Chapter 3: Homecoming
Izuku had two choices when it came to returning to school.
The first was to walk in with his quirk obvious for all to see and tell everyone that he no longer was quirkless.
The other was to keep it secret and not tell anyone about it at all for the remainder of his time there.
There were pros and cons to each option.
Telling everyone was easily the more appealing option at first glance. Izuku didn't like lies in general, much less telling them. He just didn't like doing it.
Not to mention that if he told everyone, the way everyone would treat him would change. Maybe he could finally be just another student, not "That quirkless guy". Was wanting to be treated like a human being that damned wrong?
On the other hand, the cons of telling everyone was all about one person.
Katsuki Bakugou.
His "Old friend", was violent, angry, and flat out hated him for being quirkless.
A week ago he would probably have seen the idea of telling Katsuki that he had a quirk as a surefire way to finally end the bullying, if not mend their relationship.
Right now though, he had no idea how Katsuki would react. Frankly, he couldn't imagine that whatever Katsuki's reaction was would be positive.
And then there was the final thing. He didn't WANT to make up with Katsuki anymore. As far as he was concerned, that ship had sailed. He wasn't sure exactly when it had reached the point of no return, but it was probably delusional to think that the events last Friday had been the decisive moment.
It wasn't. It was just the moment Izuku had woken up.
As for not telling anyone…
Well, the biggest drawback was obviously that things would remain the way they were.
He'd keep getting treated like a pariah just for being "Quirkless", everyone would continue to look down on him, laugh at any perceived flaws, every little mistake, all his hopes, and dreams.
Katsuki, in particular, would treat him the exact same way he had always done. Probably even worse now, after their last encounter.
On the other hand, there were pros to not telling anyone.
Or rather, there were situations that it might be best to avoid altogether.
The most obvious was that without knowing how Katsuki would react, he could most certainly not rule out the idea that Katsuki might attack him. Like, really attack him, like three days ago.
If he did, Izuku WOULD fight back. And with the strength he now possessed… Well, there was going to be collateral damage. The absolute worst-case scenario would be if the two of them got into a huge fight at school, wrecked a huge part of it, and put each other in the hospital.
Win or lose, it would probably tank both of their shots at a hero career, much less getting into Yuei, where any pre-criminal record was guaranteed to get you rejected on the spot. In fact, pretty much all hero schools were like that.
He couldn't risk that. He just couldn't.
He had dreamed of what had just happened for an entire decade. It would be the ultimate cruel twist of fate, if after all of it, after all that suffering, after finally getting a quirk, he blew it all on a pointless bout with Katsuki.
He couldn't let it happen.
So, he had decided to keep his mouth shut, and keep his quirk hidden for the rest of his final middle school year. 10 months. He just had to keep this quirk a secret at school all the way to the end of February next year.
That was a daunting prospect, even if he decided on it as the only course forward.
At least his quirk had seemingly liked the idea. It had so far been very willing to just fuse to his school jacket and not randomly pop out. Just one time of it doing that, and the secret was out of the bag.
He'd tried to explain the plan and why it was necessary for 4 hours yesterday to it. He was pretty sure it didn't understand anything about his long explanation other than the point that he wanted to keep it hidden for the moment.
THAT it had understood, and shown great enthusiasm about.
He wasn't sure why of was so happy about that specifically, but then again… There were a lot of things he didn't understand about his quirk so far.
So, as he walked back into Aldera Junior High for the first time since awakening his powers, he felt… Well, a lot of things. Frustration for not getting to show everyone his quirk, fear that he'd get into a fight with Katsuki despite his efforts, and just all around not being comfortable at all.
Then again, he had never been comfortable here at all. As he looked up at the building as he walked through the yard, he realized something.
He hated this school.
He probably shouldn't be as surprised by that as he was, he didn't have any positive memories of his time here whatsoever after all. Yet the revelation really did surprise him.
He hated this building. He hated this school as an institution. He hated the fact that he was stuck here for the entirety of the rest of the year.
It was just like with Katsuki. It was like he finally woke up, after so long trying to make something of himself here and trying to pretend it wasn't just godawful.
He bit his lip and forced himself to keep going. Standing around and glaring at the building wasn't going to make any of this any easier.
He would have to suck it up and deal with it.
This was so much worse than he had assumed it would be.
Izuku had expected everything to be just the same as always.
It wasn't. At all. But not because anything had changed with the class itself. No, the change was with Izuku, not his fellow students.
Izuku had never, in his entire life felt as alone as he did now in this classroom surrounded by his peers.
Like with Katsuki and the school itself, it was like Izuku had been living in a dream, only to violently wake up and seeing things for the way they were.
He had no friends here.
He had known that already of course, he hadn't had any friends for years. The only people who cared about him was his mom, a couple of friends of his parents, and now his own quirk, who's life was tied to his own.
Well, and his dad too probably.
Sitting at his usual spot, however, he finally GOT it. These weren't his friends. They had never been his friends. They were never going to be his friends, no matter what happened.
They had every single one of them, stood by as he was humiliated, partaken in it by refusing to condone it, and actively encouraged Katsuki every time he had put him down.
It would have been easy if this revelation had brought rage and anger like it did with the school and Katsuki.
But it didn't. He didn't feel angry or pissed off at them. Just a crushing wave of disappointment, sadness, and bitterness.
Why had he wanted to reveal his quirk exactly? So THESE people would deign to treat him like he was a human being with feelings and dreams?
Now that was a joke. A far bigger one than he had been a week ago.
The only friend Izuku had in this entire school, was currently fused into his jacket.
At least he could take some solace in that. Whatever happened next, he would not be alone.
The door opened and Katsuki stepped into the room.
Every muscle in his body tensed like steel coils, like he instinctually expected a fight the moment Katsuki walked into the room. In his head, the anger that seemed to shoot into his mind whenever Katsuki came up took hold as he braced himself for the inevitable confrontation.
Instead, Katsuki didn't even glance in his direction, walked up to his own table, unceremoniously drop his bag by it, then sat down in his seat, all without saying anything.
Well, that was… Different.
The completely silent Katsuki was noticed by other people in the class too, not just Izuku.
They didn't get to begin gossiping about it though, as their teacher walked in 20 seconds after Katsuki.
Their sensei glanced over at Katsuki for a moment, looking kinda sad, then he just began the day like it was a usual and regular day.
Katsuki's change in demeanor didn't change as the classes went by. Instead, he was just completely quiet and focused exclusively on whatever the teacher said.
It was… So bloody of character for him, that Izuku wondered if it was some trick to lull him into a sense of false security.
It was a ridiculous assumption of course, but he honestly couldn't fathom why Katsuki was acting this way.
He got the answer at lunch.
As it turned out, he should have read that All Might story two days ago bit more thoroughly than he did.
Having been occupied with dealing with his powers, and fixing and replacing everything that broke on Friday, Izuku had only skimmed the article, very much unlike how he normally did with any story involving All Might.
The teenager All Might had rescued turned out to be none other than Katsuki Bakugou. He had been held hostage by a villain who had possessed his body and had been rescued by All Might, saving him and a girl that had jumped in to try help Katsuki.
It seemed the experience had really shaken him up. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. On one hand, he didn't want anything bad to happen to anyone, not even Katsuki. On the other hand, a very large part of his mind felt incredible schadenfreude at it.
