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It was an odd quirk, to put simply. He listened to Kacchan. He listened to him, and he couldn’t decide if it was the worst or most ironic thing that happened. He was right.
‘ Take a swan dive off the roof and pray for a quirk in your next life! ’
He had been right.
Should he be angry that a hero told him to kill himself? No, no. He pushed those thoughts away. He could never be angry. Kacchan was going to be a great hero. Even if he was a little… mislead.
Izuku wanted to go to UA too. He never got a chance. It was his own fault anyway. He was the one who stood on the edge. He was the one who took the final step. He was the one to drift off the edge, looking up at the bright blue sky as he fell. It wasn’t Kacchan. It was him.
Quirkless, useless deku. That's all he is. But it wasn’t forever.
He hit the ground. It should’ve been painful, but he only felt bliss. Relieved of ten years of pain and hate. He was free.
He lost track of time after that. Weeks, months? It didn’t matter. He left his old life behind. He didn’t even know if he could go back. He never tried. He didn’t want to. He had nothing compelling him to go back. Nothing waiting.
His mother was a drunk who never wanted such a useless son. His father was long gone, having run away to America because he was a disgrace. His classmates hated him for being quirkless, and showed it very well through red spider lilies splayed across his desk, the common punch or kick and an army of words to back it up.
But he wasn’t that quirkless deku anymore. He was someone new. Something new. Maybe he was one of those pre-quirk era legends of forest spirits or an eldritch creature from old fairy tales.
All he knew was he wasn’t Izuku Midoriya anymore. He was everything and nothing all at the same time. He was every animal and every plant in the forests that lived grew across Japan. He could feel the ocean’s breeze, the pitter-patter of rain on a deer’s back. Fish gliding through cool waters and the brilliant glow of the night sky from an owl’s eyes. Soil below the claws of a lizard scurrying through the undergrowth, the rough bark of a tree against furry hands and flicking tails and the wind whistling through each branch from Musutafu to the coastline.
It was pure freedom. The cycle of life and death felt through the closely intertwined network of life.
He was free. Free from the chains of a body that kept him bound to the ground. He could go anywhere. Be anything. He could watch the streets fill with bustling civilians through the eyes of a bird nestled atop a powerline. He could wander the streets as a stray cat, leading the borrowed body to food and shelter before taking leave. He could soar the skies, patrolling the canopy and mountainsides.
He had no physical body he knew of, only being able to take form when he fully took control of a body. As far as he knew he couldn’t see through the eyes of a human or take control of them. Izuku had fun messing with petty criminals and low tier villains.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Izuku whispered. The wind blew past the thug who was cornering a young woman in an alley. The wind carried his message causing the villain to unwillingly shudder and take a glance around.
“Who do you think you are?” He hissed again. The wind slid past him, blowing his hood off. The woman must have heard him too, as she whimpered and shut her eyes tighter. He watched through the eyes of a nearby stray cat as the thug’s breath.
“Stay away from her.” He snarled. The cat snarled at the same time, reacting to his piercing anger. The thug dropped to his knees, shaking. The air dropped a few degrees. The man took a weary look in the cat’s direction.
All the man saw was toxic green eyes, glowing in the darkness. At some point the woman must have called the police, as sirens were disturbing the cool night air. The thug didn’t get up, even when the police arrived to arrest him. He was shaking like a leaf and sputtering nonsense. Even Izuku didn’t think he was that scary. All he did was mutter a few sentences, how bad could it be?
—
Apparently it was bad. He snagged the control of a nearby bat and followed the man into the station.
“Could you repeat that, I wasn’t able to hear you.” The officer asked after the man had half muttered- half whimpered an answer.
“I- It! It was a- the… Eyes. The eyes- the demon! It was like the air was whispering to me! The eyes. It was watching. Bright green eyes staring- right into my soul! It was- It was a demon! A force of nature no quirk could even think to compare!” After that lovely poetic essay he recoiled back into himself and let out a shuddering breath before glancing up. He stared right at the bat sitting in the thin windowsill.
One second. Two.
