Chapter Text
Izuku was immensely glad for the opportunity All Might gave him. Frankly, that was understating it. He was overjoyed. But he had always been a brain over brawn type of kid, and constant physical training had left his mind downright starving.
He knew he had zero time to waste - the entrance exams were on the horizon, and he couldn't let All Might down. On a side note, he also did not particularly wish to explode due to being an unsuitable vessel. So he remained unwaveringly focused until one fateful day something caught his eye among the trash of the Dagobah Beach.
Remnants of a notebook, showcasing a page of full-blown quirk analysis.
His fingers itched to take it.
They do say that one man's trash is another man's treasure.
***
Quirk: Peephole
At the expense of becoming blind to what you can see without this particular quirk, you can see through most solid materials.
Takes a second to call upon, works until you blink.
Downsides: The more materials mixed into the mass, the greater the strain on the eyes. Cannot see through living beings.
Possible applications: espionage (in combination with a hearing enhancement quirk).
In combination with an eye strengthening quirk, the strain on the eyes is inconsequential.
The page was so worn and fragile it took Izuku twice the usual time to read as it had been exposed to the mercy of the Dagobah Beach for far too long. What really caught his eye, though, was the string of words on the bottom of the page. They were written in red capital letters and looked as if someone applied way too much force to the paper in a fit of fury. The words were clearly added sometime after the rest - the colour had not yet faded as much.
DOWNSIDE: USELESS WITHOUT EYES.
Izuku… didn't know what to think. So this person, or the person who had the quirk, lost their eyes? The mention of quirk combinations also had him lost. Unless the analyst was referring to teaming up people with different quirks, the analysis simply didn't make any sense. Was it possible to have more quirks than one? If All Might's quirk, a quirk you could pass on, existed, then it was not even that much of a stretch. He would have to look into it.
He flicked through the notebook, seeing many more entries on quirks. Had it belonged to a quirk analyst or maybe a counsellor? Soon guilt overflowed his senses. The notebook was private property, even though left in the trash. He wanted to be a hero. Heroes didn't steal.
Unable to cast it aside just yet, he stored the notebook in a pile of trash left for tomorrow. One last regretful glance towards his discovery, and on he went, dragging yet another fridge off the beach.
Just as he was preparing to leave, the wind caused the worn-out notebook's pages to flutter and open on the last page. There, in a miniature script, it said:
Midoriya Hisashi
Quirk: Dragon Breath
It seemed to have been written with more care than the Peephole entry, comprising a full two pages.
An entry on Izuku's father, who was supposedly in America and he hadn't seen since shortly after he was declared quirkless.
There was another difference to the previous entry. Next to Hisashi's name, there was a string of seemingly random numbers. Like a code. It was too long to be a phone number, so maybe a password?
Izuku's fingers itched to reach for the notebook again, this time with more force.
It was his father.
The father he longed for to call him, to tell him that he still loved him, even if he didn't have a quirk. Maybe he would love him now that he had one.
Sometimes he just wanted to forget about him and finally move on, but the wound was still there. And so Izuku picked up the notebook, pushed aside the guilt in favour of mending (cracking open) the burning void in his chest and went straight home.
***
Midoriya Hisashi
Quirk: Dragon Breath
Izuku almost didn't dare to read it. It felt forbidden. Like he was opening a Pandora's box that would leave him aching for more and more, more than a battered journal could give.
When he was little, he loved to hypothesise about his future quirk. He thought he'd get pyrokinesis - it was a logical conclusion, given his parents' quirks.
His fascination with fire quirks stopped when he was about eight and finally got it through his head that his father was gone for good. Not that he hated fire quirks - he secretly still longed for one. If asked, though, he would say that he would prefer to manifest a simple telekinesis quirk, like his mother.
He cast another look at the page.
Midoriya Hisashi
Quirk: Dragon Breath
The words nagged at Izuku's mind, and finally, he gave in.
Comes with the hardening of the mouth, the skin inside turns into scales - the scales are retractable.
The flame is not very potent. Useful for lighting up cigarettes.
Can only hurt another person if you puff fire into them from up close.
Useful for party tricks.
The rest of the entry was composed entirely of instructions for various party tricks, much to Izuku's bewilderment.
It was a bit embarrassing, to be honest. Did his father walk around trying to do these?
A couple came with the note 'to amuse children'. That stung. Izuku had a few memories of Hisashi trying to cheer him up with little feats that greatly resembled those described on these pages, but the memory left him achingly numb.
All in all, it was as if the analyst considered the quirk pretty much useless in other areas, the clownery being its only real purpose. That rubbed Izuku the wrong way. When you're quirkless, you learn to appreciate every quirk.
With a trembling hand, he copied the entry into his own notebook, word by word. He thought he deserved to have at least that.
It felt a bit like Hisashi's legacy, left for Izuku.
Adding his own thoughts to the analysis, his fingers traced the string of numbers by Hisashi's name. Did they mean anything?
He skimmed through the journal in an attempt to find out who it belonged to, but the cover and the front page seemed to have been ripped off, and the rest didn't offer any obvious clue. Flipping through the pages, he discovered that most of the entries were dated, confirming his suspicion that the notebook was not exactly brand new. Most entries went back to around twelve years ago, give or take a year.
Unsatisfied with the results, he moved on to his next query: was it possible to have multiple quirks?
A quick Google search didn't reveal anything he didn't already know. In rare cases, quirks seemed to appear as multiple on the surface, but it was usually a result of a quirk dual in nature. Having more than two quirks was unheard of, and even then experts disputed those claims. What is more, possessing multiple quirks was considered too strenuous for the body, very possibly quite deadly. The human brain was not made to operate more than one quirk - but there was no real research to back up such claims.
The results appeared weirder and weirder by the Google page, until he, miles deep into the internet, stumbled upon a shady looking forum that talked of a villain that could take and give quirks. His first instinct was 'impossible', but if One For All existed, why couldn't there be a quirk that could steal quirks?
The implications of such a quirk existing were mind-boggling, especially in the hands of a villain. They could make someone quirkless. Izuku wouldn't wish that on anybody.
He tried to find out more about this Symbol of Evil when he heard his mother calling him to dinner. He only now became aware of how much time had passed.
Not quite ready to put away the journal yet, he balled his fists and pushed back the tears threatening to overflow. Hisashi was a bit of a taboo at home, and Izuku wasn't a very good liar. He didn't want to have to explain why he was crying - he felt bad enough for lying about the nature of his quirk already.
Just before he left the room, he made a split-second decision to copy the mysterious numbers into his notebook as well. Tied to quirks or not, this was something he was too curious about to let go of.
It wasn't like anyone would know he took the thing from the beach. It looked like it had been abandoned quite some time ago already. Maybe there were other notebooks like this one there?
At this rate, how was he going to focus on cleaning the beach in time? Izuku paled. No curiosity was worth disappointing All Might. But maybe... maybe he could squeeze in a minute or two to find more of this analyst's notes.