Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Midoriya Izuku was on the floor, trying to keep his tears from being brought forth but failing miserably if the tears streaming down his face were any indication. In front of his downed form, Bakugou and his lackeys laughed. “Come on, stupid Deku, get up! I’m not done with you!” The explosive blonde demanded.

“Why are you doing this, Kacchan?” The boy gritted his teeth, standing up with a wince.

Bakugou narrowed his eyes. “Why do you think, fucker?” He growled. “All these years you’ve been thinking that you can be a hero when you’re nothing more than a useless Deku! I thought you’d give up on your own, but it seems that I’m going to need to beat it out of you!”

He lashed with his hand again, an explosion hitting the greenette with enough force to make him cry out in pain and send him sprawling once more. He stood up again, coughing painfully. He looked around to see if any of the kinds would help him, or if any of the teachers were seeing what was happening, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. The kids were too terrified of Bakugou to do anything, and there was no way the teachers would punish their golden boy.

“But I have a quirk! I don’t have the toe joint!” Izuku cried out. And it was true – he had the exams to prove it.

“Then where is it?” The bully demanded. “You’re ten years old, Deku! You’re either quirkless or your quirk’s as useless as you are!”

“At least I don’t act like a villain!” Izuku snapped, and immediately regretted his words when the other boy’s face contorted in rage.

“What was that?!” He roared, punching Izuku in his gut and making him drop to his knees. “That was the last straw, fucker! Die!” He pulled his arm back, preparing an attack that would more likely than not severely injury the kneeing boy.

Izuku looked up to the incoming attack in fear, knowing that this time his former friend wasn’t going to hold back even in the slightest, but just as fear overcame him, another feeling also rose from his chest.

Time seemed to slow down for a second, and two flames appeared out of nowhere in front of him. One was the normal orange of a fire, but he could somehow feel seriousness and pride come from it, before it changed into a righteous rage, as if the flame suddenly understood the situation at hand and wanted nothing more than to burn the boy in front of Izuku to cinders.

The second flame was colored neon pink, and it released small sparks of neon blue electricity from its core. From it, Izuku sensed friendliness and playfulness, before it shifted into fury and concern not unlike its sibling. It also wanted to hurt the bully, but it seemed more concerned with the boy’s condition, and seemed to want to protect him more than extract revenge.

Izuku’s eyes flicked between both fires, somehow knowing that he had to choose between one of them and that he wouldn’t be seeing the other anytime soon. He wanted to have more time to choose between them, but the hand that was coming closer and closer wasn’t going to give him that option, and he had to make the decision fast. Feeling the emotions coming from the flames once again, he came to a conclusion.

Even if Bakugou was a bad person, he still didn’t want to hurt him too much.

(He won’t touch us again.)

Bakugou was completely unaware of what was happening to Izuku at that moment, only preoccupied with hurting the poor boy, but his eyes widened when Izuku’s hand snapped up and grabbed his wrist with surprising strength, pushing it to the side and making the subsequent explosion miss him entirely. “What the fuck?” He cried out, trying to pull his hand back. He turned to snap and the boy he tried to attack before freezing.

Izuku was looking at him with his now pink eyes in a furious glare, two black animal ears of all things poking from the top of his head while what looked like a black cat’s tail thrashed in rage behind him. Before Bakugou could say anything, the boy’s eyes narrowed and a pink flame erupted from the hand grasping Bakugou, the fire quickly spreading up the now frightened boy’s arm and covering his entire body in an instant.

The moment it had covered the boy’s body, Izuku’s glare strengthened and the fire changed from its pink flame state into a neon blue electric aura, and Bakugou felt his body lock up, leaving him incapable of moving a single finger. Izuku stood up, still holding the scared boy’s wrist, and brought his face very close to his assailant. “Never. Do that again. Or else.” He growled, pushing the blonde away and making the aura disappear, the boy losing his balance and falling in front of his terrified lackeys.

He stayed there for a moment, terror still coursing through him, before he snapped out of it and jumped to his feet, ready to ask about what the fuck just happened, even if he had to beat the boy he was bullying a moment ago even harder – the same boy that had now fallen face first on the floor, completely knocked out, his tail disappearing into pink fire but the ears staying where they were, now almost unseen inside the boy's hair from the way they were flat against this skull.

By then one of his classmates was already running to the scene with a teacher in tow, and so Bakugou had to reign himself from jumping at the fallen boy to shake him awake and demand answers as the teacher scooped the boy up and carried him towards the school’s nurse.

Izuku opened his eyes, looking around in confusion as he couldn’t recognize his surroundings, before his eyes widened and he shot up. “K-Kacchan! Oh man, why did I say that, he’s gonna kill me!” He cried out, hyperventilating in his panic.

“Not if I have any say on it, he won’t.” Izuku screamed in surprise, whirling around to face the owner of the strange voice, doing a double take once he saw her leaning against what looked to be a table, her arms crossed and looking directly at him.

She was a humanoid like him, but had one of the most drastic animal mutation quirks he had ever seen – her entire body was completely covered in black fur, complete with a black feline tail waving calmly behind her back, and a what looked like a panther’s head instead of a human’s, though she still had a ‘hair’ of sorts, short and as untamed as his own, but straight instead of his curly locks, aside from a single lock that was done into a braid on the right of her face and slowly turned a neon blue color.

