Chapter Text
The first time it happens, he’s four years old and he almost gives his poor mother a heart attack.
His mom unlocks the apartment door and Izuku sprints inside, skipping and bouncing and beaming from ear to ear. They’re just arriving home from a visit to the hospital, a few weeks since Izuku’s fourth birthday.
“I knew it!” Izuku says brightly, punching both fists into the air. “I knew I had a Quirk! I knew I did!”
His mom smiles right along with him, pulling the door shut behind her. “I’m so happy for you, Izuku!” she says, beaming. “I wonder what your Quirk will be…?”
“I hope it’s something heroic!” Izuku proclaims ecstatically. He’s always dreamed of the day he finally got his Quirk, and he has a few ideas in mind of what he wants it to be. “I want to be able to save people--!”
It happens at that moment--Izuku feels this odd, pulling sensation in his chest, and then suddenly, he’s in the air. His feet don’t touch the ground, and he feels...weird. Like he’s missing something.
There’s a thud from below, and Izuku looks down. He sees himself crumpled on the floor, lifeless and still.
He blinks.
“Izuku!?” his mom shrieks, her eyes going wide with fear.
He blinks again for lack of better thing to do.
What just happened...?
His mother screams and rushes towards his body--a body Izuku isn’t currently... in? It doesn’t make sense, but it seems right in his mind, for some reason.
“Nonono, I’m okay, Mom!” Izuku exclaims, hoping she can hear him--she does, and her head snaps up, her arms cradling his lifeless body. It’s weird to look at.
His mother stares at him. Or, rather, through him, he guesses. It doesn’t seem like she can actually see him.
“Izuku?” she calls, voice laced with horror, but also relief. “Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m right here!” Izuku calls back, beaming even brighter. He looks down at himself, curious; he can see the floor through his hands, and he’s wearing the same clothes as his physical body. He’s completely transparent.
“Mom, MomMomMomMomMom, I think this is my Quirk!” Izuku exclaims, head snapping up and smile getting wider. “I can leave my body!”
He says it like it’s a good thing, but his mother just seems vaguely terrified.
“I-Izuku, c-can...can you...come back?” she asks, her voice trembling, and Izuku realizes that, oh, he should probably check that. As much fun as it is to just float without a care in the world, it’d be unfortunate if he can’t actually return to his body.
“Oh!” he says, and he shuts his eyes for a moment, concentrating. He feels the tug again, and this time, he’s physically yanked; when he opens his eyes, he’s back in his body, in his mom’s arms, and she’s staring down at him.
“Izuku!” she cries, hugging him tightly. “What--!”
He squirms, and she lets him go, though reluctantly. “I found it!” he says excitedly, and his mother continues to stare at him. “I found my Quirk! Waitwaitwait, lemme see if I can do it again--!”
“I-Izuku--!”
His body hits the floor as his spirit takes air.
“Izuku!”
By the time he’s seven, he’s learned to control it.
For the most part.
There are a few times he slips up by accident--he stops paying attention to the teacher during class and his spirit subconsciously zips out of his body, just like that. On one occasion, a paramedic actually showed up at the school because the teacher freaked and called an ambulance.
It wasn’t until his mother explained it to the teachers that, “Yes, yes, I know it’s strange, but this is actually his Quirk, it’s odd I know but, he’s fine,” that they finally calmed down.
And now Izuku does it for fun.
He’s still practicing, still trying to get the hang of it, because if he wants to become a hero he’s going to have to figure out how the dang Quirk works--
“MOM! MOM LOOK!”
His mother turns. And then, she jumps. Izuku is holding a book--the first time he’s ever picked something up as a ghost.
“MOM LOOK I FIGURED OUT HOW TO PICK STUFF UP!” he cheers--to his mother, of course, it looks simply like there’s a book floating by her face, but she knows it’s him so it’s fine. Izuku is too excited to care how it looks right now. “AND NOOOOWWW…”
Izuku concentrates. The book falls through his hands and hits the floor below.
“...IT’S GONE!” Izuku finishes, and he beams.
