Chapter Text
How does it feel, living in a world of superpowers? How does it feel, being one of the weak?
How does it feel, being powerless?
Well… Izuku Midoriya grew up under these conditions, he is a 14-year-old, powerless boy, or rather known as quirkless.
Quirk is a name used for the superpower, they are unique to each person, with 80% of people possessing them, and 20% don’t, 70% of the ones who are quirkless are elderly with only 30% of them being children and teens.
Well, Izuku was one of them, he lives with his mom, a woman in her 30s, short and chubby with long green straight hair. She is kind and caring, sometimes too caring….
Izuku isn’t just a normal teen however….
He is the future of the world of quirks, a vigilante without a quirk.
Izuku was sitting on his bedroom floor, carving a wooden mask. He has always liked carving wood, ever since his mom has started teaching him how.
He spent majority of his time practicing how to carve. The mask he was carving was an oval shape, the eyeholes were big enough that Izuku could see through them, he was gluing some kind of fish net material over the hole so his eyes are not visible, but he still could see.
Carving it was easy, painting it was a bit more compilated. Izuku had gray and white paint, though he knew the design he was going to paint on it, the brushes he owned weren’t big, they were small and it was late for him to perches a bigger one.
The painting process took 2 hours, what do you expect when you have a bunch of small brushes and have to coat something more then once in the same color. The mask was white, with the part underneath the mouth area being gray.
Izuku took out a black hoodie he got a couple of years ago from aunty Mitsuki, it was too big then, now it fits quiet well.
Firstly, he cut the hood in the middle, making space for a zipper, then he took some dark red fabric and cut it to line the inside of the hoodie.
After Izuku cut all the materials he needed, he took out the sowing kit and started sowing, having been bullied by Katsuki for many years, he had to learn how to sow. He firstly sewed the zipper in place a normal black zipper.
Afterwards he unzipped the hoodie and laid it flat on the ground, taking the red fabric and laying it on top, he measured the size and sewed the lining inside, cutting off the excess of the fabric. The hoodie was almost done, it just needed pockets and it is ready to go.
Izuku had a smaller hoodie from when he was 9, he could no longer wear it so he cut off some pieces of the fabric, it was a dark green color, he sewed the same red fabric on the inside and finally sewed them onto the hoodie itself.
He owned a pair of dark gray sweatpants so he prepared them for the next night, sewing a bunch of pockets to contain lighters, matches, zip ties and a pen and sticky notes, as well as a white muscle t-shirt. He was planning to grab a pair of gloves for it, but they would just make the job harder.
And finally, a black mask that covered his shoulder neck and lower face to hide it if the wooden mask gets destroyed, which were most likely to happen if he encounters a villain with a fire quirk, though he did make sure everything was fireproof, the wood is kind of hard to keep intact.
Izuku has been practicing martial arts for 3 years now, he asked his mother because he wanted to learn how to defend himself, though he quit a few months ago do to the money. He has been practicing parkour in local parks and skate parks for the past year.
After he laid everything out on the bedroom floor, he took out a small box from his wardrobe and set everything inside it, afterwards he set the box back into the wardrobe and threw away all the trash that piled up.
It was 3 AM and he had to go to bed if he wanted to have at least a bit of rest, though he had trouble sleeping didn’t mean he didn’t need it.
And so Izuku laid in his bed, his eyes closed and let the sleep take over
Izuku woke up at 7 Am, he got into his comfortable clothes, eating breakfast and turning on his PC, for the past 3 months, Izuku had been doing online classes, 3 months ago he was pushed down the stairs of his middle school, he broke 3 separate bones in his lower left arm and the pinky finger on the same hand.
3 Months ago
His mother didn’t like how he was being treated so she signed him up for online classes. Half a month ago the cast was taken off. Usually, Izuku would have carved some characters from wood during that time, but because of the broken arm he couldn’t.
Because of that, he took up an old hobby of his, analyzing. It has been good 2 years since he analyzed any hero, due to a lot of work, but now that he had time, he was ready to go back to it, in more detail than ever.
