Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku always wanted to be a hero.
He was not alone, it was practically the dream of every child in the country to become a pro-hero, to save lives and do good for society. Of course, the fame and popularity were an added bonus, but the glamour of being a hero, a purveyor of justice and a symbol of what is right and good, was an attractive lure that had many a child like Izuku hooked and wanting to achieve.
Especially, when the country’s number one hero, All Might, came into the picture.
The Symbol of Peace he was known, All Might was the darling of the country. His super strength, booming laugh, permanent smile and rousing catchphrase of “I AM HERE!” struck confidence and assurance to the general populace, and fear to the villains and scourges of society who tried to ruin the lives of the innocent. He was the ultimate hero, a role model for the young and old alike, and an aspiration for many children like Izuku hoped that one day they will achieve or even surpass.
All Might gave off an aura where anything was possible, that any dream was attainable with hard work and determination.
What no one told Izuku was that it was all a lie. That the dream that so many youngsters like him coveted was only possible for a select few, who were blessed with the means of becoming a pro-hero. That the system was incredibly broken and corrupt, and where the saying “not all men are created equal” could not be any more truer.
Izuku, like so many others, was blind to this reality, deluded by the fantasy that society so readily embraced. It was when he reached the age of four, that this perfect illusion began to falter.
There was a detail about being a pro-hero that was never told to young impressionable children like Izuku - you had to have a powerful quirk.
Quirks - a special ability a person possesses, where the possibilities are endless, from telekinesis to super strength like All Might - dominate everyday life in Izuku’s world. So obsessed society was about quirks, the most common opening liner in a conversation with someone new was “what is your quirk?”. Potential pitfalls aside (we’ll get to that in a bit), that opening liner was often used by children, especially when their quirks manifested at the age of four.
Four was the age that excited all children, and Izuku was no exception.
He knew what his parents’ quirks were - his mother was able to pull small objects towards her, and his father (who worked overseas) could breathe fire - but like many children his age, he hoped to get a quirk that would catapult him to All Might’s level.
As previously said, it was the dream of many to be like the number one hero, including his.
But like all dreams...they were not meant to last forever.
The first hairline crack in the illusion came when Izuku reached his fourth birthday...and his quirk never manifested.
Now, this wasn’t a major source of concern for his mother Inko. Late bloomers were not all that uncommon, and it wasn’t a definitive statement to say that once a child turns four, their quirk will suddenly manifest.
Izuku wasn’t deterred in the slightest. He spent many a day trying to will his quirk into manifestation, blowing himself breathless and straining himself physically to the point of exhaustion to make any object (big or small) fly towards him.
No one thought much about it, until the days turned into weeks, then months, then into a year.
When Izuku turned five, and no quirk had presented itself, Inko grew concerned for the first time. With dread growing in her stomach, she took her only son down to a quirk specialist.
In such a society where quirks make up the very fabric of life, there was one fate that was worse than death for a good number of people… being born without a quirk.
The Quirkless, as these individuals are called, make up the ever-shrinking portion of the population who do not have a special power to call for themselves. Essentially ordinary and boring, it would be prudent to say it is the worst nightmare for many (superfluous and stupid, I know, but this society is fucked up). No one wanted to be quirkless, or have anything to do with those who had the unfortunate luck to lose out on the genetic and heredity lottery that was severely warped by the superficial public in the first place.
It was a constant source of anxiety at the back of the minds of many parents. Inko was no exception.
So it was that sole reason that she and her son were now sitting in the office of the specialist, having x-rays taken of his feet. The defining characteristic of a quirkless person was an extra joint in their pinkie toe. The young boy was rather clueless about what was going on, though he did notice the apprehensive look on his mother’s face as they waited to be called back into the office, which in turn made him upset.
He didn’t like to see his mother worried, despite her many reassurances.
On the large TV monitor attached to a pillar, a number flashed with a bell chime.
“Come Izuku.”
The boy dutifully followed his mother back into the specialist’s office. Dr. Tsubasa, his name was, turned towards them as they entered.
“Ah, Midoriya-san, young Izuku, please have a seat.”
“How is it, Dr. Tsubasa?”
The portly man’s moustache bristled, “Well the good news is, Midoriya-san, the x-rays showed no indication of the extra joint in either pinkie toe, which means your son most definitely has a quirk factor. I wouldn’t worry too much, Midoriya-san, your son for sure has a quirk, the only thing that is out of our control right now is figuring out when the factor will transition from dormancy to active.”
