The last thing Kenji Yamamoto thought before the truck hit him was, "At least I'll never have to argue about that garbage ending again."
He had spent the better part of three hours on that godforsaken reddit thread, fingers flying across his keyboard as he meticulously deconstructed every single narrative failure of My Hero Academia's final arc. The Bakugo apologists had come out in force—they always did—defending their precious explosion boy with the same tired arguments they'd been recycling since 2016. The debate had gotten heated. Kenji had been typing a particularly scathing response about how fourteen years of systematic abuse shouldn't be handwaved with a single half-hearted apology when he'd realized he was out of coffee.
The convenience store was just across the street. He'd looked both ways—he was sure he'd looked both ways—but the truck driver had been texting, and Kenji had been mentally composing another paragraph about how Izuku Midoriya's character arc had been systematically destroyed, and—
Well.
Now he was dead.
Or at least, he should have been dead.
Instead, Kenji was experiencing what could only be described as the universe's worst possible joke: consciousness. Specifically, consciousness in what felt like a wet, warm, uncomfortably confined space, accompanied by the muffled sound of a heartbeat that wasn't his own and the horrible realization that he couldn't move his limbs properly.
No, he thought with growing horror. No, no, no, no, NO.
He knew exactly what this was. He'd read enough isekai light novels during his teenage years to recognize the signs. He'd even joked about it with his friends, laughing about which world they'd want to be reborn in if they had the choice. He'd always said JoJo's Bizarre Adventure—specifically Part 4, specifically Morioh, specifically anywhere near Josuke Higashikata because that hair was magnificent and Crazy Diamond was the ultimate support Stand.
What he had not wanted was to be reborn at all, and he especially hadn't wanted to be reborn as a literal infant, complete with all the indignities that entailed.
The next several months were, without exaggeration, the worst experience of Kenji's combined lives. He couldn't speak. He couldn't control his bodily functions. He was completely dependent on others for everything, and his adult mind was trapped in a prison of flesh that refused to obey even the simplest commands. He slept sixteen hours a day not by choice but by biological necessity, and when he was awake, all he could do was observe and listen and slowly, gradually, come to a horrifying realization.
He recognized the language being spoken around him. Japanese—that was good, that was familiar. He recognized the year, pieced together from calendar glimpses and television broadcasts: 2XXX, sometime in the future from when he'd died. And he recognized, with growing dread, the news broadcasts that played on the television in his family's modest living room.
"—the hero Endeavor successfully apprehended the villain—"
"—young students at U.A. High School—"
"—the number one hero All Might—"
Oh no.
Oh no no no no no.
Not here. Anywhere but here.
Kenji—though he supposed he should start thinking of himself by his new name, Yoshikage (and wasn't that a cosmic joke)—would have screamed if his infant vocal cords had been capable of anything beyond mindless wailing. As it was, he did wail, long and loud enough that his new mother picked him up and rocked him gently, cooing soft reassurances that did absolutely nothing to address his existential crisis.
He had been reborn in the My Hero Academia universe.
The universe he hated.
The universe whose ending he had literally died while complaining about.
As the months crawled by and Yoshikage's motor control slowly, painfully developed, he had plenty of time to reflect on just how much he despised this world. It wasn't just dislike or disappointment—it was a deep, burning, philosophical opposition to nearly everything this universe represented.
The power system was broken. Fundamentally, irreparably broken. Quirks were supposed to be the next evolution of humanity, but the manga—and by extension, this reality—had never properly explored what that meant. There was no consistency to how Quirks were inherited, no reasonable explanation for why some were so pathetically weak while others were essentially god-powers, no addressing the massive societal implications of a world where 80% of the population had superpowers and yet somehow normal infrastructure still existed.
And don't even get him started on the heroes.
The heroes, who were supposed to be the moral paragons of this society, were just celebrities with licenses. They got paid to save people. They had rankings based on popularity and arrest records, which incentivized flashy takedowns over actual crime prevention. The entire system was corrupt from the ground up, a capitalist nightmare wearing a cape and calling itself justice.
But worse than the system—worse than the poorly thought-out worldbuilding and the inconsistent power scaling and the fact that somehow a society with literal super geniuses hadn't advanced beyond modern technology—were the characters.
