Fanfic / Adalheidis

Adalheidis is a My Hero Academia fanfic by DeusVerve. It can be read on Archive of Our Own here.

A few days after attacking Saito, Himiko Toga saves a skeletal blonde man from a mugger. Toshinori Yagi takes her back to Might Tower, arrests her parents, adopts her, and offers her One For All. Shortly after, Izuku Midoriya impresses All Might with his heroism and decides to train him to be a Quirkless Hero.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• Accidental Public Confession: During Shinsou's declaration of war to the hero students before the Sports Festival, and Izuku tries to call him out for his arrogance, he counters by saying that not everyone can be blessed with strong Quirks. Izuku happily shuts him down by revealing that he's Quirkless and still made it past the Practical exam and into the Hero course, before continuing to take him to task for trying to bully 1-A for almost dying. It's only when Himiko tells him how cool the entire moment was that it registers that he might have just publicly admitted his Quirkless status to all their classmates, with Ochako confirming that yes, that is exactly what he did.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Himiko has One For All, and makes the ability even more broken than canon. Thanks to it stacking with her preexisting Quirk, she has the ability to stockpile other Quirks after only drinking a person's blood once. Plus, unlike the original users, she can turn them on and off as she chooses. Some of the first Quirks she does this with are Ochako's Zero Gravity and Hagakure's Invisibility.
  • Mina is visibly muscular, and started school with a variety of support items she had requested to enhance her performance.
• Adaptational Heroism: With Himiko being adopted by Toshinori, instead of becoming the Serial Killer she was in canon, this trope is a given.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Shinsou in canon, despite his cynicism, put in the work to be seen as a hero despite his frustrations over his Quirk being seen as villainous. Shinsou here is an arrogant bully who uses the negative public perception of his Quirk to justify his poor attitude.
• Adaptational Karma: In canon, Toga's parents never experienced any consequences for denying Toga blood and pressuring her to be "normal", as well as abandoning her after she attacked Saito. Here, they are arrested for multiple counts of child neglect and abuse, with Saito's parents also suing them for allowing the situation to happen in the first place.
• Adaptational Relationship Change:
  • Himiko has no relations with All Might in canon. Here, she's his adopted daughter and successor.
  • Izuku and Himiko are enemies in canon. Here, they (and later, Ochako) are all best friends. Izuku and Himiko even begin dating by the time they start UA, and Inko and All Might immediately place bets on when Ochako will join the relationship due to how obviously their kids are into her. Ochako starts dating them after the Sports Festival.
  • Himiko and Hakagure never meet in canon. Here they are friends, with Izuku also shown to be closer to Hagakure than he is canonically.
  • Himiko replaces Mineta in Class 1-A; meanwhile, Izuku is in class 1-B (with Shoda moved to 1-A to balance out the classes).
  • In their battle trial team-up, Bakugo manages to sink any chance of Mina wanting to befriend or work with him.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • Himiko gains One For All as a result of Toshinori becoming attached to his adopted daughter and seeing her potential.
  • As a result of Himiko now having One For All, Izuku has no superpowers to speak of.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Post-USJ, as Vlad King starts to talk about the Sports Festival, Monoma starts to go on a rant about how Class 1-A is on all the news and how they have the opportunity to take them down a peg. Izuku shuts him down by pointing out that said media attention he's jealous of is their classmates being the victims of a life-threatening attack.
  Izuku: What if someone died? Two days ago, I learned that my girlfriend had to fight some kind of bioweapon on her own because the alternative was watching it murder her classmate. Tell me, Monoma, would you be interested in stealing their attention if one of them had died?
• Ascended Fanboy: What All For One is at the end of the day, and openly admits it. Wanting to live out a comic-like fantasy as the great villain whom heroes will try and tear down.
  AFO: Even now, society marches along, and steadily puts itself back together! Soon, we shall see it! Real heroes of justice will emerge to challenge the darkness! But what point would there be if no foes were there to face them? What kind of pathetic excuse for a story would there be with no villain to fight? No mooks? No lieutenants to serve as the final foe of a grueling arc that brings the hero one step closer to true victory? What kind of story would there be with no conflict? No struggle?
