6Soo first things first: This is the true chapter one—the remake of the chaos that are the og chapters (esp. that chapter 2). There'll be more on the later, so keep an eye out for that.
Secondly, I don' own anythin' of zeh ol' My Hero franchise—so boom, disclaimer complete.
This was jumpstarted by "Deku of the Shield" by OneHighZergling, but it will be entirely my own style; I'll be adding my own ideas and yadda-yadda, so this'll definitely diverge from canon.
Aaand don't read if you don't want any potential manga spoilers.
Thank you for pickin' this up—even if it's only for ten seconds.
Now, enjoy deliciously.
Imagine a world of heroes—one where the unusual occur most often.
It's a world much different than the one you and I know personally.
But something drastically changes the course of the reality we know of this world.
The world may've thought it was their genetic mutations—Quirks—that would shape their world.
Little did they know, that wasn't the vital factor they were soon to overlook...
Chapter One: Emergence of Green
April 20, 2212;
Musutafu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.
Midoriya Izuku... was falling again.
Though they were falling, was more accurate.
Izuku could see the giantess hero was too slow to grasp them in time—Izuku just knew it.
As he looks into the falling villain's grinning face, time seems to slow while they fall together, Izuku remembering the accident from ten years ago in Fuzakeru Forest.
He could remember it so vividly, too: The rush of wind as he accidentally slipped and plummeted towards the sharp rocks far below; his friend, Kacchan, desperately rushing toward him with abnormally large explosives to save him; the mysterious small shield on his arm that somehow ended up saving him...
Izuku looks up, or rather, downwards. The sidewalk was closing in fast. Sorry, Kacchan... Happy birthday..., Izuku thinks, as everything goes black...
Early that day, Izuku was heading home after finishing up with school at Aldera Junior High; he wasn't going to change out of his black school uniform since he wanted to drop off his stuff quickly so he could pick up the homemade ultra-spicy noodle soup. His mom had made it when Kacchan first started getting sick ten years ago, but the soup miraculously helped Kacchan, somehow. So now whenever Kacchan got a fever, his mom would prepare some soup and take it over to Mitsuki-san—Kacchan's mom. It was normal for them at this point.
Mom had made a batch recently for Kacchan's birthday—since he absolutely loved her spicy cooking—but she was at work when Kacchan suddenly got a fever again. So Izuku promised to take it over to Kacchan as soon as he could be let out of school. He checked his phone for the time (profusely apologizing with a slight stutter to a coughing man he accidentally bumped into): 3:58 p.m.
Izuku soon arrived at Kacchan's home. He politely knocked on the door, and Katsuki's mom opened it. With a warm smile and a "shh" finger point, she quietly ushers Izuku inside.
"He's sleeping right now," Kacchan's mom whispered, accepting the soup Izuku offered. "Thank you very much for the soup, Izuku-kun. This should have him back up in no time again. Please, sit; make yourself at home. We can wait 'til that little shit wakes up in a bit," she whisper-laughed. Seems Kacchan made her upset earlier; probably tried going to school sick or something... Izuku almost thought he heard a sneeze down the hall.
"Sorry, I should go back home, Bakugō-san. Tell Kacchan I said happy birthday, please," Izuku responded sheepishly, knowing he had still had his part of his English group project due in two days.
"If you say so," Bakugō-san responded kindly with a small shrug, nodding at Izuku's request as well, then looking mildly exasperated but amused, "Also, didn't I tell you you don't have to use my family name, Izuku~kun? Come on, you're practically part of the family!"
He sheepishly hung his head forward.
She rolled her eyes with a playful huff and moved on. "Okay then, make it home safe, kiddo. I'll let Inko know you're on your way back," she said, opening the door for Izuku to leave.
It was 4:13 p.m.
"WHOOAA! IT'S KAMUI WOODS!"
A stone-Quirk-using villain was causing mayhem, rolling down the street as a large multi-faceted boulder with a towering, purple-draped Mt. Lady chasing after them. The villain crushed edges of panicked and swerving cars—thankfully not harming any civilians—but it was rolling faster than Mt. Lady could carefully run. This was making Izuku very anxious.
But, to Izuku's immense relief, Kamui Woods swiftly appeared, in his usual blue one-piece hero suit.
