It has been a decade since the war between All Might and All For One reached its' fateful conclusion, and unfortunately there were not a lot of pieces left to pick up in the aftermath. Japan is now ruled with an iron fist by the former Hero Public Safety Commission, and former hero trainee turned supervillain Izuku Midoriya has had enough. As such, he decides to gather a number of his fellow ghosts from the past for one final performance before they exit the stage.
Exiting the Stage
is a My Hero Academia fanfiction created by Mirrond. It is the fourth part of the Curious cases of family bonds or lack thereof series. It can also be read on Fanfiction.net here
For other works by this author, see Cure to Evil and Ties that Bind (MHA).
This fanfic contains examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: For many of the core characters, who have been portrayed as heroes or at worst morally-gray vigilantes in Mirrond's other works, this trope is endemic due to how badly things went wrong.
- Midoriya was raised as All For One's son alongside Hana, Tenko, Aiko and Asa, was kicked out of the UA hero course by the HPSC for PR purposes after All Might's death, and was Re-Destro's anointed successor before Deika city was destroyed. He ends up starting the second Paranormal Liberation War, however, because the HPSC made the mistake of kidnapping Eri to train her into a child soldier.
- Ochako, thanks to her Noumufication and unwilling devotion to Midoriya, is one of the League's core members in both strength and loyalty, as she literally cannot betray the cause.
- Asui left the UA hero course at some point - whether by choice or by force is as-yet unknown - and eventually became a top ranking member of the Inhuman Supremacy Party after her family was murdered in an anti-mutant pogrom. She is now labeled as a war criminal due to her order to burn down an entire city ward, inflicting mass civilian casualties.
- Todoroki was framed for Endeavor's death (actually the work of Dabi and Geten), and the HPSC attempted to arrest him. His use of lethal self-defense drove him off the deep end, and he eventually became a hero-hating mass murderer.
- Yaoyorozu has gone from a hero trainee to a mafioso, drug kingpin and black market arms dealer over the years. Her right-hand woman is Jiro, who eventually became a serial killer after accidentally causing Kaminari's death at the USJ and getting her vocal cords destroyed by Magne during the Training Camp Massacre.
- Tokoyami is now more Quirk than human and a mildly bloodthirsty templar of Aiko's Ascending Path cult. One of their compatriots is Ragdoll, who is also more Quirk than human and equally willing to make the HPSC suffer.
- Hatsume has become a successful support manufacturer who also happens to supply rebel groups with black market weaponry via Yaoyorozu's criminal empire thanks to a vendetta against the HPSC over Power Loader's fate. She also typically spends her free time on drugs.
- The New Vigilante Alliance (which targets heroes more than anyone else) is now run by Ryukyu and Gang Orca; it is composed of the leftovers of previous hero/vigilante rebellions led first by Eraserhead and Miss Joke, then by Miruko and Knuckleduster. Their strongest members are the SS-rank supervillains known as the "Four Natural Disasters" - Inasa Yoarashi/Tornado, Ryuko Tsuchikawa/Landslide, Moe Kamiji/Firestorm, and Yo Shindo/Earthquake; other members include Camie Utsushimi and Ayako Nakahara/Spyglass.
- Shihai Kuroiro is an underground info dealer who happens to be sleeping with his A-rank hero agency spy, Kinoko Komori.
- Chapter 17 introduces us to two more ex-hero student operatives in Midoriya's debt - Ibara Shiozaki/Eden and Seiji Shishikura/Shishikross.
- Manga Fukidashi, Selkie, Sirius and the rest of the Oda Mariner crew turn out to be a part of the Midoriya's Support Network, making them villains (although mostly according to the legal definition of villainy.
- Ambiguously Human:
- Tokoyami and Ragdoll have both become more Quirk than human as a result of something Aiko is implied to have done to them. Quite frankly, Aiko herself is questionable as well.
- Ochako also counts, having been converted into a Noumu bodyguard/lover who literally cannot say no to Midoriya by All For One as a demented sort of birthday present. Hagakure was also converted into a Noumu, in her case specialized in tracking and assassination. Her death apparently "prolonged the existence of hero society by a good few years", implying that she was a particularly deadly and efficient assassin.
- Arguably, Backup-made copies of previously dead members of the League of Villains count among that category.
- Back from the Dead: Overhaul comes back from the dead in Chapter 63.
- Believing Their Own Lies: The Prime Minister believes that Re-Destro was a Quirk Supremacist, and isn't convinced he would mentor the supposedly-Quirkless Izuku. Saiko mentally recalls that claim was state-made propaganda to discredit Re-Destro.
