Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku starts with the universe opening up in his eyes, entirely his to unfold. There was so much to map out, so much to appreciate, so much to learn. But with such eagerness came inevitable disappointment – there would be a point where you could explore no longer, where parts of the world’s mysteries could not be revealed to you. For most of the people on the planet, they were able to explore just fine in this confined space, using their will and power to wander further – but some were crippled by the hand of fate before they could even begin, crawling forward on their hands and knees and blindly bumping into corners, praying for miracles to unlock pathways for them.
Midoriya Izuku was not lucky enough to be “most people”.
From a young age, Izuku loved the concept of quirks. Quirks shaped the person you were, helped you decide what you wanted to do. He loved that his mother could draw objects to her, and although he had never seen it, he thought it was amazing that his father could breathe fire, like a dragon in one of his stories. He would excitedly huff and puff, waiting for smoke to come billowing out of his mouth, or open his fist, hoping to yank something towards him. Theories upon theories filled his head about what he could end up with, what he could do, but –
For every thought that he came up with, it never crossed his mind that he could end up with nothing.
***
Years ago, when they were four years old, Kacchan got his quirk. It was amazing. He ended up with the most powerful combination of his parents’ quirks possible, and it was perfect for his aspiration to be a hero. Izuku knew that one day, Kacchan could rival All Might in terms of his power. All Might was an amazing hero miles and miles away, but Kacchan was right here in front of him, and Izuku was in awe every time he managed to use his quirk in a new and creative way.
“Show me again! Show me again!” he said excitedly, watching as Bakugou Katsuki sparked up his palm and slowly let out a long, sustained blast in a single direction instead of his usual quick bursts of explosions. “That’s amazing, Kacchan!”
“Of course it is, Deku,” Kacchan said, sneering. “Did you expect anything less from me?”
“Of course not! You come up with something new every day, I already know you’re going to be great!”
“I am great, even now,” Kacchan sniffed, holding his head up high. “Unlike you. You need to hurry up and get your quirk, or else you’ll be a useless Deku forever. How do you expect to catch up to me and All Might if you can’t even do anything yet?”
Izuku smiled at him nervously. “I’m sure I’ll get mine any day now! We’re only four – there’s still plenty of time left for me!”
“You’d better hope so,” he said, scoffing, “but I’m sure whatever it is, it won’t be as good as mine!”
“Don’t worry about me, Kacchan! I’ll be a great hero with you, no matter what it is!”
“I wasn’t worried!” Kacchan shouted back angrily.
Thinking back on that encounter, Izuku smiled. Today, he’d probably find out for sure, and then he could finally join Kacchan on his journey to be a pro hero! Most kids discovered their quirks between the ages of four to six, so everyone in their class had already received theirs – except for Izuku. Today, Izuku and his mother were going to the quirk specialist to find out for sure – Izuku couldn’t wait around any longer, he wanted to join Kacchan immediately.
The ride to the office was long, with Izuku impatiently stomping his feet in the car. The second Inko had stopped the car, Izuku was already unbuckling his seat-belt and half out the door, tugging his mother’s door just a moment later.
“Wait, Izu-kun, wait a second,” Inko said, laughing. “I have to grab my purse!”
After Inko gathered all the identification and health documents she needed, they headed into the building, where the secretary directed them to the doctor’s office. For over an hour, they waited while the doctor performed various tests and left the room to look over the results.
At long last, he returned, holding a set of papers in his hands and his facial expression slightly grim. Inko frowned.
“Is something wrong, Doctor?” she asked anxiously. The doctor hesitated.
“Not necessarily,” he said slowly, “but I’m not sure if it will be seen that way by everyone.”
“What do you mean?” Inko questioned. The doctor sighed.
“Let’s take a look at this x-ray.” He pulled out a sheet from the stack. “As you can see, your son has a double joint in the pinky toe of his foot – this is a vestigial feature that humans have stopped developing and is now uncommon in society. Very strange for a child of fourth-generation quirk users. Today, this is an indicator of quirklessness – the extra joint means that the body has not evolved, or adapted, to this environment, like everyone else’s.”
There was a brief pause, in which both Inko and Izuku were quiet. Izuku was trying to catch his mother’s gaze, so she could reassure him that the doctor wasn’t saying what he thought he was saying, but Inko couldn’t look Izuku in the eyes just yet. She swallowed and looked back at the doctor.