His mother blinks, then smiles.
“I’m happy you’re learning to control it, Izuku,” she says, like she always does when he improves. “Just, please...warn me next time when you’re not actually... in your body, okay, sweetheart?”
“Okay!” Izuku chirps, and he floats off to find his body. He can’t quite remember where he left it.
When he returns to his body, the first thing he does is race to the bathroom and throw up.
Seems he can’t hold onto things for very long without some kind of real, physical backlash.
Izuku hates junior high, really, truly hates it, and it’s not because he hates learning.
It’s because Kacchan is there, and Kacchan hurts. Hurts him.
“You think you can be a hero with some useless Quirk like that!?” Kacchan snarls at him, so close to his face that Izuku can feel his spit on his cheeks. His hands are on Izuku’s shoulders, slamming him against the school locker, and his nails dig into Izuku’s skin, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts so badly--
Izuku shuts his eyes tightly. And then the pain stops, and he’s floating above his limp body. His body crumples to the floor, sliding out of Kacchan’s grip, and Kacchan shrieks and stumbles back. He knows about Izuku’s Quirk, he just..never expects it.
Kacchan growls, hands trembling at his sides. “Deku!” he screeches, and Izuku swallows back sobs, cupping his hands around his mouth. Kacchan can’t hurt him when he’s a ghost, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t scared. “Get back here! Is this the kind of person you wanna be, huh!? Just some worthless coward!?”
No, Izuku thinks, staring at the floor through his translucent shoes, it isn’t. But I don’t want to hurt anymore.
He waits for Kacchan to finally leave before slipping back into his body. He has a new bruise on his head from smacking the floor, and his shoulders ache and burn, but at least Kacchan is gone.
His mother’s gotten used to him coming home with bruises. His Quirk isn’t exactly the safest to use--unless he’s on a bed or couch when he activates it, he always ends up with new bruises (or scratches, depending on where and how hard he falls).
But not burns. Never burns.
He steps into the apartment, closes the door behind him, and immediately pulls his sleeve further down so it covers his wrist.
“Welcome home, Izuku!” his mother calls from further inside the apartment--she knows it’s him, he’s the only one other than her who has a key. Izuku hears water running at the sink; the water cuts, and footsteps replace it.
A part of Izuku wants to run, to zip out of his body and dart up his room.
He doesn’t.
And even if he did, it’d be counterproductive; Mom would find his body anyway, find the burns and bruises that for once weren’t caused by his own Quirk, and she’d eventually find Izuku--his ghost--no matter how silent he was. He’d never been very good at hiding from her. Maybe it’s a mother thing.
She turns the corner, smiling--and then, when she catches sight of his face, the smile melts into horror. She races towards him, and he turns his head so he doesn’t have to meet her eyes.
She takes his hands in hers, and he winces when her fingertips brush the burns. Burns that weren’t there when he left for school this morning. Burns Kacchan gave him.
“Izuku, what happened?” Mom asks, voice soaked with fear. He doesn’t answer, and she cups his face in her hands and turns his head so he looks at her. She inhales sharply, one hand brushing his hair off his forehead, where the biggest bruise is.
“What happened?” She’s more urgent this time, holding his gaze even as he fights to look away. “Izuku, tell me what hap-- Izuku!”
He can’t help it. A tug pulls his ghost away, and his mother catches his body before it hits the floor.
“Izuku!” his mother snaps, hooking her arms beneath his to keep his limp body from hitting the ground. She’s angry now, but Izuku knows it’s just because she’s worried. “If you don’t tell me what happened--!”
“I-I’m sorry!” Izuku’s voice is more shrill than he means it to be, and he slips back into his body immediately. The pain returns, spiking through his wrists and shoulders and head, and he winces. His mother releases him, but keeps her hands on his shoulders, just in case.
“I-I didn’t mean to do that,” Izuku pants. He feels oddly out of breath, but he doesn’t know why. “S-Sometimes w-when…w-when I’m overwhelmed I just…” He swishes a hand through the air, voice shaking as he tries not to cry. “Y-Y’know, zoom.”
