Chapter Text
In a year or so, when people asked him why he began to walk the path that led him here, he would struggle to give them a concrete timeline. Midoriya Izuku didn’t exactly know when his world began to fall apart. Perhaps it started during the first day he had been diagnosed Quirkless. Maybe it was just hours later, when he begged his mother for some, no, any form of support and got an apology in return. In the end, even as a child, deep down he knew that the absence of a Quirk in a world full of superpowers was essentially the painting of a giant target on his back. That his dream was just that. A dream.
The next decade or so was hell. Maybe not quite hell, but it was his first taste of prolonged pain. Because in the eyes of society, Quirkless was as good as useless. Bakugou Katsuki, once his closest friend, branded him with the name “Deku”, as a reminder of how a single part of his genetic code deemed him lower than everyone else. And on that day the admiration for his powerful, heroic friend had been snuffed out by the same person he would have gladly laid down his life for. Perhaps in another world, they would have remained friends if he had developed a Quirk on that fateful day. Perhaps in another world, he would have been kinder. But not in this one. In this one, Kacchan became Katsuki, and then he finally became Bakugou the day he left a searing handprint on his back, an explosion tearing through his clothes and roasting a small handprint onto the flesh underneath. The entries, four whole pages of writing that had been penned down with excitement and care in his very first analysis journal had been torn out and set ablaze in the dead of night. He had watched quietly as the small bonfire removed the last positive connections he had to his first and only friend.
And for the first time in his life, he felt something akin to hatred.
He struggled, and stumbled, but never faltered, flinging himself in front of anyone who were unfortunate enough to draw the attention of Bakugou and the various bullies in the schools he attended over the years, serving as little more than a glorified meatshield. Even when the people he protected ran off without a word, even if they were sometimes part of the small crowd that whispered about his “defect” behind his back (or even in front of it, like being Quirkless meant that he was deaf). Even when the small, flashy yet not quite painful explosions started to burn and scar, even when he started having to figure out ways to dress wounds, hiding them under sleeves and makeshift bandages. He soldiered on, smiling as he did so. Because the day he stopped smiling in the face of those that tormented him was the day he finally let this world get to him. The day Midoriya Izuku finally became Deku.
Perhaps it was the day he ran into the Sludge Villain. The first time he met his idol in person, offered up his heart and what remained of his hopes and dreams to the man who scared away the darkness with a broad grin. The day he bared his soul to All Might, and watched with a cold, numb feeling in his chest as the Symbol of Peace ground his heart into the dirt before moving on as though he was doing him a favour. As the man left the rooftop, Bakugou’s words crossed his mind. He sat at the edge of that roof for a long time, contemplating whether it was truly worth it to continue fighting the label the world had chosen to place on him, his face devoid of the wobbly smile that had served as his last defiant shield against everyone else. Then came the sound of familiar explosions. And before he could second guess himself, the boy got to his feet.
He ran towards them, rather than away from them like he usually did. He watched with disbelief as his tormentor suffocated in the grasp of the same villain that had almost killed him, and looked around at the Heroes yelling about how their Quirks were not suited for this situation, stood idly by as a child suffocated. Almost as if your worth as a Hero was all up to what Quirk you had. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw All Might in his true form, looking on just as helplessly as the Heroes yelling at each other and the civilians recording the whole thing as Bakugou’s timer continued to run out. And that was the first moment something in him truly snapped. When he saw the Symbol of Peace, in all his glory, witness a child die before his very eyes and do nothing about it. One moment he was part of the faceless crowd, the next he was running forward, bag already in mid-flight as he lunged for the Sludge Villain, a wordless cry trapped in his chest. His first thought was that he needed to give Bakugou a chance to breathe. His next was that the villain’s eyeballs weren’t slime like the rest of his body.
His third was that an eyeball couldn’t exactly withstand the pressure his hand could apply.
In the end, his desperate actions only bought about seven seconds for Bakugou to breathe. But those seven seconds were all that he needed to tug his tormentor from the grasp of the villain screaming about his ruined eye, shuddering and convulsing. And before the man made of slime could envelop the two teenagers, finishing what he had started, All Might appeared like an angel sent from the heavens, changing the weather with a single punch and splattering the villain against a wall. He smiled and laughed, reassuring those watching that everything was alright. Midoriya barely spared him a glance, having seen his cowardice in action just a few minutes ago. The Heroes praised Bakugou for surviving so long, and fawned over his “hero-worthy” Quirk before telling Midoriya off about how reckless he had been. The disapproval only intensified when they realized he lacked a Quirk, and all the Heroes told him he should have left it to the pros. Those words caused whatever had snapped in him to splinter even as it tried to fix itself. He smiled, and judging from the way the adults who were so confident in their thoughts and opinions flinched in unison and stepped back, it was nothing like the confident grin he tried to maintain or the watery smile he fixed on his face after a particularly harsh beating. If he had been able to see himself at that point of time, he would have compared his own smile to broken glass.
