Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Raising me as a hero who could exceed All Might, just to fulfill his own ambitions. I hate it! Being no more than a tool for that human garbage.”

Izuku, sitting on the bed in his darkened room, solemnly contemplated what Todoroki had said at the Sports Festival a month ago. With the chaos of the Sports Festival, then the internships and subsequent fight with Stain, there had barely been enough hours in the day to get everything done, let alone think about what Todoroki had revealed to him. It chafed at Izuku, knowing that his friend was suffering and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He could tell All Might what Todoroki had said, but given that Todoroki had been “raised as a hero who could exceed All Might”, that would be akin to mixing two different explosives and expecting them to cancel out. He could tell the police, but who would ever believe that Endeavor, the second highest ranking hero in all of Japan, was abusive? Especially considering Izuku had no evidence. If Todoroki himself went to the police, they might believe him, but he probably didn’t want to tell all of his worst childhood memories to a stranger as a gamble. Even if everything went well and they were able to successfully accuse and possibly even convict Endeavor, that would cause a media scandal of epic proportions; Todoroki and his siblings and mother definitely wouldn’t want their abuse story publicized on the news like a sordid affair.

Still, as a hero, there was no way Izuku could ever possibly just stand back while his friend was suffering. Obviously, he couldn’t legally take Endeavor to task, but he also wasn’t strong enough to kick his ass. Yet. The time it would take to become strong enough to beat the fear of God into Endeavor was too long.

Theoretically, he could collect approximately eight milliliters of liquid nitroglycerin from Kacchan’s gauntlets, freeze it into ice cubes, and put it in some sweet alcohol like rum (both to make the nitroglycerin work better because it would be diluted from the other components of Kacchan’s sweat, and to mask the sweet and burning taste). From there, he could serve both Endeavor and himself drinks with ice cubes in them just in case Endeavor was paranoid enough to be wary of poison. If Izuku drank his fast enough that the ice cubes didn’t have time to melt, he would be fine, whereas Endeavor, not knowing that he should knock it back, would drink it slowly. Endeavor most likely would not pass out and die from his heart slowing to the point of stopping until after leaving (given nitroglycerin’s LD50 of two milliliters, but also the dilution), thereby giving Izuku plausible deniability.

However, murder was wrong, so Izuku wasn’t going to do that.

Endeavor was already the subject of much controversy. Given his unappealing personality and penchant for destruction, hero fans were divided on whether or not to support him despite his personal achievements. It would be much easier to remove Endeavor from his position as a widely respected hero-- which he treasured over all else-- than to take him on legally or physically. But how?

His unappealing personality wasn’t enough to bring him down. Perhaps the destruction rate? Hm, people care about their money, but destruction alone isn’t enough to truly outrage people. Civilian injuries and casualties, maybe? That would impact people on a personal level. A sort of “that could be me” response.

Inspired, Izuku leaped off his bed and booted up his computer. “The government’s annual damage reports are the most reliable and have the most information, but they don’t have the specific location of the incident, just the prefecture; they don’t have the names of the heroes, villains, and vigilantes involved either…” He mumbled to himself. “But if I cross-reference a crisis mapping database of villain fights, I can match the date, time, and prefecture from the government records to the hero fights detailed in the database.”

He spent half the night assimilating the government’s annual damage report into his own spreadsheet, entering in all the heroes, villains, and vigilantes involved in each individual fight with gratuitous help from Professor Google. He used the “sort by” tool several times to rank heroes by the totals of each category-- money lost in damages to public property, money lost in damages to private property, heroes injured while working in teams, heroes killed while working in teams, villains injured, villains killed, villains apprehended, civilians injured, and civilians killed.

The worst statistic on Endeavor’s part was the money lost in damages to public property, but he was still ranked first in civilian casualties so Izuku set that as the default instead.

Izuku had a thought: even with all this evidence that Endeavor was literal Satan and probably kicked puppies in his spare time (Izuku might have been going a little insane at this point), fans might dismiss the evidence claiming that this year could have just been a bad year for the #2 hero. Izuku sighed and cracked his knuckles. Plus ultra.

Several hours later, he had not only added the information of several past years to his Spreadsheet of Doom but had also used Excel’s chart function to generate a scatter plot of Endeavor’s failings. The graph was linear with a positive slope, meaning that in future years Endeavor was likely to get even worse.