He tries to make light of it, he really does.
His mother isn’t having it.
“That bruise on your head,” she says, moving his hair out of the way again. Her fingers ghost over the bruise (heh, ghost), and he winces, dull pain shooting through it. “You dissociated again.”
That’s what they call it: dissociation. To Izuku’s knowledge, there isn’t another Quirk quite like his in existence, so they gave it its own name. Dissociation. That’s his Quirk. Convenient sometimes, but mostly just annoying.
Izuku sucks in a sharp breath. His eyes burn with tears, but he nods.
“Why?” his mother asks, desperate now. “I-I understand that bruise, but...I-Izuku…”
That’s the problem. He has tons of bruises, and only a handful of them are because of his Quirk.
Not to mention the burns…
“Izuku...Izuku, why?”
He chokes on a sob and shakes his head feverishly, bringing his hands towards his face and rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. His mother’s hands slide from his shoulders to his back, and she hugs him tightly. A second later, he hugs her back.
His physical body hurts, and he wants to abandon it again just so he doesn’t feel its pain.
But he can’t feel his mother’s hugs in his other form, so he stays this way for now.
The next morning, Izuku tells her exactly what happened. He doesn’t want to, but he trusts her more than he trusts anybody else. He knows that she loves him and that she’d want to know if he’s being bullied--which he is.
He tells her about Kacchan. She listens, nodding periodically, until he finally finishes his story and falls silent.
After that, she rises to her feet and picks up her phone. She calls Kacchan’s mother first, then the school.
Izuku transfers to a different school a week later. No more Kacchan.
When he’s fourteen, he’s attacked by a villain.
A villain with a body made of slime and...and...well Izuku doesn’t know what else, but it smells rancid and rotten and Izuku tries to run, but he isn’t fast enough. The monster grabs him, restrains him, chokes him, and Izuku struggles and kicks and tries to scream, but he can’t because he’s choking, no because he’s drowning--
He dissociates. His body falls limp and his ghost soares into the air. He feels something different this time, a more distinguishable, noticeable tug, and he realizes it’s because he’s dying.
Because he’s being killed--
He flies. He phazes through the villain’s head, hoping the feeling is enough to startle it. The villain does notice it, and for just a moment, he raises his head and looks around, confused.
Yes! Izuku thinks, giving himself a mental high-five. Yes, yes, yes, I did it--!
A gust of wind shoots out of nowhere, and Izuku screeches, sent flying backwards through the air, out of the tunnel and back into the open. The slime villain and Izuku’s lifeless body fly with him, the slime villain’s body splashing and scattering in all directions.
Izuku’s own body is on the ground in a heap, unmoving, and Izuku moves towards it curiously.
Wellp, that just happened, he thinks, and he slips back into his body. He aches all over, and his head pounds something awful, but he’s alive, and he’s not unconscious, which is good. He pushes himself off the ground and raises a hand to his head, wincing.
I must’ve been saved by a hero, Izuku thinks; his fingers touch a bruise on his head, and he yanks them back, hissing through his teeth. Guess that’s a good thing. There’s only so much my Quirk can do against a villain that doesn’t actually have a true body like most people...
He hears footsteps and lifts his head further.
Immediately, his eyes go wide with shock.
It’s All Might. All Might saved him.
Izuku has to fight to hold his ghost in his body, when really he wants to shoot up into outer space and scream it to the universe.
All Might had always been his inspiration ever since he was little, before he even found his Quirk. To actually meet him face to face like this was...it's amazing.
“Hello there, my boy!” All Might says, and Izuku comes so close to dissociating, just because he can’t believe it. He feels, quite literally, floaty, and it takes every effort not to zoom straight into the stratosphere. “I’m sorry for getting you caught up with all that! Are you alright?”
Izuku nods frantically, beaming so brightly it hurts. “You’re my idol!” he blurts, before he can stop himself. And then, all in one breath: “HolycrapI’vebeenwantingtomeetyouforyearsIhavesomanyquestions…”
He rambles on, and All Might chuckles, gathered the remains of the sludge villain’s body into two identical...soda bottles? That’s what they look like. Izuku wonders how so much slime can fit into such a small space, but then again, this is All Might, so he shouldn’t be surprised by anything..