“So, what you’re saying is…” she began, not finishing what she had concluded – perhaps in the hopes that the doctor would laugh and correct her before she could suggest such a thing in front of Izuku, who would no doubt be crushed.
He sighed again.
“I’m sorry, Midoriya-san… your son is quirkless.”
***
In the time of centuries’ past, quirks were nonexistent in society. But a few hundred years ago, quirks began to pop up – they were theorized to be advanced evolutionary traits in a changing world, allowing humans to adapt better to their surroundings. Like all other distinguishing human features, quirks did not suddenly manifest in the entire population. It took eons for humans to evolve into what they currently were, to lose the tails and excess hair and hunched primate stature. As it was, the rate of quirk appearance had already been exponentially fast – in about two hundred years, most of the population on Earth had quirks.
But not everyone.
It was so easy, to get caught up in the excitement of quirk culture. Theoretically speaking, it was likely that everyone would have quirks in another hundred years or so, with the exception of randomized birth defects. But the existence of quirks themselves would lend to a new sort of unspoken class system – it was undeniable that some quirks were entirely over-powered, while others were as prosaic and forgettable as commonplace weeds in the grass.
From the moment Izuku had found out he was quirkless, he knew it was the end of something. A social death sentence, a metaphorical place in the electric chair. Coming home that day, his eyes were wide and his hands were shaking. He was trembling in place while his mother cast troubled, sad looks at him the entire ride home. His face felt too hot and his stomach sunk. His heartbeat was erratic, alternating between too-slow pauses between beats, and frenzied, rapid pattering. The streetlights and neon signs – even the setting sun itself – were too bright and saturated, utterly lurid and blinding; the voices on the radio, his mother’s anxious words – those amounted to nothing but muddled background sounds.
By the time they arrived home, Izuku meandered aimlessly to his room, as though in a trance, while his mother followed him worriedly. Like he was on autopilot, he turned on his computer and waited for it to load. The upbeat tune of the start-up system was out-of-place, incongruous, with the sounds of uneven breathing from Izuku and Inko’s frantic requests for him to speak to her. In a few minutes, Izuku brought up a bookmarked video, one that he’d watched a million times – maybe more – and never failed to instill him with joy and pride and hope.
Watching it now, he didn’t feel any of those things. He didn’t feel very much at all. His mind was still numb from shock, and his hands still hadn’t stopped trembling. The echoes of All Might’s laugh in his debut, his familiar catchphrase ringing out in a wasteland of screaming and crying, turning it into hope and relief – it seemed so much further away. Izuku could see his face reflecting back at him on the screen, as though he was the one there in those citizens’ time of need.
But his face wasn’t smiling, or brave, like All Might’s. Suddenly, it seemed unbearably fragile and weak and he couldn’t bear to see it on the same screen as All Might’s unrelenting glory. His throat closed up and he made a few choking sounds – the first noises since arriving back from the quirk specialist’s office.
“Izuku? Izuku, please,” Inko pleaded, hands cupping his face and smoothing back his unruly hair, “I need to know, are you okay?”
Still trembling, Izuku plastered a fake smile on his face, the first pinpricks of tears stinging his eyes.
“Mom,” he started, his voice shaky. “Mom, I can still be a hero like All Might, right?”
“Izuku, I’m so sorry!” Inko cried, throwing her arms around his shoulders and crying with him. Izuku’s face remained unchanged as hot tears silently slid down his cheeks and his trembling hands refused to curl around his mother’s neck. The terrifyingly artificial smile remained pasted on his face, juxtaposed with tear tracks – a perfect depiction of a depressed clown, probably with an equal chance of being anything successful in the future.
They remained in that position long into the night, until Izuku had calmed down a little. Until his sharp disbelief and denial transformed into pangs of dull sorrow and longing for something to change.
Izuku knew things would be different from then on, but he could never have predicted by how much.
***
“Quirkless?” Kacchan asked, astonished, as if he had never even heard of such a thing. Maybe he hadn’t. It sounded so ridiculous, especially when they were in the midst of countless other children giggling away, using their unique quirks around the playground. “So what you’re telling me is that you really are a useless Deku?”
Izuku sighed and looked at the ground.
“I guess so,” he mumbled. Kacchan continued to stare at him.
“Damn,” he said, apparently still in shock. He seemed to process this for a moment further, before scowling and shifting uncomfortably, looking away. “I knew you would never be on my level, but now this just proves it. I had no idea someone could be so weak.”
