetics being more commonplace as a result of Paxton's actions, nanomachine technology has slowly become prevalent, albeit much more rarely seen. Normally they are ludicrously expensive and can only be obtained in Germany, though Momo reveals she had gotten a "nano-core" implanted in herself on a whim. The nanomachines in her body allow her to reinforce her skin and give her a layer of shock absorption, but it's not perfect. Anything sharp enough to cleanly cut through flesh will still damage her skin even if the nanomachines protect her flesh, and the nanomachines can't be used with her Quirk simultaneously.
• Noodle Incident:
  • All Might's only direct fight against Paxton and his forces. While Izumi herself looks up a video of it, the only description of it given is that it was less a "fight", and more a Curb-Stomp Battle in All Might's favor, Paxton throwing waves of robots at him while All Might just trashes them all, described more as an embarrassment for Paxton as he actually lost his cool for once.
  • Izumi and Durandal mention watching a video compilation of Paxton's "embarrassing moments", including him once running away in nothing but his underwear set to the Benny Hill theme. The latter part gets a Cerebus Retcon when Koku Hanabata/"Trumpet" states that, while an embarrassment, said incident was still a win for Avalon due to the number of troops slaughtered in that incident.
  • The fight against "Dr. Necro" involving All Might, Midnight, Blitz, Sukkubus, a legion of Nazi Zombies, and an attempt to revive Adolf Hitler. Turns into a Chekhov's Gun later with the revelation The Therapist was responsible for it, and is one of many examples of his widespread reach.
  • Hizashi makes mention of a "MLA Uprising" occurring at some point, comparing it to Paxton's army just with people instead of robots. As the continued existence of the Meta Liberation Army following Destro's imprisonment and death was kept secret for several decades canonically, and was destroyed and recreated as the "Paranormal Liberation Front" before it could reveal itself again, it's implied the Meta Liberation Army made a significant move a lot earlier here. Subverted when the incident is detailed further by Rikiya Yotsubashi/"Re-Destro" as being the result of a more radical group of cells trying to pull a coup on the government immediately following the Avalon War, only to fail and get themselves killed, their actions only damaging the reputation of the MLA as a whole and causing the main group to suffer setbacks into the present day.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Izumi has to preface that she is not making things up when she tells the class that All Might once teamed up with Midnight and German Heroes Blitz and Sukkubus to fight "Dr. Necro", who used his necromancer Quirk to create an army of Nazi Zombies and wanted to bring Adolf Hitler back to life.
• Not So Above It All: The Staff of UA all partake in secret betting pools regarding the students, one of which being their love lives. Nemuri in particular loves betting in that one, currently betting that the "Snuggle Squad" will become a polycule.
• Nuclear Mutant:
  • A villain from eight years before the main story known as Mutator had this as his Quirk, allowing him to further mutate anyone with Mutation-type Quirks if they got within a certain radius of the gas he secreted, himself included. In his only attack, he unleashed his Quirk in the center of Tokyo, horrifically mutating dozens and killing hundreds, either from the mutations themselves or civilians killed by those affected. Mutator ended up dying the day of the attack, needing to be put down by All Might. When the Nomu at the USJ displayed signs of being affected by Mutator, Tsuyu was nearly sent into hysterics since she'd long thought he was dead. He indeed is, but the man who made him isn't, now working alongside the League of Villains and capable of recreating his gas, a bio-chemist and former minion of Paxton's known only as "The Therapist".
  • Those caught in Mutator's attack ended up having to contend with their Quirks being heavily mutated. The surviving victims share green veins as a side effect of their mutations, which can normally be covered with makeup, and ended up facing prejudice for their new mutations. More specifically, Uwabami was there, and gained a fourth, malformed head-snake, and regularly suffers pains from genetic instability brought on by an imperfect mutation.
  • Many of the incidents secretly backed by The Therapist ended up with elements of this. The "Long Island Massacre" saw the entire population of Long Island, New York doused in a mutagen that killed the entire population, some after being mutated, and left the entire area quarantined. The Kremlin bombings resulted in Russia's entire government dying in a bio-chemical attack, the one surviving member possessing a mutation Quirk that mutated further before she died two days later. The "Dark Rain" incident in Brazil saw the city of Aracaju drenched in mutagenic liquid that killed the entire populace and turned their bodies into mutant abominations that then proceeded to merge with one another.

Tropes O — Z

• Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!:
  • During the Sports Festival, Himiko discovers a user named "RavenQueen" has been writing smut fanfics about the students of 1-A, largely comprised of either boys-love and Girl on Girl Is Hot using thinly veiled expies of the class. She and the rest of the girls quickly figure out who the writer is based on her Self-Insert: Momo. She's mortified they found out about her fanfics and is willing to stop as a result, the others saying she could continue so long as she asks next time she wants to use expies of them. It helps that Izumi and Ochaco ended up getting... "ideas" from fics involving them.
    AbyssCloud (Ochaco): Thank you Momo
    You’ve corrupted Izumi
    Floof Might (Izumi): I’m sorry, I got curious!
    Plus the fic had quirkplay as a tag and I sort of have a thing for that
    AbyssCloud: Thank you Momo
    You’ve corrupted ME!
    FluffyET (Mina): Damn it Momo, you've corrupted the Cinnamon rolls! They are in short supply as it is!
  • They also discover an abundance of smut fics involving Midnight and various Heroes and even villains. Turns out Nemuri herself is the author MidnightLover.
  • Ochaco discovers on her first patrol as an intern for Ryukyu that there are a lot of fans of hers following the Sports Festival, and they not only drew fanart but wrote fanfics too, many of them pairing her with Izumi.
• One Degree of Separation:
  • Many seemingly unconnected characters such as Izumi and Dabi/Toya end up sharing a point of commonality between them, even if only the readers are aware of it: they are all patients of one Dr. Isa Tsuneyo, taking therapy sessions under him for various reasons and having met him under different circumstances. This likewise gives a connection to another seemingly unrelated character: Dr. Paxton Frederick Jones, by virtue of Dr. Isa being a cover identity for Dr. Paxton while he was Faking the Dead.
  • Izumi and Momo ended up already being connected to one another by virtue of the fact that Hisashi works for the Yaoyorozu company on their lunar base. Unbeknownst to either of them though, they share another point of commonality long before they met at UA. Namely, both ended up visiting a certain Quirk Counselor: Dr. Tsubasa. While he ended up accurately diagnosing Izumi as Quirkless, he misdiagnosed Momo as Quirkless, and when it became apparent she did indeed have a Quirk, her parents used the full might of the Yaoyorozu group to sue him for medical malpractice, unearthing several other misdiagnoses and getting him arrested. It's because of this that Izumi's cover story of being a late-bloomer works as well as it does, as Katsuki thinks to himself that Dr. Tsubasa likely misdiagnosed her too.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Ryo Inui/Hound Dog is well known for having a Hair-Trigger Temper that makes him act more like a snarling dog than a human. While he is filled with righteous anger though at the thought of all Izumi had to suffer, he knows better than to let his anger be visible when seeing her since it's the last thing she needs. As such, he's a lot more uncharacteristically calm while talking with Izumi, bottling up whatever anger he might be feeling solely for her benefit.
• Original Character:
  • Izumi's emotional support Robot Dog, Durandal. Created by Avalon Incorporated, specifically Dr. Paxton, he remains at Izumi's side and helps in her recovery, even fighting alongside her.
  • With the exceptions of Jin and Tesla, the forces of Avalon Incorporated are comprised of OC's, and divided into two factions currently: those having rejoined Avalon, and those that severed ties with them:
    • Most prominent on the rejoined side is Dr. Paxton Frederick Jones, a Mad Scientist that nearly brought the world to ruin years before the story began, and is only now resurfacing. Alongside him are dangerous foes like the Hero Killer Grigoris Siderallis/Argonaut, maneater bug-woman Hilala, robot enthusiast "The Mechanist", and Artificial Intelligence enhanced Submarine ARK. Aside from them are several other members either mentioned in passing as still being with the group, or are currently MIA, such as a hacker called "The Writer", a group of robot musicians called "The Band", etc.
    • On the severed ties side is former member "The Therapist", creator/benefactor of villains "Mutator" and "Dr. Necro", now working alongside All For One and the League of Villains whilst aided by "The Aviator" and "The Captain".