She wore a pink and white hoodie over a black tank top, jeans pants with the sides ripped open by what seemed like claws, two pink bracelets, and pink and white sneakers.

 “W-Who a-are you?” He stammered, stepping back nervously.

She smiled and waved her hand dismissively at him, and he noticed that even her hand had little claws in them. “Hey, don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.” Her smile turned into a friendly grin. “The name’s Clairen! What’s yours?”

“M-Midoriya Izuku…” He muttered.

Clairen tilted her head. “Sounds foreign. Guess I’m not in the Fire Capitol anymore…” She mused under her breath. “Actually, where are we anyways?” She asked, looking around.

Izuku did it as well, finally noticing that he was in a rather big and empty room, the only thing occupying it being a medium-sized round table right in the middle, an eleven floating crystals around it, near the walls. The crystals all had different colors, three greens, three purples, three blues, and two oranges. Izuku frowned at the different number, realizing that there was an empty space near the orange crystals, and quickly put two and two together – there was a third crystal in there, but it wasn’t there anymore.

Clairen had come to the same conclusion. “When I woke up, I was standing on top of this table.” She said suddenly, turning to the object she was leaning on to properly inspect it. The ‘table’ was made of stone, with a large white crystal in the middle and twelve different symbols carved around it: A flame, a smoke cloud, a sparking flame, a mountain, a leaf, a flower, a wave, a snowflake, a bubble, a tornado, a lightning bolt, and finally a gear. All symbols were positioned towards one of the crystals and colored dark grey, except for the sparking flame, which was colored pink with the lightning sparks being blue and was facing the empty space.

Clairen touched the symbol, sliding her hand over it. She could feel some sort of power coming from it, and decided to test a theory, igniting her hand with her plasma flame while it still rested over the symbol. She smirked in satisfaction when the rune started to glow, and she heard Izuku yelp, turning to see that he also had his hand covered in pink flames, and a tail similar to hers waving in surprise behind him. “W-What?!” He gasped, turning his hands in front of him as the flames danced around it.

“You copied me?” Clairen furrowed her eyebrows. She dismissed her own fire, but Izuku’s didn’t go away until he noticed his own tail behind him, making the flame disappear as he lost concentration in favor of grasping his new appendage. “What the hell is happening?”

“It’s my quirk!” He cried out happily as he put his hands on the sides of his head, feeling his ears. His eyes watered as he started to cry in joy.

“What the heck is a quirk?”

Izuku’s tearful gaze disappeared immediately as he turned a disbelieving stare towards her. “You don’t know what quirks are?!”

“No…?” She tilted her head, unsure.

“Most people in the world have a quirk, which is a power exclusive to them. There has been powers that were similar to each other, but no people were recorded with the same exact quirk.” Izuku explained. “Maybe my quirk is copying yours?”

“Can’t be, I don’t have a quirk.” Clairen shook her head. “Back home, all species were divided between four nations, and each nation represented a different element from Fire, Water, Air and Earth. I’m a member of the Fire nation, and can control plasma.” She explained, summoning her flame again. “Also, we never had any species like yours, either. What are you?”

Izuku was starting to get confused. “I’m a human? We existed for a long time now, over five thousand years at least.” He wasn’t sure of it, history has never been his best subject.

Clairen’s eyes widened, and she started to pace around the room, muttering under her breath. Izuku followed her with his eyes, not sure what to do, and unlike his own mumbling hers wasn’t loud enough for people other than her to hear. She suddenly snapped her fingers. “The multiverse theory!”

Izuku furrowed his eyebrows. “Isn’t that the theory that says there are infinite parallel universes?”

“And that each universe is a ‘what if’ of sorts, following a different sequence of events from what happened in the original - if I flipped a coin now, two universes will be created: one where it would fall on heads, and another on tails. If the divergence was far enough back, it’s possible that the world would’ve had complete different species in it, which would end up changing the future completely!” Clairen grinned. “The time machine had a booklet on it. Man, it has been a while!” She laughed.

“The what.”

She waved him off. “Long story. More importantly, now we know what happened! I either got transported to your universe, or you to mine!” She laughed triumphantly.

“That doesn’t explain why we are in this room.” Izuku pointed out, making her laughter waver. “Or the room itself. Or why I can use your powers.”

Clairen sighed, shoulders slumping. “Fair enough. Any ideas?”

Izuku thought for a moment. “I used your powers even before I got here, so I believe we’re in my world, and I appeared in here when I passed out.”

“Yeah, I think I saw the outside for a minute before coming here.” The panther hummed. “The blonde was a dick.”

Izuku made a noise of agreement before freezing. “I… I think we’re in my head.” He whispered. “I think you’re my quirk.”

“How would that even work, though? I certainly remember having my own body.” She huffed, tail lashing. “Are you saying my body is somewhere and my mind is here with you for who knows how long?”

“I-I don’t know…” He rubbed the back of his head nervously before stopping to think. After a few minutes of silence, he spoke again. “If there are infinite universes, then how people think of new ones? Are they born with the idea, or…?”

“They already exist.” Clairen confirmed. “I haven’t seen a study on it, but I heard people commenting on echoes. Like, the universe’s presence pulses through the multiverse for a moment, and sometimes people from other universes can absorb them, being aware that they exist but thinking that they themselves created them. If they focus on it, they can form a proper ‘bond’ and ‘come up’ with more things about the universe that they are unaware already exists.”