Noticing the threat, Kamui Woods jumped from his rooftop perch and used his Quirk to break his fall onto the street below—pointing a wooden finger in the path of the now-even-faster villain.
Noticing the hero, the stone villain aimed right for him, and in a deep, menacing voice, they verbally rumbled "You better move, twig boy," a fierce and jagged look etching itself onto the boulder villain's stony surface.
Kamui Woods, eyes closed with a deep, peaceful breath, said, "Even the mightiest of rocks cannot topple the wisest of tree trunks," as he sturdily rooted himself to the ground with very thicc branches. Izuku recognized this as the pro hero's new super move, Arbor Armor. He also noticed the firefighter-themed hero Backdraft sneaking from behind a minimart, intently watching as he seemed to prepare for something...
As Kamui Woods chose to keep his repose with eyes open and a sturdy cross-armed pose against the foe as Backdraft enclosed, he opposed the villain's momentum with a dual flurry of flows from Backdraft's hoses, tanking the villain's rolling blows head-on as completely froze the villain in their tracks with a ripos(t)e of tree grow(th)s, staying composed like the pros you'd suppose.
In Izuku's mind, it was as picturesque and [probably] epic as just described! And with so many heroes in one place, Izuku was bound to be gushing with fanboy fanaticism at this point.
With the villain incapable of resisting—being stuck in boulder form with no room to gain momentum in Kamui Woods' branches—was soon subdued into an armored police truck specialized for large transforming villains.
Leaving the crowd of watching and recording civilians, he pulled his notebook out of nowhere (he left his bag at home) to write an answer to his Kamui Woods page: "Kamui Woods' Arbor Armor can resist against heavy, high-speed impacts—"
He bumped into someone for the second time that day.
"Hey, kid."
Izuku felt a grip on his collar...! He followed the arm of the hand up to their face with a sidelong stare, but he couldn't see with the sun behind the man's face glaring in Izuku's eyes...
"What tiiime is it?" the lanky man asked sweetly...?
Izuku shook with fright and an incoherent stutter as he glanced at his phone. "I—I—I—It's 4—4—4:2—20, si—sir—"
The man took a black liquid-filled syringe and injected it into his own neck. He then leaned his head between the sun and Izuku's eyes, allowing Izuku to see he had soft, but crazed, eyes; a sharp, thin-lipped smile; red-tipped, slicked, black hair, but the red highlights were beginning to spark with flames; and a dark, punk rockish jacket. The man's smile contorted into a grin with menacing excitement as his legs summoned fire around them.
"Damn blazin' right."
"I— Please, understand it from our point of view, miss," Backdraft said to the now un-transformed villain, who was cuffed up with Quirk suppressor in the police truck and raging with a foul-mouthed outburst of accusations. "You were risking the lives of everyone, and— Please stop trying to bite off the cuffs. It won't help you activate your Quirk back... *sigh...* Borudā-san," was her name, according to the police, "Please, the public are taking pictures of you—don't— don't embarass yourself... I—" An officer tapped him to hurry up with settling the villainess, but seeing as she still refused to listen, he just sighed again, closing the truck doors so the police officers could hurry up due to another call about another villain in the area.
Backdraft was deeply disappointed in himself. He felt like he was barely helping...
But thankfully, he was able to help save people by villain capture with his Quirk this time—even if he couldn't reason with them.
"Don't feel so down, my friend. You did splendid."
Backdraft looked up, Kamui Woods walking towards him and patting his shoulder with a kind head tilt, since his facial expressions were hidden behind his wood mask. (He was ignoring the crowd of people calling out his name.) Backdraft smiled small, his own steel-plate masked face giving a tilt of appreciation to the young hero. Off to the side, he could see Mt. Lady talking to a few civilians, with her pointing exasperatedly—with a hand on her curvy hip—at the crowd ignoring her but still giving a sigh of laughter, seeming to say something about how she'll just have to do better next time. She turned around to grin at Backdraft and Kamui Woods, before playfully flipping Kamui Woods the bird—to which Kamui Woods coolly and subtly responded with one as well, the crowd of fans not even noticing.
He liked his teammates on Team Atlantic.
"...mebODY HE—HELP!" A screaming boy's voice cried as it approached quickly, causing Backdraft and Kamui Woods to quickly face it. A boy with multi-shaded green hair was desperately screaming for help as he flailed from his collar, which was gripped by a legs-flaming man metaphorically and literally blazing down the street—now running past them.
