Fanfic / Only Embers Remains

Izuku: O-okay. I d-didn't expect to be i-isekai'd on my first day of school, y-you know?
Yoichi: If it makes you feel better, Ninth, you were isekai'd together with a man who has a lot of practical experience in leading people to slay a demon lord.

Only Embers Remain by Mirrond is a Point of Divergence fanfic of My Hero Academia.

It was his first day of UA, and Izuku was excited to be attending his dream school to achieve his dream of being a hero. And then everything went sideways when he finds himself Trapped in Another World. Thankfully, or not, depending on how you look at it, he is not the only one transported. Yoichi, the first user of One for All, is there to help him every step of the way, alongside every other person transported into the other world.

Contains Examples Of:

• Accidental Discovery: The party discovers Yoichi can heal chaosflame corruption completely by accident when they revive Arshka expecting a rampaging monstrosity and get a more or less normal human knight.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Yoichi's vestige appears in the first chapter on what was supposed to be Izuku's first day of UA instead of during the Joint Training Arc.
• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed with Toga. Following her transport into the other world, she recovers from her madness and stops being a villain. Her morality however doesn't shift all the way to good, instead being neutral between good and evil.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • In canon, Himiko was a villain who was enemies with Izuku and his friends. Here, she's an ally because her canon insanity is reversed.
  • In a similar vein, Mustard becomes an ally of the Hero Students because Tsu saved him.
• Adaptation Species Change: Several characters are changed from their original species in the canon of My Hero Academia upon getting isekai'd:
  • Himiko becomes a fox-morph beastkin.
  • Dark Shadow is transformed from a sentient Quirk into a bonded demon to her host, while her host Tokoyami is turned into a bird-based race, presumably because he already had a bird-head.
  • Ibara becomes a hamadryad.
  • Nana Shimura's spirit becomes an angel.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Upon getting transported, the various My Hero Academia characters' Quirks are translated as much as possible into the local power system and gain access to new powers with proficiency in abilities that are thematically linked to their original Quirks. Ochako for example gets her Zero Gravity Quirk directly translated into the spell called Zero Gravity while also gaining two other gravity-based spells called Gravity Pull and Gravity Push.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Some elven sub-races are so bad they are killed on sight by everybody else, even other elves. Mountain elves for example worship dragons and feed soul crystals to them. Soul crystals they get by murdering foreign Vessels, and with plenty of collateral damage to non-Vessels along the way. Their Warlord also wears the skin of his enemies, and "enemies" include innocent civilians. This is why Arshka sheds no tears over finding the corpse of a Mountain Elf that was clearly tortured while they were alive.
• And I Must Scream: For fifteen minutes, Mustard was drowning and fully aware the entire time before Tsuyu saved him.
• Anti-Grinding: A Vessel can't just level up from any soul crystal. The best returns come only from those around their level. A weaker soul crystal just does not provide that much to a stronger soul crystal, which discourages farming them, and a stronger soul crystal could overtake a weaker one, which discourages power-levelling.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In a world of magic and where demons are clearly a thing that exists, Tsuyu is rather skeptical of religious explanations for anything, which Tokoyami is quick to call her out for.
• Berserk Button: Mustard explodes in rage when Ochako asks if he named himself after the condiment, when it's meant to be the gas, and then if there was no better nickname.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Izuku's plan to defeat Arshka is to trick her into falling on spikes in her territory. Yoichi praises him for this since Yoichi was stuck in the mentality that the world completely conforms to souls-like game conventions, including being unable to use the battlefield itself against the boss.
• Brick Joke: In Chapter 13, the description for Arshka's soul crystal says that her previous acquaintances would claim that the chaosflame only warped her body because her mind was already filled with rage. That description gets its payoff in the very next chapter when the revived, healed from chaosflame corruption Arshka inflicts overwhelming violence against the Dark Elves.
