~O~

"We're still investigating the cause of the sudden change in the Pacific, we'll relay the information to our audience as soon as we can— Oh, it looks like our informants caught something. According to the newly received information from the navy, it appears that the increase in tides from the Eastern Pacific Ocean have picked up their speed and are heading towards mainland Japan at around 231 kilometers per hour as opposed to their previously slower recorded speed of 187 kilometers per hour. No weather changes have been reported to describe their cause. Therefore, the navy believes it's an unknown object heading towards us. Civilians are asked to keep calm and persevere in this situation. Many heroes have been notified and will soon be on our borders to dissolve the crisis if it appears to be a villain attack from overseas. Kindly, keep —"

With a single press of a button, the screen turned off as Tsukauchi sat the remote on the desk and turned to address the number of heroes sitting before him in UA's meeting room. It was nearing six in the evening and no student was to be found on the main campus, thus making this conversation as private to the ones working on the case as possible.

"We have alerted our neighboring countries' coastlines to get ready in case this thing decides to change its direction. There is still no solid proof on what this could be, but we've been informed that its estimated size is… Huge to say the least," The detective stated before putting down the files he was holding beforehand. The man sighed before getting to the next part as the UA staff listened to him attentively, "It's just a possibility but… I think All For One is involved somehow,"

Midnight questioned, "How so? The man is imprisoned in Tartarus with no possible way of communication. They have him under a number of quirk suppressors even though he was left quirkless after Kyoto, you know." 

"Yes, but we don't have all the details." Tsukauchi continued, "Midoriya only provided us with the basics of what happened. We don't know what truly happened back there… The boy might not have all the details himself. All For One reigned the underground for over a century, he must have some underlings we still don't know about, a plan B of sorts in case things go south."

"Hm… Your concern is valid, detective." Nezu spoke up, his paws joined together, "It's best to notify all heroes in the case to be prepared for the worst case scenario. We shall begin evacuating all cities near the coast, if things seem to get worse then perhaps evacuate the nearby cities as well. The object, whatever it is, won't be able to reach the coast for at most four days considering it can't go faster. We'll get ourselves a two days limit if its speed is reported to increase any further." 

"As for the Kyoto incident, I'll ask Midoriya tomorrow myself for a more detailed explanation." Aizawa said, covering the second of the detective's concerns.

All Might added, "We might as well talk to the other students involved, it's quite possible that someone might have caught something we missed."

"Very well, then. We'll talk again tomorrow, as for now, the meeting is dismissed."

The tides were approaching.

The tides were approaching fast.

~O~

Midoriya stepped out of the UA dormitories with a water bottle in hand, it was quite late at night and everyone else had most definitely gone to bed by now. He wasn't exactly keeping track of time so he couldn't tell exactly how late it was but it was late nonetheless. It was an unhealthy routine, he knew. Many teachers and friends had tried talking him out of training till midnight but he couldn't really bring himself to stop. The drive to get better, the need to get better with his quirk — well, quirks. He still hadn't been able to get rid of the quirk All For One gave to him. It didn't help at all that One For All decided to add some of its own in the mix sometime last year.

Before, overworking himself like this was a simple requirement since he lacked proper timely training with One For All but now however, it was just a coping mechanism of sorts. Not healthy at all, he knew, but at least it kept his mind busy. Now why would he require a coping mechanism such as this, one may wonder? Well, you see, apparently having a fuck ton of quirks that like to mess up with your internal organs wasn't as great of an idea as it sounded like.

At first, when he couldn't think of way to get rid of the quirk without forcing it onto someone else or manipulating his teachers into smuggling him some quirknerasing drugs from overseas that he didn't know would even work like he wanted them to — he thought he could just not use the quirk altogether. That didn't last long. Technically, he hadn't even used the quirk after his fight with All For One but still the effects remained. Normally, if he used too much of One For All or just as much as he could handle for a long amount of time, he would be met with extreme dizziness, a fever, sharp pangs  and blood oozing out of his mouth as the cherry on top of a cake. He wondered if All Might found coughing up blood in a napkin every once a while just as annoying as he did. The retired blonde's unexplainable concern levels were another story though.

The events of his fight and the entire month beforehand replayed in his head on a constant loop. He didn't really think about it much after winning that bet with Hatsume, it most likely started after he wasted all the money on puny T-shirts. Anyway… He defeated All For One. The pain and adrenaline before didn't let him register the feat he just pulled. He defeated All For One. Giving it a bit more thought, he certainly did defeat him and that was no impossible feat. Quirk erasing bullets was a prominent weakness of someone who had been dependent on quirks for everything their entire life. Now only if he could shoot himself with a quirk erasing bullet too without bringing any harm to One For All.

