Fanfic / Cardiac Arrest

Cardiac Arrest is a My Hero Academia fanfic by A Mournful Howl In The Night, the same author of Conversations with a Cryptid.

During the Kamino Ward events, Izuku pushes his friends away from an avalanche of debris caused by the All Might vs All For One fight, seemingly dying in the process. To everyone's surprise, All For One immediately abandons his fight with All Might to dig Izuku's corpse out of the rubble before teleporting away. Is Izuku alive or dead? Why did All For One abandon his fight with All Might and the members of the League of Villains just like that?

It can be found here.

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Cardiac Arrest contains examples of...

• Ambiguously Related: The secondary plot of the story is the mysterious and potentially familial relationship between All for One and Izuku. For some reason, the supervillain went out of his way to not only save Izuku from death, but desperately try to heal his wounds while bonding with the teen. A lot of characters who somewhat know them both, note how similar they are (see below). The only people to declare that they aren't father and son are Bakugou and All for One himself. Except Bakugou, like Izuku, hasn't met Izuku's father for at least a decade, was never really a close friend to Izuku, and is at the moment in the middle of a months-long Heroic BSoD. All for One's words are also suspect since it's known that he is very manipulative when either telling lies or half-truths. Though he is a little more honest with Izuku, the teen, since the duo's restoration, haven't once seen the villain's full face. With the revelations of One for All, there are heavy hints that both the creation of the quirk along with the disastrous fallout of his fight with All Might, lead to the villain having psychological problems, which may include memory. Thanks also to Unreliable Narrator plus no All for One POV, it's unknown what exactly the villain is thinking, beyond his Izuku obsession.
• Baddie Flattery: All For One praises Izuku for defeating villains like Stain, Muscular, and Wolfram, saving the lives of many future would-be victims. Izuku is incredibly freaked out because those are the words of encouragement he always wanted to hear... from the last person he expected to hear them from.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Izuku returns home but almost all of his relationships with friends and family have been strained (except for All Might and Todoroki). The worst strain is, of course, with his mother and Bakugou, though the latter is taking a tentative step to repair it.
  • His nearly year-long disappearance gave a lot of characters Character Development including Izuku himself and All for One, as they both bonded somewhat during the captivity thanks to their similarities and Izuku forcing All for One to have a Heel Realization. This leads the villain into abandoning his plans, healing All Might, and returning to his life as Hisashi Midoriya, to Izuku's horror.
• Berserk Button: All for One really hates when his subordinates act against his orders "in his best interest". Last time that happened, his brother died.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Todoroki snaps at Endeavor for just standing around yelling at All Might instead of doing literally anything to help at Kamino.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • Izuku's first resurrection resulted in him clawing out his eyes due to its sensitivity, being unable to move his limbs, a scarred and near emaciated body and a very slowly healing back wound.
  • His second, along with All for One also being restored the same way, resulted in both men losing some of their emotional baggage involving their respective traumas. All for One thanks All Might for taking care of Izuku despite decades of animosity that he shown before he healed. Izuku coldly no longer thinks of Bakugou as his friend thanks to the years of prejudice and bullying brought to the forefront no longer hampered by his feelings.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: When Izuku first woke up, he wasn't coherent and tried to claw out his own eyes because the treatment done to save his life made his eyes overly sensitive to light. Izuku doesn't remember this and later has to be told why he woke up blindfolded and wearing mittens.
• Death by Adaptation: The entire League of Villains, minus Shigaraki, Kurogiri, and Dabi, and plus Vlad King, are stated in the final few chapters to be almost guaranteed to be sentenced to death.
• Dies Wide Open: Played with. This is a big reason why Bakugo believes that Izuku really died crushed by rubble: his eyes were wide open and All For One manually closed them before teleporting away.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • At first, a few of the protagonists (including Izuku) suspect that Izuku's body was taken as well as a few other quirks so that All for One can find a way to keep One for All. The readers know or at least suspect that it's false: it's simply just to revive him and keep him alive until a way to fully heal him is found.
