Chapter Text
Katsuki knew there was something wrong with Deku. Everyone thought it was because he didn’t have a quirk but Katsuki knew better.
He had followed Deku out of the school and into the forest. Deku was holding on tight to the straps of his yellow backpack and staring at the ground, his curly green hair falling over his eyes.
Katsuki grabbed his arm and held on. “Why are you here?” he asked.
Deku turned so that Katsuki could see one green eye over his stupid green freckles.
When he didn’t answer Katsuki let his other hand pop with the explosions from his quirk.
Deku turned to face him and stared straight into his eyes.
“What is your–“ Deku spoke at the same time as him, saying the same thing. He stopped talking and glared.
“Stop that!” they both said.
Katsuki shoved Deku with both hands but he barely moved.
“You’re pre-dict-able, Bakugou,” Deku said.
Katsuki made more explosions and snarled at him.
“No–“
“Yes, you are,” Deku said at the same time. His face changed and he stopped looking like a crybaby, making Katsuki take a step back.
Deku stepped forward and leaned close. “You’re mean Kacchan,” he whispered, like a secret. “You keep hurting me. You’ll be a good hero, but you’re bad to me.”
Katsuki stared at him. Deku always said he was good no matter what he did.
Deku kept looking back, then he turned and walked away. Katsuki watched him go.
They were 5 years old and Katsuki knew that Deku wasn’t like how he was when they met.
There was something wrong with Deku, but it wasn’t the reason everyone said.
When everyone else got quirks Deku just got weird.
Izuku knew he had a quirk.
When he first saw the popup though, he didn’t know what it was.
“Quest: Convince the World you are Quirkless”
That was what he woke up to one morning when he was four. It was blue text on a white background that was kind of see-through.
He rubbed his eyes and it was gone. When he told his Mom the box popped up again with red text.
“Quest Failed: Convince the World you are Quirkless”
Then he was back in his bed again.
It took him days (a lot of the same one) to realise he had a quirk and it didn’t want him to tell anyone.
He repeated the same week so many times as he learned he couldn’t even hint at it. One time he told someone and had to go back to being four again after he turned six!
He called his quirk “Secret Quest.” Izuku only called it Quest when he was mad at having to do the whole day over and Secret the rest of the time.
(When he looked up smart quirks he couldn’t find out why his was so shy. Smart quirks happened but he didn’t know if others were like Secret, maybe they were hiding too?)
Secret had him do things that didn’t always make sense at the time. When he didn’t do what Secret said he got hurt, like when Kacchan accidentally used to quirk on him. (Sometimes, it didn’t seem like an accident.)
Secret always protected him though! It told him when to avoid his friend and even saved him from getting hit by a car once! (He won’t forget how it felt to be hit by the metal machine. “Quest Failed” blinked across his vision before he blacked out. Secret got him right away but he sat up in his bed, shaking with how scared he was. He didn't have any injuries. It was scary but he was safe. Secret made sure.)
After that he did what he was told and went on runs when Secret told him to. He learned about first aid and quirks and how to change his voice.
That was what led him to the quest he had gotten today.
“Quest: Save Hypnos”
He had learned over the years that Secret wasn’t able to share much about the quest, but as he repeated days he had found out that Secret would give him hints, like when he restarted the day from if he failed the quest.
So, he saw the quest (and he had “saved” a lot of people and animals at this point, so this one wasn’t new) and got up to start his day. He got dressed, packed his bag and went into the kitchen.
His mom had left him breakfast, he ate it as he scrolled through the news on his phone. Judging by the time he got it, this quest could be any time from when he was on his walk to school until the evening when he got home. There weren’t any hints in the news (he didn’t expect any but it had happened once) so he decided to try walking to school early and doing his day like normal.
He was ten now and his mother trusted him to take care of himself (would she if she knew all the things he had done before his days reset?).
With his quest at the front of his thoughts Izuku peered down alleys he walked by and watched everyone he came across closely (it was hard, there were a lot of them). Nothing obvious happened though so he got to class, disappointed.
Secret had helped him avoid both bullies and when his teachers were mean. That meant that they mostly ignored him and he was okay with that (it was better than teachers ignoring kids saying mean things to him and hurting him because he didn’t have a quirk).