Specifically, one Bakugo Katsuki.
Just thinking the name made Yoshikage's infant face scrunch up in disgust, which his mother mistook for gas and adjusted his position accordingly.
Fourteen years. Fourteen years of bullying. Not just casual teasing or childish pranks, but systematic, sustained abuse. Physical violence. Psychological torture. Social isolation. Bakugo had told Izuku to jump off a building. He had told another human being to commit suicide, and the narrative had just... moved past it. Treated it as a character flaw to be overcome, a source of internal conflict for Bakugo himself, as if he were the victim of his own actions.
And Izuku had just... forgiven him. Considered him a friend. The story had bent over backward to redeem Bakugo without ever making him face real consequences. A half-hearted apology in the final arc, and suddenly everything was fine? Fourteen years of trauma, wiped away?
The more Yoshikage thought about it—and he had a lot of time to think—the angrier he became. This world didn't just have bad writing; it had moral failures baked into its narrative structure. It presented forgiveness without justice, redemption without restitution, and called it heroic.
And the ending. God, the ending.
Izuku Midoriya, the boy who had been gifted the most powerful Quirk in the world despite having done nothing to earn it except be in the right place at the right time, had lost One For All in the final battle. Which could have been poignant! Which could have been a meaningful exploration of heroism without power, of Izuku proving that his analytical mind and heroic spirit were what really mattered!
Instead, there was a timeskip, and suddenly Izuku had a multi-million dollar support suit that essentially gave him all his powers back. No struggle. No character growth. Just a deus ex machina delivered via corporate sponsorship, as if the entire message of the series hadn't been about the hero within.
And don't even get him started on Midnight's death. That poorly-executed attempt at showing the "horrors of war" had been so badly handled, so rushed and meaningless, that it had become a meme. People had laughed at it. A character's death, meant to be tragic, had become a joke because the execution was so incompetent.
The villains weren't any better. Shigaraki was a manchild with daddy issues. Dabi was a edgelord with daddy issues. All For One was a potato-faced mastermind whose plans made less sense the more you examined them. There was no nuance, no real exploration of what made them compelling antagonists. They were just obstacles for the heroes to overcome, and not even interesting obstacles at that.
And the fandom. Sweet merciful Stand arrows, the fandom. Somehow—somehow—the My Hero Academia fandom had managed to be worse than the Dragon Ball fandom, which Yoshikage hadn't even thought possible. The power-scaling debates alone were enough to drive a person insane. He'd seen people argue that Bakugo could beat All Might in his prime. He'd seen essays about how Mineta was actually the most complex character in the series. He'd seen shipping wars that had resulted in death threats and doxxing.
He had died arguing with these people, and now he was trapped in their fantasy world.
If there was a god, they had a terrible sense of humor.
The years passed with agonizing slowness.
Yoshikage Kira—and he had nearly laughed himself sick when he'd learned his full name, because of course that's who he was now—grew from infant to toddler to child with a growing sense of resigned dread. His parents were nice enough, perfectly normal people living in a perfectly normal neighborhood in what he'd eventually identified as Musutafu, Japan. His father was a salaryman with a Quirk that let him change the color of small objects. His mother could make her hair prehensile. Both were utterly unremarkable, which in this world of overpowered teenagers and Hero Billboards meant they were effectively background characters.
Yoshikage himself had presented as Quirkless at the age of four, much to his parents' disappointment and his own private relief. The last thing he wanted was to be dragged into the main plot, and being Quirkless was a pretty good guarantee of narrative irrelevance.
Except he wasn't Quirkless.
He discovered the truth on his eighth birthday, alone in his room, staring at his hands and thinking—not for the first time—about how much he missed his old life. Sure, he'd been a wage slave with no prospects and a crippling caffeine addiction, but at least he'd had autonomy. At least he'd been able to choose his own path, even if that path had led to a dead-end job and a rental apartment with a broken heater.
Here, he was a child. Powerless in a world that literally worshipped power. Stuck in a narrative he despised with no clear way out.
"I wish I could just... blow it all up," he muttered to himself in the darkness of his room. "This whole stupid world and its stupid logic and its stupid—"
The air beside him shimmered.