It was very unlike Izuku in every way, and the fact that he didn't question it beyond acknowledging the fact that these feelings did exist within him, should have been a major warning sign for the young hopeful hero.
Instead he focused on the moment and how it affected him in the now.
He'd gotten to hear the story after someone asked Katsuki about it directly, and in true Katsuki form, he had exploded at them for it.
Afterward, he did not go back to how he regularly was though, instead going back to his previous sulking silence after lunch(and prying questions) was over.
That was definitely an improvement as far as Izuku was concerned, but he felt certain Katsuki would seek him out after school was over.
He didn't. Every time Katsuki saw Izuku that day, he just ignored him. It was… Unsettling in its own way.
Still far better than a confrontation though.
Katsuki's friends didn't share Katsuki's newfound seeming indifference towards Izuku. Both had given him constant worried looks during the day like they were desperately hoping he wouldn't call them out on it.
He didn't.
He just left for home, making sure to take a different path than Katsuki did.
Well, it had been a depressing school day, but he had managed to get through it without anyone even considering he had a quirk.
Katsuki was sulking and leaving him alone for now, though God knows how long that would last.
Now he just needed to repeat that over for almost 300 times, and hope nothing terrible happened during any of them. Easy.
"So, have you settled on a name for it yet?"
Izuku was in the process of biting down and chewing on a fish when the question was asked. He hastily chewed and swallowed it.
"Name for what?"
"Your Quirk dear. It's been 3 days now, and we still just call him "Your Quirk"."
Said Quirk was currently sitting(or the equivalent for a mass of moving liquid) on the sofa and watching tv. How he did that without eyes, Izuku didn't know.
He had several theories on the subject, some he had disproven, other he still needed to- Oh right, his mom had asked him a question.
"I… I don't know mom. It's kinda silly but…"
"Yes?"
"Well, it's like… I had this whole page with possible different names for him. And I had tried finding one he liked, but…"
"It hated them." Inko guessed.
"Well yeah, that too. But… During that I kinda… got this feeling like I KNEW he already had a name already. And… I didn't want to call him something that wasn't his own name."
A short silence followed, until Izuku continued.
"Man, that sounds so stupid when I say it out loud…"
"It's not stupid, sweetie. I mean, it's clearly sentient."
She looked to the side, where it was watching an ancient action movie called Rambo first blood. It was so old it predated the first appearance of quirks.
That it had mastered the art of streaming services would have been proof enough on its that it was indeed sentient. But there was more.
"It's not stupid to think it might have picked a name for itself, but… couldn't you get it to write it down for you? I mean, if it can't actually speak, then surely you could get it to write it down on paper right? It can hold things after all."
"Yeah, that was my first thought too." He bent down and rummaged through his bag for a moment, then fished out his black notebook.
After flipping through the book, he held it up so she could see.
"Well, that's… Clearly a language of some kind, but… I'm sorry baby, I've never seen it before."
He closed the book, then put it back in the bag.
"Yeah, I didn't recognize it either… I spent three hours just looking up alphabets on Wikipedia trying to find something that matched it, but I didn't find anything."
"I… I see."
"It probably created the language on its own. Which would make it really, really smart."
"That's… That's a good thing though, isn't it?"
"Yeah, if I could find some way to reliably communicate with him, he could be an amazing help. The heroes with quirks like mine generally have a huge advantage if the being they've created can think for itself and do independent stuff separate from you."
Inko glanced worriedly over the Quirk for a moment, just in time to see the scene of the protagonist of the movie break down mentally and cry.
"Well… If you think it'll help I hope you can make it work sweetie."
She put on her usual smile again.
"So, are you sure you don't need any snacks for your training Izuku? I can make something for you no problem before you leave."
Izuku blushed slightly. "It's… It's fine mom. We'll only be gone 3 hours or so. And we're not really doing any strength training today, anyways. But… Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it. I really do."
She smiled at him. "Just… Be safe baby okay?"
"We will."
17 minutes later, Izuku and his black, inky companion walked down the stairs out of his apartment complex.
17.30.
He would head back home at 20.30.
Truth be told, he kinda just wanted to train all the way to midnight, but his mom would be worried sick if he stayed out that long.
He had been wondering where exactly he would do his training. He'd thought about it long and hard.
He had considered the beach. Then he had thought about it, and realized that training on shifting sands when you wanted to train balance was maybe not the smartest thing in the world.
His next choice had been a nearby park. Then when he had visited it yesterday, he realized that this kind of training in a park was a surefire way to get the attention of other people. The beach was a bit better, but there were still tons of people walking by it all the time. Anyone of them could decide to take issue with what he was doing and call a policeman over.
Something he most definitely didn't need.
He was technically, kinda, most definitely breaking the law here after all.
Quirks weren't meant to be used in public by anyone except licensed heroes.
So, he had to find somewhere more remote, somewhere people didn't visit as night began to set in.
He knew of one such place. It was quite a bit farther away than he'd have liked, but as he was learning, it was amazing how quickly you could get from place to place if you never got tired of running.
He didn't run at his absolute top speed all the way, of course. That would instantly give away he was using a quirk after all. But he still ran as fast as any normal human could have and he ran with no stops to catch his breath.
God, it felt amazing.
Even stopping for red signs, he made the trip in just a bit over half an hour.
All the way out of the city, and into a place of green grass and trees.
Izuku had not expected to feel as melancholic as he did coming back here.
If going to the beach had felt like a return to where it all began, then this trip back to the forest of his youth was a return to where it had started going wrong for him in life.
That was wrong of course. It was kindergarten where it had all gone wrong for Izuku.
Still, several of his earliest memories of when Katsuki had turned from his friend to his bully was from here, in this forest.
Confusion.
He sighed.
"I've got some… Bad memories from here." He explained.
Lots of happy ones too, but they were were generally drowned out by his later ones.
Anger. The same kind of anger he had felt in his mind as Katsuki walked into the classroom earlier that day.
"Yeah. Mostly about him. In any case, we're not here for reminiscing about that. We're here to train."
"Let's start with… Jumping."
He'd thought about it, and had decided that rather than doing a bit of everything each day, he would instead do these one thing every day each week.
At least until he had gotten a good handle on things.
The thing he needed right now was control. Not more power, he already had that in spades. His powers weren't the strongest strength quirk there was by a longshot, but it was strong. Strong enough for him to become a hero… If he could master it.
After finding a relatively flat open spot where he wouldn't jump into any trees, Izuku put down his plastic bag by a tree and prepared to start. Then he burst into motion.
Maybe 4 meters, then he bent his legs down and sprung like a suddenly released coil. He flew through the air, just as far as he had on Saturday.
Then, as he landed, he didn't tumble and roll along the ground. No, this time he miscalculated as he was planting his feet, and slipped backwards and crashed to the ground on his back.
It didn't really hurt all that much, but he could feel the ache way more than he felt at the beach. Which made sense, this was ground after all, not soft sand.
He sighed as he got up.
His main problem right now was a lack of control and balance. He wasn't sure how he was going to handle becoming more used to not just break things as he gripped them, but in terms of the training he was doing now, there was only one real thing to do to fix his problems.
He would need to jump, again, and again, and again, and again until landing on his feet became second nature to him. There was no other way to do it. It was like riding a bicycle. You just had to keep doing it, again and again until you got it right, and your body remembered how to do it without you having to think about it.
