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It looked like Mom. It had the same voice. But it wasn’t her. Izuku had known that from the moment he stepped through the front door, returning home from school.
The entire walk home, his heart had been weighed down by a crushing sense of dread—and now he understood why.
He was terrified. He didn’t understand what was happening.
The same face, but the wrong expressions. Movements too stiff, too unnatural.
It asked him about school with feigned concern, scooping warm rice into his bowl. Somehow, he managed to mumble a response. The creature seemed satisfied.
The rice tasted wrong.
He bolted from the table and locked himself in his room. Izuku curled into a corner, hands clamped over his mouth. The initial shock had worn off.
Who—what is that?! Where’s Mom?! He sobbed silently, tears of fear streaming down his face. Fear for his mother. Fear for himself. Had she been killed? Would he be killed?
Izuku forced himself to stand and quietly pushed his dresser against the door. With trembling hands, he frantically searched online for anything on shape-shifting, illusion, possession type of quirks—anything that could help.
He only realized hours had passed when he heard that familiar voice with its unnatural cadence.
"Izuku, dinner’s ready!"
He swallowed hard. At school, they’d been taught that during a villain attack, they should comply and wait for the heroes. But he couldn’t bring himself to call that thing—wearing his mother’s face—a villain. Villains were criminals, humans capable of terrible things, but still humans. This…
It was like staring at something that had never been human.
And that made its anger all the more terrifying.
That evening, he had no choice but to face it at dinner again. He shoveled food into his mouth, barely tasting it, then excused himself, claiming exhaustion. He didn’t sleep a wink, clutching a pocket knife. He knew no one would believe him if he went to the police.
Quirks had limits. One of the most common was time. But days passed, and the imposter remained.
Eventually, Izuku convinced himself it was a human—not a yokai or monster, as he’d first feared. Or maybe it had just adapted well enough. For his own sanity, he chose to believe it was a human.
The woman continued playing Inko Midoriya’s role—cooking, cleaning, greeting him after school. After some time she stopped asking about his day. She hadn’t hurt him, but that did nothing to ease his fear.
His research grew obsessive.
He locked himself in his room, scouring the darkest corners of the internet for clues. He took part-time jobs at local stores, stealing security footage from the day his mother disappeared. But he found nothing. He could pinpoint where his real mother had been and where the imposter took over, but the exact moment of the switch eluded him. Then, one day, he found an old recording from a home goods store—another clip from the same day it all happened.
The realization horrified him. His mother had been at the grocery store. Fifteen minutes later, the copy walked into the home goods store.
He combed the short route between the two, searching every sewer, every alley—hoping, praying to find at least her body. But he found nothing.
Now, he returned home only after dark. His father sent him money every month, so Izuku ate at cafés or bought food, avoiding crowded places. He left at dawn, backpack stuffed with textbooks and essentials. The woman never commented, but he knew she noticed. He stashed spare clothes in hidden spots around the city, ready to change out of his uniform.
He kept searching the sewers, clinging to some desperate, irrational hope. He learned to fight off addicts and outrun wounded villains hiding in the city’s underbelly. Now, he carried pepper spray in his bag and brass knuckles in his pockets.
Nearly a year passed before he finally gave up. With shaking hands, he built a shrine for his mother—not at home, no, but in a hidden corner of an abandoned building where he often hid or studied. As the incense burned to ash, he found he had no tears left.
Then, the next day, the villain attacked Kacchan.
Kacchan—who he’d known since childhood, who’d pinned him against a wall months ago, demanding to know why he’d changed so much.
They’d fought that day. It was a brutal, street fight with explosions, fists and teeth.
And after that, the world slowly regained its color.
He couldn’t lose Kacchan.
He refused to lose anyone else!
So he charged at the villain with—laughably—a pocketknife.
Then All Might appeared. The next day, Izuku was cleaning trash on the beach as training. He’d always wanted to be a hero. Now, he would be—and maybe, just maybe, hero and police databases could help him find answers.
When his UA letter arrived, the woman wasn’t home. He didn’t care.
He rejoiced when UA announced dormitories. Only then, far from home, did he let himself wonder—what if it all was just an accident? He’d fought villains now, seen their cruelty firsthand. He’d judged the imposter through a lens of fear and anger, but even he could admit she wasn’t evil. She just… existed. Taking his mother’s place was unforgivable, yet her only sin.
He didn’t let himself dwell on it.
Izuku, Ochaco, Tenya, and Kacchan fought villains. They were just students—they shouldn’t have been there—but the only hero on scene was knocked out instantly. One villain had a nasty Quirk: neurotoxic spikes from his wrists. Izuku reflexively shielded Kacchan from the attack —and only then realized what was going to happen.
When he regained consciousness, a truck hurled by a strength quirk user was inches from crushing him. Poisoned, sluggish, he braced for death.
Then—
The impact never came. The truck froze midair, bathed in a greenish aura, then hurled backward. The same happened to the debris raining down from crushed building.
The wreckage orbited a plump, green-haired woman. She screamed, yanking the villains away from Ochaco and Tenya.
"Leave them alone, you bastards!"
Blood gushed from her eyes and mouth. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed—along with the floating debris—into Izuku’s arms.
All this, just as the pros finally arrived.
Izuku stared silently at the sleeping woman. Pale, an IV in her arm, the sterile hospital smell thick around them. Inko Midoriya’s body wasn’t built for using her quirk like that —she’d never lifted more than a few kilograms in her life. Two days unconscious. Izuku hadn’t left her side.
Her green lashes fluttered open. Cloudy eyes scanned the white ceiling, then landed on the freckled teen.
"Izuku…" Weak voice came.
He exhaled, offering his hand.
"...I’m Izuku Midoriya. UA Hero Course student. I like katsudon and All Might merch. And you are?"
"I... I—I didn’t mean to!" Tears welled, spilling over. "I’m so s-sorry, Izuku! A truck h-hit me, then—bam! I was Inko!" She hid her face. "If I knew how to fix it, I would’ve! But I d-don’t!"
He’d never seen "Inko" like this. She’d always been calm—too calm. Once she stopped trying to talk to him, they barely interacted.
She wasn’t a monster. Not a villain. Just a terrified, lost person—exactly like he’d been.
Her sobs cut off as he hugged her.
"Thank you for saving us." He pulled back, hands on her shoulders, weakly smiling for the first time in forever. "It’s nice to finally meet you."
His mother was gone. But she wouldn’t want him to suffer. So he’d move forward and take this woman with him.
They had a lot to learn about each other, after all.