Chapter 1: A Hero's Burning Origins
Musutafu, Japan.
Year 2205, August 25th.
Midoriya Izuku didn't think he'd ever been this excited. Sitting in the car on the way to the clinic, he was almost jumping up and down in his seat, desperate to arrive at the clinic. His friends had all gotten their quirks by now, and Izuku was impatient, itching for the chance to start training and become a hero, just like All Might! His fourth birthday had come and gone, and with no sign of a quirk by his sixth, his mother had decided to take him to the clinic to see what could be done.
"Izuku! Calm down and sit still before I turn this car around!" Midoriya Inko spoke in an exasperated tone, trying to be strict, but not quite able to keep the laughter out of her voice. She was a little on the younger end to have a child, but she loved the boy, despite his headstrong tendencies. Izuku was instantly still, the mock threat enough to quell the nervous energy coursing through his body, his six-year-old self unable to hear the joking in her voice.
"I'm trying, Mom, but I'm so-so-" His brow furrowed as he combed through his limited, albeit advanced for his age, vocabulary, searching for a word to express the emotions running through him at the moment.
"Excited? Nervous?" Inko suggested, trying not to laugh at her son's expression, with big emerald eyes narrowed to a slit and lips turned into the closest approximation a child could have of a scowl. As she spoke, however, his eyes widened and his face brightened into a wide smile, now able to put a name to his emotions.
"Yeah! Both of those! I can't wait to be a hero, I'm gonna save everyone!" The family of two continued to laugh and joke as they neared the clinic, eager to see what the boy would be able to do.
"Not gonna happen, kid." The doctor spoke bluntly. Izuku's smile froze on his face as he sat in the doctor's office.
"Wh-What do you mean?" His mother said from his side, "All of his friends have gotten their quirk and Izuku has been waiting for his-"
The doctor cut her off, "He's quirkless." Holding up an X-ray, he continued to speak, "This joint in his pinky toe, it's something that all quirked people have outgrown; those with quirks have no second joint since their bodies have evolved further, and deemed them unnecessary. Your son here has the second joint, meaning that he will not develop a quirk. He should give up his hero dreams before he gets hurt."
Izuku couldn't understand some of the words the doctor was saying, but he didn't need to. The only thing he heard as his ears began to fill with the sound of a thousand bees heading his way, an impossibly loud buzzing, was the word "Quirkless". It seemed to echo in his head, the word bouncing around his brain and starting to destroy his dreams. He wasn't paying attention to Inko's angry words towards the doctor and his insensitivity, or the questions she asked about a possible quirk in the future; he just sat there, tears beginning to fall down his face and onto his still smiling jaw.
As Inko and Izuku left the office, the doctor stood up, and strolled to his personal office. As he entered, his unhurried gait and bored gaze evaporated, as he rushed past his landline and towards a phone hidden behind a shelf, and called the man he had dedicated his life to.
"Izou." A deep, haunting voice spoke on the other end. The Voice of a ruler. The now named Izou shivered and almost dropped to his knees instinctively, the Voice demanding not respect, but absolute obedience, and causing fear in the hearts of those who heard it. "This is an unexpected call. Tell me why you have disturbed me." The Voice commanded. Izou continued to shiver, adrenaline, fear and giddy joy flowing through him all at once.
"M-My Lord, I've found you a gift! A boy came to my clinic today, he is missing the toe joint, but hasn't manifested a Quirk at the age of six! It must be powerful, powerful enough to not wish to harm the boy upon its awakening. This could be the Quirk that tips the scales against All Might!" Izou had made a mistake. He felt it in his bones as the Voice showed anger.
"Do you believe I need a child's quirk to kill All Might?" The Voice spoke. Despite keeping a reasonable volume, the question was asked through clenched teeth, anger and disgust hissing through his tone. "Do you believe I am not enough already to defeat that smiling oaf?" This time, the Voice raised slightly, and at the slightest increase of volume, Izou was unable to breathe, his throat closing from simply the voice of the most dangerous man on the planet. "Do you believe that I need a new, powerful Quirk to destroy him? I am All For One! I am the strongest force on Earth! I have toppled governments, destroyed countries, decimated populations, and you believe I NEED MORE?" The Voice was even louder now, not at the volume of a yell, or far above a regular timbre, but the violence it promised leaked through the phone, the aura of death and despair that the Voice carried, its presence forcing Izou to the ground, kowtowing to the monster that once threatened the world.
"N-No, My Lord, I-I meant no insult! I simply w-want the safest outcome f-for your unmatched self!" Izou managed to choke out. "P-Please, Lord, forgive my impudence!"
The pressure vanished. Izou inhaled air desperately, his body trembling at the force it had been subjected to. As he recovered, the Voice of All For One spoke again,
"Be careful of your insinuations, doctor," the Voice spoke his title mockingly. "You are not invaluable, nor are you invincible to be insulting me like this."