It was the simplest kind of training imaginable, repetitive, boring and with little variation, but also essential to actually do until he got it right.
He got to his feet. Well, he had to get started on this, and delays would not help them get it done quicker.
This host was smart.
Many hosts it remembered had skipped the basics, and jumped straight into battle and combat, assuming their raw power would see them to victory.
They had generally been right. But as its memories returned from before the fog, it had begun to remember many cases where it had not.
Yes, an early crushing defeat was usual, then followed by recovery and a period of weariness where there had once been no fear.
That, or an early demise. That happened a lot too. Usually, hosts tended to live a long life, or a short one. There were few in between.
At least…. It thought so.
It had tried to remember how many hosts there had been in total… But every time it tried to pull back to the very beginning, all the memories returned to the darkness.
Even the memories of the hosts it had were still not complete. The images were there, but the words… The colors… The sounds... They were all missing, and the emotions, worst of all, were dull.
It was all so blank compared to its current existence which was bright, and vibrant and ALIVE.
It liked this planet so far. It's colors, the wind, the temperature, and air, but above all, it's dominant race.
This race was perfect. It was not as physically strong as many, many others it had seen, it was fragile, weak, and it had such EMOTIONS!
It was stunning. It had enjoyed it's host greatly, but it didn't stop there. Even the other members of the species was so full of emotions that it could sense them even without a bond. It could not taste them of course, but the simple fact to know it was there was energizing.
Like… Like… Like smelling something good, yes, that was the comparison. Like how smelling something good would work up one's appetite.
Crushing despair, hilarious joy, pure happiness, enormous highs, devastating emotional breakdowns, and above all Adrenaline in ALL its Glory.
It was all great, and it was all around all the time. And that wasn't the only thing that was all around the time.
The were battles, every day, at any time.
This nation was obviously at war with another force. That was the only explanation for all the constant attacks, which the warriors of this society were constantly putting down. And despite this, all the people went about without a care in the world.
Truly this was a species mentally built for war unlike almost any it had seen, when people willingly went to watch skirmishes as they happened! Madness.
But it was a madness it would embrace.
During his training, both at the beach and here in the forest, Izuku had learned a couple of lessons about super-strength that should have been pretty obvious when you thought about it, but somehow he had never even considered.
At the beach, he had learned that metal wasn't as solid for people with enhanced strength as it was for other people, and if you weren't careful with how much force you put on it while handling something, it crumpled like tissue paper.
In these woods, he had learned that endlessly kicking off from the same spot with strength like his, would turn the ground from compact earth to loose dirt, just like if he had hammered it over and over again with a sledgehammer.
Thus the area he jumped off from had now become an upturned patch where he had pretty much ruined all the grass. For the future, he had decided he would be more varied with where he jumped.
At least it had produced result.
For his max jumps, he had only managed not to fall twice, but he had begun to make real progress at his less ambitious jumps. That wasn't enough though. He would need to do this again and again and again until his body had it down to an art.
In the future when he began to push himself to his limits, it would be those maximum effort jumps that would be how he trained.
Twice succeeding out of 232 wasn't good enough. Not by any stretch. Nothing short of 100% success was good enough in this regard.
Still… There was something magnificently satisfying about actually doing something and seeing progress. No matter how little it had been.
So as he left the forest, covered in dirt from head to toe, he felt… Really good. Very, very, sore but like he had actually accomplished something with these hours of work.
Chapter 4: Stick
It did not take too long before Katsuki began to slowly, but surely, revert back to his old bombastic and annoyingly cocky, self. He only remained flat out sulking for about 3 weeks or so.
After that, he began to act more and more like how Izuku remembered him.
That's not to say that he hadn't changed though. He certainly had. Some major, some minor ways.
In classes themselves he had drastically changed, having gone from always being loud and obnoxious, to being much more quiet, and seemingly hyper-focused on whatever lesson the teacher was teaching. He still had outbursts in class(especially whenever someone dared to bring up the villain incident. That was a surefire way majorly piss him off) but overall he was way less aggressive during the actual classes.
Except for gym class.
If Katsuki had become less aggressive when teachers actually talked, it was as if he had instead transferred all of that aggressiveness and channeled it into gym class instead.
Anytime they ended up at some competition(generally a ball game) he would turn into the most aggressive competitor Izuku had ever seen. Even in cases where it wasn't a direct competition he was still hyper-aggressive against pretty much everyone.
And it wasn't just how he acted either. Izuku wasn't sure if he had become way more aware of such things after unlocking his quirk, or if he was simply hypersensitive when it came to how Katsuki was, but he quickly began to notice that Katsuki had begun to put on muscles.
He had always been an athletic guy, but it was obvious that he had begun to majorly work out, the way his arms developed from pretty muscular, to just being jacked.
For his own part, Izuku was glad that so far his powers didn't seem to majorly affect his muscles in looks. Other than burning off any excess fat he might have had from before, through his daily training, Izuku didn't look any different than everyone else in the class.
One major downside about hiding his powers was that he pretty much had to deliberately fail his gym classes in everything that wasn't just endurance training, running, or jumping exercises.
He just didn't have enough control yet to actually pretend to be mediocre. He was either amazing or terrible. Not much in between.
The greatest change about Katsuki in Izuku's mind however, wasn't the changes to his temperament, or his seeming obsession with school grades.
No, it was his attitude towards him in particular.
When he had first come back to school after the incident, Izuku had thought he would enjoy a brief reprieve from Katsuki's bullying until the blonde boy got back on his mental feet so to speak.
Instead, what he got, was what he had gotten at the start. Katsuki ignoring him. Outside of gym class, Katsuki seemed to have made it his policy in life to pretend Izuku didn't exist. At all.
Izuku had no idea why this was apparently Katsuki's policy going forward, why the villain incident had changed him in this specific way.
To be honest, though, he didn't really care all that much either.
He had no doubt that if the two of them got into Yuei together, this calculated indifference would vanish like morning mist before the sun, but if Katsuki was going to leave him alone for the rest of middle school, he would take it. With open arms.
As for the school work itself… Well, it wasn't as if that much had changed. He still diligently studied at school to the best of his abilities, that part hadn't changed at all.
The main difference was outside of school.
As the weeks had gone by, he had begun to have a very specific routine.
He would go to school in the morning, go home immediately after the last class was over, do all his homework immediately when he came home no matter if he spent 5 hours on it or 1, then if he had spare time he would go out into the city to look up hero battles(He'd stopped taking his books with him to school, so he didn't get to do it in the mornings anymore) until 17.30, when he would head to the woods to train, spend 3 hours every single day doing one type of exercise as much as he could, then go home and get cleaned up, go to bed and rinse repeat the cycle.
The exception was his weekends.
During his weekends, at day, Izuku threw himself back into trying to recreate his lost notebooks, as far as he possibly could, desperately trying to remember and look up every single hero he could ever remember seeing.
Towards the night, he went to the woods and did his exercises.
It was a very rigid regiment, but frankly he felt more alive in these months than he had since… Actually, scratch that. Izuku had never felt more ALIVE in his entire life than he currently did.
While he certainly didn't enjoy going back to his hated middle school, without katsuki doing everything he could to push him down, he could grit his teeth and bear it.
