Chapter 1: Brand New Day
"Nicely done Midoriya. Take a seat." The teacher told the student with a neutral tone of voice as he wrote down the presentation grade on his notebook.
Meanwhile at the front of the class, a young man with wild green hair and freckles dotting his cheeks, blinked at the response to his presentation to the class. He was skinny, with no real outstanding features to distinguish him, often he was actually referred to as plain looking despite his green hair and matching eyes. And he actually had a lot more of his presentation to get through. But looking back to his class, the high schooler immediately shrunk in on himself. Silently nodding and quickly making his way back to his seat where the person towards the front of him clicked his teeth.
"God can we go one day without having to listen to you talk about heroes? Fucking Deku." the blonde boy behind him said just loud enough for him to hear.
Izuku Midoriya winced at the cutting remark, the freckled high school senior had been proud of the work he put into his presentation. He even managed to get through it without stuttering! Something he really owed to his mom who helped him by being a surrogate audience member.
He didn't expect much of a response if he was being honest, but seeing how others in their class had at least gotten some brief applaus for their work while he had gotten nothing? Well it made the lifted spirits he had from his work fall right back down into the mud, with Bakugo's remarks being the boot that kicked them while they were down.
As the next student gave their presentation on quirks used in the workforce, something that genuinely interested izuku, he absentmindedly took out his personal notebook and wrote silently while class continued on around him.
After getting through the presentations, lunch rolled around for the students of Aldara High School. Izuku sat and ate alone, which was something that actually didn't bother him as it allowed him to go over his notebook without interruption. When that was over, the remainder of his classes didn't really pose any difficulty except for English which was something that he tended to struggle with. Why Americans decided that it was necessary to have three different types of 'There' was beyond him. Finally at the home stretch of the day, his teacher announced something that Izuku had both been anticipating and dreading, "So as third years, your going to need to look into Colleges soon, next month we'll start the process of helping you all locate what career path you wish to choose." the class's teacher said as he wrote down the date on the board. "But I think we all know which one everyone is gonna shoot for." he said with a knowing tone.
Izuku smiled nervously to himself, the answer was obvious. U.A. University. The top rated hero school in all of Japan, and one of the best in the world.
While that title may seem daunting, it really came down to a few factors that Izuku saw, knowledge, skill, and commitment. Being a hero wasn't a hard profession to get into, but like any trade it took hard work. But unlike most other professions, there was a factor that went into play. Quirks.
And that….was where Izuku faltered. Even though 80% of the world has a quirk, there was the 20% that did not…..Izuku was a member of the latter category. A fact that the blonde, spikey haired boy sitting behind him, Bakugo, would always remind him whenever he talked about heroes in earnest. "Tch. Like any of these losers could even get into U.A." he heard Bakugo growl ahead of him, more directed at the class than at Izuku directly.
But looking around, Izuku didn't see why not. A number of students had quirks that could very well be used to become heroes, one of them could turn their skin into rocks, another could levitate objects, another could make spikes form from their hands, and the guy behind Izuku could expand his body into a muscular shape…..but at the expense of his clothes.
Others who had less flashy quirks, like Romi whose quirk allowed him to pull his eyes far out of their sockets (something which made everyone a little uncomfortable), may not be able to be fighting heroes, but rescuers.
That's how Izuku saw it at least, everyone had the potential to be a hero…..except himself….ironically.
As the final bell rang for the day, Izuku stood up from his seat, stuffed his notebook into his yellow book bag, and started towards the door. "Oi, Deku."
Izuku winced. That name, 'Deku', was used by a lot of people to refer to him as. A stupid childhood insult, by reading the characters of his name in a certain way it translated to that….meaning 'useless'. The inventor of that little nickname had come from his former best friend….well, only friend, Katsuki Bakugo. The student with blonde hair that stuck out from his head like the explosives he could generate in the palms of his hands.
Izuku had known Bakugo since they were just little kids, back then he had referred to him as 'Kaachan', a nickname that simply shortened his name to something more catchy.
The explosive user's red eyes glared at him as a sneer crossed his feral looking lips, "Next time we gotta do this shit, shut the hell up about quirks you loser. It's pathetic." he said spitefully as he held up a hand, a small pop the size of a firecracker going off in his palm. Izuku winced at the insult, turning himself away he sulked out of the classroom without saying a word. But his craned down head and slouching posture told Bakugo that he got the message.