He sat on his seat at the back of the class, near the door. Most of his classmates were taking notes while a few of the “strong” students like Bakugou passed notes. Bakugou always had good grades but if Izuku passed a note he would get detention right away (he may have tested it once).
Doing school work would be more interesting if it was like the projects Secret made him do. Sometimes he learned new things but it mostly was very boring (sitting through the same day of class more than once didn’t help, there were a few lectures he could have repeated word for word after resetting so many times).
He pretended to take notes so that the teacher would pretend he wasn’t there.
Once the day was over he gathered up his things and quickly snuck out of the classroom (none of his classmates liked him because he "didn't have a quirk” and that meant he didn’t want to be around them).
Escaping the boring cement building, he started on his way home. He didn’t rush since he didn’t want to miss anything while going this way the first time (one time he always ran home and missed the kitten drowning in an alley, he had to repeat the day so many times and he felt so guilty. If he had noticed her on his way to school the first time…).
Even though he did his best to pay attention he didn’t notice anything on his way home. He rushed inside and put his things away, then went back out. When he checked his phone he didn’t see any news alerts. The Hero Network tracker didn’t show any villain fights nearby either.
Frustrated, he left his apartment building and headed out on the street. Less than an hour later he got the notification.
“Quest Failed: Save Hypnos.”
His shoulders slumped at the red text filling his vision, then he was sitting up in bed once again.
Jumping up, he rushed over to his desk and pulled out his quest notebook. Turning to a new page, Izuku jotted down what he knew.
Quest: Save Hypnos
- Rescue quest
- Most likely for a person
- Must be completed before nightfall
- It's not during the school day or in the morning
- It's probably not far from his way home
He tapped his pen on the page after he wrote the last line. He has had to skip class a few times to do what Secret wanted but it isn’t usual. Sometimes he wonders if Secret just wanted to prove that breaking the rules to do the right thing is okay. It’s okay though, he didn’t mind doing it to help others.
It was on his fifth repeat of the day that he found a group of kids around his age running away from an alley right before he got the notification.
“Quest Failed”
The sixth repeat he made a beeline directly there after school.
It wasn’t in the bad part of town, just an alley between two businesses that he vaguely noted were a book store and one that sold teas.
He made it just in time to hear the sound of someone falling and laughter.
Peeking around the corner into the alley he saw the group surrounding someone on the pavement.
Taking a deep breath, Izuku ducked back around the corner. Then he concentrated and used a deep gruff voice to say, “What, exactly, are you doing?”
He heard all movement cease and a girl asked, “Who’s there?”
“Who’s there? I am giving you a chance to leave before the police arrive and you’re asking who is there?” He forced his voice to go deeper and snarled, “If I were you, I would run.”
Somehow, it worked, the other kids running away.
Izuku hurried into the alley and over to the person on the ground. The kid had purple hair that stuck up kind of like flames on his head. His lip was bleeding and his hands were scraped.
His wide eyes met Izuku’s as he crouched beside him. “It’s okay, I can help you,” he told him.
“No, I need to leave. The police–“
“Aren’t coming,” Izuku told him as he took the first aid kit out of his backpack.
“But…” the kid’s voice trailed off as Izuku pulled out a sanitizing wipe.
“I lied about the police,” he said as he held out his hand to take the other kid’s hand.
“You…” the boy didn’t seem to know what to say as he studied him with purple eyes. He looked very tired, Izuku noticed.
“Let me help?” he asked.
The boy held out one of his scraped hands and Izuku carefully started to clean it, wiping off the dirt that had gotten on his wounds.
As he worked, Secret spoke.
“Quest Complete: Save Hypnos.”
It cleared and then there was a new popup.
“Quest: Get Hypnos’s Phone Number”
Izuku held back a sigh.
“My name is Midoriya Izuku, what’s yours?”
“Shinso Hitoshi.”
Now he just needed his phone number.
“Where do you go to school, Shinso?” He pulled out the box of bandaids and started to cover the raw parts with the All Might themed ones.
“I go to Pembrooke,” Shinso told him.
Izuku nodded, carefully applying the last bandaid. “That’s not far from my school,” he finally answered, then held out his hand for Shinso’s other hand.