- Combat Pragmatist: Multiple examples.
- During the Revival Ceremony's USJ attack portion, the PLF's attack includes a squadron of well-trained Quirkless Liberation Front marksmen who are heavily armed and given explicit orders to kill.
- Midoriya almost perfectly calculates when the HPSC's Fast Response Unit will warp into the USJ. They arrive just in time to be erased from existence by the combined firepower of Aiko and Todoroki.
- Mieko/Eclipse demonstrates herself to be one of these during the Tartarus break-in portion of the Revival Ceremony, using her Quirk in a narrow space to effortlessly chop dozens of wardens into bloody chunks. This is in stark contrast to Rini/Lady Murder, who flirts with death as much as possible during her two-on-one fight against S-rank heroes Briareos and Gyges during the same attack.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- The Fast Response Unit is a victim of one of these after warping into the USJ. They have just enough time to express their shock before Aiko and Todoroki vaporize all but one of them, who is then efficiently killed by Mika/Quicksilver almost immediately after.
- They are implied to have given one in their debut mission against the Table of Rejects, when this group led by Miruko and Knuckleduster was wiped out singlehandedly by the FRU.
- Invincible delivers rather epic one after his arrival at the battlefield during the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward, killing Firestorm, Tornado and Curator, while heavily injuring Frostfire and knocking out Quicksilver and Miruko [so, six supervillains eliminated in total] in thirty-seven seconds.
- Darker and Edgier: Being set in an alternate future Japan where All For One raised Midoriya as his son due to the boy possessing an invisible Quirk, leading to a chain of events that eventually snowballed into the nation becoming a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by the remains of the Hero Public Safety Commission and where much of the canon cast is dead or have become villains, including all of Class 1-A, expect a very different atmosphere from canon MHA. Mirrond described it as "bordering on grimdark".
- Death by Adaptation: Much of the canon cast, actually.
- Class 1-A, also called the "Cursed Class", saw eleven of its twenty members die as heroes, and two more live long enough to die as villains. The remaining seven members are reunited under the League of Villains banner as part of this fic's first act.
- Kaminari and Mineta both perished during the first USJ Incident as a result of Hana/Entropy's paranoia and overall bloodthirstiness, together with Thirteen.
- Ojirou, Koda, Satou, Shoji, and Sero were all killed at the Training Camp. Aoyama later killed himself out of guilt.
- Iida ran off to help the Hero Killer, and died killing a corrupt hero.
- Ashido and Kirishima were assassinated after graduating.
- Bakugou is later confirmed to have died after being one of the few heroes that responded to the call from help from a quirkless ghetto, holding ground long enough to preventing the pogrom from happening.
- Hagakure died after being turned into a nomu.
- All Might, All For One, Re-Destro, Geten, Dabi, Endeavor, Best Jeanist and Edgeshot are all confirmed to be dead. The status of other figures who fought in the first war or attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the HPSC such as Eraserhead and Miss Joke are unknown, but they too are presumed dead.
- Hana Shimura/Entropy is a zigzagged version of this trope - she survived her would-be death in canon, but died when her and Overhaul's attempt at overthrowing the HPSC failed. She later revived in Nejire's body, causing Death of Personality in the latter.
- Tamaki Amajiki, Crust and Fat Gum are confirmed dead during the Battle of Haiboro Woods, Suneater and Crust dying to Entropy's wide-area rapid-aging quirk while Fat Gum achieves mutual kill with Muscular.
- Out of the UA faculty Nedzu is presumed to have been asssassinated by the HPSC, Thirteen is killed during the USJ attack by Kurogiri, Midnight and Cementoss die during the failed attack on Doctor Garaki's stronghold in Jaku General Hospital, Vlad King died during the Summer Camp Massacre buying time for his students to flee to safety, while Present Mic, Eraserhead, Power Loader and Recovery Girl survive the First Paranormal Liberation War only to die as a result of failed attempt to overthrow the HPSC once it took over the government.
- In a flashback, Shinso is shown to have committed seppuku after killing Nightshade and Red Wing and crippling Thunderbolt for life. His motive for this? The former two's murder of Himiko Toga while the latter sat by and watched.
- Tokoyami and Jiro are killed in Marukane Ward.
- Class 1-A, also called the "Cursed Class", saw eleven of its twenty members die as heroes, and two more live long enough to die as villains. The remaining seven members are reunited under the League of Villains banner as part of this fic's first act.
