Fanfic / Changing Gears

When Midoriya Izuku received All Might's Quirk, he wasn't expecting it to make his hands glow blue. Or allow him to use Super-Speed. Or let him launch objects at high speed. Or let him heal people. Or let him stop an object's speed, bypassing inertia in the process. Or for All Might to not know what this new Quirk is, or how to use it. Needless to say, Midoriya has some Quirk Experimenting to do, with All Might ready to do what he can to help!

Changing Gears is a My Hero Academia fanfic written by griffinguy24, who also wrote One for All and Eight for the Ninth. It can be found here on Archive of Our Own.

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Tropes that feature are:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Shiozaki gives a small snort when Izuku jokes about promising to Recovery Girl he wouldn't give all he had.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Even without the Stockpile Quirk, by the time of the Sports Festival Izuku is already far more powerful than he was by that point in canon. He is also using Gearshift in far more powerful and versatile ways than merely speeding himself up.
  • Thanks to the tips Izuku gave him, Kaminari has a greater control over his Quirk, allowing him to hold Izuku off during their fight at the tournament.
  • Gearshift in canon seems to be only useful for launching small objects at an opponent and very briefly letting Izuku bypass his limits in using One For All, contrast this story where it's probably the most powerful Quirk in the hero course and second in utility to Creation.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Midoriya gets access to the Second User of One For All's Quirk to start, much earlier than its appearance in canon during the final arc of the story.
  • Eri and Chisaki first appear shortly before the first internships rather than during the second internships.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: As a consequence of the above, Midoriya does not currently have access to the Super-Strength aspect of One For All.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Midoriya ultimately decides to stop trying to become Bakugou's friend again or treat him as such.
  • Momo and Izuku quickly bond over similar intellectual interests and both being the class reps (with Izuku maintaining this position), quickly becoming close friends.
  • Recovery Girl is thrilled with the healing applications of Izuku's new power, and gives him lessons to improve its healing abilities. Due to her threats, Aizawa is also careful in his interactions with Izuku.
  • Izuku earns the respect of his classmates much faster, including for his intellectual abilities, and remains their class president. This is further heightened when he openly admits to being a late bloomer, a very late bloomer, which leaves them all very impressed he has made such progress as it is.
  • Kirishima was Bakugou's biggest friend in canon. Here, Kirishima spots a lot of red flags in the latter's behaviour and distances himself from him, and because they are sent to different spots during the USJ incident, they don't form any connection under fire to smooth over the building issues.
  • Aoyama is convinced that Izuku is also one of All For One's agents, and a significantly higher ranked one at that. Therefore, the poor mole is desperate to gain his 'superior's' good favor, and thus is working to ingratiate himself with him.
  • As Izuku's Quirk doesn't seem to resemble All Might's and Todoroki never used his fire in the Cavalry Battle, Todoroki never reveals his Dark and Troubled Past, meaning there's no connection between them.
  • Shinsou's behaviour is taken as unsportsmanlike by the Hero Course students (and General Course), and his failure to reach the third round prevents him from sharing his perspective of things. So no one in 1-A holds him in any positive regard.
  • 1-A and 1-B meet up at Momo's mansion to discuss their internship offers; with the exceptions of Bakugo, Todoroki, and Monoma. This heals any lingering issues between the classes, and brings them closer together to boot.
• Adapted Out:
  • Mineta is expelled after the Quirk Apprehension Test, since Aizawa didn't want to deal with his perverted tendencies.
  • As Ochako learns Izuku's name from the video with the notes and learns what "Deku" actually means before the first day of class, she never calls him that way.
• Always Second Best: Shouto is frustrated by constantly being one of the better students, but not the best student, due to both Momo and especially Izuku constantly outperforming him. While initially he could accept this given how he was aware the best of the best were coming to U.A., for it to continue consistently is quickly undermining his patience (particularly as he notices Izuku getting apparent preferential treatment). He actually briefly empathizes with his father's own frustrations of always failing to measure up to All Might. The crushing and outright traumatic defeat at the Sports Festival hardly helping.