Yoshikage froze, his breath catching in his throat as something manifested in the space next to his bed. It was humanoid but clearly inhuman, with a pink and white body that seemed to shift between solid and ethereal, muscular arms crossed over its chest, and a face that was simultaneously catlike and skull-like, with dark, hollow eyes and triangular ears.
He knew this Stand.
He knew it intimately, had watched its arc a dozen times, had analyzed its abilities and limitations and narrative purpose.
Killer Queen.
"No way," Yoshikage breathed, and the Stand—his Stand, apparently—tilted its head in an almost curious gesture. "No way."
He raised his hand experimentally, and Killer Queen mirrored the movement. He made a fist, and so did the Stand. He stood up from his bed, heart racing, and walked to his desk where he'd left a pencil, and Killer Queen followed, silent as a ghost, visible only to him.
"You're real," he whispered. "You're actually real. I have a Stand. I have Killer Queen."
The implications hit him like a second truck.
He had a Stand. In the My Hero Academia universe. A universe where Stands didn't exist, where the power system was entirely different, where "Quirks" were the only supernatural ability anyone knew about.
And not just any Stand—one of the most versatile and powerful Stands in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Killer Queen, with its ability to turn anything it touched into a bomb. Sheer Heart Attack, the indestructible heat-seeking automatic Stand. And if he was lucky, if he pushed himself, maybe even Bites the Dust, the time-loop ability that had made Yoshikage Kira one of the most dangerous antagonists in the entire series.
A slow smile spread across his face, the first genuine expression of happiness he'd felt since being reborn.
"They have no idea," he said softly, watching as Killer Queen's eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness. "They have no idea what a Stand can do. No idea how to counter it. No idea what hit them."
Because the thing about Stands was that they operated on completely different rules than Quirks. Quirks were genetic, biological, limited by the user's physical body and stamina. Stands were manifestations of fighting spirit, of willpower, capable of feats that defied conventional physics. And most importantly: only Stand users could see Stands.
In this universe, he would be invisible. Untouchable. His attacks would come from nowhere, his abilities would be impossible to counter because nobody would even know what they were dealing with.
Yoshikage sat back down on his bed, mind racing with possibilities.
The original Yoshikage Kira had been brilliant in some ways—his caution, his dedication to a quiet life, his meticulous planning. But he'd also been an idiot, limited by his obsessions and his refusal to think beyond his immediate desires. He'd had an incredibly powerful Stand and had used it almost exclusively for murder and evading consequences, never exploring its full potential, never pushing its limits.
Yoshikage had no such limitations.
He'd spent his entire previous life analyzing powers, breaking down ability synergies, theorizing optimal strategies. He'd written forum posts about how different Quirks could be combined, how the right application of a weak power could overcome a stronger opponent, how intelligence and creativity were just as important as raw strength.
Now he had the chance to prove it.
Killer Queen could turn anything into a bomb. Anything. The original Kira had mostly used it on people or objects in direct combat, but the potential applications were nearly limitless. Remote detonation meant traps. Selective detonation meant precision. The ability to control whether something vaporized completely or just exploded meant he could destroy evidence, create diversions, or cause massive collateral damage as needed.
Sheer Heart Attack was an autonomous Stand, indestructible and relentless, seeking out the hottest heat signature in range. In a world of fire-users and explosion-users and heroes who relied on flashy, high-energy attacks, it would be nearly unstoppable.
And Bites the Dust... if he could unlock it, if he could master it, he would have the ability to create a time loop centered on a specific person, resetting the timeline by up to an hour every time someone learned too much about his identity. It was the ultimate defensive ability, a get-out-of-jail-free card that operated on a level beyond anything this universe had ever seen.
But power without purpose was just chaos, and Yoshikage had no interest in mindless destruction.
No, if he was going to do this—if he was going to be a villain in this world he despised—he was going to do it right.
He was going to be everything the My Hero Academia villains weren't: intelligent, strategic, actually threatening. He was going to pose a real challenge to the heroes, expose the flaws in their society, make them work for their victory. And if he happened to enjoy himself along the way, if he happened to find some satisfaction in proving that a "Quirkless" nobody with the right abilities and the right mindset could run circles around this world's so-called elite?
Well, that would just be a bonus.
The first thing Yoshikage did was test Killer Queen's abilities in secret, which was easier said than done when he was an eight-year-old child with a bedtime and parents who checked on him regularly.
