The fifteenth year after All Might (P.A.) arrived with a facade of tranquility. Neo-Tokyo, rebuilt to be taller and brighter, stood proudly over the remnants of past conflicts, sparkling under the glow of artificial sunlight regulation fields.
Hover-cars zipped between sleek chrome towers, while advertisements flashed with holographic heroes promoting everything from energy drinks to state-sponsored insurance.
Meanwhile, the official approval ratings for registered Pro Heroes remained impressively high. On the surface, it seemed like the Golden Age was still in full swing, a shining example of society's resilience and the unwavering commitment of its guardians.
Yet, beneath this polished exterior, the foundations were beginning to creak.
At the center of this new era was Izuku Midoriya, known as Deku.
No longer the tearful, stuttering boy who had inherited the world's greatest power, he was now a thirty-one-year-old man. His face still held a kindness, but it was marked by the lines of sleepless nights and tough choices.
The iconic green lightning of One For All crackled around him with a force that sometimes felt less like an extension of his will and more like a storm waiting to break free.
He was the Symbol of Peace, but that title felt heavier and colder now than it ever had on All Might's broad shoulders. Achieving peace demanded constant vigilance, endless sacrifice, and the ability to navigate a maze of political pressures and societal divides that seemed to grow more intricate by the day.
He found himself standing on the edge of the newly built Aegis Tower, the wind tousling his unruly dark green hair. Below him, the city sprawled out—a million points of light, each representing a potential crisis.
One For All pulsed beneath his skin, a symphony of echoes from its past wielders blending with a volatile energy that felt alarmingly fresh. It was more than just power.
It picked up on the subtle shifts in the city's energy, the rising background radiation of countless quirks interacting, evolving, and pushing against unseen limits. Too much. Too fast, the remnants seemed to murmur, a feeling that Deku was increasingly coming to understand.
Villainy had taken on a whole new shape. The days of simple smash-and-grab thugs or over-the-top monologuers plotting world domination were long gone.
Now, the threats were much more subtle. There were quirk-trafficking rings pushing illegal enhancers that pushed people beyond their limits, often with disastrous consequences.
Then there were the ideological extremists, using quirks as weapons to fight against the increasing government control. And the strangest of all?
The "Quirk Flares"—sudden, localized bursts of uncontrollable power from individuals who had previously shown stable abilities. Authorities brushed them off as isolated incidents, mere statistical anomalies in a world overflowing with quirks, but Deku sensed a pattern, a dissonant hum beneath the city's usual rhythm.
"Oi, Deku! Quit brooding and get down here. The briefing's about to start."
The voice, rough yet stripped of its youthful fury, belonged to Katsuki Bakugo—Dynamight. His hero suit, a more refined version of his old gear, prioritized function over flair, though those grenade-like gauntlets were still iconic. At thirty-one, Bakugo's explosive power had become more controlled, terrifyingly precise, shaped through countless battles into a destructive art form that, ironically, served the cause of order.
He hadn't truly mellowed, but the fire within him was now channeled; his sharp glare assessed threats with an unnerving intensity. He trusted very few, but Deku was the constant in his chaotic world—the one person whose back he'd always cover, even if he'd never say it out loud.
Standing beside him was Shoto Todoroki, still simply known as Shoto. His mastery of both ice and fire had reached astonishing heights. He could summon glaciers to stop tsunamis or use precise flames to seal up crumbling buildings, often doing both at once. The scar across his left eye was a constant reminder of a past he had long come to terms with. He was the strategist, the calm in Bakugo's tempest and the grounding force to Deku's sometimes overwhelming compassion. His heterochromatic eyes scanned the city, picking up on atmospheric pressure, thermal anomalies, and the subtle hints of trouble that Deku sensed on a more instinctual level. "The initial reports on the Sector Gamma energy spike are… all over the place," Shoto remarked, his tone steady. "The analysis points to a non-standard quirk interaction, possibly involving some kind of time displacement."
Deku let out a sigh, feeling the weight of the world settle back onto his shoulders. Time displacement. Just ten years ago, that was a concept straight out of science fiction. Now, it was just another Tuesday. "Another Flare?"
"Could be," Shoto replied. "Or something entirely new."