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Izuku's analytical skills are given much more focus and are greatly expanded upon. Among his feats are being able to completely break down the Sludge Villain's Quirk and bodily composition in the time it takes them to stand up; deducing the broad strokes of Himiko's Quirk, including her dietary requirements, just by seeing her fangs; and breaking down the weaknesses of Ochako's Quirk and how they could be easily exploited by a foe.
• Badass Normal: In this fic, Izuku remains Quirkless, instead opting to fight with tricks and weapons.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Himiko finds Izuku at Aldera being harassed by his bullies, and after pushing back against them, kisses him in front of his bullies to affirm to him that yes, she really does want him.
• Brutal Honesty: Gran Torino does not pull any punches when telling Himiko and Izuku about the dark parts of Himiko's adoption and the dark side of heroics. For the former, he still remembers how Nana's family was killed. For the latter, he mentions it takes about two years before a hero might accidentally or be forced to either maim or kill a villain. All Might has been the relative exception that still has moments he had to be more forceful, especially earlier in his career. That being said, compared to Nighteye's cruelty and disregard for Himiko's person, he's at least doing so out of a desire to ensure they understand the danger they're getting themselves into, and he's willing to give them his unique brand of training to make sure they can thrive.
• Call-Back: Himiko decides to clean Takoba Beach because she remembers one of her middle-school friends, Kei, loves the beach and she wants her to enjoy the view one day. After the Sports Festival, she, Izuku and Ochako are enjoying a day at the beach, and Kei ends up running into them and recognizing Himiko.
• Condescending Compassion: After Izuku reveals that he's Quirkless, a few of his 1-B classmates, particularly Shiozaki and Rin, shift their attitude to worrying that he cannot handle the Hero Course or the Sports Festival, even wondering if he should drop out for his own safety. Though Vlad King tries to shut it down, the attitude remains for a few chapters onward, such as Rin trying to pull Izuku back from participating in a rescue lesson.
• Control Freak: Nighteye, who sees himself as being Cruel to Be Kind and a necessary voice of reason to ensure that All Might gets the right kind of successor. Unfortunately for him, all his callous behavior accomplishes is reopening Himiko's old emotional wounds by constantly reminding her of her faults and earning All Might and Gran Torino's disgust.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The Tokage vs Todoroki match is one-sided in the latter's favour, but he does not get an instant win by unleashing his glacier on the former. It takes Todoroki several more minutes of him freezing more of Tokage's body parts to be declared winner.
• Deconstruction: Shinsou brainwashing his team to carry him through the Sports Festival cavalry battle is given this treatment. In canon, it was used for a gag, with his team acting comedically confused at worst after he removed his hold over them. In this fic, his teammates, who are instead Bakugou, Kinoko, and Kuroiro, are much less accepting of having their free will overwritten, delivering him a "Reason You Suck" Speech over how Shinsou chose to treat his teammates like pawns rather than equal partners.
• Destination Defenestration: What Himiko inflicts upon Bakugo during the battle trial. Multiple times.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Shinsou's team could have advanced in the Sports Festival if he hadn't chosen to brainwash them all into joining him. Kinoko flat-out tells him she would have helped if he'd just asked, but instead he took the decision out of their hands.
• Dissonant Serenity: Izuku's strategy to beat Tokoyami at the Sports Festival? Walk toward him with a big smile on his face. Tokoyami and Dark Shadow are so caught off-balance that they don't work out what's going on until Izuku is in range to hit Tokoyami with his taser tonfa before Dark Shadow can intercept.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Izuku firmly tells Kei, one of Himiko's middle-school friends, that her surname is now "Yagi" and not "Toga".
• Foil:
  • Gran Torino to Nighteye.
    • Nighteye considers himself to be the most well-suited to determining who would be the best successor to All Might, and views All Might's choice of his surrogate daughter as nothing but a terrible decision, refusing to acknowledge her potential or her personhood. However, his actions only betray that of a Control Freak who disregards the desires and interests of his former partner, inviting himself to All Might's domain without permission or being asked, callously tearing down Himiko to the point of tears, and shows a lack of understanding of All Might as a person when he considers the hero and the man (Toshinori) to be one and the same. He is ultimately thrown out (metaphorically) and told to never come back.
