Chapter Text
The first time Izuku starts to suspect that he is taking advantage of a Very Serious Situation, is when he’s cleaning the beach under All Might’s careful watch. Contemplating it doesn’t take up much of his time, and there isn’t a squirming wrongness inside him when he realises what is amiss, so he figures if his own moral compass isn’t screaming wildly at him, there’s not much to worry about.
Instead he shrugs the feeling off, focusing on his workout routine and studies. He spends a lot of time listening to All Might talk of times of heroics and his own experiences as a former UA student- a school for the best of the best, and it becomes obvious over time what his expectations of Izuku will be.
To become the next Number One Hero, to leave his mark even though he is only a teenager, fourteen coming on fifteen. To be a beacon of light that shines with a smile and a declaration of “I AM HERE!”
To be the next Symbol of Peace.
Izuku never tells him that while yes, he does want to be a hero (that he wants to save people), that isn’t exactly the type of hero he intends to become.
“Hey ‘Giri,” Izuku flops down onto a stool, elbows on the table and hands under his chin in a way he has been told makes him look exactly like a young version of his father. Well, before what they had all dubbed The Accident happened, at least. “Is it bad of me to not tell my new mentor that his ideology and expectations don’t align with my own goals?”
Kurogiri’s form flickers, yellow pools narrowing. “Has this mentor asked what you want to achieve in life?”
“...no.”
“Then he does not sound like a very competent mentor.”
He isn’t wrong, Izuku thinks as he jumps out of the way from a particularly acidic blow. Had it hit, his brain would have been nothing more than a pile of… well… acidic goop.
He scrunches his nose up at the thought, his hand tightening slightly around the metal in his grip. A deep breath, loosening his hold again into something more comfortable. Really, All Might hasn’t explained much past One for All being a transferable quirk and how if his body isn’t prepared, it’ll probably tear him apart if he tries to use it.
But that doesn’t particularly explain much. Sure, he has his suspicions of the origin of the quirk, but late night discussions with his dad always gives Izuku suspicions and he doesn’t particularly want to address this one right now. It’s part of why he hasn’t told his dad about being offered One for All in the first place, the man can be overbearing at best and a homicidal sadist at his worse (these days, at least, which is a fine improvement).
The man is supposed to be on bed rest, too, as loosely as the term seems to apply to him. One mention of spending time with All Might will, predictably, result in him either a) sending out one of Doctor Garaki’s latest projects in human experimentation, or b) attempting to murder All Might with his own hands (again). Like it went so well the first time.
(The image of his dad fighting a deflated All Might, life support system in hand as the two toss and tumble like old men, is an amusing one.)
Even his suspicions on the quirk’s origin doesn’t explain exactly what One for All is. A transferable stockpile quirk, yes. But what does it stockpile? Physical strength seems unlikely, though that is what All Might is making it out to be.
One for All came about when quirks first started to appear. A fact. All Might is the eighth holder of the quirk. Another fact. If just the physical strength of the previous holders is what was transferred, then there is no way the strength of seven people could have given All Might that much raw, brutal power.
Of course there is also All Might’s own training and potential quirk to take into consideration (some form of shape shifting that allows him to alter muscle mass and general well being, within limitations, rather than a full body transformation, if Izuku had to guess), and how it would have affected One for All.
There are other possibilities, of course. So many Izuku has already started a notebook dedicated to the quirk. A part of him wonders if he could just… take it.
But no, that would be rude to All Might, and a risk he can’t afford to take, especially if he were to fail.
“What the fuck, kid?” Acid-quirk man asks, before snarling and spitting acid onto Izuku’s baseball bat. That was his own fault, he’d zoned out in the middle of a fight and started muttering. It doesn’t stop the way his lip twitched downward. That was his favourite bat.
(He’d managed to get it signed by Present Mic one evening when he had ‘accidentally’ run into the pro hero on his way to ‘baseball practice’ (an underrated pre-quirk era sport that fell into a rabbit hole and died when someone used a telekinetic quirk to hit the ball so far it ended up lodged in a tree fifty kilometres away and no one could complain because the rules never said anything about quirks, and since then was never updated. It makes a very convenient excuse when any hero catches him wandering around with his trusty metal skull crushing stick), and had a nice talk to the man about his radio show, quirk, and just how much of a fan he was in general.)
He sighs, taking in Acid-quirk man and thinking even as he dodges another round of acid spit. Some almost nicks the hood of his limited edition All Might jacket, almost. He really should stop wearing his favourite hero merchandise when he goes out at night.