  • After learning about the events during Shinsou's captivity, Iida suspects that All for One had decided to replace Shigaraki with Izuku due to the supervillain's interest in Izuku's non-quirk abilities. Bakugou and Todoroki also believe that he's purposefully distracting the villain from his endeavors to save everyone. These aren't completely true: it's noted that All for One never cared about Shigaraki from the start and had already known of some of Izuku's abilities in part because he had been somewhat watching Izuku for years before UA and in part because Izuku is most likely related to All for One. It is actually thanks to Izuku's non-quirk abilities that he and the villain were fully healed. Izuku is distracting All for One yet not in the way even Izuku thinks; the villain was desperately trying to save him at first, enjoyed their conversations about quirks along the way and when they both were fully healed, is trying to help Izuku recover, struggling to get into Izuku's good graces.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Aizawa, over Izuku's "death" and its fallout.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Bakugo initially suspects Izuku gained a Quirk from All For One, but All Might sets him straight.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Bakugo finds out about One For All and its significance, he starts going into a It's All My Fault spiral as him being kidnapped despite knowing very well that the villains were after him was the lynchpin to this entire mess. All Might then punches Bakugo to make him snap out of it.
• Go Out with a Smile: Izuku's face before being crushed by the debris. The doctor also notes that his body looks Peaceful in Death.
• Gone Horribly Right: The doctor, concerned about All for One's irrationality of preserving the dying Izuku, tries to convince Izuku to kill himself for their betterment. But in the process reveals certain truths to him, including his grandson being turned into a Noumu and that All for One has been watching Izuku for years. Izuku agrees but not before deciding to kill the doctor by using One for All to weaken All for One and destroy his body beyond repair. Only the intervention of All for One "saves" them both.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Izuku saves Bakugou's life by pushing him out of the way of a collapsing building, getting crushed in his stead.
• Heroic Suicide: Just like in the author's other fic, All for One concludes (but is in denial) that a decade's worth of bullying and ostracization had left Izuku with serious trust issues, plus low self-esteem and self-worth, resulting in being a Nervous Wreck with a subconscious suicidal streak. Izuku still wants to help people, to the point of willingly sacrificing himself to save someone (in the case with Bakugou) or weaken an enemy (see Gone Horribly Right above), caring little of his own life or how the aftermath of said sacrifice will affect his loved ones.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: All For One tries to assure Izuku that if he wanted to harm him, Izuku wouldn't have woken up at all. Izuku, of course, doesn't believe him.
• Insult to Rocks: Bakugo, enraged at being put inside a hospital room and separated from his classmates right after his rescue and what happened to Izuku, initially refers to the detective who came to talk to him as a lizard person... before going back because that would be an insult to lizard people.
• Legally Dead: Inverted. There's no footage of Izuku's body being taken by All For One, only Bakugo's word for it. Because of this, the authorities have decided to declare Izuku "missing" so they don't have to deal with the repercussions of the death of a UA student. Bakugou and All Might are livid because this means no official effort will be directed toward finding and recovering his body.
• Lethal Chef: When All For One tells Izuku he means no harm, Izuku asks him to define harm. All For One then answers "so long as I don't cook, I'm sure you'll be fine."
• Luke, I Am Your Father: The doctor realizes that Izuku may be related to All for One when he thinks about their similar behaviors and notices Izuku's face heavily resembles All for One's pre-All Might Fight face.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Three notable characters are shown to suffer this:
  • Bakugo (the fact that Izuku died saving him and learning about One for All leads to his Heel Realization and Heroic BSoD).
  • Monoma (his usual antagonistic antics against class 1-A results in him nearly getting killed by an emotional Bakugo when he mockingly asks about Izuku's whereabouts and wondering if he ran away. Monoma had to talk to Iida to get context, have a Jerkass Realization, and become The Atoner).
  • All for One (he accidentally kills Izuku, who is heavily implied to be his son, desperately digs out his corpse, demands his doctor do everything in their power to revive him and constantly stays by his side, desperately pleading to Izuku not to die and let him help.