A scream.
“T-there! It- Watch! No!” He cried. The officer jumped up, only catching a green streak vanishing into the sky.
—
And that. Oh, oh that. That was the beginning. Scaring the shit out of criminals, distracting villians long enough for the hero to get a hit or two in and even throwing a bird in the face of a thug were now common occurrences.
The police dubbed him Verdant after a long conversation on if the criminals were delusional or it really was someone doing these. After the third panicked thug they labeled him a vigilante.
Ah, nothing like being wanted for vigilantism and being dead. He may not even be human. Whatever they say, he won’t complain. They didn’t give him a stupid name, after all, Verdant was much better than deku .
Was deku even a name? Or a title given by his friends bullies. He wasn’t useless anymore. He wasn’t a deku. He was Verdant. He was the light, the dark, the wind, the trees, the animals, the plants. He was the flowing river and mossy stones. He was the thunderstorms over the mountainside. He was the icey rain that pelted city streets and the sunlight that warmed the concrete jungle the next morning. He was death and life. He was hate and love.
He was a new entity. He wasn’t human nor animal. He wasn’t a plant or the earth. He was nature. He was Verdant.
—
He watched the world through a rabbit’s eyes. Not bothering to take control of the young buck as he searched the field for food. Izuku had almost left when the rabbit’s ear flicked up. It was a curious animal, young and stupid, so it quietly hopped in the direction of what sounded like footsteps. Izuku was going to suggest going away from the unknown sound, but what he heard next made him intent to see what was behind the hedges.
“I got in. I got in for you.” A quiet almost whisper sounded.
The voice was raw as if it was crying. Hollow and sad. A mourning soul. He had heard those before. He heard them in his own voice.
“I know. You should have been there with me. Why did I do that? I’m such a fucking idiot.” The voice was vaguely familiar. The rabbit slid into the fine-cut hedge before emerging to the other side. A boy was sitting at a tombstone, bright flowers in hand. Tears streamed down his face making his eyes red and puffy.
Spikey blond hair and red piercing eyes were fixed on the tombstone.
Kacchan.
He willed the rabbit to go around and see what tombstone he was looking at.
Izuku Midoriya.
It was his. Kacchan was… sad? Kacchan was mumbling something that sounded vaguely like ‘I’m a monster’ under his breath over and over.
Did… he blamed himself for what Izuku did? No, it was Izuku’s fault. He was the one who decided to jump. He was the one who did.
‘ Take a swan dive off the roof and pray for a quirk in your next life! ’ His brain supplied the painful memory.
Oh.
It was the same day Kaccahn said those burning words. The same day All Might broke his dreams and left him on the rooftop. The same day he heard explosions in the distance and struggled to open the locked door. The same day he cried until the night descended and took flight from the roof. The same day he woke up in the body of every living thing in hundreds of miles. The same day Izuku Midoriya died and Verdant was created.
Izuku, no. Verdant tried to say something. Tried to ask the wind to speak to Kacchan. Tell him it wasn’t his fault. Was it?
Nothing came. The wind didn’t shift. The rabbit’s eyes never changed. The air didn’t shift.
Verdant couldn’t say anything. Or was it Izuku who couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know. The rabbit stayed with Kacchan until he stood up to leave, who knows how long later.
Kacchan glanced at the rabbit who was blinking at him awkwardly. Kacchan let a low sigh leave his lips before wiping his face free from the tears.
“What’re you looking at?” He hissed. It sounded faker than Izuku’s smiles. It was a hollow threat, broken and almost sad in the middle.
The rabbit twitched and scampered closer to the grave, giving no mind to the explosion boy glaring back at it. It pressed its nose to the cold stone before bolting away into the brush, leaving the blond boy staring in its wake.
—
Izuku managed to follow Kacchan through his life a little more after that. Maybe it was stalking, maybe not. He wasn’t actually following Kacchan, more like watching through the bodys of animals he passed. Rats in the dark alleyways. Birds perched on second story balconies. Cats strolling down the sidewalks. The common butterfly enjoying flowers in window sills. So no, he wasn’t stalking. Kacchan was simply passing by animals every second.