When it wasn’t given to him he looked up to meet those wary purple eyes.
“I don’t understand why you’re being so nice.”
Tilting his head, Izuku explained, “I want to be a hero. Real heroes help everyone.”
“Not even heroes would help me,” Shinso informed him with a scowl.
“Why not?”
“I have a villain’s quirk, everyone says so,” Shinso told him, looking scared and stubborn at the same time.
“That’s dumb,” Izuku answered.
“W-what…” Shinso’s voice was almost a question but the tone was off.
“That’s dumb. Knives aren’t villainous and quirks are like knives,” Izuku told him. “Can I have your other hand now?”
Shinso carefully offered his other hand to him. He was pleased to see that this hand had less scrapes on it. Izuku gently cleaned it, noticing Shinso wince slightly at the sting of it.
Once that hand was bandaged too, Shinso blurted out, “Want to spend time together?”
Izuku beamed at him. “Yes, what’s your number?”
Eraserhead wanted to know what he had done to deserve this.
This being a child offering him a cat while they were both on the roof in the middle of the night.
The messy haired boy slowly pulled his arms back towards his chest. “You don’t want her?”
He sounded so betrayed that Eraserhead felt compelled to say, “I’m sure she’s a wonderful cat…”
The kid’s shoulders slumped as he cuddled the small cat close. “She has a quirk that changes her fur. People only want certain quirks in their pets and hers makes people call her ugly sometimes.” He looked up at Eraserhead, obviously sad. “I thought you would like her.”
Sighing, Eraserhead went over to the kid and held out his hands. “Let me see her.”
The kid brightened, even in the dark it was easy to see just from his posture, and offered him the kitten.
Eraserhead took her and carefully looked her over. Her ears were whole and she squirmed in protest while he ran his hands over her body. In the poor lighting he could tell she was a jumble of different colours but the different textures were very weird. Her fur was curly, long, short, coarse and silky smooth depending on where he touched her. There were no open wounds, sores or scars. She didn’t even feel dirty or have matted fur.
“She seems like she’s in good health. We can–“
And that was when he realised the kid was gone.
…he had been thinking about getting a cat.
The next time he saw the kid it was after working too many cases in a row with very little sleep. One would think not teaching students for a few weeks would make his schedule more open–it didn’t.
He was exhausted and the kid was sitting on a plastic chair on the roof of a residential building. It held apartments and was well taken care of with a seating area for the residents. Eraserhead had come over because it was three in the morning and he wanted to make sure the small figure was alright.
What he wasn’t expecting was to be offered coffee.
“Here.” The sealed can was practically shoved in his face and he grabbed it instinctively. “I hope you like it.”
Eraserhead stared at the child and then glanced at the can. The label was familiar, it was a brand he drank.
“I thought you might need it!” the kid squeaked.
“Why are you up here?” he asked.
“To… to give you coffee?” It was too dark to see his expression but the kid sounded confused.
“Why?”
“Because you might need it,” the child repeated.
Eraserhead sighed. “Go to bed, it’s late.”
“Y-yes Eraserhead, sir!” the kid scrambled away.
He watched the child go into the stairwell for the building, his footsteps so quiet that the click of the door closing made more sound. After a moment he decided he deserved a short break before going into the police station to finish his reports. Then it would be time to head home.
He pulled the tab to open the can and listened to the sound of the seal breaking. Normally he’d be more cautious of food given to him by a stranger but it wasn’t opened and the kid had given him his cat, Kaly (short for kaleidoscope, like the colours of her fur).
It was only after he had drank half the drink that he realised he had never introduced himself.
How did the kid know his name?
Izuku had learned many things at Secret’s request. He knew how to fight (Secret had even got him to practise by making him save people in fights). He knew how to use parkour. He knew how to hold his breath for a very long time. He knew how to sneak into a room silently, even picking the lock to get in. He learned how to predict patrol routes of heroes to give them coffee late at night.
…
The point was, Secret got him to do many things.
Somehow he never thought it would tell him to do this.
“Quest: Get the Attention of All Might”
…All Might was still in Japan right now, right?