In his mind though, the real education he had right now was his training. His physical education, that would be the rock upon which he would build his entire future.
And he was making progress there too.
While he still hadn't become capable of punching without just turning whatever he touched to paste, in every other field he had improved.
In particular his jumps had improved most of all. He had done some math on it, and if he was right, he had roughly one more month of jumping before his balance reached the level he was training so hard for.
His grip control had also drastically increased so now he didn't accidentally crush things in his hands anymore. He had accidentally broken 3 different door handles on the bathroom and one on his own door, and he'd had to go back to the beach and scrounge for replacements every time.
Then there was running… Oh, the running.
If there was one part of his new powers that just gave him joy, it was running at top speed, with not a care in the world, sprinting through the woods, making countless on the spot turns to avoid trees… Of course, it was far less fun to stumble and accidentally hurt himself, but that had become far less of a problem as time went on.
He'd also broken 7 trees so far, accidentally running into them, so he'd decided to only do this kind of training in the deepest part of the woods, far away from his regular spots.
For once in his life, absolutely everything was going great.
The one thing he still hadn't put to the test was his ability to heal himself.
That changed on his 36th training day.
Izuku speed through the forest, enjoying the thrill, as he twisted and turned as he moved through the foliage and the forest grounds.
It was at the end of his training session for the day, and he was heading back towards his regular grounds.
He had become familiar enough with the area in a way he had never been in his younger days when he Katchan and the rest had wandered these woods.
These woods had once been an adventurous playground for Izuku, where he had explored what had seen like a brand new world, full of possibilities.
Now that was kinda what they were in truth, not just the overactive imagination of a child. These woods had become something he knew like the back of his hands, where he put everything new about himself to the test.
Happiness.
The feeling coursed through his mind, as it always did when he ran like this.
His quirk wasn't shy about making himself felt, and there was rarely a day where izuku didn't get some emotion that wasn't his own running through his head. However, of all the feelings his quirk had, happiness, true joy, was seemingly only reserved for the times where he ran to the very limit of how far he could push himself.
It just heightened how enjoyable these sessions of sprinting was for him. With all the rest, there was a sense of struggling, of work, of training to master something. But running was different. Moving at great speeds just felt… Right. Like this was what he was born to do.
It was the one part of his powers that he had instantly UNDERSTOOD, from the moment he really began to really use it.
He practically flew across the forest ground, made a quick jump over a rock, sidestepped out of the way of a large tree, smashed through some branches that snapped instantly the moment he touched them. Never stopping, always moving.
He wondered how it would feel when he began to combine this speed with actual real jumps, not just clearing hurdles.
He reached a small river that went through the forest, flanked on either side by dirt walls.
Izuku should have just jumped the small ravine, trusting in his relatively good new balance to carry him across and safely on the other side. However, he knew from experience that the sides of this ravine were just packed dirt and unstable dirt at that. He'd fallen into the water here before after the ground literarily crumbled beneath him.
Instead, he made a hard turn right and kept going along the river. The goal was a rather big log up ahead, that he'd discovered and made note of long ago.
He'd used it to cross the river before, and he had yet to fall off it.
As he neared the log, he made another quick and direct turn, jumped up on to it, maybe one third across, then he instinctually bent down, preparing to make the jump across the rest of the log in one go.
The force of his legs as he kicked off broke the decades-old, weathered, waterlogged and rotten log beneath it in half, and he slipped sideways as the log collapsed out from under him. Then PAIN shot up through his right leg! He screamed as he fell down into the water, the now two pieces of logs falling with him at an awkward angle.
The water in the river engulfed him for a moment as the shock and panic of the sudden pain took him.
Then he wrenched his head and an upper body above water, which just made the pain even worse!
Tears forming in his eyes from the pain, he looked at his foot. It was caught between the two pieces of logs, not deeply, but still enough that he had to move the logs to get it out. He tried desperately to ignore the weird angle of how his right leg lined up with how his foot had to be caught between the two logs.
He carefully tried to hunch over closer to it so that he wouldn't disturb the foot more than he had to. He failed miserably, and a scream through gritted teeth passed through his lips.
When he was close, he hesitated for a while moment, knowing what he had to do, but also understanding the pain that would follow as he did it.
After taking deep breaths for a while, desperately trying to calm himself as emotions of worry(as if he needed to know more about how badly he'd screwed up) inserted itself through his head.
With one final deep breath before the plunge, he prepared himself mentally for what he was going to do.
Then, tears, still in his eyes from the pain, he forced both his hands between the log pieces, and then he began to push them apart.
The pain tripled at the sudden motion, and with a scream, and a push with all his might, he forced the two logs up and apart, letting him wrench his foot free before collapsing backwards into the water, head still ringing with the feelings of worry.
Shortly afterwards he forced his head back up out of the shallow water, harking and coughing. The pain was the worst thing Izuku had felt in his life.
The crushing pressure upon it was gone, so there was that at least.
He took a deep breath, then, lying back on his elbows, he lifted his leg up, so he got a look at the foot.
The sickening sight almost made him faint.
His foot had dislocated so badly that it had gone completely to the side, blood seeping from where the muscles had torn.
He just stared at it in shock, just breathing, when the black mass began to move, then, went to the wound. Oh right. He had healing powers. Thank god.
It went around his entire foot and lower leg, giving izuku that same feeling he had back on the apartment.
Then, once it had completely covered the foot with it's entire mass, it wrenched the foot back into it's proper place and direction.
Izuku's scream of pain echoed down the ravine and up through the forest.
He gasped, and for a moment his strength went out, and for the third time that night, his head was dunked in water.
This time, he didn't have to force himself up.
The black liquid pushed from below and lifted his head above water without any prompting.
Which was good, because izuku was in shock and other than instinctually harking out water yet again, he didn't feel like he could do anything at the moment.
He lay there in the water for what felt like an eternity, just breathing, before he finally began recovered from the shock.
He tried to rise, making sure he didn't put any weight on the leg which still hurt like it had had all it's skin torn off.
Propping himself up against the edge of the water and leaning against the muddy earth wall he sighed looked down at his quirk, still covering his leg as it pretty much just floated in the water.
So there was buoyancy to the black liquid, interesting, that meant- Was he seriously making notes, just after nearly losing his foot?
Idiot. Stupid idiot. He'd learn weeks ago that he couldn't trust himself not to break things when jumping. Yet he'd done it anyway, nearly crippling himself in the process. At least… At least he hoped it was just nearly.
The horrible idea struck him that maybe the quirk couldn't heal the internal damage… Then he crushed it, hard. He WOULD heal from this. He would learn, and not do this again.
Now he just had to get out of the river, rest, and let the healing factor take hold, fix him up, then he'd get home.
He looked up the wall, at least 3 meters from the water surface.
He… He Wasn't going to be able to climb that with only one foot.
Ok, so new plan. He would sit there in the water, soaked through in the darkness until he had healed enough to get up from here. THEN he'd go home.
…And he was actually supposed to be heading home soon. Great.
Given his phone was in a bag in a tree, he'd have no way to call his mom and tell her he'd be late. She'd be worried about him.
Izuku hit head back into the earth wall in frustration. God, he was an idiot.
He'd learned this lesson on his first day, but apparently, having successfully avoided the problem for over a month, he'd forgotten why he did constantly changed jumping-off places in the first place.