  • Horoguramu, the Vice-Principal of UA and the "VTuber Hero" who reports directly to Nezu.
  • Kantō Izu/Blossom, UA's resident Quirk Counselor and the one in charge of the onsite daycare.
  • Chiharu Kizuki, daughter of the executive director of Shoowaysha Publishing, Chitose Kizuki/Curious. A first year student in the Management Course of UA, she meets 1-A during the press break-in and quickly becomes both the manager of and a close friend to Izumi, even joining her team in the Cavalry Battle of the Sports Festival, and being offered the chance to join the Hero Course as a result.
  • Teshima and Kimoto, the twin children of Kaina Tsutsumi/Lady Nagant and Snipe, and younger adopted siblings of Mei Hatsume.
  • Cnidaria, a member of the Shie Hassaikai that attempted to recapture Eri, nearly killing Chizome in the process, and reports directly to Kai. Eventually becomes the Sole Survivor of the Shie Hassaikai, now in position of an embryo Kai had as a "backup" in case they failed to retrieve Eri, vowing to fulfill his late boss' work.
  • Isaac, another Robot Dog created by Mei using Durandal's blueprints, first unveiled at the Sports Festival and later becoming Mei's very own emotional support animal.
  • Denki's extended family largely consists of these, his mother being the Pro-Hero "Battery Hero: Thundershock", his cousin being Germany's Number 1 Hero Thomas Blitzen/Blitz, and his second cousin being Harald Blitzen/Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg likewise attends the German Hero School "Millennium Academy".
  • The "Children of Blood", a Cult of Personality devoted to following the beliefs of the Hero Killer Stain, but take things even further than he did while perverting Stain's beliefs. Leading them is the "Scion of Blood", a man who claims to have been a direct disciple of Stain and goes on long diatribes about his greatness, taking the canon role of Dabi/Toya Todoroki.
  • Rolls Royce Phantom, a student of Seiai Academy and Saiko Intelli's roommate/romantic partner, and someone who possesses an interest in both Izumi and Ochaco following the Sports Festival, and is interning under Ingenium for her second year now. She also appears to possess non-Quirk psionic powers like Eri, and is described as having an "almost alien" quality to her like Ochaco.
  • Germany's Pro-Heroes and the German Bundeswehr, including the aforementioned Blitz, the Number 2 Hero Helmina Kirschbaum/Sukkubus, the Number 10 Hero Johann/Tar Man, General Schläger, Dr. Elize Kirschbaum, and their deadliest "Death Dagger" Hero Dorothy Kunnich/Grille.
  • "Icarus Fall", an American terrorist group looking to finish Avalon's devastation of the United States. They're secretly in business with The Therapist, making them an affiliate of the League of Villains.
• Orwellian Retcon: Originally, Izuku retained her canon name despite being given a Gender Flip. After Chapter 52 however, her name was retroactively changed to "Izumi Midoriya", with prior chapters being edited to reflect that, META2012 stating that "Izuku" isn't really a girls name.
• Outside Context Magic: Numerous individuals begin turning up that possess psionic powers, powers that are explicitly not Quirks, something proved when Shota proved incapable of erasing them with "Erasure". It's implied that most cases have these individuals biologically Quirkless, but that those who possess a parent that had a Quirk can in turn have Quirks themselves. It's later explained these abilities are, in some way or another, alien in origin, the psionic abilities in particular being a sign the person has Sematick blood.
  • In addition to her "Rewind" Quirk, Eri possesses mind reading, telepathy, technopathy, and telekinesis. According to Eri, she's had these powers since birth. Possibly related though is that scans state she wasn't born with an appendix.
  • Ochaco demonstrates the ability to sense other people around her, telepathy, and could possess the USJ Nomu after it struck her. She later explains she inherited her powers from her father, who was biologically Quirkless but passed his abilities off as a Quirk. It's implied he and his wife weren't actually killed in the crossfire of the Avalon War as many believe, but rather by a Dreadnought instead.
  • Rolls quickly ends up concerning Izumi due to her possessing similar abilities, specifically telepathy and telekinesis, that she claims are her Quirk. Durandal however notices she wears shoes similar to Izumi's, as in custom made to accommodate the extra toe joint Quirkless people have, implying Rolls is Quirkless, something Durandal later confirms after she touches him while sleepwalking, and there's nothing for him to emulate.
  • Beros flees the Humarise cult after four individuals with similar abilities show up, all seemingly possessing Mind Control powers and using them to turn Flect Turn into their puppet and kill the entire Quirkless population of the cult, the living members being rendered braindead. It's later revealed they're less "mind controllers", and more accurately soul eaters, having devoured the souls of the Humarise members for sustenance. Beros herself was immune to their attempts, prompting her decision to try and flee to Avalon. One would end up killed by Hilala after he tries going after Beros, another would end up killed by a Dreadnought, and the third would be killed by Kiruka in her ambush on her train, her body atomized by Zakk. The fourth/leader and most dangerous of the four went to Japan with some of the stronger Humarise members as their puppets, targeting the joint UA-Seiai training camp looking for a new host due to his current host, Flect Turn, proving insufficient, but was killed by Ochaco after it seems like he ate Izumi's soul.
  • Zakk was a Russian man picked up by Raft and being escorted to Japan, having arranged a deal with the HPSC to share his intellect and abilities in return for their protection, and demonstrates highly powerful telekinesis and sensory abilities. According to Zakk, these individuals are "brethren", split into "radicals" and "moderates", Zakk being a member of the latter. He's killed in a trap set for him by Kiruka, his body reduced to Ludicrous Gibs.
  • Kiruka Hasaki/Slice is revealed as one when they successfully ambush a Humarise train and a RAFT train simultaneously. She successfully manages to kill Zakk and the third Humarise usurper, demonstrating telekinesis when stopping a bullet a surviving RAFT soldier tried firing at her. She also mockingly derides Zakk and the usurper by saying "Mother" failed to protect them.
• Polyamory:
  • The fic is confirmed to have Izumi at the center of a polycule as the main pairing. So far, the only one Izumi has entered a relationship with is Ochaco, after the two shared a mutual love confession during the Sports Festival. Momo is shown to be attracted to both of them too, but is waiting to confess so as to not overwhelm either of them so shortly after they worked up the nerve. Tsuyu meanwhile is a Shipper on Deck for a polycule, successfully entering a relationship with Himiko with the two hoping they can join Izumi and Ochaco later. It's heavily implied that Chiharu Kizuki, Saiko Intelli, and Rolls Royce Phantom will also join in the future, the former two sharing a Sneeze Cut with the rest of those confirmed to have feelings for Izumi when she is thinking of having more than one girlfriend, and all three showing interest in Izumi to different extents. Rolls even becomes an Honorary True Companion to the group following the Children of Blood's attack.
  • In-Universe, there's a betting pool among the teachers over who will date whom, and Nemuri is betting that the "Snuggle Squad" of 1-A will become a polycule.
• Properly Paranoid: The staff of UA were proven to be well-founded in their worry that Izumi having Shota for a homeroom teacher would be a bad idea, as just catching sight of him at the orientation immediately reminds her of her old teachers at Aldera. Even after interacting with him somewhat due to Eri and knowing intellectually he's likely not like her old teachers, Izumi still doesn't feel comfortable being around him for too long.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Much like real therapy, it's shown that many of the people treated by Dr. Isa are constantly facing an uphill battle with their treatment, working relentlessly to make sure they don't backslide.
  • Katsuki regularly has to practice breathing techniques to calm himself down before he can lash out at someone by accident.
  • Himiko nearly has a breakdown seeing all the blood at the USJ, Izumi noting the following night she looked just as shaken up as when she first met her prior to her even starting therapy.
  • Shuichi has to stop himself from mentally deriding the heroes at UA as "fakes" while reminding himself he's not a follower of Stain.
• Related in the Adaptation:
  • Downplayed. Canonwise there is no connection between Kaina Tsutsumi/Lady Nagant and Mei Hatsume whatsoever. Here, after her mother was killed during the Avalon War, Mei was adopted by Kaina, later gaining Snipe as an adoptive father after he and Kaina got married.
  • Downplayed. In canon, the only thing linking Ryuko Tatsuma/Ryukyu and Rumi Usagiyama/Mirko is that they were both members of the Top 10, with neither having any connection to Moe Kamiji/Burnin. Here, all three are alumni of Seiai Academy and are acquainted with each other further via their positions in the Top 10.