The blond boy reached his destination. UA’s gates.
So that’s what he meant by-
Wait.
‘ I know. You should have been there with me. Why did I do that? I’m such a fucking idiot. ’
Izuku… Should have been there? What did he mean by that? Did he not mean any of those heart shattering words? Had he just been trying to get Izuku to stop following him? Why would he care? He obviously didn’t care about the quirkless deku who would have followed him through hell if he had to.
But Kacchan seemed different. Changed. Chipped at the edge. Frayed but not yet broken. He seemed like a lost something. Could that something have been… Izuku?
Kacchan entered the open gates, steering clear from the other students who didn’t seem to want to join him anyway with the hard glare he was shooting at anyone who got too close.
Izuku found a small songbird nearby who was also watching the students filter into the main building. He took control of the creature, silently gliding his way toward the blond boy before diving into the open backpack. The blond grunted but continued on his way.
Izuku wiggled himself into a corner where the books wouldn’t crush him if they shifted. He silently waited.
Was this considered trespassing?
After tumbling around for at least ten minutes he could hear muffled voices outside. The backpack unzipped and Kacchan snagged a book out before freezing. He stared at the green-eyes bird, who stared back.
Kacchan blinked a few times before rubbing his eyes and continuing on, taking another glance at the bird. He mumbled something under his breath before turning back around. Izuku peered out to watch as Kacchan and some other boy argued about his feet on the table. What he presumed to be the teacher walked in a few moments later. The man was in a bright yellow sleeping bag and was letting a ‘I-don’t-have-time-for-this’ glare seep into the chatting students' backs.
Kacchan and a few other students noticed before the man spoke up and ordered them out into the field. Izuku stayed in the backpack just as a precaution. He knew the school was covered in cameras. Hidden and visual ones littering every corner and hall. If a very green eyed bird suddenly started flying around an empty classroom it would have been quite noticeable. He spent the rest of the day exploring through the eyes of wandering animals while keeping the bird hidden away. He made note to lead the bird to a healthy snack after this though.
—
That night he was running through the darkness as a wild cat. The trees were no obstacle for this animal. He leaped through branches, flung over rocks and silently twisted through the maze of trees. Shifting in the air made the cat’s whiskers twitch. Izuku turned, sliding into the clearing with ease. A boy sat in the middle. He was on a fallen tree staring up at the stars.
His hair was split between red and white and a scar was covering half his face.
It was one of the boys in Kacchan’s class. Todoroki Shoto.
How far had he gone? Was he in the forest behind the Todoroki estate?
He half hesitantly stepped to leave before noticing the look on the boy's face.
An empty stare. Blank eyes and fitted face were illuminated by the night sky. Izuku knew that look all too well. It was a mask to put on. A mask to hide the pain that plagued through one’s body. It was pain. It was hate. It was loss. It was a stare that Izuku had learned to recognize after looking in the mirror one too many times.
He crept forward. The wind shifted lightly. The air dipped in temperature. The Todoroki didn’t look around, but he parted his lips and sighed in answer.
“Who are you?” He all but whispered.
The cat’s keen ears caught the silent message that no normal human would hear otherwise.
“Nobody. At least nobody now.” He replied. His voice whispered through the breeze that sent branches into a slow motion around them.
Todoroki finally looked down, staring into the distance. His eyes only half present. The rest of him missing from the world.
“Who were you before?” He finally spoke a few moments later.
“A broken vessel.” He paused. “A something rather than someone.”
Todoroki seemed to ponder on the words he heard. He looked around and caught the cat’s eyes.
“Verdant?” Todoroki asked, tilting his head at the bright green eyes glowing in the dim light.
“You know the name they gave me?” He asked, tilting the cat's head to match the duel colored boy’s.
“My father does not speak kindly of you.” He replied, turning his whole body toward the cat.
“I am used to those kinds of words.” Izuku sat the cat down and watched the wind whistle around the two beings in the clearing. Both broken. Both afraid.
