Chapter Text
Like every other child, Izuku dreamed of becoming a hero.
And really, who wouldn’t?
Heroes were almost synonymous with success. They were the ones the news praised for catching villains, the ones invited to interviews to talk about how they had climbed their way to the top, the ones whose personal lives filled gossip columns and magazine articles.
The world treated them like celebrities and thanked them for their efforts to keep the peace. So it was no surprise that children looked up to them, dreaming of the day they too would use their Quirks to defeat evil villains and save ordinary people.
In that sense, Izuku was no different.
He admired heroes. He saw them as examples to follow. And what better path could there be than the one walked by the Number One Hero himself, All Might?
Most people saw All Might as a man overflowing with power, someone who could change the weather with a single punch, someone infallible, someone who must have had wealth beyond imagination.
In the Number One Hero, people saw a road to success.
In the Number One, they saw their fantasies made real.
Izuku saw that too.
But more than anything else, Izuku saw something in the Number One Hero that he considered far more important.
The ability to save others with a smile.
The ability to stare fear in the face and still act.
An ability Izuku had not felt he possessed since the day he visited the doctor to learn what his Quirk would be.
Izuku had always been a timid child. Ever since he was small, he preferred to keep his thoughts to himself unless speaking was absolutely necessary.
Because of that, whenever he went to the park, he usually played alone.
That changed one day when his mother, Inko, ran into her friend Mitsuki Bakugo and her son, Katsuki Bakugo.
Katsuki was Izuku’s complete opposite. He was the kind of boy who was never afraid to speak his mind, the kind who shared his ideas with everyone around him. Because of that, other children naturally gathered around him to talk and play.
Katsuki was the first person to approach Izuku and invite him to join in.
And as time passed, he became Izuku’s first and best friend.
Both of them dreamed of becoming heroes. Katsuki, of course, always declared that he would become the Number One Hero.
A proclamation like that would usually earn laughter from other children, but there was something in the way Katsuki said it that made the others look at him with admiration instead.
Izuku was no different.
As a good friend who shared the same dream, Izuku decided that if Katsuki was going to become the next Number One, then he would support him as his sidekick.
Time passed like that between them until a few months after Katsuki’s fourth birthday, when his Quirk — later officially registered as [Explosion] — finally manifested.
All the other children stared in awe as the young boy generated sparks from his hands, detonating the sweat on his palms.
It was, without a doubt, the Quirk of a hero.
After showing his Quirk to his friends, Katsuki turned to Izuku and said,
“You’d better hurry up and find out what your Quirk is, Zuku. If you’re planning to be the future Number One Hero’s sidekick, then we need to start training soon.”
Izuku felt his heart swell with excitement at his friend’s words.
That night, he went to bed thinking about all the possibilities that could come from combining his parents’ Quirks.
[Small Object Attraction] and [Fire Breathing] opened the door to endless combinations.
In the best-case scenario, they could merge into the ability to control fire. Or, if what the adults on television said was true and Quirks really did grow stronger with each generation, perhaps he would inherit an even better version of his parents’ abilities.
Izuku fell asleep that night with his head full of thoughts about Quirks and the future.
Whatever his Quirk turned out to be, he would make it work.
He would become a hero.
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When Izuku regained consciousness, he immediately realized that many things in his room were different.
First of all, he was no longer in his room at all.
Where his mattress should have been, there was only dirt. Where his soft All Might pillow had been, there was now a rock. And where shelves full of hero merchandise had once stood, there were only trees swallowed by darkness.
A situation like this should have terrified any child his age.
And yet, for some reason, Izuku felt warm.
Peaceful.
As if nothing was wrong at all.
“Hello?” the boy called out. “Is there anyone who can help me? I think I’m lost.”
Even if he felt strangely calm, something had clearly happened. He was no longer home, and his father had told him that if he ever got lost, he should contact a police officer or a hero so they could help him find his way back.
…
Well, that advice had been meant for getting lost at a shopping mall or on the street.
But maybe it worked in a dark forest too?
Whatever the answer to that question was, it did not change the fact that he needed to get home somehow.
No one answered his call for help.
Realizing that standing around and waiting clearly was not going to solve his current problem, Izuku looked up at the sky, hoping to find some sign of civilization.
What he saw made him begin to doubt that strange feeling of peace.
Or rather, what he did not see.
Nothing.
There was absolutely nothing in the sky.
No stars.
No moon.
Nothing but an overwhelming darkness, with not a single source of light in sight.
Now properly frightened, Izuku began searching his surroundings for any sign of civilization, anything that was not dirt or trees.
And though he could not see anything, a sound eventually reached his ears.