• Amazon Chaser:
  • Izuku was already crushing on her, but the moment Ochako makes her intense declaration of wanting to crush the Sports Festival is when he falls in love with her.
  • Ochako is particularly intrigued by the muscular aspects of Kendo.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Upon being complimented by Iida about understanding the Entrance Exam better than him, Midoriya notes that he didn't know about the Rescue Points. He then asks Iida if he wouldn't have saved anyone unless he thought he would be rewarded for it. Iida notes Midoriya's point, and takes it as more proof that Midoriya is the better Hero student.
  • When Tetsutetsu comes to 1-A and states they were lucky to face some villains, Izuku has a retort:
    Tetsutetsu: Don’t underestimate us just because you got lucky to face some villains! Don’t you go making the rest of us look bad!
    Izuku: Oh, and if one of us died, or was seriously injured? Would that have made you look bad?
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Midoriya quickly demonstrates his talent for Quirk Analysis, and several of his 1-A classmates are eager to ask for his advice on exploring their Quirks.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Endeavor wanted to see his son use his flames for once. Shoto does use them during his fight with Izuku... and it leaves Endeavor sick in the stomach, because he saw Shoto was panicking from being trapped in ice. Izuku had even lampshaded the possibility earlier.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Izuku beats Todoroki in the Sports Festival by trapping him in ice. Kinoko, who was trapped by Todoroki in ice during their match, finds it cathartic.
• Beyond the Impossible: Izuku is shocked when he realizes the Nomu is still alive even though he was in "Park" for several minutes, which meant it was neither breathing nor was its heart beating.
• Bias Steamroller: Discussed.
  • The rest of the staff of UA immediately notice the signs that Aizawa has this for Izuku, citing that he was clearly impressed with Izuku right up until the moment All Might went to check on the boy, at which point Aizawa's feedback flipped to become intensely critical of Izuku. His coworkers set to both prevent this from affecting Izuku and reason against Aizawa's bias as best they can. Once they tell him Izuku is registered as Quirkless and they suspect what they just saw was a downplayed Traumatic Superpower Awakening due to stress, Aizawa completely changes his tune again. It helps that Recovery Girl recognizes that Izuku's Quirk gives him the potential to heal and thus may make him the first hero healer at UA in decades—and she will not let Aizawa jeopardize her chance to retire.
  • All Might, by contrast, is self-aware that he could have had this if One For All had manifested in Izuku in any way similar to how it manifested for him. He directly says he's glad it didn't, because he realizes that if One For All manifested apparently similar to his strength, he may have projected how it works for him into a bias towards how it should work for Izuku—and if it didn't work the same for Izuku, he could have made things worse.
• Blatant Lies: Shinso insists he "tried everything he could" to get into the Hero Course, but Chikuchi fires back that he didn't make friends or even exercise, both of which would have helped far more than sabotaging others.
• Break the Haughty: Downplayed. Bakugou's enrollment at UA has been a complete flip on his Big Jerk on Campus middle school experience, leaving him an average Hero Course student set apart only by his significant behavioral issues and frequently being outshone by his former victim, Izuku. Because Bakugou based so much of his ego around the validation he received when others treated him as better than Izuku, this seriously takes a toll on Bakugou's self-esteem.
• Chekhov's Gun: During Chapter 3, Izuku mentions having come up with a way to counter Todoroki's Quirk. He demonstrates it in Chapter 7 - by changing the speed of atoms and molecules in the air to increase or decrease temperature.
• Closet Key: Ochako realises she is attracted to girls in addition to guys during the Sports Festival when she finds herself fantasizing about Kendo.
• Cluster F-Bomb: All for One lets out a string of expletives when he realises whose Quirk Izuku is using.