Izuku’s eyes widened. “What if you’re an echo? Your presence and powers were what was sent by the pulse, and I was the one who received it, and my quirk is emulating these echoes in the real world? That would explain everything we’ve seen so far!”

Clairen stopped to consider his theory, and crazy as it sounded, it made a little bit of sense. She sighed. “Well, I didn’t want an existential crisis today, but here we are I guess…”

Izuku winced. “S-Sorry…”

“Don’t be, this isn’t the first time I had to deal with something this weird.” She waved him off again. “But why me, though? If a presence was going to be sent, it should’ve been of someone important, like…” She trailed off, then facepalmed. “Like one of the people who stopped the invasion of the Abyss and later on stopping a tyrant elephant that breathed eternal flames from turning himself immortal and taking over the world. And if that’s true…” She turned to the crystals. “Then I’m not the only one.”

Izuku followed her gaze. “You think these are other people that you knew?” She nodded. “We need to find a way of releasing them.” He said with finality.

“Yeah.” She nodded again. “We’ll figure it out eventually. Right now we need to explore this place a bit more, though. If this is your head, I don’t think this room is everything in it.” She turned a small smirk at him. “At least I hope so.”

“H-Hey, I’m smart!” He cried, making the panther laugh and throw an arm over his shoulders to bring him into a hug, which made him squeak and blush.

The two stopped when they heard the sound of stone moving, and they saw the wall behind where Clairen’s crystal once was shift, revealing a door with a circular screen showing the symbol of Plasma. The two of them traded glances before walking forward, and a handle appeared on the door as Clairen approached, the girl grabbing it and flinging it open. They both blinked when they saw what looked like a dorm room, complete with a bed, a small bookshelf full of books, and a table.

“Huh. Convenient.” Clairen snorted, walking inside. Izuku was about to follow her, when he felt his vision blur. The girl turned to him, and saw that his body was starting to fade. “You go wake up and deal with your new powers, we can talk again later.” Clairen smiled, waving him goodbye. He hesitated for a moment, before nodding and closing his eyes, disappearing completely right after.

She stood there in silence for a second, before walking to her bed and throwing herself on it, turning to stare at the ceiling. “Well… this is a thing.”

Izuku opened his eyes, his vision blurry for a moment before it cleared and revealed that he had been brought to the school’s small infirmary, and was now lying in the sole bed in there. He slowly pushed himself upward with his elbows, catching the attention of the nurse. “Oh you’re awake.” She said flatly.

The boy winced, but narrowed his eyes. Many times when he had been hurt by his bullies and sent here, and the nurse never had believed him when he told her what had happened. One day, he just stopped trying to explain. “Trust me, I don’t want to be here with you either.” He grumbled.

“What was that?” The nurse narrowed her eyes, making Izuku widen his. Did he say that out loud?

“N-Nothing.” He muttered, and she rolled her eyes with a huff. ‘Why did I say that?!’ He thought.

“Whatever, your mother’s already coming here to bring you home anyways.” The nurse informed him, sounding almost happy with the concept. “You should stop trying to fight against Bakugou, you know you can’t win.”

“I did this time.” He huffed, looking at his hands.

“Stop lying.” She warned. “If you had, it would be him here instead of you, right? Besides, how would a quirkless kid win against him?” Izuku furrowed his eyebrows. She didn’t know? Had no one told her, or she simply brushed what they said off? He pulled his cellphone out to see that his eyes had gone back to normal, then raised a hand to the side of his head and- nope, the ears were still there, hidden inside his hair. What the heck was wrong with this woman?

Before he could say anything, however, the door opened and in walked his mother, looking worried. “Izuku! Are you ok?” She asked worriedly, walking to him so fast it was almost a run and checking over his body.

“I-I’m alright.” He answered, before his eyes brightened. “Mom! I have a quirk now, look!” He said, holding his hair down and perking up his ears for them to be in clear view, and then held his hand forward, trying to will a flame forward. After a second, his eyes changed to pink and his tail burst from his back in a spiral of fire, followed by the same kind fire appearing in the boy’s hands and dancing around his fingers.

The Midoriyas heard the sound of someone falling and turned to see the nurse on the floor, looking at the fire in astonishment, while the boy who held it sent her a smug smirk while his mom wasn’t looking. When the woman did turn to him, the expression had already turned into an expression of innocent confusion, and they both shrugged at each other. Inko smiled happily, tears coming to her eyes. “I’m happy it finally appeared, my dear. I’m sorry that you had to wait this long.” She whispered, pulling her son into a tearful hug.

(Aww, that’s sweet.) Izuku heard Clairen say, making him jump slightly, which gained a look of confusion from his mother.

“Clairen? How are you…?” Izuku asked.

(It looks like using my powers connects the two of us. I can see what you see, but I can also see the chambers at the same time… it’s pretty weird.) She laughed.

“Izuku?” Inko asked in concern, receiving the attention of her son. “Who are you talking to?”

“Oh! It’s a long story…” He laughed sheepishly. “I can tell you about it on the way home?” He said, looking at the nurse.

The woman snapped out of her stupor, nodding nervously. “Y-Yes, you’re good to go.”

“Great! Let’s go!” He grinned, jumping down from the bed and pulling her mom outside.