"SO LONG, YA BLASTED SUCKAS!" the man roared with enthusiasm as he sprinted with such crazed joy and vigor.
Fearing for the boy, Backdraft quickly followed them, holding onto Kamui Woods as the wood-bodied hero extended his arms grappling-hook style and launched them towards the sprinting man!
Mt. Lady did a double take, realizing that was the villain Blazedash that sped past them, before she chased after them—while enlarging—as swiftly as the street of swerving cars and running pedestrians allowed her too.
"HAHA, THOSE LAME ASSES CAN'T EVEN CATCH UP!" the man shouted in a hyped-up growl through the city, traveling from street to street and disrupting traffic on a large scale.
Izuku was not having the time of his life. Okay, he was, but— but it was like a REALLY BAD TIME of his life kind of time. He was still flailing from his collar, surprised he hadn't past out from the collar mostly choking him out. (He partly eased the collar from choking him by grabbing onto it back and pulling himself up.) And he couldn't think of a safe way to get free: He couldn't unbutton his school jacket since that'd leave him vulnerable in the middle of traffic to get hit by cars—and tripping the man he did recognize as the infamous villain, Blazedash, would leave them both vulnerable in the street—or the villain would just get pissed at him and throw him into traffic.
Izuku was really rethinking wanting to ever drive a car in his life with the amount of car trauma he was experiencing right now...!
Wait. He had— "*HRK!*" His hand accidentally slipped from his collar as Blazedash suddenly turned onto another street, his collar surprise-choking him into nearly passing out, but the adrenaline, Izuku guessed, kept him awake enough to grab ahold again to so he could breath.
Catching his breath with a panicked grimace of determination, he spoke: "Bla— BLAZEDASH! WHY DON'T YOU RUN ON TRACK, OR HIKE!"
Blazedash, swiftly dodging a speeding car with ease, stopped onto the sidewalk—next to a convenience store alleyway—and stared at Izuku.
Izuku gulped. Mission failed successfully...?
Blazedash blinked, "Track team at university didn't like me. Plus, you think I'm tryna set fire to the forest or something? That'll disturb the wildlife, moron. Eco-nom stuff and shit."
Izuku blinked, eyes flinching nervously, not commenting on his remark.
"You pansy. You need to live a little. Here, it's time you blazed in the skies, kid," Blazedash grinned ominously, tightening his grip on Izuku's collar as Izuku audibly gulpe—
"Hey again, Blazedash~! Any chance we could get you in a cell, no hassle~?" The giantess hero, Mt. Lady, was peering at them with a grin, her face hovering from over the store next to them.
"*Ptou!* I only ride-or-die on the unblazen trail, lady!" Blazedash grinned cockily up at her.
Almost completely unnoticed, her hand reached through from through the alleyway near them, almost grasping Blazedas—
"FLAMBÉ FINISHEEER!" Blazedash blurred and disappeared in a burst of flame, Izuku feeling a tug on his colla—
Izuku felt an explosive rush of wind blow against him and his stomach drop before he suddenly was floating midair, far above the rooftops, with Blazedash laughing like a lunatic with breaths of smoke leaving out the ends of his mouth, kicking his legs of fuego around in glee with a fist pumped out towards the evening sky. He still had another hand on Izuku's collar.
"SEE WHAT I MEAN?! LOOK AT THIS BLAZIN' VIEW, KID!" Blazedash shouted at Izuku. They were high enough in the air that Izuku could see the whole city.
He may've been kidnapped against his will, and practically pissing his pants every second, but this man's passionate words got to Izuku a bit. This view of the city in its entirety was... beautiful (ignoring the sound of distant sirens closing in)—the bustling streets; the many offices and other buildings of varying heights; even U.A. High School was visible off in the distance. He felt like he could stay there for hours, just soaking in the beautiful view.
Then... Izuku looked down and remembered.
And so...
In the present moment...
Midoriya Izuku... was falling again.
Though they were falling, was more accurate.
Izuku could see the giantess hero was too slow to grasp them in time—Izuku just knew it.
As he looks into the falling villain's grinning face, time seems to slow while they fall together, Izuku remembering the accident from ten years ago in Fuzakeru Forest.