It was so he didn't constantly break things as he jumped off of them. Like he did with the log. But no, he was a stupid idiot tha- Vulnerability.
Izuku stopped in his tracks, his quirks warning of the seeming danger, right before a voice from above sounded. "You need some help kid?"
The voice was rough, deep, and intimidating.
Izuku looked up, at the speaker.
On the opposite side of the river, on top of the ravine stood a tall man, dressed in black and blood red armor, covering his face was a cowl like a mask with pupils as red as his armor, and on his forehead, he had two devil like horns.
All in all, he looked bloody intimidating, standing there looking down on him, covered in shadow and only lighted up by the moon.
Izuku stared silently at him in shock and fear, until reality asserted itself.
The guy was obviously a hero, coming to the aid of someone in need. That one in need being him.
His words failed him, so he just nodded, too embarrassed to speak.
The man jumped down and landed on his feet in the water with no particular difficulty.
He bent down and inspected Izuku's leg.
"Hmmm… That's bad. Pretty bad. I'm guessing this liquid is your quirk?"
Izuku ignored for a moment how he had apparently just seen through his liquid and inspected the leg itself and just answered "Yes".
"Hmmm… It's healing the wound. You have healing powers as well?"
"As well?"
The man looked him in the eyes. God those red pupilless eyes were unnerving.
"You have to have super strength and durability. If you didn't have the former, you'd never be able to move as you did, you certainly wouldn't have broken that thing just by using it as a springboard" He pointed a thumb at the pieces of the formerly whole log. "And if you didn't have the latter, your leg would have either be ripped off, or crushed so hard it didn't even resemble a foot anymore."
His blood went cold.
"You've were watching that?"
Was this guy a stalker? A kidnapper? What the hell was he gonna do? He couldn't fight like this, he'd-
"Don't take it personally kid, I watch a lot of people around me for quite a distance, whether I want to or not."
Oh. It was just his quirk. He relaxed again.
"So you have some large scale observation quirk?"
"...That's one way to put it. Anyhow, we can continue this chat after we get out of the water."
Before he could argue the man lifted izuku up and slung him over a shoulder, much to Izuku's protestations and grunt of pain for his leg. The feeling of Anger shot through his mind, his quirk being pissed at the sudden change.
"Sorry if this hurts a bit."
Then with remarkable speed, he crossed the river and began to climb the side one-handed with no problem, Izuku still slung across his shoulder. Once he was up, he gently unslung Izuku and laid him up against a tree, making sure his right leg rested over a tree root and his foot not actually touching the ground.
Then the hero went over to another tree to pick up something.
Izuku blinked then realized it was his bag.
"Thought you might need this. In case you want to call for home. Whether I take you to a hospital or you just heal that on your own, I'm gonna take a wild guess you'll be late home tonight."
Izuku took the bag, but he didn't fish out his phone yet, instead staring at the man.
" I… I have a choice?"
"Of course. If you want me to take you to a hospital, I'll do it. Of course, that would mean you'd have to explain how you got the injury. Now, I might be wrong, but you don't strike me as much as a liar, so I'm guessing you might say something you might regret."
Izuku bit his lip, then opened his mouth to talk.
Then the realization hit him. This was a pro hero, who had seen him train. Using his quirk. Shit. Shit, shit, SHIT!
Wait. He'd given him a choice.
"You're not gonna arrest me?" he said, hopeful that this night wasn't about to get even worse.
"Kid, if I arrested every single new hopeful hero candidate who I saw take some liberties training their quirks, I'd never get anything done."
He motioned his arm to the forest.
"You think you're the first kid who thought to go out into the woods and train his quirk? You're not. I literarily come across that at least once a month."
Izuku felt like an idiot. Of COURSE, this was common. This was the most obvious spot someone would use for this. Some hero was bound to discover him sooner or later.
A short silence followed before the hero broke the silence.
"Well, kid? You wanna go to the hospital? Or you wanna just heal it yourself?"
Izuku stared at him, then fished out his phone. "I… I'll just do it myself."
He debated whether he'd call his mom, or just send a message. He decided a message. That would be simpler. He'd explain more when he got home.
-Hey mom, I'll be out late tonight- He Hovered his thumb over the send button, debating if he should write more. What more could he send in a short message? That he'd broken his foot and had to stay out to heal it?
No, that was something he'd have to talk about in person. He sent the message, then turned off the sound on the phone.
As he put the phone back in the bag, he realized incredulously that the hero had sat down opposite from him leaning against a tree.
"You… You're staying?"
"Of course I'm staying. What, you think I'm gonna leave you here? Alone? At night? With a broken foot and no means of escape if something were to happen?"
Yeah… When he worded it like that, it made the idea of him leaving seem kinda… Unheroic.
"I… Don't you need to go and patrol in case there's someone in need you have to help?"
"I AM helping someone in need."
Izuku blinked at that and just stared at the man. Then he began to tear up.
He quickly began to try and dry away the tears. Idiot. He was wet all over. All he did was smear more water over his face.
The hero got up and went over to him, knelt down, and put a hand gently on his shoulder.
"How are you feeling kid?" The voice was much softer now, more filled with compassion.
How did he feel? He had no idea anymore.
He felt humiliated for screwing things up so badly and needing help to even get out of a shallow river.
He was angry at himself for forgetting a lesson he learned on day one here, for forgetting such a simple lesson that would easily have avoided any of this.
He also felt… he felt incredible gladness, joy, that someone, that ANYONE who wasn't his mom cared enough to ask how he felt. If he was okay or not.
It was so stupid. Yet somehow it made him feel so glad. Like he actually mattered. It was a simple question, yet somehow just hearing someone, a complete stranger ask it of him without a hint mockery brought such happiness with it.
After some fumbling at his belt(Izuku just realized he carried a belt full of pouches) the man pulled out something that resembled a cleaning rag, though fully clean, and he handed it wordlessly to Izuku, who grabbed it and began to dry his face clean of tears.
"Thank you…"
"No problem kid. Also, keep it if you want."
He choked.
"Not that! Thank you for… Thank you, for… For caring."
The man stared into his eyes with those pupilless red ones.
The man didn't answer, but he kept his hand on Izuku's shoulder, firmly, but gently.
After Izuku had finally calmed down completely, he finally spoke again.
"You wanna talk about it?"
He almost did.
He almost told him everything. About Katsuki, his life, how he had been worthless for most of it, and how even with his quirk how he still somehow managed to screw things up, his guilt for being a terrible son who made his mom worry about him all the time.
"No… But… But thanks for asking."
"Sure you don't want a fire?"
The two of them once again sat opposite each other, leaning up against trees.
"Yeah, I'm not really bothered by cold anymore."
Well, that wasn't entirely true. He was still affected by ice-cold temperatures, but he'd discovered early in his training he wasn't affected by just being wet at night.
His quirk had been pretty erratic tonight, ever since they meet this hero, he had been all over the place, rage, suspicion, annoyance. At the mention of fire, rage returned.
"It's quite the multitasker this quirk of yours."
He blushed.
"It's... It's not that special. Just a general strength quirk really."
"No, that it's most certainly not. The strength itself is pretty decent, but healing… Healing is exceedingly rare, even amongst quirks that cover it exclusively, much less those who only have it as a side power."
Izuku flushed even harder. A pro hero was praising his quirk! An actual pro hero!