Izuku’s head shot back up, lips trembling.
“I’m not so weak, Kacchan! I’m just,” Izuku paused, struggling to find the words, “the same as before.”
“Exactly,” Kacchan said, sneering. “You’re weak.”
Apparently done with the conversation, Kacchan turned away and stalked off into the distance. Some of their classmates’ heads perked up and they eagerly got up to follow him. For a second, he looked confused at the excess attention and his hands began to spark up, but he didn’t say anything to actively dissuade them from following him. And when a few of them gushed about his power, none of them even glancing to where he left Izuku in the dust, his lips almost lifted up slightly. This – this is where Kacchan ended, and Bakugou began.
***
Change doesn’t happen overnight, not for anyone. Not for Izuku, who was confused and upset about his recent diagnosis, but still had a burning desire to be a hero that was constantly strangled by his newfound feeling of worthlessness. And not for Bakugou, who was equally confused and upset about Izuku’s diagnosis, but even more confused and upset at the kids who began to crowd him eagerly, annoyingly –
Until he wasn’t.
Kacchan had always been loud and aggressive, convinced of his own strength and ability to be the best even before he got his quirk. When his quirk had finally made itself known, it merely supplemented Kacchan’s innate greatness. And when his classmates – his classmates with weaker quirks – gushed over his power, listening to him raptly and following him around, it was confirmed. And the greatest ones – they had no time to waste on the weakest.
“Bakugou! Show us the biggest blast you can make!” one classmate, a boy with retractable gnarled talons, shouted.
Bakugou smirked and let out a huge explosion in the sky. The blast range was enormous. All of the kids either gasped in awe, or looked away in fright. Soon, more requests and demands came flooding in by classmates eager to pander to Bakugou, cementing their spots of power at the top of the classroom. Izuku watched from the distance, in wonder as well as envy – not just for his quirk, but also for the spot next to Kacchan that other kids were filling up instead of him.
But interspersed in the growing distance between them, there were… moments.
Sometimes, Bakugou seemed to grow tired of the praise, proud smirks turning into scowls. He seemed to like it most of the time, but too much attention tended to be exhausting and aggravating after a while. Izuku had already asked Kacchan to show him what he could do, a thousand times over, and this bland repetition couldn’t keep Bakugou going forever.
“Deku!” Kacchan yelled out, marching towards Izuku and leaving the other kids behind. “Are you just going to keep staring like a loser, or are you actually going to say something?”
“I wasn’t aware you wanted me to say something, Kacchan,” Izuku said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Eh? What does that mean, moron? You don’t think my power’s that great?”
“Of course I do,” Izuku backtracked quickly, raising his hands in supplication, “I just meant that I’ve seen this all before!”
“So I’m not inventive enough with my own quirk? You think you could do better, quirkless loser?” Kacchan screeched, palms sparking up in rage.
“No!” Izuku exclaimed, shaking his head frantically. “You’re amazing! Of course I know that already, we’ve experimented with your quirk so many times!”
Seeming to calm down, Kacchan grunted in response, looking away from Izuku.
“But,” Izuku said, a bit hesitant as he pulled out a worn notebook and Kacchan whipped his head back up to glare, “I have some more ideas for you? For example, have you tried shooting out explosions through your feet? You could self-propel upwards that way and engage flight! Or maybe you could see how powerful your explosions are when you just shoot them out of a single fingertip? That could be a great idea for conserving your energy and you wouldn’t use up so much of your sweat reservoir, if they’re still effective! And – ”
“Shut up, damn nerd!”
“S-Sorry, Kacchan, I just got excited,” Izuku mumbled.
“Hmph,” Kacchan grumbled. “Well, maybe I should try out one of your shitty ideas. I guess they can’t be entirely useless.”
Izuku brightened.
These moments, they were almost painful. Izuku would eagerly wait for them to happen, only to feel crushing disappointment when they didn’t, and anguish when Kacchan would ignore him the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, until it came to a day when he didn’t. And then the cycle started all over again.
Morning shouting matches on the way to school, afternoons spent watching All Might TV specials, evenings used to experiment with Kacchan’s quirk – they happened all the time, until it only happened a few times a week, until it only happened once in a while, until it only happened when Mitsuki invited the Midoriyas over, until it… just stopped. Kacchan seemed eager to become a passing memory while Izuku was trying desperately to hang on for the ride, only to have Kacchan push his hand off.