• Combat Breakdown: Over the course of the Sports Festival tournament, several characters have their Quirks start weakening due to injury or overuse, such as Tetsutetsu no longer being able to keep up his armor and Setsuna being slower to split apart.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Midoriya and Uraraka's fight with Bakugou and Iida in the Battle Trial is hilariously one-sided. Midoriya exploits Bakugou's Leeroy Jenkins tendencies, along with using his new power, to let Uraraka capture him in less than two minutes. And that is mostly travel time, with the actual 'fight' being seconds. Facing both of them at once means Iida follows not long after. All told, the battle appears to have taken about five minutes from start to end.
  • Izuku handily wins the Obstacle Race by commandeering a Zero Pointer and throwing it so fast he clears the Fall and half of the minefield, and then rides the subsequent explosion to reach the goal, before anyone manages to cross the Fall.
  • He, along with his team of Ochako, Hatsume, and Togeike, win the Cavalry Battle by Parking a platform made by the latter high enough that few can reach up to them, and shooting down any attempts to reach them.
  • Izuku's final match of the Sports Festival is over in a heartbeat as he grabs Setsuna's hands and throws them out of bounds, instantly securing him the victory.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Downplayed as most people with healing Quirks charge massive fees for their services. Recovery Girl is the only one providing aid for free, and deeply resents the others.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Gearshift has numerous applications beyond the obvious Super-Speed, including freezing opponents in place, healing, and even killing cancer cells. However, the effects it has on a person's body if not carefully monitored start at "possibly dangerous" and quickly go to outright lethal. If Izuku overuses his Super-Speed, his body becomes starved of oxygen. If he freezes someone in place via "Park" rather than "Neutral", their heart stops beating and they can't breathe. If he doesn't make certain he only targets the cancerous cells, he'll kill healthy parts of a person. And if he heals someone too carelessly, he can actually give them cancer or simply age them to death. Against Shouto he demonstrated temperature control surpassing his opponent's own, but messed up his hands so badly in the process he was nearly disqualified from participating further. But, when used carefully, Gearshift's utility is second only to Creation.
  • This makes Izuku's progress all the more impressive to others, because he has been achieving masterful progress in only two months.
• Double Standard: Discussed as the reason why Midnight vetoes Alien Queen for Mina while approving Aoyama's Can't Stop Twinkling. Midnight says it is an unfortunate fact women are judged more harshly than men and a name with bad connotations for women hurts their career more than an equivalent name for men would hurt theirs.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • All Might notes that not knowing how Midoriya's new power works could be a blessing in disguise. He notes the hypothetical of Midoriya getting Super-Strength, but not being able to use it like All Might. All Might notes that his advice in this potential scenario might be unhelpful or even harmful. Anyone familiar with canon knows that All Might isn't too far off.
  • When Bakugo sees Izuku getting the gold medal with bandaged hands and crying, he assures himself that he would have received it with grace. In canon, he had to be tied up to a post during the ceremony because he was completely feral over Todoroki not using his fire during the final bout.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: Togeike outright tells Izuku she's helping him because being on the same team as him for the Sports Festival Cavalry Battle would improve her chances of transferring to the Hero Course. Izuku's fine with her acting in self-interest since she promised to do the best she can to help their team win.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • After Izuku admits that he "thought he was Quirkless" until the entrance exam, Aoyama comes to the conclusion that Izuku must be another spy for All For One. And since Izuku's Quirk is visibly far stronger than his own with far less drawbacks, despite the Aoyama family's wealth and influence, it means Izuku is much higher ranked.
  • Katsuki is right on the money in believing that Izuku manifesting a Quirk at all, much less one that is as strong as Gear Shift, during the Entrance Exam is suspicious, given how they would've been fifteen at the time. That said, he mistakenly believes that he was faking his Quirklessness to create a sympathetic backstory for when he became a Pro.
  • When All for One sees that Aoyama is referring to himself in plural in his reports, the former attributes it to issues with dual fluency, not knowing that Aoyama believes Izuku is also a spy.