Inko laughed at her son’s excitement, shaking her head as she followed him. While her son had said that this ‘Clairen’ was a long story, there was a shorter one that she could inquire in the way. “So, how did your quirk manifest, dear?” She frowned when her son tensed up, his eyes turning nervous for a second. When she saw his eyes lose focus for a second she opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but his sudden sigh made her stop and wait.

“… Me and Kacchan had a fight, and it appeared to protect me.” He finally admitted in a whisper, at Clairen’s prompting.

“You and Bakugou?” She asked in astonishment. The two boys were the best of friends, weren’t they? “Why?”

“It’s another long story…” He muttered. His now feline ears twitched, catching the sound of small explosions coming from one of the curves they would need to make to exit the school, and he already knew who was there. ‘If I tell her he’ll be in trouble…’

(So?) Clairen asked, before her eyes widened. (Wait, you want to protect him? Why?!)

‘H-He’s my friend, I don’t want-’

(Fuck that, and fuck him! If he was your friend he wouldn’t bully you in the first place!) The panther raged for a moment before calming down. (Fine, if you don’t want to tell on him, then let him expose himself.)

‘How? He’s pretty good at going undetected after beating me up.’

The panther twitched at that, and momentarily regretted being the one that was awakened – Zetterburn wouldn’t hesitate a second before setting the boy on fire. Despite that, she smirked. (Oh it’s gonna be super easy! Barely an inconvenience!)

As they approached the corner, before they did the turn, Izuku dropped his transformation and stopped his mother, raising a finger to his mouth to tell her to be silent. The he took a step forward and made the turn. “Oh, hey Kacchan.”

“Deku!” Bakugou yelled, grabbing Izuku by the collar and walking forward, pinning him to the wall. Izuku saw him mother stepping forward and sent her a quick glare to stop her, hoping that the bully was too blinded by his rage to notice.

He was. “What the fuck was that?!”

“My quirk?” Izuku said with a bit of uncertainty.

“I know that, you dumb shit! I want to know why you have it!” The blonde snarled. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“I have no idea why it only appeared now either.” Izuku shrugged slightly. They needed to figure that out pretty soon, if they wanted to free the other eleven.

The action seemed to make the boy even angrier, and he slammed Izuku against the wall again. “Don’t think this changes anything, Deku. Just because you have a quirk now doesn’t mean you’re not a useless bastard who doesn’t have a shot at being a hero, understand?” He snarled.

“Yeah, we understand.” Izuku smiled.

When Bakugou’s expression turned slightly confused, Izuku turned his head towards Inko, making the explosive boy turn to her and pale at the incensed glare of the woman standing behind him. His mind took a moment to catch up to the situation at hand, but when it did he turned a disbelieving stare to Izuku. “You set me up.”

“I consider you enough of a friend that I didn’t really want to tell her myself.” Izuku admitted loudly enough for only Bakugou to hear. “But admitting to it by yourself? That’s fair game.” He sent him a small smirk. “Congratulations, you played yourself.”

Bakugou snarled again, but he couldn’t do anything to Izuku when he felt Inko’s hand grasp his shoulder. “You, me and your parents are going to have a long conversation.” She warned, before releasing him with a sigh. “But today is supposed to be a happy day for my son, since he’s just received his quirk. Tomorrow, however? Be ready.” She pulled the boy away from her son and took his hand, walking away with him. She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “And Katsuki? I’m disappointed in you.” She turned ahead again and continued walking, not noticing the boy’s wince.

The duo walked in silence, the happy atmosphere gone. “When were you going to tell me?” She asked her son in a whisper.

Izuku grimaced. “You already have too much to take care off, I can handle myself.” He said with finality. Before she could respond, he hugged her. “This was the last time, mom. I don’t care about him anymore.”

(That’s a lie.) Clairen frowned.

‘For now.’ Izuku sighed. He turned to his mom. “Come on, you said it yourself, this is supposed to be a happy day! Come on, I need to tell you all about my quirk!” He grinned, speeding up his pace and dragging her along.

Inko sighed, but gave him a tentative smile. They both knew their talk wasn’t finished yet, but they could continue with it later.

Four Years Later…

“Izuku, you’re gonna be late!” Inko called, putting her son’s breakfast on the table for him to eat as soon as he joined her. She heard a bit of a scuffle coming from his bedroom, but soon the door opened and Izuku walked out of it, fixing his long hair into a low ponytail.

“Sorry! I got a bit distracted.” He laughed sheepishly, ears flat against his head in embarrassment.

[I did tell you of the time multiple times, but you didn’t listen…] Maypul said in exasperation.

(Oh hush, you liked the battle too.) Clairen rolled her eyes.

[We saw it in person! We didn’t need to watch it again!]

{Well, I wanted to analyze one of the hero’s support items more.}  Elliana admitted, rubbing the back of her head with her tail. {I think we can recreate it without much trouble…}

(Please stop arguing this early…) Forsburn complained, already sounding done with the world.

‘I second that. You know having this many voices talking to me at once makes my head hurt.’ Snorting at his companions' rushed apologies, he quickly scarfed down his breakfast, gave his mom a kiss on the cheek and ran out of his home as he shouted his goodbyes, running towards his school as soon as he descended the stairs of his apartment complex.

(Think we’ll run into another villain again?) Clairen asked eagerly.

“Hopefully!” Izuku grinned, and the moment he saw a pillar of smoke rising he laughed and altered his path so he was running in that direction. Soon enough, he arrived at the scene of a giant villain fighting against a small group of heroes – he could see Death Arms stopping the destruction from getting worse and Backdraft keeping the civilians away from the danger zone, but he was sure there were more, and if there wasn’t then they would arrive soon.