“--AndI’vealwayslookeduptoyouandyou’resocoolandthanksforsavingmeand--”
All Might chuckles again, but this time he speaks. “Well, you’re quite the chatterbox, aren’t you?” he asks, and Izuku blushes, twisting his shoe into the ground. “That’s quite alright, my boy! However, as much as I’d love to stay and chat, I have to be somewhere.”
Izuku’s head snaps up again. “W-Wait, you’re leaving?”
“Mm-hmm. Crime doesn’t turn itself in.”
“B-But I…”
All Might claps his hands together, like he’s pleading his case. “Sorry, kiddo, but I’ve reeeeally gotta go. Message me on my website, wouldja?”
“W-Wait, I--”
All Might turns away. “Thank you for your continued support!”
“W-wait, p-please--!”
Izuku reaches out, around the same time All Might crouches to blast into the sky.
It’s not really a conscious decision, and Izuku doesn’t really mean to do it. He latches onto All Might’s leg--with his actual body, dissociating right now wouldn’t do any good--and the hero launches into the sky with force to rival a rocket’s.
Honestly, with that whiplash, Izuku wonders if his soul shouldn’t be ripped from his body.
“That--” All Might says, spinning around to face him, “--was incredibly stupid. While I admire the tenacity of youth, there is a fine line between tenacious and insanity!”
Izuku is too busy trying to suck air back into his lungs to answer. They’re on a rooftop, where All Might landed shortly after blasting off, and Izuku feels vaguely like he’s being strangled. He agrees with All Might, here; it was incredibly reckless, the thing he’d done.
But that doesn’t matter.
He leaps to his feet. “All Might, c-can I--”
“No, I’m out of time, my boy,” All Might says, heading for the edge of the roof. “Sorry for running, but there’s somewhere I need to be. I have some unfinished business to attend to.”
“W-Wait, p-plea--!”
“Kiddo, I’m sorry, but I can’t--”
“Can I be a hero with a useless Quirk!?”
His voice has risen in pitch, an entire octave at that. He isn’t sure whether All Might understood him until the hero stops and glances over his shoulder.
Izuku stops, struggling to find the words. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. “I...I-I was born with...with an essentially useless Quirk,” he explains hesitantly. Kacchan’s words, punches and jeers come back to him all at once, and he winces. “E-Even if...even if my Quirk isn’t suitable for being a hero, c-can I… can I still become one!?”
His voice is a squeak now, a desperate plea, and after that he braces himself, waits, hopes.
“An unsuitable Quirk…?” All Might begins, but doesn’t finish; there’s a burst of steam and smoke, and Izuku throws up his hands to brace himself.
The answer is no.
All Might’s answer is no, anyway. No, he can’t be a hero with his measley power. Izuku hadn’t explained what it was; he’d been too shocked to do so, in fact. All Might told him his greatest secret, that his smile was a lie to hide the truth, that, with little to no power, it was impossible to become a hero.
At that point Izuku’s Quirk hadn’t even mattered, because Izuku had been hoping for a miracle and that hope was crushed.
Now, Izuku walks down sidewalks, keeping head down. That floaty feeling is gone and he’s left with an odd...emptiness, despite the fact that his soul is still very much attached to his physical body.
As he walks, he cries. A couple bystanders give him weird looks, but he doesn’t even care.
He’s tried his best. He was born with a Quirk, learned how to control his Quirk (for the most part--there are times when his emotions are enough to shake his soul from his body, but for the most part he can control it). He’s only ever dreamed of becoming a hero. It’s all he wants.
But…
...But…
He wants to scream. He wants to abandon his body somewhere and just float up into space and never be seen again. Kacchan’s going to keep hitting him, keep hurting him and burning him. They don’t go to the same school anymore but it’s going to happen if Izuku tries becoming a hero.