    • Gran Torino by contrast is an old hero who personally trained All Might and was asked to help train Himiko after the fallout of the above, and while he has mixed feelings about Himiko being the next wielder, it has nothing to do with her as a person. Rather, his concerns have more to do with the reality of not only trying to get into a difficult profession in the cutthroat hero industry but also the sheer amount of stress and difficulty she would face if anyone found out her relation to her surrogate father. That being said, his advice is sound and he makes the effort to build both Himiko and Izuku up, encouraging the latter to really delve into the strengths of his analytical skills. Despite All Might being rightfully scared of him, he's accepted as the right teacher for the job.
  • Vlad King and Aizawa's teaching methods, with an entire chapter dedicated to switching back and forth between them. Aizawa is a Sink or Swim Mentor with a very loose structure, while Vlad is very strict and orderly, yet also supportive.
  • With the Battle Trials, Vlad also is a foil to All Might, although in this case showcasing the difference in teaching experience. The latter's explanation is from canon, while the veteran teacher carefully explains what the students will be doing, the points of the exercise, and makes clear how it is to build upon future heroic lessons.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During the Battle Trials, Bakugou ends up breaking his arm with the backlash from his own explosive Quirk, when Himiko redirects his arm to a position where he isn't bracing it properly.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every single chapter is named for a breed of red flower.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: During Gen Ed's pre-Sports Festival challenge to 1-A, Izuku threads through the crowd with an uncapped highlighter, then calls out the crowd for not appreciating what facing off against villains really means and points out that if he was a villain, a lot of them would be dead. Many students, including Shinsou, go pale when they feel the highlighter ink on their wrists and throats.
• Insult Backfire: During Shinsou's challenge to the Hero class, Izuku asks him how he expects to do in the Sports Festival if he couldn't pass the Practical entrance exam, to which Shinsou answers that not all of them were blessed with strong Quirks. Izuku bursts out laughing and retorts that he's Quirkless and still passed the Practical, shutting everybody up.
• Internal Reveal: Izuku outs his Quirkless Status to the rest of U.A. in Chapter 51.
• Learned from the News:
  • After hearing that All Might himself helped arrest a couple for multiple counts of child neglect and abuse, Toga winces, thinking she'd hate to be the kid whose life was so bad that the number one hero had to get involved. Then she looks at the news broadcast and sees her house on the screen, with her parents being led out in handcuffs.
  • Kei, Himiko's old middle-school friend, finally finds out what happened to her when she sees her on TV participating in the U.A. Sports Festival.
• LGBT Awakening: In Chapter 58, when Ochako goes over all her interactions with Izuku and Himiko and realises she's bisexual and has a crush on them both. In an interesting twist, this moment is framed as her realising that she also finds boys attractive; meaning she already identified as a lesbian.
• Meaningful Name: The title of the story is a reference to the character Queen Adelheid from The Record of a Fallen Vampire, whose name is derived from the word Adalheidis. She was a gentle queen who was sealed away when she was forced past her breaking point and lost control of her devastating magic, unleashing it on the world.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Shinsou, like in canon, brainwashes his team into helping him with the Sports Festival cavalry battle, the team in question being Bakugou, Kuroiro, and Komori. As soon as Bakugou snaps out of it mid-event, he drops Shinsou and eliminates himself and the whole team.
• Mythology Gag: Someone gets their arm broken during the Battle Trials; in this case, Bakugou. When he tries using his big explosion on Himiko, she redirects his arm away from the building foundations and to a position where he isn't bracing himself properly, so his explosion's backlash breaks his own arm.
• Out-of-Character Alert: When Shinsou gets Bakugou, Kinoko, and Kuroiro under his Quirk, their classmates quickly notice something is off since they are all clearly not behaving like themselves.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Uraraka's first response to learning that Izuku is Quirkless (after they've both gotten into U.A.) is to blurt out "Oh, wow. And they let you into U.A.?". She has to do some Verbal Backspacing when Himiko gets defensive.
• Point of Divergence:
  • Perhaps the biggest one is Himiko not going villain thanks to All Might saving her at the crucial point.
  • Himiko's parents are found out to be abusive, resulting in an arrest.
  • All Might reveals his form to Toga and adopts her.