"Yes, yes, Lord, thank you for your graciousness, Lord," Izou spoke haltingly, not believing his luck after making so monumental an error. "I will remember your might for the future."
All For One laughed. The sound was akin to the rumbling of the very earth, deep and grating, Izou began to feel faint, and felt something warm drip down his lips.
"Oh, you will remember my power," The Voice cooed. "But rather than the future, you should take it with you to the afterlife." At that, Izou felt his body freeze, as a purple mist began to form under his body, and a portal opened up and took him into a bar. There was a boy there, no older than 12, lanky and thin, he looked malnourished at first glance, but a deeper look showed a wiry frame, built for speed rather than power. He sat at the counter of a bar, head lowered as he began to turn towards the poor doctor. His hair was a light grayish-blue, and his eyes were a menacing red, glinting with malicious joy and sadistic pleasure as he took in the sight of the cowardly man before him.
"Kill him, Tomura." The voice spoke in a pleasant tone, like he had just bought the boy a gift for his birthday, the gracious voice at odds with the threatening words. The boy, Tomura, began to smile as his head lifted, showing Izou the marks on his neck and the skin that seemed to stretch unnaturally around his lips. He looked like his skin had been fastened to his body after he was born, stretched out and taut against his thin frame.
"Sensei," the boy crowed, "You're too kind, I wasn't expecting a gift so soon after the last." As he spoke, Tomura stood and moved closer to Izou, his hand stretching out as Izou tried frantically and unsuccessfully to scramble away from the hand coming towards him, covered in peeling skin and calluses. As the hand grabbed his face, Izou's last sight was the boy smiling wider than ever, and his eyes glimmering like a bloody lake before he turned to dust.
"HAHAHAHA, NEVER FEAR CITIZENS, I AM HERE!" The voice of the number one hero blared through the speakers of Izuku's father's desktop. The boy sat and watched it idly, the word still ricocheting around his mind, "Quirkless, Quirkless, Quirkless." he felt the words like they were a physical force, like a weight in his stomach and brain. Through the sound of the echoing word, he heard his mother enter the room, and looked to her, tears already spilling down his face and a wobbly grin still in place.
"Mom, c-can I still be a hero like All Might?" Izuke was desperately hoping his mother would help him, would remove the weight of the Word from his mind.
'Please, Mom, please, I need to hear it from you, I need you to-' his thoughts were cut off by his mother's sobs as she ran towards him, unable to watch her baby despair any further.
"I'm so sorry, Izuku!" she cried. "I'm so, so sorry!"
His smile finally fell as his last hope was snuffed out.
'
No, Mom, what I wanted to hear was-'
As his hope was extinguished, a new fire began to burn in his soul, small at the moment, but intense, raging with all the strength it could muster. As Izuku went to sleep that night, he thought he heard a voice, ringing through the chambers of his soul, 'rest, child. Your power is not ready to be unleashed, but soon, child, soon, your flames will burn all of creation to ash, in the name of #$_ $$-!'
The voice cut out as Izuku fell asleep, hoping for a better tomorrow.
Two years later, Aldera Elementary School, the Year 2209.
The years had not treated Izuku kindly. The under-evolved boy was not given the better tomorrow he had hoped for; in fact, his life seemed to continue to slide downhill, as those close to him began to hate him. At first, it was stares and whispers behind his back, then they gained courage, and it turned into snide comments to his face and insults. When insults failed to incite the teacher's intervention, it became physical, pushing and shoving Izuku out of line for playground rides and excluding him from playing hero with the other kids. Until now, however, there was still one boy he could count on, his friend from birth, and his cousin-in-spirit, Bakugo Katsuki, the son of his mother's best friend. At the moment, Bakugo was leading them down through a small portion of the forest, the boys walking together as they trooped through the greenery until they came upon a small creek, with a log placed over it.
"Kacchan, m-maybe we should turn around, this doesn't look very safe to cross," Izuku suggested, gazing cautiously at the narrow and wet log that stretched over the water. "Or maybe we could look for a way further down and cross when the water is thinner." Bakugo sneered at him before scoffing and turning away in disgust.
"Stupid Deku, I knew you were useless, but now you're a damn coward too? Stop dreaming about being a Hero if you can't even walk over a stupid log." Izuku flinched at the venom in his friend's voice, and at the cruel nickname he had been saddled with two years ago, when Bakugo had learned of his quirklessness.
"You're as useless as a doll!" He had laughed when Izuku told him. "I know, I'll call you Deku, short for Dekunobou, how about that?" Despite Izuku's protests, the name had stuck, and soon all of the students began to mock him with the name.
Izuku hated the name. It began to echo through his mind along with "Quirkless" and "I'm sorry, Izuku" from the day he had been named Quirkless, the worst day of his life so far. The words came to him every time he dared to dream. When he dreamed of being a Hero or just being useful, of being somebody someday, the words would return, echoing louder and louder until his ego was crushed, and his hopes were destroyed once more. He hated the feelings that the name Deku created in him, hated the way it so easily connected to him, hated how he had begun to connect the insult to himself.
