Chapter Text

There are people born to power. They have connections and people that support them. Then, there were people who were born to fail. Izuku Midoriya believed himself to be in the latter category of life. He desperately wanted to be a hero, but by twists of fate, it seemed he was not born to be one. Every day, people put him down, telling him how stupid his dreams were and how pathetic he was. This had been going on for years, leaving him feeling more than a little defeated. How could he be anything but when everyone told him his dreams were impossible?

Then came the final blow.

Yesterday, he wanted to be a hero. Today, he barely had enough strength to get out of bed. He had faced the worst heartbreak imaginable. His idol told him to give up. As he got ready for school, he opted to skip breakfast to avoid his mother’s gaze. No, she would see right through him if he sat down for a meal with her. He wasn’t sure he could muster a smile to cover how defeated he felt. Besides, if he did confide in her, she would just say the same thing All Might did. “Be realistic…” he muttered in the mirror as he put his toothbrush down. “Fine…” he continued as he walked back to his room and pulled on his backpack before heading to the door for his shoes.

“Izuku? Are you leaving already? What about breakfast?” His mother asked, but he didn’t turn around to face her. 

“I’m not very hungry this morning, but thank you for thinking of me,” Izuku said more politely and stiffly than he intended to as he slipped on his shoes. Without much else, he left. There was only one thing he could do. 

That day, he would withdraw his application to U.A.’s hero course and replace it with one to their general studies course. How’s that for realistic ? Or perhaps he should just withdraw the application altogether. Would his mother finally stop looking at him worriedly, like she knew he was destined to fail? His chest ached from what he decided he needed to do. It wasn’t easy to let go of everything he had dreamed of, but as he walked to school, he mentally prepared for it. He prepared to erase what he had written and face his classmates' ridicule. He should be preparing for whatever Kacchan would say or do. He would probably be happy to see Izuku withdrawing.

When he got to school, the idea of going straight to the principal made him feel ill. He just needed a few more hours. He’d do it after school. There was plenty of time. Why should he rush to end his dreams? So, he avoided it for the time being by going straight to his classroom. 

He was met with hateful stares and ridicule when he arrived at his class. It’s fine. He was used to that. Even when he went to sit down and found his desk covered in hateful graffiti, he didn’t miss a beat in sitting down and taking a deep breath. No, he paid no attention to what was written nor took the initiative to wipe it away as he took his notebook out and busied himself with anything. A distraction was welcome by any means—something not to remind him of his dying dream.

He would have focused on schoolwork, but he had finished it all for the next two weeks. This left him with considerable time to dedicate to his hobbies. Sometimes, it pays off to get ahead on things. He flipped through his notebook to the page he had been working on the previous day before…well…before it happened. He was writing about a hero who recently debuted just a few days prior with an interesting quirk. The moment he put pen to paper, he paused, eyes glazing over as he looked at the page. He then flipped back through the other quirk analysis pages. His stomach churned when he landed on All Might’s signature. Why was he going back to this? Didn’t he decide to end his dream of being a hero? Yeah, it was useful in many hero industry jobs, but…it felt more like a knife twisting in his chest.

While people filed in, Izuku noticed one thing in particular that was wrong. Kacchan wasn’t there. Even when class started, he hadn’t arrived, but no one mentioned it as the class moved forward. Izuku tried to ignore the worry in his gut and busied himself with doodling. He shouldn’t care so much about someone who made his life miserable. Yeah…he should just forget it. Katsuki would never acknowledge him or be nice to him with no quirk.

Instead of listening to his lectures and paying attention like a good student, Izuku Midoriya doodled. It was a mindless doodle of something he saw on a TV show in passing. He couldn’t remember it in detail, but he did his best. It felt good to be engrossed in the drawing, perfecting each circle and the designs in each. There was no time to think about what he had to do that day.

By the time class was ending, he had a detailed arcane circle. There was only one thing missing. The triangle at the very center was empty, and it felt like it needed something in it. He pressed his pencil to the center, only to get interrupted with nothing more drawn than two lines, connected like the beginnings of an odd F.