Friendship wasn’t something that could shatter upon touch. Lingering fondness and old memories kept it patched together, but days of blatant indifference and words filled with underlying insults kept cracking it until it could no longer hold itself together.
***
Quirklessness was a plague that killed everything it touched, Izuku decided. The first time Izuku heard the word, it caused the death of a dream. And when the word was repeated, it set in place the death of a friendship. And when the word was announced to the world, it brought about the death of any kind of social standing or self-confidence he could have. It was just… ridiculous. Why… why did he deserve to feel this way? Why was he the one made to suffer? Did he do something?
Izuku didn’t like to whine about his plight, not when there were people out there suffering much worse than he was, people out there who were starving or beaten or homeless or depressed – but was it so wrong that he was overcome with hopelessness from time to time? He was seven years old, now, almost eight, and his entire world seemed to be going nowhere but downhill ever since he found out the truth about himself. Sometimes it was hard to hold the tears back. Being a hero, it meant so much to him, and to have that and everything else taken away was killing him, like a slow-acting poison.
But it had been quite a while since his diagnosis, and while he was still upset, Izuku was coming to terms with himself. His mother certainly helped, telling him every day how much she loved him and how he was just as brave and amazing as before. Sometimes he even thought he could still be a hero, but he didn’t dare mention this to his mom, not just yet, and definitely not to Kacchan, his classmates, or his teacher. But sometimes, in brief pockets of time, he remembered. He remembered what it was like to be filled with enthusiasm and passion for a dream. He remembered his determination, even before he knew what his quirk could be, and how he was convinced that he would be as great as All Might, he would do it no matter what. He both admired and pitied his past self, but mostly he was envious of his old blissful ignorance and the happiness of early days. But with these brief upswings of his mood, he would scour the daily news on TV and new articles on the Internet, excited at the heroes with seemingly underwhelming non-offensive type quirks that managed to save people. And he would think, maybe – just maybe, if they could do it, then he could do it too.
Maybe that’s what spurred him on, that day. Maybe he made the mistake of being in a good mood for once – in front of Kacchan, at that. Maybe he should have kept his head down and his mouth shut and dealt with all that painful apathy by keeping his ideals to himself. But then – he was never able to keep his nose out of other people’s business, was he?
“What, you really thought you could face me?” Izuku heard Kacchan jeer, as he exited out the front of the school doors. He squinted into the courtyard, but couldn’t see much of what was going on, just faint explosions and laughter. Izuku frowned. Assuming it was just Kacchan messing around with his new friends, he made to turn in the opposite direction and walk home. But then –
“N-no! Stop! Please, stop!” someone cried.
Izuku froze in his tracks. He spun around, and narrowing his eyes, he made out someone on the ground, their hands raised above their head while Kacchan leaned over them, hands sparking up as usual. His stomach turned. Kacchan looked… scary, like always, but there was no way he could leave that boy on the ground, scared and practically imploring someone to help. Taking a deep breath, Izuku stepped in Kacchan’s direction – slowly, at first, but then hurrying, as fast as he could, when he heard the boy plead with Kacchan again.
Jogging up to the scene, Kacchan and a few of the kids who hung off his every word were snickering, too caught up in the brown-haired boy’s fright to notice Izuku at first.
“If you think you can beat me, why don’t you get up and prove it?” Kacchan taunted, leaning back.
The boy was shaking, but he sat up, putting his hands in front of him on the ground.
“I don’t think I can beat you! I was just saying you didn’t need to be so rude all the time! You’re lucky to have a quirk like that, but it doesn’t mean you’re better than me!” the boy said firmly, although he looked absolutely terrified. Clearly, it was for good reason, because if Kacchan was angry before, he looked furious now.
“I’m not better than you? Then, what – you think you’re better than me? You? Don’t make me laugh,” Kacchan growled, looking anything but amused.
At this point, Izuku had had enough. Kacchan’s followers were just hanging back in the distance, glad it wasn’t them Kacchan was angry at, and other students or pedestrians on the streets seemed to walk away, uncaring, or perhaps assuming it was a childish fight. They might be content to walk away while this kid needed help, but Izuku would feel sick if he just left the boy here, at Kacchan’s mercy – or lack thereof, more aptly.
Clearing his throat and taking a deep breath, he stepped forward, finally catching Kacchan’s attention.