He was snapped out of his thoughts as Bakugo shoved him aside, striding towards the log with purpose in his steps, and began to cross the creek. As he made it past the halfway point, he looked back, grinning widely and began to mock Izuku. While normally, he would listen closely to his friend and hope for the teasing to stop, he couldn't help but zone out once he noticed the log beginning to move. As it started to roll in place, Bakugo slipped and fell off the makeshift bridge into the water below. When Izuku snapped back to reality, his body had already moved; he had jumped down towards his friend, and as soon as he landed, he held out his hand in concern.
"Are you okay, Kacchan? That could've been bad if you landed on your head."
Izuku looked into Bakugo's eyes as he spoke, seeing the surprise and relief turn to confusion, then to rage as he saw Izuku try to help.
"Stupid Deku! I don't NEED your help, you useless fucking loser!" Bakugou snapped, his hands beginning to smoke and spark in his anger, the smell of burnt caramel wafting through the air. Izuku stumbled back in fear upon seeing his friend so angry, the harsh words echoing in his head once more, as Bakugo began to march towards him.
"You wanna play Hero so bad, Deku?" Bakugo snarled. "I'll show you what Heroes do to people who get in the way of them like you! Everyone, for today's game, Deku is the villain!"
At those words, the boys all smiled, their target for the day clear in their minds. As the boys converged on Izuku, he closed his eyes and covered his head.
'Please, please, please, someone help me! I don't wanna get hit, I don't wanna be the villain! Someone stop this!'
He cried in his head, knowing it was futile, that no one would want to help Deku of all people. As the hits rained down and his 'friends' continued beating him, he began to think. 'What did I do to deserve this? Does my being born mean that I deserve to get beaten like this? I'm not a mistake, or a monster, or a villain, I'm human too!... Right?'
As the beating continued, his thoughts turned darker, turned towards anger, and he felt a fire in his body, somewhere deep within him. He fed it his rage, fed it his sadness, and watched it grow bigger and bigger before something began to form from the core of the flames. Before he could take a closer look, he was knocked unconscious. As he fell asleep, he heard a voice, gentle yet strict, kind yet strong, and he listened as it began to tell him stories of great flames, stories of races turned to ash, and stories of a man so great he ruled for millennia. Izuku listened, and when he awoke, the voice was gone, but the stories it told were there, etched in his memory.
Six Years Later, Izuku age 14, Year 2213, Aldera Junior High.
Izuku had started to hear voices. Well, only one voice but it was still something to take note of.
He had just gotten back from a school day and opened his notebook, eager to watch and write notes on the latest Hero news, when he saw his previous pages. The pages were full to the brim of the stories the voice told him about, stories of a civilization in the clouds, of monsters and the warriors who hunted them down to purify them, of fire hotter than Endeavor's and stronger than Bakugo's explosions.
"I wonder what that fire is," Izuku mumbled as he read over the stories the voice told him. "I wonder how it got so strong, if it was a quirk."
'That fire is of me, child.' The voice sounded in his head, as if on cue. 'I embody the power of the flames.' It sounded almost wistful now, but Izuku had had enough. He grabbed the pills the doctor had given him, and, grabbing two with shaking hands, swallowed them dry, hoping for the voice to cut out. When he first heard the voice while awake, almost two years ago now, he mused, he had been excited, he had dared to hope that Dr. Izou had been wrong, and then the new doctor saw his X-ray and dashed his dreams once again.
"No one with the second joint can have a Quirk," He had explained, kinder than the last doctor, "And based on these X-rays, you have that joint." While Izuku dealt with his world collapsing again, the doctor began speaking to Inko.
"I'll refer him to a psychiatrist and a Quirk specialist. If he's hearing voices, he could have a mental illness, or he could be under the effects of a Quirk. They can help him now, I can't."
The Quirk specialist determined no evidence of a Quirk being used, but the psychiatrist, however, had some ideas.
"I think little Izuku here has developed an Id." She had said. "He's bottling up his negative emotions and his desperate want for a Quirk, and it's starting to form another, darker personality, hence why it wants to burn everything around it down. Izuku's 'dark side' wants to harm the society that created it." She had prescribed him medicine for the voice and told him to take it when he needed to, but to otherwise ignore the voice and its stories.
Izuku had listened for the most part; he ignored the voice and didn't try to communicate with it, but the stories had a grasp on him that he couldn't ignore. The voice spoke with such passion, such fire behind its voice, that he couldn't help but be captivated. He had to write them, had to remember them, or he felt like his world would collapse. Shaking himself out of the past, Izuku began to write and eventually fell asleep at his desk. So passed a normal day in Izuku's life, and, unknown to him, one of the last normal days of his life.