• Evil Is Petty: Overhaul is not only evil, he's also incredibly petty. When he returns from seeing Eri being taken away by Midnight, he's so angry that, when one of the Yakuza asks him what's wrong, he answers by making it so his bladder and intestines empty in his lungs.
• Foreshadowing:
  • During the Battle Trials, Izuku mentions the ability to put objects in "Park", which leaves them completely immobile even by outside forces. During the attack on the USJ, he uses it on the Nomu which not only leaves it paralyzed but also means it can't escape through Kurogiri's portals, even when one is opened directly beneath it.
  • Even though the Third Torchbearer has a different Quirk, he keeps the same name he has in One for All and Eight for the Ninth, which the author implies is important.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • Within 1-A, Bakugo has become this to his dismay due to his abrasive personality driving his classmates away. During the second round of the Sports Festival, none of the "extras" flocked up to him to beg to join his team. And when he swallowed his pride enough to go up to other teams to demand they let him join, they refused. Izuku is later stunned to realise that his own cold attitude towards Bakugo likely contributed to it given how popular he is in comparison.
  It was like he was a pariah. Like he was Deku!
  • Todoroki's behavior when he comes in second at the Cavalry Battle leaves Ochako convinced he is another bully like Bakugo.
  • Shinso shows signs of this for the General Ed students, as he got through the first round of the Sports Festival by forcing his fellow General Ed students to literally carry him to victory, and then abandoned them to cross the finishing line. Because of this, Togeike is perfectly happy with sharing the details of his Quirk, which leads to his ultimate defeat.
• Grew a Spine: Midoriya becomes more assertive towards Bakugou, ultimately deciding to no longer consider him a friend. Granted, it is initially due to sleep deprivation, but once he gets rolling, he commits to it. Although he does have a one-sided conversation with the Vestiges to let him sleep before he ends up being like Bakugo.
• Harmful Healing: Gearshift can be used to heal much like Recovery Girl's Quirk, but if it's not properly controlled it can actually be lethal.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • When Izuku realizes that using "Park" is lethal if used on living beings, he vomits.
  • Learning about One for All's story and All for One leaves Izuku so numb that it takes two days to shake him out of it.
  • Todoroki falls in one after Izuku traps him in ice during their fight in the tournament.
• Hidden Depths: All Might has an undergraduate degree in human physiology, and Recovery Girl acknowledges his skill in training the human body.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • When Hatsume tries to do her "infomercial" thing during her fight with Awase, Awase tries to stop her by welding two of her babies with the arena ground. Instead, Mei's jetpack and stabilizers overcompensate, and she accidentally pushes Awase out of bounds.
  • Kendo manages to grab Ochako's hand with a giant one. Ochako turns it on her by using her Quirk on Kendo through that same hand.
  • Izuku manages to use Gearshift to change the temperature in the air and create either fire or ice - in short, almost the same thing as Todoroki's Quirk. And he uses this trick against Todoroki. He even uses all the moisture from Shouto's melted attacks to trap the latter in ice!
• Humiliation Conga:
  • For all his bravado and boasting, Bakugo finds himself with no friends in U.A., closer to the middle of the pack rather than solidly dominating everyone, doesn't make it past the second event at the Sports Festival, and his sole internship offer is from Death Arms, the hero who nearly let him die a year prior. Worse, he learns that Death Arms is one of the agencies for people who don't get any offers, meaning he got one of the "offers for rejects" in his words.
