Fanfic / I am [REDACTED]

I am [REDACTED] by Titus621 is a My Hero Academia Fan Fic. It explores the romance between Midoriya Izuku and Uraraka Ochako in a world where Izuku still became All Might's successor, but never went to UA. Instead, he attended a private hero institution in America, where he was allowed to maintain a Secret Identity — a secret identity he kept and upheld when he moved back to Japan and officially became a pro hero.

Official Summary: What if Izuku Midoriya never went to UA? What if he studied in secret in America, only to return to Japan and hide behind a secret identity?

A story of secrets, mystery, and love.

AKA: What if Izuku hid the secret of One For All behind a mild-mannered alter ego?

Tropes:

• Adaptational Badass: As this story starts six years after canon, all of Class 1-A are now heroes, meaning they are infinitely stronger than their canon selves. Of particular note is Izuku, who has fully mastered One For All (including the Quirks of his predecessors).
• Adaptational Name Change: Izuku’s hero name is Nimbus instead of Deku.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Izuku isn’t acquainted with the members of 1-A outside Bakugo at the start of the story due to his decision to study in the States instead of U.A.
  • On the topic of Bakugo, there is still some animosity (if not more so due to the nail) as the events that led to Bakugo mellowing out never happened.
• Always Second Best: Katsuki, to Nimbus. Katsuki became the Number Two hero in less than a year, something that should've been a historical feat — had Nimbus not beaten him to the Number One spot in even less time.
• Always Someone Better: Katsuki is legitimately a cut above the rest of the heroes in Japan. According to Izuku, there is an appreciable gap between him and the current Number Three hero, one that's unlikely to be closed any time soon. Unfortunately for him, Nimbus/Izuku is in a class of his own thanks to One For All, and Katsuki has no conceivable hope of ever catching up to him.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Thanks to Izuku being the undisputed Number One hero in the world, the Midoriyas have more money than they could ever dream of, to the point that Hisashi and Inko have quit their jobs and with the former moving permanently back to Japan. This makes their bakery less a business venture and more a hobby, so they donate most of the proceeds they get from it to charity instead.
• Battle Couple: After Izuku unmasks himself as Nimbus and then goes public with his relationship with Ochako, he takes her up on her offer to become her sidekick, and the two become official partners.
• Beta Couple: Thanks to Izuku and Ochako's pushing, Kirishima and Mina come clean about their own feelings and hook up.
• Boy Meets Girl: The premise of the story is Izuku meeting Ochako, both as himself and as a pro-hero, in a world where he never went to UA.
• Curbstomp Battle: Izuku faces off against Muscular, and KOs him in a single punch.
• Dark Secret: Played for Laughs when, after Izuku reveals he's Nimbus to Ochako, she says her own secret is that she covers up her Kansai accent.
• Dramatic Irony: During his emotional confrontation with Katsuki in Chapter Five, Izuku points out that the person Katsuki is really mad at is Nimbus, not him, and that Katsuki is just using Izuku as an outlet. Of course, as the readers and Izuku himself know, Izuku is Nimbus, so Katsuki is technically channeling his anger at the right person, just at the wrong time.
• Embarrassing Nickname: What Izuku regards "Redacted" as.
• Fastball Special: During an impromptu team-up with Red Riot and Froppy, Nimbus does this combo with the former in order to take the villain they were facing out.
• Fauxreigner: Izuku intentionally leads the public into assuming that his hero identity is ethnically American. This is aided by the helmet he wears, which conceals his entire head, preventing anyone from seeing any discerning features.
• Generation Xerox: As lampshaded by Izuku, he and Katsuki are the All Might and Endeavor of their generation. Katsuki is an absolutely amazing hero, but can't hold a candle to Izuku no matter how hard he tries thanks to the Story-Breaker Power that is One For All. And, just like Endeavor, Katsuki hates that he is Always Second Best to Nimbus/Redacted.
• Humble Hero: Even as the new Symbol of Peace and Number One hero, Izuku is as humble as ever. When the Japanese Prime Minister states that Izuku is more powerful than All Might, he denies it. Even though he admits that All Might agrees with her assessment.
• Insistent Appellation: At the start of his hero career, Izuku had to keep on reminding reporters and fans that his official hero name was Nimbus, not Redacted. Nobody listened, and he eventually gave up correcting them (though Ochako is trying to correct this at least among her circle of friends).
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite Izuku's absence from canon, some things still remain the same.
  • Izuku still broke his arms multiple times while training in America.
    • As the Ninth holder of One For All, Izuku managed to awaken Black Whip, Float, and presumably the other quirks that the previous OFA holders had.
  • There is an implication that the Stain incident still happened leading up to Iida confronting him, but one of the big changes due to Izuku’s absence is him having an artificial arm.
  • All For One and All Might still had their fight which resulted the former being permanently defeated and being imprisoned in Tartarus and the latter permanently being De Powered and forced into retirement.
  • One of those things is Mirio losing his Quirk while rescuing Eri, though, by the present storyline, Eri has learned to control her Quirk enough to help him regain it by de-aging him.