Hmm, well, he isn’t particularly in the mood to hold back anymore. His greedy little gloved hands (almost always gloved to hide the scars and small holes that mean something best left unknown) itch to get a hold of One for All, to see and feel what it is like to have such a mysterious quirk flow through his veins.
For now he will have to make do with pulling out his notebook to write down more of his theories. But he can’t do that around Acid-quirk man for fear of his precious notebooks being destroyed.
Izuku pulls on one of the favourite quirks in his arsenal, intent on finishing things quickly now that he’s decided what to do for the rest of the night. His hand is outstretched and he pulls, and the villain seems to realise just how screwed he is as he’s tugged balls first towards Izuku. Being able so draw small objects to oneself is such a useful ability.
Oh well, that’s Acid-quirk man’s own fault for trying (and often succeeding) to lure child into his unmarked van.
An anonymous message and rooftop run later has one Aizawa Shouta staring at a twitching, unconscious criminal tied up in a dumpster. Stuck to the man’s chest is all the evidence needed to sentence the man to a life in prison.
Shouta sighs, hefting the criminal out of the garbage and dragging him to the police station. He doesn’t mind vigilantes as much as some of his co-workers, underground heroics tend to blur lines, but he really wishes the kid doing this would come to him for help before he goes on the offence.
He wishes the kid would stop giving him tip-offs on his nights off, too.
Yagi thinks he has made a good choice in choosing young Midoriya to be his next successor. The boy is passionate, determined, with a strong work ethic fuelled by his desire to help people.
Yes, he can see the boy going far, pushing limits and going beyond, a great hero from above, shining down on the world and casting away the darkness that lurks.
(There is something strikingly familiar about the boy, too. But for the life of him, Yagi cannot place what it is.)
Yes, Yagi thinks as young Midoriya cheers in triumphant, Takoba Municipal Beach looking cleaner that it has in years. Young Midoriya will make an astounding hero.
There is a nothingness around him, a vastness that extends throughout all that he is. One would call it darkness, a void with no end. But he has no concept of darkness, of the floating state he is in. At least, not yet.
Years later, if asked, he will say the darkness felt rather wet and slimy, and that it had a slight green glow, almost as though his own eyes were peering back at him.
“I’m not saying killing Endeavour is off the table.” Izuku explains to a scarred and stapled man named Dabi, who he is one hundred percent certain is the Number Two hero’s missing-presumed-dead child. “I’m just saying that if he is killed in a way that screams villain attack, his behaviour will never be acknowledged, always pushed aside or justified. It would be much more destroying for him, and hero society as a whole, if say… undeniable proof of what he’s done were to be leaked on a wide scale network. If enough people know, any attempt at a cover up would result in a societal distrust that would fester and, with more leaks about different heroes, slowly destroy the faith the general public has in the hero system as we know it.” A pause. “This is all hypothetical, of course.”
Shouto and I are already working on it, he doesn’t say. Mostly because he’s pretty sure his dad is listening in through the TV (a not uncommon occurrence, the man might be retired but he still sure is nosy) and preening at his plan. Best not let the man know that was just one stage one of many plans Izuku has. It’s always best to be prepared, after all.
Dabi is staring at him with wide eyes, mouth parted. He looks a bit like a charred goldfish. His companion, a girl with a blood-related quirk (who had tried to stab Izuku upon the start of the meeting and has been happily sipping away at a glass of his blood ever since he realised she probably needs it as sustenance and happily offered his own) is grinning from ear to ear, sharp canines and crinkled eyes. Most people would think the look is scary, villainous, but Izuku can see it for what it is.
Genuine, endearing, and just that little bit insane everyone in the organisation is. These two will be right at home.
However...
There is another man accompanying them, hunched and sharp teethed, slim and dangerous. Stain. Formerly Stendhal. Serial killer turned hero killer. A paralysis type quirk with unknown activation requirements. Intriguing. But. This one is going to be cause trouble for them.
And they can’t afford trouble. At least, not of this kind.
(He’s glad Tomura asks him to help with recruitment sometimes. Something about him being ‘good at reading people’, and ‘having an innocent baby face that resembles an anime protagonist and so he must be good at winning people over’. It can be risky, but so far the people who have come to the League have needed a place to be safe and belong. One’s like Stain don’t crop up too often, and when they do the face mask and his natural white hair (turned green for Civilian Life Things with the help of a quirk that, well, changes the colour of ones hair) tend to throw off enough people.
