Chapter Text
Izuku had to beg his mother to let him sneak into town and take a peek at the Adventurers' Guild. It was something he’d admired for a very, very long time and he always thought the life of an adventurer would be so much more glorious than his current one. Who wouldn’t choose fighting bandits and searching for treasure over being stuck in a castle with no friends save the books he read, his mother, and the servants that weren’t even allowed to look at him, much less talk to him. It was all to keep him safe, supposedly, but it was quite lonely.
Izuku knew Mother kept him isolated to protect him. Royals were not only supposed to have magic, but they were supposed to be some of the more powerful magic users. But, for some reason, Izuku had nothing. He’d never shown any evidence of innate magical talent. So, Mother kept him hidden away. Protected.
But Izuku didn’t want protecting, he wanted a fulfilling life. So, when he first overheard Sir Might, Mother’s most trusted advisor and the captain of the knights, telling tales of his days in the Guild, the then six-year-old Izuku became enamored. He read every book there was to read about adventurers and on the rare occasions that Sir Might or his trusted few elite knights came for strategy meetings that Izuku may or may not have eavesdropped on he would find ways to ask them about their adventures. It sounded absolutely amazing.
So, when Queen Inko, aka Mother saw the fire in Izuku’s eyes when he reached the minimum age to join the Guild, fifteen, she let him go to the next test, several months later. There was, however, one condition. If he were to get badly injured, he would have to quit. A few scrapes could be looked over, but anything more and he would have to promise to stay home again.
Izuku agreed, of course.
As for sneaking into town, no one really knew what the prince looked like, so he didn’t have to worry much. Mother acquired him some peasant clothing including a scarf to cover his hair and a messenger bag that held pens, ink, and his latest journal: The Chronicles of Izuku Midoriya, number thirteen. She made him change the name Midoriya to Valleybound and she had him smudge his first name just in case anyone saw it and recognized the name of the prince, but she let him keep the journal.. It was full not only of analyses of various adventurers he read about, but also of stories of himself and his imagined adventures. After all, he had to find some way to go beyond the castle walls, and if he couldn’t do it for real, he’d have to settle for imagination.
But he was doing it! He was walking through his mother’s city, following the map he’d memorized many years ago while actually seeing the streets cataloged in it up close for the first time.
It was very noisy and it kind of stunk, but it was invigorating. He was on his own, but not in the isolating way of being in his one in the castle. No, this was something else. This was empowering. His fate, for the first time, felt like it was in his own hands!
Just as Izuku was coming upon the entrance to the Guild, which was marked with a grand looking UA, he did something very unbecoming of a prince and tripped.
Oh no! If I get hurt before I even get in, Mother will definitely make me come home! It will all be over and I’ll never get to reach my dreams!
His inner monologue began to spiral as the ground rushed closer and closer, but just as he braced for final impact, he stopped. Not because he hit the ground, but because he was suddenly floating.
“Sorry,” a girl’s voice said. “I usually ask before using my magic on anyone, but I thought you would prefer that to a face full of mud.”
Izuku began to stumble over his words as he tried to thank this mysterious girl. It took him a few moments, but he eventually found the right words. “Oh, it’s totally fine I uh… I do and I appreciate the help and um if you would help me up, I’d like to thank you to your-“ He felt a hand on the back of his vest and he was rigged upwards. He got the distinct feeling that gravity had somehow released it’s grip on him as he was pulled. “- face,” Izuku finished as he found himself nearly nose-to-nose with a girl with brown hair, brown eyes, and round, pink cheeks.
He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that his gravity came back and he was on his feet again or the fact that he’d never been so close to anyone his age before, but he felt like his stomach continued the fall while the rest of him stood up.
Izuku felt his face getting very red as he spluttered and eventually got out, “So, um, th-th-thank-thank you.”
The girl smiled and said, “Of course! What kind of adventurer would I be if I didn’t help someone in need?”
She smiled even wider and waved goodbye, walking into the Guild and leaving Izuku thoroughly flustered.
It took Izuku a few moments to recover, but once he did, he hurried inside. He made it just as they were closing the doors. This was his chance to prove he was something more than the weak, magicless prince that had to be hidden away from the world. He was going to prove he could hold his own.