- Defector from Decadence: After the disaster at Marukane Ward, various Heroes and local governments rise in rebellion against the main government in Tokyo, led by Mirio and Intelli.
- Didn't See That Coming: No one expected Star and Stripe to show up at Marukane Ward.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Overhaul, Re-Destro, and most of the original PLF's higher-ups: during the first Paranormal Liberation War they would have rather lost the war than deploying Armageddon and wiping out all of Japan with a Zombie Apocalypse, their death and the realization he would fail to keep Entropy from unleashing it is what pushed Midoriya to betray the organization and have it destroyed before Armageddon could be unleashed.
- According to Intelli, the Prime Minister, while a fascistic dictator, sees herself as doing what is necessary for the good of Japan, and would have never unleashed a Zombie Apocalypse on Shikoku as a False Flag Attack to have the people go to the government for protection. The same can be said about the New Vigilante Alliance... Leading to Intelli realizing there's a fourth player because nobody she knows of would do it even if they could.
- Fantastic Racism: Rai/Mastermind is a legitimately unhinged example of this towards mutant Quirk holders to the point where he loops back around to being slightly less racist towards the complex mutant subset, in a way that has truly to be read to understand.
- For Want Of A Nail: This fic is essentially just Ties that Bind (MHA), except for the tiny detail of Midoriya being born with a Quirk that All For One finds both fascinating and too hazardous to steal. This causes him to radically change his plans, leading to Hana/Entropy conducting a much more successful USJ attack that leaves several students injured or dead, and from there it all goes downhill.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- In case of either supervillains such as All for One or Overhaul, armies of villains (or rebellious Heroes), or similar existential threats to Japan, the HPSC will deploy the Sword of Damocles, whose third stage is a nuclear strike. That said, the first and second stage are normally enough: the first stage is composed of high-powered, high-precision missiles aimed directly at single persons to kill them as swiftly as they can with relatively small collateral damage, and the second is the same missiles plus pre-emplaced explosive charges targeted at key infrastructure to slow down the advance of the enemy army and give the Heroes, the JSDF and the first stage the time to destroy the opposing force, with the third stage being used exactly once against the fortress of Deika City during the First Paranormal Liberation War.
- Armageddon's appearance in Shikoku is enough for them to consider deployment, as it's a Zombie Apocalypse. As it is, they activate the first and second stage to slow it down while they evacuate the population through the bridges to Honshu and ferries, with all ferries having to make periodic calls to confirm they're not under zombie control and being immediately sunk otherwise. Intelli's realization that Armageddon has infected a Warp Quirk user and thus destroying the bridges between Shikoku and Honshu won't work for long prompts her to recommend its immediate deployment.
- Grand Theft Me: Entropy pulled it on Nejire Hado after her death, and unleashed Armageddon just to tell the new PLF she's back in the game.
- Internal Reveal: During the Third Battle of Marukane Ward, the Hero Blindside walks on the fight between Uraraka and Entropy and discovers that she has has taken over Nejire's mind. Uraraka promptly fills him in on the rest and lets him go, as it's in everyone's interest for the government to find out.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Aiko helped All for One creating Armageddon. In her defense, she was a child at the time and didn't know better.
- Nuke 'em: The Sword of Damocles' third stage: while the first is just precision missile strikes against important villains and villain armies and the second blowing up infrastructure to slow them down, the third is a literal volley of nukes, that the HPSC deployed against Deika during the First Paranormal Liberation War.
- Nuclear Option: That said, the third stage is exactly what is appropriate against Armageddon now that someone retrieved and deployed him, especially once it's realized that one of the zombies has a Warp Quirk and thus the horde can't be confined to Shikoku.
- Out-Gambitted: Eri manages to pull one over on Monoma. As he doesn't know her Quirk can rewind brains, she waits until he wipes her and the Shimano siblings' memories of his Quirk's strength, then rewinds Mahoro's mind to before the wipe so she can explain what she forgot.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Expect a lot of those, due to the world approaching the Quirk Singularity. The first stage of it includes people being grown with quirks too strong for the society to handle them, meaning villains with capacity for mass destruction too large for the heroes to have a shot on stopping them before they cause horrific destruction. Examples shown thus far include:
- Shoto Todoroki, whose quirk grants him enough firepower to instantly vaporize half of the Fast Response Unit during the USJ, and is repeatedly used in a combination with Cloud's warpgates to destroy hero agencies, army garrisons, courthouses, support engineering factories etc. with relative impunity.