It’s not enough, Izuku’s last two brain cells protested, so he also threw in an image of Endeavor’s hero record. A hero record was a record that a hero could have, stating all their successful and unsuccessful missions, as well as the types of missions. While optional for most, the top ten heroes were required to release their hero record. Izuku highlighted the stats for fighting missions (which comprised most of Endeavor’s record) and rescue missions (of which he had taken almost none).

Saving the file with shaking hands, Izuku exulted in the completion of his masterpiece until realized he had no clue where to post this information. Sighing, he accessed the top ten hero forums and ran an algorithm to calculate the times of day that they got the most web traffic. As he was queueing The Spreadsheet to be posted on the next day, he realized he was being inconsiderate. Without a second thought, he picked up his phone and called Todoroki. After four rings, he picked up.

“Midoriya? It’s half past four in the morning, what the hell do you want?”

“Oh, is it really? I hadn’t noticed. Anyway, if I told you I had a way to majorly fuck up your dad in the public eye, would you be okay with it?”

He paused in shock that Izuku had sworn. “...Yeah, sure, whatever. Go nuts.” Todoroki hung up.

Now with his friend’s permission, Izuku gleefully scheduled his baby (as he had taken to calling The Spreadsheet) to post on the top ten hero forums at the time during which they would receive the maximum amount of exposure. Just to go the extra measure, he scheduled it on fifteen other websites because plus ultra and also he was very proud of his baby.

As soon as he finalized the last post, all the energy left him and he passed out on top of the covers of his bed at five in the morning. The alarm for his morning jog went off an hour later, and he slept through it. He slept through his mother making breakfast, and then lunch as well. Izuku finally woke up at four in the afternoon. Over a late lunch, he checked his phone to find a ridiculous amount of notifications, as well as several missed calls from Todoroki.

Whoops, he thought. Guess I’ll die then. He hit the “call back” button.

“Midoriya, what the fuck did you do? ” Todoroki said in lieu of a greeting.

“I’m so so sorry I missed your calls, I was asleep because I stayed up super late!”

“Yeah, I guessed as much considering you called me at four in the morning.”

“Ah, sorry!”

“Back to the point, what the fuck did you do? ”

“Oh no, I should have told you more, and you were tired so that probably didn’t count as real permission, sorry so sorry!”

“Quit apologizing. To be honest, I’m not even mad, just confused. How did you manage to get every single person on the Internet to talk about how much they hate Endeavor overnight?”

“Well, uh… Your dad’s a bitch.”

Todoroki snorted. “Understatement of the year.”

Izuku laughed nervously. “I haven’t had the time to do anything until now, but as a hero-- or, well, a hero-in-training-- I couldn’t just let him get away with being… Like That. But I would never tell anyone what you told me! It would be horrible of me to break that trust! So I went after him for something else.”

“Wait, you mean you wrote that document thing? How long have you been working on it? And why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“I spent about ten hours straight making it yesterday,” Izuku admitted.

The phone went silent. “Todoroki? Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m going to… do something else for a while. I think my brain needs to reboot.” he hung up.

After staring at the “call ended” screen for a few moments, Izuku checked the myriad notifications he had received overnight, then choked on his food. Coughing, he stared at the numbers on his screen. Thirty thousand retweets on Twitter, forty thousand views on Reddit, and counting! His baby was trending. There were even news articles about it! His plan may have worked… a bit better than expected.

Izuku’s mother came home from the store to find her one and only son sitting at the kitchen table while staring into space. His day continued like that for the most part, functioning on autopilot, although he did manage to remain mostly sentient as Todoroki grilled him for details over the phone a few hours later. He went to bed early and barely remembered to set his alarm for school the next morning.

When he woke up, he felt a little bit less like a zombie. However, the nervousness he felt the whole way to school was nearly overwhelming-- and righteously so, he thought as his homeroom teacher pulled him into an empty classroom before school had even started.

“I already talked to Todoroki,” Aizawa said. “Just… let me get this straight. You compiled massive amounts of data, performed numerous calculations, arranged them in exactly the right order to show just how bad Endeavor is, and then decided that wasn’t enough and accessed his hero record too.”

“Mhm,” said Izuku, who was so nervous that he had looped right back around to being calm.

“Then you released this information to the public, calculating which popular forums and even the specific time of day to post it at to get the most views.”

“Yep.”

Aizawa dragged his hand down his face. “You completely ruined this man's career and dragged his name through the mud. You did this to the number two hero . I thought you loved heroes?”

“He was a dick to me once and also I don’t like the way he talks to Todoroki,” Izuku blurted.