Why did people wish to be overpowered again?

He had no idea.

However, he had an inkling feeling that somewhere, somehow, he made a mistake. He made a mistake somewhere in the way and he couldn't pinpoint it. It kept him up at nights, made him train harder and harder because he didn't know what the cost of his mistake would be. How big was the mistake anyway? Was it a small one, would it be harmless if he never found out about it? Or was it going to snowball into a borderline apocalypse? How many lives could his mistake cost? How many could be in danger? How many were already affected by his stupid self not taking care of everything? Was this why All For One was actually defeated? Did the supervillain notice his mistake? What if he was just waiting to make a move when something went wrong because of the boy? 

It scared him—

"Knew I'd find you here,"

The sudden addition to his internal panic was enough to snap him back to reality. Midoriya turned around a bit too quickly and was immediately met with a wave of dizziness, that damned quirk… No wonder All For One didn't keep it for himself, what a coward. Turning around, the green haired boy came to face his ash blonde childhood friend closing the door behind him. Okay, maybe not who he expected to show up past midnight. Shouldn't Bakugou be asleep? The boy was known to go to bed the earliest out of all of them, most likely the entire school. 

"Still dying?" The snarky remark delivered with one of Bakugou's signature smirks caught the green head's attention again. Midoriya's little habit of getting lost in his own head seemed to be getting worse with every passing day.

"I'm not dying…!" The green haired boy countered, trying to subtly massage a vein that quirk hurt this time. As you could guess, the action wasn't subtle at all.

The ash blonde just scoffed, "You look like you are, shithead."

"It's just a headache, it'll go away in a while." Well, truthfully, it would go away but would also come back in full force whenever it liked.

"Sure, it will…" It was too late for Bakugou to be this sarcastic and petty, who the hell was this imposter?

"What are you doing here anyway?" Midoriya asked in an attempt to change the subject. Wordlessly, the older boy simply pulled out his phone out of his pocket and practically shoved it in Midoriya's face to show him whatever was on the screen. A simple, "Oh…" was all that came out of the green haired boy's mouth at the sight.

00:04, 15th July, 2XXX.

"K-Kacchan… I—!"

"No," Baugou swiftly cut him off right before the waterworks could start, "I'm not here to wish you happy birthday before the others, dumbass."

"I-I see… So, um?" The green haired boy asked, tilting head to a side all the while he clutched the hem of his shirt.

"The quirk is killing you." Bakugou started, "You and I both know it is so don't argue with me on it. That shitty quirk is killing you, it would've already killed you if you were someone else — if you were a normal person without that level of pain tolerance, you would be dead right now."

"Ye-Yeah… You're right…" Midoriya knew that much. He knew that he was already past the time he should've died. But bringing that up on his birthday, on a day that was basically the proof of his survival, he did not understand. Or maybe it was just the headache making him unable to think.

"But you aren't." The green head blinked at his words. Once, then twice before his lifted his head and met the ash blonde's gaze. That was when he understood what he truly meant. Something he might not actually word out, but Midoriya was used to his cryptic language by now. "You lived till now, you reached your seventeeens without dying and I'm here to remind you that you aren't going to die anytime soon. You shouldn't die anytime soon. You hear? I'm here to tell you that you are not allowed to die. You've gone and gotten so much stronger in every aspect and I'm not far behind. I'm catching up to you. And I'll be there soon too… One quirk or multiple… I'll be there, so you better not die. Do you understand me, Deku?"

That managed to coax a smile out of the green head, "Yeah... Yeah, I'm not dying…"

"That's all. Go back to sleep, shitty nerd." The ash blonde turned around and didn't linger for any longer before he headed back inside the dorm building. He probably already knew Midoriya was still going to train for at least half an hour more before going to bed or passing out from exhaustion. Anyhow, Bakugou closed the door behind him and let his back rest against the polished wood for a moment or two.

"Happy birthday, Deku…"

He whispered for no one to hear.

~O~

"Team Fatgum is down, Team Ryukyu is stuck around the mountain range, they can't seem to escape. Requesting backup from Team Endeavor — kindly send divided assets to assist them. We're getting low on heroes. Is the target still in sight?" If one asked Shinsou how he managed communication between other teams so calmly, he would say he wasn't.

Because he wasn't.

Okay, maybe they told him getting in Class A meant being in constant danger. His classmates basically told him on the first day and if Kyoto was anything to go by, he could tell what level of problem children he was thrown into but nobody told him his actual first mission would feel like his last. They woke up that morning and made a mistake of believing this day would be a normal one, at least as normal as it could be with them preparing a surprise birthday party for some green haired problem child. Of course, nothing went according to their plan and they were called on by Pro Heroes to assist them with whatever was coming at them at full speed.

