Fanfic / Blues Drive Monsters

Won't you crush our melancholy world?

December has come and the city is sick.

As U.A.'s second term draws to a close, Musutafu City is plagued by strange happenings at night. Young heroes are found brutally beaten, with no memory of their assailant. Buildings and storefronts burst apart and collapse. And entire city blocks go mad, their inhabitants attacking everything in sight before calming down just as quickly. The perpetrators are unknown. The League of Villains is silent. The city begs for answers.

The faculty struggles to maintain normalcy, but when Class 1-A is caught in one of the incidents, Katsuki Bakugo decides to take matters into his own hands. In doing so, he sets off a chain of events that will lead the school to question everything it has stood for. One of the darkest secrets of the Hero Society has been unearthed, and what's crawled out intends to shatter the nation's fragile peace for good.

Blues Drive Monsters is a canon-divergent fanfic of My Hero Academia written by HassouToby, telling the story of a new threat that arises shortly after Overhaul's defeat.

Complete as of February 2020. It is broken into three parts titled "The Yard" (Chapters 1-15), "Melancholy World" (Chapters 16-27), and "Broadcasts" (Chapters 28-33), plus a final "Epilogue" chapter.

Tropes associated with Blues Drive Monsters:

• Abusive Guardian: Shin genuinely cares for Koh, but even he's aware that he makes a terrible caretaker between his lack of experience and vicious temper. When Koh is liberated by U.A., Shin makes it clear that he'll keep his distance as long as they can look after him.
• Adaptational Badass: Some of the students are significantly tougher than shown so far in canon.
  • Uraraka is better at removing her own gravity without nausea and mixes up her Quirk with various grappling techniques and cheap shots to keep her opponents off-balance. She's said (and later shown) to be training with Ojiro to sharpen her skills further.
  • Tokoyami is able to freely manipulate Dark Shadow's shape, creating multiple limbs, protective barriers, and rough wings. Exposure to Koh's Quirk makes Dark Shadow completely lose it and become strong enough to effortlessly rip a semi-truck to pieces. Both of them later learn to better control that state, though.
  • When he gets out of the infirmary, Midoriya completely destroys one of U.A.'s gyms to blow off stress, with no obvious injury or broken bones. He later uses a 40% full cowl to take on the League of Villains (minus Shigaraki) alone.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Minoru Mineta's perverted qualities are toned down in the fic, with more emphasis placed on his big mouth instead. He also has a heart-to-heart with Midoriya after the latter heals from his injuries.
• Adults Are Useless: Lampshaded but ultimately subverted. Bakugo calls out the teachers for being seemingly unable to solve any major crises without their students, but once they have enough information to go on, they quickly organize an offensive and deliver a major blow to the villains' side.
• Affably Evil: The League of Villains is shown to be pretty easy-going with each other, with the exception of Spinner. Metalhead is a Graceful Loser whose easy charisma earns her plenty of allies. Shin is also shown to be levelheaded and laid-back until he suddenly isn't.
• An Arm and a Leg
  • While fighting Kizutatchi, Shinso tries to restrain him and the villain ends up moving in a way that he severs his own arm, his quirk jacked up by Trigger turned against himself. It however doesn't stop a crazed Kizutatchi from cutting Vlad King's leg off before escaping.
  • Poor Mr. Compress can't get a break even with his prosthetic arm, as Deku pulls it out and uses it to bludgeon him.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Izuku Midoriya, natch. Though he's critically injured for the first half of the story, he figures out nearly the entire plot from his hospital bed, with no hints to go on. Later he effortlessly sees through Shin Yuurei's Perception Filter, scaring the daylights out of him in the process, then even uses his ability to his advantage in combat: having figured Dabi's identity on his own, he provokes him over it, causing Dabi to damage himself with his flames.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Shin Yuurei's criminal record prior to the Yard's experiments isn't known, but after coming out he hates the world and cares nothing for how many people he hurts in his mission to get himself and Koh to safety. Mirai's criminal record is known, and the Yard made her so much worse.
• Beneath the Mask: Zig-zagged with Toga. She is often portrayed in fanfic as having sincere feelings for Izuku, even if in a messed-up way, but here as soon as she loses her upper hand when Izuku breaks one of her arms (and he's even holding back), her mood changes completely: she just wants him dead but cowardly leaves the task to Dabi. Later she feels bad about it, blaming it on Koh's signal, from which however she was mostly shielded thanks to a special tranquilizer, but it could be just another mood swing of hers.