In the past, the notes were minimal, not detailing whatsoever, the notes were bare and ugly to look at. So, he did what he does best, he remade them.
Izuku had an old journal he never used; it was bare black with yellowed pages on the inside.
Izuku took the notebook and cut out some washy tape in shapes of letters to form the title ‘Hero Analysis NO. 1’ he was recreating them so why not start from the beginning.
Though the first page was on All Might, Izuku didn’t like the hero that much anymore, instead of the first page being about him, he made it about his new favorite hero… Hawks.
Izuku got introduced to hawks a few years back, though then he thought he was a show off, he found to like him over time.
He started writing the date in the left corner of the page January 11th 2###, it was the last month of school in second year of Junior high when it happened.
Izuku started off by writing hawks on top of the page, making the title in big block letters, afterwards adding a smaller title ‘Information’, Izuku had been doing a lot of research, yet he couldn’t find much, he wrote it like this;
Real Name: Unknown
Age: 22-23 (Not sure)
Quirk: Fierce wings
Height: Around 170 cm
Hero name: Hawks
Fighting stile: Ranged + support combat
Later adding another wall with the title ‘Explanation’:
Hawks is a mysterious hero, he never revealed his name, age or any personal information to be precise.
Hawks’s Quirk grants him a pair of large, bright red, feathery wings on his back. These wings allow him to fly, and he can telekinetically control the movement and nature of each individual feather with ease, enabling him to harden them into a blade-like state and/or shoot them as projectiles, as well as control their speed and trajectory. The quirk also lets him have enhanced sight, to be able to see enemy’s in a huge crowd in the sky.
Hawks is fairly intelligent, he often relays on strategy and tries to keep to minimal damage as possible.
At around the age of 18 he was placed in the spot of top 10 heroes in Japan, now standing at number 3 behind Endeavor and All Might.
After the information was filled out, which filled in at least 2 and a half pages, he drew a detailed drawing of the hero on the 4th page, it was a decent drawing of the hero standing in his hero costume, he marked out every peace of equipment and wrote some information on it.
And lastly on the 3rd page that the half was left empty, he wrote small changes that could help the hero, for example the cloak the hero wears should have a feature to retrieve if fighting against a villain with a large weapon that could drag him, and a retrievable mask to cover his mouth when flying so he can talk without bugs getting in his mouth.
Though it took him only an hour to do all this, he used some washy tape to decorate the borders, to make it prettier and less empty, also adding a small paper pocket to hold printed out pictures of the hero.
This continued on for the next 6 hours, 7 hero analysis done in the time being.
He chose to make analysis on; Hawks, Endeavor, All Might, Eraserhead, Present Mic, Mrs. Joke and finally Power Loader.
The present
That was 3 months ago, now he has over 11 and a half notebooks filled with hero analysis and 2 notebooks with villain analysis.
Anyways, Izuku opened his classes and started doing the works, even though he could basically finish collage in a year or so, he keeps his studies on a regular pace, not really wanting to be questioned by his mother about it.
Most intelligent people are like principal Nezu of U.A, they were born with an inelegancy so it would be hard to believe that a quirkless ‘freak’ is that intelligent.
His study pace was as of any other student his age, though he could do it way faster if he wanted to.
And so, the day passed and it was 11 PM, Izuku got up and took out the cardboard box out of his wardrobe, taking out all the costume parts and laying them down on his bed.
His mom was already asleep by 10, but he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t wake, even though he had sound proof walls.
You see, before they moved into the apartment complex, there was a person who used to have a music quirk who lived in the apartment they were in, they would play the drums the guitar and piano at ungodly hours of the day, so the complex sound proofed the room.
So, when Izuku and his mother moved in when he was 1 and a half, the room he ended up getting was sound proof.
Izuku put on his costume, firstly a black mask that covers his shoulders, neck and lower face, then a white muscle shirt, then the modified black zip up hoodie, then the sweatpants his black combat boots and finally the wooden mask.