"Cold resistance isn't anything to sneeze at either. It's way more useful than you might think. During winter, even passive cold resistance is such an upgrade from the standard."
Well, it wasn't like Izuku didn't know that, but hearing it spoken by a pro somehow made it seem real. Not just something you read on message boards.
"So… You think I have a shot at being a hero then?"
The man looked at him with a… Kinda inquisitive look.
"Why do you want to be a hero kid?"
He was taken a bit aback, but he answered honestly.
"To help people… Like… Like you did tonight." He blushed furiously as he said it, but it was true enough.
This was what he wanted to be. Someone who helped people who needed it.
The man gave a small smile.
"I'm flattered to be someone's inspiration, but surely you had some other inspiration before tonight."
"Yeah… I did."
"Well, it's kinda stupid, but… I wanted to be a hero since I was 4..."
"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess your inspiration was All Might was it not?"
"Yeah." He smiled at the memory of seeing All Might's debut video. Then it vanished remembering what came afterwards.
"Yeah…"
"You were a very late bloomer, weren't you? With your quirk I mean?"
Izuku's head shot up as he stared at the man's mouth agape.
"How… How did you know?"
"There were quite a lot of signs. For one, you are training far, far more to master the basics than anyone who grew up with their quirk reasonably would. In particular, your complete inability to do a punch that's something other than full force and a love tab REALLY stands out. Kids with strength quirks learn very quickly growing up to control how strong they hit something. It's way harder to learn if you have to learn it in your teens."
"You… You know a lot about this stuff."
"I've lived quite a while now. In my profession, you learn a lot of things."
A short silence, then…
"To answer your previous question kid, I think you have a shot at being a Hero."
Izuku's breath stopped cold.
"Your quirk is pretty good, you still need to work on your punches quite a bit, but frankly, I've never cared much about quirks. It's a man's motivation and what he does with it, that defines who he is. Not whether he's strong enough to have made a rank."
Izuku just stared at him, tears forming up in his eyes again. He tried to force them down, but they came anyway. This time though, he didn't feel sad or conflicted. Just… Relieved. Incredibly relieved.
His quirk was horribly, horribly confused.
Another silence followed, where Izuku finished crying and drying away the tears.
Then something struck him.
"Wait… How long have you been watching me? I didn't do punches today."
"4 days" He admitted.
"I've been patrolling just south of this forest this entire week. You weren't exactly inconspicuous or hard to keep an eye on, alone in the forest, running around like a cheetah."
Dear god, Izuku was lucky this guy hadn't just decided to call the cops or arrest him.
Izuku blinked.
"Oh… Oh, I'm so sorry, but I just realized… I never asked for your name!"
He winced. He just now realized that, and just randomly blurted it out?
The hero didn't seem to mind.
"I think it would be better if we don't do names kid. If I never know your name, I would not be lying if someone asked me for the name of a green-haired teenager who's a bit liberal with the law while training. But, if you must have something to call me, you can call me Stick for the time being."
He took a wild guess the name came from the two sticks he had in a holster at his belt.
"No problem. Stick."
A short silence followed, but somehow it didn't seem hostile or forced.
"So, how did you figure out I was inspired by All Might?"
He was genuinely curious. He had All Might shirts of course, but he didn't use them while training. The only things he had with him were a set really washed out clothes he used for training, his keys, his black notebook, and his phone.
"Well… Don't take this the wrong way, but 9 out of every single hero I've met in this country was inspired by All Might to become heroes."
That… Sounded just about right.
"Wait… You're NOT from Japan?"
"No."
"Wow… your Japanese is REALLY good for it not being your native language."
And it was, Stick spoke perfect Japanese, he had for sure pegged him as being a Tokyo Native.
"So I've been told."
A quick silence followed, but this time it was stick who broke it.
"It's a peaceful land, this Empire of Japan."
He wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that.
"It's not peaceful in your homeland?"
"No. It's not been true peace there since the start of the second Millennia. There's always something going wrong."
He sighed.
"But don't let my worries trouble you. How's your foot?"
Izuku blinked. Oh yeah, the reason they were still here. He wiggled his toes a bit. Pain immediately shot up his foot. It wasn't anything compared to the pain of getting it janked into place, but it was still bad.
"Pretty bad still."
Stick stared at his foot, still covered in black liquid.
"The healings pretty fast. I think you should be able to walk with help in maybe 3 hours."
So 02.00 then. Great. He really was going to spend the rest of the night before he got home.
Izuku sighed.
I
The trip back to his home took around 3 and a half hours. Meaning it was 05.17 when Stick and him reached the stairs to his apartment.
The pain in his leg had thankfully begun to actually fade by then. He couldn't put too much weight on it, but at least he could actually walk now. Though slowly.
At the stairs, he turned to say goodbye to Sticks.
"Thanks… Thanks for all the help."
"No problem kid. One final thing though, before I leave you to yours."
"Yes?"
"Punching. Your current training regiment isn't gonna work. If you want control over them, you need something that isn't so weak that it just instantly breaks when you put some force on it, but isn't so rigid that it can only break when force is applied."
Okay…
"What do I need then? It sounds like you have something in mind."
"What you need kid, is a punching bag."
Izuku blinked.
That… Was so simple and obvious that he couldn't fathom why he hadn't thought of it himself.
How he was going to afford a punching bag was another thing entirely, but it was good advice. Much better than continuing to punch rocks anyway.
"Thanks, thanks for the…" Izuku blinked.
He had looked down for a couple of seconds to consider the advice, and in that time, Stick had suddenly disappeared into thin air.
He stood and just looked for a moment. Then he turned and began the slow and kinda painful journey up to his apartment.
As he got to the door. He carefully checked if it was open.
It was.
That meant mom was still awake waiting for him.
He stood there, for a second, contemplating it, then stepped inside to talk to his mother. This was going to be pretty bad he had no doubts.
Chapter 5: Pause
Izuku had never been grounded before.
Technically, he still hadn't been, he hadn't been punished, but he was to stay home for the rest of the week to recover from the damage to his foot. His mom had put her foot down on that. Quite a bit more successfully than Izuku had with the log.
His mother had taken the sight of him filthy, wet, limping and with a destroyed shoe, as well as he had expected she would. However, it wasn't before he actually told her what had happened, that the flood works had really come, and she had embraced him in tears.
He had tried to downplay it by how quickly his injury had healed, but frankly, it was as if the moment he stepped foot inside his home, all the energy had gone out of him. This had added him feeling and looking like a drained and cracked battery on top of his other problems as he was talking to his mom and trying to calm her down.
In the end, she had ordered him to bed after a quick shower to clean himself(The hot water doing nothing to quicken him up.), to rest and recover.
It had made Izuku incredibly guilty to know he had worried her so much, because of his own stupid mistakes.
He hadn't even considered that he was supposed to have classes in a few hours before his head hit his pillow. Then it had been a fleeting thought in his head before he fell asleep.
When he woke the next time, the pain in Izuku's foot had dampened to a dull ache. At least while he was lying down. It would probably hurt more when he walked. The first thing that struck Izuku upon regaining consciousness was not his leg though.
Izuku felt DRAINED like he had been a wet towel that had been wrung again and again until all every single drop of water had left him. Then been thrown out to be baked in the sun.
He had to go and get something to eat. What time was it anyway?