Secret had made him go to other parts of the country a few times (convincing his mother he was going on sleepovers was surprisingly easy), but it had never been more than a couple days for a trip.
Concerned about what his next few days would be like, Izuku grabbed his phone to look up sightings of All Might. He relaxed when the results showed that the man had been spotted in the area.
It looked like he had a hero to find.
Thirteen tries later and he decided to just go to school for the day. There was no way he’d meet the hero that way but sometimes having a normal day would make him feel more settled (he was repeating the same day this time and sometimes not sleeping between repeats got to him, he found taking a day for himself helped with that).
As he was sitting in class, pretending to dutifully take notes, Izuku wondered if the teachers never reported his absences because they preferred it when he wasn’t there.
He preferred it when he wasn’t in class too.
Bakuguo made it obvious that having Izuku in class wasn’t something he liked either. He dispassionately watched his notebook get blown up and then tossed out a window, the words his one time friend said not really registering.
Next time, he decided, he would take his rest day outside of school, it’s not like he learned much. Secret would make him study if he needed to pass a test.
Shrugging on his backpack, he went out to retrieve his notebook. It almost wasn’t worth it to fish it out of the pond but there was a slight chance he wouldn’t repeat the day and he didn’t really want to lose it (he had made that mistake before and regretted it, Secret didn’t value his notebooks with the hero notes as much as he did).
It really was a shame, he’d need to rewrite this one if he didn’t repeat the day again (he had written the same notes on repeat days to make sure he had it all down, after he had memorised what they would say sometimes he didn’t bother).
Sighing, Izuku decided to take the long way home and wandered away from the school. He wondered which of the many skills he picked up would be used to catch All Might’s attention.
As he was daydreaming about All Might saying he would make the perfect hero he heard a rough scraping sound which made him tense. He was currently in an underpass that didn’t have any people or even buildings under it. He was alone.
Pivoting around to face the potential threat, he was unprepared to be grabbed by green slime. Instinct took over and he clamped his mouth shut, holding his nose closed with one hand.
The villain was saying something about making Izuku a meat suit but he was too busy panicking to take it in.
Was Secret trying to save him from dying in slime with the breathing practice he had done?! He thought it was for something underwater!
Just as it started to get difficult to think an explosion sent him flying out of the slime. He did his best to roll off the momentum but he was uncoordinated and gasping.
Bracing himself on his hands and knees, he looked around to see what happened. The slime quirked person seemed to be smeared all over the cement ground and bridge supports. Izuku wondered if that was painful before the hero in front of him registered.
All Might?!?
The huge muscular form in red and blue with the iconic blonde hair (two tall points above each eyebrow) couldn't be anyone but All Might. Two bright blue eyes shone above the large smile aimed his way only completed the image.
…he guessed that meant he should have been going to school to find the hero after all.
He slowly got to his feet, grabbing his yellow backpack from where it had landed and wondering what he should say to the hero. Oh, he was talking, listening was important.
“–must be going! Goodbye!”
Panic raced down his spine at the thought of having to repeat getting immersed in slime so he leapt forward and grabbed onto the Hero.
He screamed as he clung to All Might’s leg and they soared through the air.
“What are you doing? Let go,” All Might told him.
Izuku clung harder as the leg he was attached to shook.
“If I let go I’ll die!” he told the hero shrilly. Nothing Secret had him learn would save him from a fall from this height.
All Might landed on the top of a building, his signature smile conspicuously absent.
“Young man, that was a very reckless thing to do,” All Might told him as Izuku nodded furiously, shaking from fright.
“I’m s–“
“Now, I really must go,” All Might turned to just that.
“Wait! It’s important that I talk to you!”
All Might crouched and Izuku panicked.
“Can someone quirkless become a hero?” he blurted out.
Not that he really was quirkless but he fought quirkless, like Eraserhead…
He was mumbling about that thought process (not mentioning Secret out loud was a habit at this point but there was a lot more to it) when a cloud of steam made him cut off.
As the cloud disappeared Izuku screeched in surprise at the skinny and sick looking man in front of him. He had blonde hair that drooped in his face, his shoulders were hunched and his blue eyes looked sunken. He had a grimace like he was in pain.
