By Year 31 P.A., U.A. High had turned into a fortress under siege.
The once-inviting gates that welcomed aspiring heroes now stood reinforced, bearing the scars of laser fire and impact craters from the growing protests.
Searchlights sliced through the ever-present twilight smog that hung over the campus, illuminating makeshift barricades manned by grim-faced security personnel and weary Pro Heroes pulled from singularity containment duty.
The air was heavy with tension, not young aspirations, as the sound of the crowd outside crashed against the walls like a threatening flood. It had been eight years since the Singularity Collapse started, and the terror it sparked had turned into mistrust, then anger, and it was targeted directly at the center of hero society.
Inside the main security hub, Chief Akamura rubbed his temples, his gaze fixed on the holographic displays showing thermal scans of the crowd outside. Tens of thousands pressed against the perimeter, their numbers swelling with each passing day.
The soundproofed walls echoed quietly with chants: "Release the Data!" "Quirk Lies Kill!" and "No More Secrets!" His voice was gruff and strained as he yelled, "Status report?" at one of his subordinates.
"Crowd density is rising at Gate Gamma, sir. They're using makeshift sonic weapons to try and break through the sonic dampeners. We've had twelve officers injured in the last hour. Requesting permission to deploy suppression fields."
Akamura hesitated, considering his choices. Although they were non-lethal, suppression fields had many drawbacks. Utilizing them would simply serve to reinforce the idea that U.A. was a tyrant.
But if those gates went down… "Negative," he replied, the word feeling heavy on his tongue. "Reinforce Gate Gamma with Hero Team Epsilon. Hold the line. No escalation unless we're directly breached." He switched comm channels. "Principal Emiya, the situation is getting worse. We need your guidance."
Kaito pushed his way forward, swept up in the crowd, his voice hoarse from shouting.
The chant of "No More Secrets!" surged through him, a powerful cry echoing against the towering structures of U.A. His daughter, his precious Yui, had her minor hydrokinesis quirk spiral out of control two months back during a sudden Flare.
It wasn't just a loss of control; she had literally dissolved, her body transforming into scalding steam that burned three neighbors before vanishing into thin air.
The official report labeled it a tragic anomaly. But Kaito had stumbled upon online forums, where whispers of others echoed—quirks becoming unstable and unpredictable.
They claimed U.A. was aware. They said the top heroes, the legends, knew the risks but kept it under wraps to safeguard their status and power.
He gazed at the heroes depicted on the walls—stoic figures in shining armor, symbols of an order that now felt empty.
He saw the Symbol of Peace, Deku, on the news, offering condolences but no real answers. Why wouldn't they just tell the truth? Why wouldn't they do something about it? Anger flared within Kaito, cutting through his grief. He picked up a piece of broken pavement, his hand trembling.
"Tell us the truth!" he shouted, throwing the rock toward the unyielding gate. It sparked harmlessly against the energy barrier, but it was a statement, a release. He wasn't alone; others joined in, a shower of debris against the steadfast fortress.
Izuku Midoriya stood in the dark observation chamber with a view of Gate Gamma, the roar of the throng like a physical weight against the reinforced glass. At thirty-five, when All Might was still growing, Deku felt old, weakened by internal and external conflicts. Beneath his skin, One For All roared, a raging sea of power amplified by the mayhem around him.
"They twist the truth, Ninth," Kudo, the second user, hissed in his mind. "We're attempting for dealing with a storm, and they blame us for it"
"Their terror is being fueled by silence," Hikage Shinomori, the fourth, replied sadly. "However, it would absolutely break them if the full reality of Singularity—what this power is becoming—were revealed."
Deku leaned his forehead on the cool glass and closed his eyes. Shinomori was correct. Because OFA was connected to the growing oddity network, he knew things—horrible things.
He was aware that the Singularity wasn't only a chance occurrence; rather, it was a precursor, with peculiarities developing at an exponential rate to the point where they may potentially override biological boundaries and even the mainstream reality.
Additionally, OFA itself was perilously near that threshold. A full-power release now may conceivably set off a disastrous chain reaction, speeding up the very collapse they battled against, because its strength had become so great and entangled with the combined energy of all the world's peculiarities.
How could he tell Kaito, the grieving father outside, that the Symbol of Peace held a doomsday trigger? That the legacy meant to save the world might now endanger it?
The door hissed open. Shoto entered, his expression grim, ice clinging faintly to his right shoulder.
"The perimeter won't hold much longer, Midoriya. Akamura is requesting authorization for Level 3 countermeasures."
"No," Deku said immediately. "That will only provoke them further. There has to be another way."