“So, Shota, what did the Queen want?” Nemuri asked as the Guild hopefuls began to come in.
“Yeah, it’s not every day you get a royal summons,” Hizashi added.
“She wanted to check up on the Guild,” Shota responded. While that was true, it wasn’t the full story. And it wasn’t the full story because he was sworn to secrecy about the topic of his summons. He didn’t love keeping secrets from his best friends, but he wasn’t going to betray his Queen. After all, she was trusting him with her son.
The prince was a mystery to almost everyone. Shota suspected some of the knights knew what his deal was, but they weren’t sharing and the Queen definitely wasn’t. Well, she hadn’t before, but now, she was asking for Shota’s help. Apparently, Prince Izuku, like many kids, wanted to be an adventurer.
As the leader of the Adventurer’s Guild, she asked Shota to keep an eye on him and make sure he would fulfill his promise of quitting if he got injured. She gave him a drawing of the boy. He had freckles and even in the drawing, which was probably professionally done and the prince was specifically primped for, Shota could tell his hair was messy, which probably meant it would be even messier now. It was also likely as green as his mother’s. He looked somber, but so did most people in portraits and drawings. They took so long, after all. All in all, it wasn’t the most helpful in identifying him, but it was a start.
“Yeah, sure, because that’s something she’s done before,” Hizashi joked.
Shota shrugged. “Maybe she’s starting a new initiative. She is one of the more involved Queens in recent history.”
“Fine, keep your secrets,” Nemuri said. “I’m sure we’ll find out somehow eventually.”
Shota shrugged again. He was watching everyone come in, looking for the promising ones. There was a boy that Shota recognized as an Iida, a long line of prominent adventurers and knights. There were two boys standing next to each other, neither of them wearing shirts. The blond one was wearing clothes that put him in one of the warrior clans from the forest and the other one was too sharp to be only human. He had little red horns poking out his spiky red hair. There was a girl who looked quite frog-like and another who was totally pink. She had horns too, but hers were yellow and they had more angles. There was a very tall boy with six arms and webbing between them.
Shota wasn’t going to be giving the prince any special treatment, which the Queen agreed with, but he was going to give him a chance to show what he was capable of. Just like the rest of the hopefuls. When Nezu ran the Guild, the test was solely combat based, but once Shota took over last year, he made it more fair. There were different elements, weighted similarly, that gave everyone an opportunity to show off their skills.
There was a combat test, of course, but there were also tests of agility, wits, speed, strength, endurance, and logical reasoning. Shota believed everyone had potential, they just had to know how to harness it. If they could do that, they’d make good adventurers and if they could be good without training, they’d be great with it.
As they were starting to sit everyone down to explain the rules, a boy wearing a green vest over a bit too white of a shirt slipped in and sat in the back seat, next to the blond and sharp boys. His hair was covered and he had a brown messenger bag with him, which was not something most common citizens carried. Shota would have to get a closer look, but he was pretty sure he’d identified the prince.
Time to begin.
A man with long, blond hair, a mustache, and a lute on his back stood at the podium in the front of the room. “So, you all want to be adventurers?” he asked.
The people there made some noises of agreement, but apparently it wasn’t enough because he asked again, “I said, you wanna be adventurers?” His talent must have been voice related because it was unnaturally loud. Izuku mentally searched for who he might be. It didn’t take long, especially because he remembered that the man was also one of his mother’s messengers, though not one who ever directly interacted with her an definitely not Izuku. Present Mic, a bard and also part of the trio that ran the Guild.
Present Mic wasn’t his real name, of course. Adventurers use aliases like Present Mic to have something for people to call then without giving up their real name and risking something like a faerie stealing it.
After his second time asking, the room erupted into noises of excitement. Izuku even added his voice to the cacophony.
“Alright, young adventuring hopefuls, here’s how it’s gonna go down. We’re gonna give you a bunch of tests over two days. If you perform well enough in them, you’ll be able to become part of the Guild! Part of it is competition against your fellow hopefuls, but part of it is pure performance and even some teamwork. Impress us and we’ll let you in, so give it your all! Got it?”