Aizawa stared at his Problem Child for several seconds. Softly, but with feeling, he said, “ What the fuck. ”

Chapter Text

Somehow, up until this point Izuku had managed to avoid most of the problems cropping up as a result of his baby, The Spreadsheet. The media wanted interviews with the person who had released such a groundbreaking piece of work. People wanted to know if he was going to release more content. Heroes were scared-- who was next? Izuku’s friends hadn’t caught on to the fact that Japan’s most recent political upheaval was single-handedly his doing, for which he was grateful.

Aizawa hadn’t punished him, but was now treating him like a toddler with a grenade: a sweet child who could wreak unmitigated havoc at a moment’s notice. Present Mic seemed to like him even more, oddly enough.

His mom had taken one look at the news and deduced her son was behind it. She had hugged him, shed a single tear, and proclaimed how proud his father would have been. That was probably more unsettling than anything else that had happened.

Despite all the unexpected backlash, Izuku had dealt with the situation through careful deliberation and forethought. This meant that it stung a little bit when the all the shit he had been avoiding for two months caught up with him through sheer dumb luck.

Izuku stared across the dairy aisle of his local convenience store.

Self-proclaimed villain Dabi stared back, hand frozen in front of a box of string cheese.

“I feel like I should probably fuck your shit up...” Dabi said, “but I don’t feel like it. Good job exposing Endeavor for the piece of shit he is, kid.”

Izuku felt like there was an epiphany on the edge of his mind, and Dabi’s throwaway sentence had just pushed that epiphany over the edge. His eye shape and color, the similarity of his voice, his frame, his quirk, his dislike of Endeavor, the box of black hair dye in his basket…

Izuku connected the dots. “You’re Todoroki’s missing brother, aren’t you?” he breathed.

Dabi’s face went blank and tiny blue sparks began to erupt on his fingertips.

“Wait, no, hold on WE CAN TALK ABOUT THIS!”

“You can’t tell anyone if you’re dead in a ditch somewhere.” growled Dabi.

“Yeah, well, we’re kind of in the middle of the store, and I’m pretty sure there are cameras and stuff, but, like, I’m not going to tell anyone so I’d really appreciate it ifyoucouldnotmurdermethanks!”

Dabi scowled and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“My mom’s a lawyer,” Izuku blurted.

Dabi looked at him like he had just declared his intent to marry a grilled cheese sandwich.

“...And?”

“You left because Endeavor was, you know, right? So we can make you a legal case! And- and you could quit being a villain, and reunite with your family members that don’t suck ass!”

Dabi looked lost. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you help me?”

“That’s what a real hero does-- he helps someone whenever he can. But I also have a selfish reason: your brother is my friend. I want to make him happy.”

Dabi was silent for a long, strained moment before nodding tersely. He dropped his basket on the floor and walked away. “When you’re done here,” he called over his shoulder, “meet me outside.” 

Izuku smiled like he was being held at gunpoint, or having his picture taken for his driver’s license. “Hi, mom. I brought home a, uh, friend…”

“How nice! What’s your name, dear?” Inko asked, bullheadedly ignoring Dabi’s suspicious, well, everything.

“Dabi,” he grunted.

Izuku stared him in the eyes until Dabi averted his gaze and corrected, “Todoroki Touya.”

Inko’s face lit up. “Would you happen to be related to--”

Don’t say Endeavor, don’t say Endeavor! Touya internally begged.

“--Izuku’s friend Shouto?”

He untensed a little. “He’s my younger brother.”

Inko suddenly regarded him with the intensity of hawk’s eyes, which seemed so out of place on her sweet, genial face.

“Izuku,” she turned to her son.

“Y-yes?” he yelped.

“Am I putting together a court case against Endeavor?” she asked quietly.

Touya felt a drop of sweat roll down his neck. Scarily intelligent! he thought. Oh God, it runs in the family.

Izuku nodded, every bit as serious as his mother.

“Good, then get out.” she said.

“Wait, what?!” Izuku did a double take.

“You heard me,” she smiled. “I’ll work with your friend here, you go have fun.”

Izuku opened his mouth to protest.

“Yes, I know you can help,” she interrupted, “but I don’t want you to. Let Mommy take care of this one, sweetheart.”

I was wrong, Touya thought. She’s worse!

“Alright. Should I… write more inflammatory literature, or something? I’m at a loss.” Izuku said.

“Do whatever makes you happy, sweetie.”

