Chapter Text
Izuku opened his eyes, staring out into the endless horizon of the skyscrapers of musutafu. He looked up for an answer but nothing came, as a wise man once said, “it is what it is”
All Might, the number one hero, the symbol of peace! Was in reality a man that was on death's doorstep. His actual body was tall and lanky, barely able to hold itself together, he was hunched, looked hollow and fully resembled a heroin addict in rehab. The entire image of the invincible number one hero has been flipped on its head, making Izuku’s short-lived best day ever turn back to horrible in an instant.
Izuku’s entire image of the world was crashing down on him. All Might was just a persona? Something that the man just conjured up in public? The scrawny form, the way he talked, his entire personality when it came to civilians changed in an instant.
This must’ve been a sick joke right? There’s no way All Might looked like that, there was no way the number one hero was just some injured old man, there's no way. But the sudden transformation of his idol wasn’t the strangest thing that occurred at that situation. Not the for, not the injury on his side, but how quiet it was.
Before the question, Izuku could hear the wind rustle, the chainlink fence danced, causing little sound, but it all went away. Izuku looked up and saw that for some reason, All Mights mouth was for some reason moving irrationally. He picked up that the mouths weren’t a byproduct of some sort of speed quirk, Izuku did consider multiple quirks on the table, it wasn’t stretching it, but Izuku shook that thought. All Might wasn’t actually speaking fast, Izuku picked up that the irrational mouths didn’t have any sort of afterimage as most speed quirks do.
Izuku squinted, finally seeing that the irrational mouth movements were from multiple mouths. Saying different things at one time, multiple mouths overlapped each other as All Might spoke. Still, it didn’t explain the sudden deafness in Izuku’s ears, as All Mights four overlapping mouths were all unable to be heard.
The deafness suddenly broke and Izuku could finally hear again, of All Might’s voice growing a little worried.
"Young boy,” Toshinori took three steps forward, arms awkwardly stretched forward. “Are you alright? You seemed a little dazed,”
“You were about to ask me a question right?”
“What?” Izuku knew for a fact that he had already asked All Might his question, right before the sudden deafness.
“A question kid, c’mon, I need to take this villain to the authorities,” Toshinori patted his pocket, being afraid when he couldn’t feel it. Looking to his right, Toshinori saw the bottle and ran towards it, grabbing it. “Oh no you don’t!” he retwisted the cap and kept it in his hands, giving it a twist every few seconds.
Izuku swore that that bottle wasn’t there a moment ago, almost as though it had just appeared. He didn’t think much about it and instead took a deep breath a yelled his question.
“Can someone without a quirk become a hero like you?!” All Might was caught off guard by the sudden outburst, peering over to other rooftops, seeing no other person.
Toshinori sighed, he leaned against the metal fence, shaking the villain in the bottle as he thought. “Look kid, a symbol of peace who saves people with a smile, they must never be daunted by evil,” Izuku’s hopeful demeanour began to fade away. “The reason I smile is to stave off the overwhelming pressure and fear I feel every day,” Izuku’s mind then went to the differences between their two personalities, one that radiated hope, whilst the other crushed it with his bare hands.
“A pro should always, ALWAYS be ready to risk his life. Without power, can one become a hero? No, I should think not,” Toshinori got up, and walked to Izuku, putting his hand on his shoulder. “But you can still be a hero to others,”
A sliver of hope appeared in Izuku’s eyes. “Wha-What do you mean?”
“What I mean to say is kid, if you think heroes are all they are made up to be, you’re dead wrong, there are others besides them,” Steam began to emit from Toshinori’s body “others that help them,” He then transformed back into All Might. “Heroes aren’t daunted by evil, that is true, and that is because Heroes are supported by others, who although may be weak, do more than any other quirk could do!”
Izuku’s face lit up again when he first saw All Might in person not even five minutes ago. “I can’t be a hero, but I can be-” He was cut off.
“Someone a Hero relies on my boy,” All might moved his hand to his comically-large eyebrows and looked for the closest police station. “Perhaps we’ll cross paths again soon, and if so, I hope that what I said will help you for your future,” All might gave Izuku a quick salute, before leaping off another building, sludge bottle in hand.