Quirks were typically not allowed to be used in any class, in fact there were strict rules and regulations for people using their quirks to begin with. However their homeroom teacher, Mr. Kaida, was lax with that rule when it came to Bakugo. The top of the class student who got great grades, had a powerful quirk, and had never officially been in trouble.
"Jeeze, that's kinda rude." one of the students muttered.
Another shook their head, "I mean he's not wrong, it's super annoying when he goes on those tangents."
"It's kind of pathetic too. He's quirkless, he's not going to get into any hero courses." a female voice said. None of them knew Izuku could hear them outside the door.
The quirkless young man sighed to himself before walking away with haste, the sooner he left this place the better. Ten minutes later he was out the doors of his school and making good headway on his walk back home. His apartment that he and his mother lived in wasn't too far away from the school, which didn't really work in Izuku's favor as it gave him time to both dread his approaching day on his walk to school, and to reel from it on his way home.
He didn't hate school, far from it, he liked learning new things especially when it came to heroes, but his classmates were what caused him the most grief. And it was all spearheaded by Bakugo, the loudmouth braggart who claimed superiority over everyone else in the class. And the worst part of it in Izuku's opinion was that he was right. HIs quirk allowed him to sweat a sort of nitroglycerin that he could then ignite and cause explosions, Izuku knew first hand how those explosives could hurt.
He was a shoe-in for U.A.
Himself on the other hand...there used to be a rule in place that you needed a quirk to apply for hero courses. However, given how rare people without quirks were becoming, it's no longer used since nobody really even tries for it who doesn't have a quirk.
But he still needed to try.
The green haired teen shook his head of such thoughts, passing by a series of public lockers that he spared a glance. It was a landmark he would use to tell himself how close to home he was, he had been stuck in his thoughts for most of the walk home. Walking a few more blocks, he found himself outside the apartment building he lived in with his mother, Inko Midoriya.
Walking up to the fourth floor of their building, he fished his keys out of his pocket and entered his home, "Hey mom, I'm home!" he called out as he slipped his red shoes off by the front door, putting them against the wall before entering his living room. A head poked out from the hallway that led to the bedrooms and bathroom, Izuku took most of his appearance after his mother, their shared green hair and face shape instantly making them recognizable as mother and son. Though he got his freckles and wild hairstyle from his father, "Izuku honey! Welcome home! How as your presentation?" she asked, walking out into the room completely.
Izuku winced slightly as he recalled how it went, "It was ok." he said with a fake smile. His mother's was genuine however and that made him copy it with one of his own. His mother was around his height and a little on the plus size side, but she told him that any time she thought about it? She said there was just more of her to go around and love, "What are you doing?" he asked, noticing that her clothes were a little dirty.
She waved him off, "Oh nothing, just cleaning out the crawlspace. I finally had enough of that door in my closet not closing all the way." she said with a huff of annoyance. Izuku let out a small laugh at his mom's frustration. There was a small storage area on the master bedroom's closet that had been somehow jammed only halfway shut. "Oh! You'll never guess what I found. Come see this." she said, turning around and walking to her room, gesturing Izuku to follow.
Dropping his bag off in his room, he followed her into her room where on her bed, an old, dusty suitcase was laying atop a spare towel they had to keep her bedsheets from getting dirty. He also saw that there was a crowbar by her bedroom closet with splinters littering the floor, he blinked at the damage before looking at his mother, who held up her hands, "It…got stuck and I just kept pulling with my quirk until…..anyway this is what was causing it." she said, gesturing to the suitcase.
He blinked in surprise as he recognized the container, "Wait….isn't this dad's??" he asked, looking at his mom.
Hisashi Midoriya, Deku's father, had passed away over a decade ago. But the man's memory was kept alive by his wife and son. On the bedside table, Inko kept a photo of him on either side, one of them when they first met as young adults, and the other showing the three of them together on a picnic. Izuku had a photo of him in his wallet as well, though the more he grew the more it looked like a fixture version of himself with dyed black hair.
"Yeah, I can't believe he hid it in the stinking crawl space!" Inko said, putting her hands on her hips with a pout. "I loved that man but I swear he was one of the most disorganized people I ever met." she said with a shake of her head and a tiny smirk on her face. Izuku stepped forward and unlatched the briefcase before Inko saw what her son was doing, "Honey no wait-!!" she warned, but as soon as the latches were flipped up, the tension of everything stuffed inside the briefcase for the past decade finally won its years-long struggle to burst free.