But before he left, he tied his hair into a bun, though it might seem useless, it actually keeps the hair inside the hood so it doesn’t poke out, so there is less chance of finding out who he was.
Izuku left through the window, climbing up the fire escape ladder onto the roof of the complex.
He took off his wooden mask and took deep breaths to clear his mind, later putting his mask back on and running across the roofs.
The night was young so he didn’t stop more than 3 robbery’s, he was running across the roofs again when he heard a yell of a women, it sounded terrifying in Izuku’s opinion, he ran towards the scream to see, 3 guys cornering a woman in her late 20s.
One was totally going crazy, swinging his hands around and trying to attack the woman, while another guy holds him back with his quirk, which seems to be some kind of telekinesis.
Izuku jumped on top of the guy who was being held back and struck the pressure point on the persons neck, but it didn’t work, he tried again, but still didn’t work.
Izuku jumped off the person to analyze them, but before he could get far enough the third villain injected something into him, it hurt a bit, but it didn’t do anything, the villain looked shocked though, like he had killed someone or something.
The guy being held back looked like he was being tiered out, or rather his quirk was losing its power, it definitely had to do with strength.
Izuku attacked once more the pressure point, this time the villain collapsed and was knocked out, then he did a backflip to avoid any damage on his body and hit the pressure point of the villain with the telekinesis quirk, and lastly knocked out the ‘leader’ though it took a bit longer, because he had a knife.
He zip tied the villains together to a lamp post and left a sticky note saying the crimes, the woman in the alleyway got up and walked up to him.
The woman said “Thank you” just above a whisper, Izuku nodded in acknowledgement
“What is your name”
Izuku thought for a moment, before writing something on a sticky note and gave it to the woman, it read ‘My name is Zex. Please call the police to pick up the villains and let them question you’, when the woman looked back up, he was gone.
Tsukauchi Naomasa was sitting in his office filling in some paperwork when one of his coworkers entered the room with no knocking.
“Detective, a group of 3 villains attacked a woman in an alley, by the words of the women she was sawed by a man who goes by the name of ‘Zex’ “
Tsukauchi was confused, there were no new heroes he was aware of, none of the hero’s schools will not graduate in the next year, so there’s no way it is a hero, or at least not if they are similar to hawks, but it doesn’t make sense.
“Has there been any new heroes on the scene I should be aware of?” Naomasa asked
“No, the last hero batch was added 2 months ago, there were none afterwards, especially no one by the name of Zex” the woman answered.
“Thank you for informing me, I will go see what happened, are the villains still in the alley or?”
“They are in the room for questioning right now sir”
Naomasa nodded and got up, slowly walking out the door and making his way to the questioning room.
Naomasa opened the door and entered closing it behind him and sitting down on the opposite side of the villains
“Hello, I am detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, I will be questioning you” Naomasa said with a straight face.
“Please cooperate with us to make the job easier", one of the 3 villains seemed shake up, he didn’t know why, but he knew it had to do with the event
“Now, what happened”
All of the villains seemed skeptical, but one of them decided to speak, he sighed a really shaky breath before doing so.
“We were trying to mug a woman, when a small figure jumped on big guy over here trying to knock him out with pressure points, it didn’t work so they jumped backwards.”
The villain took a deep breath “The big guy besides me was injected with that new drug we bought; I believe it’s called trigger?”
Naomasa stiffened for a bit.
“Then I walked behind the figure, who was really short by the way, and injected the drug into him”
The villain shook himself and took another deep shaky breath.
“The figure only flinched, but didn’t have any reaction to the drug, they didn’t start going crazy or even seemed in pain”
The villain looked down
“How did he knock you out?” Naomasa asked
“He jumped on big guy when the drug started wearing off, later doing a backflip and knocking out Arata over there, and lastly me, though I did have a weapon on me so it took a bit longer for him to knock me out”
The villain took another breath
“I don’t remember anything afterwards, just waking up here”
Naomasa nodded “Do you know, who the supplier of the drug is, by any chance”
“No, we bought it from a cloaked man or woman, I don’t know, they never talked just gave us the drug and we payed them”
“Do you have any description of the person who knocked you out?”