  • Canonically, there is no relationship between Ryuko Tatsuma/Ryukyu and Setsuna Tokage/Lizardy. Here, not only is Ryukyu the one who recommended Setsuna for UA, she's Setsuna's aunt.
  • In canon, the closest connection the Midoriya family has to the Detnerat company is that Izuku opposed the Paranormal Liberation Front, which absorbed their actual identity, the Meta Liberation Army. Here, the Midoriya family have landed on Detnerat's shit list due to their Quirkist behavior, as they refused to assist the family due to Izumi being Quirkless at the time, causing Inko to tarnish their perfect review record. It's because of this that when Izumi decided to get an upgrade for her costume but from a professional support company for the sake of armor concerns, Detnerat gets the request, and immediately tosses it out to a lesser company, resulting in a mixup for Izumi's costume. It's later clarified this was not at the direction of the MLA, but those in charge of Detnerat's business side, as Rikiya is notably frustrated someone let a petty grudge ruin the chance to support and possibly recruit a rising star like Izumi.
  • There's nothing to suggest Maguma Iwata/Volcano is in any way related to the Todoroki family in canon. Here, Maguma is Enji's cousin twice removed, and Enji was the one responsible for apprehending his cousin years before the story, leading to a Cain and Abel relationship between the two.
• Relationship Upgrade:
  • Following the USJ, and an initial bout of blaming herself for him losing an eye, Kyoka begins spending more time with and eventually starts dating Denki, the two accidentally revealing so to the rest of the class in the group chat.
  • After the Sports Festival, Izumi and Ochaco share a mutual confession and begin dating.
  • After laying their emotions bare following the attack by the Children of Blood, Himiko and Tsuyu officially get together, both agreeing to eventually ask Izumi and Ochaco about forming a polycule with them.
• Rooting for the Empire: Invoked In-Universe several times.
  • invoked Ochaco admits to being more a fan of the Sith and the Empire than the Jedi when the topic of Star Wars comes up, even partially basing her "Imperial Mochi Empire" off of them. Izumi and Momo are both shocked upon learning this due to how sweet Ochaco is, before admitting they'd probably agree too if only to get red Lightsabers, Momo favoring a double-bladed one akin to Darth Maul's, and Ochaco wanting a crossguard one like Kylo Ren's.
  • invoked When discussing Avatar, Durandal admits he's a staunch supporter of the RDA, moreso due to disliking the Na'vi for their primitive and spiritualistic beliefs, thinking they're just stagnant and will die out with little fanfare once Eywa perishes. Ochaco quickly joins him on that front once he brings it up.
• Rule of Symbolism: After her failed (actually successful, until Isa revived her) suicide attempt, Izumi began having nightmares about her falling and no one being there to save her like Dr. Isa. As she begins growing closer to others though, her dreams change to her being saved and protected by a group of "Angels", each one resembling one of the members of the "Snuggle Squad", the "Grand Angel" reminding Izumi she'd always be there to catch her if she fell, and changing Izumi's dreams to be a place they can all fly together. While Izumi herself still sees herself as a human incapable of flying, the Grand Angel/Ochaco, alongside Angels resembling Momo, Tsuyu, Nejire, Mei, and Chiharu, and a Succubus resembling Himiko, all promise to protect her and the young one-winged Angel resembling Eri, with Izumi knowing the young Angel will eventually regain her lost wing and that, even if the idea frightens her, she'll join them all too one day. The dreams ultimately mirror Izumi's mental state, in that while she still is plagued by trauma and fear, she does want to move past it, and is slowly doing so thanks to opening her heart to others around her, the ones she cherishes the most being her "Angels" that will always comfort her as she wants nothing more than to fly alongside them.
• Running Gag:
  • Izumi accidentally giving someone an existential crisis from her analyzing their Quirks. Also her pulling her quirk notebooks out of hammerspace.
  • Inko threatening to rip someone's testicles off.
  • Ochaco's Cuddle Bug behavior getting her likened to a koala and needing to use a crowbar to pry her off of Izumi.
  • Inasa smashing his head into the ground during one of his bows.
  • Momo accidentally shooting Neito in the crotch.
  • People being shocked at what Momo considers "normal" due to her rich background.
  • Izumi and Inko crying so much they flood the place, and Durandal's exasperation over them doing so.
  • Tsuyu telling people to call her "Tsu", to the point she repeatedly tells the narrator!
  • Mei having a propensity for accidentally making things explode. Even the Angel based on her in Izumi's dreams is first introduced to her after having caused an explosion!
  • Gran Torino slamming into Toshinori's face foot-first, with everyone who witnesses it left shocked beyond words.
  • Ochaco's "Imperial Mochi Empire" and claiming she will take over the world with it.
• Secretly Wealthy: Downplayed. The Midoriya family, despite living in a rather small and cheap apartment, is actually rather well-off, largely thanks to Hisashi's job mining Helium three on the moon. When Ochaco asks why they live in their apartment then, Izumi tells her it's both because they prefer the more comfy feel of the apartment than anything bigger, and so they can save the money for other, more important things, namely round-trip tickets for Hisashi to come home and visit every few years.
• Ship Sinking: Mina had feelings for Eijiro, but that relationship doesn't pan out since Eijiro is gay, in a relationship with Tetsutetsu, and already knew about Mina's feelings but couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth. The two agree to remain friends however after the fact.
• Ship Tease: Aside from the polycule and Kyoka and Denki's Relationship Upgrade, Yui is confirmed to have feelings for Hitoshi.
• Shout-Out: Himiko and Hitoshi's foster siblings are all based on various characters from Light Novels and Anime, among them including Naofumi, Hotaru, Houki, Honne, Issei, and Irina. Naofumi is also said to have a "tanuki girlfriend", obviously referencing Raphtalia.
• Sixth Ranger: As a result of doing well in the Sports Festival and receiving their own internship offers, Mei and Chiharu become dual-major students, taking their original courses as well as joining the Hero Course, the former becoming "Inventor Hero: Mei-day", and the latter "Detonating Hero: Sweeper".
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: With the advent of robots came a rating system for determining how intelligent a robot is called an "AI Level". Most robots don't possess a rating higher than "Beta", indicating limited intelligence/sapience. Robots possessing "positronic brains" however are denoted as "Alpha" level, making them fully sentient and just as alive as any human, but extremely hard to come by due to government regulations following Paxton's actions, to point most information regarding them has been scrubbed from the internet, and not even the Yaoyorozu family can get one. Many people not aware of Durandal's origins are in turn surprised upon learning he's in possession of a positronic brain and question how Izumi could have obtained him when they're so hard to come by. Even Isaac, Mei's own creation using Durandal's blueprints, only possesses a "Beta" level AI, as she couldn't properly recreate a positronic brain on her own.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Kota's parents, the Water Hose duo, survive their encounter with Muscular here due to a Dreadnought saving them by killing Muscular before he can deliver the killing blow.
• Stations of the Canon: Downplayed. While the broad events still occur, such as Izumi meeting Toshinori, getting into UA, an attack on the USJ, etc., the details behind said events are vastly different, aiding in the fic going Off the Rails via the differences snowballing together.
• Take That!:
  • The Lovable Sex Maniac archetype is eviscerated through various characters. In addition to Minoru's behavior making him The Friend Nobody Likes before he suffers an Identity Breakdown, other characters that are this trope in their home series are regularly derided.
    • One of Hitoshi and Himiko's foster siblings is one Issei Hyodo, his Quirk giving him X-Ray Vision through anything but leather. Neither of them likes him and regularly warns Izumi off trying to analyze his Quirk, with Hitoshi hesitant to even bring Izumi to his foster home out of fear Issei will ogle her, and Himiko glad that UA is a boarding school if only to have an excuse to get away from him
    • Katsuragi quickly gains the ire of 1-A, the Snuggle Squad in particular, after she introduces herself via groping Izumi, prompting Ochaco to lay her out. Rolls explains her Quirk relies on groping women to work, and that while the rest of Seiai has gotten used to it, it's understandable that the UA students wouldn't approve, Ochaco making clear to Rolls she'll throw Katsuragi into orbit if she tries pulling that shit with Izumi again.