This time, he didn’t have to ask again to get the excited, energetic response.
Izuku was nervous, but also excited. He’d been studying for months and he even convinced Mother to have Sir Might train him in some combat situations in the months since she agreed to let him try. At least this way, he had a chance. He tried not to be overwhelmed by the obvious power and magic everyone else had. He couldn’t fall into despair. This was his chance. He was going to try very hard not to ruin it by doubting himself or comparing himself to the others.
The tests started with the test of wits. It involved solving a series of riddles, going from easy to hard. It was easy enough and Izuku ended up in the final three but he was beaten by a girl with a large ponytail and larger bosom. She also beat a tall boy with blue hair and small, rectangular glasses and the won. However, he wasn’t too put off because he got so far.
Next was logical reasoning. Everyone was split into groups and each of them had a different problem to solve. Izuku’s group contained a boring looking blond guy with kind of flat hair who looked very smug, a short boy with strange, purple balls on his head, a girl with green hair and big eyes, and the girl from earlier who stopped him from falling.
Their task was to figure out the power of one of the established adventurers and how it worked. A guy who seemed like he was about Izuku’s age and had fluffy purple hair.
His power wasn’t obvious at first glance, so Izuku decided to be polite and eventually just ask. But first, he had to be polite. “Hello, what’s your name?”
“Mindjack. You?”
“Um…” Izuku wasn’t sure how to answer. Mother hadn’t given him another name to give, but she didn’t really want him to give his first name either. Could he just get away with calling himself Valleybound? Did peasants sometimes just give their last names? Mindjack gave his alias, which also lead Izuku to believe he had some sort of mind power, and royals always introduced themselves with their full names and titles or were introduced with them.
The blond guy interrupted him and said, “I’m Neito Monoma.” He stuck out his hand for a handshake. Oh, was Izuku supposed to do that?
Mindjack shook Monoma’s hand. Monoma went, “huh,” but said, “So, what’s your power?”
He beat Izuku to the question, but maybe it wasn’t a smart question anyways because Mindjack said, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Not to be beat again, Izuku asked, “Can you show us?”
“Sure. Look at your friend here and you’ll see it.”
Izuku looked at Monoma and his eyes were wide but blank. His face was totally slack.
“Stand up straight,” Mindjack said. And then Monoma did.
“Turn around.”
Monoma began to spin around.
“Is it Brainwashing?” Izuku asked. “You get into people’s heads and then they follow your orders?”
Mindjack smiled a bit and said, “Impressive. How does it work, though? How do I get in people’s heads?”
Izuku looked at Mindjack and tried to see if he was going to give anything away. “I’m not sure yet-“
Izuku felt his own face go slack and when he tried to move, he couldn’t. He could see Monoma and he still looked like he was under Mindjack’s control.
“Raise your arms.” Mindjack’s voice echoed in Izuku’s head and he felt and watched himself raise his arms.
Izuku couldn’t move at all, unless Mindjack told him to. Mindjack tool control right after Izuku responded to a question, but he didn’t take control of Monoma right away.
“So, any guesses from you two?” Mindjack asked. “I wanna give everyone a fair chance.”
“Ith is something to do with tal-“ the purple ball kid asked and then went slack.
Mindjack smiled and looked at the girl. “What about you?”
She looked at him suspiciously and tugged at Izuku’s bag. Maybe she didn’t realize he was holding onto it still because she tugged hard and Izuku felt the fog immediately lift.
“Woah-“ Izuku began to say, but she covered his mouth.
She mimed writing with a pen and pointed to Izuku’s bag. He got what she was saying and got his notebook out. He flipped to a blank page, slid it over, and handed her a pen.
She took it and wrote, “It comes from verbal response. And you can shock people out of it.”
Mindjack chuckled and said, “You got me. I’ll pass it on. You all are impressive.”
“No wonder you’re already part of the Guild at your age, with a power like that. Did they pick you up to make sure you didn’t turn villain?” Monoma asked.
“I joined the Guild on-“ Mindjack didn’t finish because his face went slack as well.
“Oh that is fun,” Monoma said. “You could do a lot with this kind of power.”
