Chapter Text
“Look who I found, a useless Deku,” Kachan taunted. Explosions popped from his hands above me while his ‘friends’ stood behind him showing off their quirks as well. And me? I was doing what I did everyday, cowering on the ground and protecting my vitals from the beating that always comes.
Boom! 2 of Kachan’s explosions on my right shoulder, center of my chest and bottom left of my stomach. Jeez, I expected for him to do it in the same places as always but did it have to be directly on the scar from yesterday. I think it’s intentional now, that’s the third time Kachan exploded a previous scar in a row. Shink! Goon 1, his quirk is that he can make knives out of his fingernails. Cuts on my arms when I tried to protect myself from Kachan. Thwip! Goon 2, they’re quirk is turning their limbs into rubber. It makes being slapped on the back a lot more painful than usual. Imagine a rubber band rebounding and hitting your hand when you stretch it, but bigger.
That’s the most people Kachan will allow to follow him when beating me up, and the most powerful quirks those two are allowed to have so they don’t upshow him. Everyone knows not to interrupt Kachan when he is harming me. I’m not the only one who’s scared of him so I should be able to get to my next class without being cornered again. I let out a whimper to seem like I was a lot more scared and hurt than I actually am. It does hurt a lot and I am still scared but it loses some of its effect after happening so many times. Now I have more important things to worry about than a bit of pain, like how to get out of this. People like me have to stay 10 steps ahead to survive these kinds of things since we don’t have a quirk.
As they laugh and taunt me some more, I wait for an opportunity. They turn to glance at each other for a split second but that’s all I need. Quickly changing from cowering on the floor to diving between one of the goon’s legs and sprinting through the halls. I drop down in my seat a few minutes before the bell rings. Not a moment late so the teacher can’t reprimand me, but still late enough that by the time Kachan bursts through the doors the class has already started and he doesn’t have the chance to hurt me again.
The day was better than expected. Only 1 small group of kids confronted me, and I left with only a few bruises. Kachan was glaring at me throughout the day, that always meant that he was going to be more mad after school. So when the teacher started to utter the words “dismissed” I was sprinting through the door. Unfortunately, I already knew I wouldn’t make it out with the teacher announcing to the class, specifically Kachan, that I was applying to UA just before. It’s like they want Kachan to be angry enough to hurt me. Oh wait, yes they do!
“Fucking Deku! What the fuck do you think you’re doing. You really think some quirkless nobody like you could get into UA,” Kachan continued to yell at me. I could faintly hear him yelling as I drowned out his voice. It was really easy now, considering how much he’s screaming, to tune out and ignore all the hateful words. I’m forced back to reality when Kachan picks up my notebook. I catch the last bit of what he says (“take a swan dive off a roof and pray for a quirk in your next life”) but it looks like he’s going to... No. No, I kept this one safe so far he can’t just do that it’s too important-
I watch as a charred notebook falls through the window, landing in the fountain. Everyone stands around laughing as my last escape from this all is destroyed. It had some of my favourite analysis in it as well. I stared at my notebook swimming with the fishes, I could probably stand here all day grieving the lost book. But I can’t take time to do that, I’ve got to get out of here first. I grab my bag and slip out the door while everyone is busy laughing and taunting me as usual.
I walked through an underpass, looking through the remains of my notebook to see if it’s still usable. I was able to get it out of the fountain when I escaped. A few entries are still legible so it wasn’t the worst it could be. And now that school’s over I can hide in my room until the day’s over, it’s all uphill from here.
“This looks like a good meat suit to hide in for a while,” a voice says behind me. I spoke too soon. Before I could even turn around to see what my new problem was, slime was forcing its way down my throat. Pressure built in my chest as I tried to claw my throat or cough it up. It was a useless effort as the slime kept filling my body. Soon my hands fell limb beside me as I blacked out.
I blinked my eyes, taking in the rays of light and the figure in front of me. “Oh good, you’re awake. Well I must be going then,” the figure said. I sat up trying to gather my thoughts, then all my senses came into focus at once. The figure was walking away, and it kind of looked like… All Might!? Wait, was he leaving?
Next thing I know I’m clutching to All Might’s leg and soaring through the air so fast that I think my skin was going to fall off. “Kid, you gotta let go,” he says, trying to shake me off.