"Another way?" Bakugo's voice sliced through the air as he stormed into the room, his gauntlets crackling with energy. "What are you thinking, Deku? You gonna step out there and shed some tears? Try to reason with that mob? They don't want reason! They want blood! They need someone to blame!"
He slammed his fist against the wall, frustration radiating off him. "We should've taken charge when this Flare mess started! We should've locked down those unstable quirks! Made them comply!"
"That's the road to tyranny, Kacchan!" Deku shot back, the fire within him igniting.
"We cannot change into what we are fighting!'
Bakugo stepped forward, pointing at the window.
"What are we even battling against!?" he demanded. "Look outside! That's not an enemy; it's the world we fought to protect, now reacting out of fear! And perhaps they have every right to be afraid! Maybe you should be too!"
Before Deku could even get a word out, a blinding flash erupted from Gate Gamma, followed by a deafening explosion that shook the tower to its very core. Alarms blared, and ominous red lights flickered throughout the room.
On the ground, Kaito shielded his eyes as a section of the main gate buckled inward, the twisted metal groaning under pressure. Up front, a protestor with a volatile energy-magnification quirk had reached their breaking point, causing a chain reaction that set off a sympathetic detonation among nearby quirk users.
The crowd surged forward, pouring through the breach like water bursting through a broken dam. Security forces were instantly overwhelmed. Heroes attempted to step in, but the sheer mass of panicked, furious people—some unleashing uncontrolled quirks—made any organized defense impossible.
Inside U.A., chaos mirrored the turmoil outside. Alarms blared about containment breaches in the lower labs, where unstable quirks seized during the Collapse were being studied.
There was no communication. In the hallways, several security and remaining staff factions clashed due to contradicting protocols or pure terror. Others struggled valiantly to get out, while others attempted to shut down the facility, thereby trapping their colleagues. The school was consuming itself in blame and anxiety as a result of the U.A. Retraction Protocol, which was more than just a command.
Bakugo, Shoto, and Deku rushed through the panicked people to the breach. They saw heroes fighting not just rioters but also often one another, causing long-standing ideological differences to crumble under the strain. Smoke, screaming, and the acrid tang of releasing quirks filled the air. There was complete chaos.
As Deku watched the symbol of hero society crumble around him, he realized this was the end—not just for U.A., but for the entire era it represented.
Trust was gone. They wanted control. And while having the most destructive power on the planet, he was powerless to offer either truth or protection without endangering them all. Deku felt a crushing weight fall on his shoulders as Bakugo blazed a trail ahead and Shoto built up frozen barriers to protect the escaping students.
The burden wasn't just One For All; it was the realization that the future of the world might hinge on the Symbol of Peace himself stepping into the shadows.
As dawn broke over the remnants of U.A. High, the smoke-choked sky transformed into shades of bruised purple and fiery orange.
The roar of the crowd had faded into an unsettling silence, punctuated only by the crackling of fires, the whir of overloaded emergency drones, and the distant wail of sirens that seemed to mourn the end of an era.
The once-iconic gates of U.A. lay twisted and broken, the grounds scarred and strewn with debris—shattered barriers, discarded protest signs stained with something darker than paint, and the faint glimmer of residual quirk energy fading away like ghosts in the morning light. The fortress had fallen.
Shoto watched the destruction from the debris of the main entrance, his gloomy composure barely masking the madness within him. Patches of ice coated areas of the plaza, retaining flickering fires, and his suit was trashed, smeared with soot and dried blood, not his own.
Rescue efforts were in full swing, primarily led by independent heroes and overwhelmed emergency services; the organized structure of U.A.'s command had crumbled overnight.
For the past few hours, he had been coordinating triage, using his dual temperatures to create sterile zones and cauterize wounds, but it felt like putting band-aids on a corpse. The physical destruction was severe, but the blow to society, to the very essence of heroism, was beyond measure.
"See him?" Bakugo's rough voice jolted him from his thoughts. Dynamight landed nearby, his face stormy, his gauntlets charred. He had been clearing paths for emergency vehicles, his usual intensity redirected into this grim task.
Shoto shook his head. "Midoriya hasn't replied on any comm channel since the main breach. The last time we saw him was near the central archive vaults during the evacuation." He paused, scanning the devastated campus. "He looked… determined.
Bakugo let out a frustrated sound that was a mix of a growl and a sigh.
"Determined? Or just plain stupid? What the hell was he thinking? Trying to save records when the whole damn place was falling apart?" He kicked a chunk of rubble in frustration.
"Damn nerd. Always trying to shoulder everything on his own." Beneath the anger, there was a hint of worry—a familiar dynamic that Shoto recognized all too well. But Deku wasn't just saving records.
Shoto had a feeling he was grappling with the immense burden of One For All itself, especially now, with the world pointing fingers at heroes for the chaos that Deku had probably seen coming.