He started small. A pebble in his backyard, turned into a bomb with a touch of Killer Queen's finger, detonated with a press of his thumb. It vaporized without a sound, leaving no trace except a small scorch mark on the ground that he quickly covered with dirt.
Then a stick. A leaf. A discarded soda can he found in the park.
Each time, the result was the same: complete and total obliteration, controlled by nothing more than his will. The bombs didn't destroy anything he didn't want them to destroy. When he detonated the soda can while it was sitting on a paper towel, only the can disappeared—the paper was untouched.
"Selective destruction," he murmured, watching as another leaf vanished in silent combustion. "Mass-energy conversion with controlled Area of Effect. Violates conservation of mass, no visible energy emission, no sound, no heat signature beyond the immediate moment of detonation. This isn't just overpowered—this is broken."
And the original Kira had mostly just used it to kill people and destroy evidence. The waste.
Over the following weeks, Yoshikage conducted careful experiments, always in private, always disposing of the evidence. He learned that Killer Queen could turn multiple objects into bombs simultaneously, that the bombs remained active indefinitely until he detonated them or dismissed the charge, that he could control the explosive yield to some degree through conscious intent.
He learned that anything Killer Queen touched could become a bomb—organic, inorganic, liquid, solid, it didn't matter. He learned that he could set conditional triggers, though this required more concentration. He learned that the bombs were completely undetectable by any conventional means; he'd tested it by charging a coin and then having his mother (who worked part-time as a hospital administrator and had access to various scanning equipment through a friend) look at it under magnification. Nothing. No radiation, no energy signature, no physical change to the object's structure.
It was invisible. Perfect. Unfair.
He loved it.
But Killer Queen's first ability, while incredibly versatile, was just the beginning. According to the source material, Yoshikage Kira had developed Sheer Heart Attack during a moment of crisis, a secondary ability born from his Stand's evolution and his own desperate need for an automated defense.
Yoshikage had no intention of waiting for a crisis.
He spent hours meditating with Killer Queen manifested beside him, focusing on the concept of the ability. An autonomous Stand. A heat-seeking bomb. Indestructible, relentless, independent. He visualized it, poured his will into it, demanded that Killer Queen evolve to meet his needs.
For months, nothing happened.
Then, on a cold January morning shortly after his ninth birthday, Yoshikage woke up to find a miniature tank-like Stand sitting on his chest, its surface covered in skull patterns, radiating a faint warmth.
"Sheer Heart Attack," he whispered, and the Stand let out a high-pitched whirring sound that he somehow knew meant it was active and ready.
Testing SHA was more difficult than testing the primary bomb ability, mostly because it was loud, mobile, and very obviously there even if people couldn't see it. He had to wait until his parents were out, then released SHA in the basement and watched as it immediately rolled toward the furnace—the hottest thing in the house.
It was slow, all things considered. A fast walk could outpace it, and it wasn't particularly maneuverable. But it was also completely indestructible. He'd tested that by placing obstacles in its path—wood, metal, concrete blocks he'd smuggled home from a construction site. SHA just crashed through them, unconcerned, unstoppable, focused solely on reaching the heat source.
And when it reached the furnace, it detonated.
The explosion was much louder than Killer Queen's primary bombs, a concussive blast that shook the entire house and sent Yoshikage scrambling to make sure the furnace itself wasn't damaged. Fortunately, SHA seemed to have some innate control over its yield as well; the furnace was scorched but intact, and the explosion had been directed outward rather than into the appliance itself.
More importantly, after the detonation, SHA reconstituted itself on Killer Queen's left hand within seconds, ready to be deployed again.
"Unlimited ammunition," Yoshikage said, grinning despite himself. "An autonomous attack that can't be destroyed, that will chase any target indefinitely as long as they're the hottest thing around, and that respawns. How the hell did the original Kira ever lose with this?"
But he knew the answer to that: because Yoshikage Kira had been arrogant, overconfident, and ultimately limited by his own psychology. He'd wanted a quiet life, which meant he'd avoided conflict whenever possible, which meant he'd never fully explored his Stand's potential or developed counter-strategies for its weaknesses.
This Yoshikage had no such compunctions.
He was going to min-max the hell out of Killer Queen.