Tomura’s argument of having a baby face is irrelevant when no one can see his face.
If Tomura had been on recruiting today, he probably would have not only let Stain leave the room in one piece, but also allow him to join the League. His technically-not-a-brother-and-supposedly-not-a-business-accosiate isn’t the best at knowing when to not invite serial killers with a history of killing criminals into his home.
It's a good thing Tomura isn't here today, then.)
“Clench your buttocks and yell SMASH!”
Izuku… has a sinking feeling he is going to fail the physical aspect of the entrance exam.
After being given One for All the night before, a sleepless night with one of his trusty baseball bats (not his favourite, after Acid-quirk man, the remains of that one have been burred in the small backyard behind Kurogiri’s bar, food offerings for stray cats placed neatly on top of it, tears had been shed) and a morning spent with his doting dad reassuring him that “yes, son, you look perfectly presentable for a day at the top hero school, you’ll do exceptional,” and “I know you’ll get into the general education course with full marks,” and “no matter what happens I will be very proud of you!”
(Izuku decidedly does not point out that the man doesn’t have eyes anymore. It’s been a bit of a sore spot for his dad after The Accident. He once overheard him crying to Doctor Garaki his about how he’d never get to see his son grow up. It’s not like he doesn’t have an abundance of sensory quirks to act as a replacement for his eyes or anything. His dad can be so dramatic at times.
Izuku is pretty sure there’s something more intimate going on with his dad and the doctor, but he isn’t going to push for answers. Not when the man gives Izuku so much space and freedom and trust to do whatever he wants.
No Vaulting for him, thank you very much. It’s the only reason his dad hasn’t figured out about his meetings with All Might yet, though Kurogiri has been giving him some suspicious looks every now and then.)
All Might had also had the uttermost faith in Izuku, albeit for different reasons. Reasons Izuku is beginning to think were just the hero’s own narrow-mindedness, if the robots reigning terror on student-hopefuls is anything to go by.
Not only is this test so obviously setting up anyone with a non-destructive quirk for failure, Izuku notes with dismay that there are no pro heroes on standby close by if any accidents were to happen. Surely, with a bunch of panicking and desperate teenagers running amuck in a simulated city with quirks and robot parts flying every which way, incidents are expected to occur.
Incidents such as a student being trapped underneath rubble as what has to be the Zero Pointer closes in on her. Close enough that Izuku knows if he doesn’t do something, the girl is going to be crushed by the giant robot.
One for All has been distant, jaded (digesting, one might even say). Izuku has been able to feel it’s attempts to settle in amidst the mass of other quirks all day, trying to find it’s place amidst the vast sea that is All for One. It has been letting off a feeling of confusion, of fear, muted though it may be, and he wonders if there is a sentient aspect of the quirk- but it’s a stockpile and oh the implications!
But in that moment, watching the robot draw closer and closer to the trapped girl, and noting how everyone else is running away, Izuku feels his new quirk snap into place. A well of power amidst his already vast hoard is called forth and he’s moving, calling upon that power without a second thought as he leaps towards the robot.
Surprisingly, All Might’s advice does help. Unsurprisingly, following said advice in the spur of the moment leaves him falling through the air with limbs shattered and a robot blown to bits tumbling down besides him.
(As he falls, he is grateful his dad convinced him to take a self-healing quirk, one from the man’s own arsenal once he figured out that the kid’s at school weren’t playing nice. He tries not to think about how if his dad had still had that specific quirk in his fight against All Might, things would have gone very differently. He doesn’t like to think about that.)
Izuku lets himself fall, even as his bones snap back into place and his skin and muscles heal. The pain remains, the drawback of this quirk a phantom of his injuries he has no other quirk to combat.
He’s falling from pretty high up, and he should probably catch himself, but there are undoubtedly cameras on him and really, he’d much rather hit the ground and heal from what would, for anyone else, be death or something very close to it, then deal with the fallout from revealing any other quirks. Maybe he should take a nap, being conscious when he hits the ground doesn’t sound very fun-
SLAP!
-oh, now he’s floating. He opens his eyes, looking at the outstretched hand in front of him, then to the girl still trapped, looking terrified and about ready to throw up. He feels weightless, so it’s not telekinetic- gravity? Interesting. Five fingered activation by the looks of it. His hands twitch underneath gloves, wanting to reach out.
(Tomura says he has a hoarding problem. His dad says it’s to be expected, followed by an in depth discussion between father and son about the mental affects that come with quirks and the way they present themselves.)