The man coughed up blood. “Oh my dear, what happened to All Might? Are you okay?!”
He rocked back and forth on his feet not sure if he should get closer or run away.
“I am All Might,” the man said.
“No,” Izuku said more in surprise than disbelief.
“Yes. It’s kind of like those people who… No it doesn’t matter. Look kid,” All Might stared at him with a piercing gaze that was somehow more creepy when he looked mostly dead. He lifted his shirt to reveal a massive scar that spanned across his ribcage and was a sore looking red.
Izuku sucked in a breath and crept forward as All Might kept talking. “This is from a villain. Without a quirk I would not have survived. Now I only have a few hours a day where I can use it. I don’t know how anyone without a quirk can do this job.”
He started frowning as All Might continued, “You need to be more realistic. You could be a cop or a firefighter. It’s not as glorified but they do important jobs.”
That’s when he realised that All Might was already walking away.
Izuku let him go and turned to stare out at the city.
He wondered if All Might remembered he had just been suffocated by a villain then possibly had his dreams crushed in a bigoted society before being left on a roof.
He wondered what protocol for rescuing a civilian who was drowning was and concluded that being on a high roof after almost dying probably didn’t meet those standards.
Other than the strength, All Might was kind of disappointing.
After waiting long enough for the man to have gone, Izuku made his way down the stairs and out of the building. He wasn’t sure what Secret wanted him to do with All Might but that probably wasn’t it.
Resigned to repeating the day again, Izuku wandered into the city.
Explosions caught his attention, and a crowd drew him over. It was probably a villain fight. Watching one instead of being a victim of it may help his mood. The explosions sounded familiar, which drew him even closer.
He caught sight of Heroes standing off to one side, police holding back the crowds as Backdraft put out fires that were eating at buildings. Fires that were being spread by a person he recognised.
Bakugou.
As soon as he registered the boy caught inside slime, Izuku was running.
He dug into his backpack and grabbed his Hawks themed pencil case. Thanking Secret for all the practice throwing, Izuku aimed and threw it at one of the villain’s eyes.
The villain shrieked as Izuku grabbed one of Bakuguo’s hands and pulled. The other teen gasped for breath while Izuku waved his backpack around with his free hand.
He almost hit Bakugou, who scowled at him.
A large tentacle raced towards his face.
Izuku braced himself but heard a loud yell of, “Detroit Smash!”
All Might’s voice and the boom of wind from his punch knocked Izuku off his feet.
Before he could smack into the ground (again) an arm caught him and placed him off to one side.
He idly noted the weather had changed during that punch and wondered if the villain made of slime was raining down on them… could he reform from that?
His distraction was interrupted by the Heroes congratulating Bakugou for being brave while scolding Izuku himself for being reckless.
Pasting a contrite look on his face, Izuku tuned them out and began plotting what to do when he repeated the day. Was there some way he could beat the slime guy before All Might got there…?
When the ‘heroes’ lost interest in him Izuku walked away.
It was too bad turning the slime villain into a popsicle wasn’t possible. He couldn’t carry that much dry ice.
Where do you find dry ice anyway?
“I AM HERE!”
Izuku chucked his phone at All Might’s face. The man sputtered and caught it, coughing up blood. Steam erupted off his form as Izuku froze in horror.
He just threw his phone at All Might.
Suddenly he was facing All Might’s smaller form as the man wiped blood off his face. “Those are some reflexes kid, though the phone won’t help much with a villain,” he held the phone out to Izuku who slowly got closer.
“Thank you,” he muttered, checking it over for damage.
“What’s your name, kid?” All Might asked.
“Midoriya Izuku,” he answered absently.
“Why did you rush in there to save that boy?” All Might asked.
“I couldn’t let him drown. My feet just… moved,” Izuku said, careful to avoid all the other times Secret encouraged him to act. Practice helped but everyone deserved to be saved.
“You know, one thing that all the greatest heroes in history had in common: When faced with a bad situation their feet just moved,” All Might informed him grandly. “Young Midoriya, you too can become a hero.”
He froze in shock. Not from All Might’s declaration.
“Quest Complete: Get the Attention of All Might”
This was followed by another popup he never thought he would see.