“The pros? What pros? Do you mean the people that were standing by and watching a child die?”
He left the sputtering adults behind with that cheerful parting statement and grabbed his bag. Taking the usual route home, he absentmindedly wondered what lie he would have to tell his mother this time. A couple of minutes later, the sound of his usual tormentor made him stop and turn around.
“Deku!” With the snap crackle pop of explosions that once upon a time made him flinch from the pain that was to come, Bakugou stomped towards him, stopping a short distance away as though getting any closer physically pained him. Midoriya stayed silent, watching the blond carefully and already ready to run away.
“I had it under fucking control. I didn’t need a shitty Deku like you to step in! You got that?”
Midoriya wasn’t listening. He was just humouring his egoistic classmate, someone who was once a friend and the closest thing he had once had as a brother. So once his little tirade was done, the green-haired boy smiled in response. The fiery blond stepped back and the explosions in his hands faltered for just a fraction of a moment. He nods slowly, cold steel barred in his expression.
“All right then Bakugou,” he looked the boy dead in the eye, “next time I’ll leave you to die.”
He swung his bag over his shoulder, leaving Bakugou behind with the image of a smile that was sharper than the edge of a blade and words that would haunt him for weeks to come. Another few minutes later, he was stopped once more by a booming “I AM HERE” and All Might himself landing dramatically before coughing blood and deflating. He plasters a fake smile onto his face, acting like a fanboy meeting his idol (not anymore).
“I apologize, young Midoriya, for my words earlier. I was careless, and you were the one who had to solve the problems my mistake caused.”
“It’s alright All Might,” he lied as naturally as he breathed, “it was my actions that caused it in the first place, so I was just making amends.”
Even as Midoriya pretends that he hadn’t been affected by the hero’s callous actions, his mind hisses that if apologies could right all wrongs, this world would be a much kinder place.
The Symbol of Peace laughs, “Maybe so my boy, but you acted like a true hero out there! Why did you run forward? Why didn’t you leave it up to the Heroes?” He wonders briefly if answering with the truth will get him arrested, before settling for a generic answer that “would come from a hero”. Can’t tell the Number One Hero about the burning rage in his gut, about the way his pulse quickened and how he had nearly broken out in fits of laughter as blood and slime dripped from his hand.
“I don’t actually know. My legs just moved on my own.” Although the true reason why he had acted instead of watching was because he had realized that the heroes were useless without their Quirks. All Might’s smile broadens at the answer, and while it would have warmed his heart and allowed him to die happy just a day or two ago, the only thing it does is sharpen the broken pieces of whatever had snapped inside of him.
“All great Heroes have stories, and one thing stays the same in all those stories. At some point in their lives, when they were at their weakest, when all seemed lost...their legs moved on their own,” Midoriya nods, internally rolling his eyes, “I believe that you too, can be a Hero.”
A faint flicker of hope ignites even as he waits patiently for the ball to drop and gets rewarded with the secret of All Might’s Quirk. One for All. A legacy passed down through generations. Two things come to mind when he offers the position of successor to Midoriya. One, All Might was once Quirkless just like he was. Two, the man still thought that he couldn’t be a Hero without a Quirk. He nods and accepts the offer anyways, a wide smile on his face despite the ice pulsing through his veins. Despite the dark voice in his head pointing out that the man before him was out of time, and might even be beatable.
Within his heart, Midoriya rips the section that had held his awe and admiration for the Symbol of Peace and the Heroes of today out, crushing it just like All Might crushed the remnants of hope he had struggled to keep a hold of until today.
Nevertheless, Midoriya continues keeping up the facade of a bright-eyed idealist. After all, it wasn’t exactly a facade. Deep down, he still wanted to be a hero, and he still believed that heroes would save the day. That he could save everyone as long as he tried hard enough. He cleans up Dagobah Beach with his bare hands, not just because All Might told him to, but because he wants to start leaving his mark on the world. And what better way to do so than to erase this careless taint on nature?