The worried look on Inko’s face melted away like ice on a hot day. Izuku’s excitement returned, “Does that mean I can become a hero one day, like All Might?”
Dr. Tsubasa chuckled, “Who knows? Your quirk factor is an unknown right now, young Izuku. While it is more common for children like you to inherit either one of your parents’ quirks or a combination of both, in your case, it’s possible that your quirk is something completely new or a mutation of your parents’ quirks. You are a unique boy, Izuku, and the possibilities are endless with you.”
One would have to be blind to see the stars in Izuku’s eyes. The young boy made a noise of excitement as his imagination went wild.
It was a happy son and a relieved mother who left the general hospital, hopes renewed for a quirk for the former which he could cultivate towards his dreams.
Neither one realised that this was the start of a slow descent into spiral of pain.
At first, Dr. Tsubasa’s words were a reprieve from the worry over the late manifestation of Izuku’s quirk. They were a reassurance to classmates and Kacchan (Izuku’s childhood friend) that he was going to have a quirk, it was just a matter of when.
Kacchan wasn’t really perturbed by that. With his quirk, Explosion, poised for greatness by just about everyone around the blonde, he proclaimed that he will become a hero that will surpass even All Might, and declared that Izuku will be by his side when he rises to the top. It was a vision that was as attractive as the rarest gems, and it made Izuku yearn for his quirk to come even more.
At first.
The first hairline crack lengthened, and spread.
Days again became weeks, then months, then years. When Izuku started elementary school, his quirk had still not manifested. By then, his confidence was starting to wane. Children his age were beginning to treat him as if he was quirkless, despite his attempts to say otherwise. Not even his legal records listing his quirk as “Unknown” helped; the fact that he didn’t have a physical quirk to show off meant that Izuku was slowly becoming a social pariah. Few wanted to associate themselves with him, some of the more crueller children even avoiding him as if he had some contagious disease, throwing vicious verbal abuse from a safe distance.
The cracks continued to spread, and more splintered when suddenly, out of nowhere, Kacchan joined in on the torment.
Izuku never knew why his childhood friend turned on him. Unlike the other children though, Kacchan didn’t just hurl verbal abuse whenever he was in the vicinity, he had somehow decided to take it upon himself to physical harm Izuku at any given opportunity.
It started with blows, punches, smacks, slaps and kicks.
Then came the explosions.
Almost everyday, Izuku would come home nursing some kind of injury, be it burns from the explosions or bruises from the physical attacks. They were painful, but far from serious, for Kacchan was smart. The blonde never escalated his violence against his former friend beyond what was clearly criminal. Any injuries Izuku faced always looked accidental, or from roughhousing that virtually all the adults associated with energetic young boys.
The abuse would continue for years into adolescence and middle school. Each passing day would produce more cracks and splinters, Izuku growing more and more fragile. Trying to keep himself whole, he stubbornly clung onto his fracturing dream of becoming a hero like All Might, and even picked up an almost encyclopedic skill for analysing quirks, honed from long hours observing heroes and villains fight one another in some morbid spectacle. But even then, life continued to hammer away at him, worsening the cracks.
Until one day...he teetered over the precipice of no return.
Izuku’s day was already a bad one to begin with.
He had been humiliated (intentionally or not he didn’t know) by his homeroom teacher when he revealed to the entire class that he (and Kacchan) were applying for the U.A. entrance exams. Not only had everyone laughed at him, Kacchan told him once classes ended that if he valued his life, he should do what was right and renounce his application. The blonde then twisted the knife further by mocking his quirk analysis, destroying his notebook, and delivered a parting blow that would forever haunt the fragile teen’s existence.
“You are fucking delusional to think that you actually have a quirk. Do us all a favour and throw yourself off the school roof. No one cares about your pathetic excuse of an existence, and the fucking world will be better without you taking up valuable oxygen.”
More cracks formed, the jagged pieces barely holding on to one another.
Izuku hurried home, just wanting to get away from the cruelty of reality to the privacy of his room, where he could meagrely attempt to mend his already-brittle dream. He took a shortcut through an underpass, only to be ambushed by a villain made entirely out of slime. It very nearly took control of his body when it was suddenly blown away by the backlash of an almighty punch that also sent him flying.