The next day began as usual, he left his house with a hurried goodbye to his mother, and began walking to school. What was unusual, however, was the giant villain rampaging through the city. As Izuku got lost in the crowd, he watched with awe as a Hero arrived and saved a group of civilians from a piece of rubble.
"Oh my God, that's Kamui Woods!" He squealed before his voice lowered to a mutter. "He's a shooting star in the hero rankings, he just debuted a few months back, and he's already in the top 100!"
"Villain! Stop what you're doing now before I have to use force!" The Hero declared, confidently and with the strength Izuku wished he had. "If you won't stop then-" Kamui cut off as a boulder was thrown his way by the villain, who roared unintelligibly. "Very well then, Villain, prepare yourself!" As Izuku watched, the hero threw his arms forward, wood beginning to branch off of his arms and grow at a rapid rate.
"This is it!" Izuku squealed again as he matched his voice with the hero's in preparation for the move.
"Special Move: Lacquered Chain Pri-"
"Canyon Cannon!" A loud, female voice yelled out, as a giant tan blur rocketed into the villain foot first. As the Villain fell and shrank, the new Hero raised her head.
"My name's Mt. Lady and this is my Debut!" she yelled. "Pleased to make your ass-quaitance" she ended her sentence with a sly, teasing tone. As cameras began to surround her, a man clapped Izuku on the shoulder.
"That was some analysis, kid! You tryna be a hero?" Izuku smiled at the man and answered with as much confidence as he could muster,
"Yes, sir, I am!"
Izuku ran into the school, panting for breath and hoping he hadn't been late. He reached his class and opened the door-
"Mr. Midoriya, you're late. Sit down quietly and do not disturb your classmates." The teacher briefly looked at him upon his entrance, and briefly scolded him before putting his attention back to the board. As Izuku began to walk to his desk, his classmates snickered at him and put their legs out in an attempt to trip him, as per the usual. He walked to his desk, marked by the words "Deku", "useless", and "loser" on the top in permanent marker, and sat down, pulling out his books and preparing for class.
"Today is our last day of classes, everyone. As you know, last week you all handed in your forms for which high school you would be attending, as well as your future career hopes and dreams. Now, normally, we would go over these 1-on-1 and discuss the viability of them, but" he stretched out the last word and then threw the forms all over the front half of the classroom, "You all wanna be Heroes anyways!" he shouted. As he did so, the class erupted in cheers and yells as the students went wild for their dreams, before a loud 'BANG' got everyone to turn to the culprit.
Bakugo stood with one foot on the desk and one on his chair, his quirk exploding into the air and forcing the attention onto him.
"What are you talking about, Teach?" he drawled in his classic, arrogant tone. "I'm the only one out of these fucking extras who's gonna be a hero!" As he made his declaration, he let out an even louder burst from his palm, causing Izuku to flinch back from his seat beside him. "I'm gonna finish high school in this dead-end neighbourhood, and then I'm going straight to U.A. University to be a hero!" The teacher smiled, with what Izuku thought looked to be pride in his expression.
"You've got high hopes, Bakugo. U.A.U. only accepts 8% of all applicants!" A student from the front said, awe in their voice. "I'm sure someone here will join you, though." Bakugo scoffed.
"Fat fucking chance, extras, I'm gonna be the only one from this shithole to be a real hero!"
"Oh yes, Midoriya, you put U.A.U. down for your future hopes too, didn't you?" The teacher interrupted Bakugo's spiel. Izuku sat straight up and looked to the front in shock, as everyone's eyes turned to him, before the classroom burst into laughter.
"What are you gonna do, Deku? Gonna ask the Villains nicely to give up, or throw a notebook at them?" A student mocked.
"You're gonna get yourself killed, Deku, not that anyone would miss you anyway!" Another said through their laughs.
Izuku looked down at his desk and tried to ignore the words of those around him. 'I've been told I'm useless since I was 6 years old, I can deal with this.' He thought to himself before a hand that seemed to be hotter than usual gripped his shoulder tightly. He looked up to see Bakugo staring down at him with a smile, his eyes closed tightly. There was no trace of happiness or joy in his smile, only menace and rage, and as he inhaled to begin talking, the teacher called out for everyone to sit down.
"Tch." Bakugo growled, "This isn't over, shitty Deku. We'll be having words about this, you'd best believe that." Izuku froze in terror, his body trembling as his tormentor for 6 years loomed over him.
Despite his fear, the day went smoothly until the bell rang to end class. Izuku began frantically packing up, desperate to escape, when a hand, this time definitely hotter than normal, gripped his shoulder again.
"Where you tryna go, Deku?" Bakugo hissed from behind his teeth, mouth still warped into that frightening smile from earlier, "Didn't I tell you we had to talk?" Bakugo forced him back into his chair before he could begin to speak, staring up at him and his group of friends.
"What's this?" He asked, grabbing Izuku's notebook. "Hero Analysis for the Future #13?"
Bakugo laughed loudly before putting the book between his hands.