The years continued to pass, and Yoshikage grew from child to teenager, all while carefully cultivating his abilities and his plans.
He studied. Extensively. Not just the standard schoolwork—though he excelled at that too, maintaining perfect grades without standing out too much—but everything he could find about Hero Society, Quirk analysis, combat strategies, and the societal structure of this world he'd been trapped in.
The more he learned, the more he was convinced that this society was rotten to the core.
The Hero Public Safety Commission was corrupt, using heroes as weapons and propaganda tools. The hero schools like U.A. were training child soldiers, putting teenagers in life-threatening situations and calling it education. The villain justice system was a joke, with superhumans imprisoned in facilities that were regularly broken out of, creating a revolving door of crime and punishment that benefited nobody except the heroes who got paid to recapture the same villains over and over.
And the discrimination against the Quirkless—his people, in the eyes of this society—was casual and systemic. Quirkless individuals were treated as lesser, as failures, as remnants of an obsolete humanity. They were denied job opportunities, social advancement, and basic respect, all because they had the misfortune of being born without a superpower in a world that valued nothing else.
Izuku Midoriya had been treated as worthless for being Quirkless, right up until the moment All Might decided he had "potential" and gifted him the most powerful Quirk in existence. The message was clear: you only mattered if you had power, and if you didn't have it naturally, you'd better hope someone with power decided you were worth their time.
It was disgusting.
Yoshikage had no love for the Quirkless community specifically—he was a misanthrope by nature, and being reborn hadn't changed that—but the principle offended him. This society needed to be challenged. Needed someone to expose its hypocrisy, to prove that their precious Quirks weren't the be-all and end-all of human achievement.
And he was going to be that someone.
But not yet. Not while he was still a teenager, still physically weak, still unable to access the resources he'd need. The original Kira had waited until he was an adult with a stable job and a carefully constructed civilian identity before fully indulging his murderous impulses, and Yoshikage saw the wisdom in that approach.
Patience. Preparation. And when the time was right, execution.
In the meantime, he focused on mastering Killer Queen's abilities and developing countermeasures for the threats he knew were coming.
Because this was the My Hero Academia universe, which meant that eventually, inevitably, the plot would come to Musutafu. All Might would choose Izuku as his successor. The League of Villains would attack U.A. The Hero Killer Stain would begin his crusade. The Paranormal Liberation War would break out.
Yoshikage had read the entire manga. He knew what was coming. He knew the timeline, the major events, the turning points. And while he had no interest in following the stations of canon—god no, he'd rather die again than watch that trainwreck unfold as written—he knew he could use that knowledge to his advantage.
The heroes thought they were prepared for villains. They'd faced Quirk-based threats, after all. Fire users and ice users and people who could warp space or control minds or transform their bodies.
But they'd never faced a Stand user.
They'd never faced someone who could turn any object into an untraceable bomb with a touch. Someone who could deploy an indestructible, autonomous attack that couldn't be reasoned with or stopped. Someone who could potentially create a time loop that reset every time their identity was discovered.
They thought they knew what a villain looked like. What a villain could do.
Yoshikage was going to teach them otherwise.
At age fourteen, Yoshikage finally unlocked Bites the Dust.
It happened during a meditation session, one of the hundreds he'd conducted over the years in his quest to master Killer Queen's full potential. He'd been visualizing the ability, focusing on the concept: a bomb planted in a person, triggered by specific conditions, causing time to loop backward by one hour while preserving his own memories.
It was the ultimate defensive ability, but also the most complex. It required sacrificing Killer Queen's other abilities while active, binding the Stand to a host who was unaware of its presence, and setting specific trigger conditions for the detonation and time reset.
The original Kira had only unlocked it when pierced by the Stand Arrow in a moment of desperate crisis, his Stand evolving to meet his need to protect his identity at all costs.
Yoshikage didn't have a Stand Arrow. What he had was knowledge, willpower, and an intimate understanding of exactly what he wanted Killer Queen to become.
He felt it the moment the ability awakened: a subtle shift in Killer Queen's presence, a new weight to its power, a sensation like a door opening in the back of his mind. When he opened his eyes, Killer Queen was staring at him with what he could only describe as anticipation, its thumb positioned over its index finger in the signature detonation pose, but with something more to it, a coiled potential that hadn't been there before.