It’s like All Might said. In the end, Izuku knew it would turn out like this.
After all…
...With his power, he may as well just be Quirkless, right?
An explosion snaps him from his thoughts, and his head whips around. Smoke rises a few blocks down; he hears screams and shouts and watches as citizens disperse and run in all directions.
It’s a villain attack, he knows it’s a villain attack.
His feet move on their own as he goes to investigate.
It’s not just any villain.
It’s the slime villain. The slime villain who attacked Izuku earlier, and he (it?) has a hostage now. That’s what the nearby citizens are screaming. The villain has a hostage, and it’s a boy, a kid, and Izuku squeezes through the crowd to look, and--
It’s Kacchan.
It’s Kacchan and he’s thrashing and screaming and yelling and his eyes are so furious but also so scared, and Izuku doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kacchan look like this.
Kacchan, his bully.
Kacchan, who made Izuku transfer schools.
Kacchan, screaming and thrashing and scared.
And Izuku doesn’t think. Doesn’t give himself the chance to think.
He sprints.
His feet slam into the ground, one after the other, over and over and over again as he runs, runs, runs. This is bad, this is horrible and he can’t let the villain take Kacchan’s life. He doesn’t know why. He hates Kacchan and Kacchan hates him and he doesn’t know why he wants to save him so desperately.
He doesn’t know why, only that he does.
He doesn’t dissociate--that hadn’t worked on the slime villain earlier so he doesn’t do it again. Rather, he swings his backpack around and hurls it with all his might at the slime villain’s bulging eyes. A notebook flies free, stabs the slime villain in the eye with the corner, and the villain lets out a roar of pain, releasing his grip on Kacchan for a mere second.
Kacchan coughs, chokes, tries to get his breath back. Izuku claws and grabs at the villain’s body, trying to pull Kacchan free.
“You worthle--GET OUT OF HERE!” Kacchan yells furiously, glaring at Izuku like he’s the one attacking him, not the slime villain. “You worthless piece of crap, I don’t need your help--!”
“SHUT UP!” Izuku snaps back at him, suddenly very furious. He’s crying now, sure, but he’s angrier than he’s been in a long, long time. “Shut up, Kacchan! Do you think I care that you don’t think you need my help!? Do you think I care about that at all!?”
Kacchan falls silent immediately.
“You aren’t some kind of immortal, unstoppable being, Kacchan, you’re human!” Izuku cries, voice breaking. “You’re human, just like I am! And I can’t just stand back and let you die!”
And then, All Might steps in. The situation is resolved within the next ten seconds.
Izuku wonders if it’d be rude to dissociate and sink right into the ground. He knows that he most certainly could, what with his Quirk, but he decides not to. It would be pretty rude. What said “screw you” more than leaving your body and sinking into the ground?
A couple of pros are chewing him out, telling him that it was dumb to step in and that he could have been killed. They’re angry, all of them, scolding him and telling him he’s an idiot.
Izuku apologizes, but doesn’t mean it. He’d do it again in a heartbeat.
All Might is swamped by reporters, so Izuku doesn’t bother trying to talk to him this time. Not right now, at the very least. When the pros are (finally) done chewing Izuku out, he gets to his feet and runs home.
He never looks back once.
He tumbles through the door and immediately dissociates. He flees his body and shoots up to his room; he hears his mother call after him, but doesn’t really care. She’ll find him in a few seconds, but he’s going to take those few seconds to gather his thoughts. Outside his own body, thank you very much.
“Izuku!? Izu-- AHH!”
Oh. His mother must have found his body. Now he feels bad for not warning her. You would think, though, that she’d be used to seeing his lifeless body crumpled in random places.
Still, though.
He hears her footsteps, storming up towards his room, and he hovers over his bed and braces himself.
Mom flings open the door. Her eyes are watering, but her teeth are gritted.
“You have no reason to be doing that, young man!” Mom shouts at him (or, not directly at him--she can’t see him, of course). Izuku flinches, staring through his shoes at the ground. “Go get your body, Izuku! You can’t keep doing that!”