One day, as he pulls on his gloves (Midoriya learned the hard way how fragile skin was), the boy walks down the stairs and notices a pink-haired girl digging through the pile of salvage that he had put to one side. She’s grinning, hands fluttering across items with the practiced ease of someone used to mechanics, and his eyes fall on the incomplete device next to her. He isn’t quite sure how long he stands there, watching the other teenager move around, vaguely resembling a hurricane. Thankfully, she doesn’t react as badly as he’s used to when other’s notice his presence. Setting a hammer aside, the girl bounces up to him.
“Hey Greenie! Are you the one that sorted out this lovely pile of materials?” Idly, he notes the cross-hairs in her eyeballs, stepping back slightly as she invades his personal space.
“And if I was?” Perks of shattering your worldview (and your soul) was that you could finally talk to someone else without stuttering. Unfortunately, whatever social anxiety he used to possess seemed to have been replaced by sarcasm.
She abruptly reaches out to clasp his hands in hers, and he clamps down on the instinctive urge to run. He didn’t quite think that he was going to get hurt. At least, he hoped so.
“Make babies with me!”
“Eh?”
Her name is Hatsume Mei. She smiles without a care in the world, mind racing so fast that he’s hardpressed to keep up. Only facing forward, ignoring failure and just creating more machines. A few weeks after their tentative friendship (she wanted the things he salvaged, he needed somewhere to dump them), he ponders the makeshift support item he’s turning over in his hands, head filled with the sound of clanging metal.
“Y’know Hatsume-san, your inventions are gonna be better than Heroes some day.” He mentions the stray thought to her as he lugs the shell of a car away from the beach and she finishes creating her latest prototype of a stun gun. It elicts a giggle from the pink-haired girl, and he feels his own lips curl into a smile.
“I’m being serious. You’ve got a bright future ahead of ya. At this rate, you’re gonna somehow invent space-travel twenty years in the future. In fact-”
Her smile becomes more genuine when he continues to talk about her ability to tinker and create, which ends up becoming a short, peaceful discussion about the practicality of certain items. They agree to go to UA together after he tells her about the purpose of his training.
“Zukkun, promise me that you’re gonna only use Hatsume™ support items once you make it big, yeah?”
“Ignoring the fact that you somehow said that out loud, why wouldn’t I? Do you think that I’d trust anyone other than the glorious Hatsume Mei with my safety?” Midoriya turns to give her a small, teasing smile.
He is unsure why she hugs him after he mentions that, but chalks it up to Hatsume being Hatsume. Any thoughts of how weird she was acting were banished from his mind soon after she turned the stun gun on him and told him to start running. He spends the rest of the day dodging projectiles that will send enough electricity through his system to paralyze him for about ten to twenty minutes, and develops an even healthier respect for his friend’s ability to turn scrap into something usable.
For the first time in a very long time, Midoriya Izuku is truly happy.
Maybe two or so months since the first day he had set foot on Dagobah Beach, Midoriya Izuku rolls out of bed and sleepily drags himself to the bathroom to freshen up. Looking at himself in the mirror, however, drags him from that comfortable place between dimensions to the waking world in an instance. Leaning in to get a better look, he runs a hand along the side of his face.
“Huh…” He backs off, pulling up his shirt in order to confirm his suspicions.
“Guess dragging around trash and running from Hatsume is training after all.”
As he showers, Midoriya considers the idea of learning some sort of martial art. Even with All Might’s mysterious, busted Quirk coming soon, he couldn’t just rely on overwhelming strength to win all battles. Plus, it didn’t sit well with him. What kind of hypocritical bastard would he be if he turned his back on all those years of pain and torment?
He settles on checking the internet as his next move.
Digging through the internet for about ten minutes told him all he needed to know. There was absolutely no way he was going to get into any sort of dojo as soon as his lack of a Quirk came into the light. His best bet would be to go through the same process he did with anything he wanted to learn. Read, practice and then learn from whatever mistakes he made along the way. With fighting, it might cost him a couple injuries, but what was his life without cuts and bruises? He sighed, closing the laptop and swinging his bag over his shoulder with the practiced ease of someone well-acquainted with running away and keeping his possessions alive at the same time.
There was no time like the present.