Izuku looks up, or rather, downwards. The sidewalk was closing in fast. Sorry, Kacchan... Happy birthday..., Izuku thinks, as everything goes black...
"DEKU!"
Izuku opens his eyes at the voice of a—higher than normally pitched—Kacchan.
He was falling, but this was the first time.
He could see five-year-old Kacchan sprinting at him, explosions flashy like stars erupting behind him to try catching up to Izuku in the two seconds he had to react.
He knew he wasn't going to survive the impact from this height. He just... wanted his friend Kacchan... to be safe, at least....
Host detected.
Mt. Lady heard Blazedash's shout high above her and saw him in the air, panicking as they began to fall towards the store rooftop. She was still on her other side, behind the store. She wasn't going to be able to reach them or make it around in time to catch them...!
She had contacted Kamui Woods and Backdraft to her location when she found them, but Kamui Woods said they were about just a minute away—but at this moment in time, they did not have a minute and SHE WAS FREAKING OUT! She tries to clamber over the store, accidentally crushing a protruding vent shaft and chipping a chunk from the side of the roof. Almost...! ALMOST...! SHE WAS ALMOST THERE—!
Her foot snags on something, and they slip through her fingers.
She didn't even feel the brush of a friction or fire burn—only feeling the shock of horror like her heart stopped.
Fear, panic, urgency—everything intensified further as she looked down, dropping to her belly on the rooftop to still try to reach out in desperation at the two.
But instead of catching them—
CRRRRSHHH!*
—there is an explosive impact into the street... rubble scattering everywhere and ricocheting off of nearby cars, buildings, and even a Kamui Woods' face as he finally arrived on the scene—Backdraft nausously hopping off his back.
Mt. Lady's jaw quivers, and she could feel tears well up in her eyes. She hears the sirens getting closer; she sees Backdraft holding his hose hands to his masked mouth in stunned shock, and Kamui Woods hesitate. However, the wood-limbed hero shakes it off, approaching the dust cloud as he waves to Backdraft and Mt. Lady to hold off any curious civilians and call for backup. She silently rolls off the rooftop, going over to mindlessly sits in front of traffic to prevent them from driving into the crash. She couldn't bring herself to look.
Kamui Woods steps onto the cracks formed around the impact crater. He takes a deep breath, creating a wall of wood surrounding him and the crater to obstruct civilians from joining as he tries to wave away the dust. He has never been a doctor or a physicist before, but he was very sure people did not normally destroy objects sturdier than them when they plummet onto them from several of dozens of meters in the sky.
A brilliant green light shines into Kamui Woods' eyes from within the dust cloud, blinding him momentarily as he hears...
Groaning?
A tall figure stands up and emerges from the parting dust cloud as Blazedash—huffing, but relatively uninjured.
"That... was... BLAZING! YOU WERE BLAZING, KID—ABSOLUTELY BLAZIN'! BLAZIN' GREEN, EVEN!" The villain looks at Kamui Woods. "This kid right here? Saved me to blaze another day. That sexy purple lady? Thought she was gonna be the one saving us, but nope, it was this guyyy who grabbed me and used himself to cushion my fall." Blazedash looks down at an unconscious, but still healthy looking, green-haired boy, wearing a metal shield with a fading green glow in the center of it. "... Well shit... Nice shield, kid... but you shoulda seen it, man... And afta' all that work I put in to blaze that nervousness outta ya too...! Sucks that in the end, I guess you still passed out like a bi—"
Backdraft, suddenly standing behind Kamui Woods, had heard enough, and quickly extinguishes the villain for a emotionally recovered Mt. Lady to reach in—wearing a fierce look—and subdue him.
Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa got a call in the office earlier about another villain using the Quirk-boosting drug, Trigger. His assistant, Otoko Nōnēmu, was reporting about it to him on the phone as he walked up to the scene.
"Yeah, the guy they caught using the stuff was a real local nuisance: Blazedash, he calls himself. The man hasn't actively harmed anyone, but usually puts people in danger, and causes chaos in traffic. This time, he jumped high into the air with a kid he kidnapped on his frenzy run, nearly getting them both killed. Said the kid saved him from the fall and stuff. But yes, anyway, paramedics said they're going to wake him back up soon since he collapsed from Quirk exhaustion. That's all I've been told so far, so I'll be back soon with more files on this Blazedash fella so we have more to trace where his Trigger dealer is from. Any questions, Naomasa-senpai?"