The sound of a river.
Izuku began walking toward the source of the sound, moving slowly because of the darkness.
He could not say for certain how long he walked, but at some point, beyond the sound of running water, he managed to make out a faint light coming from something in the distance.
The sight distracted him from his fear.
And with all the curiosity a child his age could possess, he quickened his pace from a cautious walk into an eager trot.
Unfortunately, running through a forest where one could barely see was not a good idea.
Izuku tripped.
The ground disappeared beneath his feet, and he went tumbling down a ditch.
He screamed as he fell, even though he did not feel any pain. It was more from the shock of suddenly going from standing on his own two legs to rolling completely out of control.
Then his fall ended with a loud splash.
He landed in a body of water and was immediately dragged away by the current.
Desperate, Izuku tried to swim upward with all the grace and skill of a stone. No matter how hard he struggled, the current kept pulling him farther from the surface.
His lungs began to burn.
His body, starving for oxygen, tried to breathe on instinct.
Only for water to rush in instead.
Izuku’s strength began to fade. His vision filled with black spots, and the boy slowly started to close his eyes.
Splash.
In his final moments of consciousness, he managed to see what looked like someone swimming down from the surface toward him.
Izuku woke up for what felt like the second time that day.
But this time, there was something soft beneath him.
His bed.
Izuku shot upright, drenched in sweat, tears already gathering in his eyes. He ran to his parents’ room, and both of them woke up to the sound of his crying.
They told him it had only been a nightmare.
That none of it had been real.
That he had never been in any danger.
Izuku only managed to fall asleep again half an hour later, curled up between his parents.
There were no more nightmares that night.
---------------------------
Izuku needed several days to recover from the nightmare.
For a time, he slept in his parents’ room, clinging to them whenever the shadows in the corners looked too deep. His mother told him again and again that it had only been a bad dream. His father told him that dreams could not hurt him.
Eventually, Izuku believed them enough to return to his own bed.
The nightmares did not return.
Not for three years.
But the fear remained.
Izuku could not explain it properly. He only knew that large bodies of water made something inside him recoil. Rivers were the worst. Pools were not much better. Even when he tried to be brave, even when he told himself that nothing bad would happen, his body remembered what his mind wanted to forget.
The current.
The darkness.
The water filling his lungs.
During those same years, the distance between him and Katsuki Bakugo continued to grow.
Katsuki, whom Izuku still called Kacchan, became more and more confident with every passing day. His Quirk was loud, powerful, and heroic in the eyes of everyone around him. The more he used it, the better his control became. The more adults praised him, the more children admired him. And the more people looked at Katsuki like he was already destined for greatness, the more his ego grew.
Izuku, meanwhile, remained the same.
No fire.
No attraction of objects.
Nothing.
No matter how much he waited, no matter how much he hoped, his Quirk never appeared.
At first, people told him not to worry. Some Quirks took longer to manifest. Maybe his would come tomorrow.
But tomorrow became next week.
Next week became next month.
And eventually, the comforting words stopped.
Little by little, the way people looked at him changed. He was no longer a late bloomer. He was no longer a child whose Quirk had not appeared yet.
In their eyes, Izuku Midoriya was Quirkless.
The longer that belief settled around him, the more Katsuki changed. Or maybe he had always been that way, and Izuku was only starting to notice.
Still, Izuku followed him.
That day, they were in the forest near the place where they used to play. Katsuki walked ahead with the others, boasting loudly, while Izuku trailed behind.
Then they reached a stream.
It was not large.
But to Izuku, the sound of the water was enough to make his chest tighten.
The other children noticed almost immediately.
They teased him for it. They laughed, asking if he was really scared of something so small. Izuku lowered his head and tried to ignore them, but his hands would not stop trembling.
Katsuki scoffed and stepped forward.
“I’ll go first, then,” he said, as if crossing the stream were some grand heroic trial. “Just watch me, Deku.”
He jumped onto one of the wet stones.
Then slipped.
Katsuki fell hard into the stream, the side of his head striking a rock beneath the water.
Izuku froze.
The world narrowed.
The trees disappeared.
The voices disappeared.
Only the water remained.
His legs shook. His breathing turned shallow. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to stay away.
But Katsuki was hurt.
Kacchan was hurt.
So Izuku moved.
He ran down the bank, stumbling over dirt and roots, and reached toward the boy in the stream.
“Kacchan!”
His voice cracked.
His hands trembled.
He was terrified.
But he reached out anyway.
Katsuki looked at him, and something ugly twisted across his face.
Anger.
Humiliation.