He let go and Mindjack went back to normal.
Mindjack sighed and said, “Ok, that’s… something. You must be able to copy powers.”
“Yes, yes I can. And you have quite the fun one.”
“Huh,” Mindjack said. “Well, you all passed. I’ll uh… tell Eraser. Good luck with the other tests.”
Mindjack got up and went to the front. Once he was gone, Monoma said, “Well, it looks like we’re going to get a break before the next test. I’m going to take the time to prepare.”
He got up and walked away. The other people also got up. Izuku wasn’t really sure what to do to ‘prepare’ so he just kept his journal out and started writing some of his observations about the people and their powers.
After a few minutes, someone came over and said, “Hello, uhhhh does that say Deku?” The voice was kind of scratchy and very loud.
Izuku looked up and saw there was a guy with blond hair that was much less flat than Monoma’s. It was big and spiky. He also wasn’t wearing a shirt, and this was the second time today that someone he didn’t know was very close to his face. He was getting a lot more flustered today than he ever had. He was also meeting a lot of new people.
“Um…” Izuku looked at his journal and realized the smudge did look more like Deku than Izuku. He was looking for a new name, and while ‘useless’ wasn’t his favorite, at least it was something. “I suppose it does say that. Uh, I’m Deku, it’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m Katsuki Bakugo,” the other guy said. He held out his hand and Izuku shook it. “But my alias is King Explosion Murder!”
“No,” another guy cut in. He was red and spiky. “We talked about this. His alias is actually Kacchan, and mine’s Red Riot! Or you can call me Kiri.”
“Kacchan is a little kid’s name! I’m King Explosion Murder!”
Izuku was shocked by Bakugo’s brashness. But, to maybe help them both quiet down because stares were starting to come their way, Izuku said, “I like ‘Kacchan.’ It gives an air of comfort and kindness.”
They both stopped arguing and the blond one turned and after a hesitation, much more quietly said, “Well then I guess you can call me Kacchan.”
Kiri looked slightly shocked but said, “Cool. That’s very manly, Kacchan.”
“Not you, Shitty Hair,” Kacchan grumbled. Again, Izuku was shocked that he cursed, but he tried not to show it. He knew the normal citizens of his kingdom didn’t have o as many strict etiquette rules as the royals did.
Izuku cleared his throat and said, “Well, Kiri and Kacchan, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Hey that has a nice ring to it,” Kiri said. “Kiri and Kacchan, adventure bros.”
“Sure, whatever,” Kacchan said. “It’s good to meet you too, Deku.”
Izuku smiled. Was this what having friends felt like? He liked it.
The rest of the day was full of a variety of physical tests including a standing long jump, a fifty meter dash, seated toe touches, and sit ups. Izuku did alright in all of them. He didn’t excel but he didn’t think he stood out because he did poorly either. It was kind of fun to watch all the tests when he wasn’t actively doing them. He wrote down the different types of magic he was seeing and a few of the uses he could think of. The boy who placed second in the riddles test had tubes that spat fire coming out of his legs. It wasn’t like anything Izuku had seen before. Because of the tubes, he was very fast.
Kiri could turn into a dragon, at least partially, which meant he could fly and also that his skin could harden into something like built-in armor. Kacchan could make his hands explode and he used it in a variety of ways to do things like propel himself.
It was fascinating to see all the magic. He’d read about it, of course, but this was the first time he’d gotten to see it up close. He knew that at least eighty percent of the population was born with some magical talent. It would manifest around age four and then they’d have it for the rest of their lives. There were other ways to use magic, like potion making or alchemy, but Mother wasn’t exactly on board with Izuku learning those because they could be dangerous. Maybe once he was an adventurer, he could convince her to let him try.
Once the sun began to dip below the mountains that comprised one of the borders and the sky began to turn into a mosaic of beautiful colors, the Guild members gathered up the hopefuls. This time, Midnight, another one of the the trio that ran the Guild, took over announcing.