  • With Himiko's insight, she's able to get Izuku to slow down on his training because she points out that if he's constantly tired, it will be detrimental to his condition and long-term prospects.
  • Himiko gets One for All instead of Izuku because All Might met her first.
  • Himiko and Izuku receive training from Gran Torino before ever setting foot in U.A.
  • Izuku is placed in 1-B instead of 1-A, presumably because of his different Quirk status to canon.
  • Shinsou mind controls Bakugou into being part of his team for the Cavalry battle. When Bakugou snaps out of it, he drops Shinsou and eliminates their team, not only because he's angry with Shinsou for trying to get other people to carry him to victory, but also because he'd rather lose than be carried to victory.
  • Himiko takes first, with Izuku taking second while Ochako and Shoto share third place in the Sports festival.
• Polyamory: Ochako officially joins Izuku's and Himiko's relationship in Chapter 62, turning them into a polyamorous triad.
• Power Incontinence: Though she can more or less control it, Himiko has no idea how to turn off Blackwhip after she unlocks it, so she spends the next several chapters with her right arm wrapped in a layer of black material.
• Precision F-Strike: Izuku lets one out when he's told that he revealed his Quirkless status in Chapter 51.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Bakugou, Kuroiro, and Komori have some harsh words after they realize that Shinsou brainwashed them into being his team during the Sports Festival, for trying to get other people to carry him to victory, for blaming his Quirk for his circumstances instead of working to overcome them, and for not even asking in the first place. Kuroiro's in particular has gravitas:
  Kuroiro: My Quirk is a troublesome one, and my appearance has earned me many enemies. Even still, I succeeded where you failed. And here again you find yourself defeated because you took the easier road. Instead of working with us, you… you manipulated us, ordered that we quite literally carry you to victory, and demand that we thank you for the privilege?
• Revenge by Proxy: Bakugou is perfectly willing to shift his ire to Himiko, purely because she is dating Izuku.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: Vlad King and Eraserhead decide who gets to use the USJ first by playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. Kan won three times in a row before Aizawa broke that streak.
• Shed the Family Name: Himiko sheds the Toga name to become Himiko Yagi, Toshinori's adoptive daughter.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the games Himiko plays on her phone is a turn-based role-playing game called Heraldic Blaze: Champions, in which one of the characters she controls is named Princess Mars.
  • The author in one of their comments on chapter 51 explicitly compares Midoriya's If I Wanted You Dead... moment as being inspired by Nagisa Shiota.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Izuku shuts down Shinsou's rants against 1-A over them getting in due to the Entrance Exam being biased by pointing out he managed to pass despite being Quirkless.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Hagakure calls Himiko and Izuku this, during Izuku's first introduction to 1-A while Himiko is draping herself all over him.
• Slumber Party: After the USJ attack, Himiko has Izuku and Ochako over to Might Tower for a slumber party after the traumatic event.
• Spared, but Not Forgiven: Non-lethal example; after hearing Himiko's whole story, Saito admits he can't forgive her for hurting him, but he and his family are willing to drop the charges against her and shift the lawsuit to her Abusive Parents.
• Stalker without a Crush: Nighteye's approach to becoming All Might's sidekick, as described by All Might himself, is effectively the same as Syndrome's. Nighteye followed him around everywhere and hounded him about it non-stop, despite knowing All Might's stance on sidekicks. All Might pinpoints this tendency as how Nighteye tracked Himiko to Might Tower to harass her: by stalking the building and his social media to know when she'd be there.
• Tranquil Fury: Nighteye's decision to harass and bully Himiko only gets him on the wrong side of All Might's anger, something only further reinforced by Nighteye not seeing any difference between All Might and Toshinori Yagi, a very big sore spot. It's implied that All Might was only barely restraining himself from throwing his former sidekick out the window for his callous behavior.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: During the USJ incident, Himiko is so afraid that her friends and dad might get hurt and killed by villains that she awakens Blackwhip, the Quirk of the Fifth OFA user.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In Chapter 51, Izuku calls out first Monoma, and then the General-Ed students, for confronting and antagonizing 1-A when they had nearly died from the USJ incident.
• Worf Had the Flu: Bakugou has to be saved from a villain at the USJ because his cast prevented him from getting out of the villain's grasp.

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