The lavender haired boy heard something about Nezu estimating their opponent to reach them in two to four days, apparently it picked its speed and decided to show up today.

The tides were approaching; that was all they told them. His part wasn't even hard. He just had to sit and scream directions at the others from here in this compartment somewhere on a watchtower in the middle of nowhere. His location, however, didn't matter because the tides were already there and they certainly didn't bring any good news with them. What mattered were the hero teams scattered across the evacuated areas that could soon become danger zones — scratch that, they already have become danger zones and to top it off there were no replies from anyone at all. 

"Is anyone on the line?!" Shinsou yelled into the microphone, panic bubbling up in his guts, "Is anyone—!"

The boy didn't get to finish his sentence as the earth began to shake violently.

It was only a matter of moments when the watchtower fell to the ground.

The tides didn't bring good news. Not on that day.

~O~

Midoriya knew he made a mistake.

Said mistake had clogged his mind for months.

He just couldn't tell what he did.

But now he knew and he wanted to drown his past self. Maybe push him off a roof.

Gigantomachia.

He left the nomu in the ocean.

Of course Gigantomachia came back, of course he did. Midoriya could practically hear All For One laughing at him back at Tartarus from here.

But it wasn't the time to think about all that because Gigantomachia coming back was a very bad thing. He would definitely tear apart all of Japan in search of the supervillain who created him in the first place — or in this case, the guy who ended the said supervillain. Honestly, Midoriya didn't have any problems with a multiple quirked creature that was perhaps as tall as UA itself coming after him. He didn't really. The problem was that nobody would let him fight the nomu himself if they learnt that he was after him. Not after knowing that those quirks were slowly killing him. Maybe not killing him, there was no solid proof that he was actually dying because of them. It would be more proper to say that they were slowly deteriorating his body internally much like All Might's scar after his first battle with All For One. It was painful for sure but not enough to kill him.

Plus, he could just use Rewind in case he felt like his time had come.

(He had done that way too many times to count by now)

Alright, quick planning, fast decision making.

He would use Todoroki's quirk to create an ice wall, separating him and his team. They wouldn't know if it was him or the heterochromatic boy. Then he would use Jirou's or Shouji's quirk to take a good look around himself to pinpoint the nomus location and predict where he would be heading. He needed to alter the groundwork of his path and get him alone, that could be easily achieved with Pixie Bob's quirk. Now as for how to defeat him and come back alive. Surely, just getting to him would kill him halfway — this shitty quirk, he hated that quirk. He just wanted to—

He had an idea.

A very dangerous idea.

~O~

Kirishima did not know what to do.

The fact that everything around was beginning to look more and more like that dream he had was not helping either.

Fatgum… Tamaki… He didn't know where they were. Everyone got separated as soon as Gigantomachia showed up, tearing apart anything that came in his way, crushing a good number of heroes to death by just being there.

Death.

Death, they died. They died in front of the redhead. All the while the boy quivered like a leaf in some corner. Useless, helpless, weak—

Kirishima couldn't call for help either.

He tried. He tried many times, but he just couldn't get in touch with Shinsou. He couldn't tell him how many casualties were on their hands all because of him, he couldn't call for backup, couldn't tell the others what calamity was marching towards them.

Just what could he do? Stand there with his mouth hung agape and stare at the destruction. Kirishima was oh so very glad that they had evacuated this city before coming here or else he might not have been able to keep his shit together. He was losing it just by this, he did not want to imagine how a city full of dead and or dying civilians would be. He did not.

All of a sudden, the ground began to shake — but this time, the redhead was absolutely certain it wasn't the monstrosity that leveled every building around him just a few minutes earlier, no. It was something else, someone else.

The ground rose up as if gravity no longer existed for it and began to rush towards Gigantomachia at amazing speeds, it swirled around the nomu and enveloped him whole in a strong spherical structure at once leaving the redhead in pure alone. The ability to manipulate the earth itself… Kirishima did not remember Pixie Bob being on their team so that meant it was someone else.

The redhead turned around and saw that someone. Midoriya...

The first thing that came to Kirishima's mind after seeing the boy was; death.

On the other hand, the green haired boy, just like all the others, also looked beaten up. He clearly had multiple injuries but his posture hid them well. He was barely standing straight but there was a small crazy smile plastered on his face while he was looking at the other boy. But then there was this thing in his emerald eyes that scared Kirishima...