“Okay,” he said, and walked off to his room, thereby abandoning Touya to his fate. 

Once again, Izuku was accosted on his way into homeroom.

“Deku!” Uraraka demanded while grabbing his hand. “Is it true? Were you the one that published that spreadsheet thing?”

He nearly tripped and faceplanted, despite being stationary at the moment. “Wh-who told you?!”

“So it is true!” Kirishima exclaimed.

“Todoroki said so,” Uraraka said sheepishly, “but we couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. He’s just got that kind of face, you know?”

In the background, Todoroki looked at his face in his phone’s reflection. He touched a hand to his cheek.

“Hey, hey, what’s all this?” Kaminari asked, walking through the door.

Izuku waved his hands. “Nothi--”

“Deku wrote that spreadsheet!” Uraraka said.

Kaminari tilted his head. “Wait, what spreadsheet?”

“The Endeavor one,” said Kirishima.

“Bullshit,” Kaminari scoffed.

“It’s true,” said Jirou, entering behind Kaminari. “I heard it from Present Mic.”

“No way!” said Mina from behind everyone.

Kaminari jumped and screeched, “Gyah! How long have you been here, Mina?”

She smiled proudly. “Longer than you!”

“What’s going on?” Ojiro asked from the entrance.

Several students clamored for Ojiro’s attention, all trying to spill the tea. Izuku sighed. Today was going to be a long day. 

Izuku was tired of being stared at. It was only lunchtime, yet it seemed half the school knew his secret! For fuck’s sake, even Monoma was leery of him. Monoma! Every business student in the cafeteria and quite a few that Izuku was relatively sure were supposed to be in class right now was crowding him for an autograph, a word of wisdom, or even just to offer him their lunch. To top it all off, Principal Nedzu had approached him about… something. He was very cryptic about the whole thing, but the general vibe that Izuku got from him was that he wanted to teach(?) him. Ever since that conversation, Izuku couldn’t help but spot Nedzu trailing him wherever he went on campus and-- there he was, hanging from a hole in the cafeteria’s ceiling!

“Ohoho…” Nedzu said and retracted back into the shadowy recess of the ceiling hole. Izuku was Afraid.

Several feet away, Tsuyu felt Mineta’s grubby hand brush her butt and idly asked Uraraka, “Do you think Midoriya takes requests?” 

Izuku’s mission was, contrary to popular belief, not complete. In fact, he still had that piece of inflammatory literature he was still working on! It was that which drove him to seek out his teachers rather than hiding from all his fellow students. He started with the Management course. Of course, since he had no idea where that particular teacher was, he ventured deep into the heart of enemy territory-- okay, he went to the Management dorms and asked the night students. And left as quickly as he could, considering the hushed whispers of “Ten hours!” and “A lock of hair for the shrine…” He managed (pun intended) to run into the Management department head and get the personal interview he wanted on the way out, so he supposed the trip wasn’t a complete waste.

Next, he sought out his favorite teacher: All Might.

“Ah, Midoriya! I’ve been meaning to talk to you!” he said.

“Really?” Izuku tilted his head. “What for?”

“I heard a rumor that you released some… nasty things about Endeavor. What was that for?”

“He was a dick to me once and also I don’t like the way he talks to Todoroki.” That was his excuse and he was sticking with it. “Besides, everything I said was true. If it was nasty, it’s his own fault.”

All Might waffled. “Well, yes, but be that as it may… You’re friends with Todoroki, aren’t you? Why would you go after Endeavor’s reputation like that?”

Izuku smiled. “It’s the one thing he can’t replace.”

All Might forgot how to breathe for a moment. “Wh… What did you say?”

Izuku folded in on himself a bit in embarrassment. “The bitch deserved it,” he mumbled. “Can I ask you a couple questions for an essay I’m writing?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said in a daze. 

After interviewing All Might, Snipe, Present Mic, Thirteen, and, of course, his own homeroom teacher, Izuku was ready to head home. Uraraka and Todoroki were waiting to walk home with him, Uraraka because she had stayed late to ask Ectoplasm about the lesson and Todoroki because question mark. As soon as they hit the gate, they were bombarded by cameras, microphones, and overly eager journalists.

One particularly brave reporter shoved a recording device in his face and demanded, “What made you decide to publish confidential information about a respected and upstanding citizen? Is it because you secretly hate heroes?”

He put a hand on Uraraka’s shoulder because she looked ready to combust, shot Todoroki an apologetic glance, and looked directly into the rude reporter’s camera.