  • Discussed; Monoma feels Awase was dealt this during his battle with Hatsume Mei. Monoma, upset about class 1-A, was eager to see a member of class 1-B easily defeat a member of the support course. But as Awase refused to agree to Hatsume Mei's plans of cooperation, seeing it as an insulting handout, Hatsume instead uses the former as a crash dummy. After spending the entire "fight" being easily managed and played with to Hatsume's ends, Awase's one successful subversion of her will ends up knocking himself out of the ring unintentionally, making Hatsume the winner—prompting Hatsume to angrily reveal she hadn't been trying to win, which everyone hears. Awase was beaten by someone not in Heroics and not trying to win, which Monoma finds utterly humiliating.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Minor example when Izuku finds out that All Might used to be Quirkless himself, and asks All Might why he said Izuku couldn't be a Hero without a Quirk. All Might admits he had been at the end of a particularly bad day after years of bad days. Except he also acknowledges that, regardless of how everything had gone, it was wrong of him to tell Izuku that, and that he was glad to be proven wrong when he saw for himself that Izuku could be heroic without a Quirk.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Due to the premise of the fic being Izuku getting Gearshift first, the title of every chapter has something to do with driving (Coming Out of Neutral, Carpool Lane) or racing (Zooming Past the Finish Line).
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Izuku still wins the Obstacle Race by propelling himself with a massive minefield explosion, even though he didn't need to due to his massive lead over everybody else.
  • In spite of the exact events not happening to lead to it in canon, Todoroki still wins his first tournament fight by creating a large glacier, and his next fight is against Izuku.
  • While under very different circumstances, Izuku still gets Shoto to use his fire and significantly messes up his hands to do so.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex:
  • Bakugou, who rages and proclaims himself superior mostly to cover up his own deep insecurities that others, especially Izuku, are "better" than him. Izuku, after several nights of poor sleep, is even blunt enough to describe Bakugou as "terrified of the possibility that he peaked in middle school so he’s overcompensating." After losing in the second round of the Sports Festival, it's shown that Bakugou's battling with internal thoughts of worthlessness and this fear is agitated by his classmates not wanting to work with him, which he describes as treating him "like he was a Pariah. Like he was Deku!"
  • Monoma is obsessed with proving 1-B's greatness and labeling 1-A as glory hounds because he secretly fears 1-B is a "runner-up" class.
• Insane Troll Logic: Bakugo comes to the conclusion that Izuku spent years pretending to be Quirkless, causing him to be bullied, for the sole purpose of giving himself the perfect origin story to be the next Number 1 Hero. There is absolutely nothing to support such a theory.
• Ironic Echo: When Bakugo demands to know how Izuku got a Quirk, he fires back that he got it by "taking a swan dive."
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Shinsou screwing over Togeike's friends during the Obstacle Course prompts her to share intel on his Quirk to Izuku, who passes it on to Setsuna. Knowing he screwed over one of her classmates too, Setsuna is inspired to take Shinsou's team's headbands at the last possible moment to deny Shinsou advancement.
  • Called out by Komori Kinoko regarding Shouto. Shouto freezes in ice in their match during the Sports Festival. Shouto's signature tactic inspires Izuku to try something similar against him. When Izuku returns the favor to Shouto by burying him in ice in their following match, Endeavor can hear Kumori stand up and yell "YES! SEE?! THAT’S WHAT IT FEELS LIKE!”
• Loophole Abuse: Izuku can have problems if he uses Gearshift on himself for too long. Nothing keeps him from using it on something else and then ride that.
• Love Epiphany: Ochako realises she is in love with Izuku during the Sports Festival.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Second and Third Torchbearers get names like the ones they have in One for All and Eight for the Ninth - the only difference is that the Second's first name is Soujirou (銃赦), with 銃 = "gun" and 赦 = "forgiveness", with "jirou" being a homophone for "second son".
  • Izuku's choice for Hero name is Kyūshin (急進), meaning "rapid progress", and also inserting a pun related to the number nine.
• Mirror Match: Izuku's match against Todoroki involves the former using a jury-rigged version of the latter's quirk by speeding up or slowing down the vibration of air molecules around him.
• Mythology Gag:
  • During the Sports Festival, one of the tournament fights is between a boy and a girl, with the boy being stronger, and going on for long enough that one of the spectators complains that the boy is toying with the girl, only for the latter to almost win with an unexpected move. Only, instead of Bakugo and Ochako, here it's Tetsutetsu and Togeike.