Only when he finished did he realize something felt off. Izuku looked up at his classmates, who were all packing up their things despite the teacher still talking. None of them were even looking at him. He looked to the window, but it was the same old view. Why was he feeling like this? Like some deep primal instinct was warning him of danger—a danger far worse than Katsuki or his classmates. And why…why was that instinct telling him that something was watching him? 

Looking back at the page, he stared at the last thing he drew, and the feeling became more intense. In fact, he was sure he was hearing things. There was the murmur of kids talking to one another, but none talked to him, and no student in this class had a deep enough voice. Yes, he was hearing things.

ᛊᛈᛖᚨᚲ ᚦᛖ ᚹᛟᚱᛞᛊ

He felt everything in him pause. His breath, mind, body, everything froze when that voice penetrated his very soul. He didn’t recognize the language but knew what it was saying. What words was he supposed to speak? 

Before he could think further about the meaning of the voice and what it was saying, a hand slammed down onto his desk. “Hey! How many more times do we have to kick your ass before you stop being a complete freak?” a boy asked. Izuku looked up and saw that it was one of Katsuki’s goon- friends. At the commotion, the class quieted down to look. With five minutes left of class, it seemed their teacher had given up and was focused on something in his binder. Izuku instinctively pulled his notebook closer before he put on a smile.

“Sorry, was I talking out loud again?” he asked with a sheepish laugh, but for some reason, he looked a bit angrier than usual– it couldn’t be because Katsuki missed school, right? On any other day, he would put his head down and avoid confrontation, but it seemed more than one thing made it different. 

“No, duh, who are you stalking today, freak?” the boy asked, snatching his notebook away despite Izuku’s tight grip. The sound of tearing could have easily been Izuku’s will to live, but it was his notebook. Right, the weak get trampled, and the strong don’t give a crap. That was how life had always been, yet here he was—filled with a feeling he couldn’t name. It could have been rage, fueled by the ridicule he faced for simply being different–by being weak. It could have been sorrow, fueled by the fact his notebook had been torn, and half of it was being further shredded while people laughed– much like they laugh at his aspirations. It could be the feeling of helplessness fueled by his idol tearing apart the future he wanted for himself.

ᛊᛈᛖᚨᚲ ᛒᛟᛃ

That voice again. That voice spoke so loudly to him, making everyone in front of him sound so distant. This time, however, he somehow knew what to say. “I call to Yggdrasil. Algiz.” Izuku said, but it didn’t quite feel like he was the one who had said them. It had felt more like some unknown force forced the words out. Before Izuku felt he fully regained himself, the ground lit up beneath him. At first, everyone froze in shock, including Izuku. What he was looking at looked like an arcane circle of some kind. 

Then, the chaos began.

A blast of energy rocketed forth from the light beneath him, swirling around him like he was the eye of a massive storm. Everything outside the eye was flung away with enough force to break bones. Not that Izuku could tell or cared. The energy around him swirled in every color, bringing him far away from his classroom. It almost felt like he was flying before the energy dissipated, leaving him in a black void. “Hello?” Izuku called, but his voice echoed endlessly into the abyss. 

“Walk forward, boy,” the voice from before spoke, but it was less imposing this time. Izuku did as he was told and walked forward. The further we walked, the more he could see. Before him was a massive tree glowing with energy and ethereal in its own way. Soon, his feet touched grass, and he assumed this was where he was supposed to be. 

“Um…sir? Where am I?” Izuku asked, looking around. There was a cliff to one side and a stream to the other, leaving only a small path toward the giant tree. Though, it was so damn dark that if he tried to walk it, he was sure he would end up wet or bruised.

“Your given name is Izuku,” a male voice said. It was older and much clearer than before, but it was undoubtedly the one speaking to him this whole time. 

“Interesting boy for an interesting future.” a woman spoke right after.

Looking up to the cliff, he saw two people standing on the ledge, not that he could make out any details as it was far too dark, and behind them was the only light source.

“He is too small,” another male voice said. He found the path toward the tree now blocked by a hulking figure.

“You are too harsh; he is only mortal.” A new female voice spoke, and he found a future standing across the stream. This one was a little different, as next to her stood a massive creature.  

“Silence, the both of you. Frigga.” the eldest spoke, giving Izuku no place to speak up. Perhaps in a magical place like this, he shouldn’t talk. 