• Benevolent Boss: Shigaraki has continued to evolve into one of these after the events of the Overhaul arc, patiently hearing out his subordinates' complaints and trying to keep their spirits up. Metalhead also commands fierce loyalty from the petty crooks of Mosei-Santo and treats them well despite not really seeing herself as a leader, and harboring no ill will towards who decided to back out.
• Big Bad: While Shigaraki and the League are the ones who set the plot in motion and Metalhead and her gang are the most prominent threat, it's Minister Osamu Nakayama and his Ministry of Individuality that appear to be the main threat. They authorized the Yard and Nakayama intends to exploit the current events to eliminate any autonomy of the Pro Heroes from the government.
• Big Damn Heroes
  • Several instances during the operation to retrieve Koh.
    • Iida saves Tokoyami from some League clones, at the cost of seriously injuring himself.
    • Hawks comes in time to retrieve Tokoyami and bring him out of harm's way.
    • Mina takes Koh from Iida, whose injuries ultimately make him unable to move anymore, and keeps running until she runs into Metalhead.
    • Aizawa saves Mina from Metalhead while getting injured, then as Koh's quirk activates, he keeps his quirk active on him for a long time, incurrent of his own bleeding. This almost gets him killed.
    • Todoroki generates a high flame to launch a signal to nearby heroes, with great risk due to both the excessive use of his fire side and Aizawa who may not be able to keep his quirk on Koh for long.
    • Mount Lady becomes gigantic to bring Koh and Aizawa to UA faster, while Kamui Woods protects her with a vine shield; both are well aware of being an easy target for Mirai's attacks but take the risk nonetheless.
    • Finally, just in front of the gates of UA, Tokoyami saves Koh and Aizawa from a crazed Spinner clone by letting Dark Shadow run rampant.
  • Later in the story, it's OC Ghillie who saves Midnight and Mainichi from an hit squad coming to kill him after his defection.
• Big Good: Nezu, moreso than usual. He does his best to keep things at U.A. under control and organizes a counterattack as soon as he's able. He later oversees the defense of UA from Metalhead's assault *and* the measures to contain the effects of Koh's quirk in Tokyo as long as possible, with the help of many Pro Heroes.
• Bittersweet Ending: The battle at UA is won with only a few lives lost (none on the side of heroes) and Musutafu begins reconstruction, while Tokyo has suffered Koh's signal but not to an extent it won't be able to recover; for different reasons Koh, Shin and Mirai won't be a threat anymore, Metalhead has been imprisoned, and Nakayama has been removed from office and arrested. However a lot of damage has been still caused, many civilians have died, and a lot more are currently displaced after the events; with the truth about the Yard going public, it will take time to rebuild full trust in the hero society, and the League of Villains are still free. While the story closes with a note of optimism, many more trials await the aspiring heroes as it's made clear some canon events are going to play out anyway.
• Body Horror
  • Hikaru Takenoko, an enigmatic associate of Metalhead, is already quite grotesque (his head is described as looking like a Moai) and becomes even more so when he takes a strong shot of Trigger. His limbs become absurdly long and snake-like while also sprouting eyes all over them.
  • In Part 3, Koh is injected with Trigger, which causes his facial features to become more angular, the gold color to overtake his eyes, and the spine bones to grow up and protrude out like literal antennas broadcasting his Rage signal.
• Breather Episode: After the climatic events of Chapters 28 and 29, 30 and 31 are centered on the immediate aftermath, while the rest deal with the longer-reaching consequences.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Hound Dog. Intimidating at school, terrifying in combat, complete softy around kids.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Hound Dog is recognized as an excellent guidance counselor, despite the way he behaves as a hero. His reputation as a slobbering ball of rage apparently helps him when he's working his other job; he's much calmer during sessions with the students, which often surprises them into letting their guard down around him.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Mineta says this verbatim when lamenting how all of his advances tend to get him maimed. He seems to have resigned himself to it, though.
  Midoriya: You could always try being less... just, less. In general.
  Mineta: Nah. I persevere. 'tis my burden.
• The Chessmaster: Nezu winds up manipulating everything in his favor, deliberately arranging events so that he and UA High School are the driving force behind the defense and cleanup of both Musutafu and Tokyo, and then predicting that Shin would blow the whistle on the Yard after the dust settles. He ends the story as possibly the most powerful individual in Japan, ready to purge the government of anyone who had a hand in the Yard's operations.