"Bites the Dust," he whispered, and Killer Queen's eyes flashed.
Testing it was risky. If it didn't work, he'd just waste time. If it did work, he'd be creating an actual time loop, which could have all sorts of unforeseen consequences.
But he had to know.
He chose his target carefully: his mother, who was downstairs watching television. She was a kind woman, entirely civilian, completely safe. He focused on Killer Queen, focused on the concept of Bites the Dust, and pushed.
The Stand vanished from his room.
Downstairs, he knew—he could feel it—Killer Queen had miniaturized itself and entered his mother's eye, invisible and imperceptible, a bomb waiting to be triggered.
He set the condition in his mind: if anyone asked his mother about her son's Quirk status and she began to answer, Bites the Dust would activate.
Then he waited.
An hour later, his father came home from work.
"How's our boy doing?" he asked his mother, the same question he asked every day. "Still managing okay at school, even without a Quirk?"
Yoshikage's mother opened her mouth to respond—
The world exploded.
Not physically. There was no sound, no light, no force. But Yoshikage felt reality itself shatter and rewind, felt time compress and fold backward, felt his consciousness persist even as the universe reset itself to one hour earlier.
When his awareness stabilized, he was back in his room, sitting in the same meditation pose, Killer Queen manifested beside him.
Downstairs, his mother was still watching television.
His father was still at work, an hour away from coming home.
"It worked," Yoshikage breathed, his hands shaking with exhilaration. "It actually worked. I have Bites the Dust."
He dismissed the ability immediately—no point in maintaining a time loop when he'd already confirmed it was functional—and spent the next few minutes just sitting there, processing the implications.
He had a perfect defense. As long as he could plant Bites the Dust on someone near him, as long as he could set appropriate trigger conditions, he could ensure that anyone who discovered his identity would be trapped in a time loop, killed again and again until they either gave up or he decided to release them.
Combined with Killer Queen's untraceable bombs and Sheer Heart Attack's autonomous assault, he was essentially untouchable.
"No wonder Kira was so hard to defeat," Yoshikage murmured, watching as Killer Queen flexed its fingers, the Stand seeming almost pleased with itself. "With these abilities, used intelligently, you could take on entire teams of heroes. You could dismantle organizations. You could..."
He trailed off, a slow smile spreading across his face.
"You could actually be a threat," he finished. "A real one. Not like the jokes this universe calls villains."
Because that was what this was about, wasn't it? Not just survival, not just revenge against a universe he hated, but proving a point.
The League of Villains was pathetic. A man-child who wanted to destroy society because he had a sad backstory, led by a shadowy mastermind whose plans were overly complicated and ultimately ineffective. They'd had every advantage—powerful Quirks, inside information, numerical superiority—and they'd still lost at every significant turn because they were fundamentally incompetent.
The Meta Liberation Army was just as bad. A cult of personality built around Social Darwinism, led by a man with a god complex and no actual strategy beyond "cause chaos and hope society collapses."
The Paranormal Liberation Front, the merger of the two groups, had been the biggest disappointment of all. Thousands of members, dozens of powerful Quirks, and they'd been defeated by a coordinated hero assault because they'd telegraphed their moves and failed to account for basic operational security.
Even All For One, the supposed ultimate villain, had been underwhelming. Yes, he was powerful. Yes, he was ancient and experienced. But his plans relied on convoluted schemes, long-term manipulation that assumed nobody would ever catch on, and a weird obsession with his brother that made him predictable.
Not one of them had been smart about villainy.
Yoshikage was going to change that.
He wasn't going to monologue. He wasn't going to give heroes a chance to counter-attack. He wasn't going to telegraph his moves or leave witnesses or make his goals publicly known.
He was going to be efficient. Surgical. Invisible.
By the time the heroes realized there was a problem, it would already be too late.
At age fifteen, Yoshikage began his preparations in earnest.
He started with identity construction. The original Kira had maintained his civilian life as a salaryman, using his position to remain inconspicuous while indulging his murderous hobbies. Yoshikage would do something similar, but more sophisticated.
He created multiple personas, each with carefully constructed backgrounds and documentation. It was surprisingly easy in a world where 80% of the population had Quirks that could falsify records, erase memories, or manipulate technology—all he had to do was identify the right targets and use Killer Queen to ensure their cooperation.