About three-quarters of the way through the ten month training period All Might has given him(and it was pretty saddening that he wasn’t surprised about how the Number One Hero only visited him to check on his progress once a month), Bakugou’s anger finally boils over and he leaves a new scar on Midoriya’s body, dangerously close to his spine. It takes everything he has to not fight back, and the wound stings throughout the rest of the day. It’s not the first time he does it, but hopefully it’ll be the last if both of them get into UA. Bakugou and his “Heroic” Quirk is, unfortunately, practically guaranteed a place in the school. Midoriya and his hard work will hopefully be enough to match raw talent and most of all, the Quirks of the other potential UA students. He continues cleaning up the beach despite his new injuries, but the occasional wince despite his depressingly high pain tolerance is enough for Hatsume to catch on.
She forces him to sit down, very nearly stripping him on the spot if not for the lucky fact that he’s faster than her and values his continued existence. Under threat of a stun gun or the next weapon she cobbles together, he reveals the truth, showing the scars that he has littered all over his body. It’s the significantly abridged version, but there’s certainly enough details for his talented friend to put together all the pieces. After his short spiel, Midoriya is prepared for anything she has to say about it.
What he isn’t prepared for is the eerie silence that follows.
“Hatsume-san?”
“...”
“...Hatsume-san?”
Despite the numbness that has encapsulated his being ever since that very first shattering of his heart, Midoriya felt his pulse accelerate from its usual steady beat to the rapid thumping of war drums as Hatsume’s blank expression twisted into a snarl.
“I’ll kill him.” He blanched as his friend got to her feet, and tackled her before she could get too far.
“Hatsume no!”
“Hatsume YES!”
He spends an hour convincing her that hunting down Bakugou and breaking his wrists and kneecaps was not the right thing to do, and then they have a rather enlightening conversation about bullying and the effects of it on the victims. She still looks disgruntled, but that’s at the very least a step down from the homicidal rage that he had been uncomfortably acquainted with over the course of the day.
“Just a little bit of maiming? He can survive without his motor functions.”
“Nope.”
She sighs, finally relenting. He’s given about three seconds of breathing time before she pins him to the spot with a stare. Midoriya flinches, but manages to push down the instinctive response to run. It’s…nice to have a friend, to have someone who cares. Even if she is really scary sometimes.
“Promise me that you won’t take his bullshit lying down. I can understand staying within the boundaries of the law. But you have to look out for yourself.” He opens his mouth. “And before you say anything self-sacrificial, I’ll hunt that bastard down the next time you get injured.” …He closes his mouth.
He promises her that the next time Bakugou tries to lay a hand on him, he will not take it without a single complaint. She gives him a phone number and an address. The first belonged to her while the latter belongs to her aunt, who apparently runs a self-defence club. She tells (read:threatens) him to attend classes there so that he can at least put up a fight because when Bakugou tries to attack him again in the future (she puts heavy emphasis on the word “when”), she wants him to be able to fight back without breaking his own bones in the process. He agrees, but on the condition that she’ll attend alongside him. Hatsume sighs, but agrees. She also tells him to call her Mei because “if two people are close enough to have a heart-to-heart conversation, they should refer to each other by their first names”. He points out with some exasperation that she had called him Izuku (or every variation under the sun) from the start. She smiles, one of the few genuine ones that she shares with him whenever he does something “sweet” and proceeds to force him to run around so that her new drone can gather data on how to subdue moving targets.
He’s really glad they’re friends.
Hatsume’s (Mei, he corrects himself, not for the first time) aunt is a boisterous woman who particularly enjoys putting him through hell while his friend sips a cold glass of water and eggs her on from the side. He accidentally wonders aloud if all Hatsumes were sadistic. The aunt and niece duo share a look before laughing. Despite his griping about the aches that had started dying down ever since he had gotten stronger returning, he continues training and enjoys the confidence that comes with knowing you’re prepared for a fight. The other students that he interacts with from time to time don’t know he’s Quirkless, which is probably why he’s been treated politely and with respect. Even still, it’s nice to be considered a perfectly normal human being from time to time.
He’s practicing on his own one day, while Mei’s aunt works with some of the regulars. Mei herself is off doing who-knows-what, but considering she was cackling in that voice message she left, he thinks it’s a wise decision to not try and pursue that line of thought any further. Midoriya finishes his latest set of kata when all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up at once. He whirls around, making eye contact with a boy/girl gazing at him passively. He puts some distance between the two of them, wary despite how unimpressive the teenager standing in front of him is. Especially cause of their eyes.
