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Izuku always wanted to be a hero.
The first blow to his dream came when he was discovered to be quirkless.
The second blow fell a year later… The hammer crushing his dreams as his fangs pierced Kacchan’s neck and the omega slumped into him like a sack of rocks. Izuku sat frozen with blood in his mouth, his bully powerless is his hands and weak to his commands.
👊
Izuku was trying to save Kacchan that day. A threat had its eyes locked on Katsuki and Izuku had done what his instincts had told him to do. He’d tried to protect his friend. His claim saved Kacchan from the villain.
It didn’t save him from Izuku.
There was no way he was going to become a hero now, not with his bite scarred into the skin of an unwilling omega. He knew this with the poor marks his teachers gave him and the way his classmates shrunk away from him. The whispers, the anger, the fear -- the ripped and exploded notebooks that had him, and not Kacchan, sent to the principal. He knew this up until he helped All Might save Kacchan from a monster of sewage and slime and All Might told him his uncontrollable need to save was the mark of a hero.
A new path opened up before him: heroism.
He wasn’t a villain.
👊
At UA’s entrance entrance exam, with his new quirk buzzing in his veins, Izuku went to smash the zero point robot. He clenched his buttcheaks, launched himself at the giant monstrosity and yelled “SMASH!”
He jumped almost a meter into the air, which was a lot for a middleschooler, but not a lot for the successor to All Might. Giant black tendrils shot out of his body like a primordial, land-bound kracken had appeared within the school grounds with Izuku as its medium, and Izuku went white with horror and exhaustion.
The quirk pulled the Zero-Pointer off its feet and away from the student it would have crushed, then slithered back into the body of the boy.
👊
Toshinori hadn’t expected that.
He supposed child had a quirk after all, and One For All had strengthened it.
The teachers around him wondered why Izuku had waited until the last moment to use his quirk. Toshinori couldn’t help but smile. This boy was going to be amazing.
👊
Izuku woke up, stared at the sky, and thanked UA that he wasn’t dead.
“Oh, you’re awake! He’s awake!!” called the alpha girl that he’d been trying to save from certain death. Izuku reflected that he wouldn’t live long if all the blood in his body filled his cheeks with embarrassment. He’d probably explode.
He felt like he was going to explode.
“That was a really cool thing you did with your quirk! It’s so powerful! What’s it called?”
“I…” said Izuku.
“Oh sorry, that’s rude, um. Don’t worry about the quirk. My name’s Uraraka Ochako, pleasure to meet you!”
She held out a hand to shake, and then lifted Izuku up like he weighed nothing.
“I’m taking some of your weight with my quirk, just in case! Do you think you can stand on your own?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Okay, easy does it...”
Izuku’s weight returned to him all at once and he swayed.
“Um…” Izuku said, and bowed low. “Thanks for your assistance!”
“No thank you!” Uraraka bowed lower.
Izuku noted that Uraraka rose just after him -- did she really think he would pass? She was definitely going to pass! Him, though… unless there was a miracle...
His heart turned to ice.
👊
They (They being the nebulous entity that was UA’s selection board, headed by the mammal Nezu) handed Toshinori a stack of forty profiles, the students he’d be creating a specialised welcome to UA message for. He was quite excited about this.
Very, very carefully, he didn’t race through them. Instead, he started from the top, and worked down. With every new student that wasn’t Midoriya, his excitement grew.
It wasn’t obvious he was distracted. He was a professional. Marketing and publicity was a huge part of his job. This was his jam. He wasn’t going to disappoint the new students, he just couldn’t wait to welcome Izuku.
Here it is, he thought to himself, as Midnight handed him the last profile.
No, this wasn’t right.
It had a picture of a girl with bright round eyes and pink cheeks. The girl was named Uraraka Ochako and her quirk was anti-gravity. Which. Was all very fine. But she wasn’t Izuku.
“This can’t be right,” he said.
“She passed.”
Midnight pointed to the mark she’d gotten in the entrance exam. Very well done, but less than Izuku’s sixty. He mentioned this to Midnight. Midnight remembered him as the kid that took down the zero-pointer.
It was nice to know he wasn’t crazy.
He gave the profile back to Midnight, and walked off to find someone who knew where Izuku’s paperwork was. Nezu would know.
👊
Izuku experimented with his new quirk. It wasn’t like All Might’s, which was really weird. Which meant… did that mean… this was his?
He really wished he had someone to talk to about this. All Might had to have seen. Izuku researched like crazy as he waited impatiently for news.
👊
“Oh,” Nezu said. “Midoriya Izuku was taken out of the running in the criminal history check.”
Criminal history? What was the kid’s family into? It couldn’t be the mother...
“His family’s background--”
The mammal gave a sigh. “It’s not his family. Midoriya himself has been convicted of a class A mating felony.”
Toshinori blanked. Midoriya? The shy, kind, scared-of-his-shadow young alpha had forcefully mated with someone? That was crazy. It had to be wrong.
“He’s simply not legally allowed in a hero training program at this time.”
“That kid couldn’t hurt a fly,” Toshinori protested. “What really happened?”
“That’s confidential.”
“I--”
I’m his teacher, Toshinori wanted to say. I see him as a son.
He said so. Nezu was unmoved.
👊
Toshinori went to Tsukauchi. His friend told him that there were good reasons that he was being left in the dark.
“He’s a good kid, though.” His friend said. “He didn’t deserve the conviction.”
And yet, he wouldn’t give Toshinori context .
👊
Uraraka’s congratulatory message was given by Midnight, because All Might was too devastated to give it.
UA had always been a long shot for Young Midoriya. He was very, very new to his quirk. But there were plenty of other schools out there, and one of them would take him. Except they wouldn’t. Because something in the kid’s past disqualified him from entry.
He went around to the Midoriyas’ house. He had never visited before, he hadn’t even introduced himself to the boy’s mother. A small, round woman answered the door. She was worried. Was she worried that her child was in trouble?
“Hello?” she asked.
“Hello!” All Might boomed. He had no idea where to go from here. “I am All Might, and I’ve been working with your son these past few months. I want to speak with you both about his future.”
“Izu-kun’s future?” Inko asked.
“All Might?” the subject of their discussion appeared. “Why are you here?”
He seemed to read the sorrow in Toshinori’s face. He looked between Toshinori and his mother. “What’s wrong?”
“Please. Let me speak with you both.”
“You’ll explain yourself,” Inko Midoriya commanded.
👊
Izuku had had his dream ripped away from him twice, and then returned. And now it was being ripped away again.
“I thought you knew,” Izuku sobbed. “Why did you train me if you didn’t know? ”
Angry tears ran down his face, and a black rope shot out of his hand and thumped the tabletop. Izuku’s breathing hitched.
“Baby, calm down--”
“You should just take it back ,” Izuku cried. “And why didn’t you tell me it could do this? ”
All Might had ruined his life!
“I can’t.”
“You can! I’m useless!” Izuku screamed back.
One for All had chosen this child and brought out his power. Toshinori wrapped the screaming child in a hug, and he pounded his fists against Toshinori’s strengthened body until he was all wrung out. Izuku felt encased, warm, as safe as he was furious and grief-struck.
👊
All For One was coming, and All Might found himself at a crossroads between justice and law. And so he trained the boy for the coming storm, despite the fact the alpha could never become a hero.