“Th-that’s not what he meant, and you know it, Kacchan!” Izuku shouted, voice tremulous and hands formed into loose fists. He stood in front of the boy on the ground.
“Deku,” Kacchan sneered, “stay out of this. This doesn’t concern you. I thought you knew your place.”
“What place, Kacchan? It doesn’t matter who I am. I know that this is wrong!”
Kacchan blinked slowly, once, and then twice. His features spread out into a menacing, maniacal grin.
“Are you challenging me, then? Seriously, Deku? I mean, I already thought fucking Takahashi was pathetic – he can only bend metal into different shapes, like some kind of overrated toy-maker, but at least he can do something.”
“I am doing something, right now, aren’t I?” Izuku asked quietly. “I thought you wanted to be a hero, like All Might. All Might would never do something like this, so how do you expect to be like him, then?”
Maybe it was a mistake to say that – because Kacchan went straight from mildly amused to enraged, again.
“I don’t expect to be like All Might,” Kacchan said. “I expect to be better.”
“You’ll never be better if you act like this!” Izuku shouted. “Heroes are supposed to help people, not hurt them! Even I’m doing a better job at that than you are right now!”
For a moment, everything was silent. Izuku was breathing pretty heavily, but a sinking in his gut told him that there was no way Kacchan would take that one lying down. Izuku’s eyes were dropped to the ground for a second, and when he looked back up, all he registered was rage, and then a boom, and then redorangeyellow, and then he was on the ground, face and hands stinging with pain and his eyes watering. He looked up, almost disbelieving, but if he expected to see any kind of remorse, he would be sorely disappointed. For a moment, he thought he saw a flash of something in Kacchan’s eyes, but he decided it was just wishful thinking when Kacchan threw another explosion at Izuku’s feet for good measure. Izuku flinched.
“Listen here, Deku,” Kacchan hissed. “I’m going to be the best hero. Your pathetic, quirkless ass could never do better than me. Because you can never even be a hero in the first place. You’ll always be useless, no matter what.”
On those friendly parting words, Kacchan left Izuku behind, sitting there, shuddering, with scuffed knees and mild burns and a wet face. His ‘friends’ followed closely – a few glanced back, evidently a bit uncomfortable with what just happened, but ultimately they, too, turned their backs on him. Izuku wasn’t sure how long he sat there in silence, but eventually the sound of someone clearing their throat brought him back.
Izuku’s head jerked backwards as the brown-haired boy that Kacchan was tormenting – Takahashi – squinted his eyes at him.
“Why did you do that?” Takahashi asked. Izuku just stared at him, so Takahashi frowned and asked again.
“Did you not hear me? I asked why you did that. Everyone else was just walking by, and...” Takahashi sighed, “... and I wouldn’t have blamed you if you did, too. Bakugou’s pretty menacing.”
“I know,” Izuku said softly. “I know Kacchan better than anyone. That’s why I couldn’t just walk by.”
Takahashi shifted for a second - before nodding, accepting Izuku’s explanation. He got up off the ground to brush the dirt off his pants. He offered Izuku a hand, and for a moment, Izuku just stared again at Takahashi’s gesture of kindness, wondering if it would spark up too.
He quickly shook his head free of the thought, his green curls bobbing erratically in the wind, and smiled weakly, accepting the hand. When he got to his feet, Izuku hesitated, wondering if he should say something more. He thought about what Kacchan was saying before and decided Takahashi needed to hear something else.
“About Kacchan,” Izuku began, as Takahashi looked over at him curiously, “he was wrong. He is wrong, I mean. You have a great quirk.”
Takahashi scoffed. “No need to lie to make me feel better. I’ve already literally been kicked to the ground. Nothing could make me feel much worse.”
“No, no, I really mean it,” Izuku said, shaking his head rapidly, “bending metal may seem useless on a small scale, but getting metal to bend correctly is really important in industrial applications, like automotive engineering, creation of electronic parts, and construction. Most machines involve the use of metal in some way. Your quirk could be really useful when careful metalworking is required, and also save a lot of time and money for companies. Have you ever tried to see how big of a piece you can bend, or how far you can bend it? Or tried to bend really small pieces into intricate shapes? That would be especially useful for computer chips and – ”
“Alright, alright, I get the point,” Takahashi interrupted. Feeling sheepish, Izuku made to apologize for rambling - but Takahashi started speaking again before he could. “I suppose I never thought of it that way, with people only ever asking me to fix their broken toys, or trash like that... but maybe you’re right.”