She leaves the room, and he waits until she steps off the last stair before fleeing back towards his physical body.
He slips inside. The pain starts immediately, this time on his arm. A new bruise, then. Whoopty-do. His mother is right, he really does have to stop doing that. He’s going to wind up seriously hurting himself one of these days…
He stands and slinks into the kitchen, dragging his feet. He hears Mom bustling about, opening and closing the freezer door; a second later, she steps in front of him and hands him an ice pack. He takes it and presses it to his arm.
“Thanks, Mom,” he says.
She nods wordlessly, then speaks. “I saw the news.”
Izuku tenses.
If Mom notices, she gives no indication that she does. Rather, she plunges on. “You leapt in there to save that Katsuki boy, even though…” Her eyes water, but the tears don’t fall. Yet. “Even though he…”
Izuku swallows thickly. “He was scared, Mom. He was in danger. I couldn’t just...”
“I know he was, I-I just...” Mom wrings her hands together, then sighs and shakes her head. When she meets his gaze again, she’s smiling gently, but there’s pain in her eyes. “You really are too goldenhearted for your own good, Izuku.”
Izuku bites his lip. “It’s probably going to get me killed someday. O-Or, y’know, if toppling down the stairs again doesn’t…”
His mother frowns. “I know you’re trying to be funny, but it’s not funny.”
“I-I know.” He lowers the ice; the bruise stings, but he’s had worse.
Mom takes the ice pack from his hand and puts it back in the freezer. “The heroes who were on-sight at the time,” she begins. “What did they say to you jumping in like that?”
“O-Oh, t-they...they were...they were mad at me.” Izuku shifts his weight awkwardly. “They chewed me out pretty good, said I must’ve had some kind of...some kind of a death wish...”
Mom freezes, hand still on the door.
“...Mom…?”
“They chewed you out,” his mother says, and there’s venom in her tone. Izuku takes a step backwards. “They were going to stand back and let that boy die and they chewed you out for helping.”
“I-It’s fine, Mom…”
“I don’t think it’s fine,” Mom snaps, and Izuku takes another step backwards. “They slack off on their jobs so badly a boy has to jump in, and then they scold the boy for it?”
“I-I know, b-but…” Izuku shifts again. “You don’t...you don’t need to get so upset about it, really. I-I’m...I-I’m fine, it’s fine, I promise.”
The problem is, he’s really not sure whether or not he means it.
His mom accepts it, though, although she doesn’t seem happy about it. “I know,” she says. “I’m...I’m sorry for shouting at you when you came in. That wasn’t right.”
“I-It’s okay,” Izuku answers, running a hand through his hair. “You’re right, I should stop dropping like that. Someday I’ll get better with that, I promise, just…”
A light bulb goes off in his head, and he grins.
“...Nobody knows when.”
His mother stares at him.
“Izuku.”
Zip.
“IZUKU.”
And he’s gone again.
The next day sucks.
If the bullying ended the day he transferred schools and got away from Kacchan, it’d be all he could ever ask for. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It’s not nearly as bad at his new school, considering Kacchan isn’t here, but even so, it sucks. It royally sucks.
“Oh, look! It’s the freak who went after the slime villain!” one of said bullies jeers, pointing at him. Behind him, two other bullies laugh and cackle. “Hey, what were you tryin’ to do, huh? Be a hero?”
“Stop it,” Izuku hisses under his breath--not that it’s ever done any good. Not that it’ll ever do any good.
The bullies laugh just a little louder, and Izuku power walks out of the classroom. He endures the school day without zooming out of his body (though he’s come close a fair few times), then heads home with a heavy heart.
He makes it to his neighborhood.
And then a voice calls out to him.
“My boy!”
Izuku freezes, one foot still in the air mid-step, and spins around. All Might--not the “hero,” but the “person,” his true form--sprints towards him, looking frantic.
Wellp, Izuku thinks, a pull at his chest, guess I'll die--
“Hold on,” All Might pants, and Izuku barely manages to keep his ghost attached to his body where it belongs. All Might straightens up to look at him, panting like he’d run the whole way.