He blacked out after that, regaining consciousness from the incessant patting his cheek received. When he registered who had just saved him from an untimely death, he almost lost control of every bodily function possible.
It was All Might.
Izuku got an autograph for his trouble, but he had important questions to ask, something only the number one hero could answer and settle his fragile heart once and for all. Unfortunately, All Might was already taking his leave, preparing to take a flying jump into the air.
So the teen did something only the most desperate of humans would do.
Grab onto All Might’s leg just as he blasted up towards the sky.
It didn’t take long for the Symbol of Peace to realise he had a stowaway clinging onto him for dear life. After a brief mid-air scuffle, All Might quickly flew towards the nearest rooftop.
Izuku barely heard the rightful scolding he got from All Might for his reckless stunt. He only wanted the hero to stop speaking, so he get the chance to ask the question that had been plaguing him for years.
He had just opened his mouth when a great rush of steam billowed outwards and blanketed the rooftop. Coughing, Izuku opened his eyes…
...only to see that where the number one hero was previously standing, was now occupied by a gaunt, skeletal man which scraggly blond hair and ill-fitting clothes far too big his size.
Izuku was about to scream bloody murder about an imposter when the man quickly shushed him. His heart almost stopped.
The voice, was extremely familiar.
The man spoke, and Izuku realised he wasn’t hallucinating or dreaming.
It was really All Might.
But how?
What followed was a revelation. The skeletal state was the default, when All Might, or Yagi Toshinori as his real name was, wasn’t being the number one hero. He had a time limit in the muscle, which had been steadily dropping as he got older, exacerbated by a fight against a notorious villain that cost him a lung and his stomach five years prior.
All Might stressed the importance of keeping this secret hidden. The low crime rate in Japan, comparatively better than the rest of the world, depended on the villains and scourges of society not knowing about this weakness. And Izuku was more than happy to not tell anyone about it and to take it to his grave. But that wasn’t his main priority.
“All Might-san, I’m again so sorry for the trouble I gave you, but before you go, there’s something I need to ask you. I have waited too long for this chance.”
“What is it, kid?”
Izuku swallowed, “I-I have a dormant quirk. Can I be a hero like you?”
Several beats of silence followed.
“Dormant quirk?”
“I have a quirk factor,” Izuku explained, “But my quirk has not manifested yet. But I can still be a hero like you, right?”
Izuku subconsciously held his breath.
Another moment of silence.
“How old are you, kid?”
“Fifteen, All Might-san.”
The final throe of silence.
“I’m sorry, kid. You can’t be a hero.”
Izuku choked, W-What?
“You’re effectively quirkless,” All Might continued, “and I think it’s unlikely that your ‘quirk’ is ever going to manifest given that it hasn’t after so long.”
No…
“You’re already a teenager, you should have realised that it’s fine to dream or imagine, but as you get older, you have to think realistically about what is possible and impossible. It’s unhealthy and dangerous for you to hold on to such delusions. Lives are at stake in the field of heroics, the smallest mistake means that someone loses a friend or a loved one.”
Stop...please…!
“There are other ways of being a hero than going pro. People like paramedics, police or disaster relief, they are important in saving lives too. It’s not glamourous, but ultimately safer for someone like you.”
Stop…! Stop…!
The cracks worsen, the pieces wobbling.
“All I’m saying is, kid. For the sake of your loved ones and everyone else around you, give up. You’re doing not just others, but also yourself, a favour by letting go.”
*SMASH*
The cracks give way, the pieces collapse into a pile of ruin.
Izuku was completely still, eyes unfocused, glassy and moist. All Might took his silence as comprehension, moving towards the staircase, with an off-hand comment to think about the advice he had given him. With the click of a slightly-rusty door, Izuku was left alone.
Slowly, the teen’s legs gave way, and he crumpled to the rooftop floor. The rising tears tipped over his eyelids, cascading down his cheeks in a slow stream that got steadily faster and harder. He was in such shock, he forgot to cry.
In the end, he did.
From such great heights, the wind blew strong, almost masking Izuku’s heart-wrenching sobs as he laid in the ruins of his soul. Everything was in a mess - his emotions collapsed on top of one another and his thoughts swirling in a hurricane. He didn’t know whether to keep crying, or to scream at the heavens for condemning to such a hell, or to laugh in literal mad hysteria that his role-model and hero, just like so many others before him, had destroyed his dream, and taking the honour as the one to deliver the final death blow.