  • The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy has a few digs thrown at it when discussed by Izumi, Ochaco, and Momo, none of them liking it aside from Kylo Ren's crossguard Lightsaber.
• There Are No Coincidences: During the Entrance Exam, a bunch of the Three Pointers that had missile racks on them end up randomly detonating in the middle of the exam, injuring several students including Himiko. At the time, this was chalked up to faulty design, but Izumi later learned this only happened at the testing site she had been at. Then, in the Sports Festival, right before 1-A could even enter the minefield, the mines all detonated, with three times the explosive strength of what they're meant to be. And as Chiharu was behind them and couldn't have had the opportunity to use her Quirk "Minefield" on the mines, this only confirms Izumi's suspicions: someone in possession of a remote detonation Quirk is at UA, is in their year, and is actively trying to either sabotage them or cause harm to other students. Neito later does some digging and discovers it's the same General Course student who led the confrontation against 1-A following the USJ while blaming them for Anan's death, and that he had apparently used his Quirk to detonate and increase the explosive yield of said objects.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Played for Laughs when Nejire joins 1-A as a teaching assistant. The students are obviously put off by how someone Kaina suggested would be terrifying is an adorable airhead, until they remember she's one of the Big Three and can kick their asses easily, whereas Kaina is lamenting having thought she had finally gotten away from Nejire's Motor Mouth after having been her first year homeroom teacher, while internally cursing Kantō for making her deal with Nejire further.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Dr. Isa and Dr. Paxton, two characters with vastly different personalities and appearances, are revealed to be one and the same at the end of Chapter 7, the former being a cover identity for the latter while he was Faking the Dead, who proceeds with "killing" the former identity once he finds he's done all he can with it.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Following the Avalon War, "RAFT", a private military contractor, became praised as the "heroes" of the war, giving them plenty of leeway to do whatever they want thanks to the little influence the HPSC had left, including sending internship offers to students. In truth, they only defended a few power plants, and their actual intent behind the internships is finding people with powerful Quirks to subject to eugenics projects even worse than Endeavor's canonical actions. Kaina would have been forced into joining said projects had she not already severed ties with the HPSC before they could force her there. Outside of that, they are highly Quirkest in their beliefs, attempted to infiltrate the Humarise cult to gain access to their Trigger bombs, any captured agents instructed to take a cyanide pill, and any time one of their more shady dealings come to light they blame it as being the result of a "rogue element".
• Your Days Are Numbered: Following Mutator's attack, while many of his surviving victims ended up fully stabilizing once their mutations finished, others weren't as lucky. Many of his victims ended up being left with unstable genetic makeups, causing them flashes of pain necessitating a stabilizing drug to numb it. Even then, it's only a stopgap, with it believed most suffering from said instability are living on borrowed time. Uwabami in particular reveals to her interns she likely only has ten to fifteen years left before she dies.

Tropes Exclusive to the original:

Tropes # — Z

• Adaptational Villainy: The original basis for Mastermind and his crew had them acting as "villains" solely in a training exercise for the Hero Classes, with one of the goals of the exercise being to prevent the students from getting Lost in Character. Here, the Paranormal Syndicate are actual Villains, having no issue massacring the Creature Rejection Clan after learning about who they are, robbing multiple banks the night following the attack of the "Children of Blood", and making clear they had intended on gunning Izumi down if she seemed hostile during her meeting with Mastermind.
• A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 54's first half is devoted to Kyoka's perspective, specifically as she comes to terms with having Kuin Hachisuka implant herself in her eye socket, while showing how much she cherishes her class for being willing to stand by her with her new circumstances.
• Alternate Self: Much like in the fic they're based on, the Paranormal Syndicate is a group comprised of alternate versions of Midoriya and their friends/lovers, albeit the canon versions as Mastermind is Izuku and male, compared to the fic's Izumi being female. Specifically:
  • "Mastermind" is Izuku Midoriya.
  • "Dead Drop" is Ochaco Uraraka.
  • "Dart" is Tsuyu Asui.
  • "Prism" is Toru Hagakure.
  • "Stopwatch" is Eri.
  • Several members that are named yet not explicitly identified include "Hold Up", "Graffiti", "Con Man", "Feedback", "Crusade", "Hacker", "Transit", and "Heart Breaker". The former six names belonged to Sen Kaibara, Yosetsu Awase, Hitoshi Shinso, Denki Kaminari, Tenya Iida, and Mei Hatsume in their basis, Transit is all but said to be Melissa Shield, and Heart Breaker is heavily implied to be a Kurogiri-esque Nomu created from Midnight.
  • One member not named but physically described appeared to be Kyoka Jiro, making them "Pirate Radio".
  • Izumi correctly deduces the team has alternate versions of Momo Yaoyorozu, Neito Monoma, Himiko Toga, and Mina Ashido.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Kuin was first mentioned as having escaped from The Therapist and his experiments back in Chapter 43, as Tomura was tasked with locating her, with it believed she was somewhere in the Mustafu area. She wouldn't turn up again until the very end of Chapter 53, 10 chapters later, now burrowed into Kyoka's eye.
• Convenient Coma: Immediately following her burrowing into Kyoka's eye, Kuin Hachisuka ends up going completely dormant, their new host having no way of contacting her, and leaving the hive for them to control. As such, none of the UA Staff are able to figure out why she was on the run nor her connection to the League of Villains, just that someone is trying to find her.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Chapter 34 saw the introduction of the "Paranormal Syndicate", a group of villains that mysteriously appeared in the base of the Creature Rejection Clan and proceed to slaughter them, with their leader expressing interest in Izumi shortly before displaying abilities resembling One For All. As META2012 reiterated that one of the basis for the fic was Hero Class Civil Warfare, it's heavily implied, and later confirmed, that the Paranormal Syndicate is based on that fic's Villain Team, in turn making them alternate selves to Izuku and his friends in that fic, several of them even sharing code names with members of the Villain Team. Unlike their basis however, they are actual villains rather than Hero Course students merely roleplaying as villains.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Rather than be slaughtered by the League of Villains, the Creature Rejection Clan is quickly killed by the Paranormal Syndicate upon the latter suddenly appearing in their base.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While Kuin Hachisuka was formerly willing to go along with the crimes of the Villain Factory, namely forcibly injecting people with Trigger and turning them into Villains, whatever The Therapist had planned scares even her, telling Kyoka that his finding her would mean "the end of everything".
• Eye Scream: During the Final Exams, Kuin Hachisuka/Queen Bee burrows her way into Kyoka's head through their eye, the socket left bloody when they're rushed to the infirmary. They can't get an artificial eye either due to Kuin now existing in their socket, requiring they wear an eye patch to cover the nasty sight of an open eye socket filled with bees.
• Fallen Hero: Several amidst the Paranormal Syndicate are noted to be former Hero Course students, but were either expelled or went rogue at some point before being found by Mastermind.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: When compared to other villainous groups like the League of Villains, Avalon Incorporated, or the Shie Hassaikai, the Paranormal Syndicate is by and large just a group of thieves that aren't averse to murder. It's for this reason Izumi is willing to take Mastermind's offer of keeping their existence a secret, since she already has to deal with plenty of villainous factions, and would rather not add one more to the list.
• Symbiotic Possession: Following Kuin's burrowing into their eye, rather than make her way to Kyoka's brain like she did prior to Tamao Oguro and Kazuho Haneyama, she merges with their nervous system, giving them control over her "Queen Bee" Quirk. However, if anything happens to one of the bees made by her, they suffer a physical backlash, as they first find out when Tsuyu ends up eating it. They're also implied to be able to communicate with Kuin on a mental level, as when first awakening in the infirmary and thinking of getting her removed, Kuin begs them not to before falling into her Convenient Coma.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: All eighteen adult female members of the Paranormal Syndicate are in a polyamourous relationship with Mastermind, and are perfectly willing to kill anyone if they detect even the slightest danger towards him. Dart and Prism had even fully intended on pumping Izumi full of lead the moment it seemed like she was in anyway hostile.