As they made their way down into the agency headquarters nestled within the tower, the vibrant energy of the hero world enveloped them. Familiar faces, now a bit older, were busy coordinating their efforts. Momo Yaoyorozu (Creati), leading the Hero Support Logistics, was directing resource distribution with unmatched skill, her creation quirk providing essential gear all over the globe. Eijiro Kirishima (Red Riot), his Unbreakable form marked but stronger than ever, was at the helm of a rapid-response team focused on high-risk rescues. Ochaco Uraraka (Uravity) was in charge of orbital rescue missions, her zero-gravity powers crucial for handling the increasingly common high-altitude emergencies. They were all legends, orchestrating complex operations that far surpassed the street-level battles of their younger days.
The system was definitely feeling the strain. There just weren't enough heroes to go around. Training academies were pumping out sidekicks, but with the complexity of modern quirks, mastering them took time, and the stakes were higher than ever. Burnout was everywhere. While the public image was officially positive, cracks were starting to show. Online forums buzzed with conspiracy theories, and anti-quirk sentiment, once a fringe idea, was gaining ground in the more disenfranchised areas. Protests flared up over the Quirk Classification Act, which was just the beginning of stricter laws aimed at categorizing and predicting quirk potential—a necessary evil, the government insisted, to keep the growing instability in check.
Deku could feel the tension hanging in the air, thick like the recycled oxygen in the tower. He shared a glance with Bakugo and Shoto—an unspoken understanding of the delicate balance they were trying to maintain. They were the strongest, the heirs to All Might's legacy, the icons of a new era.
But they were starting to realize that even icons could break. And the faint, jarring hum beneath the surface of the world was getting louder by the day. The twilight was fading; a long night was looming.
The year 23 P.A. didn't kick off with a bang, but rather with a series of unsettling whispers that quickly escalated into a global outcry. It all began as fodder for conspiracy theorists and late-night talk shows: odd weather patterns hovering over specific city blocks, reports of quirks showing up with strange, non-hereditary side effects, and brief reality distortions that were brushed off as mass hysteria or localized gas leaks.
Akari gripped her son's hand a little tighter, pulling him away from the mesmerizing storefront display.
The holographic idol flickered, then fizzled into static before awkwardly reshaping itself—its face melting into the vibrant neon background.
Around them, people whispered, pointing at the flickering streetlights and distorted reflections dancing on the shiny chrome pavement.
"Just a power glitch," someone remarked, trying to sound casual.
But Akari could feel it—a low hum in the air, a pressure building behind her eyes. Her own little quirk, the ability to sense nearby organic materials, was going haywire, making the crowd appear in a chaotic swirl of overlapping auras.
Her son whimpered, his simple light-emission quirk causing the tips of his fingers to flash erratically.
"Mommy, make it stop," he pleaded, burying his face in her coat. Akari knelt down, trying to shield him as a nearby hover-car suddenly crumpled in on itself with a sickening crunch of metal, its safety alarms blaring into the rising tension. This wasn't just a power glitch. Something was seriously wrong.
Izuku Midoriya stood at the command center, his eyes glued to the main holographic display as reports streamed in.
His knuckles turned white from gripping the console edge too tightly. Neo-Osaka, Cascade City, London Sector 5, Rio Plata District—similar incidents were erupting all over the world at the same time.
Quirks were going haywire, mutations were popping up out of nowhere, and the environment was warping in strange ways. His danger sense, heightened by One For All, buzzed in his mind like a relentless alarm.
"It's getting worse, Ninth," Nana Shimura's voice rang in his head, a steady presence amid the chaos. "The energy signatures… they're unlike anything we've encountered before. It's as if the quirks are unraveling themselves."
"Can we predict where the next flare will hit?" Deku asked, his voice steady as he turned to the analysts who were tracking the global energy fluctuations.
A frazzled technician shook his head, sweat trickling down his forehead. "Negative, Symbol! The patterns are all over the place. Background radiation is spiking everywhere, but the locations of the surges seem completely random. We can only react."
React. Deku gritted his teeth. Just reacting wasn't going to cut it. He focused on One For All, channeling its energy into the global communications network.
"All active heroes, your top priority is civilian evacuation and containment. Avoid direct engagement with unstable quirks unless absolutely necessary.