He glanced over to an All Might wall clock he had owned for years.
It was 22.13. He had slept for around 16 hours straight. Wow, he had been tired. Well… He still was.
He forced himself to sit upright on the bed, then with just a bit of hesitation, he slowly put his legs out over the side, and fully expecting pain, he lowered them to the ground.
Well, he had been right, he did feel a pang of pain, but frankly, it was nothing compared to anything he had felt last night. It certainly wasn't anything compared to how drained he felt.
He had to go and eat something. Anything.
As he forced himself to his feet, trying his best to ignore the leg, he walked across his room and opened the door.
He could hear sounds from the living room, so his mom was awake. It sounded like she was watching tv.
His leg still covered in black liquid, izuku haltingly walked past the ugly door to their bathroom(Izuku had made it too short so it didn't fully fit into the doorframe, and without any paint, there wasn't any hiding how old and used it was, no matter how much he had cleaned it.) and opened the door to the living room.
As he had suspected, his mom was indeed watching tv, though she turned her head the moment he stepped in. Then she scrambled to her feet.
"Izuku! Sweetie, how are you feeling?"
He blushed, and awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
"I'm… I'm fine mom. Just a bit tired, and hungry."
She quickly guided him to the sofa she had recently been sitting on and helped him down in it.
"I'll cook something up for you sweetie. Just relax and take it easy okay?"
As she went to the kitchen and begun preparing something, Izuku asked "...What about school?"
"I called in and said you were sick sweetie, and that you wouldn't be attending school for the rest of the week."
"Oh."
Yeah, that made sense. He really was sick after all. Maybe not with the usual sickness of a middle schooler, but still sick.
After that, an uncomfortable silence arose, as Inko made food, and, Izuku absentmindedly watched tv.
I
Inko made food. It was what she did. It was what she had done for a decade now. It wasn't that she resented doing it, quite the opposite, she had come to enjoy the peace of the home.
But there were few times where she had felt as useless as she did now.
She had been useless last night too. The only thing she could do was wait for Izuku all night and constantly send him messages he didn't respond to.
She had been really mad about that, worried something had happened to her, yet all her rage had gone out of her the moment Izuku came home like he did, dirty, shaking, and with his leg like it was. All that was left had been worry and concern about his state.
It had been an eye-opener, as she sat her boy down and heard his story.
It wasn't like Inko hadn't understood the potential risks involved in Izuku's dreams. Heroes got hurt sometimes. Yet it was something completely different to hear about it than to actually have it happen to her boy.
And not even a villain attack, but a simple training accident. Something that could easily have happened at school, and could easily have crippled him for life, or at least given him a permanent limp.
Yet now he was walking relatively easily just a day after the accident.
Her father had once dislocated an arm, and he had taken a good half year to recover from it. Frankly, his arm had never been the same for the rest of her life. You weren't actually able to fully recover from dislocated limbs. It was a permanent injury that never fully healed. Unless you had a regenerative quirk or were healed by one.
Yet her baby was almost shrugging off a much worse dislocation after less than two days. It was a moment that really made things sink in for Inko, that her baby had a quirk, and was going to realize his dreams.
It was something that made her incredibly happy… And terrified.
"Food's ready sweetie."
Izuku turned his head and looked at her direction, his eyes zooming in at the food. God, he must be hungry.
After sitting himself down Izuku beginning to devour his food at an astonishing speed, with Inko just staring at him, still worried.
Izuku, bless him, noticed her worried look, and after devouring a fish, he asked "I'm fine mom. Honestly, I'm fine. I'm a bit sore and there's some pain in my leg still, but it's fading."
He was honest, her son always was. But the leg wasn't really the problem here, not really. She sighed.
"Just… Finnish eating okay? Once you're done… We've got some stuff to talk about."
Even before yesterday, she had been procrastinating with recent events. She should have discussed this with Izuku weeks ago. Yet she'd been putting it off.
She hadn't been sure why not before yesterday. Or this morning depending on how you looked at it.
She was afraid of change, of this little life she had been building up for herself and Izuku completely being upended. Inko didn't like her life being upended. She'd had it happen to her before, and it had never been a good thing. This time though, it would her herself who did it. Not something beyond her control.
I
Izuku wasn't sure what his mom wanted to talk to him about, but he had fears. Fears he wouldn't be allowed to train anymore.
"I'm… not really sure where to begin Izuku. There's a lot of stuff I want to talk to you about. Both about… Well, yesterday, and the future."
She sighed.
"The first thing I want to ask, is why didn't you call me yesterday, instead of just sending me a message?"
"I… I didn't want to make you worry…"
"I was worried SICK Izuku!"
He winced.
"I literally sent you over a hundred messages, begging you to call me. I was TERRIFIED something awful and terrible had happened, like you had been kidnapped, or worse!"
Hearing his mom say it out loud just made Izuku feel even more guilty about screwing up.
"Did you honestly think I wouldn't understand if you had called and explained it to me? Yes, I'd be worried sick, but at least I would have known what was going on, and that is something you can deal with."
"I… I'm sorry… I just… I didn't want you to…"
Hearing her say it out like that, just made him feel like a moron. Like he thought his mom wouldn't be able to handle any bad news at all. God, he was a terrible son.
Inko looked at him, with a look that somewhere between stern, sad, pitying, and concerned all at the same time.
"But… The worst part Izuku is that if you had just called, I could easily have helped you out getting home, instead of just sitting here and worrying about you."
"But… But we don't have a car, and we don't have the money for a taxi."
"I have Friends, Izuku. Your father also has old friends in the city. Anyone of them would have been willing to drive to the park and pick you up."
Izuku's brain stopped working for a moment. Then he REALLY felt like a goddamn moron. Of course one of his mom's friends would have been willing to pick him up, he was just so used to them not having a car or not being able to take a taxi, that he hadn't even considered that as an option.
"You… Didn't realize that was an option, did you?"
"No…"
Inko sighed, tension visibly going out of her face.
"I am grateful that Stick-San helped you out in the woods, and then made sure you made it home safely once you could walk again. But it really would have been better if you had gotten home so you could have recovered in bed."
"Which was was very much an option, and you would have known that if you had called me."
He didn't say anything in response, just bit his lip and cursed himself for being an idiot.
"Just… don't do it again okay? If something happens and you need help, tell me about it. Don't hide it, thinking it'll go away. It never does, sweetie. Ever."
He looked up at her. Then, he start to tear up as he replied.
"Okay, Mom… I… I won't do it again."
"Oh, sweetie…"
She took his hand and gave him one of those comforting smiles he loved so much.
This time it was Izuku who broke the silence. He really didn't want to. Not now, anyway. A smarter move would have been to talk about it later down the week. But he had to get this out of the way.
"I… I have something I need to say too. It's not something I wanted to bring up so soon after… My leg injury, but… Well, like you said, pretending the problem isn't there won't make it go away."
Inko's look changed to more stern as if she was forcing herself to be calmer and more serious.
"What's the problem?"
"Well, Stick-san kinda laid out for me a huge problem in my thinking. When I choose the forest as my training spot, I thought it was far out of the way, and no one would notice. Except… I was dead wrong."
"As stick-san pointed out, that is literarily the first place people who want to be heroes goes to train. It's obvious for any pro hero with experience. If I go back to training regularly there, sooner or later, I'll be noticed by another pro hero. Quite possibly one who won't be as forgiving as Stick-san was."