  • Izuku still messes up his hands in his fight with Todoroki.
  • Ochako uses her Quirk on the ring's stone floor to send it into the air before dropping it on Tokage, similar to what she did against Bakugo in her canon match.
• Nerd Gasm: Mei's reaction when (a) Izuku develops a plan that contains her firing a railgun, and (b) when she learns what Momo's Quirk does.
• No-Sell:
  • During the USJ attack, Izuku puts the Nomu in Park, which does stop it in place. He was expecting the Nomu to die as a consequence of leaving it like that for so long. However, once Park is undone, the Nomu shows no signs of having been harmed at all.
  • Monoma tricks Izuku into shaking hands so he can try to copy his Quirk. He gets a blank.
  • Yanagi tries to throw dirt into Iida's face - which fails to do anything thanks to his glasses.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When Shiozaki complains about Mei's attitude during the tournament (treating it as a platform to show off her skills), Izuku points out that it's the same thing they are trying to do as Hero students.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Izuku realizes the USJ Nomu is completely unharmed after he undoes Park, he quickly tells Tsukauchi to make sure it can't see him because its last order was to kill him and it might still attempt to follow through.
  • Setsuna realizes she's in trouble when Ochako releases her Quirk, which she had been using to fling parts of the arena at her, meaning all that rubble was going to come crashing down.
• Out-of-Character Alert: When Togeike starts to tell Izuku about Shinso's Quirk, Izuku already knows that it's some kind of mind control - because there's no way Bakugo would be willing to not just team up with Shinso, but actually be one of the back horses. He does rely upon her telling him about the mechanics of it.
• Phrase Catcher: When Nezu starts his catchphrase, Izuku completes it for him.
• Psychological Projection: Bakugo tells himself that Izuku has been planning out his "backstory" to make himself look better because that's what he himself is doing.
• A Rare Sentence: Tsuyu's thoughts on Shigaraki during the USJ attack.
  Which was when the Villain placed his father’s severed hand back on his forehead (And that was a sentence she never expected to conjure up).
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Izuku realizes the reason Bakugo's angry is that he believes Izuku hid his Quirk for a decade just for a cheap prank, he acknowledges Bakugo's not worth the effort and lets him have it with both barrels.
• Reconstruction: Shinsou using his Quirk on others between rounds in canon without punishment is given an explanation here. For General Course students wishing to transfer, U.A. lets them do that sort of thing, considering it a sign of creativity, and Shinsou confirmed beforehand hand whether he could do that.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Aoyama concludes that Izuku was actually Quirkless before the entrance exam rather than merely believing himself to be so, which is completely accurate. But his logic is based off the idea that Izuku must be a spy for All For One who was given a Quirk, much like himself.
• Scare 'Em Straight: After Shinso uses his Quirk on Chikuchi, Nezu "puts the fear of god (read: himself)" into the boy, such that he apologizes to his classmates that he sabotaged in the Sports Festival.
• Shout-Out:
  • Izuku's plan during the Cavalry Battle involves creating a platform via Togeike's Quirk, floating it with Uraraka's, then freezing it in midair with Park. Or as Present Mic puts it:
  Team Midoriya is just floating there! Menacingly!
  • Togeike Chikuchi's Quirk is inspired by Haigha.
• Sore Loser: Shinso does not take his loss at the end of the second round of the Sports Festival well at all. He storms out of the arena while still leaving his teammates under mind control. Granted, this saves him from Bakugo assaulting him in retaliation. After the Sports Festival, he gets into an argument with Chikuchi due to her getting into the Hero Course while he didn't.
• Stunned Silence:
  • Bakugou, when he witnesses Izuku's Quirk during the Quirk Assessment Test, and again after Izuku easily beats him during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise.
  • Shigaraki's reaction when he sees that "Park" prevents the Nomu from even falling down a portal. Jaw Drop included.
