- “The only people left… are Quirkless?”
- First chapter, The Only Hero
The day Izuku Midoriya got One for All should have been the best day of his life, but it quickly turns out to be his worst. When 80% of the population suddenly vanishes, Izuku suddenly goes from a Quirkless nobody, to the only hero in the world.
The Only Hero (AO3
/ FFN) is a My Hero Academia Fanfiction written by Squeakyclarinet where the Rapture happens to the world of My Hero Academia. But instead of being decided by any religious measure, everyone with a Quirk disappeared. But thanks to the unique effects of transferring One for All, Izuku ends up as one of the last people in the world with a Quirk. He then meets others left behind by the Rapture, and tries to do the same thing as before it, become a Hero.
Because there's no one else in the world to be one for those who remain.
Part of a series that can be found here.
The Only Hero contains examples of:
- Abled in the Adaptation: The aliens heal All for One of his injuries.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- Eri and Melissa appear early in the story instead of far later in the timeline.
- Nine is introduced early in the story instead of later in a movie.
- The Vestiges (and the extra Quirks they provide) appear to Izuku near the beginning of his UA career instead of much later, starting with Fa Jin.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
- Izuku and Melissa enter a relationship with each other in this story instead of just being friends in canon.
- Nighteye is a lot more cordial with Izuku in Deku’s First Hero Team-Up! compared to canon since the events of the The Only Hero forces him to admit Izuku is a worthy successor to All Might.
- Adaptational Superpower Change:
- The aliens accidentally give Izuku Nine's copy of All for One.
- Izuku gives All Might All as One instead of him turning Quirkless.
- As a result of the events of A Very Quirky Christmas, the following characters have upgrades to their superpowers:
- Midnight, who gets Aroma Manipulation to control her Somnambulist once it gets emitted by her body.
- Present Mic, who now has Ventriloquism to project his Voice quirk from anywhere.
- Snipe who now has X-Ray Vision in addition to Homing.
- Cementoss who gets Cement Creation so he can get better use out of his base Cement quirk.
- Vlad King gets two quirks, Boosted Blood Production and Bloodlet, both of which have great synergies with Blood Control.
- Eraserhead, who gets Second Eyelid so he can always keep Erasure active.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg:
- Upon realizing that All for One outmanoeuvred them and that it is about to die, the alien responsible for the Rapture desperately tries to offer a new and better deal to prevent its fate.
- Upon realizing his impeding destruction, the All for One vestige possessing Kagome desperately tries to negotiate a deal with Nedzu only to be told there's nothing he can offer that's better than Nedzu hearing his screams of anguish.
- Ascended Extra: Eri and Melissa are main characters in the story instead of supporting characters like in canon.
- Attempted Rape: A gang of thugs attempt to capture Melissa, and while it's not outright stated why they want her, their overall behaviour leaves the audience and Izuku no doubt as to their intentions.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Izuku, with limited information, is able to reconstruct how One for All came to be, correctly identifying it was once two separate Quirks where one is a stockpiling Quirk and the other is a Quirk that passes things on. He is also able to piece together the precise workings of Stars and Stripes Quirk based on the available footage of her in action even though it's supposed to be classified.
- Badass Normal:
- Knuckleduster spent years as a Quirkless vigilante even before the fic started, and Izuku specifically names him as an inspiration for his own old dreams of becoming a Quirkless Hero.
- Most of Stars and Stripes squadron are made up of Quirkless people who are more than capable of holding their own.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Kagome wished to have the All for One Quirk for herself. All for One the person grants her wish, at the cost of his copied vestige overpowering her will and possessing her body. Because of Izuku's actions, the vestige gets destroyed, allowing Kagome to be free and with full control of her own body and All for One, ultimately subverting this trope.
- Big Damn Heroes: Knuckleduster comes to Nedzu's aid when he is under pressure from Nine's underlings.
- Boring, but Practical: After finding it difficult to juggle many different Quirks together, Izuku realises the reason All for One prefers simple Quirks is that it's simpler to juggle those in battle.
- Came Back Strong: During their clash on I-Island, Nine severely injures Izuku, killing him. However, Eri is able to use her Quirk to not just revive him, but also undo his injuries. He also masters Float in the process.
- Chekhov's Gun: Chapter 13 has something attempting to attack the vestiges in One for All. Chapter 31 reveals this is an alien tech that can destroy vestiges and it is used to destroy the All for One copy to free Kagome from him.
- Christmas Special: The sidestory A Very Quirky Christmas is centred around Izuku, All Might, and Kagome giving others presents. In this specific case, additional Quirks for the U.A. faculty that complements their existing ones.
- Cliffhanger:
- Chapter 10 ends with an unknown party sending an order to every available Nomu in the Doctor's lab to capture One for All's holder, starting the search at U.A.
- Chapter 20 ends with All for One kidnapping Izuku and several others, while using an alien spaceship.
- Combo Platter Powers:
- After receiving Nine's copy of All for One, Izuku borrows Overclock and Cellular Activation and the latter helps deal with the drawbacks of the former.