Inko sat in silence as he spoke, only talking when he was done.
"So what do you plan to do then?"
"I… I don't know. I'll have to find another spot. Probably even further away."
Izuku winced at his mother's expression as he said that, but after a short inner debate, she sighed.
"If that's how it is, then that's how it is. You're still staying home for the rest of the week though. When you go out again, I want your foot to have healed completely with no doubt about it."
Fair enough.
He hesitated before he spoke next. It was a question he had to ask her, he had to know, even if it sounded like she had given her blessing.
"So…. You'll still let me train? Even after… well… this?
She stared at him for a while in silence, while Izuku fidgeted in place, then she sighed.
"Yes."
A weight was lifted from Izuku's shoulders.
She hesitated briefly before continuing.
"Also… regarding finding a new training place for you… I… I could probably get someone to drive you there. Though that would depend heavily on the day."
"It's… It's something to work on. There's more than enough time I suppose."
He chuckled awkwardly.
"Yeah… There is."
His mom didn't exactly go back to being cheerful, but her smile did return.
"Also, I have something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now."
"What?"
"About a month ago, I… I got a job offer."
"Really? As a lawyer again?"
"Yes."
That… was unexpected. Izuku wasn't exactly filled in about his mom's old career as he could have been(She hadn't been one since he was 6), but he knew her choice to leave the business wasn't one she had wanted. She had effectively been blacklisted by the legal firms, without technically losing her license, after her old firm had been shut down.
He didn't know why it had been shut down, but he knew his mom had been devastated by it.
It was also a moment that had marked the first financial change in his life, as they had moved out of their old house and into their current apartment. It was also the event that had lead to his dad working abroad to keep them afloat financially.
The second change was his dad being demoted for something, which had sharply reduced their amount of spending money about 2 years ago.
"It's… In Yokohama."
Oh.
"Well… It's not as bad as it could be. I mean, it could have been in Tokyo. That would have been three times as far away."
Inko looked at him kinda sadly.
"It still means things will change sweetie. I won't always be here when you come home."
Izuku blushed.
"I'm… I'm not a little kid anymore, mom."
"Aye, You're not. You're not quite an adult either though, as yesterday proved."
He winced, but he didn't argue.
"To be honest sweetie, I wasn't all that excited about taking the job. Not really. I… I was worried about leaving you home without me."
He blushed again.
"But then… After you discovered your quirk… You changed."
"I… I haven't changed."
"You have. A lot."
She smiled at him, a smiled Izuku didn't instantly recognize, but one he eventually realized was pride.
"Frankly sweetie, you've changed so much this last month. You're happy now. You go outside every day with a smile on your face. You've begun to take your future so much more seriously than you did before."
Her smile beamed even more.
It felt strange to Izuku. To be praised for just going out and training and doing his regular stuff. Was he really that different now? He didn't feel any different. Well, except for anything regarding Katsuki and his school. That was different. Really different. And during his training sessions he felt more alive in a way he never had before, and- and yeah, he was kinda different now wasn't he?
"So you're taking the job?"
"Yes. I've… talked about it with your father, and he agrees it's for the best. For one thing, Izuku, if you're really going to become a pro, it will help you immensely to have a more financially stable base to work from."
Well, that was true enough. Images of a punching bag crept through his mind. Also maybe not having a bathroom door that was literarily collected from a trash heap.
His mom then got a massive and happy grin on her face and looked for a moment like she was about to say something. Then she cut herself off and instead said.
"Anyway, we'll see how it turns out. It's still months away until I start working again in any case. We'll figure things out before then.
There was something more going on here. Judging by the way his mom was smiling to herself. She had been about to say something completely different, yet had stopped herself and just ended the topic prematurely.
Part of him wanted to dig deeper, but another part of him, the part that always told him to be cautious, told him to not push his luck more than he had with that training conversation.
If mom had something more to tell him, she would do it in her own time.
I
Izuku laid in bed reading through a long, long list of heroes.
As it was, he didn't really have anything else to do at the moment.
Unlike his mom, who had only slept for 6 hours after he came back home, and thus had a relatively easy time going back to the regular rhythm, Izuku felt as awake as he ever had been.
Which just meant that instead of sleeping, he was lying in bed browsing his phone.
He knew logically that he shouldn't be trying to figure out who Stick actually was, but his curiosity, and almost addiction level of trying to figure out everything he could about any hero he met drove his search for the red cowled man.
Not that he had any luck. For one thing, Stick wasn't Japanese, which meant searching through Japanese lists of heroes wasn't all that likely to find results. Unless he was an immigrant, stick would not be listed at all.
Even if he had been Japanese, there were still thousands of heroes in Japan alone. A rather large list to search through given he didn't have a name.
He had still done so. After 4 hours he gave up the Japanese lists and went over the ones in America, the country with the largest superhero registry in the world.
If Izuku had had trouble in the Japanese list of candidates, that was drowned out by the sea that was the American candidates. Literarily hundreds of candidates who all fit the criteria of 1. Red and Black Armor. 2. Sensory quirk, and 3. Tall.
As the clock turned 08.00 he still hadn't found anything.
After that, it was China, the land with the second-largest hero population, then third India. Admittingly he knew it was kinda stupid to search the largest and biggest countries first. He had never thought of the U.S.A as a country that could be described as a land without peace.
Nor China frankly. It had been in America that the new world order post the societal collapse brought on by quirks had been founded, but few lands had rebuilt themselves with that order as quickly as China and Japan.
Still, it was either this or search through countries at random. He'd work himself all the way down from the top to the bottom, and pray he didn't accidentally miss Stick in the thousands of guys he looked through.
The rather sad truth was that it was fully possible Izuku had already missed him, and not realized it. If Stick had used another costume in the past, he could easily have seen a picture of him and not realized it.
But it was either this or give up on the search. If Izuku failed at this, it would not be for lack of trying.
After breakfast at 08.00, there was still nothing. He threw himself through the European countries. No result.
14.21, he moved on to Africa.
That took him literally the rest of the day, not counting dinner and an evening meal. Before he went to bed, he moved on to South America, and he was still browsing through Brazil as he fell asleep.
All in all, despite not having moved much, it had been one of the most active research periods of Izuku's life so far. It had also been one of his most fruitless.
As he would learn 2 days later, having literarily gone through every single official public hero list on the planet, it had all been a huge waste of time. He didn't learn anything about Stick.
What he did learn that week, was how long it took to fully repair a foot twisted 90 degrees sideways.
Roughly 2 and a half days. It went in his black book, and regarding his powers, it was the only thing Izuku learned that week. The irony he spent an entire week devoted to his healing powers wasn't lost on him.
The rest of the week was generally studies of more Heroes he might have come across at some point in his life.
His quirk returned to watching ancient movies once his foot was healed, and with it the usual emotions running through his head.
What it watched seemed to have no rhyme or reason. Sometimes it watched old samurai films, other times a random anime tie movie, other times foreign action stories. One time it had streamed the entire Dragon Ball film library in one go.
He really didn't understand it's tastes. Sometimes he wondered if it even understood what people said in movies. It didn't seem to care if the film was subtitled or dubbed.
That would line up with what he speculated in his black book. It only seemed to understand him half of the time.