• Sucky School: Invoked by Bakugou. He intentionally picked Aldera Middle School because it was a below average school in order to build up a backstory that makes him look like an underdog for his supposed rise to Number 1 Hero. He assumes Izuku was doing this too, with the added "bonus" of doing all that and being Quirkless too, to make an even better backstory.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Bakugo shivers after Todoroki uses his glacier move for the first time, his narration states he's only shivering because of the cold, and no other reason.
• Swapped Roles: It occurs to Izuku after the Sports Festival that he and Bakugou have done this. At Aldera, Izuku was a social outcast with a nickname that roughly meant "useless" and Bakugou was a popular Jerk Jock widely supported by students and staff who seemed to have everything going for him. At UA, Izuku realizes he's actually popular; everyone in class sans Bakugou likes him, the staff support him, and he has many friends. Meanwhile, Bakugou, since he never actually had to work at being liked or praised before, doesn't change how he interacts with people in accordance with his new environment and winds up a "loner" due to his unpleasant behavior. This reverse of fortune seriously messes with Bakugou's insecurities, as his unquestioned acceptance at Aldera where Izuku was alienated is implied to have been a major reinforcement for his belief that he had worth and Izuku didn't; without that acceptance, Bakugou begins questioning whether he's worthless.
• Switching P.O.V.: This story constantly switches the P.O.V. character when describing events, to the point that there tends to be at least 3 different P.O.V.s per chapter. As Izuku is the main character, his P.O.V. is shown the most often, but Bakugou, Ochako, Iida, Momo, and All Might are also fairly common.
• Taught by Experience: In the Obstacle Race, all of 1-A knows that Todoroki will try to use his ice to block the others from advancing, so they quickly act to avoid it.
• The Tease: When Setsuna flirts with Izuku and Ochako tells her to cut it out, Setsuna starts to flirt with her.
• This Cannot Be!: Bakugo is shocked when he realizes that "Deku's creepy stalker notes" (a.k.a. Izuku's Quirk analysis diaries) actually helped Kaminari use his Quirk better.
• Trauma Button: Shoto visibly panics when Izuku manages to encase him in ice during their match at the Sports Festival, something Endeavor spots as the boy starts flinging both sides of his quirk around at random.
• Vetinari Job Security: Recovery Girl makes it crystal clear to Aizawa that Izuku is not to be expelled, because she is not giving up on the chance to have at last a fellow healing hero around. Including strongly implying that, if anything happens to Izuku that can be blamed on Aizawa, then for his own good he better never come to her for healing ever again.
• Villain Team-Up: Overhaul decides to team up with the League of Villains after Izuku and Ochako rescue Eri.
• Villainous Breakdown: All for One has one when he realises Izuku is using the Second's Quirk.
• What If?: Izuku getting the Second One for All User's Quirk instead of the strength enhancement Quirk leads to some changes.
  • Izuku gets first place at the Entrance Exam due to using his new power to stop objects, destroy robots, protect others, and even heal injuries. This nets him a sizeable number of Villain Points in addition to his canon 60 Rescue points.
  • Second, the Vestige, is furious at Izuku having his Quirk, and keeps trying to angrily communicate with Izuku in his sleep. This means Izuku keeps going to school with less sleep than he is used to, meaning his patience is shorter, as is his control over his verbal filter. While Izuku later talks Second down so he can get some sleep, it still leaves an impact.
  • Izuku gets first place at the Quirk Apprehension Test due to working on mastering his new power in the few weeks before U.A. starts.
  • Because Izuku wins the fight between him and Bakugo during the battle trial so quickly, Bakugo doesn’t get a chance to fire off his gauntlets, leaving everyone clueless to how destructive they are.
  • Izuku gets five votes instead of his canon three while Momo gets three instead of two, as Kaminari, Kirishima, and Aoyama voted for Izuku while Izuku voted for Momo.
  • Izuku's improved confidence means that he keeps the title of Class President instead of giving it to Iida.