Papers, documents, clothes, and even a few toothbrushes exploded out of the container across the room. Izuku stood frozen, his face covered with papers while an old dress shirt with a coffee stain had wrapped its way around Inko's head inexplicably.
The mother and son stood in silence before they pulled the debris of the mess explosion off their faces. Looking at the papers, Izuku blinked as he tried to read what was on them, "Um…..mom I might have damaged my eyesight?"
"No honey…..that's your father's penmanship." Inko sighed as she picked up one of the pages and looked over the scribbles that littered the page. Hisashi had been a reporter, a job which he loved despite how it would at times pull him away from his family. Ironically the further along his job that he went, the worse his handwriting had gotten, almost to the point it looked like another language.
Izuku looked at the pages as well, "I mean…..maybe it's not that bad?" he asked.
"....it's even worse." Izuku muttered in horror as he looked over the collected pages that he had helped his mother clean up. While she had taken the clothes inside the case and thrown them in the washer, Izuku went about collecting the pages in order and organizing them as best he could. He thought that maybe,collected all together it might somehow make the journal legible, and while he could make out what his dad had written it had taken him about two hours to get through five pages…..out of a hundred.
He was in his room now, his black school uniform shed for a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt that had the word 'fabric' printed around the collar. Decorated around his room was merchandise of one hero in particular, the Number 1 Ranked hero in all of Japan, All Might.
Looking over at one of his realistic figures, Izuku saw the towering powerhouse of a man, though the figure was a miniature it still managed to capture the form of the hero. While this was a 1/12 scale model, the real All Might stood at a towering 7'3" compared to Izuku's smaller frame of 5'5". With blonde hair swept back except for two tufts of hair sticking out like antennae atop his head, his profile alone was instantly recognizable. But what stood out to Izuku was the smile, the reassuring smile that put whoever he rescued at ease.
Looking down at his father's journal, Izuku felt himself frown. After his father died, Izuku didn't really have much of a father figure in his life. His mother loved him, told him that every day, but the absence of his father who also showed him that love was felt. And Izuku was the first to admit that the loss of his own father fed into his idolization of All Might, embarrassing as that was. He was a fan before his father's death, in fact it was his dad who showed him the video of All Might saving people that introduced him to the hero...and the same one he may have contributed a thousand views to by now.
Izuku smiled as he remembered how his dad brought home a genuine All Might hoodie for him as a child that he picked up in America on a trip there.
Izuku felt tears gather in the corner of his eyes, "It really does hit you like a wave out of nowhere huh?" he asked himself, wiping the tears away on the back of his sleeve.
He loved his dad…..he missed his dad.
He looked down at the journal.
That being said he was really glad he didn't get his handwriting from his dad.
A knock at his door drew him out of his thoughts before his mom entered. Upon seeing the journal she smiled at him, "I see you managed to put it back together again. Can't say the same for the briefcase, I think it's broken." she lamented as she walked over to her son's desk by his bed. The mother looked down and scrunched up her nose, "Did I ever tell you about the time he left me a note before he left one morning and I thought it ended with 'I have the flu', but really was 'I love you'?" she asked.
"Looking over his notes? I believe it." Izuku laughed, genuinely this time. "Was this the last notes dad made before he died?" he asked.
Inko hummed sadly, "Probably, yes....I think he was looking to do a story on the Hero Public Safety Commission? Or some branch of it." she said with a shrug.
Izuku however was taken aback by that, the Hero Public Safety Commission was the governing body behind pro heroes. They designated the rules and regulations that heroes had to follow and how their responsibilities were held in society as a whole. He had done research on them as part of his presentation today, "Really? Huh…..I never came across any articles he wrote about when I was looking up stuff for my project."
Inko shrugged, "Might just not have been very important. Your father didn't get much say when it came to what his assignment was, one week he was researching how people are getting into home gardening more, the next week about how a ship ran ashore on the tip of Japan." she said with a fond smile. "Your dad loved it, the adventure of it all."