A touch here, a bomb planted there, a quiet threat delivered with Sheer Heart Attack sitting on someone's desk as an invisible promise of destruction. Nobody could see the Stand, but they could see the results when Yoshikage demonstrated by vaporizing a paperweight or a coffee mug.
People became very cooperative when faced with an impossible threat they couldn't perceive or counter.
Within six months, Yoshikage had three complete identities: a high school student (his current cover), a college-age freelance consultant, and a businessman in his early thirties. Each had bank accounts, transaction histories, social media profiles, and educational records. Each could operate independently, with no obvious connection to the others.
The resources he gained through these identities were funneled into equipment and information. He wasn't a Tinker—this wasn't Worm, and he had no ability to create bullshit technology from nowhere—but he didn't need to be. He had money, and money could buy almost anything.
Surveillance equipment. Encrypted communication devices. A secure apartment under one of his false identities, equipped with a workshop and enough storage for whatever materials he might need.
Most importantly, he began gathering information on the major players in this universe.
All Might's schedule and known patrol routes. Endeavor's agency and typical response patterns. U.A. High School's security measures and staff roster. The known members of the League of Villains and their last confirmed locations.
He compiled dossiers on every major hero and villain he could find information about, analyzing their Quirks, their fighting styles, their psychological profiles. He looked for weaknesses, for patterns, for exploitable flaws.
And he found plenty.
The heroes were predictable. They responded to threats with overwhelming force, prioritizing civilian safety in ways that could be exploited. They relied on their Quirks almost exclusively, with minimal hand-to-hand training or tactical thinking. They operated in teams with established hierarchies, which meant taking out key members could cause cascade failures in their coordination.
The villains were even worse. They were reactive rather than proactive, responding to hero actions rather than setting their own agendas. They grouped together in easily-targeted organizations. They monologued, they left witnesses, they fought in flashy ways that drew attention.
It was like watching children play at war.
Yoshikage was going to show them what a real conflict looked like.
But he needed a goal, something beyond just "be a better villain than canon." Mindless violence would make him no different from the League of Villains. Random chaos would be meaningless.
No, if he was going to do this, he needed a purpose.
He found it while watching a news broadcast about a Quirkless teenager who had committed suicide after years of bullying. The coverage was minimal—barely thirty seconds on a slow news day—and the tone was dismissive. Just another tragedy in a world full of them, nothing to see here, let's move on to the hero rankings.
Nobody cared. Because the victim was Quirkless, and Quirkless people didn't matter.
Yoshikage stared at the screen, at the boy's school photo, and felt something cold settle in his chest.
He'd never been a hero. Not in his past life, not in this one. He was selfish, misanthropic, and had no particular love for humanity in general.
But he hated bullies.
And this entire society was built on bullying. The strong dominating the weak, the Quirked oppressing the Quirkless, heroes crushing villains without ever addressing the systemic issues that created villains in the first place.
It was Bakugo Katsuki on a societal scale, and just like Bakugo, it would never face consequences unless someone forced the issue.
"Alright," Yoshikage said softly, Killer Queen manifesting beside him as he continued to stare at the screen. "If I'm going to be a villain, I might as well be a villain with a point."
He was going to tear down Hero Society.
Not through brute force or mindless destruction—that would just make him another thug for the heroes to defeat. No, he was going to be surgical. Strategic. He was going to expose the corruption, the hypocrisy, the fundamental rot at the heart of this world.
He was going to target the Hero Public Safety Commission and reveal their dirty secrets. He was going to sabotage the hero rankings and prove they were meaningless popularity contests. He was going to demonstrate that Quirks weren't the ultimate measure of worth by defeating the strongest heroes with nothing but intelligence and a Stand they couldn't even perceive.
And he was going to do it all invisibly, carefully, perfectly.
By the time he was done, Hero Society would be in shambles, and the heroes would have no idea who had destroyed them.
Yoshikage smiled, and Killer Queen's eyes seemed to gleam with anticipation.
This was going to be fun.
At age sixteen, one year before canon would begin, Yoshikage put his plans into motion.