“Yes, dear husband.” Frigga, as Izuku now knew, answered with an audible smirk. Izuku could clearly see her eyes begin to glow. “The choice is up to you and you alone, dear husband…but I see potential,” she said as the glow faded away.

“Is that good or bad?” the one blocking the path asked, but Frigga didn’t answer. “Mother…”

“It’s decided.” the eldest spoke sternly. “Izuku, child of mortals. Do you accept the gift of Yggdrasil? Do you accept all that it comes with?”

“Yggdrasil?” Izuku mirrored, looking behind him at the giant tree. He couldn’t say he was well versed in mythology, but he knew enough that he understood that Yggdrasil was the actual name of the “tree of life” that people talk about in fantasy online chats. That giant tree couldn’t be the tree of myth, right? “I don’t understand… what gift?”

“You are one of few who the tree has chosen itself to carry the knowledge of runes, but it is not charity. Trials must be overcome. To overcome these, you will be granted great power.” the elder explained, and another thing clicked. Odin…the leader of the gods of the Norse pantheon. The only thing he really knew about Odin was he was known as the wisest among Norse gods. No, now’s not the time.

“Boy! Answer already!” the one blocking the path yelled, snapping Izuku to his senses.

“Alright! I accept!” Izuku called out, and only seconds later, he snapped his mouth shut with regret. He should have asked what kind of trials he had to overcome, but taking his word back in front of gods wouldn’t have been good, right?

“Good. As a gift of my own, I will bestow upon you a small boost to get you started,” he said, stamping his staff into the ground. Izuku’s chest began to glow blue around where his heart should be. 

“A bit of advice, child of man.” the female with the giant beast next to her said, “Master the old man’s gift as quickly as possible. The trials he speaks of are no easy feat.”

Izuku felt a sinking feeling, but somehow, he felt that if he asked about the trials, he would get no answers anyway. “Our time runs short.”

“Don’t disappoint us now!”

“Until we meet again, child of man.”

“Farewell.”

“Yes, I hope we meet again under less strict circumstances.” Izuku felt a chill run up his spine at the last voice. There had been someone standing behind him.

He spun around as the energy swirled around him but only caught sight of a pair of stark green eyes before he was snatched away from the great tree and plopped back into the world of mortals. 

Izuku was startled awake to find he was lying in a bed. He was lying in his bed, surrounded by All Might memorabilia. How did he get home? No, how long was he asleep? Had that been a crazy dream? No, don’t get ahead of yourself, Izuku. The boy sat up and placed a hand to his chest. The glow had been right beneath his palm. Was that gift still there? 

As if to answer his unvoiced question, the glow returned, though much weaker than before when he stood before Odin and the World tree itself. It had definitely been real. He had been in the presence of at least one god, most likely four–...five. Five gods, including the one that he hadn’t noticed until the last second…but who the hell were the rest? Odin and Frigga were the only ones he knew for sure. Odin he knew, and Frigga referred to him as husband, so obviously, she was a goddess.

“I have... A lot of research to do.” he sighed with a breathy laugh. Once it faded away, he looked down at himself. “Knowledge of runes…” he muttered before a loud growl interrupted him. “Okay, food first and then research.” he nodded as he slipped out of bed. Immediately, he noticed he was also in his pajamas. 

Slipping out of his room he saw that everything was dark– right, his mother was supposed to work the night shift tonight. She must have already left. Now feeling a bit more at ease, he walked to the kitchen and turned the light on. As expected there was a note on the counter and food in the microwave for him. The problem was that it was 4 in the morning. He…he had been unconscious for hours!

Now, knowing this, he sat down and ate his curry with a healthy amount of rice mixed in. Since yesterday was Saturday, that meant that today he had the day off. That was perfect. It meant he could figure out what Odin’s gift was! He hummed in excitement as he enjoyed his breakfast, all the while planning what he was supposed to do that day. The first was to do his research on Norse mythology for…obvious reasons, and the second was to do whatever he could to understand Odin’s gift. Yeah, short list, but he had a feeling it would take a lot longer than just a day for him to do both of them. 

“Alright!” he exclaimed as he finished eating. He rushed to put his mess away before going to the computer room and snuck into his mother’s room to gain access to the family computer. As he expected and already knew, she was gone.