"Wait, Kacchan, don't!-" Before Izuku could get the sentence out, Bakugo blew the book to pieces, before throwing it out the window. Izuku stared as months of work and analysis went to ash right in front of him, sadness and anger warring inside of him, before Bakugo began to talk again.
"See, I have my whole life planned out. I'm gonna spend three years in this shitty school for High School, and then I'm gonna move on to greener pastures, go to U.A.U., the first from this fuckass neighbourhood, like an underdog story!" Bakugo seemed to preen in the light of his future glory, before snapping back to Izuku, his hand heating up even more. "But when a Quirkless nobody tries to compete with me, tries to upstage me, I can't help but get angry, you understand, right?" As Bakugo leaned in, no longer smiling, but instead glaring at Izuku, Izuku felt truly afraid.
'What if he kills me right here?' Izuku thought, fear overtaking his rational thought and the anger from earlier as he trembled in his bully's grasp, sweat pooling on his forehead at the sight of his personal demon glaring at him.
"K-Kacchan I, I don't want to upstage or compete with you, I j-just thought there was no h-harm in t-trying!" He managed to squeak out, his voice barely overcoming the fear in his throat. The hand on his shoulder started to smoke, as Bakugo burned through the fabric of his uniform and into his skin, Izuku started trying to wriggle his way out of the burning grip.
"K-Kacchan, please, it h-hurts!" He cried out as the cronies grabbed onto him at Bakugo's signal.
"Good! Maybe now you'll give up on your fucking pipe dreams!" Bakugo snarled, all pretenses of a 'chat' dropped as he gripped even harder. Izuku cried out, pain taking over his mind from fear as he began to smell his skin burning. "I'm the only one from this school who's gonna be a fucking hero, get that through your head before I kill you!"
After what seemed like hours, Bakugo let go of his shoulder, the smell of burnt flesh and caramel wafting through the air, and patted him on the back as Izuku shivered and writhed from the pain he had been dealt.
"Without a Quirk, you can't be a Hero, Deku," He spat out before smiling again. "But hey, if you want an easy way to be one, I'll help my old pal!"
Izuke looked up, wondering what he meant, trying to fight through the pain.
"Take a swan dive off the roof and hope for a Quirk in your next life!" Bakugo said, distubringly happily, "Maybe God will take pity on your useless self and let you be an extra instead of a pebble in your reincarnation." He laughed as he walked away. Izuku knelt on the floor, tears welling up in his eyes as the words joined the rest in his head, destroying whatever self-confidence the man who complimented his analysis gave him in the morning. He stood up slowly, wincing at the pain in his shoulder and trying not to move it before limping out of the class to find his notebook.
He found the remains in the fountain, with a fish trying to get dinner from them.
"Stupid fish, that's not lunch." He muttered, grabbing it out of the fountain and shaking it out, hoping something survived. As he walked, he thought about his day. "Stupid Kacchan, what if I did kill myself? That would go on your record and then you'd never be a hero." He continued muttering about the pain he felt both mentally and physically as he walked, before the voice sounded in his head.
'Why not burn the boy to ash?' it suggested. 'He wouldn't be so violent as a burnt corpse.' Izuku tried to ignore the voice but answered back, accidentally aloud.
"I can't be a hero if I kill someone." He looked up as he spoke, taking in the beautiful summer sky.
"Well said, kid, now how about you be a good little boy and come save me?" a voice spoke out, sounding like a man talking underwater. Izuku looked straight and saw a giant sludge man rushing towards him before engulfing him in his body. "You're a real hero, kid. I just need to take your body so I can get away from HIM." The Villain spoke with panic in its voice as Izuku scrambled to escape. He felt the slime ooze up his nose and into his ears before he had to open his mouth to breathe, and he was immediately drowning in slime. 'Is this how it ends?' He thought bitterly as he choked on the slime. 'Am I never going to be a hero? Am I going to die in this alley with no one knowing my name?' Unbeknownst to him, his body began to heat up, as the fire in his soul burned brighter and brighter until-
"HAHAHA!" Both Izuku and the slime froze, Izuku in hope and the slime in fear, and watched as a manhole cover in front of them burst from the ground and All Might burst up.
"Have no fear, citizen, for I AM HERE! Texaaasss." He drew his arm back and inhaled before shouting "SMASSHHHHH!" And Izuku lost consciousness.
"Wake up. Young man, wake up." Izuku awoke to the feeling of being lightly smacked by a cast-iron skillet. As he tried to remember what happened, he shot up and opened his eyes wide.
"ALL MIGHT!" He screamed, looking in front of him at the behemoth of a man, at the symbol of peace.
"HAHAHA! Yes, it is I!" All Might boomed. "Now I must take this Villain to the police station. Thank you for supporting me, young man!"
"Wait, All Might! I need to ask you something" Izuku scrambled to his feet desperately, he needed to ask him, he needed the symbol of hope to support his hopeless dream.