It was just a huge mingle of noise, paid no heed and unknown to the world as it passed.
Then, it fell silent. Both the wind and Izuku’s sobs.
For several moments, it stayed that way.
It seemed that Izuku had no more of a voice to cry, but the tears continued flowing.
Very weakly, he rose from the concrete floor. Izuku didn’t know how long he had been lying prone, his legs weak and shaky, his joints aching from the awkward position he was previously in. He stood still to steady himself, then as if he was in a trance or catatonia, he slowly stepped towards the railing at the edge of the roof.
No, he had no intention of climbing over and leaping to his death as Kacch- no...Bakugou (he didn’t deserve that endearment anymore) told him to earlier in the day. Suicide and self-harm were conspicously absent from Izuku’s shattered mind. No, he was merely following what his instincts were pulling him towards, like a doomed sailor enthralled by the alluring, deadly song of a siren.
He reached the railing, and with stiff hands, gripped the rusting metal with flaking paint. The tears dripped from his jawline, falling with a splash onto the base of the railing.
His ruined mind emptied of stray thoughts and emotions like water running down a basin drain. Instinct whispered to him, and he opened his mouth.
A sound came out, crackly and hoarse from his previous sobs. It had no words, or semblance to human communication. It was just a sound, or a vocal, if you were.
If anyone heard it, it would have been a sore to the ears. It was out of tune, off-pitch, simply noise made to cringe and wince at. Izuku stopped, and closed his mouth. He returned to his bag, pulled out a water bottle, and took several gulps, rehydrating his parched throat. Putting it away, Izuku returned to the railing.
He opened his mouth again, and the vocal was released.
This time, it came out smooth and soft. It was generic, tuned singing without any lyrics or meaning. Like how one would idly hum a tune while they go about their business.
But it did not last.
Such calmness was soon replaced by sadness and despair as memories began to return to Izuku’s empty mind. Filled with years of torment and pain, Izuku began to cry again, his sobs mixing seamlessly into his song. His heart swelled with emotion, and an energy he did not notice. It surged up and out with his song, spreading outwards into the world.
The white, fluffy clouds dotting the blue sky above morphed into a distraught dark gray, spreading quickly until the sky itself had become wrought with anguish. Just like Izuku, tears in the form of raindrops began to fall to the Earth. It started soft, as a light drizzle that was merely a minor inconvenience to the citizens walking in the streets below. But it quickly strengthened with Izuku’s song, the cascading water falling faster and harder into a typical rainstorm. Below on the streets, umbrellas were opened while the unfortunate ones rushed through the road using whatever they had on hand (or for some, just their hands) to keep off the rain.
However, not even umbrellas would provide much protection for what was to come.
Izuku’s despair began to spiral out of control into unbridled fury and rage. Self-pity boiled into righteous wrath. Screams melded into the song, as Izuku cursed and condemned the heavens and fate for making him suffer for so long.
The rain fell even harder, to the point it began to hurt. The wind picked up, the howling battling against Izuku’s song for dominance. The dark sky occasionally flashed with a bolt of lightning.
Izuku did not heed to the growing chaos happening in the streets below him. The wind was blowing so strong that people were being swept off their feet. Parked cars were tipped over. The trees that lined the pavements snapped like rotten toothpicks, collapsing onto unfortunate pedestrians who couldn’t get away in time. The rain hit as hard as hailstones, smashing windows and actually bruising those who were out in the open. Not too far away, a certain slime villain holding a certain explosive blonde hostage was forced to let go of the teen when the rain began to puncture into his slime, only to be swept away by the typhoon-force winds and slammed into a building. At the same time, the lightning became more erratic, striking buildings and people alike one after another.
Despite being soaked to the bone, Izuku stayed firm, protected by the energy that was surging into his voice. He only sung louder, building up into the final climax.
The end came with a high soprano note, and a blinding blast of lightning that destroyed power to much of the area. Izuku’s song faded away into silence, and with it, the rain, wind and lightning slowly receded. He rested his forehead on the railing, taking deep breaths to balance himself.
Ignoring the re-emerging chaos below him, Izuku raised his head defiantly at the heavens, his eyes glowing a deathly-emerald.
“No more.”
To Be Continued.