For the next four hours, he engrossed himself in his research and note-taking—using a brand-new notebook for this purpose. By the time his mother came home, he was in the kitchen getting a snack. “Good morning, Mom!” he smiled as his mother rushed in and pulled him into a hug.

“I was so worried when I heard you collapsed at school!” she shouted as he was smothered in her embrace. 

“I swear I’m fine!” he comforted his mother until she stopped crying. “It was probably just some kid using their quirk,” he stated, even though it was a blatant lie. It was probably because some part of him was taken to that meeting with the gods. Still crazy to think about. To think…there are actually gods.

After his mother finally calmed down she got herself something to eat before heading to bed. Now that he didn’t have access to the computer he had two options. Go to a library and borrow one for more research or go somewhere isolated to figure out what Odin gave him. 

Obviously, he chose the latter option. What better place to go alone than Takoba Beach?

“Runes were once thought to hold power to change the natural world and empower those of great knowledge. Divination…Foresight…reflections of life or cosmic principles.”  Izuku reviewed his notes, which, he had to admit, were taken in a rush, so he practically wrote everything in shorthand, and he could barely read it. “Did Odin give me…magic?” Izuku asked. Everything he remembered of his rushed research was mostly magic, mythology, and divination….or very commonly used in Wicca rituals. 

He turned the page to where he had written down all of the runes and their meanings. Upon really studying the page, something strange happened. The number of runes increased. He wasn’t sure how or why, but the entire page was rearranged itself. The normal Futhark runes he had written down were each replaced by runes he had not seen anywhere online. Wait, was Odin helping him figure it out? Nah, that couldn’t be what's happening. Odin probably has a lot of better things to do. 

Regardless, whatever happened left him with a nice detailed page of runes, what they mean, and a small note about how to use them. “Inscribe rune on object. Focus on how spell should look. Cast.” Izuku read aloud and laughed a little. Small note indeed.

Despite that, he did as the note said. He tore out a page, chose a rune, and drew it out on a page. Now, he just needed to figure out how it should look. The rune he had chosen was called ‘spark’. He assumed it would be like a flint and steel spark. 

He closed his eyes and imagined the spark. “[Spark].” he spoke and opened his eyes just in time for the paper to spark on fire. He would have been impressed if it hadn’t been the smallest spark and an equally small flame burning the paper away. Izuku started to think a little about his experiment. It was small, too small to be of much use outside of general utility, and it was contained to just objects he was able to draw on. It felt like two very big problems for someone who wanted to enroll in UA’s hero course. 

Think about the note. It seems very straightforward, but take into consideration who might’ve written it. Not very many of the Norse gods he read about were known to be very truthful. By his guess, he had met with Odin, Frigga, and Thor. The other two were a bit of a mystery, but he had a feeling it might have been Freyja, who was known to associate with cats. While it was a giant one, the beast next to her looked cat-like. Maybe one of the two giant cats that pull her chariot? That just leaves the last one. How could he even begin to guess when he only saw their eye color…though he could guess they were important. Could it be Loki? They appear in many of the Norse myths and played a pivotal role overall. 

All that said, the only one who was trustworthy at his word would be Thor. He wasn’t known to withhold information or just outright trick people. 4/5 chance that this note was withholding information on how to use the runes or has some kind of clue or trick to it.  “Inscribe rune on object. Focus on how the spell should look. Cast.” Izuku repeated, but this time, he decided he wasn’t going to draw it and instead focused on the object. 

Looking at a piece of trash, Izuku extended his arm out, palm toward the object. He focused on what he wanted to happen. He didn’t want a small spark. He wanted to know the extent of this rune. Imagine the spark growing.

The spark starts a fire. 

The fire consumes the item.

“[spark]!” Izuku yelled, maybe more for himself than for the benefit of the spell. He could feel…something. It felt like the warmth traveling from his core, through his arms, and pooling at his palms. Then he saw the spark followed by the ignition of fire. A grin grew across his face as he saw this happen. The note never said that Izuku had to physically inscribe a rune on someone! 