“Quest Complete: Convince the World you are Quirkless”
“Now, I must share with you a secret,” All Might said, the last word instantly making Izuku’s attention snap to him.
The tall man shuffled close. “You see, my quirk is unique, even in this society with so many diverse quirks. My quirk was given to me by my mentor, passed down to her from her mentor. I have chosen you to be my successor.”
Izuku stared at him.
“Will you accept my quirk Young Midoriya?”
At that moment, Secret spoke up.
“Quest: Acquire the Quirk One for All”
A smile broke across his face as giddy disbelief rushed through him. All Might’s quirk?!
Tears dripped down his face as he nodded frantically. “Yes!”
When he was first faced with the “American Dream Plan” that All Might presented to him for training he was reluctant but enthusiastic to try it. As he examined the beach for a good place to start, Secret made its opinion known.
“Quest: Convince All Might that his Training Plan is BAD”
Izuku decided that if he accomplished getting All Might’s quirk without saying anything that Secret might let him get away with not doing it.
After having gotten injured repeatedly, some of which Secret let him suffer to the point of getting through the first days of his hospital stay before making him repeat the months of training he’d already done again (his body didn’t retain muscle gained from past repeats, his injuries were gone but so was his muscle tone) Izuku wondered if All Might realised what he was asking when he gave him this plan.
He had been hit by falling garbage. He had cut open his hands. He had found illegally (well, more illegally) dumped garbage which quirks had been used on that had covered him with caustic chemicals. He had strained muscles badly moving things too heavy for him which had made him unable to move the next day.
He had researched what a good training plan actually looked like after breaking his wrist in numerous places before Secret had taken pity on him and sent him back to the first day. His first day on this beach, which was a health hazard hellscape, and was so unregulated that being injured while moving things to build strength was a guarantee.
He took a deep breath and planted his hands on his hips.
“Let’s get started!” All Might boomed, unaware that the boy who had been so excited less than a minute ago had been replaced with someone completely done.
“No,” Izuku said firmly, causing the hero to trip over his own feet and blood to dribble down his face.
“No? My boy–“
“Did you know if you try to lift something too heavy, you can pull muscles and even dislocate joints?” Izuku asked and he turned to face the Hero slowly.
All Might looked confused.
“Did you know if you work too hard you can overextend your body to the point where it completely shuts down and muscle accumulation can regress while recovering?”
“N-now–“
“Did you realise that since this,” he waved at the beach in front of them, “is an illegal dumping site, that it could contain hazards that could potentially put someone in the hospital if they were touched while not wearing the right equipment? Never mind the diseases from anything that might have blood or the diseases growing in poorly separated waste. What about the chemicals from all those appliances and vehicles? Those are corrosive and can damage my skin, let alone if they get in my blood!” Izuku threw his hands up, frustrated by how All Might stared at him.
The man coughed and then deflated like a steamy balloon.
“I-I guess we can do something else to train your body up,” he scratched the back of his neck. “Look, you need to be at peak strength to inherit my quirk, otherwise your limbs could blow right off.”
Izuku stared at him for a moment.
“My limbs could WHAT?!”
If he didn’t have Secret, he might have decided that having All Might’s quirk was not worth risking his limbs. With Secret and the knowledge he had no way out of getting the quirk he decided to confront All Might for the second time in the same repeat after the hero said he had a new exercise plan.
Once the plan was laid out before him, Izuku came to two crucial conclusions.
“I can’t use your quirk the same day I get it at the entrance exam. You also are assuming I haven’t already had my own training plan.”
Small Might (did All Might tell him his name when he wasn’t all buff?) sputtered and hastily wiped at his mouth with a white handkerchief (why white?).
“Young Midoriya, you have already been training to become a hero?” Small Might asked.
“Of course! I wanted to be one.” And Secret wouldn’t let me avoid training, he didn’t add out loud.
The skinny man was practically beaming. “It would still be best to give you my quirk as late as possible–“
“You want me to use a quirk that could blow up my limbs during an exam where there are other people who could also be caught in the crossfire?” he asked sweetly.
The man froze and scratched at his temple. “When you put it like that I can see how that might not be a good idea.”
Izuku just smiled and started talking about what they could adjust in the training plan.