He’s learned, from years of people-watching and his own gradual changes that one’s eyes always reflected what lay beneath. Bakugou’s burned with fire and rage and the ego of one who stood on top of the world. Mei’s was kind, but vibrant, thrumming with the energy that seemed to constantly course through her veins. And his own were blank, artificial, filled with the thousands of lies he had taught himself to believe.
But never, ever, had he met someone with eyes so completely void of anything. It was like staring into an abyss. Slowly, ever so slightly, the mystery’s lips twitched upwards into a smile. His own tightened in response. Midoriya wasn’t exactly a fan of being laughed at.
“You’re different.” The words were quiet, but heavy with the same weight that anchored the fog in his bones.
“I don’t follow.” It wasn’t quite a denial, but close enough that he felt a flicker of shame. Nonetheless, he squared his shoulders, and looked the stranger dead in the eyes.
A pale hand extended a scrap of paper in his direction. He blinked, bemused by the sudden turn of events. Against his better judgement, Midoriya took the offering, turning it over to reveal a number. He smiled internally. In any other scenario, this would be almost humorous.
“You came here to learn how to defend yourself. But if you want to know how to hurt, and to do it well, come and find me.” Their piece said, the other teenager walked away without another word. Midoriya watched them leave, idly noting the way they seemed to glide across the dojo, unnoticed and unheard.
He stuffs the piece of paper into his pocket.
He continues to clean up the last remnants of trash at the beach, and while All Might (Yagi Toshinori in his true form) expresses his disapproval when he noticed the rate at which Midoriya was clearing Dagobah Beach, he is quickly taken apart by Mei’s rapid-fire comments about how proper rest was necessary for a growing teenager and he, as an adult should know that. The man splutters, but cannot come up with a proper comeback so he slinks away. A few days later, he returns when Mei isn’t around to comment about how “that girl” might be a bad influence on him.
He feels another piece of himself quietly snap and states with the most innocent smile that he can muster (not that he would ever know, but to All Might it looked like a snarl) that the Number One Hero stooping as low as to talk about a teenager behind their back “wasn’t heroic at all”. He ignores the apologies and continues lugging the fridge he found tucked away in the midst of a pile of trash. Soon enough, the only thing left is a rusty car. He borrows a plasma cutter from Mei and cuts it apart after allowing her to dismantle the engine and whatever parts she wanted. They bask in the brief period of joy that came with ten months of effort finally paying off, enjoying the sight of the sun rising and marking the beginning of a new day. Eventually, she runs off to finish her preparations for the UA Entrance Examination and soon afterwards, All Might arrives to praise his hard work. He smiles and slips on the mask of a hero fanboy. In his head, he wonders if the old fart was waiting for Mei to leave before he approached.
It comes as a surprise to him when he gives him a strand of his hair to eat, but Midoriya shrugs and forces it down with a healthy amount of water. He asks about how to use One for All and gets the second worst piece of advice he has ever heard in his life (the first being Bakugou’s swan dive idea) in return. Midoriya tries his best not to act bitter about it, and thanks the hero for giving him a chance to prove himself. He spends the rest of the day making sure Mei doesn’t blow herself up before the examination and searching within himself for any traces of the power All Might has passed on to him. Unsurprisingly, he ends up coming up empty. He gets about three hours of sleep that night, plagued by the usual nightmares.
The next day, Midoriya forces down what little food his shrunken stomach can handle and allows his mother to fuss over him before he takes his leave. Their relationship hasn’t exactly been the best since the day the knowledge that she didn’t believe in him because of his lack of a Quirk finally clicked into place in his head and he never really tried to fix it. Not to mention how everything else had fallen apart after that. Mei was the first person to truly believe in him despite his Quirkless nature. All things considered, she was also his first true friend. He stands outside the gate of UA for a few minutes, waiting patiently for Mei to show up and sidesteps Bakugou before he can shoulder-check him into the ground. He catches a girl before she could fall and nods politely when she thanks him cheerfully and introduces herself as Uraraka Ochako. Before he can do the same, Mei appears like a demented, pink-haired phantom and drags him through the gates. He snickers slightly, waving goodbye to the befuddled teenager. Used to her antics and abnormal arm strength, he allows himself to be dragged.