• Broken Pedestal: With persistent effort from Yoichi and Ochako, and with unintentional help from Arshka, Izuku's admiration of Bakugou is broken since with an actual friend and a proper Jerk with a Heart of Gold, he realises Bakugou has not been his friend in years and will make for a terrible hero.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Yoichi is an excellent adviser to Izuku, both in general and specifically for the whole isekai'd situation, too bad his idiosyncrasies constantly result in Izuku wanting to strangle him.
• Cannon Fodder: Combat generally comes down to the Vessels, with non-Vessels being at best used to wear down Vessels for other Vessels to kill them with minimal risk of loss of allied Vessels.
• Crazy-Prepared: When he was alive, Yoichi feared ever suffering the fate of being isekai'd, and thus took measures to study as many different things in a wide variety of subjects. When he and everybody else on Earth does end up isekai'd, that preparation pays off.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Yoichi revives Arshka to fight the Dark Elves, she rampages gloriously, beating boss-level enemies as soon as the Boss HP Bar appears, and every rank-and-file Dark Elf soldier are simply crushed.
• Death Is Cheap: Downplayed. For a Vessel, dying isn't irreversible, but, the Vessels are dependent on their allies to revive them at an Altar of Egress to come back from death. Otherwise, they are either stuck in limbo, or absorbed by a non-allied Vessel to become stronger, rendering their death permanent. That said, knowing Vessels can be revived means some otherwise reckless or wasteful tactics such as sacrificing your allies like Arstovhia did is not as stupid as it could be, so long as an enemy Vessel doesn't get their soul crystals first as Arstovhia found out.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Ochako gives Arstovhia, Witch of Hellfire a middle finger after she succeeds in stealing the soul crystals of her fallen allies.
• Disaster Dominoes: During one training session, Ochako gets Izuku in the face with a spell, which causes him to stumble into an arrow trap, which then causes him to stumble into a bear trap.
• Does Not Know How to Say "Thanks": After confirming that Izuku's soulflame healed her own soulflame's corruption, Arshka tries to say thank you but botches it and Astaus has to explain what she is trying to do to Izuku.
• Easy Logistics: When Ochako realises she and Izuku aren't thirsty or hungry when they should be, the group theorises they don't strictly need food and water, which if true, means keeping themselves from dying of thirst or hunger is a non-issue.
• Enemy Mine: Mustard hates heroes, but is willing to work with the U.A. students because Tsuyu saved him.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: Yoichi and Izuku realise that the archdemons protecting weaker demons from stronger ones is not done out of altruism, but long term selfishness. The soul crystals of weaker demons don't let them get more powerful from devouring them, but if they wait until the weaker demons power up, they can help them get stronger, either from servitude or from being devoured.
• Fantastic Caste System: In the former Divine Empire, aristocratic status is determined by the presence of a soulflame. If they are a citizen and have a soulflame, they are a Vessel and automatically have noble status at minimum. This is the case even if a Vessel is born to commoner parents.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Arshka warns Tokoyami that demon contractors with prices that aren't that bad were at best tolerated. They are not very popular even in the best of circumstances and the current apocalypse the world is going through does not improve the situation.
  • Elves are split into several sub-races, and there is a lot of intra-elven bigotry and bigotry between the elves and other races, with varying degrees of tolerance. This is largely the elves' fault because a large portion of the elven sub-races made themselves willing servants of really evil beings, and partially the fault of their original creators who made them that way to begin with.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Arshka has a low opinion of non-humans, and she feels the same way about most of her fellow humans.
• Healing Hands: Yoichi accidentally discovers a way to heal chaosflame corruption by siphoning the chaosflame energy from the soul crystals of defeated corrupted vessels.
• Healing Factor: Outside of the Altar of Egress, Vessels can recover from physical injuries depending on their stats.
• Holy Burns Evil: Izuku can imbue his attacks with the Holy-Attribute, which is very useful against undead enemies.
• Horrifying the Horror: When Tokoyami asks if Mustard's Quirk allows him to spawn mustard in his enemies' lungs, Mustard admits Tokoyami scares him a little.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Himiko loves seeing Arshka the restored knight's rampage against the Dark Elves, cheering for more violence and blood.