“I’m...sorry...I didn’t contact you sooner,” All Might breathes. “You ran home as soon as the incident was resolved and, well, I couldn’t shake the press fast enough to get to you. I’m truly sorry.”
Izuku is shaking his head before All Might finishes speaking. “N-No, it’s okay!” he says, waving his hands back and forth. “I-It’s really fine, honest. A-after all…” He lowers his hands and looks down at his shoes, for once not translucent. “...I’m the one who got in the way. I-I’m sorry--”
“That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo.”
Izuku stops, and his head snaps up. All Might smiles back at him.
“If it wasn’t for you,” All Might says, “I wouldn’t have been spurred to act when I did.”
Izuku’s eyes go wide.
“On the rooftop, yesterday…” All Might’s voice is thick. “I...I said some things that I regret, some things that I know hurt you. I told you you couldn’t become a hero, and that...that was wrong of me. I’m sorry. And.”
(He raises a finger as Izuku opens his mouth, and Izuku stops, letting the hero continue.)
“...I’m here now to tell you something. Something I should’ve said the day I met you.”
Izuku listens, holding onto every word.
“Top heroes have stories from their school days,” All Might begins slowly. “And most of those stories have one thing in common: their bodies moved, before they had the chance to think.”
And then, Izuku’s hit with it. His eyes burn, and he ducks his head, his chest filling with knots.
When All Might speaks again, there’s a smile in his words.
“That happened to you, too, didn’t it?”
Izuku nods, teeth gritted. His knees hit the asphalt, his hands clutch his chest, and he sobs.
“Midoriya...my boy… you can become a hero.”
The tears flow. The dam breaks. He’s overwhelmed. He ties his spirit to his body, because right now would be a bad time to drop.
Is this happening? Is this really, really happening right now? He can’t believe it. He’s almost scared to believe it.
This is it, he thinks, his throat tight, like he’s being strangled. This is it, It can’t get any better than this, it can’t...
“I deem you worthy of my power,” All Might goes on. “My Quirk is yours to inherit.”
Izuku’s head snaps up, tears flying. His mind goes blank.
“What.”
“My Quirk,” All Might continues, like that makes any more sense. “If you’ll accept it, I’d like to make you my successor.”
“What.”
“My Quirk,” All Might says, for a third time. “It’s a power to pass on power, a power to carry hope and light through generations to come. The incarnation of power, one might say, cultivated from one user to the other. It’s called...”
At this, All Might pauses dramatically.
“...One For All. Cultivated from generation to generation. A light to pierce through the darkness. A hope when there is no other hope.”
Izuku blinks. “One...For All…?”
“Exactly!” All Might says, swinging an arm around to point at him. “And, if you’ll accept it...then this power is yours!”
Izuku blinks again.
He’s asking me…
...Asking me if I want his power. Asking me if I want what could possibly be the most powerful Quirk in the world.
I can be a hero. With this power--no, with his power…
Is it really possible?
Can I really…?
“I’d understand if you want more time to think about it,” All Might says, turning away briefly. “It’s a hard decision to make, I’m sure, but--”
“I’ll do it!”
All Might spins towards him again. “Well, that was quick. You sure, kiddo? You’ve thought it over?”
Izuku nods shakily. “If...I-If I can become a hero,” he says, “then, then I...I want to try! I want to be a hero more than anything else in the world, so...I-I’ll do it!”
All Might smiles. “In that case, my boy,” he says, “I look forward to working with you. Oh, hold on…”
He pauses, resting his chin in his hand for a moment.
“You mentioned having a Quirk,” he says, to which Izuku nods. “Well, would you mind sharing just what kind of Quirk that is?”
“Oh!” Izuku says; he wipes the remaining tear tracks off his face with his sleeves, then grins. “I can do this!”
He snaps his fingers, just to be dramatic, and his spirit leaves his body to crumple on the ground in a heap.
Izuku hadn’t thought it possible for a grown man to make such a shrill, high-pitched noise, but life is full of surprises.