"—truly a night of tragedy," Ren Ito announced for GNN, her face lit up by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, with the ruined facade of U.A. looming behind her like a ghostly shell.
What started as protests quickly spiraled into an unprecedented wave of violence, shattering the very symbol of hero education and raising alarming questions about the future of quirk regulation and public safety.
Officials are already pushing for major reforms, with the newly established Provisional Governance Council—led by advocates for stricter quirk control—promising to restore some semblance of order.
But the burning question on everyone's mind," she leaned in closer to the camera, her voice dropping to a whisper, "is where was the Symbol of Peace, Deku? Conflicting reports suggest he was inside during the height of the chaos, yet his current location remains a mystery. Has the pressure finally taken its toll on the world's top hero?"
The world no longer waited for heroes.
It demanded order. In the weeks that followed U.A.'s downfall—now grimly referred to as the 'Retraction Incident'—the Provisional Council quickly consolidated its power. Curfews were enforced. Known 'unstable' quirk users were detained indefinitely for 'public safety.' Plans for a new, centralized hero institution—one founded on principles of control, lineage, and predictability—were put on the fast track. Eternal Academia High. The very name felt like a cold mockery of the vibrant chaos that U.A. once embodied.
Izuku observed everything unfold from the shadows, slipping between the forgotten safe houses that Sir Nighteye had set up years ago—remnants of a future that never materialized.
He caught glimpses of the news reports, the fear-mongering, and the swift erosion of freedoms that the chaos of the Singularity had justified.
Inside him, One For All stirred, more restless than ever, responding to the global anxiety and the increasing grip of control. The voices within him were a chaotic mix—some urging him to take a stand, to expose the truth, while others cautioned that his very existence, the power he wielded, had become a liability, a potential spark for even greater disaster or a tool to be exploited by the new regime.
He understood he couldn't linger. His presence would either ignite a rebellion destined to fail or attract the Council's full attention—and they would stop at nothing to comprehend and dominate One For All, or eliminate it entirely. His battle wasn't here, not at this moment. It was about safeguarding the future, ensuring that the true legacy of OFA endured.
On a rain-soaked night, beneath the cover of a localized electrical storm he subtly conjured with a flick of Blackwhip, Deku stood atop an old, decommissioned broadcast tower, gazing out over the city.
He clutched a small, encrypted data chip—holding everything he knew: the warnings, the hope, the truth of OFA, all protected by layers of code that only one person could ever crack. Not his successor, not yet. But the guardian he had chosen.
Almost instinctively, he used Float to guide himself to a specific relay junction, embedding the chip deep within its core, hidden beneath layers of failing technology. It was like a message in a bottle, cast into a vast digital ocean.
He glanced down at his hands, watching the faint green sparks flicker around his knuckles.
Years ago, he had unknowingly passed a fragment of OFA's power to his son, his own blood. His heir. He would need protection, anonymity, and the chance to grow before this broken world caught up with him. He had made plans, counting on the few allies left whose loyalty went beyond the crumbling hero system—old friends, underground contacts, those who still believed in heroism that transcended the law.
"Is this the end, Ninth?" Yoichi Shigaraki's voice was soft, tinged with sorrow.
"No," Deku thought, feeling a sense of calm wash over the storm inside him for just a moment. "It's about making sure there's something to come back to. Making sure the spark doesn't get snuffed out by the looming control." A wave of regret hit him as he thought of his friends—Bakugo, Shoto, Ochaco, and his son—left to face this darkening world without him. But this was a burden he had to bear alone.
He took one last glance at the city lights, a vast constellation of lives he could no longer protect openly. Then, summoning One For All within him, he focused its incredible energy, he pushed. The green lightning flared brilliantly for a fleeting, silent moment, perhaps only visible to distant orbital sensors.
And then, silence.
Izuku Midoriya, Deku, the Ninth Holder of One For All, disappeared from existence. No explosion, no body, no trace of energy left behind. Just an empty space atop a tower where the Symbol of Peace once stood.
His vanishing marked a turning point. With Deku gone and U.A. reduced to a mere memory, the Provisional Council took over as the Core Authority.
Eternal Academia High rose from the ashes of U.A., its motto etched above the new gates: "Legacy is Law. Blood is Power. Evolution Must Be Engineered." History began to rewrite itself.
The chaotic heroism of the past was recast as reckless failure. The destinies of heroes like Dynamight, Shoto, and many others faded into obscurity, becoming mere footnotes, cautionary tales, or sanitized icons stripped of their true essence.
The Singularity Collapse was blamed on uncontrolled quirks, paving the way for the strict Caste System and the suppression of any evolution deemed 'unnatural'.