To him, Izuku’s hand was not help. It was an insult. A Quirkless, trembling Deku had dared to think that Katsuki Bakugo needed saving.
What happened after that day would become history between them.
A scar neither of them knew how to name.
But without realizing it, Izuku had taken the first true step toward the power sleeping inside him.
By reaching out even when his body begged him not to.
He had faced the fear.
------------------------------
That night, the nightmare returned.
It was exactly as he remembered it.
Darkness stretched in every direction, endless and absolute, while the current dragged him deeper and deeper. The only difference was that, somehow, it felt as though someone had allowed him to breathe before throwing him back into the same nightmare all over again.
So the only thing Izuku could do was struggle.
He kicked, thrashed, and tried to force his way upward with the fresh breath he had been given.
But no matter what he did, he could not reach the surface.
The only thing he could see was below him.
Those flickering lights.
Calling to him.
With no other option left, Izuku thought that maybe he should go down instead. Maybe if he reached them — if he touched them — something would happen.
Maybe there was a way out down there.
But that thought became meaningless the moment he felt something seize him by the neck and yank him upward with terrifying force.
A moment later, he was thrown out of the water and dropped roughly onto what felt like grass.
Izuku coughed violently, choking up water as he struggled to catch his breath. His chest burned, and for a few seconds all he could do was gasp and wheeze, trying to reorient himself.
Then he looked up, trying to see who had pulled him out.
Part of him had expected a hero.
It was a dream, after all.
Maybe it would have been someone like All Might himself.
“What is a human doing in this place?”
Izuku froze.
Slowly, he looked up.
A girl stood in front of him.
At least, he thought she was a girl.
She looked close to his age, maybe a little older, but something about her felt wrong in a way Izuku could not explain. Her skin was pale, almost colorless, and her yellow eyes with her pupils that bore strange markings, like the lens of a camera, watched him without any of the warmth he expected from someone who had just saved him.
Her dress looked like it had been made entirely out of black feathers, and her blue hair fell so long that it almost reached her feet.
She looked like someone from a story.
“I-I don’t know,” Izuku answered, his voice shaking. “I was sleeping. I was just in my room, and then… then I opened my eyes and I was here.”
The girl did not answer.
She only stared at him.
After a long moment, she looked away.
“You should return to the place you came from,” she said.
Izuku blinked.
“H-Huh?”
“This is not a place for humans.”
“However you arrived here, you should return.”
Then she turned around and started walking away.
Izuku’s eyes widened.
“W-Wait!”
She did not stop.
Panic rose in his chest.
Beyond the river, there was only darkness. Trees stood in the distance, their shapes swallowed by shadow. The sky above them remained empty, without moon or stars. And behind him, the river continued to flow, carrying with it those faint, flickering lights beneath the surface.
Even now, outside of the current, the lights still called to him.
And now the only person he had found — the only person who had saved him — was leaving.
Izuku forced himself to stand.
His legs shook badly, and he nearly fell again, but he stumbled after her anyway.
“Um… e-excuse me?”
The girl kept walking.
“D-Do you know where this is?”
No answer.
Izuku swallowed.
“Do you live here?”
Still nothing.
He looked around the forest, then quickly back at her. The trees seemed too dark. Too still. Like if he looked away for too long, something would move between them.
“Are you… are you lost too?”
The girl’s hand twitched slightly at her side.
Izuku noticed.
It was small, but it was the first reaction she had given him since she started walking away.
Izuku hurried his steps, trying not to fall behind. His wet clothes clung to his skin, and every breath still hurt, but he kept going.
He did not want to be alone here.
Then a thought occurred to him.
She had saved him.
She was strange, yes. and she looked scary and barely older than him.
Appearance is not something you can use to judge age due to Quirks after all.
But she had pulled him out of the river. Heroes saved people. That was what heroes did.
So, maybe she was one?
“Are you a hero?”
The girl stopped walking.
Izuku almost crashed into her back, barely stopping himself in time.
For a second, he thought he had said something wrong.
“I-I mean,” he said quickly, waving his hands in front of himself, “you saved me, so I thought maybe you were one. But you don’t really look like any hero I’ve seen before.”
She did not answer.
But she had stopped.
That meant something, right?
Because he was Izuku, because silence made him nervous and because questions were the only thing he knew how to offer when he did not understand something, he kept talking.
“Your costume is really different,” he said, looking at the black feathers. “Is it made of feathers? Can you fly with it? Or is it for your Quirk?”
The girl turned her head slightly.
Izuku immediately stopped talking.
Something about her changed.
Her face stayed calm. Her voice had not spoken. Her posture barely shifted.