Thankfully, she releases her grasp on him when their paths diverge. They stand there for a few moments as Mei shuffles slightly, a stark contrast to the confident individual he had grown used to. It’s odd enough that he briefly struggles to break the silence, before Mei hesitantly reaches out, pausing so that he has the opportunity to shy away from the physical contact. He extends his own hand, answering the silent question with a smile. A whisper of a grin forms on her face before she gently intertwines their fingers. A flare of heat makes itself known, and he prays to non-existent gods that his embarrassment isn’t being broadcasted to everyone in the general vicinity.
“Either we both make it into UA, or neither of us do, got it?”
His head snaps up, heart freezing in his chest. “What? No! You can’t just throw away your future for me! You’re practically guaranteed a spot in the Support Course, you can’t just ditch it for…for this!” He gestures to himself with his free hand, more than a little frustrated. In response, her grip tightens slightly.
“I’m dead serious. Getting into UA doesn’t matter if you’re not there.”
He grits his teeth, but is completely unable to help the affection burning wildly in his chest. Internally, he swears that he’ll pass this exam or die trying. The two trade tiny smiles before untangling their hands and bidding farewell. As Midoriya walks away, he takes several deep breaths, before slipping back into the almost comforting numbness of apathy and hatred.
The written examination is simple enough, although he has to stop himself from putting the answers he truly believes into certain questions and instead fills in the blanks with the “correct” responses. Present Mic is the one to introduce the physical portion of the test, explaining the points system. A boy who resembles a robot points out the fourth type of robot on the pamphlets they have gotten, and for some inane reason, he accuses UA of incompetency. Midoriya almost snorts at the expression on the hero’s face as he answers the question, choosing to spend time more productively and figure out why exactly there would be a robot worth zero points. He concludes that there must be a secret scoring system, and coupled with the statistics he has gotten from previous years, he deduces that there must be points given for “heroic” actions during the examination. Good for him, bad for the other candidates. While he may be at a disadvantage in the power department, he can definitely rack up points by getting other examinees out of trouble. In all honesty, he was going to do it anyway because what good was a hero that didn’t save people? He ignores the way Bakugou growls beside him and starts planning, the gears in his mind whirring along at a steady pace.
He stretches as the air itself seems to thrum in anticipation for the carnage ahead. Thankfully, Bakugou was assigned to a different region entirely, so he won’t have to put up with a deranged teenager who was more than likely to drop a robot on his head. Soon enough, Present Mic screams to announce the beginning of the examination, he darts forward and heads further into the fake city as the examinees around him start to stop and take out robots. It leaves him with a decent number of robots to fight, and he racks up about thirty points before his hands are bloody and sore from tearing at metal plating and ripping out wires. Taking a page from Mei’s book, he dissasembles the arm of a fallen One Pointer and manages to rig up a makeshift gun. He gets himself another twenty points while occasionally taking his attention away from the robots to save other examinees from falling robots and handing his gun to a purple-haired boy who looks more desperate with each second.
“Maybe try acting like a hero rather than causing property destruction, yeah?”
After the not-so-subtle hint about rescue points, Midoriya takes off once more, leaving a puzzled teenage boy in his wake. In an alleyway, he comes face to face with another purple-haired teenager, practically drooling as he advances on a girl pinned to a wall by...balls? Not questioning it after all the things Mei had put him through, he kicks the boy. He bounces back, a cry of protest dying abruptly as he bears witness to the dagger-like smile that greets him.
“Release her and fuck off before I turn you into a meat pretzel.” He slams the iron bar he had been using against a wall with a satisfying crack, expression twisting briefly into something far more demented, a hint of the monster lurking beneath rising to the surface before it returns to its cage.
The short pervert trembles and cries before doing as he said. Not stopping to hear whatever the girl has to say (a quick glance alerts him to the fact that this is not a fellow test taker, but Pro-Hero Midnight in an excellent disguise) before he takes off, he tugs another examinee out of the way of a falling robot and feels something akin to pride at how the insomniac(probably) from earlier is laying waste to robots while saving people. The ground rumbles, and the Zero Pointer is released. He sees everyone immediately hightail it in the opposite direction, and wonders if this is the future of heroics. He weighs the pros and cons of using the last few minutes to try and deactivate the boss robot just as a cry for help reaches his ears. He sees several other examinees stiffen at the sound before continuing to run. Making eye contact with the purple-haired boy he had aided earlier, he hopes that at least one more person will make the right choice.