“Secretly hate heroes? That means a lot coming from you, Ms. Tanaka, considering how often you ‘expose’ heroes who have done nothing but their best. In fact, I believe you recently accused Mount Lady of wanton destruction of property, despite the fact that her rate of destruction is consistently below average. Not to mention your piece on Arrowhead, where you accused him of tax evasion.”

The reporter frantically flicked her eyes at the cameraperson, begging them to shut down the live feed.

Izuku continued, “Not only was everything you said in that article blatantly false incendiary clickbait, but almost all of it was plagiarized from sources such as Hero-Spiracy,” here he nodded to another journalist with the Hero-Spiracy logo on his shirt, “Pretty Pros, and even Wikipedia.”

At this point, the unfortunate Ms. Tanaka was hiding her face and perhaps even crying. Everyone’s attention was completely captured by Izuku.

“Furthermore,” he continued, “your original claim that I released ‘confidential information’ is also a lie. I cited every source I used, unlike you, each of which was public. You would have known this had you actually bothered to open the document. Seriously, how lazy can you get? Do I need to come to your office and click the Works Cited for you?”

He looked around at all the cameras and microphones pointed his way. “And you people are hardly better! The last time reporters showed up at U.A. uninvited, they caused a security leak leading to the U.S.J. attack. What if I or one of my friends with me had had a flashback or a panic attack? Would you have publicized that too, you monsters? Go on, shoo! Get out of here.”

The flabbergasted crowd looked at each other nervously before dispersing as if they had never shown up in the first place, like a herd of cats.

“Midoriya,” Todoroki said softly, “I’m going to marry you.”

“Wh-- wh--?!” Izuku stammered loudly, hiding his red face.

“Hey, I want in!” said Uraraka. “So whose last name are we taking?”

Izuku sat down on the ground and whimpered. 

“As you can see on this chart, crime in major cities such as Fukuoka, Tokyo, Musutafu and most notably Kyoto has decreased by a whopping eighteen percent while public service and volunteer work on behalf of heroes is at an all-time high. Some say that the decrease in crime is a result of the increased volunteer work, but we here at NHK Newsline know the truth: both of these things were caused by the so-called ‘Endeavor-Gate’ movement. For those of you who don’t know, this scandal was inspired by a spreadsheet released on several social media which compiled statistics from government resources and crisis-mapping sites. These statistics detailed the magnitude of destruction, injury, and loss of life that several irresponsible heroes, most notably Endeavor, have caused throughout their careers. It has recently come to light that the document was authored by a first year U.A. Hero Course student named Midoriya Izuku. Yesterday, Midoriya released a multi-page report compiling the data from his spreadsheet into a research essay with a very controversial opinion-- he feels that pro hero Endeavor should be arrested and put on trial. Midoriya says, ‘If Japanese pro heroes are truly so weak and the system so poorly designed that [a drastic increase in villainous activity] would occur, then the system is defunct and needs to be dismantled and rebuilt entirely’. He goes on to say that 'if the Japanese government is too cowardly to bring Endeavor to justice as he deserves, then there will be no other option but to involve the United Nations, as surely the continued protection of a villainous person such as Endeavor is a sign of corruption and incompetence'. Endeavor was unavailable for comment…”

“Damn, kid,” Touya spoke over the news report on the TV, “you sure are something else. For a cinnamon roll, you’re pretty terrifying, you know that?”

Izuku buried his red face in Shouto’s shoulder and sunk into the couch as if it could obscure him completely if he tried hard enough.

“At least give Mom some of the credit,” Izuku whined, though it was muffled. “She’s the one who got you a trial.”

“And I got off with just six months of house arrest, at that! I swear, you’re half demon and you get it from your mother.”

As if she was summoned, Inko entered the living room with a handful of mail.

“Speak of the devil,” Touya joked to himself.

“Izuku, sweetie, you’ve got more of those villain letters,” she said, dumping the mail on her son. He extricated himself from his new boyfriend to examine them.

Her hands fluttered nervously. “I’m pretty sure most of these people shouldn’t know where we live,” she said. “Should I take legal action?”

The occupants of the room shivered in tandem.

“Uh, no thanks, Mom!” Izuku said quickly. “I’ve got it covered.”

Inko smiled and the Todoroki siblings both breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll be in the yard if you need me,” she said as they waved to her.

“Anything interesting?” Shouto looked over Izuku’s shoulder.