Tropes Exclusive to the rewrite:

Tropes A — H

• Accusation Fic: Chapter 67 partly serves as a callout of the entire "Plus Ultra" mentality in canon, by demonstrating how Toshinori's revised plan for the joint training camp just ended up exhausting and infuriating the students while damaging their trust in the staff. Kaina in particular lampoons the mindset by pointing out how, while trying to "go beyond" one's limits is important, those limits exist for a reason and need time to move past them, and trying to charge past them at breakneck pace will just cause you to break first, which is what happened to Izuku in canon as he tried to gain control over One For All and just kept breaking himself repeatedly.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • In the original version of the fic, the Creature Rejection Clan make their one and only appearance watching the Sports Festival, shortly before they are massacred by the Paranormal Syndicate. With the latter group Adapted Out, they aren't massacred initially, but instead have their souls devoured by a Heretic, said Heretic shortly after killed by a Dreadnought.
  • In the original version of the fic, Izumi was prompted to look into "Edgar D. Henderson" as a result of Mastermind confronting her and wanting to sate his own curiosity, prompting her to have Durandal do a deep dive and discover a lot of discrepancies. In the rewrite, a mysterious voice contacts Izumi and highlights the discrepancies themselves, and suggests Izumi have Durandal look into it for verification.
  • In the original version of the fic, Tomura going to pick up an order of support gear for the League causes him to run into the Paranormal Syndicate, the group pilfering the gear for themselves before leaving him with a vague threat. In the rewrite, Tomura instead runs into Shinigami, who lets him take the gear but plants further doubt in his mind about All For One, before both need to make a hasty retreat when a strange group of moth-women come to feast on the corpses of the arms dealers Shinigami killed. Said moth-women are later implied to be a race of aliens called the "Fensia", from the same planet as the Cardrians.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Several chapters have had scenes added to them for the sake of character exploration.
    • Chapter 34 has an additional scene of Stain watching the Sports Festival, now at the dorms for the Villain Rehabilitation Program students, thinking back to his confrontation with Izumi and beginning to consider her as potentially a "true Hero" instead of the fakes he despises.
    • Chapter 44 has an additional scene for the internship between Toru and Shinigami, delving into Toru's insecurities about constantly being overlooked by everyone but Izumi, Ochaco, and Eri, and desires to stand out more as a Hero, only to be met with disapproval from Shinigami who thinks she'd work better as an Underground Hero, while also reassuring her that she can still stand out when off duty.
    • Chapter 48 includes a scene of Yuga listening in on Izumi and Kyoka as they leave the library, before ruminating to himself over how he's successfully convinced two General Education students, including the one responsible for the explosions during the Entrance Exam and Sports Festival, into joining him as members of the League of Villains, all while stewing in his hatred for the Hero Course and planning their demise.
  • Despite being close friends and attending the same Middle School, it's never explained In-Universe why Habuko Mongoose chose to attend Isamu Academy instead of enrolling in UA with Tsuyu.^*The out-of-universe reasoning is that Habuko was conceptualized by Horikoshi long after Tsuyu was, and when introduced was meant to just be part of Tsuyu's expanded backstory, the idea of her being a Hero something not explored until the OVA My Hero Academia - Training of the Dead Here, it's explained that she did apply to UA initially, but Habuko's Quirk, "Paralysis", didn't affect the robots for the Entrance Exam, so she got 0 points and failed. Isamu was more accurately her backup choice, and it worked out in the long run since it's closer to where she lives.
  • Tsunagu Hakamata/"Best Jeanist"'s reasoning for wanting to mold Katsuki into a "proper" hero is expanded upon as him seeing himself in Katsuki, namely that Tsunagu used to be a toxic bully in his youth too until an incident that nearly killed him changed his life and caused him to reform himself, hence his desire to do the same for Katsuki.
  • The nature of Vestiges belonging to the Quirks All For One stole are elaborated on via the Quirks of Teams RWBY and JNPR. According to them, being inside of "All For One" is akin to And I Must Scream, their vestiges attached to tendrils akin to umbilical cords, and forced into cramped areas, unaware of the outside world. There are some exceptions, namely the Quirks of those who had willingly given their Quirks and loyalty to the madman, who in turn act as enforcers to stop any attempted uprisings.
  • What happened to Sam following the events of I-Island is never elaborated on in canon. Here, as the sole conspirator in the invasion not part of Wolfram's team, he is arrested for his involvement but bit his own tongue off before he could be interrogated. While his life was saved, he'll likely never speak again.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: In My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, Wolfram and his group were simply a bunch of mercenaries, pretending to be "fake villains" to aid David in stealing back the Quirk Amplifier but fully intending on taking it and him for the sake of making more, then selling them to the highest bidder, Wolfram being aided by All For One solely because it involved All Might's old friend doing something villainous. Here, Wolfram and his group are all ex-RAFT agents, wanting to rejoin the organization and looking to steal the Quirk Amplifier to get back in the group's good graces. The only exception to this being Hacker, who's actually an ex-Avalon scientist, having only joined up for the sake of taking "hack into I-Island's Servers" off his bucket list.
• Adaptational Heroism: The cast transplanted from Hellsing are all Heroes here, compared to their home series where even the more heroic characters were still anti-heroes at best. This is explained In-Universe as the characters not partaking in the three-sided war between Hellsing, Millennium, and Iscariot, but rather being the descendants of those that did, said war taking place during the "Dark Age of Quirks". This is most notable with those aligned with Millennium, now "Millennium Academy", with Rip Van Winkle being the Pro-Hero "Jägerin" and having a friendly rivalry with Seras and Heinkel, and "The Captain" acting as the Vice-Principal and showing a gentler side when comforting Kleiner. That being said, they are still quite eccentric, and some like Zorin Blitz are still notably Ax-Crazy, Zorin even regularly using her scythe on Schrodinger whenever he annoys her, they're just directing that towards Villains.
• Adaptational Villainy: Sam in Two Heroes was motivated in canon by being resentful of David just letting I-Island lock away the Quirk Amplifier, but was shown to otherwise be a decent person to David and Melissa, even being touched by David taking a bullet for him when Wolfram tried killing him. Here, he's revealed after the incident to be a highly Quirkist asshole, orchestrated the entire invasion for the sake of money and tried strangling David to death when he finds out David had it destroyed rather than locked away, always saw Melissa as a "Quirkless freak", and was willing to try killing himself via biting his own tongue off rather than let himself be interrogated.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Ochaco's powers have been slightly nerfed, particularly her throwing an entire ship at the USJ, as the size and weight of the ship have been reduced.
  • Chiharu's layered mines have been somewhat reduced in terms of explosive yield, namely due to their power being equivalent to a small hydrogen bomb being a bit too much.
• Adapted Out:
  • The rewrite would see several details be removed from the fic for the sake of making it more tenable.
    • A significant removal would be the "Paranormal Syndicate". A major reason for their removal was cited as that their inclusion introduced the idea of an expanded multiverse to the fic which, when combined with the already existing elements such as the Outside Context Magic and all that entails, would be untenable. META has clarified they may use them in a later work, one where there isn't as much to get in the way of focusing on them.
    • Chapter 43 had introduced Kuin Hachisuka/Queen Bee to the fic, having her be experimented on by The Therapist before escaping and burrowing into Kyoka's eye, enacting a Symbiotic Possession for the sake of protecting herself before going dormant. META decided to remove the last part due to realizing they only really included Kuin in the fic out of a personal desire with no concrete plan on what to do with her, before deciding they were ultimately superfluous to the fic as is. META would keep Kuin herself in the fic still, but so far has kept her in the background, the only hint to her being around being the occasional mention of a bee's buzzing being heard.
  • The events of the movies Heroes Rising and World Heroes Mission are prevented from occurring here due to different circumstances surrounding the villains of each movie:
    • Nine is given the Quirk "High Voltage" when given "All For One", which heals his cellular degradation, and means he initially has no reason to target Katsuma for his "Cell Activation" Quirk, and Katsuma's father being dead before then means he never gets the chance to steal his. Nine instead wipes Nabu Island off the map to test his powers, the inhabitants all evacuating, sans the hero "Sun Striker", who died ensuring their evacuation. It's instead decided to have 1-A engage a transfer with one of Millennium Academy's classes, the class set to go to Germany following the Joint Training class.
    • Aside from Beros, all of Humarise are rendered braindead courtesy of Zaraba and his group of Heretics, Beros's reaching out to the WHA alerting them to the group's Trigger Bombs and stopping them before they could be used by anyone else.