“I only saw a mask which seemed to be wooden and a black zip up hoodie lined with red on the inside, though he did wear a white muscle shirt underneath, I don’t remember anything else”
“Thank you for your cooperation, my quirk is called ‘lie detector’, it allows me to tell if a person is telling a lie or truth, you have been hones through the entire questioning”
Naomasa got up and did a small bow before exiting the room
“Detective, how did the questioning go?” The woman from before spoke
“They were honest, though I will need to question the woman who got attacked on some details”
The women nodded and lead him to the victim.
“Excuse me Mrs. Suki Takahashi”
“Yes?” the woman asked.
“I am Tsukauchi Naomasa, I am here to ask some questions regarding the incident”
The woman nodded
“What did the person that saved you do after he knocked out the people who attacked you?”
“Well, they firstly took out 4 zip ties out of one of their pockets on their sweatpants, and tied the villains up to the lamppost, sticking a sticky note on one of the villain’s forehead, I walked up to them and thanked them and asked for their name, they seemed to hesitate a bit before writing on their sticky note and giving it to me.”
“Do you recall on how the person looked like, or their voice?”
“They had a black zip up hoodie with green pockets, it seemed to be lined with dark red on the inside, they wore a white muscle shirt, dark gray sweatpants that had a lot of pockets on them, I think they have the sticky notes and pens in the pockets? He also had black boots, not sure which kind though, also something black that covered their shoulder and neck, on top of that a wooden looking mask which was white with the lower jaw being light gray, I couldn’t see their eyes though.”
“What about their voice, had they made any noise to clarify their gender?”
The woman looked in thought for a moment “No, I don’t think so, but due to their stance and fighting I would say they were a male with a couple of years of experience in fighting”
“May I know why you think that?”
“My son has been taking martial arts classes for 4 years now, it had stumped his growth quite a bit, the person seemed oddly flat chested except the muscles shown on their shirt, if it weren’t for the fact, they had fighting experience I would say they were a young teen”
“May I know why are you so sure on your theory Mrs.?”
“I have worked at a gym for a couple of years before I became a doctor, I saw a lot of kids and adults stop growing drastically after starting to train, some kids would come to the hospital I work at and ask me questions on why they hadn’t grown much”
The women looked a bit in thought
“There was this one kid who got his arm broken 3 months ago, his cast was taken off half a month ago. He used to do a lot of martial arts, though when he broke his arm he stopped going, and 2 and a half months later he was at least 7cm taller. The growth gets stumped because the muscles start taking over the body, so when they build up a lot of muscle their bones don’t have enough space to grow”
The women finished her explanation
“The guy seemed to be around 170cm tall, pretty tall, but depending on his age it could wary”
Naomasa looked at the woman for a moment before nodding
“Thank you for your cooperation, you are free to leave”
The women stood up and bowed before leaving the station.
‘What was that?’ Izuku thought when he went to his room, he still felt the needle in his neck, but there was nothing there. He carefully entered to his room, took off his costume and went to the bathroom to look at the spot the needle was inserted in.
Izuku closed and locked the door before looking in the mirror, the spot the needle was inserted to was red, the blood was still there and the hole was not closing.
He took out the med kit his mom keeps in case of situations like this, he took out the rubbing alcohol and bandages to cover it until the hole sealed fully. It took him around 10 minutes to cover it, but he did feel a bit better, the alcohol did sting a bit, but it soon felt numb.
Izuku put on his pajamas and went to bed at 4:23 AM.
Naomasa was in his office, calling a friend of his
“Eraserhead on the phone, how can I help you” A tiered voice sounded on the other line
“Hello Eraser, this is Tsukauchi Naomasa, a new vigilante has been seen. This one is a bit more interesting”
“How so?”
“He didn’t react to trigger”
The other line went silent….
That night 6 villains in total were taken to custody under the name Zex.