Naomasa rolls his eyes in amusement at his assistant's especially informal report today. "No, none at all, Otoko-san. Keep up the good work." They hang up.
Naomasa, his badge out to the guarding officers, steps under the "DO NOT CROSS — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" caution tape, approaching the ambulance van. An unconscious man with red-tipped black hair—who he guesses to be Blazedash, according to the description given to Naomasa—laid on a stretcher as he was rolled away onto the vehicle. An equally as unconscious green-haired student with a gemmed steel shield on his arm was also being loaded onto the ambulance. The paramedics were murmuring about how neither of them had any substantial injuries, a few of them quite very thankful of that fact.
Naomasa decides he could wait a bit to interrogate the villain.
In the main area with the crater, officers were scattered about, asking eyewitnesses questions, including the pro hero team Atlantic. Mt. Lady was hanging between from the shoulders of Kamui Woods and the firefighter-looking hero—whose name he didn't know—exhaling a sad moan of distraught. Kamui Woods simply stood there, unmoving as he reported what he saw. Backdraft—he heard Kamui Woods say—was idling there, occasionally nodding to Kamui Woods' words and glancing at Mt. Lady's depressed frown as she went on about how her "heart dropped when they dropped" and other such things.
Naomasa sighs. Looked to him like whatever happened here was utterly excessive. He wanted a nice glass of black tea after this—but Otoko-san most definitely bought him another pack of coffee cans for him to drink instead, like a "normal detective." And with these thoughts out of the way, he got straight to work.
Allllrightie. Now that I have a much clearer narrative focus in mind, this is much easier than before—it simply just flooowed. Plus, it's refreshingly not as chaotic now. Still adding tidbits of nonsensical stuff; just making it less apparent than... well, before.
Thank you for readin' what feels like the actual start of "The Shield of Peace." It's been a bumpy start, but I'm glad it happened in the first place.
And uhhh... sorry... I only made the remake chapter for this moment...? It took a most of the week for narrative flow and I to coexist in creative harmony.
Now for the heads-up: About the next two chapters... The og ones... I dub thee non-canon, as they are unleeaashed meessaages of maadneess. Besides the falling scene. Everything other part about it is non-canon—and also a reminder to me to go not so nutz.
Soo, reeead themmm at your ooown periiil.
That's pretty much it. Except for one new announcement...
I am considering writing another story alongside this one. As to why I'd want to pull such a masochistic maneuver... well, I thought it'd be a good idea... Like, a chapter of Shield of Peace (SOP) one week, a chapter for this new story the next week, and so forth. It gives me time to properly plan each story without rushing it in a week. Sure, it delays each story individually, but I genuinely think this other story might be most intriguing enough...
Don't believe me? Fair.
But let's see, shall we?
...
But first: Meh nee' sleep.
...
...
Oh yeah, if you have anything ya wanna say in the comments, go for it. I'll try responding to any questions when I can. As traumatic as feedback potentially can be when you realize that you were being dumb and blind and practically not even writing an actual story and— *chuckles in insecurity and skill issue* Anyway, I really do prefer feedback, so go wild 'n true. Otherwise, we'd have never gotten this remake chapter, of which I can comfortably and with a sound mind say I am satisfied of. My main complaint is I just looove to write as I think with these "author's notes" and I just quite never seem to sto—
Katsuki stares at the empty bowl of soup. "... Dammit, Deku. You should have brought more... *sits there another minute, staring at the "Happy Birthday, Katsuki-kun!" note* ...Thank you, Midoriya-san... ...*ah...AH-CHOO!* DAMN THIS FEVER! LET ME GO—DAMMIT, WOMAN!"
"BAKUGŌ KATSUKI, YOU WILL STAY IN THAT BED UNTIL THIS FEVER BREAKS, YOU HEAR ME?!" his mom roars from down the hallway beyond his closed door; he hears a loud *THUD!*—probably his dad being startled out of a nap from all the shouting...
When the author looks at this chapter's word count and decides it's a brilliant idea to start filling it with more words in attempt to aim for an exact word count that is the stupid number referenced in this chapter multiple times, but times that by ten to get this chapter's word count, and its funny how the word "word count" works so well for—