“I do not agree. I think you are pretty nice. For helping people where heroes won’t and for pissing my father off.” His lips twitched upward but were quickly hidden back behind his blank mask.
“I think that's the first time someones ever said something nice about me.” That statement made Todoroki let a small frown form.
“Do you have a name? Besides the one given by the heroes on your case?”
Izuku pondered for a moment.
“I had a name. But that was before I… I’m different now. I died. I used to be human. I used to have a name. But I’m not who I was before anymore. Now I don’t know what to be called.” Izuku replied after a while.
Todoroki allowed Izuku to think. He released his hold on the wild animal who quietly left the scene. He let himself feel he was sitting next to the boy, feet hanging over the log, hands gripped onto the old bark, air around him.
Todoroki noticed the shift in the light beside him. He looked to his side and saw a faint green outline of a boy. Glowing green curly hair sat unaffected by the light breeze and body littered with light scars. The ghost-like boy was young and had a mask just like his placed on his face. His bright green eyes, despite their glowing, held hollow nothingness. It was a face he saw when he looked in the mirror.
He didn’t know what compelled him to, but he brushed the half visible figure’s hand with his fingertips. Verdant seemed to flicker in reality, before giving a small, barely visible, true smile and vanished with the next gust of air.
Todoroki let a smile take hold of him and looked back up into the sky.
The stars shimmered back.
—
The next week or so was a blur. Izuku met Todoroki every night after school, sometimes he came later than midnight, covering bruises and burns. Izuku, managing to hold his somewhat human form, never pressed on the subject but still displayed his displeasure in the wounds with a frown. It wasn’t long before secrets were spilled, by both beings.
Izuku learned of Endeavor's abuse, Touya’s death and the constant reminder burnt into a boy’s face of how he wanted to be nothing like Endeavor.
Todoroki learned of a quirkless teen who committed suicide after a decade of abuse and an unnamed hero told him he could never be a hero, leaving the boy on a locked roof.
After each secret was told, silence followed. Pain from memories and words shook both boys to their core.
It was an unfair, painful, horrific world. Both boys knew better than anyone. One from the bottom of the world, treated less than human, less than animal . One treated as a creation rather than a person, watching the world through corruption and hush-money. Both knew of the twisted world so desperately covered up.
Soon Izuku was able to walk and move around in his ghostly human form, though he still flickered in and out of existence according to Todoroki.
“Are we friends?” Todoroki asked one night.
Izuku tilted his head at the question. “I think we are, I don’t think I’ve had a real friend before.”
He grimaced at the thought of Kacchan.
“Nor have I.” He replied.
“Then I’ll be your first friend. Do you want to be my friend?” Izuku asked.
Pale moonlight lit up half of Todoroki’s face as he turned.
“Yes, I think I’d like you to be my friend.” They both smiled. “Call me Shoto then.”
“Then call me Izuku.”
—
It was an odd day. He watched Shoto get on a bus for a field trip at some place off campus. Izuku felt an odd worry settle in him. The animals and plants nearby felt it too. Cat’s hair stood on end. Birds were ready to fly at a moment's notice. Dogs ready to flee, hiding in the dark. Izuku took hold of a hawk, who was already on edge from the suspense that seemed to be present in every inch of the city.
The underground was acting strange for the last week or so. Animals, plants and Izuku noticed. It was a disbalance. The calm before the storm.
He watched the class enter the large dome-like structure. He glared down as they disappeared inside. Swooping lower, his eyes flicked for movement.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. The plants and trees inside were hissing. He looked for a way in, circling the perimeter.
At least a few minutes later a boy bolted from a hole in the wall. He ran with purpose and fear.
Something was happening. The storm was raging. Izuku dropped into a dive, his green eyes glowing like a fire in the dark of night. He twirled through the opening. He was inside the USJ.
It was like hell descended upon the dome building. No wonder the trees were disturbed. It was a war zone here. He gained altitude, passing a shadowy figure that felt both dead and alive at the same time. He saw the teacher fighting in the plaza as an army of villains descended upon him. He watched students fighting for their lives in different sections of the building. It was a coordinated attack.