• Bait-and-Switch: Initially, it looks like the "Hideout Raid" arc wouldn't occur here thanks to the League never attacking the training camp, aided by the following two arcs being the "Provisional License Exam" and "Work Study" arcs. The League then proceeds to attack a hospital to reclaim the Nomu made from Kaito Tsubasa, then use the opportunity to kidnap Ochaco while she's on the scene, planning on using her to force All Might into confronting them, META2012 outright declaring it the start of the "Hideout Raid" arc in the authors note.
• Body Backup Drive: To prolong their lifespan, some Heretics are known to find other species and mate with them, producing a Half-Human Hybrid, specifically with the intent of taking their body as their own once they reach "adulthood", which in their eyes is puberty, since hybrids won't suffer Possession Burnout when they Body Surf. Kiruka Hasaki is one such example, having been found by retired Dreadnought Atsuo Atsushi before she could be made into a host, and Ochaco was meant to be one too before a Dreadnought killed her father, with the last Humarise usurper attacking the joint UA-Seiai training camp to make her into his new body.
• Body Surf: One of the things that makes certain Sematicks "Heretics" in the eyes of Mother is their perversion of the soul, including forcibly transferring their souls into new hosts to prolong their lifespans. While many opt for the simple Grand Theft Me, doing so to any species other than another Sematick will quickly result in Possession Burnout. As such, some Heretics are known to find non-Sematick species and mate with them to have a child that can serve as a Body Backup Drive, then waiting for the child to reach puberty before taking them as a new host. The four Humarise usurpers had likewise killed the Quirkless population to, in an In-Universe nod to XCOM 2, melt them down into genetic material to take off world for making more hosts.
• Break Them by Talking: In an attempt to get them to abandon Ochaco to him, the Heretic inhabiting Flect's body proceeds to psychically probe each and every member of 1-A's minds and reveal their dark secrets to them. While some are legitimate secrets, others are based more on their insecurities or feelings of inadequacy. Minoru is the only one he fails to do this on, since everyone already knew his vices, and he refuses to go further into Minoru's mind. This ends up backfiring on him since, by revealing the Quirk Emulator to them, Durandal lacks a reason to hold back anymore, and uses it to disable his People Puppeteer abilities.
• Cassandra Truth: Aside from Izumi, no one Chizome tries telling believes that he's a de-aged Stain, instead thinking he's Stain's little brother.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The "Dr. Necro" situation was already a Chekhov's Gun with the knowledge it was backed by The Therapist, but it's made a lot more severe once Class 1-A actually visits Germany for the foreign exchange program. In addition to already being a deadly, if outlandish, zombie outbreak in an attempt to revive Adolf Hitler, the landmass of Germany was severely damaged. Berlin and everything north of it, including parts of Poland, is dead, the very life drained from the land by the zombies. The city of Berlin itself was rendered inhospitable, to the point the German government relocated their offices to Hamburg. And while attempts are being made to try and restore it, its a genuine concern that the damage was irreparable.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • During her meeting with Gumball and Shit Post regarding Lynx, Chitose mentions how she is on a deep cover mission on the Lunar Colony, with Gumball telling her about a series of mysterious disappearances and murders on the colony that claimed two of their deep cover agents, both having died of cyanide poisoning, Chitose brushing it off due to being irrelevant to her investigation into Lynx. Said murders become much more relevant when, six chapters later, Hisashi disappears and is believed to be found dead the following chapter, this time via torture, and Gumball turns up dead via cyanide poisoning, despite still being on Earth.
  • Muscular and Moonfish's Death by Adaptation initially seemed to be just one of many cases pertaining to the Dreadnaught Case meant to establish how prolific they were, cases that, when combined with what the Dreadnaught's real job is, suggests they were long dead before then anyway. They're deaths become a lot more relevant however when Kai Chisaki is killed in the exact same manner, and Clair makes it clear a Dreadnaught wasn't responsible for any of their deaths, but instead a Sematick is running around independent of the group, leaving messages out of their blood in a long dead language from a thought to be extinct Sematick subspecies, with Clair, Doreen, and Rody wanting to use their deployment to Japan to try and find out who it really is.
• Demoted to Extra: Compared to his being somewhat fleshed out in canon while getting A Day in the Limelight in Vigilantes, Kendo Rappa doesn't even appear before it's revealed he was killed.
• Didn't Think This Through: Neither Toshinori nor the event planners particularly thought through Toshinori's revised plan for the joint training camp between UA and Seiai that he came up with last minute, more focused on the idea of making sure the students were ready for All Might's inevitable retirement, without considering the feasibility of doing so nor the limitations of the students, the first years in particular. In addition to failing to account for the fact that Ryuko's landslide trick nearly sent Izumi into a crippling panic attack had Ochaco not saved her, they proceeded to sick both Rin and Daidoji, the latter of whom is the Number 6 Hero and both of whom infamously don't get along, on the eighty-two students towards the tail end of the exercise. All it results in is all but Izumi and Ochaco being left heavily exhausted and injured by the time they make it to the camp, with none of them in any condition for further training that day, throwing the entire schedule they had planned off. It also leads to Izumi and Ochaco gaining resentment and distrust for their teachers, with Kaina noting all the effort taken to try and ease Izumi into trusting them nearly went out the window. Kaina, Yomako, Shota, and Suzune ultimately agree to throw the rest of Toshinori's plan out and go back to their original plan, as well as make sure they give the students regular breaks and recreational activities as an apology.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • When Toshinori tells David about how All For One survived despite being extra thorough in killing him, David believes he knows how: an old classmate of his had the "Backup" Quirk, which let him create a Body Backup Drive whenever he died, but mysteriously disappeared around the time Avalon came to power, at the time thinking he joined Avalon but now believes All For One stole his Quirk and used it to survive, both Toshinori and David now believing he's perfectly healthy as a result. From what has been seen of him though, he's nowhere near as healthy as they think, still requiring routine treatment from his doctors and described as being in "critical" condition.
  • While the Quirks Izumi gained suffered Identity Amnesia and don't know who they were in life, readers familiar with their home series will be more than aware of their true identities: Teams RWBY and JNPR.
• Dude, Not Funny!: When Ryuko/Pixie-Bob tries pulling her canon landslide trick with the Hero Course students of both UA and Seiai for their training camp, she quickly ends up earning the fury of Ochaco, having avoided the landslide by levitating herself as she cradles a triggered Izumi while glaring daggers at Ryuko, the two only managing to avoid it due to Izumi's Acro and Basophobia triggering Danger Sense. Ryuko quickly realizes she probably should have warned Izumi in advance since Inui had mentioned her trauma-induced phobias, but she hadn't read Izumi's files to see how bad it was. This, combined with the Beast Forest itself, results in Izumi and Ochaco now hating Ryuko, Izumi's feelings on the Wild, Wild Pussycats as a whole tanking, and both losing trust in the staff of UA.
  Shuichi: I think someone hates you now.
• Exact Words: When Izumi is contacted by a mysterious voice that confirms to be someone with the same Outside Context Magic Eri and Rolls possess, Izumi thinks to herself how this is the third individual she's met with said abilities. The voice is quick to tell her however that's not exactly true, but doesn't detail further. They're referring to the fact Izumi already knew three people, and the voice is the fourth she's met, the actual first person she met being Ochaco.
• Foreshadowing: As early as the first chapter. Izumi's suicide attempt was never actually shown in any capacity, only ever referred to by others, and it was noted the police had been given report of a girl matching Izumi's description jumping, but no other details like Dr. Isa Tsuneyo catching her, along with no evidence at the scene whatsoever, only realizing it was Izumi after her public breakdown and contacting Dr. Isa directly, even though you think someone would have reported someone catching the girl or even Dr. Isa himself reporting it. This all serves to hint that it wasn't what actually happened. Izumi did indeed jump, but she succeeded, impacting the ground and briefly dying, only for Dr. Isa to find her corpse and revive her, hypnotizing her to calm her down so as to not draw attention and think he had saved her before she could hit the ground, then making his leave shortly after making sure she believed what he wanted her to believe.