• No Sense of Personal Space: All for One is this to Izuku, mostly in the form of calling him by his first name, tender touches with or without tending to the teen's injuries (Izuku Hates Being Touched), and bear hugs.
• Not Quite Dead: Izuku. The main conflict of the story is the fact that All For One and the doctor managed to bring him back from the brink of death while Bakugo and All Might mourn and believe that the best case scenario will be Izuku's funeral not being an empty casket one. At least until it's revealed that Izuku's body is in a much worse state than he initially believes. The only thing keeping him alive is a bunch of healing Quirks All For One gave him that are being powered by dangerously high doses of Trigger. Once Izuku's body starts developing a resistance to the drugs, it's over for him.
• "Not So Different" Remark: It is noted throughout the story from Bakugou, All Might, and the doctor, that All for One and Izuku Midoriya are scarily alike in their quirk analysis, disregard for others' opinions, their strategic thinking, charisma, and manipulative streak.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • All Might and Bakugo when they realize All For One must have known about Izuku having One For All.
  • The League of Villains when they are interrogated by Yagi.
  • All Might and class 1-A when they realize what the quirks All for One stole, especially Suspended Animation, can be used for.
  • Again the same above later on when they both learn through Shinsou that not only was Izuku alive and All for One healed but that All for One was being fatherly towards Izuku, making them conclude that the supervillain planned on replacing Shigaraki with the teen.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • All For One abandoning his fight with All Might and leaving the members of the League of Villains behind to be arrested by the authorities...just to run away with the body of a teenager whose only remarkable feature is being a UA student? This fic diverges from canon before All For One reveals that he knows Izuku is the ninth owner of One For All, so even those in the know have no idea why All For One would do that... at first.
  • The doctor is also freaked out by how All For One demands Izuku's recovery to be, contrasting with how Shigaraki was given no help after being shot multiple times in the USJ incident. Furthermore, he's always by the boy's side, while Shigaraki was essentially left to a babysitter (Kurogiri). It gets to the point that the doctor believes Izuku to have been The Mole for All For One at UA.
• Point of Divergence: Because the Kamino Arc ends differently than canon (namely that Izuku "dies" thanks to a stray attack from All for One), events take an interesting turn:
  • Because All for One leaves before finishing his fight with All Might, the League of Villains are captured, All Might doesn't reveal his true form to the masses nor loses his One for All embers and Shigaraki is not revealed to be Tenko Shimura to All Might, All for One instead reveals the latter to Bakugou in chapter 23.
  • All for One kidnaps Izuku Midoriya's body, meaning that One for All is now in his nefarious clutches once he has a means of reviving him, right? Not really. All for One had no interest in the inheritable quirk but the teen himself. Izuku spends at least half a year in the supervillain's genuine and "doting" care after the revival. Although no one knows the reason why he's doing this, there's heavy indication that it has something to do with Izuku being related to him.
  • Bakugou's Character Development starts from and goes in a different direction than in canon. His canon breakdown starts in a future arc and it only forces him to acknowledge his flaws and Izuku's strength. Here, watching Izuku die protecting him and learning about One for All, he not only acknowledges those two points more heavily, but he also acknowledges how much of a foolish bully he was to Izuku. This results in him doing everything he can to find a way to save Izuku from All for One but it has left him emotionally unstable and potentially torpedoing his Hero career.
  • See Wolf in Sheep's Clothing for what is happening to All Might.
  • Sir Nighteye and Mirio appear earlier than canon but their resulting circumstances change.
    • Nighteye tries to confront All Might for his disappearance, caring more about the "Symbol of Peace" moniker than All Might's potential grief. It results in him being kicked out of Gran Torino's apartment after he insults Bakugou and Midoriya's memory, losing Mirio as an intern thanks in part to that, being punched in the face on live TV by Bakugou after Nighteye tries to attack the disguised Number One Hero and again insults Midoriya's memory, and lastly is painted as an All Might stalker by Bakugou and All Might to the police.
    • Mirio is taken out of Sir Nighteye's agency after UA learns that he was purposefully putting the third year in danger to train him to be All Might's successor for One for All. Mirio doesn't take it well.