Izuku read back over the first few pages, Inko saw her son was focused and shook her head to herself. While Izuku didn't inherit his handwriting, his father's curiosity was something he apparently did get from him. Leaving the room and gently closing the door behind her, Izuku stayed busy as he once again read over the first few pages as best he could.
" 'Record Thoughts? Backup notebook. Recorder? (Asked and they don't want any record, nuts). Video file? Remember password 1zuk0 . I1zuk0 . I2uku . Camcorder. Camcorder to record thoughts. Pickup at 6319 Lee Blvd.' ". Izuku read aloud before blinking as he re-read that address. That was…..that was the lockers that he passed by on his way home from school everyday. It made sense too, it was right by the train station, he probably dropped his recordings off there on his way home from work.
Izuku paused his thoughts as a new one came to mind, reaching for his phone, he looked up the name of the company that owned those lockers and dialed their office. After hitting the numbers to get a real person on the line, he was met by "Hello this is Rei with the Public Storage Department. How may I help you today?" a positively bored sounding employee asked.
"Um, hi, I found out that my dad had a locker at one of your sites a few years ago. I was wondering if you could tell me if you kept the contents inside it?" he asked curiously. He knew that some storage facilities would hold on to belongings found in lockers if their owners stopped paying, and would return them with a late fee attached to the charge they would pay for the storage.
On the phone, Rei hummed, "Well that depends when your dad stopped paying for it. We'll dump the crap that people leave behind after a while." she said.
Izuku winced, considering these notes were probably over a decade old it was pretty much guaranteed that they were gone forever…..but he still needed to try. "I uh….I don't know. But could you look up the locker to see when? Please?" he asked.
The woman gave a tired sigh, "What's the locker designation?" she asked.
"Thank you. It's AF-15." he read, hoping that he was reading that correctly.
He heard the clicking of computer keys on the other side of the line, "Let's see it's…..oh. Huh. That's weird." the woman said, her bored voice suddenly gone. "It says here that the locker is still being paid for...has been for the past decade actually. Expires in a few months though."
Izuku blinked.
"...you mean to tell me that my dad has been paying for this public locker for the past ten years?" he asked.
"Well actually it looks like he paid in advance." Rei responded.
"......how much did that cost?" Izuku asked.
When she gave him the total amount, Izuku made the very wise choice to take this information to his grave. Lest his mother go to Hisashi and find a way to bring him back to life so she could strangle him back to death.
The next day of school was in a single word, torture.
Izuku had wanted to stop by the lockers on his way into school today, but when he realized he would have something of his dad's carrying around with him all day? There was too big a risk it could end up broken, and with how he had been shoved on his way into class by another student and knocked down? He was glad he made the choice to wait. But with that choice came a different kind of hell, sitting in class all he could think of were all the different ways that this could go wrong.
What if Rei, who he profusely thanked for her service, logged their talk and it made some sort flag pop up that would make someone empty it out today? What if he had read the locker name wrong and this actually was someone else's locker that he called about and this was just completely unrelated to him? What if he misread the code needed for the locker? What if some villain decided to rob it already and no one even knew about it?
Thankfully his spiral of 'what ifs' didn't go into the paranoid category until the last five minutes of the day. By the time the bell rang, Izuku was out of his seat and already heading for the door, the first time anyone in the class had seen Midoriya book it to get out of class. Even Bakugo, who was used to the damn nerd making a quick exit, seemed taken aback by the sudden departure.
And as soon as he got out the doors of school, Izuku took off in a dull sprint to the lockers. And found that they were in fact still there just as they were yesterday, waiting for him…..after he caught his breath. Scanning the lockers, he found it, AF-15. Near the middle of the small cubby sized lockers he quickly typed in the code, 1024. When it popped open, Izuku felt his breath hitch, reaching inside he retrieved a handheld camcorder that looked like the same thing families on vacation would use to record themselves.
However there was something else inside as well.
Before he closed it he noticed the light reflecting off it, reaching his other hand inside he retrieved a silver sphere from the locker as well. It was perfectly spherical, the notes he had been able to read didn't mention anything like this but it could just be something else he had for the story. Izuku took it with him as well, carefully putting both items into his bag before hefting it over his shoulder and closing the locker…..and then making sure to contact the company again to clear it up.
The walk home must have been the most careful he ever was until this point in his life, even going as far to take the elevator up to his floor when he usually just took the stairs. When he entered his home, he called out, "Mom? You here?" he asked, part of him excited and nervous by what he had discovered. Walking through the living room and into the kitchen, he found a note attached to the fridge.