That one word rang in his ears again and again;

Death. Death. Death. Death. Death—

"Don't tell me... M-Midoriya, you... You... H-How? No... No. No. No." Kirishima wanted to deny it, and he did. Midoriya could die. He could die with whatever the hell he was trying to do. He was using that quirk, and he had already used so much of it, the redhead didn't doubt all of his injuries were because of the quirk's drawback. 

He couldn't see a friend die—

And then, Midoriya smiled widely. Blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth and the redhead could only let his thoughts rampage in his mind knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop Midoriya now, not when that glint in his eyes was shining brighter than any star in the approaching night sky. The glint of determination.

Bright green lightning surrounding the boy before Kirishima could utter out another word and Midoriya ran. The green head didn't waste a single second and reached the structure he encapsulated Gigantomachia in — using the quirk again for a split second to create an entrance for himself and with that he was out of sight. Kirishima could just stand there watching, hoping, praying for his classmate to come back alive.

Meanwhile, Midoriya fully believed that if this suicide mission failed he'd definitely strangle his past self.

It was a simple plan, really.

The chances of it actually were not so much though.

Gigantomachia was perhaps — scratch that, he was certainly the strongest nomu ever created. A nomu, by his understanding, was a modified corpse infested with quirks. A nomu, just like a human, had a limit — a limit of how much quirks it could withstand. A nomu had a far greater limit than humans making it so much stronger and capable. But a nomu, like every other creature, was bound to fall.

Midoriya had long reached his own limit.

If he wanted to live it was better for him to hoard a bit less quirks.

Gigantomachia had quite a few strong quirks.

The boy wondered what would happen if he just forced all of those quirks onto him.

Would Gigantomachia fall? Or would he come back stronger?

It was fine either way, he had a counterplan in case thrusting all of those quirks in an already overpowered nomu failed. You see, Momo's quirk was quite useful. Especially when you were well versed in chemistry and knew what formula was the most poisonous and which one would kick in the fastest. He would just throw in this one chemical Hatsume was talking about last week along with the quirks and hope to live through the drawback.

What a wild birthday.

With all that set in mind, the green haired boy summoned up One For All in his legs and jumped high up to reach the nomu's full length. He flipped in midair to land directly on top of Gigantomachia, silently celebrating that he wasn't immediately crushed to death by the nomu. Midoriya then outstretched both of his hands, one creating the poison and the other bringing up All For One's own quirk to the surface of his palm in a small dark circle.

Beneath him, Gigantomachia roared and the mere action was enough to make the structure enclosing them tremble as if it were to fall at any moment. But Midoriya saw an opportunity and immediately seized it by quickly throwing the poison in the nomu's mouth with one swift motion and now all that was left was to get rid of that quirk.

Midoriya extended his right arm and positioned it so it would meet Gigantomachia's forehead — does All For One only work through  forehead-palm contact? Were there other ways to steal or give a quirk? Was a handshake enough to complete the exchange? Midoriya had never seen the supervillain himself use it any other way. Though, he would like to find out. Maybe he would keep a copy of All For One within himself.

That would also be helpful in case his counterplan failed as well.

And so it began, the tell tale aura of the quirk — cool green in its hue, surrounded them as the process started. One, then two, then three; Midoriya felt the quirks leave his body as if they were droplets of blood dripping down from his palm. The only difference being that the said droplets escaped him at a velocity that matched the water running down a river. It was a tiresome process, he could it had some not good effects on the nomu as he began to roar and thrash in agony — of course, Gigantomachia had a limit too. Midoriya had been in contact with far too many quirks for his limit to withstand.

The boy himself wasn't faring well either but he he was far too invested in getting the quirks out of his body to notice the excess of blood streaming out of his mouth. With his eyes wide and sparkling with One For All's energy, the smile never leaving his face, and now combined with the blood, he looked positively manic.

The spherical structure around them collapsed as soon as Midoriya retracted his hand and everything around him slowed for a moment.

Gigantomachia hit the ground perhaps mere seconds after the structure did, unable to move, unable to function anymore. Just a corpse, nothing more. And if not the poison would only take about five more minutes to completely kill him. Some part of the green haired boy would wonder why didn't he just poison All For One but that part wasn't here right now.

For all there was was a boy with a crazed bloody grin and trembling hands.

He fell soon too, of course.

He was human before a mastermind. So, he collapsed as well.

But not before letting out a loud victorious laugh.

He hoped he didn't die after he closed his eyes though, he had a promise to fulfil after all.

~O~

What do we learn from this?
This one sucks, masterminds are humans and they make mistakes, Bakugou is secretly a softie, Kirishima needs therapy and I shouldn't make split second decisions like this in the middle of exams.