• In Spite of a Nail: Someone still thinks All Might is Izuku's dad. It's just Ochako instead of Shouto. Izuku manages to quickly dissuade her of that notion however.
• Info Dump: Chapter 3 features Yoichi explaining the mechanics of the new world's videogame-like systems as he understands them to be to Izuku.
• Instant Expert: Downplayed. When Izuku picks up a sword, he finds himself instinctively knowing how to use it. Not to the level of true experts, but certainly better than a complete novice would be.
• Internal Reveal: In Chapter 22, Lena finds out about Arshka's recovery from soulflame corruption.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Arshka is abrasive but will put her life on the line to save innocent people because that is the right thing to do.
• Keeping the Enemy Close: One of Izuku's rationalisations for keeping Himiko in his party is so that he can keep an eye on her and prevent her from committing murders if allowed to be unsupervised.
• Lesser of Two Evils: The party agrees to use the Soul Crystals of the defeated Dark Elves since they all agree that out of their options, that is objectively the least immoral one. What else are they going to do? The authorities will just execute them or use the crystals for themselves, and keeping them in crystal limbo is a Fate Worse than Death.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Tokoyami defeats two boss enemies by luring them to where a third more powerful boss was staying and letting that third boss kill them.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Himiko mentions seeing Ochako's panties while their party is in the middle of a life-or-death situation.
  • Izuku's near-attempt to yell in joy when he learns All Might is in a potential ally's fortress is offset by the rather lascivious description the person saying this is using.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Yoichi is excited that there are eldritch abominations present in the setting, as well as the confirmation of a place called The Abyss.
• Noble Bigot: Arshka is the sort of person who is bigoted against elves but will put her life on the line to save elven children, even though there would be no witnesses, because it is the right thing to do.
• Painting the Medium: Dark Shadow speaks in a strange voice that is inhuman and this is reflected by how differently formatted her dialogue is compared to other characters. When she merges with Tokoyami, the different formatting still applies, but is very consistent compared to the random changes when Dark Shadow alone speaks.
• Player Headquarters: Once unlocked, an Altar of Egress is where Vessels, the new worlds equivalent of Player Characters, gets to do various PC activities such as checking their status window or equipment, warping to other Altars, or using Soul Crystals. Being in an Altar of Egress also refills a Vessel's Health and Mana bars.
• Power at a Price: Vessels contracted to demons can use the demon's power in exchange for a specified price. Since demons are almost invariably evil, this tends to be something thematically fitting. Due to Dark Shadow being Tokoyami's Quirk before she was turned into a demon upon being isekai'd, she gives him the unique privilege of having a price that's easy to pay both practically and morally by only asking for apples.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The Lord of Hell forbids the Archdemons from feasting on the younger demons purely because his domain wouldn't last long otherwise.
• Putting the Band Back Together: One of Izuku's aims is to bring together all the "otherworlders" that have been spread around the world they're now in.
• Off the Rails: The canon of My Hero Academia is completely derailed by everyone getting transported to the other world. Canon's plot? Destroyed. Individuals? Scattered all over the place. Personal relationships? Completely remapped from scratch.
• Our Elves Are Different: In this setting, elves were originally created as a Slave Race with one person saying their creators made a highly unnecessary number of sub-races for them.
• Race Against the Clock: After learning that Murder of Crows will fully break free from its seals any day now, Izuku and Ochako realise they're on a time limit to get what they can in the local area before getting out of the starting area.
• Remembered Too Late: Yoichi remembers that knights are trained in hand-to-hand after one undead knight kills Izuku by surprising him with his capabilities in unarmed combat. Izuku's constant desire to strangle him went up as a result.
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse: The new world's power system operates similarly to an RPG's progression system.
• The Scapegoat: Arshka warns Tokoyami that because he is a demon contractor, he makes a convenient target for other people to blame the apocalypse everyone is going through on, either in spite of or because of the fact the price he has to pay is only apples.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Lena is leaving Black Feather Meadow and advising everyone she can to do the same to escape the Murder of Crows before it starts rampaging.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Himiko loves strutting around in the very skimpy Pale Court Dancer's Outfit. She also constantly makes suggestive poses to get a reaction out of Izuku and Ochako.
