Fanfic / Antithesis: Two Sides Of A Coin

Antithesis: Two Sides Of A Coin by An Anonymous Platypus is a My Hero Academia fanfic.

That night, when the city was asleep and bathed in the light of the moon, a boy escaped his home with nothing but a bag and the clothes on his back. With him, he took thirteen notebooks, a fistful of his mother's money, a pocket knife, and a length of rope. In his place, he left a note for his poor mother, a letter for his long-gone friend, and a poster of the number one hero, their symbol of peace, with a long, even slash through his face.

That night, Midoriya Izuku died, and, in his place...

A villain was born.

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Antithesis: Two Sides Of A Coin provides examples of:

• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
  • Most of the U.S.J thugs end up making it out of the U.S.J here. Despite this, it is never explained why, with the exception of Polaris, none of them joined or at least kept in contact with the League.
  • Despite it being well known to the public that Izuku/The Magician killed Stain, Spinner still ends up joining the League without any issues.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Izuku undergoes one of these both in terms of power and personality. Even though he never gained One For All, his probability quirk is shown to be extremely powerful, allowing him to take on and curb stomp All Might, Stain, and Muscular while barely lifting a finger. It also helps that, alongside power, he also grows a spine, to the point of being able to legitimately terrify most of his foes.
  • According to the files detailing their crimes, villains such as Dabi, Mr.Compress, and Twice are shown to be much more hardened and experienced even before entering the league.
  • Ochako, after mastering her new powers gained after her parents' death, is significantly more powerful than her canonical self. While her quirk in canon is just a simple touch-based gravity quirk, here she's a straight-up esper who can lift far more weight.
  • The U.S.J Thugs, of all characters, are also given this. While in canon they are stomped with only some difficulty by the students and teachers, here they are the ones giving the curb stomp. Most of them even make it out of the U.S.J. It's justified since it's Izuku, instead of Shigaraki, who picked them out.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Endeavor not only keeps his pre-Heel Realization personality but is also internally shown to not care about Shoto as a person, a level of jerkass his original counterpart never showed.
  • Bakugo, similarly, never goes through his canonical character development and is shown to hold racist views against Mutant type quirk users, something he never held in canon.
• Adaptational Villainy: Several examples:
  • Midoriya himself, obviously. He goes from being a hero hopeful to being one of the most powerful villains in Japan.
  • Uraraka, after Nezu blows up her family and throws her in Tartarus. After breaking out with the help of Izuku and Polaris, she joins Izuku and the League as Infinity, wishing to change society.
  • Hagakure, after Raon makes her visible again. Grateful for what’s been done and angry at the heroes for forgetting and abandoning her, she joins the League.
  • Nezu. In canon, Nezu is a straight-up hero. While there is the occasional joke about him hating humans, he is never portrayed as anything less than a good dog-mouse-thing. Here? He manipulates events so that Ochako can be framed as insane and thrown in Tartarus, events that include causing millions in property damage and getting countless innocents, including Ochako's parents, killed, all because Ochako began to doubt heroes and wished to learn more about Izuku's motives. While he attempts to frame this to himself as a necessary sacrifice to preserve the public trust in heroes, the story doesn't frame his actions as anything but monstrous.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Izuku. When he isn't being legitimately kind or terrifying, it seems like every other sentence out of his mouth is dripping in sarcasm.
    Izuku, to Stain: "Ah, yes, because clearly murdering two children is the answer to life's problems."
  • Kurogiri, though he's more of a Silent Snarker.
    Kurogiri: "What do you want?"
    Izuku: "Something as dark and bitter as my soul."
    Kurogiri hands him a dinosaur cup filled with hot milk.
  • Ochako, after her Face–Heel Turn, gets much more sarcastic. Maybe Sarcasm comes with villainy?
    Ochako, to the League: "Your collective moral compasses are like a fucking roulette wheel."
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Stain is killed by Izuku instead of being knocked out and arrested.
  • Ochako's parents end up dying in an explosion set up by Nezu in a bid to set up Ochako as insane and get her thrown into Tartarus.
  • Like Stain, Muscular doesn't make it out of his fight with Midoriya alive.
  • Chapter 34 confirms that All Might ended up dying to Veil's backstab.
  • Raon kills All for One in Chapter 35 as revenge for his murder of her friends.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Izuku. After All Might's callous rejection of his dreams, he snaps and becomes one of the most dangerous supervillains the world has ever seen in little under a year.
  • Ochako and Toru. After the heroes fail them and they see how truly corrupt society is, they join the League in hopes of changing it.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Midoriya goes from being a forgotten kid claiming to have a Quirk, to one of the most powerful villains in Japan, in a little under a year.
• In Spite of a Nail: Most of the canonical events from the beginning arc to the Kamino Ward arc happen and conclude similarly to canon, despite many small things changing. The U.S.J and Training Camp arcs are exceptions to this.
• Point of Divergence: Due to Izuku's dislike of Katsuki and his knowledge of just how stubborn the explosive blond is, the League doesn't go after Bakugo during the Training camp raid. Instead, they go after Shoto and Momo.
• The Reveal: Raon/Veil is the origin of Quirks, having some kind of biokinetic power which she was forced to use for various experiments, one of which ended up creating the Quirk virus. Moreover, she is effectively immortal, and has been waiting for decades in order to kill All for One in revenge for him murdering her only friends.
• True Companions: The League, despite their wildly different personalities and... issues... are all shown to deeply care for each other and work well together. Toru notes how close they are in chapter 31.
• Villains Out Shopping: Literally in Chapter 22, in which Izuku goes out grocery shopping, even getting a talk with Shoto.
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: Izuku's quirk gives him the ability to affect probability to a certain extent. Depending on the situation and scale of the event, as well as how close Izuku himself is to said event, this power can either make the improbable certain, likely, or ultimately impossible to happen.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: One of the thugs at the U.S.J, Blazkein, ends up being blinded by Shoto and mortally wounded after rubble falls on him. He then spends the last minutes of his life calling and talking to his fiancé. The next few chapters are spent looking at the consequences of this ultimately small death, consequences that end with Ochako joining the League.

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