Shinsou Hitoshi runs away, and he will regret it every time he sees Uraraka Ochako after that fateful day. Midoriya Izuku may smile and laugh and treat him like a human being despite his villainous Quirk, but he will see the judgment in his eyes every time he interacts with the boy, the same cold look of disappointment that will haunt him in the weeks to come as he remembers how he runs away like the other examinees, leaving a single boy to run towards the danger after looking to him for assistance and finding none.
Midoriya Izuku feels something snap in him for the third time and absentmindedly notes that it might be his faith in humanity. Or his sanity. Why not both? He chuckles even as he wrenches a length of rebar from a shattered piece of concrete and sprints for the person trapped under rubble and notices that it was the girl from the UA gates (Uraraka?). Midoriya uses the magical power of leverage to raise the rubble long enough for her to escape. Unfortunately, but unsuprisingly, her ankle is twisted and the Zero Pointer is almost upon them. He searches his brain for a plan and comes up empty.
“Quirk?”
“Not really the time, but anything I touch with five fingers becomes weightless.”
He begins to move them away, before his mind makes the calculations that there was no way they were gonna be anywhere close to safe before the robot crushes them like grapes. Apologizing, he forces the girl’s hand onto his arm and abruptly feels himself floating. Ignoring how absurd yet cool it was, he tells the girl to hold the Quirk as long as she can before leaping into the air. Sighing as he decides to take All Might’s advice, he rears back a fist and shudders as a surge of energy burns him from the inside out. Throwing it forward and catching a glimpse of the golden tendrils encircling his arm, he yells a battle cry and makes contact with the Zero Pointer.
The massive robot crumples and something inside it explodes, which creates a chain reaction of fiery beauty as his arm turns purple and limp. He numbly realizes that the bones in it have been pulverized before he latches on to the falling robot and lands (relatively) safely. The familiar effects of gravity return and he sees Uraraka throw up. Midoriya feels a single pang of guilt before he falls onto his back and tries not to scream as Present Mic announces the end of the test. Recovery Girl soon appears to chastise him for pushing himself too far and he tries his best not to stumble and fall as all the stamina he has is used up fixing his broken arm. He makes a mental note to ask Mei for ways to not turn his bones into pulp as he walks out amongst the whispers of people who recognize him as the person who destroyed the Zero Pointer.
Purple hair comes up to him, but whatever insincere apology he was going to say dies on his lips as Midoriya brushes past him with another of his grins that are apparently terrifying to everyone but Mei. Speaking of Mei, he sees the pink-haired inventor hovering outside the gates of UA almost anxiously, if he didn’t know that Mei didn’t get anxious. She somehow senses him, and turns around with one of her usual smiles, but it flickers and winks out when she sees his state of fatigue. Not asking any questions, she offers an arm for support and they walk back to his house. His mother is absent, working as usual, so no one answers the greeting he calls out. He points Mei towards the coffee and they sit on the couch, drinking their respective beverages(he picked hot chocolate) and listens to her rattle on about how interesting her day had been and how she hadn’t even blown up a single thing(although this is said like it was a failure).
When she falls silent, he picks up the pace by explaining what he had done, what he had seen, and the Quirk that he had just manifested. Then he hesitates. In the end, he huffs a breath of bitter laughter. Why not tell someone else about the clusterfuck that was his life?
“Can you keep a secret?”
She scoffs. “Is that even a question?” Midoriya smiles wanely.
He begins to tell her about One for All and the failure of heroes. He finishes his tale in about twenty minutes. She stares at him, and her face alternates between boiling rage and a deep sadness. He waits for her to absorb the knowledge he had just dumped on her, drinking the last of his hot chocolate. As he rises and takes her empty cup to wash as well, he thinks that he hears a muffled sob from the usually bright and peppy girl. Midoriya doesn’t know what to think when he is greeted with a rib-shattering hug when he walks back into the living room, but chooses to pat Mei on the back.
“What’s the matter?”
The look she gives him isn’t exactly pity, but more of horror mixed with despair. They stay like that for a while, and he asks aloud if this was what it was like to have friends.
Mei sobs, a sound that is both heart wrenching and unnatural as she tightens her grip on him, like she was afraid he would disappear if she let go. He thinks, not for the first time, that something was wrong with him.