Gravity returns in a rush. He drops safely to the ground as the Gravity-girl loses her lunch near his feet.
“Thank you.” He says.
She gives him a weird look, like she can’t believe he’s the one saying that.
Izuku is itching to talk to his dad about the physical test for the hero course entrance exam. To pick it apart piece by piece and learn more about the evolution of the hero school system. Having a parent that’s over two hundred years old has to have some perks, right? Except he doesn’t ask, because, well, the man doesn’t know he’s applied for anything more than general education.
Oh well, he’ll tell him eventually.
“Uno, bitch.”
“Go fish, flame fucker.”
Izuku squints at Tomura and Dabi. They’re playing Connect Four.
Himiko giggles next to him, holding his hand gently in her own as she paints his nails a forest green. The Noumu in the corner that has a build suspiciously like Stain sits to the side like a gangly gargoyle. The new recruits are fitting in quite well.
In that moment, everything feels as it should be.
The first thing Izuku notices when he enters the classroom is that Kacchan is there. He hasn’t seen Kacchan in years.
A pool of dread sets heavy in his stomach but years of experience doing vastly illegal (yet arguably not immoral) things in alleyways in the dead of the night has him pushing it away, ignoring the explosive blonde’s shouting and snarling at him to instead focus on the second thing he notices. The more important thing.
He bounds up to the boy sitting near the back, a bounce in his step and green curls bobbing up and down as he smiles at him. “Hi.” He says, and really it’s an excited chirp but he’s never met the person in front of him in real life despite how long they’ve been friends online, so he feels his excitment is completely justified. “You’re fuckendeavour1, Todoroki Shouto, right? I’m allmightspetrabbit, but my name is Midoriya Izuku. It’s nice to finally meet you!”
(Dabi is fuckendeavour2, much to his dismay at not having gotten to the username first. Izuku thinks he would be proud to know his brother hates the man as much as him. No one has been able to figure out who the original fuckendeavour is yet, and it’s a mystery they all want to get to the bottom of.)
He holds out a hand to the startled boy, before the other seems to flush lightly and accept the handshake. The encounter gives Izuku warm feelings.
It’s great to finally meet his partner for project Take Endeavour Down and Probably Destroy Hero Society in The Process.
Shouta knows this years class is going to be a nightmare. He’s reviewed the footage of all of their physical exams, knows who to look out for the most. The Bakugo kid is at the very top of his list, with a destructive quirk and no sense of preserving others safety. High scoring, but dangerous with an attitude to match. There is so much potential in him, but so just as much for him to become a villain. Or even worse, a hero with as little care for, well, heroics, as say Endeavour.
At least villains can be arrested.
He’s observed the way Bakugo has interacted with the other classmates from the comfort of his sleeping bag, the Iida kid scolding him and the rebellious nature he displays with an air of self-righteousness. He’s going to need to start drinking more coffee to deal with these two kids alone.
Then he notes the way Bakugo reacts to the other top of his list kid in his class, falling not far behind Bakugo himself. Midoriya Izuku. He’d spent the majority of his exam running around, falling behind, it had almost been like he hadn’t had a quirk at all.
And then he took out the Zero Pointer with a strength eerily reminiscent of All Might (who had been standing beside Shouta at the time, smile wide and teeth a blinding white), had no physical drawbacks par the pained expression on his face, even though by all logic of the universe a teenage body should not be able to contain that much raw, uncontrolled power.
To top it off, the kid had refused to see Recovery Girl and wandered on home with a casual wave of his hand.
Shouta can already see how this one is going to be a problem child. It doesn’t help that there is something suspiciously familiar about him.
Bakugo is volatile towards Midoriya, fists clenched as though in any other setting he would have raised it, ready to strike with anger and venom in every word he speaks. And Midoriya, a smart kid, just walks right on past Bakugo.
Only to walk directly towards the third ranking kid on his list, the youngest Todoroki sibling, cold and closed off in a way that is more a defence mechanism than arrogance, and it becomes obvious very quickly that the two know each other.
Yes… Shouta is going to need a lot more coffee than usual this year.
Izuku takes one look at the ball, then one look at his teacher. Back to the ball. Part of him is internally screaming because it’s Eraserhead oh my god! and the other part of him is screaming because oh shit my teacher is Eraserhead.
There is a risk here, that Eraserhead will try and erase his quirk. Something so flashy and destructive as All Might levels of power (not that he’d go all out, not after the entrance exam incident, he was sore for days) should not be used on a track field, even at the most prestigious school in the country.