“No, just the same as usual. A couple of recruitment offers,” he set these aside to hand to the police, “and the rest just say something along the lines of ‘we’ve stopped doing crime, honest! So if you could please not ruin our lives we would be grateful’. I don’t think any of these are going to seem interesting after the note from Shigaraki.”

Touya sat up sharply. “That jackass sent you a letter?”

“Yeah, it was just a smiley face,” Shouto said.

Touya slouched back into his chair. “God, that’s creepy.”

“Mom’s on it already,” Izuku said with eyes of fire and a smile that would put Aizawa’s to shame.

“You were right,” Shouto whispered. “He’s definitely half-demon.” 

“So as long as the hero in question--” Aizawa’s lecture was cut off by the emergency broadcast television in the room coming to life. Students and teachers alike all stared in rapt fixation at the reporter on screen, and more importantly, what was behind her. In the distance, several policemen could be seen escorting Pro Hero Endeavor from his own home in handcuffs. Izuku stood up out of his desk and cheered. The rest of his classmates were frozen, unable to verbalize anything about what their resident cinnamon roll had accomplished. All his classmates, that is, save one. Bakugou raised his hand in a silent high five and Izuku took it with tears in his eyes, nearly shedding one when Bakugou didn’t pull it away with a “too slow.”

“Just this once,” Bakugou said, “you didn’t suck.”

Izuku let out a high pitched , gleeful whine. “That’s the nicest thing Kacchan has ever said to me,” he warbled.

Aizawa abandoned his lecture in favor of crawling into his bright yellow sleeping bag. He stuck an arm out of his poofy cocoon and swiped it across his desk, knocking stacks of paper, various pens, and several paperweights onto the floor. He climbed on top of his desk and lay face-down on it. As the din of the television continued, he mumbled, “Thank God he’s not a villain.”

Chapter Text

The Scourge of Hero Society

     With the development of the “Endeavor-gate” movement rapidly sweeping across the nation and even expanding beyond Japan’s borders, one cannot help but to contemplate just how the current pro hero industry managed to produce heroes so lackadaisical and unsympathetic in regards to the damages they cause to their inanimate and human surroundings. It is common knowledge that several European countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom harshly punish their pro heroes for destruction, injury and distress caused by indifference to their surroundings. That is not to say that pro heroes should never cause damage, even to the point of sacrificing a fight or civilian lives; rather, these countries teach their heroes moderation and punish them for excess force. One of the only countries worse than Japan regarding punishments for lack of moderation is the United States of America (Jones 2016). Some notable arrests for excess force include: Germany’s Schnellhund, who served eight months in jail for striking three separate public buildings with lightning in his pursuit of French vigilante Gargouille; Spain’s Fénix, who served three months in jail and 150 hours of community service for setting an anonymous person’s home on fire when aiming for a villain who calls himself “Don Quixote”, but is regularly referred to as “El Patatús”; England’s Nightrunner, who served six months in jail and 300 community service hours because he allegedly “parkoured his way through seven flats” in order to make it to his Dungeons and Dragons game, which he was late for (Goldberg 2014). It is a very striking fact that Endeavor has done many similar things to these heroes and on a much larger scale, yet he remains ranked number one on the national hero charts in the wake of All Might’s retirement.

     Out of the 126 countries with a regulated hero system, 93 have instituted mandatory community service in order to maintain a hero license. 101 out of 126 have established punishments for brutality to opponents, be they villain, vigilante, or petty criminal. All of these countries, including Japan, have regulations involving loss of civilian injuries and lives lost (United Nations 2019), though Japan’s laws are looser than many other nations. Japan also has laws regarding lives lost and injuries sustained on behalf of sidekicks and heroes cooperating at the site of a crime. Unfortunately, these laws are, like most of Japan’s laws regulatory of the hero industry, inhibitive at best and derelict at worst.

     While some may argue that Endeavor, being the current number one Japanese hero, cannot be lost so soon after All Might, it is imperative to recognize that he is not the only hero putting in hours, just the most well-known. Others may say that the system has functioned fine for a long time, and “if it is not broken, do not fix it,” in the words of Councillor Watanabe (Fujimoto 2018). The simple fact of the matter is that the system is in fact broken. The fact that so many people believe that the system will collapse with the loss of one hero indicates that a major reform is in order, starting with arresting Endeavor and putting him on trial for his flagrant disregard of the few hero-regulating laws that Japan possesses. His place on the hero ranking chart should not grant him immunity to justice.