“I’m gonna fall,” I yell against the wind, hanging on tighter. All Might lands on a random rooftop and I collapse onto the floor. Clutching my stomach, I try my best to keep my lunch down and not throw up in front of my idle. Steam covered the rooftop, obscuring All Might from view. Where was it coming from?
The fog dispersed a bit but it was enough to see a skeletal looking man where All Might was standing before. “What?! Where’s All Might?” I panic, looking around wildly.
“I am All Might, although I may look different. I suppose I owe you an explanation now that you have seen me like this,” the skeletal man, All Might apparently, says. He continues telling his story of how his injury had limited his time to fight crime. I theorized that he had some sort of transformation quirk for quite some time so it was easier to wrap my head around it. I don’t understand why he’d tell me about the injury though. All Might could’ve just said that he had a transformation quirk and left it at that. Now someone random 15 year old kid knows his two greatest weaknesses; the time limit and the injury. It wasn’t a very smart strategy in my mind, but I can’t really say. All Might is the #1 hero, if he thinks it’s a good idea then it probably is.
“Now you must promise not to tell anyone. You can imagine the amount of damage it would do if this information gets out,” All Might says. I nod vigorously. “Good. I should get going then.”
“Wait, I-I need to ask you something,” I say. What am I doing? I already spent up his time and made him reveal his secret. I can’t waste more of his limited time, but the words are already falling out. “Do you think someone could be a hero without a quirk?”
The suspense was worse than anything he could have responded with. The silence was finally cut off when All Might spoke up, “No, I don’t think a quirkless person can be a hero. It is too dangerous of a profession and without a quirk you are vulnerable to villains. It would be better if you go into something safer, like a detective.”
No, the answer is much worse.
My eyes glazed over. I think All Might had just left, or was that half an hour ago? I don’t know and right now I don’t care. “A quirkless person can’t be a hero” . His words rang in my head over and over again. That was all I ever wanted, it was all I could believe in even if no one else did. But… if All Might, the Number One Hero, thought so then maybe everyone else was right, I can’t be a hero. I thought I would be crying considering how much I usually do but no tears came. I was sad- no I wasn’t sad, just numb. I knew that the traffic was probably roaring below me, that the wind must’ve been freezing against my face, that the sun shining into my eyes should’ve hurt but I couldn’t feel anything. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs at the city, at this stupid society that kept destroying me every fucking day. Instead I sat silently, fading out of my own mind.
What am I supposed to do now? All I ever wanted, needed , to be was a hero. That’s what kept me going everyday. What is there left for me if I can’t do it? My eyes landed on the edge of the roof for a bit longer than it should have. Well, there’s nothing left for me, so I might as well- No! I snapped myself out of those thoughts. I can’t yet, Mom would be sad and needs me to be there for her. I pushed down any other thoughts before they could surface and walked back home.
I head straight for my room without stopping to say hi to my mom. I felt a little bad for it, but I’m too tired to pretend to be happy today. I fall into bed, trying to go to sleep and get some escape. But my brain apparently hates me and won’t shut up. Groaning, I give up trying to fall asleep and pulled out my laptop. I can just go on it for a bit and when I get tired I’ll go to sleep.
Now it’s 2 am and I’m scrolling aimlessly through conspiracy boards on my computer. I don’t really know what I expected to happen. I glance at my tons of tabs, I suppose maybe I should finally close some of those. As I delete the recent ones, my hand freezes above the x on this tab. It’s the one for UA’s website. I stare at the screen for a while before deciding to leave it open.
I should probably go somewhere else for highschool now that I’m not going to be a hero. But where would I go? Not many schools accept quirkless kids, and the most of the ones that do are known for their students becoming villains later on. I don’t need to lower my chances of people respecting me anymore so those are immediately off the list. The only other good schools that accepted quirkless people other than UA was on the other side of the country. I guess I don’t have a choice, if I want a decent education then I have to go to UA.
I scrolled to the General Education course and read about it, though I already knew most of what it said. Usually kids that don’t want anything to do with heroics take it because it’s practically a guaranteed ticket into any job. Other people take it so they can try and transfer to the Hero Course through the Sports Festival, but I definitely am not going to do that. Going to UA will just help my chances of getting a job enough for someone to look over my quirklessness and pay me. Absolutely nothing else.
I need to make a plan to get in and not get kicked out. UA is a powerhouse school, they expect nothing less than the best. Plus quirks are allowed and encouraged there, so I need to be even more careful. I need to stay 10 steps ahead of everyone so I don’t fall behind.