Tropes I — Z

• Implacable Man: The forces of Humarise that were rendered braindead all become this. After being loaded up with Trigger, they're left extremely powerful, and uncaring of any pain that would normally lay out a normal person. They could have their eyes destroyed, their tendons sliced, be blown up repeatedly, even have their flesh ripped off, and they'll just keep coming, refusing to stay down until they've overwhelmed their target through a war of attrition. Something the Hero Course students and staff of UA and Seiai come to realize when they invade the training camp under the direction of the last Heretic who took over Humarise. No one makes any headway in beating them until Rolls kills one with a Laser Blade before snapping the necks of nineteen more, making clear to the rest of her class that they're effectively walking corpses already, and the only way to stop them is to kill them.
• Internal Reveal:
  • A double subversion at the end of Chapter 54. Izumi is all set to reveal to Ochaco the existence of One For All, taking her to see Toshinori and ready to tell her. Before she can though, Ochaco stops her so she can tell her own secret first, while also stating she already knew about One For All. And she does so via telepathy, meaning Ochaco is revealing her Outside Context Magic to Izumi, Toshinori, and Durandal.
  • Chapter 106 has Chitose give interviews to Izumi, Katsuki, and Ochaco after their participation at Kamino and Izumi defeating Paxton and Nine, but Ochaco manages to read Chitose's mind during her interview. As a result, she, Izumi, Chiharu, and Nezu now know that Chitose is a member of the Meta Liberation Army.
  • Chapter 110 has a triple whammy: First, all of 1-A sans Izumi, Ochaco, and Durandal properly meet Melissa and learn she's a Cardrian; Second, the same students learn of Hilala's involvement with Avalon and her being a Cardrian; Third, Toshinori reveals his emaciated state to the public while declaring his retirement from active Hero duty.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Schrodinger makes his appearance to the UA Staff and Mera, a Present Mic-brand Quirk explanation suddenly occurs when they hadn't happened at all in the fic beforehand. Everyone proceeds to level a Death Glare at Hizashi soon after, revealing he actually said it out loud without thinking, much to his frustration since he now has to put 10,000 yen into a "Quirk Introduction sin jar", making clear the introductions are something he's doing In-Universe and regularly pisses off his co-workers. Schrodinger even points out how everyone in the room is already fully aware of what his Quirk is, so he has no reason to explain it to anyone.
• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: Majima's whole gimmick, in that absolutely anything he does makes little sense considering he's Quirkless, yet still works purely off the Rule of Cool. His introduction in particular demonstrates this, as it's a massive Shout-Out to his Summon animation in Yakuza: Like a Dragon: not only does the moon appear with a Hannya Mask on it despite the moon not even supposed to be out that night, he manages to run down a building vertically, pull more than a hundred knives out of hammerspace, then summon down purple lightning, all in a matter of seconds. Izumi is left incredulous over his antics and wants more than anything to analyze him, requiring Ochaco and Durandal to drag her away before she can, Izumi getting even more pissed when he reveals that was his first time doing something like that and, somehow, pulls an Instant Costume Change and reveals he's also a police officer. Momo tries to handwave it by stating some of his construction workers likely helped him out, she notes to herself that his "Majima everywhere" antics are far beyond that and exasperate her too.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • Chapter 57 would start off with a flashback depicting Toshinori and David Shield roughly fifteen years prior, Toshinori trying to console David and convince him to finally pull a three-year-old brain-dead Melissa off life support, seemingly ending on David actually considering it. Chapter 62 would repeat the scene, this time continuing past where it left off and going into the first half of Chapter 63, revealing Toshinori and David meeting a race of aliens known as the Cardrians, who revived Melissa by turning her into one of them in exchange for David fixing their ship.
  • The beginning of the fic opens on the aftermath of Izumi's suicide attempt, specifically Izumi all set for her first official appointment with Dr. Isa Tsuneyo, with all mentions of her suicide attempt only being referenced with no explicit flashbacks to it. As such, the impression was that Izumi had jumped off the building Toshinori had left her on, only for Dr. Isa, who was passing by, to save her with his "Inertial Dampening" Quirk, before briefly comforting her and giving her his card, leading into her trying to save Katsuki. Chapter 74 reveals why exactly a flashback was never shown when Izumi has a flashback to that day: because it didn't happen. Izumi did hit the ground and briefly died, and Dr. Isa came across her body, reviving her with his actual Quirk, then hypnotizing her into believing he caught her.
• O.C. Stand-in: As Seiai Academy was an anime-exclusive school meant to serve as token motivational nemesis' for Momo's group in the Provisional License Exam, only 10 of their students actually appear, and the only one to be given any form of characterization was Saiko Intelli. As such, the remaining nine are given names and characterization of their own.
  • The girl with orangish hair, glasses, and the hair manipulation Quirk is named "Saya".
  • The girl with elf-like ears and the Quirk that can summon hammers is named "Yatsuki Tsuchibayashi".
  • The girl with pink afro-puffs who has their Eyes Always Closed and a hologram-generating Quirk is named "Chifuyu Marunage".
  • The girl with long brown hair wielding a slingshot with an aiming Quirk is named "Tamayo".
• Our Vampires Are Different: "Vampire" acts as a classification for those with Quirks that require consuming blood to function, the classification largely seeing use in Europe but little use in Japan, largely due to the latter still stigmatizing Quirks as "heroic" and "villainous" thanks to the HPSC's influence. Seras Victoria/Police Girl and Rip Van Winkle/Jägerin are both classified as possessing Vampire Quirks, with Kaina asking if they could help Himiko deal with her issues regarding blood and her own Quirk, the two quickly agreeing she likely qualifies as a Vampire too.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Yokimura Mera may work for the HPSC, but as he puts it, he's just the messenger. He doesn't actively participate in their corruption, is able to hold a formal conversation with those that despise the HPSC like the staff of UA while understanding their viewpoints, and is fully aware when his boss's plans would face pushback and how she'll throw a tantrum if she doesn't get her way. He just works for them for a paycheck, nothing more, nothing less.
• Relationship Upgrade: Following the Final Exams and getting a crash course on emotions courtesy of Momo, Mei decides to enter a relationship with Chiharu.
• Shout-Out: Chapter 126's training match between Class 1-A and Kleiner is a reference to Red vs. Blue's fight between Red Team and Agent Texas in Restoration, down to Ochaco trying to defend herself with a traffic cone like Grif.
  Ochaco: Protect me cone!
• Spanner in the Works: Toshinori's public decision to retire ends up screwing over several plans without his even realizing it, in some cases even veering towards being an Unwitting Instigator of Doom.
  • On a comedic note Burnin is made aware of the fact Toshinori, who she has been trying to date for the better part of four years now, is actually All Might, and is forced to abandon any further so as to not trigger bad PR for herself. More seriously, she is now the new Number 1 Hero, and is in no way ready for such a burden, so she can only hope to herself that either Rumi or Ryuko end up supplanting her thanks to their efforts in fighting Paxton and Nine, only for that to fall through when Ryuko only reaches Number 5, and Rumi Number 2.
  • The President of the HPSC is left livid due to not being informed of Toshinori's retirement, Toshinori knowing she'd try to force him to continue on longer had she known in advance. Her projections stated that Toshinori needed to last another year at least, and now Burnin is the new Number 1 until her "Mark 2" Heroes are finished developing, something making little headway due to Paxton refusing to give or build the HPSC a Quirk Emulator.
    • The President in turn decides to call in a favor, by calling Endeavor and offering to have him become the new Number 1... only for it to blow up in her face, as Enji only ever worked with them due to them blackmailing him over what he did to his family, and not only do they no longer have that on him, but he doesn't want the position anyway, since he wouldn't have earned it himself. Their attempts at trying to entice him with giving him back his family just enrages him too, since he doesn't want to hurt them anymore and thinks it's for the best they stay away from him. The RAFT agent they sent with the offer then tries to covertly leave a bomb in his office after he refuses, but Enji catches on to it and makes him take it with him, a Humanoid Alien working with Enji confirming what it was and making Enji fully on guard should the HPSC approach him again.
  • Tomura's plan to attack the Hero Billboard Rankings is thrown for a loop now that Toshinori is retired, since killing him now would just be killing the man, not the Symbol, and causes him to briefly abandon his plan until All For One steps in. He convinces Tomura that, even if Toshinori is retiring, his life still matters to people, particularly those he's aiming to teach, meaning that they should now target the students, kill all of them sans Izumi, who All For One now knows for sure has One For All and aims to kidnap and break so he can take it back. He also convinces Tomura to continue with the plan to attack the Rankings, if only to show the public that the people Toshinori left to stand in his place, Burnin in particular, are not ready or able to take his place. Only then will they kill Toshinori, after they've made him realize his decision to retire did more harm than good.