"Unfortunately, the work of a hero never stops, young man! I must leave you now!"
As All Might prepared to jump, Izuku felt the desperation of his situation settle in, and before he could think, he had already grabbed All Might's leg, and now he was hanging on for life as All Might jumped higher than the buildings around them. As he snapped to reality, he started screaming.
"What the- Hey! Young man, what are you doing?" All Might exclaimed, "This is incredibly dangerous, you must let go!" Even with the wind blasting past his face, Izuku managed to respond with what he thought was reasonable given the situation.
"I CAN'T, IF I LET GO I'LL DIE!" He screamed, hoping All Might could hear him over the rushing wind.
"That's…I suppose that's right, let me land." As All Might landed on the roof of a high-rise office building, Izuku slumped off of his leg and began gasping for breath. "Young man, that was incredibly dangerous! What if you fell or if the Villain got away?"
"I-I needed to know," Izuku wheezed. "I needed to know if you thought that a Quirkless person like me could be a Hero like you!" As he asked, Izuku shut his eyes and bowed, fear of rejection and nerves running through him as he rambled. "I was born Quirkless, but all I've ever wanted to do since I was a boy was save people with a smile! I want to help people, that's all I've ever wanted! So, can I be a hero like you?" Izuku ended his question and stood up before taking a deep breath and opening his eyes. In front of him was a skinny blond skeleton of a man.
"WHOA HOLY SHIT!" Izuku screamed. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? AN ALL MIGHT IMPOSTOR?" The skeleton took a deep breath before letting out a sigh.
"I am All Might." He said, resignedly.
"Liar!" Izuku yelled, his heart thumping incredibly fast. "All Might is 7'3 and 600 pounds of pure muscle! You are a skeleton without muscle!"
The skeleton sighed again, this time with irritation, before lifting up his shirt. Izuku paled and almost vomited at the sight of his stomach. Where his lung would be, there was a giant purple crater that seemed to carve off half of his lower body. It looked like a bullet launched out of a cannon had hit him, and then he had sewn the two halves of his body together.
"I obtained this injury 5 years ago, a Villain blew a hole through my body and I lost a lung and half of my stomach. I can only be in my Hero form for 3 hours a day now."
"5 years ago?" Izuku muttered. "No way Toxic Chainsaw did this to you!"
The man chuckled. "You know your Heroes! But you're right, this wasn't Toxic Chainsaw, it was a Villain so evil, I wiped his name out of history after our fight. But, back to your question."
Izuku straightened up, the hope for the number one hero to affirm his desire pushing back the despair of the day, temporarily making him forget the words Bakugo had spoken, but before he could get too hopeful, All Might opened his mouth and spoke the words he would never forget.
"Be realistic, young man."
Izuku's jaw dropped, and it felt like his stomach had fallen out of his body, tears falling down his face with reckless abandon.
"Even with the power I have, I have to force myself to smile, to remind people that I AM HERE, but my smile can be empty. It's a symbol of reassurance, but it's also a symbol of weakness to me. I can only smile for 3 hours a day, without a Quirk of your own, you would be a liability in the field."
Izuku collapsed, his world shattering as his idol crushed his dreams mercilessly; his hope was gone, and all he could hear was the words of his past echoing in his head.
"Take a swan dive, Deku, you can't be a hero," and now "Be realistic, young man." He felt like his head was going to pop, like he was going to throw up and pass out at the same time. His shoulder was hurting, and the world was closing around him, and everything was too much, and he just wanted it all to-.
'Stop.' The voice was firm in his head, steady and calming to his damaged psyche. 'Stop these thoughts, Young Izuku.'
He couldn't stop his response in his state, unable to control himself, he screamed out, unaware of All Might's departure from the roof.
"What do you know!? You're a voice in my head that wants me to burn things, burn PEOPLE!" He caught his breath. "You've never helped me with anything! You WANT me to kill my frie-" His voice caught on the last word. He couldn't call them his friends, not after what they had said. "Kill my classmates." His voice quieted; he was spent. The voice was silent for a while before he heard it again.
'When you feed me only negative emotions, I will respond with negative thoughts,' The voice said. 'I am a representation of your soul, of the fire that burns within you. When you feed the flame anger and sadness, that is all I can output back to you.' The voice sounded sad now, but Izuku was too busy thinking of what the voice had said.
"Are-" he paused, taking a breath, "Are you my Quirk?" He asked.
The voice spoke once more, with more strength than it had ever spoken with before.
'I am the embodiment of fire! I am the strength behind the sun! I am the saviour of humanity and MY NAME IS _' The voice cut off. 'It seems that you aren't ready to hear my name yet, child.'
Izuku gasped, feeling the heat within himself grow and grow; he felt fire burst into life in his soul and grasped a handful of it, grabbing the handle of something within him.
"What does that mean? And why am I so hot?" His breaths came out in gasps of hot air, his lungs burning and sweat gathering on his body like he had run a marathon.