- All as One is built on the concept of combining powers in one person. Each individual Quirk exists separately within the core, but when Izuku uses them, they manifest as a unified force with excellent synergies.
- Could Say It, But...: Wedge can neither confirm nor deny to the rest of Izuku's group that he has been to a certain military base, and he most definitely has not been invited to the secret basement.
- De-power: Downplayed for both individuals. Izuku sacrifices nearly half of One for All's stockpiled strength in exchange for a gambit that allows him to defeat the All for One clone he's fighting without killing Kagome. Said gambit is to put Bestowal in All for One and then transfer that to All Might, permanently taking most of the clone's power.
- Death by Irony: After coming back, Garaki is killed by one of his own Nomu creations.
- Demonic Possession: Kagome's body is taken over by All for One's copied Vestige. All for One tells Izuku she is still there but is powerless to resist.
- Description Cut:
- Nedzu thinks the threat of All for One is gone due to the Rapture, which cues an immediate scene change to Nine, though wielding an imperfect version of All for One, proves Nedzu wrong with his existence. The scene also reveals the original copy of All For One - with the owner's personality inside - is still stored somewhere in the Doctor's lab.
- Izuku thinks Stars and Stripes is doing well against the original All for One. Cue a scene change showing she is struggling.
- Did Not See That Coming:
- The alien is shocked to see All for One successfully betray him, having believed they made sure to stack the deck so he couldn't get one up on the alien.
- All for One in turn is shocked to see that the alien accidentally give Izuku Nine's copy of All for One, something he could in no way plan for.
- Did Not Think This Through: Nedzu makes an oversight in his battle plan against All for One. He forgot people cannot handle too many Quirks without danger. One for All coming back to Izuku when he has a copy of All for One overloads him and endangers him right in the middle of his battle.
- Disability Immunity: Most of the remaining human population are Quirkless. The few remaining Quirked people were mostly those that didn't manifest them yet like Izuku who was incredibly lucky with how long it took One for All to manifest.
- Dragon with an Agenda: Kagome Mirai. She joins with Nine on the promise of finally getting a Quirk of her own, but she secretly starts looking for the original All For One Quirk to take for herself.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap:
- Izuku is unlocking the other Quirks within One for All far faster than he did in canon, but he cannot control them properly, meaning he has to be careful with their usage. Especially the Second's Quirk, which could kill him if used too much.
- As incredible as the Quirk All for One maybe, it does have limits. The user can only use so many Quirks at once, with All for One the person comparing it to a librarian trying to hold on to several books at the same time. Some "books" are also bigger than others, so certain useful Quirks take up his practical capacity to use different Quirks more than a less useful Quirk. Genetic Manipulation turns out to be a game changer since it allows him to combine different Quirks into a single Quirk without reducing their combined potency..
- Dying Declaration of Hate: As the All for One vestige is destroyed, he spends his last moments cursing All Might, then Izuku, and finally Kagome.
- Exact Words: All for One's command for Genetic Manipulation is to fuse the Quirks One for All and All for One. Thing is, there were two copies of the Quirk All for One, so Izuku is able to hijack it to fuse One for All to his own copy of All for One to prevent the combined Quirks from killing him.
- Eviler than Thou: All for One makes clear to the alien that caused the Rapture that he is the greater villain when he betrays them and kills them by assimilating the alien into his Quirk.
- Fate Worse than Death: All for One is forced to use an alien escape pod to escape the attempts to kill him, and he ends up having to wait for over two thousand years to get to a planet he could use for his plans. Though he is immortal and can get there eventually and still be alive, All for One almost prefers getting his head bashed in instead.
- Godzilla Threshold: To deal with the threat of the combined might of the Aliens and All for One, the acting President of the United States was prepared to use the nuclear option which would kill billions to save the remaining billions. Only the sight of Stars and Stripes and being told All Might would arrive kept him from following through.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Izuku turns the vestige All for One's use of Genetic Manipulation against him by using it to combine his own copy of All for One with One for All.
- The original All for One fused his Quirk Collection into a single Quirk to bypass the original limits of the Quirk All for One, but this works against him when he needs to deactivate some of his Quirks and finds that because they are now a single Quirk, they are all-or-nothing.
- Karma Houdini: At the end of the main story, the Purple Onis and Kagome Mirai escape all consequences for their crimes and assorted evil actions. It's more extreme in Mirai's case since none of the authorities ever find out she conspired with Nine.
- Kill Sat: The United States have a top secret satellite that can launch nuclear missiles from orbit. They used this to attack and capture one of the alien ships in the past.
- Love Confession: Melissa confesses to Izuku that she's interested in him romantically in Chapter 18.
- Manipulative Bastard: Shigaraki manipulates Samuel by preying on his desire for recognition for his accomplishments and desire to avoid consequences for his illegal actions, which manages to get him access to the UFO hidden on I-Island.
- The Mole: Kagome infiltrates UA as part of her plan to get All for One for herself while seemingly still working for Nine, and while separately fooling UA that she's an innocent nurse.
- Mythology Gag: All for One references his original plan of hijacking Tomura's body as part of his ideal scenario for confronting Stars and Stripes.