    • Tomura's attack on the Rankings itself is undone thanks to one person being present that he thought would have no reason to be there: Izumi, having been invited by Rumi as part of her VIP section. Izumi, thoroughly fed up with the endless Villain attacks, proceeds to effortlessly defeat all of the Nomu Tomura sent there, including Hood which she sends rocketing into orbit before it can even hurt anyone, and nearly attacked Tomura in a feral rage had Kurogiri not stepped in.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Kai decides to leave nothing to chance in his attempt to kidnap Eri again. He sends not only the Seven Bullets, but all of the Shie Hassaikai's main assets, including several dirty cops and even Heroes they have on their payroll, and armed them with a Quirk Inhibitor. The only members of the Shie Hassaikai not present are Kai himself, and Cnidaria due to being entrusted with a "backup". This ends up still failing since the Shie Hassaikai failed to do any proper recon and underestimated the students, resulted in their asses being handed to them despite effectively facing less than a dozen technically Quirkless teenagers and adults. This also leaves Kai completely unprotected, resulting in an assailant managing to kill him not even a day after the failed attempt.
• Transplant: The rewrite reimagines several of the Captain Ersatz from the main fic as actually being the characters they were based on, just in the setting of MHA with suitably modified history. This eventually leads to the fic getting the "Minor Crossover" tag as, while the characters themselves appear, their original worlds and the mechanics of those worlds do not.
  • Gate: The Japanese Special Defense Force is all but confirmed to be the unit from Gate, down to having an otaku lieutenant implied to be Youji Itami, and the Death Dagger "Apostle" all but said to be Rory Mercury.
  • Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne is a student of Millennium Academy's Support Course, and heiress to the Heterodyne family and their company, "Heterodyne Works". Said family are considered The Dreaded across the world due to their generally being mad scientists, propensity for making unholy combinations of science and forbidden magic, managing to somehow summon a literal demon once, and being one of the biggest contributors to the chaos plaguing Europe in the Dark Ages of Quirks. Paxton also happened to study in the city state of "Merchanicsburg", home to the Heterodyne family, with Argonaut thinking that brand of insanity is why he's a Bunny-Ears Lawyer.
  • Hellsing: Three of Kaina's international friends are "Police Girl"/Seras Victoria, "Piaggio"/Heinkel Wulf, and "Jägerin"/Rip Van Winkle, all Pro-Heroes and teachers at rival schools, the British "Hellsing Academy" for the former, the Italian "Iscariot Academy" for the second, and the German "Millennium Academy" for the latter. META2012 also confirmed that the Principal and Vice-Principal of Hellsing Academy are Sir Integra and Alucard respectively, while Millennium Academy's Vice-Principal physically matches that of the Captain, and Schrodinger acts as a liaison between schools. The infamous three-sided war between their academies' namesakes are likewise reimagined to have been an actual conflict during the "Dark Age of Quirks", but has now settled to being just a school rivalry, the characters being Pro-Heroes and teachers rather than acting as soldiers and/or war criminals.
  • Like a Dragon: Momo's father, Kiryu "Yaoyorozu Dragon" Yaoyorozu, is confirmed to be Kazuma Kiryu, having been adopted into the Yaoyorozu family and with many of his adventures being recounted to the Snuggle Squad and suitably terrifying them that a man like that is Momo's overprotective father. Goro Majima is likewise her Honorary Uncle, Powerloader's cousin, and a Quirkless Police Officer who is still capable of insane feats of strength and madness that just drive Izumi up a wall trying to understand. Majima's introduction is even a Mythology Gag to his Summoning animation from Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Hannya Mask on the moon included.
  • Megamind: The titular character is a Villain based in the United States, being a recurring foe of Star and Stripe rather than Metroman, and while she finds some of his antics amusing, she's more annoyed that no matter how many times she beats him and tries sending him to Tartarus, he always escapes before they can send him there.
  • RWBY: Yang Xiao-Long was noted to be a Pro-Hero, "Blaze", sixty years prior to the story, with her "Ember Celica" gauntlets being support gear she used. She and seven others, the rest of Teams RWBY and JNPR, fought All For One, with her being the Sole Survivor after All For One stole her Quirk "Burn", forced into retirement after that and dying ten years later. David brings her up to Toshinori specifically to use the designs for Ember Celica in constructing a pair of gauntlets for him to use when he faces All For One, these ones loaded with the prototype Quirk Erasing Bullets Chizome managed to steal from the Shie Hassakai. She's also implied to be the grandmother of Kiruka Hasaki/Slice, as she has the same Hair-Trigger Temper Yang did regarding her hair, her eyes even flashing red like Yang's when sufficiently pissed off, both traits Kiruka notes to herself her mother explained she inherited from her grandmother. Her Quirk "Burn" and the other seven Quirks All For One ("Petal Burst" (Ruby Rose), "Glyphs" (Weiss Schnee), "Shadow" (Blake Belladonna), "Aura Shield" (Jaune Arc), "High Voltage" (Nora Valkyrie), "Polarity" (Pyrrha Nikos), and "Tranquility" (Lie Ren)) stole that day would eventually be given to Nine with the copy of "All For One", and in turn be implanted into Izumi by accident, all of them suffering Identity Amnesia and going by the names of their Quirks.
  • Senran Kagura: In addition to Daidoji being the Number 6 Hero among the Top 10, 29 of Seiai Academies' second year Hero Course are characters from the series, with the homeroom teacher of 2-B being "Rin"/Suzune. While only Katsuragi is named, visual descriptions of her classmates indicate that Ikaruga, Homura, and Minori are among their number.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: The Top 10 Hero Team, Gurren and Lagann, are Kamina and Simon the Digger, the former likewise married to Yomako, who both acts as the "Armory Hero: Yoko" and a teacher at Seiai Academy, and the latter accompanied by his mole/pig(?) Boota. A conversation with Kaina likewise has Yomako mention Kamina nearly died at some point, but managed to survive here compared to his actual fate, said near brush with death being what prompted the two of them to get married.
  • The Boys (2019): One of the several hero schools in this universe is Vought Academy, which is noted by Lady Nagant to be one of the most controversial hero schools known due to having so many scandals to its name. The HPSC wanted to send Class 1-A to that school as part of the exchange program, something that the teachers of U.A. refused to even entertain.
• Unexplained Recovery: Chapter 57 gives us the first proper introduction to Melissa Shield... via a flashback to when she was three courtesy of Toshinori, where she was noted to be braindead, having been such since the day she was born in an attack that killed her mother. Despite this, Melissa appears right as rain in the present day when meeting Izumi, Ochaco, Mei, and Chiharu, with no indication of how she's alive now. She, David, and Toshinori later reveal the truth to Izumi, Ochaco, and Durandal: she's a transhuman, her body having been converted into that of a Cardrian, a race of "swarm" aliens that made first contact with Toshinori and David years prior and offered to revive Melissa if David helped fix their ship.
• The Unfought: Despite an entire battalion being formed with the express purpose of killing him, Kai Chisaki/Overhaul is never actually fought by any of the major cast before he is assassinated by an unknown perpetrator.
• Uniformity Exception: Among the many disappearances and murders of people on the Lunar Colony, the only trait the Lunar Police can find to link them all together is that they either lived in or are from Japan. Tomoyasu Chikazoku/"Skeptic" however states that, with one exception, all of them were deep cover Meta Liberation Army members, causing the MLA top brass to believe someone is hunting them. As for the one exception, Hisashi Midoriya, is explicitly noted to not be part of the MLA, and was believed tortured to death rather than killed via cyanide poisoning, and no one can figure out why they were killed.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Following the Avalon War, clones created by anything other than a Quirk were declared forbidden everywhere sans North Korea by decree of the Seventh Day law. The only legal loophole are "Recall" Clones, meant to serve as a Body Backup Drive but are so expensive only the rich can afford them, and the clones are Quirkless. Whenever a clone is apprehended, they are immediately slated to be executed as a result, Izumi herself having misgivings over the idea of their being killed just for being clones, and is left conflicted after seven members of the terrorist group "Icarus Fall" she apprehended all turn out to be clones, feeling as if she consigned them to death by arresting them.

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