Izuku’s ears discreetly shifted species and he weaved unnoticed through the crowd, quickly arriving close to Backdraft’s water barrier, and a glance up proved him right as Kamui Woods jumped over the crowd to join the fight. “Oh hey, it’s Kamui.” He mused, watching the man use his wood quirk to sling shot himself towards the villain. “He’s a pretty cool hero, been climbing up the rankings pretty fast.”

{Aww, no machines…} Elliana pouted.

[Think he’ll make it to Top 10?] Maypul asked, a tinge of excitement in her voice.

‘Oh, for sure.’ Izuku nodded.

(You just want to see tree man over there at the top.) Clairen snickered, making the ferret-raccoon hybrid blush and cry out in embarrassment.

“You’re a hero lover too, huh?” An old man commented from Izuku’s side, gaining his attention away from the bickering voices.

“Honestly, who isn’t?” Izuku chuckled, making the man chuckle as well.

Kamui woods made another try at capturing the villain, but the giant’s sheer size and power proved too much for the tree man’s weak attempt, who decided to retreat for a moment to prepare a stronger capturing attack. “Disrupting the peace, theft, and using your quirk during rush hour? You are the incarnation of evil.” He proclaimed, pulling an arm back.

(… Are you sure you want to fangirl over him of all heroes?)

[Like you were any better!]

(That was Zetterburn, not me!)

Izuku bit his lip to stop himself from laughing and instead focused on Kamui as he prepared to launch his strongest attack. “Show us something flashy, wood man!” The old man laughed, and Izuku smirked.

“Preemptive…” He began.

[Binding…] Maypul continued, ignoring Clairen and Elliana snickering.

“Lacquered Chain Prison!” The hero finished, releasing an entire forest worth of branches towards the villain, ready to capture him, until…

“Canyon Cannon!” Another giant, this time a woman in spandex, shouted as she jump kicked the first giant into unconsciousness. She took a moment to pick herself up and brush the dirt from her suit before straightening herself with a smile. “Today is the day of my debut!” She announced, standing over the fallen villain before bending down to pick him up, all but thrusting her giant ass towards the crowd of people shamelessly taking pictures of her. She looked over her shoulder, the grin on her face showing them that she knew exactly what she was doing. “My name is Mount Lady. A pleasure to make your ass-quaintance.”

[… That… fucking… BI-] Izuku quickly cut off all of the connections with his quirk, not feeling like dealing with three laughing voices and one screaming bloody murder. He pulled a notebook from his back and started to write down the details of the debuting heroine. “Gigantification is a pretty cool quirk, so long she knows how to control what size she is in. Using a bazooka when you need a pistol will cause more harm than good.” He muttered, his analysis catching the attention of the old man by his side.

“Taking notes, eh? You want to be a hero too?” He asked, grinning. “That’s awesome, good luck!”

Izuku turned to him in surprise, and he grinned as he felt his links reconnect. “Thanks, I’ll do my best!” He waved the man goodbye and walked away as the crowd started to disperse.

(And we’ll make sure you succeed!) Clairen smirked, their three companions nodding in agreement. Izuku smiled and continued walking to his school, a happy skip in his step.

(… Weren’t we late?) Forsburn said suddenly, and the boy’s eyes widened.

“OH SHIT!” He shouted in alarm and took off running again, ignoring Maypul’s annoyed sigh.

Chapter Text

Izuku was left panting when he arrived at his school, but fortunately he had made it in time. Taking a moment to regain his breath and fix his hair before walking inside, he smiled slightly when he heard his partners argue with each other. Apparently Clairen had started to tease Maypul over her crush on Kamui Woods while he was distracted, and the hybrid was almost throwing a fit.

Despite their unique personalities and the fact that they constantly argued with each other – involving Izuku in it more often than not – the boy really couldn’t have asked for better companions.

Clairen was a given, being the first of them to join him she knew him better than most, and her playful personality was infectious even without taking his quirk’s copy ability into equation - though she could be serious when she had to be, and didn’t like to take shit from anyone. He had learned that in the first hour of knowing her.

The other three’s arrivals were unexpected, but not unwelcome, especially when it started to explain parts of how his quirk worked for him. The first to join them did so a few months after he gained his quirk, and it started to give him ideas on to how to unlock his other echoes.

Three and a Half Years Ago…

The talk between the Midoriya and Bakugou matriarchs went about as well as expected – that is to say, a shouting match between mom and son, a few slaps upside the head, and Katsuki being grounded for a long time – but an unexpected development occurred just after, as his own mother decided to take him out of the school he was in and enroll him in another one away from his bullies.

Izuku wanted to object, but Clairen pointed out that he didn’t have any good connections to the school, so he kept silent.

And just like that, about two weeks later, which he was occupied with practicing with his quirk and Clairen’s abilities, he was in a new school. It was… weird… not receiving the stares or hearing the snickers, but he liked it. Clairen let out a frustrated growl after he noted that.

While making friends was still pretty hard for him, and he wouldn’t make a real friend for quite a long time, midway through the semester the school organized a camping trip into the forest near the city. Izuku all but begged his mother to let him join, which she did in hope that he’d form a connection with someone.

And he would, just not in the way she was expecting.