Izuku smiled. “Of course! All quirks are useful in some way."
“What does that make you, then?” Takahashi asked, lips twisting humourlessly. “You don’t have a quirk, do you? That’s what Bakugou said.”
Izuku froze.
“W-Well, no, but I’d like to think I can still be useful in some ways. People can always make a difference, if they really want to.”
“Maybe so,” Takahashi said, looking at Izuku appraisingly. “Anyways, thanks – I’ll keep that in mind, about my quirk.”
“No problem! Actually, I could stay a little longer and think about more ideas for your quirk - I mean, if you wanted some more help!” Izuku said, smiling again. Takahashi hummed, suddenly looking mildly sorrowful.
“I – ah, I don’t think that’s the best idea, sorry,” he muttered, looking at Izuku with what was beginning to be a very familiar look – pity. Any hope that was bubbling up in Izuku’s chest froze, retreating back to the lonely recesses of his mind.
“Listen – Deku, was it?” Takahashi asked, paying no mind to Izuku’s flinch at that name. “I appreciate your help and all that, but clearly, Bakugou has it out for you. It’s not that I agree with that brute, at all, but I’ve learned my lesson and I’d like to steer clear of him. And it just doesn’t seem like I can do that with you around. It’s not like I could defend us, and you definitely can’t, so – I’m really sorry. Hopefully you guys will be able to work that out.”
Takahashi himself sounded doubtful of that last part, but looked firm on everything else he was saying.
It’s good that he's sure of at least one part, even if it was the part of him that didn’t want to spend time with me, Izuku thought humourlessly.
The amiable mood that was growing was suddenly stunted, resolutely crushed down into dust by the same hand that crushed Izuku in a different way, just moments ago – albeit indirectly, this time. Or maybe it wasn’t Bakugou’s fault, actually – what was it that Takahashi said? That Izuku definitely couldn’t defend them? Right, it always had to come down to that – his own quirklessness, the chokehold that he could never truly escape. But it was okay. Izuku understood. He always understood.
With the awkwardness blooming, Takahashi looked uncomfortably at the sidewalk, as if he desperately wanted to reach it so he could walk away from this train wreck. “Well, I have to leave now, my mother will be wondering where I am... so I’ll see you around, I guess.”
With that, Takahashi waved and turned around, walking away. Izuku stared at the place where he waved. The palm didn’t spark up. It didn’t spark up when Takahashi offered his hand to Izuku on the ground, either. He almost wished it had, that first time. At least then he would have been wary. He wouldn’t have gotten his hopes up for that one second, only to have them crushed again in the same conversation. Izuku should have really known better by now.
***
When he got home, Izuku mindlessly scrolled through the daily hero news and videos, as he usually did. His mind was still on the fight, but despite the fact that his self-worth took an overall beating, it was… strange. He didn’t feel as bad as he thought he would.
It didn’t really click with him until he was halfway through watching an old All Might interview.
“– doesn’t really matter,” All Might was saying sagely. “Saving people is the job. It may sound thoughtless, but how they feel about it is irrelevant. People may not be grateful to heroes for all manner of reasons – maybe it’s their hurt pride at needing to be rescued, maybe they’re angry because you didn’t save someone else instead, maybe it’s something else – but at the end of the day, their life is the most important thing. As a hero, you must know that, and not always expect kindness. But you should always be kind anyway. That is your duty.”
Izuku’s eyebrows furrowed, and he replayed that part again. Again. Over and over again. That – that was something. Something that stirred the old urge from inside him. Because Takahashi didn’t have to be kind to Izuku in return. At the end of the day, even though things didn’t go exactly as Izuku would have wanted, didn’t he still do the thing that mattered? Takahashi was in danger and needed rescuing. Izuku stepped in, and once he did, Takahashi was safe. And once the danger was gone, Takahashi was grateful.
It was so simple. Maybe it had always been this simple, and Izuku had been too caught up in his own self-pity and despair to even realize it. Being a hero… it was something he always wanted to do, because he wanted to save people. He wanted to make people feel safe, like All Might did.
But today, he didn’t need a quirk to make someone feel safe. All he needed was a few words and some courage.