• The City Narrows: The Mosei and Santo wards of Musutafu, where most of the villain attacks take place. They're described as being cramped and confusing but not necessarily dangerous, just seedier than the rest of the city. As Metalhead and Horooka take control of the area, it becomes more of a Wretched Hive. Later, the richer ward of Kashiki suffers the same fate.
• Crapsaccharine World: The Hero Society is portrayed this way - despite the utopian veneer, inequality is rampant, societal unrest is mounting, and unwanted or vagrant civilians are captured and tortured to death with the government's quiet consent.
• Cuteness Proximity: Most of the characters Koh meets tend to be neutral at best towards him, but Ashido melts into a puddle of goo whenever he's around.
• A Day in the Limelight
  • Midoriya's injury and Bakugo's expulsion take them out of the action in the early parts of the story, putting more focus on Uraraka, Tokoyami, and Ashido.
  • Hound Dog, a UA faculty member who has gotten only two short appearances in canon so far, gets an important role here as Koh's main guardian at UA, which eventually makes him *very* emotionally invested in the events.
• Defector from Decadence: After reducing himself to a terrible physical state to help Metalhead, Mainichi can't take it anymore as control of the situation keeps slipping from her fingers. She lets him go.
• The Dreaded: Mirai Horooka inspires nearly superstitious terror in everyone she meets due to her powerful Quirk, obvious insanity, and complete disregard for collateral damage. The fact she easily beats heroes like Hawks, Nejire, and Endeavor only contributes.
• Eye Scream: During a meeting between Shigaraki and Metalhead, Shin is also present and Mirai approaches him, not knowing he's in truth a clone of Toga with his semblance, who takes advantage of her guard down to cut one of her eyes.
• For Want Of A Nail: In this story, the League of Villains chose to attack the Yard shortly after crippling Overhaul and stealing the anti-Quirk serum. As a result, High End's attack on Endeavor never occurs, and U.A.'s planned lessons are badly derailed due to the Yard escapees' campaign of terror on the city.
  • In Spite of a Nail: By the end of the story, however, all OCs are either dead, imprisoned, or gone to places from where they are not likely to influence future events, and it's made clear some pivotal canon events will happen anyway: Shigaraki is invited by the Doctor to go to a cabin in the mountains, and Izuku experiences a brief first manifestation of Black Whip. The fic basically replaces the Pro Hero and Joint Training arcs and then folds back into canon.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Neito Monoma to the rest of 1-B. After 1-A was attacked, Kendo was so determined to keep him from taunting them that she held a class assembly about it.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Metalhead goes from a high-school dropout leading a bunch of petty crooks to one of the most influential villains in the entire nation. At the end of the story she's certain that she's headed for Tartarus for all she's done, and still doesn't regret a minute of it.
• Gone Horribly Right: When Izuku and Dabi face off in Tokyo, Izuku doesn't believe he can beat Dabi in a straight fight, so he decides to keep his attention until Bakugo and Tokoyami can finish the mission. He does this by hinting that he knows Dabi's true identity. This, possibly combined with the Rage signal's influence, causes Dabi to spontaneously combust and burn down half the battlefield in his attempts to kill Izuku, and the overuse of his Quirk leaves him even more horribly burned and disfigured than he was before.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Metalhead's Quirk requires bloodletting, so her entire arm is badly cut up and scarred. Shin is covered with scars thanks to the Yard practically skinning him alive as part of their experiments.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Metalhead chain-smokes constantly, and its effects on her appearance and health become steadily worse as she continues her takeover of Musutafu. Nezu also smokes when under extreme stress, though he still practices moderation.
  Nezu: I'm still not entirely sure about my lifespan. Don't want to shorten it unnecessarily.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: In chapter 28 Tokage is seemingly gored by Kizutatchi. Luckily she has activated her quirk just in time, which means she has "merely" lost some parts she will eventually regenerate. It still hurts a lot.
• Government Agency of Fiction: The Ministry of Individuality, a mostly redundant regulatory body that was a big deal in the early days when Quirks first manifested but has since taken a backseat to the heroes themselves. It's mostly benign, with the notable exception of the Yard.