'Izuku, went out for coffee with Mitsuki today. Be home later. Love you.'
Mitsuki Bakugo, Katsuki's mom, was ironically Inko's best friend. It was part of the reason why he never really got into detail about how Katsuki tormented him at school.
Well that and…..he was honestly scared for him if his mother ever found out her son was bullying Izuku.
With his mom gone for the foreseeable future, he decided that should at least see what he had first. Entering his room he changed into a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie before opening his bag and retrieving the camcorder. It wasn't an old model thankfully, he had no idea where the heck he'd go to find something that plays tapes, but a digital camera. Pressing the power button however showed that it was out of power.
Turning it over in his hands he found the battery cap…..as well as the old battery acid that crusted around it. "Ew. Right, been in there for ten years." he said with his face scrunching up. Before he could get discouraged, he flipped it over and saw that the memory card slot was still there. Flipping it open he retrieved the SSD that it contained!
His attention went to his laptop on his desk, he nearly tipped his chair over from how fast he pulled it out. Turning the computer on, he inserted the storage drive into the side of the computer and watched as the file appeared on screen. Opening it, Izuku was hit by an unexpected wave of emotion when he saw the menu.
Family Videos
Baby Izuku Videos
Work notes
"Oh….dad….." he said in a low voice, tears pricking his eyes as he thought of his father taking this on trips with him so that he could always view his family. He didn't know where to start, opening the file with the family videos tab, he saw a handful of recordings. Clicking on one of them a video started that centered around the living room.
Inko Midoirya sat crouched behind the couch, putting her finger up to her lips before the camera turned to a young Izuku. The green haired toddler was wearing a red, white, blue, and yellow All Might hoodie, running into the room and searching for something. "Oh thank goodness! It's All Might!" Hisashi's voice said as little Izuku turned to him, his confused expression quickly changing into a smile.
"Yes! It's me! All Might! Hello Citizen!" Izuku said to the camera as he waved, he looked around again, "I'm looking for a big villain! She just came to my room and attacked me with tickles!" he said, horrified by the 'villain's' actions. As little izuku walked in front of the couch, his mom sprung her trap. "AAAHHHHH!!!!" he squealed as his mother wrapped an arm around him with one hand, pulling the hoodie up to expose his belly and continue tickling him. "HAHAHAHA!!!! NO MOMMY STOP I'M GONNA PEE!"
The video ended shortly after when Hisashi couldn't control his own laughter, Izuku wiped some of the tears that were now going down his face away. Checking the next folder, he saw what it meant by Baby videos. All of them were of him, strictly as an infant, each of them of him doing something mundane but adorable.
And finally there was the work notes folder. Opening it up he found a single video, opening it up he once again was hit by an emotional longing as his father sat center frame.
"Ok this should be rolling. Ok, this is Hisashi Midoriya with Shoowaysha Publishing. I decided to record my thoughts on the story I'm currently working on. Hopefully it'll give me some perspective once I watch it back." Hisashi said as he sat down on the chair in the Midoriya household living room. He took a deep breath before exhaling, spreading out his hands in front of him, "Ok, so a month ago my bosses assigned me to the Hero Public Safety Commission. I think to myself 'Must be about that new law they're debating passing regarding what is considered Vigilantism' right? But no, they just want me to do a fluff piece on their advancements in their research and development." he explained with a slouch to his posture.
He shrugged, "Which was a little disappointing at first. But then I start doing background, turns out the HPSC, I'm going to abbreviate that because writing 'Hero Public Safety Division' a hundred times is kind of a pain, puts a ton of money into it.," he said with renewed interest. "Even stuff you wouldn't expect, you know those special cuffs that are used for restraining villains? Those big things that go up to their elbows? Turns out those are all custom made. They don't have one for everyone or anything like that, they start out with a generic base but as soon as cops radio a description of the perp, or their name, or anything to go off of? The HPSC have this big system in place to manufacture bindings on the spot for whatever villains they come across." Hisashi said in amazement.