“You’ve all done well today. Your passion is obvious and it’s turning me on.” She cracked her whip as she said that. Izuku wasn’t totally sure what she meant, but it seemed positive? “We’re going to be winding down for the night, and one of the important but often overlooked parts of being an adventurer is finding lodging for the night that’s in your budget. We’ll be giving you tokens that can be used at any reputable inn in the city for food and a stay. And I say reputable because we don’t want any of you to do anything naughty on our dime.
“However, not everyone will have the same amount of tokens. We’ve been watching you all throughout the day and we’ve ranked you. The higher your ranking, the more tokens you will have. Feel free to spend as much as you like, but we ask that you use our tokens and not your own resources, if you have them. The goal is to work with a more limited budget. You are also free to decide to rough it and camp all night. The more token you come back with tomorrow morning, the more points you’ll start the day with, which might be an advantage, it might not, that’s for you to guess.
“You may also form teams. If you form a team, every member will get points equivalent to the group’s total. You may not, however, steal tokens from your fellow hopefuls. If we hear that you did, and we will, you will be immediately disqualified. I think that’s all the rules, does everyone understand?”
Everyone agreed and people started acting excited and talking to each other. Izuku saw something out of the corner of his eye and turned. It was Kacchan, barrelling towards him, Kiri close behind.
Kacchan slid to a stop a few feet past Izuku, which was probably not his intention because he stumbled back to be properly in front of Izuku. “Hey, Deku!”
“H-h-hi Kacchan. Uh, h-how are you?”
“Good, good. Do you wanna camp with Kiri and I tonight? We were going to camp anyways, and if you come with us, we can pool our tokens and get a ton of points!”
“Um…” Izuku had never camped before, and Kacchan and Kiri seemed to be somewhat experienced, so he said, “Sure, that sounds fun!”
“Cool!”
“Alright, everyone, quiet down!” Midnight said. “Let’s reveal points!”
Everyone looked back up to the front and Midnight was standing in front of a chalkboard that Present Mic and a man with long, dark hair were rolling out. It was blank, but it probably turned around and the other side had the points.
Once the hopefuls were quiet, Midnight said, “There’s no need to shove each other when we show them, or when we hand out the tokens. Everyone will get what they deserve and we want all of you to be polite, got it?”
They all mumbled agreement. “Alright then. Boys?” She looked behind her and the ones wheeling the board turned it over. There was indeed a list of points and rankings. Izuku tried to get close to see where he fell, but everyone kind of rushed forward. He got squeezed between them and kind of pushed around even though Midnight said no shoving.
Eventually, Izuku got close enough to see the board. He looked for his name, but also wasn’t sure what to look for. Definitely not ‘Izuku Midoriya’ but he didn’t really put ‘Deku Valleybound’ anywhere.
On the list was just “Valleybound” and he was in twenty-fifth out of forty. Not bad. Not great, but not bad either. And there were still a few tests to go. That meant Izuku got fifteen tokens. Midnight said they were about equivalent to a pence, not that it mattered because he was apparently going camping with Kiri and Kacchan. They were higher up. Kacchan was actually in second place, which was really cool. Kiri was in third. So, Kacchan had thirty-nine tokens and Kiri had thirty-eight. That meant together, they had ninety-two together! That was really good! Well, if lots of points was good. It probably was and Midnight was just trying to make some people nervous.
It took a while, but everyone lined up and eventually got their tokens. They were made from wood and they had the symbol of the Guild burned into them. Everyone received them in pre-counted pouches. Midnight turned the board over back to the blank side and she wrote down a bunch of names of Inns and restaurants that took the tokens. Kacchan and Kiri were ignoring it though, so Izuku did too.
As people began to head out, Midnight called, “Be back by mid-morning tomorrow! Don’t cause too much trouble!”
“Can we put our tokens in your bag, Deku?” Kiri asked. “It’ll be easier than trying to individually keeping track of them.”
“Oh, sure,” Izuku said. He turned his bag in front of him and opened it up. He put his tokens in and so did Kacchan and Kiri.
“This is gonna be awesome!” Kacchan said. “Let’s go get set up before it gets dark!”
He pulled Izuku and Kiri with him and Izuku couldn’t hep but laugh as they got tugged into the forest. This was the most fun he’d had in ages. He knew this was a good idea.