He dived down, catching sight of a massive creature smash into Eraserhead, the teacher. He went flying. It was wrong.
Wrong. So very wrong.
The creature with an exposed brain and bulging eyes was wrong. It was dead and alive. A creature that shouldn’t exist. A monster created by monsters. A beast without will. Created from death and dragged into life.
It shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t be alive. That creature was against the laws of nature itself. Izuku Verdant screeched out. An ear-piercing guttural sound that a hawk shouldn’t even be able to make. The hawk squirmed in his control, crying out for him to get rid of the monstrosity before them. Izuku agreed wholeheartedly.
As bright as his viridescent eyes, the hawk he had glimmered through the air. He would fix this. He would put the beast to rest once and for all.
—
Shoto sent another wave of ice up, preventing the villains from retreating or advancing. He breathed out a frozen breath. Exiting the forest into the plaza he saw Aizawa-Sensei fighting hordes of villains. Exhaustion was obviously gaining on him, as he was sloppily fighting by now, attempting to dodge a flurry of attacks while fighting back.
Shoto raised his foot to send a glacier at the army, before he froze. A massive creature nearly teleported into Aizawa-Sensei, throwing him across the plaza with a cry. It was wrong. A creature made from pure unlawful methods. He had felt true peace before, with Izuku and his mysterious self. But this? This creature was the opposite of it all.
The air dropped noticeably several degrees. Shoto let himself relax slightly. He knew that feeling. That presence. His friend.
An inhuman cry echoed through the building. It was half burning rage and half sickening disgust all in one.
What looked like a star descended at high speeds. Green light blinded half the plaza and forced Shoto to squint at the bright ball of green light. The outline of green wings fell behind the star, shimmering talons extended forward and two bright orbs of light broke through the light.
Shoto took a moment to think it looked like an angel descending from the heavens.
Leaving a faint streak in the air, the star crashed into the monster. Immediately, pressure exploded around the plaza. Shoto had to freeze himself to the ground to prevent him from being blasted backwards.
The monster was flung back, rolling over itself before smashing into the ground one last time. Its various scars flickered a familiar green light. Its limbs were twisted in ways it shouldn't be, but it managed to lift its head up, revealing bright green orbs staring at the hand villain who was frozen in the center of the plaza.
The hand villain stepped back in fear, sputtering nonsense about hacks, unfairness and demons.
The monster suddenly convulsed, sputtering broken words and echoing through the building.
“Do not break nature’s laws again. ” The creature snarled. “ Let this be your final warning.”
The monster exploded in a blast of air and light, leaving nothing but a spider-webbed crater in the concrete.
Shoto shuddered before he could stop himself. The voice clung to his bones and shook him to his very core. Could that really have been his friend saying that? The hand villain seemed to get the message, as he was shaking like a leaf. The rest of the plaza was frozen in time, the only movement being eyes flicking around looking for an explanation.
The star hovered in the sky, before a hawk fled from the center, leaving the light without its wings and claws. The light took on a somewhat human form, Shoto recognizing the green curls and shimmering eyes.
He stepped forward, eyes fixed on the non-human entity before him. Green eyes met grey and blue.
“Izuku?” Shoto managed to say. His eyes were wide and his lips were parted. He knew it was the most emotion he’d expressed outside of their nightly talks.
Shoto received a light smile, light rays filtering through the boy’s partially visible body. Izuku lowered himself to the ground and let his hand brush the concrete.
The world suddenly flipped it’s axis. Light flooded Shoto’s world. He was left drifting in the blank void. He should have been terrified, he felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing but himself. But he wasn’t afraid. If he could, he would have smiled. He felt safe, he knew his friend was saving him. He knew he was in good hands.
He woke up in a stretcher. Man-made lights blinded him for a moment after his eyes flicked open. He noticed the villains looking dazed through the flurry of police cars and people talking. Shoto glanced at a flicker of light rays beside him. Green lines shifted into existence. He smiled.
They were going to change the world.