His first target was carefully chosen: a mid-ranked hero named Skyline, known for his ability to create temporary force-field platforms in the air. Skyline was popular, charismatic, and publicly beloved.
He was also taking bribes from a construction company to overlook building code violations, and had been doing so for the past five years.
Yoshikage knew this because he'd spent three months investigating the hero, tracking his movements, analyzing his finances, and identifying every skeleton in his closet. The information alone would have been enough to ruin Skyline's career if released to the press.
But Yoshikage wasn't interested in being a whistleblower. He was interested in making a statement.
He waited until Skyline was alone in his apartment, post-patrol, tired and off-guard. Then he simply knocked on the door.
When Skyline opened it, confused—the building's security should have screened any visitors—Yoshikage smiled politely and said, "Hello. We need to talk about your extracurricular income."
Skyline's expression went from confused to alarmed in an instant, and he moved to slam the door—
Killer Queen's fist caught it, the Stand invisible to the hero, stopping the door's motion as if it had hit a brick wall.
"I wouldn't do that," Yoshikage said pleasantly, and with his other hand, he gestured to the coffee table in Skyline's living room.
The table exploded.
Not loudly—Killer Queen's bombs were silent—but completely. One moment it was there, the next it was simply gone, vaporized so thoroughly that not even dust remained.
Skyline stared at the empty space where his coffee table had been, his face going pale.
"What—how did you—"
"My Quirk is unimportant," Yoshikage interrupted, stepping into the apartment uninvited. Killer Queen moved with him, invisible guardian ensuring that Skyline couldn't try anything stupid. "What's important is that I can make anything I touch disappear like that. Including you, if you don't cooperate."
"I don't respond to threats," Skyline said, but his voice shook, and he was backing away slowly. "I'm a hero. If you think you can—"
His couch exploded.
Then his television.
Then, as Skyline watched in horror, the framed photos on his wall, the dishes in his kitchen sink, the shoes by his front door—every object Killer Queen touched, gone in an instant, without sound or trace.
"You're not understanding the situation," Yoshikage said calmly, walking further into the apartment like he owned it. "I'm not here to fight you. I'm not here to rob you. I'm here to give you an opportunity."
"What kind of opportunity?" Skyline asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Yoshikage smiled.
"The opportunity to be honest."
Three days later, Skyline held a press conference.
He confessed everything: the bribes, the code violations, the abuse of his position. He named names, provided documentation, and resigned from hero work effective immediately.
The media went into a frenzy. The Hero Public Safety Commission launched an investigation. The construction company was raided, its executives arrested. Two other heroes who had been taking similar bribes were exposed and forced to resign.
And through it all, Yoshikage watched from the shadows, anonymous and satisfied.
One hero down. Dozens more to go.
Because this was just the beginning.
Over the following months, Yoshikage systematically targeted corrupt heroes, exposing them through carefully orchestrated "confessions" that left no trace of his involvement. He didn't kill—not yet, anyway. That would draw too much attention, make the heroes paranoid and defensive.
No, he ruined them. Destroyed their careers, their reputations, their public images. He turned them into cautionary tales, examples of what happened when heroes forgot what they were supposed to stand for.
The Hero Public Safety Commission noticed, of course. They launched investigations, tightened security, tried to identify the common thread linking all these sudden confessions.
But there was nothing to find. No witnesses, no evidence, no pattern. Just heroes who suddenly decided to come clean about their crimes, seemingly of their own volition.
The Commission couldn't prove coercion without understanding how someone could coerce a hero without leaving evidence. And they couldn't understand that, because they didn't know about Stands.
Yoshikage was a ghost, a phantom, an impossible threat they couldn't perceive or counter.
And he was just getting started.
Because soon—very soon—the canon timeline would begin. All Might would meet Izuku Midoriya. The League of Villains would form. U.A. High School would open its doors to a new generation of hero students.
And Yoshikage would be waiting, ready to prove that this universe's villains were amateurs, that its heroes were unprepared, and that someone with the right abilities and the right mindset could run circles around them all.
He was going to be the villain this world deserved.
The one it needed to wake up and realize its heroes weren't enough.
And he was going to enjoy every minute of it.
After all, Yoshikage Kira just wanted a quiet life.
But if he couldn't have that in this universe he despised, he was going to make sure nobody else got one either.
Let the games begin.