• Hate Plague: The mysterious "illness" affecting Musutafu is due to one of these. It's Koh Kyoumoto's Quirk, "Rage," which induces Unstoppable Rage in everyone around him. It also never turns off, to the point where he needs the anti-Quirk serum to go out in public at all.
• Hero-Worshipper: When Minister Nakayama shows up at U.A., he's so delighted at meeting the teachers that several of them compare him to Midoriya. This doesn't help their reaction when he enthusiastically shows off his work at the Yard.
• How Much More Can He Take?: In Tokyo, Shigaraki is first hit by Bakugo's grenade gauntlet attack, then by several more explosions as Bakugo prevents him from touching; he's then ragdolled by Tokoyami and Dark Shadow and slammed upwards through several floors in a Plus Ultra moment. And he's still able to get up, much to Bakugo's exasperation.
• Irony
  • In canon, Endeavor's debut as #1 has him come out of a fight with a powerful enemy heavily injured but victorious, boosting his public approval. Here, his encounter with Mirai goes badly, leaving him with no severe injuries but quite the humiliation.
  • Koh's Quirk has left him an anxious mess who's extremely sensitive towards other's feelings and terrified of making them angry. He ends up growing close to Hound Dog and Bakugo, possibly the two angriest people in UA.
• It's Personal: When Dabi was "rejecting" potential applicants to the League of Villains, several of his victims were acquaintances of Metalhead. She's held a serious grudge against the League ever since.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Bakugo has the same foul mouth and nitroglycerine temper as always, but appears to be acting out of genuine concern for his classmates when he's not shooting his mouth off.
• Lightning Bruiser: The story puts even more emphasis on Shigaraki's inhuman speed. At full sprint, he's able to get right in someone's face before they have time to take a breath.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Mirai Horooka's Quirk, "Noise," lets her "store" any sound she hears and turn it into blasts of destructive force. The twist is that it applies to all sound and she can apparently store a near-infinite amount of energy, turning her into a Person of Mass Destruction.
• Mood Whiplash: Chapter 28 jumps around from light-hearted (Todoroki's group defense of the back side of the campus), to semi-serious (Hound Dog's assault is brutal but is treated with some dark humour and levity), to very dark (the bloody and brutal fights against Kizutatchi and Metalhead).
• Mook Horror Show: In Chapter 28 a furious Hound Dog can defend one side of the U.A. campus almost alone, so brutally that Recovery Girl is there to heal the attackers. Shishida then joins the fray, instilling even more terror in the villains as they see themselves assaulted by another similar "creature".
• Morality Pet: Koh, to Shin.
• Nervous Wreck: Six-year-old Koh Kyoumoto's experiences have left him an anxious, constantly apologizing wreck.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: When Midoriya is critically injured at the beginning of the story, Bakugo takes it upon himself to find the villains responsible, sneaking out of U.A. to track them down. He's nearly killed in the process, and unceremoniously expelled from U.A. for breaking curfew on top of his history of bad discipline.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Shigaraki has apparently unlimited funds in various accounts inherited from All For One to put his plans into motion as he manipulates both the heroes and Metalhead's gang to his gain. At the end, however, it's revealed the money has indeed ran out, explaining why he and the League are so broke by the time the ending folds back into canon.
• Original Character: Numerous, mostly on the villains' side:
  • The new villains terrorizing Musutafu City turn out to be runaways from a government facility called the Yard: Shin Yuurei, Mirai Horooka, and Koh Kyoumoto. Most of the story revolves around the heroes' and League of Villains' power struggle around those three.
  • Later on, Metalhead and her small army of delinquents also join the fray; most notable among them is Yori Kizutatchi.
• Papa Wolf: Hound Dog, in more ways than one. Aizawa also remains fiercely protective of Eri.
• Perception Filter: Shin Yuurei's Quirk "Incognito" is an especially powerful one - it totally erases his presence from all senses except (faintly) hearing, it transmits itself to anything he touches while it's active, it evades most basic infrared security measures and it doesn't place any obvious strain on him no matter how long he keeps it up.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • The Yard dealt with Mirai by putting her inside an anechoic chamber. This has the unfortunate side effect of making someone go insane after an hour in one of them and she was in it for eighteen months, all because of how dangerous her Quirk could be. However, she was already unhinged before the treatment and her attacks show how dangerous she truly is. In fact, the incident that led to the Yard obtaining her was her leveling her juvenile detention center.