     One of the simplest issues lies in volunteer work, which inspires goodwill. In direct contrast with the majority of the U.N., Japan does not impose mandatory community service on its heroes (United Nations 2019). In a personal interview, All Might has stated, “Keeping your hero license in America is harder than it is in Japan. I remember [...] spending a lot of time at the animal shelter.”

     Many heroes, such as Present Mic, perform volunteer work anyway; however, Endeavor is one of the many pro heroes that perform community service work rarely. In Kotaru Homura’s controversial article Vilification or Volunteer Work , Kotaru states that Endeavor’s community service almost always coincides with a scandal (2017).

     Another objectionable facet of Japanese hero society embodied and perpetrated by Endeavor is the sheer level of property damage the man generates. As stated earlier, Spanish pro hero Fénix served three months of jail time and 150 hours of community service for setting one private residence on fire (Goldberg 2014). This is a very stark contrast to Endeavor’s record-- in 27 years of being a pro hero, he has set fire to 43 private residences, 218 public buildings, and destroyed or caused severe damage to an additional 114 structures (Kotaru 2017). Because of the way the current laws are set up, he has paid for none of this. Instead, the repairs are paid for by the government, according to Mashima Ryuuhei, the head of U.A.’s business department. Average citizens should not have to pay excess taxes just because heroes like Endeavor cannot control themselves. Additionally, since he doesn’t pay for any of the damages he causes, he most likely has a very diminished sense of worth of property, if any at all. This only ensures that he will continue to treat others’ property recklessly. In a personal interview, pro hero Snipe had this to say:

“Yeah, I don’t know how it is in other parts of the world, but in America, they’ve got the same kind of laws. But instead of just paying the extra taxes like we do here, the public gets real mad. Why, in Texas, I saw one poor hero running from an angry mob because he flooded a major intersection.”

     Endeavor’s rampant destruction of property is an issue not only for obvious reasons, but also because destroying buildings can put civilians at risk of injury or death, can put residents of a building out of a home, can destroy their place of work and therefore their means of income, and can even put intense financial stress upon low-income citizens whose insurance does not completely cover rebuilding and medical bills. Sasagawa Hanako had this to say in a personal interview:

“I used to live in a pretty poor area; I was a college student, so I couldn’t afford a better place. It had a lot of villain activity, and most heroes never came close unless they were chasing someone. That Endeavor […] set my apartment complex on fire. No one was killed, and we all got out fine except for some minor burns, but my wife and I lost our scrapbooks, which we had been making together since middle school. We were devastated. Also, I’m pretty sure my cat has asthma now. From the smoke inhalation, you see.”

     Another shameful aspect of Endeavor’s career indicative of Japanese hero society as a whole is his brutality. It is a well-known phenomenon that a large percentage of petty criminals will turn themselves in without a fight once a hero shows up on the scene. It is because of this that areas with more visible hero patrols usually have lower crime rates, even if the heroes doing the patrolling in question do not actually arrest anyone. One of Endeavor’s many ex-sidekicks, who has chosen to remain anonymous, claimed in a personal interview conducted over e-mail that Endeavor “kicks the living shit out of everyone regardless of their compliance”. Some argue that if someone was committing a crime, they deserve to put taken in with force. This is a barbaric way of thinking, and a near-transparent pardoning of modified police brutality. Additionally, criminals in fear of brutality are more likely to take hostages and threaten innocent bystanders (Abarai 2017). Even if police brutality has suddenly become excusable to the general public, there still remains the very real possibility that an unfortunate bystander may be mistaken for a criminal. What if an excessively forceful hero captured the wrong person and ended up brutalizing an innocent? There have been cases of this happening not only in other countries but also in Japan, and many times the victim was left paying their own bills because the hero claimed it was an “accident”. This makes it not only easy for the hero to avoid paying hospital bills, but also more difficult for the victim to get the proper insurance payments. This happened to Masato Rinmaru, who said this in an interview with Yamamoto Ken regarding ex-hero Shadowmaster:

“It was so awful. I kept insisting, ‘it wasn’t me, please, I didn’t do it,’ but he wouldn’t listen. I spent two weeks in the hospital and I had to pay for it all. I tried to tell someone, anyone that would listen, but he had a really good PR team and, uh… Well, no one wanted to listen to me until he got busted for the stuff he did with in China. I still have nightmares about it.” (Yamamoto 2011)

     Another topic that is necessary to examine in the pursuit of justice is the topic of injuries and casualties. Many are reluctant to discuss this, but it needs to be talked about. Obviously no hero can save everyone, but as a hero as well as a decent human being, it is one’s duty to try one’s hardest. Time and again, Endeavor has shown disregard for those around him during combat. Several of his sidekicks and additional heroes responding as backup have sustained avoidable injuries while serving with him. Two rookie sidekicks have died when Endeavor was on the scene (Kotaru 2017), and while it is discourteous and unnecessarily vile to lay the blame for this solely at Endeavor’s feet, it is inarguable that he was not as cautious as he should have been.