"You got a shock quirk? Insulated bindings to keep you from sparking. Stretching quirk? Freezing agent to keep your cells from expanding. They even have titanium laced bracers to keep power houses down." The reporter exemplified with each finger on his hand rising in tandem. "So that gets me thinking, what's their next project? I send some formal requests in, I don't really expect anything back until one of the project leads gets back to me. Saying he'd love to talk about what they're working on with me but it needs to be under an Embargo. Meaning we can't say anything until they're ready to go public with it." he said excitedly.
Hisashi takes another breath as he smiles, "Now normally my bosses are sticklers for this sort of thing. They don't want to be stifled under any circumstance. So I'm expecting that when they call me in, they're gonna tell me we're not going forward. But what I don't expect is Chitose Kizuki there going to bat for me! I mean I told her about what happened first, she's been doing this longer than me by a few years so I wanted her thoughts. She told me that I needed to decide for myself. Geeze, Senpai really looked out for me there." he said with a shake of his head.
"I get approval. We sign an NDA, nothing gets published. That includes this." He informed the video player before shrugging. "Well, ok, at least not until I get approval. Anyway I meet with the head R&D scientist, Akuma Kagakusha, and he asks me, 'What do you know about Neogenics?' " Hisashi said dramatically. He then shrugged nonchalantly, "I tell him the truth, never heard of it. I got notes that go more into detail but he tells me that Neogenics is the study of living beings, their DNA, and how to manipulate it." he revealed.
Izuku paused the video, he never heard that term either. But he had also recently done his own public research into the HSPC…..so why hadn't he heard of any of this then?
He pressed play.
"Akuma used this as an example, say your quirk is like mine, you can breathe fire but doing it causes your throat to be burned. Neogenics would allow us to manipulate genes so that we could develop a natural defense for those flames." he explained with excitement in his voice. "But then why is he working for the HSPC then? Right? I ask him, and he tells me that his research was originally going to be used for medical procedures like that, but that didn't get many people's attention. However….that's when he brought up the HPSC's involvement." he said in a less enthused, and more somber tone.
"The HSPC wants to use this on heroes….I mean it makes sense in a way, what if you could take someone like Crimson Riot, and change his hardening ability to not just his hair, but his entire body? Or make it so that Endeavour doesn't need to be cooled down when he uses his quirk too much? Makes sense right?" he asked. The smile was gone from his face now, and a more troubled expression crossed his features, "But then it got me thinking....why would they limit it to pro heroes? I mean let's say you got a kid who's got a good quirk, but it could be better? You sign a waver and the HSPC can improve them…..but they gotta work for them?" he theorized.
Hisashi sighed again, this one was more tired, "Couple years ago this one heroine, Lady Nagant, got arrested. We had a gag order put on us not to talk about it but I remember Chitose being so pissed off about it. But she told me how Nagant had been coerced into actions that…..well she didn't get into detail about it. But I can see the HSPC doing something like I just imagined." he said in a dire tone of voice.
He then scoffed, "Then that's when the real kicker comes in. I ask him, 'What about quirkless people? How would this affect them?' and you know what he says to me? Right to my face?" he asked with a disgusted expression. "He says, 'Well then they would finally be useful to the world'...useful!!! I can't even believe....he must not have known anything about me because if he did then he never would have said that to my face." Hisashi said with an angered expression.
"But I played along. I wanted to knock this guy's teeth out, but I played along. He takes me to this lab and shows me one of the techniques they're looking into. He shows one of the machines, called the Isotope Genome Accelerator. I have more notes on how it's used but long story short, they use radiation to mutate and manipulate cells. They're still in the testing phase, but instead of monkeys, they're onto insects." Hisashi stopped himself, "Or Arachnids I guess. He got this spider, just looked pretty normal to me, out of a container and blasted this little guy with beams of concentrated radiation. I thought I was gonna witness something like sticking tin foil in a microwave, but the spider was fine."
Hisashi reached down off the screen, and picked up a silver orb, the same one that was in his locker at the station. Izuku looked down at the orb on his desk curiously before flicking his attention back to the screen.
"He put it in this thing and told me that he mutated the DNA so that this thing is basically a super spider. I didn't get what he meant but he explained that theoretically if they can find a way to mutate cells, or transfer the DNA of this thing into another person, then they could in theory give them a…..well not a quirk, but superpowers." Hisashi lifted the ball up, "He actually let me keep it, this thing is a little cryo chamber, told me I could take it home and let it into a little terrarium if I wanted." he said, shaking his head.