  • The same can be said for their treatment of Shin and Koh. Koh can't turn his Quirk off and thus has a kill count rivaling actual supervillains, while Shin is the perfect spy and he got recruited by the League of Villains.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The teachers and parents alike just want to keep their kids safe. Even Aizawa, who's more of a Stern Teacher than usual, is just miserably stressed and pushes himself almost to the brink of death during the Mosei-Santo operation. The biggest exception is Osamu Nakayama, who's bad enough to ruin things for everyone else.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Bakugo delivers a blistering one to Nezu upon his expulsion, lambasting the teachers, Midoriya, and himself for being unable to stop the villains' attacks for so long. He caps it off by kicking Nezu's reinforced desk so hard he breaks his own ankle.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Bakugo, as usual.
• The Sociopath: Mirai Horooka, far more so than her companions.
  • Yori Kizutatchi proves to be possibly even worse under his cool, affable demeanor, especially when he kills his old friend Hadakai with not even the slightest remorse.
• Straw Nihilist: Mirai openly mocks the idea of hoping for a better future and just wants to break everything she can see. "It doesn't matter" is practically her catchphrase.
• Suicide By Hero: A bizarre example from the end of Part 2. The clone of Toga who had taken Koh's semblances, once discovered and restrained, provokes an already furious Hound Dog into squashing her, so that Twice can perceive her destruction and alert the rest of the League.
• Spanner in the Works: UA spends much of Part 2 in a waiting game with the League of Villains over Koh and his power, with UA trying to cure it and Shin ready to take him back to the League if they fail. Everything goes to hell when Nakayama, in his desperation to retrieve Koh for himself, leaks Koh's location to the general public, nearly sparking a riot over UA and forcing everyone else in the story to change their own plans on the fly.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Koh's eyes are repeatedly mentioned to be this, and they almost glow. When the irises become more prominent, it's a warning his Quirk is about to awaken.
• Talkative Loon: Mirai babbles constantly, and about half of it is intelligible. Some of her rants are reminiscent of clanging.
• Tranquil Fury: Izuku in Part 3 is angry at the League of Villains for how they wasted a good action, freeing the victims of the Yard, by using them and making them suffer further. After a verbal roasting, he proceeds to take on them all (minus Shigaraki) alone. He makes Twice scared shitless of him even before he attacks.
• Unstoppable Rage
  • Early in Part 3, Hound Dog is livid for the trick the League of Villains pulled, swapping Koh with a clone of Toga. He redirects his anger at the villains attacking UA, defending one side of the campus almost single-handedly. Notably, Recovery Girl is stationed there to help villains who may be gravely injured by Hound.
  • From the same chapter Mina, who was present at the same clone reveal and is furious, stomps several attackers alone and manages to prevent Kizutatchi from killing Vlad King.
• Villainous RRoD: At the climax of her assault on UA, Mirai injects herself with Trigger and then tries to unleash all her pent-up energy at once. Her power instead backfires on her own body, leaving her horrifically injured and indefinitely comatose.
• Villainous Valor
  • The clones of the League of Villains made by Twice are fully aware of being expendable copies but it motivates them to give their best and they are open to suicidal tactics. One of the Spinners, though injured enough to turn into goop, holds up by sheer force of will, while one Compress, once he's fulfilled his mission, offs himself with little hesitation.
  • Yasuhiro and Mainichi, two of Metalhead's most trusted lieutenants also thanks to their useful quirks, overexert themselves to keep helping her; Yasuhiro ends up captured because of that.
• Wham Line: The last line of Chapter 28. "Tokyo had fallen." Later revealed to indicate a situation that was critical yet not completely lost, but still.
• Wolverine Claws: The quirk of OC Yori Kizutatchi generates a cutting force from the fingers (and extends to most of his arms when he takes the Trigger drug) that makes them like very sharp blades, and he's far too happy to use it.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Yard. It's a government black site dedicated to experimenting on vagrants with especially unique or dangerous Quirks, most of them children. The experiments continue until the subjects die from the trauma, at which point they're disposed of and replaced.
• You Have Failed Me: Openly defied by Tomura Shigaraki, after Shin loses Koh to the heroes.
  Shigaraki: Yes, you failed. So what? All that means is you have to keep trying. Again and again, until you get it right. We'll be trying right along with you.

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