After the bus had stopped at the edge of the forest, the students and their caretaker all exited the bus and the adult explained that they now needed to walk to the campsite, since the bus couldn’t go there. As the bus drove away and the group walked inside the forest, Izuku at the far back by habit, he heard Clairen hum. ‘What’s up?’

(Want to climb a tree?) She asked, grinning. (I don’t think I got to climb a tree for fun before.)

‘Really? That’s sad.’ Izuku frowned, already changing his path towards one of the plants to see if it was one of the easier ones to climb.

(Happens when you grow up in a dystopian future.)

‘Fair.’

He finally found a perfect specimen and quickly climbed it, discreetly strengthening his link with Clairen to gain her claws to make the process easier, though the tail and eyes also manifested. In an instant he was on top of one of the highest branches of the tree, the improved sense of balance he gained from the panther keeping him from falling. “So? What do you think?” He smiled, looking around.

(It’s really cool.) Clairen smiled, enjoying their elevated viewpoint. (Hey, your class is getting a bit too far, no?) She said, and he turned to see that his class was getting a bit too far, starting to be obscured by the trees.

“Crap.” He swore, looking down. “If I jump I’ll probably hurt myself, but if I take care it’ll take too long and we’ll lose them…” He muttered, looking back towards the group.

Suddenly he noticed that one of the trees in that direction was a bit close to the tree he was on, and the next one wasn’t all that far either, and the branches sticking out the most seemed to slowly lose height. Clairen laughed when she realized what he was looking at. (Crazy plan, I love it.) He smiled nervously, before narrowing his eyes in concentration.

He pulled his weight back as much as he could, and then launched himself forward, taking two steps on top of the branch before jumping from it towards the next. He managed to make the jump, but his momentum was too great for him to stop himself on top of it, so he had to grit his teeth and jump straight to the next one, where the same thing happened.

In seconds he had covered a lot of ground, though his jumps started to get more and more erratic as he had to locate and jump to the next branch in about the same moment, not having much time to think at all, but… he was starting to have fun. Each jump felt amazing, and he didn’t even notice that when he had reached a height safe enough for him to jump back down to the floor and continue running through there, instead opting to jump towards a higher branch again, and starting a more complex path so that he would have more difficult jumps and time for them before he inevitably joined their group.

Though if he was going to do it, he was going to do it in style. He smirked, jumping back down to one of the lowest branches, which bent slightly with his weight, and when it snapped back into position Izuku jumped with it, reaching a much bigger jump height than he had before, a giant grin in his face.

[Exhilarating, isn’t it?]

A spiral of leaves exploded from his body, propelling him even higher than he was already going and launching him high above the treetops, with enough height to see the campsite far in the distance. Gravity soon took ahold of him, however, and he fell back towards the ground.

Rather than panicking over his fall, Izuku smirked and acted on an instinct that he didn’t have, sprouting two vines with razor-like leaves on the tips and shooting them forward. The leaves flew for a moment before stabbing into the top of two trees, and Izuku used the vines to swing forward, changing the direction of his momentum until he was parallel to the ground and rising again, where he retracted his whips and flew through the air, falling into a roll just before he reached the group of students. The few students at the back of the group looked back in confusion, though all they saw was Izuku walking right behind them, a pleased smile on his face.

One of the students blinked. He didn’t have a dark green and dark grey ringed tail and a dark grey raccoon-like mask tattoo before, did he?

Clairen sweatdropped. (How the fuck they everyone miss all that?!)

The boy walked inside his classroom, nodding in greeting at a few of his classmates as he made his way to his own seat and sat on it, taking his backpack’s straps off his shoulders and turning around to grab his Hero Analysis notebook for him to write down some more data about the debuting heroine that he couldn’t write down at the time.

Turning back to sit properly on his seat, he came face to face with the grinning visage of his first and only true friend in the school: Hatsume Mei. He raised an eyebrow. “You want something.”

“Aww, no ‘Hello Mei, how are you my dear?’” The girl pouted. “That hurts, Izu. It really does.” His eyes didn’t change, but she could see the corner of his mouth twitching upwards for a second, and she huffed. “Fine, I wanted to ask you to make me a wrench again. I forgot mine on my worktable.”

He blinked and shook his head. “Really? Man, I miss the time where you carried your toolbox with you everywhere.” He said dryly, but still changed his connection from Maypul to Elliana, his raccoon ears disappearing in favor purple scales appearing in his face, in place of his eyebrows.

“Why would I when you can always make them for me?” She smirked, watching as the boys created a small spinning mass of steam over his palm, which soon let an off-white colored wrench fall on his hand. It was immediately snatched by the pinkette. “Thanks!”

“I spoil you.” He snorted. ‘And I blame you, you crazy snake.’

{I accept the guilt graciously.} Said snake grinned cheekily, not guilty in the slightest over ‘financing’ her kindred spirit’s craziness.

Hatsume was an interesting friend to have, what with all of her oddities, but he liked her all the same. Especially since meeting her is what unlocked the third of his partners, though the way it happened confused him for quite some time until he put two and two together.

Three years ago…

Izuku fidgeted slightly, looking around nervously while holding his lunch in his hands as he scanned the school’s cafeteria for a place for him to sit. Normally he would just walk back to the classroom and eat there, but an accident with one of his classmate’s quirk made the teacher kick everyone off the place while he went to get a janitor to clean all of the foul-smelling slime off the floor. Fortunately it happened shortly before lunch, so his class didn’t miss anything important, but now he found himself in his current situation.