He stared at the orb and then scoffed, "You know for someone so smart, the answer was staring him right in the face. I mean if you need some way to transfer the DNA to someone? Then there's an easier way then all the science, I asked him what if this thing bit me? And he got this look in his eye, like something suddenly clicked in his head. He sort of ushered me out after that, which I'm not mad about, I pretty much got all the answers I needed." he said with a shrug, tossing the orb between his hands like a baseball. Realizing what he was doing with it he suddenly stopped and held it between his hands, and looked at it for a long moment, "I'll cut this part out later but…..while he was telling me all of this? I kept thinking of my son. He just got diagnosed as quirkless a month ago. I was away from home when they did the test, Inko told me over the phone. He was just watching that video of All Might I showed him on repeat."
Hisashi looked directly at the camera….and his son. "She told me that he asked her if he could be a hero too…..reporters are trained to think a few steps ahead. If a story breaks, what's the ripple effect? And hearing that my son was quirkless…..what's that going to be like for him? I read the statistics, there's only 20% of quirkless people left in the world, and half of them face some kind of discrimination. It's nothing bad like some heteromorphs face in the countryside, no angry mobs, no death threats but bullying? Getting looked over? The thought that my son? My child would be treated like that because what? He's different?" he asked dismissively.
"Quirks…..that word was just meant to describe something unique. 'We all have our quirks.' was the saying. And we all do, we're all different, we're all special…..Izuku is too. But because of that, he's not going to be treated the same way as everyone else? For something that really doesn't even matter?" he asked before looking down at the orb in his hands. "What parent would want their child to go through that?" he asked.
He stared at the orb for another moment before sighing, "But then again what kind of parent would make that sort of choice without their child's say?" he asked, leaning back in his seat. "I'm going to tell Inko about this of course, but not now. Soon as the story breaks, I'll tell her everything and then I'll tell her my plan." he said before chuckling. "My very stupid plan of letting Izuku choose if he wants to have a quirk." he said, holding the orb up to the camera. He pulled it back before continuing, "But I mean not….not right away….I want there people to look into this, ask some experts, maybe I'll give Akuma a call after we publish." he mused.
He started at the orb, then looked at the camera. "I just...I love my son…..and I don't want him to think that I'll only love him if he does this. And that love I have for him? I know that no matter what hardships he faces, whatever bully knocks him down? No matter what life does to pull the rug out from under him? That will be there to help pick him back up."
Izuku paused the video, his hand shaking as he pulled back from his laptop and used to cover his mouth to try and muffle the crises that threatened to burst forth as his eyes cried rivers of tears down his face. Never in a million years could he have expected this, that his dad, his father that had been taken from him too soon, would show this much love for him despite his evolutionary handicap. Compound that with the fact that less than a foot away from him was something that could give him what he wanted for YEARS?
He sobbed silently to himself for minutes, not even bothering to keep track, "Dad...thank you….." he whispered to himself before pressing play again.
Hisashi looked again at the orb in his hands, "So the question is why wait? Why not let this thing bite him and be done with it? Well firstly, my wife would kill me." he said bluntly. "And secondly...we never brought up the big guy. All Might." he said, shifting in his seat. "He's the number one hero of the world, my son's favorite hero, which hey you know what I'm ok being second place in that category…..well third, behind my wife. Anyway, I was thinking, the guy is the strongest hero to ever live…..but all that power? I think about what this Neogenics could do, how it could try and make anyone that powerful. And what if they make someone who has that power, but none of All Might's scruples? Is there such a thing as too much power?" Hisashi asked.
The reporter paused, ".....side note, possible book title, 'Too Much Power'. I think that's catchy…..where was I? Oh! Yeah, right." he shook his head.
"Having power is one thing, but how you use it is the most important. Everyone wanted to be a hero when they were a kid. Hell, I wanted to be Dragon Lad, and I was committed to it for a while until one day I saw something. My dad was watching this old american movie, it was about two reporters and how through investigating a break in at some convention hall, they found this conspiracy that led to the president of the United States. And through their tireless efforts, keeping their nose to the grindstone, and just digging for the truth? They managed to lead to the president being impeached." he said, shaking his head with a grin on his face. "I was blown away when I found out it was a true story that got me into journalism. And I loved it, who needed to breathe fire when you could take down the bad guys with a few written words?" he asked.