Izuku braced himself and was knocked over by the sudden gust of wind, landing on his but. He quickly reached into his backpack and found a decent-looking page from his exploded notebook. Izuku clicked his pen and began to write everything he just whispered right down to the steam that emitted from All Mights body as he transformed.
He began to mutter. “The steam probably has to do with the reaction needed for the sudden change in mass, if so where does the energy from the steam come from, is All Might changing state? Maybe the latent energy required is generated as a part of his quirk?, so in that case, the steam would indicate a cycle of deposition to sublimation, but the energy required for that would be massive, so All Might’s quirk might potentially be an energy transformation quirk? Oooooh his costume designers need to be fired, if he's literally generating heat, skin-tight spandex must be really uncomfortable,”
Izuku stopped in the middle of his rant, and in anger threw his notebook on the floor. Despite All Mights harrowing speech about trying to reach a more believable goal, Izuku felt that the speech had little thought and was just used by him to get out of the awkward situation. After Izuku took some deep breaths, he picked up his notebook again and delved into his head for more details. It was at that moment in time when Izuku remembered when he restated his question to All Might.
It reminded Izuku of Deja-vu, he swore that he already asked the question before. Either Izuku thought he did, or that his head had made it up due to the sudden shock of finding about All Mights different form. Izuku decided to scribble down the event anyways, working his way towards when he lost his hearing for a moment.
“An Illusion that either happened or didn’t happen. All Might’s mouths were speaking at the same time, but it wasn’t a speed quirk due to the lack of afterimage caused by most. Not only that but each mouth was speaking different words at the same time, different sentences, but I would suspect aiming for an answer.” Izuku paused for a moment. “I couldn’t hear anything, so what was that?” The last four words Izuku underlined, before he took a deep breath, and put his pen and notebook back in his backpack.
Izuku sighed, his childhood dream had just come true, meeting his idol in the flesh. But something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what. Izuku stored that thought in his head before moving towards the door that lead to the stairwell of the building.
Unfortunately, it was locked.
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All Might was stressed by today’s meeting with his most recent superfan. He bounded his way and landed at the top of Mighty Tower, looking around for any helicopters before shrivelling down as he made his way inside an elevator. As the door opened again, Toshinori slumped over and made his way to his bedroom. From there, Toshinori looked over and saw that his bottle of painkillers were there where he left them in the morning. He collapsed on his bed, opened the bottle and took three pills, discarding the empty bottle and waited, all the while feeling the dulling of his chest pain.
As the pain began to dull and became an uncomfortable feeling instead, Toshinori slowly closed his eyes. When he opened the ceiling of his roof was gone and was now inside of one for all. Toshinori got up and saw seven silhouettes of the former holders standing in front of him.
“This never happens,” Toshinori took a few steps towards them. “Why am I here?”
“Toshinori,” The seventh holder, once known as Nana Shimura began to speak. “Number four called you here, and we believe that it is urgent for you to know this,”
Toshinori looked towards the fourth user, known as Hikage Shionomori, waiting for his concerns to arise. Every other holder waited as well, despite knowing that facts the fourth did.
“My quirk, Danger Sense, for some reason erupted around the boy,” Toshinori froze. “The only other time it activated for you was…” Four was cut off.
“All for one!” Toshinori began to realize what he could’ve done, used a child to guilt-trip him. “I-I need to go, I need to find the boy,”
“No you don’t,” Four continued on. “Let me finish,” he cleared his throat. “This wasn’t the usual danger sense which activates for you, it was… different,”
“Different how? Four I need to find the boy if he activated Danger Sense!”
“YAGI TOSHINORI” Nana interjected, effectively shutting the number one hero up before gesturing for four to continue,
“As I was saying” A hint of frustration could now be detected in fours voice. “It wasn’t like the usual danger sense, it was different,”
“How so?”
“It didn’t come from from you… the kid had Danger Sense, the kid somehow used One for All,”
“...What?”