- Momo Yaoyorozu, whose quirk has thus far proven capable of mass-producing chemical weaponry, including Humarise trigger-gas (used to devastating effect during the Revival Celebration and the follow-up attack on the Shiketsu High) and then the paralytic agent used to wiped out the Western Army Headquarters.
- Soma Michiko (Hypothermia), is perhaps the most extreme case, her meta-ability reaching the Second Stage Singularity. She showcases it during the conclusion of the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward when she freezes clouds above the battlefield, performing Colony Drop on the heroes deployed to the battle, killing hundreds of people and devastating entire city.
- Four Natural Disasters, as showcased by their joint raid against the Government forces preceding the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward. It includes firestorm carrying properties of burning white phosphorus, landslide wiping out a major hero base, a literal tornado and a weaponize earthquake.
- Armageddon, previously Romero Fujimi, one of the few artificial variants of that created through quirk-synergy by All for One before his death. Its deployments leads to majority of Shikoku population (counted in millions) dying in several hours.
- Jaku Exclusion Zone Monster, aka Cognitovore is possibly the most terrifying example. It was created by All for One and Doctor Garaki as a walking cognitohazard killing those who perceive it existence. Unawarely to them, it developed a capability of kill people who saw it on tape, meaning that a well-timed exposure of Cognitovore to the TV camera can potentially kill billions of people.
- Physical God: Invincible's pretty damn close to this status thanks to his quirk combination granting him complete and near-complete resistance to majority of forms of attack. He is explicitly stated to be capable of leaving Earth's orbit without suffering any ill-effects from exposure to the vacuum of space, and his general skillset resembles that of Superman.
- Pragmatic Villain: The Prime Minister, formerly the president of the HPSC, doesn't initially want to deploy the third stage of the Sword of Damocles not out of humanitarian reasons or basic human decency but because she fears the PLF will use her ordering a nuclear strike as part of their propaganda, especially as they have no idea yet of what's happening and that nuking the entire island IS the appropriate response. She's also one of the few people taking the Quirk Singularity seriously (even if her method of dealing with it leave much to be desired).
- Properly Paranoid: There's nothing of value in Shikoku, so the island had been long neglected in its defense needs, defended by a single brigade... Up until the new regime decided to rebuild the brigade in a full combined arms division (with expanded personnel) and add an engineering brigade, purely because the original Meta Liberation Army had been able to conquer the island in their insurrection. The larger and better equipped force actually manages to slow down Armageddon's advance, buying times for hundreds of thousands of civilians to reach safety.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Pretty much Midoriya's entire role in the USJ attack is giving one of these to Thunderbolt, aside from formulating strategies to annihilate as many of the HPSC's tactical advantages as possible in the most gratuitously brutal way possible.
- Saiko Intelli gives one over the phone to the Prime Minister before resigning/defecting. Specifically, she calls the madwoman out on her treatment of Izuku (who wasn't Quirkless and was All Might's son) and her hypocrisy over the Quirkless and people having villainous relatives (she's related to Eclipse and was a late-bloomer bullied for Quirklessness).
- Related in the Adaptation: All For One raises Midoriya as his son alongside Tenko Shimura/Decay, Hana Shimura/Entropy, Aiko/Apocrypha, and Asa/Rabbit because he is born with an invisible and fascinating Quirk that AFO finds too hazardous to steal.
- Spanner in the Works: Star and Stripes arriving in the middle of the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward completely ruined the PLF plan to deal with Invincible. While Apocrypha (their best and only chance at killing Invincible) managed to kill Star, she's mortally wounded in the process.
- Spotting the Thread: After the Death of Shikoku Intelli deduces the existence of an unknown element, as neither Midoriya nor the New Vigilante Alliance or the Prime Minister would do it.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The different factions of the revived Paranormal Liberation Front have different, sometimes outright opposing ideologies (particularly the Creature Rejection Clan and Inhuman Supremacy Party). They are united, however, in their desire to finally bring down the dictatorship ruling Japan, even if it ends up being the last thing they do.
- Villain Team-Up: The Paranormal Liberation Front is an alliance of different villain factions and groups united by their hatred of the HPSC dictatorship.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Courtesy of All for One, there's one ready to start: he had Romero Fujimi turned into Armageddon, a Noumu capable of unleashing one. And Entropy in Nejire Hado's body went and unleashed it years after Midoriya thought he had sealed it away for good.