  • Both 1-A and 1-B have somewhat bonded along with the General Studies student Shinsou due to this event with Monoma and Shinsou becoming recurring characters.
  • 1-B's homeroom teacher Vlad King is revealed to be the traitor.
  • The Shie Hassaikai raid begins and ends differently than canon. Thanks to the Why Didn't I Think of That? moment below, All for One completely wipes out the yakuzu group, kidnaps Overhaul, and accidentally saves Eri (without awareness of her powers). What happens to Overhaul after he is used to heal both All for One and Izuku is unknown.
  • The Jaku General Hospital raid (that sparks the Paranormal Liberation War Arc) is also different. All for One abandons Garaki (and by extension his research) to his fate. Yagi, Endeavor, and a police team find the dying doctor under a suspended animation quirk and dozens of noumu vats further in the basement without a fight.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The doctor starts to grow increasingly disillusioned with All for One thanks to the villain's obsession with Izuku. After nearly dying by Izuku's hands and being punished for defiance by being All for One's guinea pig for Overhaul's quirk, the doctor concludes that the villain's attempts to help the teen will backfire. In chapter 21, he decides he will abandon All for One and continue his research, thinking that thanks to his long life he will be able to live on undetected. He doesn't know that the heroes are on to him.
• Stating the Simple Solution: All for One tends to be caught off guard by Izuku's constant chastisement of the villain's inefficiency of his plans and usage of quirks. An example is Izuku suggesting that the villain could have easily killed All Might by poisoning him. Another is the Why Didn't I Think of That? moment below.
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Izuku and his friends did it! Bakugo has been rescued! Wait a minute, is that building about to fall on them? ...Technically speaking Izuku is Not Quite Dead, but this is what everyone else believes.
• Wham Episode:
  • In the very first chapter, Izuku dies saving Bakugou and the others from failing debris. And to Bakugou's shock, All for One immediately searches through the rubble for Izuku's corpse before taking it away, abandoning the League and his fight with All Might.
  • In chapter 19, Izuku deduces that the first shade within One for All wasn't All for One's brother, it was All for One himself, though said shade wasn't self aware until All for One died when fighting All Might and a part of him remained when he was revived.
    • In the same chapter, both Izuku and All for One have been restored to health.
  • In chapter 20, Izuku has gained All for One though whether it is because of One for All or that it was his personal unknown quirk activating is unknown.
  • In chapter 22, Izuku reveals the truth about One for All to All for One, including the fact that the quirk contains a shard of his consciousness and may have affected both the villain and his brother. All for One doesn't take it well.
    • Also, All for One reveals that he had been watching Izuku for most of his life and taking care of him since the revival due to wanting the teen to be a Replacement Goldfish for his dead son, whose life closely parallels Izuku's. A little too closely.
• The Unmasking: Unlike in canon, All Might willingly reveals his small form to Bakugo.
• Unwanted Revival: Izuku angrily tells off All for One for reviving him, having already accepted his death. See Heroic Suicide above for the reason.
• Why Didn't I Think of That?: A delirious Izuku chastises All for One for not getting a brainwashing quirk so he could have mind-controlled someone with a powerful healing quirk to use on him instead of trying to steal one and having to learn how to use it. All for One freezes, dumbstruck, before wondering if the answer was that simple.
  • All for One then kidnaps Shinsou, taking his quirk and leaving the teen alive, invades and destroys Overhaul's yakuza clan while kidnapping Overhaul himself through the brainwashing quirk, accidentally rescues Eri, uses the doctor as a guinea pig to test Overhaul's quirk before using it on himself then Izuku.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Inverted. Since All Might's thin form was never revealed during the fight, he infiltrates the police force as Yagi Toshinori, an incredibly ruthless interrogator. This is all because he wants to personally interrogate the members of the League of Villains, but he knows that Shigaraki hates All Might with a passion and will either not cooperate, toy with him, or deliberately give misinformation if he shows up to the interrogation as All Might.

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