***
For a while, that was enough. After the incident with Takahashi, it was easier for Izuku to bear the mild burns and the permanent ash smell that seemed to trail after him. After all, it meant Kacchan was fixated on him rather than anyone else. In his head, Izuku would admit to himself that this wasn’t the healthiest approach to take, either, but he knew how to handle it. Kacchan didn’t really mean to hurt people, Izuku knew – he was just cementing his place at the top. He wanted to be the best and tended to take other people’s opinions the wrong way, twisting them into personal threats against him. But never once did he waver in his ultimate goal. Izuku could respect that, and admired his dedication to victory. He knew Kacchan was wrong to hurt others, but he also knew it was wrong to write him off completely as a lost cause. After all, someone who wanted to be a hero that badly, someone who used to spend every waking hour obsessing over All Might with Izuku, someone who ranted on how easily they would defeat villains with their power – they couldn’t be a bad person, not really. Just a product of society’s unspoken class system.
So when Kacchan ran ahead of him with his new friends, always leaving Izuku struggling behind him with the picture of his back firmly implanted in his head, it was okay.
When he heard loud snickering as he struggled to complete the same physical fitness tests that the other boys cheated on with their quirks, it was okay.
When Kacchan grew less reserved with his craze for power and tested his newest quirk applications on Izuku whenever Izuku tried to stand up for the other kids in the class, it was okay.
And when Kacchan bragged that he wasn’t afraid of jumping into the river, only to fall in while Izuku reached out desperately to make sure he was alright – when Kacchan grew furious in ways he didn’t see too often – when Kacchan let loose his biggest explosion yet on Izuku, causing him to fall back in the river, both freezing and burning – well, that? That was okay, too.
Even if Kacchan had some kind of warped misinterpretation of what was really happening, Izuku would always see Kacchan as his old friend and try to help him, even if he didn’t feel the same. Wasn’t that what All Might wanted, too?
Times grew tougher, but Izuku’s resolve to be a hero grew stronger. He couldn’t just stand by and let things happen – helping people was what he did, what he always wanted to do, and learning that he had a setback should never have stopped him. Real heroes… they never gave up, no matter what. So he would never give up, either.
That day with Takahashi showed him that sometimes bravery was all that was needed.
It wouldn’t always be enough, Izuku knew. He couldn’t stagnate like this. He had to be better, be stronger. Because something had to change – either him, or Kacchan, or the world. The world was a big challenge to tackle at age eight, so he decided to put that one on hold for now. Kacchan? Well, changing that one would be about as tough as the world. In the end, the one thing Izuku knew for certainty he could change was himself.
Perhaps it wouldn’t make anything different. Perhaps Kacchan would still be the same inveterate fire starter, screeching that all of Izuku’s attempts to be stronger were useless if he was born a weakling. Perhaps the world would still look at him and see a helpless child trying to play hero in a world where he needed to be coddled. But there was one thing Izuku knew for sure: while it was true that changing himself might do absolutely nothing, staying the same would definitely result in failure. And as long as there was a chance, then there was really only one thing left for him to choose.
So, with bright pink, stinging arms dripping in ice-cold water, eight-year-old Izuku marched through the front door of his home. He stopped in front of his mother, who was reading a book on the couch.
Inko dropped the book in shock, immediately demanding to know what happened to him, but Izuku halted her in her tracks by speaking over her.
“Mom,” Izuku said. “I want to learn martial arts. Self-defence. Maybe aikido or taekwondo.”
Inko stopped her babbling, looking over her Izuku again. His arms were covered in mild burns and he was dripping wet. But that wasn’t all. For months – no – for at least a year, he had been coming home hunched over and unhappy. He even came home with a couple of bruises a few times, and while Izuku always insisted that he had tripped or had done something equally as clumsy, refusing to say anything more about it... he got the feeling that Mom knew. How long had she gone by pretending not to see the visible bruises that were there, for his sake?
Not this time. And by the look on her face, it seemed that she agreed.
“I – yes. Yes, that sounds just fine to me,” she said, softly but firmly.
“Not just self-defence though,” Izuku said. “At least one more, too. Something more offense-based, like judo or Krav Maga.”
Inko frowned. “I’m sure I understand why you want to learn self-defence, Izuku... but why something more? Something like those?”
It would never make sense to her – for better or for worse, Izuku had never thought to hurt people, no matter what they did to him. Izuku took a deep breath and looked his mother in the eyes, so she could understand how serious he was.
“Because I want to – no, sorry,” Izuku said, pausing for a second to steady himself. “Because I’m going to be a hero.”