But her attention sharpened all at once, like a door had opened somewhere behind her eyes.
Then she turned fully toward him.
“What,” she asked, “is a Quirk?”
Izuku froze.
For a moment, he forgot the river.
Forgot the forest.
Forgot that he was wet, scared, and lost.
He just stared at her.
“You… d-don’t know what a Quirk is?”
“No.”
Izuku’s mouth opened.
Then closed.
Then opened again.
Everyone knew what a Quirk was.
Everyone.
Adults knew. Kids knew. Heroes knew. Villains knew. Even people who did not have one knew what they were. Quirks were everywhere. They were on TV, in school, in hero rankings, in games, in notebooks, in conversations, in everything.
For someone not to know what a Quirk was…
That was impossible.
Unless she really was from somewhere else.
Or unless this dream was stranger than any dream Izuku had ever had.
“A Quirk is…” Izuku hesitated, suddenly feeling very aware of how she was staring at him. “I-It’s a power people are born with.”
The girl remained silent.
Izuku took that as permission to continue.
“M-Most people have one,” he said. “My mom can attract small objects, and my dad can breathe fire. Some people can change parts of their body, or make explosions, or grow extra arms, or float things, or strike really hard or see the future or—”
He stopped himself before he started muttering too much.
The girl stared at him, visibly stunned.
Only one of her eyebrows rose, but somehow that single movement carried more disbelief than any full expression could have.
She looked like she was questioning how he had managed to say all of that without running out of oxygen.
Izuku’s face warmed.
“S-Sorry,” he mumbled. “I talk too much sometimes.”
“And you?”
The question struck harder than Izuku expected.
He lowered his gaze.
“I don’t know yet,” he whispered.
The girl studied him again.
“You speak of these powers as if they are natural,” she said.
Izuku looked up.
“Aren’t they?”
The girl’s yellow eyes shifted toward the river.
Beneath the dark water, the flickering lights continued to drift, countless and distant, like stars trapped under the surface.
“In your world, perhaps.”
Izuku followed her gaze.
“My… world?”
The girl did not answer immediately.
The black feathers of her clothing stirred slightly, though there was no wind.
“This place is not your room,” she said at last. “It is not a forest. It is not a dream, even if that is the shape your mind has given it.”
Izuku felt his stomach twist.
“Then… what is it?”
The girl looked back at him.
“The river you nearly drowned in is a current of human consciousness.”
Izuku did not understand.
Not really.
But something about those words made the air feel colder.
“Human… consciousness?”
“Yes.”
She turned away again, but this time she did not continue walking.
“This place gathers what humanity leaves behind. Thoughts. Memories. Fears. Desires. Regrets. Things too heavy to vanish, yet too unstable to remain as they are.”
Izuku stared at the river.
The lights beneath the surface flickered.
For the first time, he wondered if they were lights at all.
Maybe they were memories.
Maybe they were people.
Maybe they were something worse.
“And humans aren’t supposed to be here?” he asked quietly.
“No.”
Izuku swallowed.
“Then why am I here?”
The girl was silent for a long moment.
When she answered, her voice was as cold and even as before.
“I do not know.”
Somehow, that was more frightening than anything else she could have said.
Izuku hugged his arms around himself, still dripping wet, still shaking.
“Then… what should I do?”
The girl looked at him again.
Her eyes did not soften.
But they lingered.
“Go back to where you came from,” she said.
“I don’t know how.”
“Then learn.”
Izuku flinched.
It was not cruel exactly.
But it was not comforting either.
The girl turned and began walking once more.
This time, Izuku did not immediately follow.
He stood there, small and soaked beneath a starless sky, listening to the river behind him and watching the strange girl in black feathers walk away.
Then, before she could disappear into the darkness, he called out.
“Wait! What’s your name?”
For a moment, Izuku thought she would ignore him again.
But she stopped.
The silence stretched.
Then she spoke without looking back.
“Angela.”
Izuku repeated it softly.
“Angela…”
The name felt strange in his mouth.
Beautiful, somehow.
But cold.
Like a knife made of glass.
Angela glanced back at him over her shoulder.
“And you, human?”
Izuku straightened instinctively.
“I’m Izuku Midoriya.”
Angela looked at him for another moment.
Then her gaze moved past him, toward the river.
“Izuku Midoriya,” she said quietly, as if testing the shape of the name. “If you value your existence, do not answer when the river calls.”
Izuku’s blood went cold.
Before he could ask what she meant, the world shifted.
The grass beneath him blurred.
The river roared.
Angela’s yellow eyes were the last thing he saw before the darkness swallowed him again.
And then—
Izuku woke up.