He raced back to his notebook to take new notes based on his experiments. He was far from finished. After using the fire spell he moved on to experimenting with the wind spell called “breeze”. It’s general use was to cause a localized breeze but delving further into it he realized he could control its direction and intensity to some extent. It was intense enough to whisk him up into the air. It would take a lot more practice for it to become useful though.

By the time noon came around, Izuku had found, after experimenting with a total of four runes, that he was beyond exhausted and starved. He assumed that magic was the same as quirks in that the energy used as fuel for the rune’s effect was taken out of his own body’s energy. This meant…he was going to have to get stronger so he could cast more runes at one time without refueling himself. That said, what would happen if he overused runes? Quirks vary in effects, but runes weren’t technically a quirk…what if he ran out of all stamina? Would he pass out before anything bad happened, or would something more dire happen?

Izuku sighed as he made his way toward a convenience store to get himself sustenance, though his mind was much too worked up to stop thinking about more applications for the runes. Even when he was eating, he continued to take notes and make hypotheses’ about how to use the magic to his advantage and figure out more powerful applications. 

After eating, he began to organize the new runes he got into different categories. There were elemental runes that dealt with creating and controlling natural occurrences like wind and fire. There were the conceptual runes that dealt with things like the mind, time, and life itself. Physical runes that altered things that already existed, like turning rock into dirt or even temporarily altering his own skin to become as hard as metal- though after a few seconds of doing that, he couldn’t hold onto the rune, and his skin turned back. So, some of the runes were more powerful than others and took an equal amount of strength that he ultimately didn’t have. 

The last category of runes was Mystical, which focused on abstract and metaphysical concepts. It was by far the hardest category. He only used one spell, and he was sure he was close to passing out, even after refueling. The spell he intended to try was called ‘glimpse’, which was supposed to allow him to take a peek into future or current events. He had expected that future events would take more energy, so he opted to simply take a look at a current event happening elsewhere, thus focusing on his mother. 

He had seen that she was at home getting lunch before it felt like something pulled him from the vision, and body slammed him into the ground. Again, that’s just how it felt. What really happened was that he got a massive headache behind his eyes and collapsed to the ground. “Holy…hell…” he muttered once the headache eased. 

Yeah. He was going to need to do some hardcore stamina training in order to get a hold of each category of runes. He closed his eyes for a moment, finding the evening sun too harsh for his headache, but when he opened them again, there was a wolf before him– well, it was more like leaning over him with a kind of curiosity or worry. 

Izuku’s immediate thought was danger, but when it licked his face, that feeling went away quickly. “I’m sorry to ask…but who are you?” he asked, wondering if this was a shape-shifted god coming to check on him or something, not that he would think he was important enough for that. The wolf simply looked toward the sea, exposing the necklace around its neck. It wore the sign of Valknut, the three interconnected triangles. “Are you…Odin?” he asked, but even he could tell the wolf gave him a skeptical side-eye. “Ah, probably not then–” Odin is most well known for having two ravens, but his research also revealed that he had two wolves. “Geri?” he asked, and the wolf did not respond. “Freki?” he asked again, and this time it did. Did Odin send out his wolf to watch him?

The thought put Izuku’s stomach in knots. The fact that it was possible Odin was watching him struggle and decided he had to step in…Izuku held his stomach and tried to keep himself calm. He looked at the wolf again, this time taking in more of its appearance. The wolf had a beautiful white coat that looked incredibly soft. Izuku reached out to the wolf carefully, but they did not move, indicating he wasn’t allowed to touch. When his fingers made contact with the fur, he noticed three things: the first was that the fur was soft, and the second was that underneath the white coat, there was a soft blue glow reminiscent of the one that came from his chest when he received Odin’s gift. The last thing he noticed was the relief. His pain ebbed away enough for him to sit up.

“Are you going to stay?” he asked, wondering if the wolf was there just momentarily to get him back to his feet or if he had a new companion. Again, he did think that perhaps they were sent to watch him, but it was worth asking. The wolf looked at him, seemingly assessing his condition, before it pawed off the necklace from around its neck. It was…heavier than it looked as it landed in his lap. “I suppose that means you are staying.” Izuku smiled as he picked up the necklace. 

A spark of energy jolted up his arm, and some part of him thought. 

That felt… permanent.