Concentrate on minimizing collateral damage. We need more information!" He felt the overwhelming power surge through him, linking him to countless heroes around the globe, but it felt like trying to hold back a tidal wave with just his hands.
"MOVE IT, YOU DAMN EXTRAS!"
Dynamight roared as he soared through the air, using controlled explosions to propel himself forward. Below him, Cascade City looked like a scene from a nightmare. Buildings twisted at odd angles, streets were buckled, and the air shimmered with iridescent energy fields that distorted everything around them.
His target? A localized singularity event right at a high school, where dozens of students' quirks had seemingly activated all at once, merging into a chaotic, semi-sentient energy mass that was devouring the entire block.
"Sir, the energy readings are off the charts!" Kaminari Denki (Chargebolt) shouted over the comms, his voice strained with urgency. "My discharges are getting sucked right in! It's like it's feeding on them!"
"Then stop feeding the damn thing!" Bakugo snapped, narrowly dodging a wave of solidified sound that burst from the school's gymnasium.
He fired a precise AP Shot at a structural weakness he had spotted, hoping to relieve some of the pressure. The explosion hit, sending debris flying, but the swirling energy mass merely pulsed, absorbing the kinetic force like it was nothing. "Tch! Useless!"
He hated this. Not the fight itself, but the unpredictable nature of it all. He could blow up villains, overpower rivals, and strategize against threats he could calculate.
But this? It felt like trying to punch fog that fought back with a reality-bending force. His quirk, pure destructive power, felt clumsy against something so fundamentally broken. He landed near a cordon line where Shoto was directing the efforts, his ice walls struggling to contain the spatial distortions.
"Any bright ideas, Half-and-Half?" Bakugo growled, wiping soot from his face.
"Containment isn't working," Shoto said, his voice strained even though he usually kept it steady.
He conjured a wall of solid ice, observing with a detached curiosity as the shimmering energy twisted it, creating cracks that glowed with a sickly purple hue.
His flames melted the warped sections before they could break apart, caught in a relentless, exhausting loop of creation and destruction. "The anomaly adjusts to direct attacks and energy blasts. Our usual strategies aren't cutting it. It's growing at an alarming rate."
He studied the shifting energy patterns, comparing them with data from other hotspots around the world.
"Deku," he communicated, connecting to the command center, "The energy profiles across the globe show common threads, even though they manifest differently. This points to a systemic failure in quirk mechanics, not just isolated cases."
He noticed Bakugo tense up next to him, grasping the dire implications. If quirks were actually breaking down… what could heroes possibly do? Shoto's gaze drifted to the school building, visibly warping, the cries from inside fading as the energy consumed everything. A chill deeper than his ice settled in. His precise control and immense power felt insignificant if the very laws that governed them were crumbling.
"Ground teams are reporting severe atmospheric turbulence over Cascade City,"
Ochaco Uraraka announced from her spot on the orbital platform 'Haven'. Her screens flickered with chaotic energy patterns that were wreaking havoc on satellite communications.
"We've got multiple aircraft down. I'm starting zero-gravity rescue protocols, but visibility is almost non-existent. I can't promise we'll be able to get everyone out." A wave of nausea washed over her, not from the weightlessness, but from the feeling of powerlessness as she watched the turmoil below, like a dark storm she was unable to control.
Deku absorbed the reports—Shoto's icy analysis, Uravity's strained updates, and Bakugo's frustrated shouts echoing faintly from Cascade City's feed, all detailing how other Class A members were facing similar nightmares around the globe.
Red Riot was stuck, holding up a collapsing building against a backdrop of shifting infrastructure, while Creati's inventions were falling apart just moments after they were created. Chargebolt was pushing himself to the limit just to keep the lines of communication open. The Singularity Collapse was no longer just a theory; it had arrived.
He stared at the world map, where red alerts bloomed like a deadly rash.
The era of predictable heroism, the one All Might had ushered in and that he had fought so hard to uphold, was crumbling. Fear, raw and primal, began to seep through the cracks of society, a poison far more dangerous than any villain's plot.
And Deku felt a chilling certainty settle in his veins: the world would demand a solution—any solution—to halt the chaos. Control, order, regulation… the very things he dreaded might soon become necessary, even if it meant sacrificing freedom itself. The echoes of the past, the weight of One For All, felt heavier than ever as the world began its slow descent into darkness.