The next week passes just like the previous weeks have. Boring and uneventful. With Dagobah Beach fully cleaned, there is no reason for him and Mei to go there anymore. And yet they still do. He’ll train and Mei will fiddle with the contraption of the day. After a few days of the beach being clean, people have already begun to use it for their activities, ignoring the fact that it was because of them in the first place that the beach was so tainted in the first place. Not many notice the boy doing pushups in the sand and the girl whacking a smoking device with a hammer. Although some still do. One mentions how nice it is to see that young love still exists. The simultaneous deadpan stares sent his way were enough to cause the man to chuckle nervously and edge away. Another, an old woman asks if they know who cleaned up the beach, and they pretend that she isn’t talking to the duo responsible for the removal of all the trash on this now pristine place. She seems to still sense that they are hiding something from her, because she smiles kindly in the way only wise old men and women can smile and leaves with a parting word of gratitude. It’s nice to see that your efforts actually mean something to the people you did it for.
After a few hours, Izuku and Mei will part ways after lunch and he will spend his afternoon studying and carrying on with his hero analysis. Although now, he just calls it analysis. Sometimes he goes to Aunt Hatsume’s dojo (he still feels uncomfortable trying to refer to a grown woman by her first name) and makes sure his skills are never dull. Once or twice, when he’s at his lowest, he calls the stranger. They never do give him a name, but no matter when he rings ‘em up, they’re always available, and he slowly becomes acquainted with blood and unnecessary violence. He’s not sure whether he should continue visiting them, but just like any other bad habit, he just can’t drop it. And Midoriya is learning something. He’s just not sure if he’s learning the things he should.
Mom tries to get him to go to therapy one day. He smiles and asks her what she thinks is wrong with her son. When no answer comes, he leaves to meet up with Mei. For someone he met almost a year ago, it was almost funny that he couldn’t imagine life without her anymore. It was actually more pathetic and sad than funny, but those thoughts are carefully locked in a box and dumped into a bottomless pit in his head.
They stay at the beach after dark one day to lie down and stargaze. It’s one of the only places nearby that wasn’t so polluted with light sources that the stars were drowned out. The silence was comfortable, and occasionally they would converse about anything and everything. He asks once if she thought there was anything wrong with him. She reaches out to punch him in the shoulder before standing up and twirling. He watches, almost hypnotised by her actions and she gestures to the surroundings.
“It doesn’t matter what people think of you. Look around you, Zukkun. You made this possible. A beach, completely smothered by trash, by the uncaring masses. And you were the one to change that.”
She smiles, and pulls him to his feet, twirling them around and around until he breaks into laughter. Mei traps him in another hug, and he leans into the touch, choosing to push the fact that he was touch-starved to the back of his mind. He whispers a thank you to her and she responds in typical Mei fashion by reminding him he was only allowed to use her support items. As per usual, he agrees almost immediately.
When the letter from UA finally comes in the mail, he takes a trip to the beach that had become more of a home to him than his cold and empty house, sitting on top of the small cliff overlooking the sea and dangling his feet over the edge. Mei arrives a few minutes later with her own letter and they open hers first. Unsurprisingly, she passes with flying colours, and Power Loader welcomes her to the school with a warm grin, but they both hear him mutter about how she had set a desk on fire and hoped it wouldn’t set the baseline for the rest of the year. They both snicker in response. Despite holding his future in his hands, Izuku can’t find it in himself to care. He gets a disc identical to the one his friend had gotten, and All Might materializes. Mei’s eyes narrow almost immediately, and he reminds her that murder wasn’t justified. After a long speech that they both tuned out, the final judgement was clear. He had passed, no, he had succeeded. Sixty-eight villain points and eighty rescue points, giving him the highest score in recorded history. His friend cheers softly, before looking at him. Her face melts back into the familiar expression he labelled “soft Mei” and he realizes that the water dripping onto the disc were his tears. He cries for the first time in a long time, and despite the tears, he still feels empty. Cold. Mei holds his hand, and he feels a tiny flicker of warmth. He wonders if he has ever told her how much he loved and appreciated her. When she squeaks but wraps him in another embrace, he makes a mental note to remove his habit of speaking aloud.
They’re going to UA.
He ponders how different the people in his future school will be as compared to the mixture of bullies and bystanders that middle school was filled with. He considers what he would do if the future generation of heroes are as narrow-minded as All Might in their views on the Quirkless.
He decides that it will probably break what was left of his heart.
But for some reason, he doesn’t care anymore.
He wonders when he stopped caring about what the world thought of him.
He thinks it’s probably the day All Might takes his heart and rips it into two.