- No-Sell: Eri's Rewind Quirk allowed her to resist whatever caused Quirked people to disappear.
- Off the Rails: The Rapture complete derails the canon of My Hero Academia, with most canon characters disappearing and the remainder having their personal relationships rewritten from near scratch as a direct result. This also leads to the original plot of canon being completely destroyed in favour of a different plot.
- Point of Divergence: After the dust settles and the world tries to recover, there is renewed interest in space as a result of the full events of the Rapture, which results in UA creating a new Astronomy Course.
- Power Misidentification: Izuku makes a crucial realization about One for All, specifically the Stockpile aspect, and that realization is that it is not in fact stockpiling strength as everyone believed, but Quirk Fields. By reevaluating his understanding of One for All from the ground up with this critical fact in mind, he is able to come up with a way to prevent himself from being killed from wielding too many Quirks at once.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Nedzu acts as a supportive mentor for the three kids, taking full responsibility for them, and working to not only further their academic careers, but working with them to try and figure out what has happened. Special note that all three of them are of different ages with different needs to juggle.
- The Reveal:
- Nine is revealed in Chapter 4 to have survived the purge of the world, and is released.
- Chapter 6 reveals several things:
- The Rapture is almost certainly caused by a Quirk.
- I-Island's device that measures Quirk Fields was found by them, not invented by them, and that it has been recording Quirk Fields (including the one responsible for The Rapture) since the Dawn of Quirks.
- Chapter 16 reveals All for One is alive.
- Chapter 17 reveals that Kagome's motivations for seizing All for One for herself is because she saw how obsessed Japan was with Quirks to the point of everyone defining everyone by their Quirks and how it hurts everyone else. She swore that she would not be manipulated by Quirks, that she would be the one to manipulate them, and All for One is the key to that dream.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Dragon's crew sees their boss Nine kidnapped by aliens, they decide to just flee and get back to Japan.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: A lot of people call Melissa Izuku's girlfriend to his embarrassment and denial.
- Shout-Out:
- During his confrontation with the copy of All for One's vestige, one of their dialogue paraphrases the famous Approach scene between DIO and Jotaro.
- In an epic shoutout, Syndrome from The Incredibles is quoted in the ending, specifically "And when everyone's a Hero, no one will be."
- Spit Take: Nedzu spits out his tea in shock when General Adams reveals he has an audio recording that says "Capture the current holder of One for All. Begin searching at U.A. High School."
- The Social Darwinist: Nine is fundamentally a believer in the principle that the strongest deserves to rule, and sees this whole situation as the golden opportunity to claim his rule over the world by virtue of being the fittest of all.
- Suspiciously Clean Criminal Record: Nedzu once did a background check on a Reiji Shigaraki decades ago due to the latter wanting to donate large amounts of cash and equipment. Nedzu was shocked by how clean it was when so many others had something they didn't like talking about. Nedzu rejected his donations, and after learning he's All for One, is vindicated.
- Throwing Off the Disability: The aliens help All for One restore all his injuries.
- Tsundere: Kota isn't a fan of Izuku. He just wants to thank him for all he's done, including taking care of Katsuma. That's all!
- The Unreveal: The Vestiges try to reveal to Izuku who is the cause of the Rapture, but an alarm clock wakes Izuku up before they can do it.
- Villain Episode: The Flashback arc is entirely focused on All For One and the alien AI responsible for the Rapture.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 17 is a real doozy. It is first revealed that it was a branch of the US Government that experimented on Nedzu. It is then quickly revealed that contrary to what Nedzu thought, he wasn't created by them, he was merely found by them. The circumstances of his initial escape also lines up with the Rapture where every human with a Quirk disappeared without a trace. Thus meaning the same people truly responsible for his creation are also the same people responsible for the Rapture. Thus, by tracing Nedzu's true origins, General Adams is able to figure out the perpetrators and already attempted a rescue of those taken. Which ended in complete failure. 25 tanks, 15 jets, and a lot of drones, were all taken out by a single enemy aircraft. The enemy is simply technologically superior.
- Chapter 20 and 21 reveals the existence of aliens and the confirmation that they're the ones responsible for the Rapture.
- Chapter 24 has All for One successfully killing the alien responsible for the Rapture and Izuku showcasing Nine's copy of All for One.
- Chapter 28 has Izuku realizing everyone misunderstood what One for All was actually stockpiling from the start and him using this knowledge plus hijacking Genetic Manipulation to fuse One for All and his copy of All for One into a new Quirk called All as One.
- Chapter 30 has Izuku giving All Might his hair to give him All as One. Except, it wasn't his hair. It turns out that in the previous chapter, Izuku put Bestowal in the All for One he was fighting, then took a hair from the possessed body of Kagome, gave it to All Might, and through the transfer process, all of the quirks the All for One possessing Kagome has is given to All Might. All Might gladly turns the Quirks that All for One stole over the years against the thief.
- Wham Shot: Chapter 20 shows an alien spaceship.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: A key step of Nine's master plan is stealing Cellular Regeneration so that he is no longer so affected by the drawbacks of his main Quirk. He succeeds while everyone is at I-Island.