Before the voice could speak, he heard an explosion from nearby. Turning wildly, he caught what looked like the smoke from a fire. 'A Villain attack? Let's go check it out!' He thought, as he began running towards the fire, the voice continued to speak.
'I am the representation of your soul, child. Your desire to burn creation to ash was born before me; I am just your vision of it. Your inability to hear my name means you can only handle a fraction of my power.'
Lost in listening to the voice, he almost ran past the fire, stopping quickly, he pushed his way to the front, hearing whispers about the villain.
"He's got hold of a hostage, poor kid, the heroes can't do anything in case they hit him."
Izuku recognized the heroes at the sight, Kamui Woods, Death Arms and Mt. Lady. He was about to being his usual muttering spree when his body froze at the sight of the villain.
'The slime Villain from earlier!' He screamed in his mind. 'How did it get away from All Might?!' His blood rushed away from his face as he remembered grabbing onto All Might's leg, the same leg that had the bottle of sludge villain it it. 'This is my fault! I stopped All Might from putting this villain away!' As Izuke scolded himself, he could hear the heroes yelling,
"My arms would burn and get blown away by the fire the hostage made!" Kamui yelled, "I can't get any closer!"
"My punches won't do anything against a liquid opponent! We have to wait for someone with a better quirk!"
"I can't transform into my full size in this crowd, I'd kill someone!"
As Izuku heard this, his body unconsciously moved to the front of the crowd, needing to see who he was making suffer. He froze as he recognized ash-blonde hair and ruby-red eyes, normally shining sadistically and now wide in fear. For the umpteenth time in his life, Izuku's body moved without thinking, as he shoved the crowd and heroes aside to get to his childhood friend.
'What the fuck am I doing!' He wailed in his head. 'I'm going to be a liability like All Might said I would, why am I running?'
As he ran, the voice came back to his head. You've already grasped it once, child, now you must unsheathe it, release the fire of your soul!
When he came close enough, the slime villain noticed him and laughed.
"You again? Too late, kid, you missed your chance! This guy's gonna be my meat suit to beat All Might now!" As the villain fantasized about his future victory, he raised Bakugo's hand and made it spark.
Izuku closed his eyes as he ran, searching for the ever-burning blaze within what he now knew was his soul. He hesitated for a split second upon finding it, and then stuck his hand into the fire and grasped the materialization of his soul, screaming with effort and pulling with all his might, he opened his eyes and saw the slime villain directly in front of him, with Bakugo looking at him in recognition. As he looked to his side, it felt like time slowed down. In his hand was a beautiful sword. A katana, he realized slowly. It was a simple sword, the steel forged in such a way as to make a pattern of flames down the blade, leading to a golden tsuba and a handle wrapped in purple fabric with a diamond pattern going down the sides. He stared at it for a second before snapping his eyes up and glaring at the sludge villain. His body began to heat up, and a visible haze settled over the edge of his new sword. Now strike, child! The voice roared Strike with all the anger in your soul and save the boy in front of you!
Izuku let out a guttural howl and focused his anger at Bakugo into the edge of his blade, fire igniting around him as he struck slightly above Bakugo's head. As he struck, a wave of fire leaped off of his blade, slicing through the explosion the villain was planning on sending towards him, through the villain, and evaporating parts of the sludge above Bakugo's head, and continuing until it hit the back end of the alley, leaving a deep scorched gash in the concrete. He willed the sword away before running towards the remaining slime and pulling Bakugo out.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Deku?" The blonde sputtered, trying to eject sludge from his
mouth. "And what the fuck was that?!"
Izuku looked at him and smiled, tears of fear running down his cheeks. "You-you looked like you needed help!"
When Izuku looked away, however, the remaining sludge regathered its shape and loomed above them.
"You Fucking Brats!" He roared, "I was gonna be nice and let you be my disguise, but I'll kill you both and escape instead now!"
The slime reared up and created a massive tendril that looked ready to smash into them. Izuku scrambled frantically to get a hold of his fire again, but he wasn't able to get a hand on it in time. He closed his eyes as the sludge came down on them, bracing for impact. Impact that didn't come. Instead, he heard what may as well have been the laughter of God as All Might burst onto the scene, protecting the boys from the sewage arm.
"I told you that you couldn't be a hero, that you'd be a liability, and here you are proving me WRONG, young man! You did good, now watch how a HERO takes care of business! DETROIIIIITTTTT" All Might pulled his arm back, muscles like suspension cords tensing as he prepared to take the villain out. "SMAAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHH!" As he punched, the air around him seemed to collect before blasting outwards with a deafening 'BOOM'.
'He broke the sound barrier,' Izuku dimly realized. 'He punched so hard his fist broke the sound barrier.'