[Hey, maybe you could use the opportunity to make some friends.] Maypul shrugged. While the hybrid’s reaction to their situation had been a bit drastic, a short summary of the boy’s life was enough for her to warm up to him. Clairen was a bit surprised by it, her fellow girl wasn’t exactly the most gentle of students, though she was trying to change after the truth about Loxodont – her former, very corrupt tutor – was revealed.

(I agree. You’ve been in the school for an entire year, and yet you haven’t made any friends in it.) The panther commented.

‘I know, it’s just… hard.’ He sighed, deciding to just walk out of the cafeteria and search for a secluded space for him to eat in peace. ‘You know I tried to talk to the other students, but I never found any common ground with them.'

(Those talks were barely full conversations, they don’t count.)

[We know you’re hesitant about trying because of how your previous school treated you, but we all know that won’t happen in here] Maypul said softly. She hummed for a second, using her connection to the boy – Clairen had figured out how to connect to him without the full transformation after a few weeks, and Maypul did the same for multiple small connections -  to look around his field of vision. [Hey, that girl over there is alone as well, why don’t you try talking to her?]

‘H-Huh?’ He followed the raccoon’s directions and found a pink-haired girl sitting alone in one of the tables, fiddling with something that he couldn’t quite see. He was about to say no, but he noticed the wary glances the people around the girl were giving her, and he stopped. Swallowing drily, he walked over to her. “H-Hello? M-May I sit here?” He asked, and finally got to see that the girl was disassembling a small drone, the pieces scattered on the table in some semblance of order.

She paused in her work, looking at him for a second before grinning. “Sure! Just don’t touch anything!” Then she turned back to what she was doing without another word.

He sat down across from her, careful not to set his plate on top of any of the small screws and metals, and started to eat, watching the girl out of the corner of his eye. A few minutes later, after the girl finally finished disassembling the entire thing, she pulled a small pouch of what seemed like spare parts from her pack and started to put the entire thing together again with the new pieces. “What are you doing?” He asked, his curiosity outweighing his nervousness.

She looked up at him in surprise, seemingly having forgotten that he was even there and interested on what she was doing, before pointing at the drone. “This drone was supposed to help me with my work back at home, following my vocal commands to scan the room and grab me any tool I need at any given moment, but I’m having problems with the weight limit.” She explained. “I’m trying to change some of its parts to see if I can fix that.”

“That’s cool.” Izuku nodded. He kept watching her work, comparing the pieces with each other for a moment before nodding to herself and drawing a sketch of how all the pieces would go together, including the new propellers for lift and supports to maintain the thing together. Finishing his lunch earlier than expected, his curiosity won and he settled to watch her work more, but the more Izuku looked at it, the more he felt like something was off with her design. “Something’s wrong…” He muttered, leaning a bit closer to see what she was drawing. She let out a hum, looking up at him. “You’re putting too many propellers in it with too little space between them. They’ll end up with really small blades that won’t catch nearly the amount air necessary to take off.” He explained, pointing at the drawings.

She looked at it for a second, blinking. “Well shit, you’re right…” She muttered, annoyed at herself for not seeing it. “So all I needed were bigger blades, then?”

“But not too big, or else they’ll hit each other and won't spin, and also some more potent motors.” He nodded.

“They’ll be too heavy.” She pointed out.

“They’re more than strong enough to lift themselves, if they are put together this will fly easily.” He shot back, before looking at the sketch again. “Also, you’re putting too many supports in it, half of them aren’t doing anything aside from weighting the entire thing down.” He pointed to a few. “If you take this out and put this other one like this…”

“Yeah, I see it.” She nodded. “So if I take out these three and change these-”

“It’ll basically support itself. You practically won’t even need to weld it together, though I’d still tell you to.”

“No duh.”

The more they talked, the more distracted with their surroundings, neither of them noticing Izuku standing up from his seat to sit by her site for a better view, nor they noticed his eyes become slitted with scaled eyebrows, or the giant purple snake tail that sprouted from his back.

In Izuku’s mindscape, Maypul and Clairen watched bewildered as Elliana already sat curled in her own length by their side, talking and offering advice to Izuku as if they have been friends for months, if not years. They looked at each other, their expressions turning hesitant and slightly scared as they realized that oh no there were three of them now.

“As you all know, this will be your last year of middle school, and as such, you need to decide on where you want to go from here.” Their teacher announced, passing papers for each student as she did. “Just remember to maintain your options open, there are many prestigious high schools for you to enroll.”

Mei turned to look at her friend. “You’re still going to try for UA, right?”

“Yep.” He nodded. “It’s the best hero school in a japan, and also where All Might went to. What about you?”

Mei grinned. “Same here! UA has one of the best support courses in all of japan!” She gushed. “Just think of how many babies I can make there!” The boy chuckled. He had tried to stop her from referring to her invention as her ‘babies’ many times, but that went about as well as people trying to stop him from muttering. When Mei finally calmed down, she turned a frown to him. “Wait, won’t that guy try to enroll there as well?”

He didn’t even need to ask who she was talking about. “Most likely, but I can deal with him no problems.” He shrugged, receiving his own paper from the teacher and immediately writing down UA High - Heroics. “I’m strong enough for it now.” Mei nodded uncertainly at him, putting down UA High – Support on her own.