• Shipper on Deck: Yoichi ships Izuku and Ochako, to the point of strongly encouraging Izuku to marry her. He also (possibly joking) ships All Might with Izuku's mother.
• Shout-Out:
  • Yoichi says they should run from one enemy because she has the high ground, and Izuku notes that with the lack of urgency in his voice, Yoichi clearly did not say that as genuine tactical advice.
  • Yoichi wants to be visible so that he can become Izuku's stand just like in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
  • Yoichi compares Dark Shadow's demon form to Ryuk from Death Note.
• Slave Race: The elves were created to be nothing more than servants by their creators. When their creators died out, several elven races went extinct with them due to a complete inability to survive on their own. Others found new overlords to be slaves to.
• So Crazy, It Must Be True: When Izuku and Ochako tell the first person they encounter that they came from another world, Lena admits she would have called bullshit just a few years back, but her world has become so insane that stranded travelers from other worlds merely sounds par for the course.
• Souls-like RPG: Once they reach their first Altar of Egress, Yoichi explicitly explains to Izuku that the world they're in is operating on the logic of souls-like genre games, with his proof being the extremely difficult boss fight that he and Ochako encountered as their first. Yoichi also warns that the bosses will get harder, as it was the second-lowest rank of bosses.
• Stripperiffic: Himiko takes to wearing the Pale Court Dancer's Outfit, which is an extremely revealing outfit that exposes large portions of her breast and her groin. Her neck is the most covered part of her body.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Izuku ends up having to roll with telling Arshka and Antaus that he is All Might's son and heir in order to semi-dodge having to explain their real relationship.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: In the second phase of the bossfight with Death Walker Grinsh, in order to kill Izuku and Ochako, it powers up, but at the cost of damaging itself over time, meaning that with constant dodging and parrying of its attacks, Grinsh ends up defeating itself.
• This Explains So Much: Played for Laughs - when Yoichi declares that the elf accompanying Arshka is clearly a husbando and that Izuku should consider tapping into that, Izuku approaches the realization that All for One may have had a point in burning the world after spending too much time with Yoichi.
• Took a Level in Badass: Almost literally. Izuku, Ochako and Himiko all level up in Chapter 8.
• Training from Hell: When Arshka declares she will train Izuku and Co, Yoichi gets flashbacks to when Gran Torino trained All Might and the comparison proves true when at the end of the first day, most of them collapse in exhaustion after she puts them through the wringer.
• Trapped in Another World: The premise of the story is that everyone from Izuku's Earth gets transported into a Souls-like world.
• Trash Talk: Before she was taken over by the chaosflame, Arshka loved throwing severe verbal barbs in addition to physical violence. Her insinuating to Arstovhia that the latter has sex with horses is how Arstovhia knows beyond reasonable doubt that the Arshka in front of her is the real one and that she has somehow recovered from the chaosflame corruption.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: Tokoyami has the unique privilege of being bonded to a demon that demands nothing more than apples in exchange for power instead of having to pay far worse prices due to said demon being his Quirk before they were isekai'd.
• Unobtainium: Hatsume gushes about the Moon Tears, a material that when used in construction, acts to prevent or reverse deformation. Swords stay sharp indefinitely and large infrastructures need less maintenance than otherwise.
• Victory Fakeout: Izuku's and Ochako's first boss fight "ends" with Death Walker Grinsh seemingly defeated. Izuku and Ochako try to rest and recover, but Yoichi realises the boss' healthbar is still present, and Phase 2 begins. Yoichi is upset that what he thought was the tutorial boss has a second phase.
• Warp Whistle: The various Altars of Egress allows Vessels to teleport between them once they unlock it by reaching it on their own.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Arshka is exasperated to learn that out of all the thematically fitting prices a contractor has to pay, the price Tokoyami specifically has to pay for his demon summoning is the low one of apples.

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