     Civilians are in even more danger than those participating in a fight in this regard; heroes and sidekicks are trained professionals, whereas civilians are not. An estimated 400 civilians have perished in conflicts involving Endeavor (Kotaru 2017), and while in 27 years of service some casualties are to be expected, a number this high is simply unacceptable.

     Endeavor also places his coworkers in harm’s way. He has burned several coworkers unintentionally because they were “in his way” and “should have dodged faster” (Kotaru 2017). Debaters are split on this issue-- some say that it is common sense to keep one’s distance while someone is using a fire quirk. These people believe that anyone who gets burned by Endeavor because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time during a fight have only themselves to blame. These people have clearly never attended a hero school; children aspiring to be heroes learn basic situational awareness during their first semester. The fact that Endeavor’s quirk is destructive and often an area-of-effect type is irrelevant. All Might punched a potential child-murderer so hard that he changed the weather, yet he still managed to not only not harm those around him (including the endangered child and myself) but also actively worked to keep his coworkers safe, as a real hero should.

     Mochida Shiori, a reporter for Hero-Spiracy, claims that with All Might retired, criminal activity has the potential to hit an all-time high and that the only thing stopping these potential criminals is Endeavor, a “necessary evil” as Mochida refers to him (Mochida 2019). If Japanese pro heroes are truly so weak and the system so poorly designed that this would occur, then the system is defunct and needs to be dismantled and rebuilt entirely. If the number one hero protecting the populace is actually a villain on the side of the law, then something is undeniably wrong.

     It is not an opinion but a fact that Endeavor has done many things that would be considered unacceptable and even heinous by the standards of other countries. He has gotten away with these things simply because he is the ideal product of the Japanese hero industry. Just because the things he’s done are legal do not make them morally or ethically right. Hero society in this nation needs to be fixed, starting with its figurehead, Endeavor. If the Japanese government is too cowardly to bring Endeavor to justice as he deserves, then there will be no other option but to involve the United Nations, as surely the continued protection of a villainous person such as Endeavor is a sign of corruption and incompetence. Martial law under the rule of the United Nations is preferable to the continuation of this current blatant corruption and savagery.

Works Cited

     Abarai, Kazuko. “The Crime of Necessity.” Hero Law , vol. 7, no. 5, ser. 4, 2 Dec. 2017, p. 14. 4 .

     Fujimoto, Shinzu. “Councillor Watanabe's View on Hero Regulation.” Kyoto Weekly , 15 Oct. 2018, p. A4.

     Goldberg, Maya. “Why You Shouldn't Be a Loose Cannon.” HeroDict , 30 May 2014, herodict.com/why-you-shouldn-t-be-a.

     Jones, M. “Modern American Heroes.” HeroDict , 24 Aug. 2016, herodict.com/modern-american-heroes.

     Kotaru, Homura. “Vilification or Volunteer Work.” Hero Law , vol. 6, no. 1, ser. 4, 4 Apr. 2017, pp. 21–22. 4 .

     Midoriya, Izuku. “American Hero Licensing Requirements.” 20 Aug. 2019.

     Midoriya, Izuku. “Taxpayers and the American Hero Industry.” 20 Aug. 2019.

     Midoriya, Izuku. “Taxpayers and the Japanese Hero Industry.” 20 Aug. 2019.

     Midoriya, Izuku. “Sasagawa's Encounter with Endeavor.” 19 Aug. 2019.

     Midoriya, Izuku. “Endeavor's Anonymous Sidekick.” 19 Aug. 2019.

     Mochida, Shiori. “Endeavor Is a Necessary Evil-- Here's Why.” Hero-Spiracy , 7 May 2019, herospiracy.com.

     “Restraint Laws | UN Peacemaker.” United Nations , United Nations, 2019, peacemaker.un.org/restraint-laws.

     Yamamoto, Ken. “The Truth About Shadowmaster.” The Truth About Shadowmaster , Tokyo, 14 June 2011.