The pressure from the attack blasted the Villain to pieces, unconscious and weak, before the visibly air-rending attack pushed through the clouds and continued out of eyesight. In front of the stunned crowd of civilians, victims, and heroes, it began to rain from the pressure of All Might's attack. While rain started to fall, the crowd recovered and began cheering for their Symbol of Peace.
"He changed the weather with a single punch!"
"He saved the day again, that's All Might for you!"
"I wonder what the heroes were going to do if All Might or that kid weren't here."
As topics began to change, and people began to swarm All Might to get his autograph, the three heroes on scene were taking care of Izuku and Bakugo. Izuku was staring at his hands.
'My Quirk gives me a fire sword? Wait, I HAVE a Quirk?'
Before he could panic and stress himself out too much, Kamui Woods grabbed his shoulders.
"Kid, that was a real brave thing for you to do there, you bought the blonde enough time for All Might to come. But I need you to realize that was illegal, you can't use your Quirk willy-nilly like that."
Izuku stared at him numbly before looking back at his hands and muttering something Kamui couldn't hear.
"What did you say?" The hero said facing his ear towards the boy to hear him better.
"I didn't know I had a Quirk," Izuku said, still staring at his hands, "That's the first time I've ever done anything like having a Quirk."
Kamui stared at him, shocked into silence by the admission. Izuku stared back, equally shocked.
"I have a Quirk." He said, numbness wearing off and slowly being replaced with excitement. "I-I have a Quirk." He repeated, with more energy now. "I can be a Hero."
Kamui looked at him and laughed, partly out of happiness for the kid and partly out of absurdity.
"You have a Quirk," He agreed, "And a damn good one at that. I'd be happy to have you as my intern if you're planning on being a Hero."
Izuku's eyes shone as they looked at him, disbelief and joy fighting for the top spot in his body. Before they could continue, the police, who had arrived a short time ago, called Kamui to ask for his statement. He patted Izuku on the back as he left, "I wasn't kidding, kid, look me up when you graduate."
Izuku stood up and began to walk home before he proceeded to pinch himself.
"This isn't a dream." He stated, astonished. "I have a Quirk."
Before he could get home, his walking was stopped by a hand grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around. He found himself facing Bakugo, who looked sick and angrier than ever before. Before he could open his mouth, Bakugo started talking, or rather, yelling in his face.
"I didn't need your help, Deku!" He roared. "I was doing perfectly fine on my own! I had that fucker right where I wanted him, you useless sack of shit! What makes you think a worthless shitbag like you could help ME, of all people? I don't owe you anything, and you're still just a pebble on my road to being number one!"
Izuku was once again forced into silence, and before he could come up with something to say, Bakugo stormed off, leaving Izuku in the middle of the street, staring at where he used to be, before turning his gaze back to his hands.
…" I have a Quirk." He said to himself one more time, before deciding to go home and show his mother. As he turned to walk, he was interrupted again, this time by a massive shape jumping in front of him. He jumped back and was about to run when he recognized the form.
"I AM HERE, To speak to-BLERGH." All Might had jumped in front of Izuku, deflated into his skeleton form, and coughed up blood all in a very small timeframe, the surprise resetting Izuku to his usual nerdy self.
"OH MY GOD ALL MIGHT ARE YOU OKAY DO YOU NEED A TISSUE I CAN GIVE YOU MY JACKET-"
All Might held up his hand to stop Izuku's rambling, and Izuku felt his jaw click together as he forced himself to be quiet, vibrating in place at the sight of his former icon dripping blood from his mouth. At the reminder of what All Might had said to him, Izuku stopped vibrating out of excitement and started shaking.
'If All Might scolds me for jumping in, I don't know what I'll do, I can't be a hero if ALL MIGHT says I can't. Honestly, what was I thinking even jumping in to begin with, now I proved that I was a liability that needed to be saved and-' before Izuku could continue, All Might chopped him on the head.
"Seriously, kid, you've got some real self-confidence issues." All Might chuckled. "I wasn't planning on scolding you for jumping in, I came to ask you a question."
Izuku slapped his hands over his mouth. "I said that out loud?" He squeeked, face turning red in embarrassment. "Wait, never mind that, what do you want to ask someone like me?"
"What was going through your head when you ran at that boy? Why did you want to save him?"
Izuku blinked. "I didn't think of anything, I blinked, and I was already running at him, it's like my body moved on its own."
All Might grinned, somehow matching his smile's size to that of his muscle form, which was a little freaky in Izuku's eyes.
"That, young man, is what makes a TRUE HERO!"
Izuku heard the words, then processed them, and then felt his body react, he fell to his knees as hope surged through him, the fire within him burning brighter and hotter than even when he was fighting the slime Villain, he waited with baited breath to hear the words that he had been denied his whole life, starting with his mother at 6 years old.
Mom, what I needed to hear was-
"You, Young Man, YOU CAN BE A HERO!"
As Izuku heard the words he had craved for 8 long years, and took them in, he began to cry for the third time today, this time, out of pure happiness.