• Just a Stupid Accent: Inverted and deliberately invoked by Izuku, as part of his Secret Identity. As Nimbus, he fakes an American accent while speaking Japanese, leading the public to assume that he is ethnically American.
• Like Brother and Sister: How Izuku describes his relationship with Melissa. They're best friends and partners but have no romantic interest in one another.
• Lonely at the Top: Izuku both subverts this and plays it straight. By keeping a Secret Identity, he's able to remain close to his parents, which was his primary motivation for adopting one in the first place. His social life, on the other hand, has suffered greatly; he was forced to cut off contact with all his friends in America after moving back to Japan because they could compromise his identity, and has been unable to allow anyone else close to him in the three years since for the same reason. It wasn't until Ochako came into his life that Izuku was willing to bend this rule for someone, helped by All Might's encouragement.
• Loves My Alter Ego: While Ochako feels attracted to Nimbus, she prefers the unassuming, gentle Izuku, even telling Nimbus that Izuku is her boyfriend. Of course, when she finds out the truth, she is surprised and relieved.
• Mission Control: Melissa Shield functions as this for Izuku, echoing the relationship her father had with All Might.
• Momma's Boy: The reason for the nail: Izuku didn't want to distance himself from his mother, because she was all he really had at the time. Thus, by maintaining a Secret Identity, the amount of danger she would be in would diminish significantly.
• Named by Democracy: How Izuku was nicknamed "Redacted".
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Izuku point blank tells Katsuki that he refuses to be his punching bag again and that he could either rejoin his old classmates and act as a normal person, or just leave his family's bakery and never come back. Katsuki opts to leave.
• Parents as People: Hisashi is described as this. According to Inko, he honestly does love his family but lives and works in America so his wife and son can live comfortably. A chance to reconnect with Hisashi helped cement Izuku's decision to go to America for high school, and by the time the main story starts, the family is closer than ever.
• Point of Divergence: Izuku's decision to attend hero school in America instead of Japan changes things for all of U.A., not just him.
  • Because Izuku is his successor, All Might followed him to America and became a teacher at the private hero institution Izuku attended. It's implied that the League of Villains shifted their base of operations to America as a result of that.
    • Because the League of Villains based themselves in a different country, many of the events of canon that they were involved in never happened, such as the USJ incident and Katsuki's kidnapping. However, the final clash between All Might and All For One a la Kamino Ward still occurred, just in America; though the exact circumstances that led to that confrontation are still unknown.
  • Tenya now has a prosthetic arm. It's implied he got this after his confrontation with Stain, and Izuku's absence from said situation led to the loss of his real arm.
  • Shoto never makes an appearance, but when mentioned, he is described as "cold", suggesting that without Izuku, nobody else managed to get him to defrost and he continued to remain aloof with the rest of Class 1-A during their three years at U.A. It's also not clarified if he's using his left side, though there is a high likelihood that he isn't.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Izuku gives a huge one to Katsuki after they meet again for the first time in seven years, barely allowing the other man to get a word in edgewise. It was presumably effective, seeing as Katsuki left after he was done without bothering to argue back.
• Romance Arc: For Izuku and Ochako. While there is action and mystery, at the heart of it all, it's a love story about them.
• Secret Identity: Izuku, natch. It's especially notable in the world of My Hero Academia because almost no other pro hero has a secret identity in this day and age; Izuku had to make a deal with the Japanese government in order to have his real name and personal information blacked out in public documents. It's actually how his nickname, Redacted, came about — whenever someone tried to research him using public records, the word [REDACTED] would take the place of wherever his real name would appear, and eventually people started calling him that instead of Nimbus.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Inko, Hisashi, and Melissa know about One For All in this story.
  • Ochako is the first person out of his close-knit circle to learn Izuku's secret identity as Nimbus.
  • Kirishima and Mina are let in on the secret a little while later.
• That Man Is Dead: When confronted by Bakugo, Midoriya states that the “Deku” he bullied had died a long time ago.
• Title Drop: At the end of Chapter 20.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Ochako was already nursing a minor crush on Nimbus before she met him, in either identity. The crush remains even as she and Izuku grow closer together.
  • After Izuku reveals the truth to her, Ochako realizes that the reason she felt that way towards Nimbus was precisely because she instinctively knew he was Izuku.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 20, when Nimbus reveals his secret identity.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The story is essentially a homage to Superman set in the world of My Hero Academia, with Izuku as the titular hero and Ochako as Lois Lane.
• World's Strongest Man: Since this is technically a post-canon story, Izuku has full control over One For All and is All Might's successor as the Symbol of Peace and the strongest hero in the world.

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