He could try and use less power. He has been practising, but he doesn’t have complete control over the quirk and there’s just something so unwilling in the way it acts, like it doesn’t want to be used by a mini-All for One. It’s definitely sentient, though Izuku hasn’t figured out a way to interact with it, and given it’s heroic history the core of the problem is probably the technically-villainous activities he partakes in on a day to day basis.
(Whenever he visits dad these days the quirk sends him very panicked fleerunawaydanger signals, which probably also has something to do with it. He ignores the warning, of course. Dad would never hurt him.)
There is also the problem of his hair colour quirk. Would Erasure only cancel out one of his quirks at a time? It’s unlikely, though he doubts the man has had a chance to test his quirk on multi-quirked individuals.
(There is a difference between quirks that have multiple factors, and people with multiple quirks, few though there are, the last time someone bought the topic up Izuku went on a five hour long tangent, PowerPoint presentations included, as Kurogiri wept in the corner as his bar was taken over for the night.)
It isn’t a risk he’s particularly willing to take, should his hair turn back to white. He could claim it was another person’s quirk (technically true, but it’s his now), but no, Eraserhead has to be looking at the person using the quirk.
Izuku sighs, making his decision. He’s pretty sure he won’t be expelled anyway, and even if he is, he’s got the League.
He looks Eraserhead dead in the eye, smiles slightly, and throws the ball without activating any of his quirks. Not a single one of them.
All in all, he does pretty well despite the lack of quirk usage. It doesn’t surprise him, the tests are made to single out those with the more flashy quirks and higher fitness training, and not many of his new classmates seem to have a good grasp on how to use their quirks efficiently in the situation.
Izuku finds it amusing, in a dark sort of way that threatens to uncurl and destroy society. People discriminate for the silliest things.
Then the threats of expulsion are revealed to be a hoax, and Izuku almost feels bad for starting to prepare one of his plans to destroy UA from the inside out. Plan Number Three would have been so easy to enact on a Monday, such a shame.
Eraserhead was testing them, he realises, evaluating where each student is at in regards to physical capabilities so to hopefully better them. The method was uncomfortable, but it pushed the students and grounded them.
Izuku makes plans to bring one of his bats to school to see if his teacher is willing to sign it (and to maybe see if he can get Present Mic to sign one again too).
Of course, the small confidence he has in the hero schooling system plummets and turns to dust during his first lesson with All Might. A battle simulation in the first week, at least half of his classmates lacking in any fighting training, the ones who do not knowing to hold back.
Two teams of two, heroes versus villains. Sticks drawn at random, the only supervising adult tucked away safely in a room somewhere to observe the battle, too far away if anything were to go wrong in an instant.
And many things can go wrong in a single instant, especially when one Bakugo Katsuki is tearing apart the building with the intent of destroying useless, quirkless Deku.
A good spotlight hero All Might may be, a qualified teacher he is not, and it shows.
After an incident with too many explosions and the life of his successor flashing before his eyes, Yagi goes to Aizawa in search of advice, and to discuss young Bakugo.
The underground hero just looks at him with tired, dry eyes. Underground heroes are always so tired, so haunted. Yagi has never understood why, but then, he has also never been anything but a spotlight hero.
When Yagi tells him the full extent of the situation the man jumps up, snarling.
“We’re going to see Nezu, now.”
The three end up discussing the young Bakugo and Midoriya situation, and while Yagi doesn’t completely understand where the line is drawn between rivalry and bullying in this instant, he begins to realise that he has mishandled the situation. As they discuss plans, teaching methods and resources for him to go over, it starts to occur to him that he has perhaps mishandled the way he has been mentoring young Midoriya, too.
He’ll have to make it up to the boy, do better.
Plus Ultra.
“Izuku,” Dabi starts, “can I have your help with something?”
Izuku perks up. “Sure! What is it?”
“I want to burn down Endeavour's favourite noodle bar without it looking like I did it.”
“Is it insured?”
“Yes.”
“We need to make sure no one is there when we do it.”
“It’s been closed since nine, and no one should be there until mid morning.”
Izuku looks to the clock on the wall, reading one o’clock. In the morning of course. Sleep is for those who don’t juggle double lives and have crippling coffee addictions. “Okay let’s go.”
Himiko pipes up from behind them. “I’m coming too!”
“That… was some explosion.”
“It was a controlled explosion.”
“It was pretty, just like Izu’s blood~!”
That morning at school, Shouto pulls Izuku into a hug with a string of “thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.” Cool, calm and collected as always, of course.