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Four minutes. That’s all it took for Izuku Midoriya’s to die. Four minutes of suffocating on sludge, fighting it until his pulse stopped. He was dead when All Might found him at only 13. What an unlucky number…
The panicked, bulky hero only realizes after capturing the villain and starts CPR. The green boy wakes with a start. Disoriented as all one does when coming back from death.
“Huh?” He blinks with bleary eyes, the world around him suddenly having a shimmer to it that he attributes to waking up. He won’t later.
But before he can process anything, the bulky hero poofs into a skinny man, who immediately spews apologies. “I’m so sorry, young man! I was so focused on the villain I had not realized- thank goodness you’re alive!”
Izuku only tilts his head, not understanding. He suffocated, he knows this. The man in front of him is forced to take a few deep breaths before explaining who he is.
More apologies spew from his lips as he turns to an open page in the teens notebook, scribbling a signature. Izuku stares down and recognizes it. His brain finally catches up with everything.
“All Might? Why- Oh.” He processes everything told to him. His brief death, who this scrawny man is, all the words that had left the mans mouth to explain his state.
All Might makes sure to check him, staying as the kids body reacts to being alive and speaking again by vomiting up sludge. The man looks disgusted but guilty, making sure this boy is okay while the boy coughs it out. He hasn’t gotten a name yet. He completely forgets to ask even after leaves when the middle schooler manages to walk a straight line, if somewhat wobbly at first.
There’s a weak huff from the air next to Izuku’s side, an annoyed androgynous voice calling out ‘who leaves a kid who just died alone?’. The teen mumbles an agreement and the air stills as if gasping. But he’s too tired to do anything.
Izuku stumbles to school where he gets berated for being late. He starts to notice odd things throughout the day. There’s an almost fiery shimmer to the world, a gentle thrum of energy around him. It seems to slowly fuel his recovery.
He’s too focused on examining it to truly register the bullies jeering around him today until one tries to take his notebook. Anger flares in Izuku and the energy pulses, causing a wind that startles the boy away.
A whisper sounds next to him, the voice he thought he’d imagined earlier, so unfamiliar but warm yet cold at the same time. He turns to meet the eyes of some translucent being. Izuku’s eyes widen, biting back a startled yelp.
The beings own eyes widen before they break into a grin. ‘You can see me?!’ They say with an excited look that Izuku has never seen before. But there are stares at Izuku, a few quiet mumbles that let him know he seems to stare at nothing to the others looking at the teen. The being goes quiet with a nod towards the teacher, a quiet acknowledgment. Another nod seems to say they’ll talk later. The smile doesn’t fade.
For once Izuku doesn’t focus on class. He thinks. The being next to him, the thrum of energy, he thinks about all the quirks he’s researched. Ones that talk to ghosts. Ones that say they call of energy of the earth or the sun or the moon. Natural things. He mumbles more than ever before.
The being next to him- no, they’re a ghost. A young ghost. They make a small laugh that has Izuku blus. He leaves the second the bell rings to runs home faster than ever before.
He throws himself into research. The now-ghost reappears at some point with a huff, able to read the screen. He notices but doesn’t pause. And there’s a conclusion he comes to.
The thrum of energy, the faint shimmers that have stopped being so obvious throughout out the day, the wind that was summoned, the being next to him. Izuku tells no one. He’s lived 13 unlucky years without a quirk and knowing this gives him a new motivation. He closes the computer with a determined look.
The small being standing next to him gets a curious look, moving their finger to poke his cheek. There’s a gentle, warm
shimmer of energy but they still pass through his cheek with a cold breeze. They smile a but ruefully. ‘You can see me?’ They ask again.
“Yeah” Izuku smiles genuinely for the first time in a long time. “Are you a ghost?” The teen is slightly surprised by how easily he’s taking this but then again he was in shock most of the day. That probably helps him be calmer.
The being nods. ‘Yeah. I’m Yurei, who are you?’
Things change from there.
Izuku finds a new friend, his first friend in Yurei. He doesn’t question how they died, why they came to him and refuse to leave but they’re certainly fun to have. The ghost helps Izuku figure things out.
The two name his quirk Life Energy.
He gets to know them. The ghost never states if they’re a boy or girl, with wispy blonde hair and dull blue eyes. He soon finds out that all ghosts have dulled eyes, ignoring the brief thought of how creepy it is that they have the eyes they must’ve had in the very last seconds of life.