"God, when Izuku gets old enough, I'm gonna show him that movie. Hopefully he likes it, but my point is between now and then my son might find some other great pursuit of his life and he won't even want to be a hero anymore. Giving him this now? He might later feel obligated to be a hero for my sake, not his. Not his choice. And that's what it comes down to. Izuku needs to choose this….he needs to want this." he explained his justification.
Hisashi sighed before slouching in his seat, letting out a yawn as he looked down at his watch, his eyes widened, "Oh hell it's past midnight, I gotta get to bed, got to go to work tomorrow." he said before reaching towards the camera and shutting it off.
Izuku blinked in surprise at how….abrupt the end was. He closed the video file and took a look at the date the video was made. A lump formed in his stomach when he saw that it was dated two weeks before his passing.
His dad had gone on a trip to America to cover a press event, but the passenger plane he was on suffered a malfunction with the turbines and crashed before landing in the U.S.
There had been no survivors.
Izuku turned and looked at the orb, he reached out for it with his hand, "Izuku? Honey?" his mom called out from the living room, making Izuku nearly jump out of his seat. He quickly looked at the clock and did a double take when he saw that it was almost 9 p.m.! He looked back at his laptop, this video was….a lot to say the least. But the others, the others were at the very least explainable.
Dragging the folder containing it onto his laptop, he waited for it to be moved before removing the SSD drive from the laptop and exiting his room. Poking his head into the kitchen he saw his mom set a bag inside the fridge. She turned to him and smiled, "There you are, Mitsuki says hi by the way." she said before noticing the small card in Izuku's hand. "What's that?" she asked.
Izuku looked down, "Oh um….I found this in Dad's notes actually, it was stuck to one of the pages. It's from his old camera, I was looking at it and it's got a bunch of old videos of us together on it." he said as he presented the drive to his mom. Inko's eyes widened and locked onto the SSD. He lifted it towards her, her hands reaching out to take the small thing from her son's hands. And while Izuku's crying had been like rivers down his face….his mother's were like two geysers shooting out of her eyes.
"OH IZUKU HONEY THAT'S SO SWEET!!!" she exclaimed before glomping onto her son who returned the embrace, despite getting soaked in the process.
His tears joined her's soon after.
After spending the rest of the evening watching the videos on the drive, Inko and Izuku both retreated to bed near midnight…..but Izuku didn't sleep. He sat on his bed and in his hands looked at the orb.
When he found out he was quirkless, it was like the entire world ended. He felt like there was something wrong with him for most of his life, even if Bakugo didn't remind him of it every day the fact that there were all these people in the world that could do something he couldn't felt isolating. And there had been a time where he would try anything to get a quirk, he'd try using his mind to pull this to him like his mom's quirk let him, or blow air out his mouth and pass out trying to breathe fire. He even tried those stupid fake Quirk supplements online.
But it didn't work, there was something wrong with him.
And yet despite all of that, despite that feeling of isolation, he stared down at the orb in his hands thinking about what his dad had said in the video he watched. Did he want this?
"....I want this." Izuku said to himself.
He's wanted this his entire life.
He rotated the orb in his hand so that the seam was along the equator of the sphere, grabbed both the top and the bottom, and turned. The small device hissed like a number of cans being opened at once, cool air exiting out and over his hands before he pulled the lid off. Inside was, as his father said, a spider, a small black thing with colorful red and blue patterns on it's thorax. For a brief second Izuku feared that the poor thing had died long ago, however it was put to rest upon seeing it slowly crawl out of the orb.
It was no bigger than any other spider he had ever seen, the only thing seemingly special about it being what it held inside. It crawled over the rim of its container, and onto Izuku's warm hand, Izuku watched as it crawled over and round onto the back of his right hand. For a moment he wondered if this thing would even bite him, which then made him dread exactly what he would need to get the spider's DNA.
Because the first thing that came to mind was eating it.
"Why is that the first place my brain goes???" Izuku asked himself.
A stinging pain made him flinch, looking down at his hand he saw the spider quickly scurry off, leaving a bite mark on his hand. Izuku felt a lot of things at that moment, relief, excitement, nerves, but above everything else for the first time since he was diagnosed as quirkless…..he felt alive. Like his entire life he had been sleeping, and he had finally woken up.
It was finally a Brand New Day for Izuku Midoriya.