  • Due to the red flags he keeps seeing with Bakugo's behaviour, as well as realizing that his usual Leeroy Jenkins tendencies don't always work, Kirishima doesn't join him in attacking Kurogiri, so he ends up in the Ruins Zone with Ojiro.
  • While Kaminari, Jiro, and Yaoyorozu still end up in the Mountain Zone, instead of knocking out the villains with Kaminari's Indiscriminate Shock, it's Jiro who does it with an absurdly loud Brown Note which also affects the guy that had buried himself (incidentally saving Kaminari from being taken hostage).
  • Izuku using "Park" on the Nomu means All Might doesn't have to fight him, which leads to Shigaraki and Kurogiri running away the moment the Number One Hero arrives.
  • Nezu points out to Izuku that, given that he's using a previous Torchbearer's Quirk, there is a high probability he will also eventually be able to use the other One for All's wielders' Quirks.
  • Due to the different dynamics within Class 1-A, some of the Cavalry Battle teams are different. The most notable example being no one wanting to team up with Bakugo, who ends up a (brainwashed) member of Shinso's team.
  • As there is one less Hero student due to Mineta's expulsion, Togeike Chikuchi picks up the 42nd slot for the Cavalry Battle, joining Izuku's team.
  • Because Izuku and his team stay in the air during the entire Cavalry Battle thanks to Park, Todoroki never uses his fire against Izuku. Izuku's Quirk is also sufficiently different from All Might that there are no indications of a familial connection between them. Both of these together means that he never reveals his tragic past to Izuku.
  • Setsuna steals all of Shinso's team's headbands in the last second, which prevents him, Bakugo, and Aoyama from moving on to the final event. Others that are also left out are Kirishima, Ashido, Sero, and Tokoyami. They are replaced by Togeike, Komori, Awase, Yanagi, Kendo, Tokage, and Honenuki.
  • Izuku's first fight is with Kaminari instead of Shinso, while Todoroki fights Komori.
  • Izuku wins the fight against Todoroki, while also traumatizing the latter.
  • Izuku wins the Sports Festival after defeating Shiozaki in the semi-finals and Tokage (who defeated Ochako) in the final match.
  • Togeike Chikuchi is elected to fill 1-A's empty seat.
  • The internships see a lot of changes.
    • Izuku gets more than three thousand offers, among them Endeavor (which Izuku eventually picks) and Sir Nighteye. Bakugo, meanwhile, gets only one from Death Arms.
    • Most of the first years (save for Bakugo, Todoroki, and Monoma) meet at Yaoyorozu's home to work together on their most fitting picks. Due to this, Yaoyorozu chooses Mr. Brave to become a better combatant, and Kendo picks Gunhead.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Izuku calls out Tetsutetsu for his words about 1-A being lucky to be attacked by villains, which the other student bitterly regrets once he stops to think about it, and quickly apologizes for.
  • Izuku gives a mild one to the Second User (even though they have yet to fully meet) to call him out for making it harder for him by interrupting his sleep with his screams. Especially as the sheer impact was making Izuku act increasingly like Bakugo. The Second User acknowledges his point, and lets him have a peaceful rest.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Izuku is so prepared for Ochako to reject his date offer that he acts on that assumption for half-a-sentence until it sinks in she accepted.
• Worf Had the Flu: Momo could have won her match in the Sports Festival, but the only ways she could think of would have been viewed as too unsportsmanlike for, well, the Sports Festival, especially in front of an audience. So, beating Shiozaki with means like fire, chemical pesticide, chainsaws, etc., were out, leaving her to rely upon more difficult measures. Despite this, Shiozaki still praised Momo for her performance later.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Upon finding out that his offer came from Death Arms, the hero who a year ago nearly let him die at the hands of the Sludge Villain, who was one of forty picks for those who got no offers, Bakugou ended up with massive cognitive dissonance for the rest of the day. He mentally notes that getting nothing would've been better, because he would've had the option to at least pick his choice.

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