(Just don’t forget that we’re here to help you.) Forsburn intoned seriously.

While Clairen and Maypul were his oldest partners and Elliana was the one he had gotten along with the fastest, the male hyena was by far his best supporter. Izuku wasn’t completely sure as to why – he knew of parts of his past, like his exile and later his return, but his only male partner was always the first to agree with his ideas, especially when it came to helping others.

His awakening had been a bit brutal, however. And as much as Izuku wanted to believe his heroic actions were what awakened him, but thinking back on both it and Clairen's own awakening, he knew that it wasn't the case. He just hoped that he wouldn't need to resort to that method often, or better yet, never need it again.

Two years ago…

Izuku walked around the city absentmindedly, not really having a set destination as much as he was looking for a good way to passing time. It was currently a Saturday, so no school, and Mei had been busy with one of her projects for the past few days, and wasn’t something that he was all that good at, so he couldn’t help her either.

Normally he would spend days like this either gathering info on various heroes or training with his own quirk and the abilities he could use with and without completely fusing with his partners, but an experiment earlier that day left him a bit too tired for that, especially after the scare he suffered from it.

That said, he did achieve a breakthrough that would help him immensely in the future – so long as he manages to keep it up for more than a few seconds.

His ear twitched, catching the sound of a siren coming from the distance. It was impressive how much his senses were heightened depending on which bond he had active at that moment, not to mention the instincts he gained as well. Figuring that a villain fight was probably the best distraction he could ask for, mainly because of the heroes he would be sure would appear even if he wasn’t in the mood for research.

Arriving on the scene however, he discovered that the situation wasn’t a hero fight, but a building that had been set on fire. An accident or criminally, he had no idea and the people around him didn’t look like they knew either. Looking around, he could see the firefighters walking inside and guiding people out, and a hero or two watching from a distance – he recognized them, one had a wind current quirk and the other an enhanced reflexes quirk, neither would’ve been very useful in the situation at hand –, but what made him stop was the little girl pulling on her mother skirt, pointing at the building and crying. “H-He’s still there!”

“I know dear, but I’m sure the good people will save him.” The mother tried to reassure her daughter, but it was clear that she was also a bit uncertain and panicked over it. The boy walked slightly closer to the family, still keeping his eyes on the building, making it look that he just wanted to get closer to have a better view of the disaster, and waited with the two of them.

A minute later, the firefighters present exited the building, but they never brought anyone with them, nor they looked like they would enter the building again. Izuku grimaced. ‘Clairen, how well do you deal with smoke?’ He thought.

(Better than anyone in here.) She answered, already knowing where this was going.

‘That’ll do.’ He nodded, discreetly changing his bond to Maypul to use her natural stealth to slip unnoticed through the crowd and reach a side alley that was close enough to the flaming house that he could find a way to enter the building from there. Looking around to make sure that no one was seeing him, he sprouted his vines from his wrists and threw them at the top of the apartment complex by his side, which was slightly lower than the flaming building and two houses away, and then pulled himself to the top.

He had to walk up the wall on the last few meters as he couldn’t make the entire jump without completely connecting to Maypul, and he wanted to save his stamina for when he connected to Clairen. Using his advantage point, he weaved through the rooftops, being careful not to be seen by the heroes around until he was on a smaller building behind the flaming one, where he noticed a broken window a few meters above. Taking a deep breath, he created the bladed leaves on the tip of his vine whips and threw them forward, stabbing them in either side of the window. Taking a running start and jumping, he slingshot himself through the opening and landed inside without making a sound.

He didn’t waste time before changing his bond to Clairen, feline tail bursting from his lower back as he stood up to scan his surroundings. The panther had been right, while he still coughed slightly when he finally had to breath the gas in and his vision was a bit obscured by the smoke, it was much better than what it would’ve been if he had gone and entered in his normal form. Running around the building while looking around for any sign of the ‘he’ the little girl had mentioned, calling out for whatever person it was.

Minutes had passed, and the boy could already see the firefighters start to fire water on the building to extinguish the fire, and he knew that the pressure the water was being blasted with was enough to bruise him pretty badly, which meant that he didn’t have much time. Another thing was that with his shouting and exhausting, the smoke was finally starting to affect him, making him cough much more violently and gasp for air that wasn’t there.

Finally, he fell to one of his knees, one hand covering his mouth as he coughed violently from the smoke, his bond with Clairen breaking and leaving him to the polluted air’s mercy. He could hear his partners screaming for him in his head, but the lack of air made the words blur together to the point where he couldn’t make anything out.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to focus and struggling to his feet. He couldn’t stop, he had to find the other person in the building and bring him to safety, he couldn’t just leave him behind. He wanted to be a hero didn’t he? He couldn’t fail before he even took the first step!

(It’s too early to die.)

The smoke around him stilled, then started to spiral around the boy, losing its gaseous form and turning into a curtain of ashes that purified the air around him enough for him to breath properly, and he did so with massive gulps of air. When he felt his dizziness disappear, the curtain of ashes gathered into a single mass and settled around his neck, forming a long cape behind him with a hood of sorts. From his lower body an unfamiliar tail appeared - a quick look told him was probably a hyena’s - and his face was covered by a skull tattoo just as two black ears sprouted from the top of his head.

He was momentarily hesitant of losing his protective veil, but soon found that the smoke didn’t bother him in the slightest anymore, and what more, he could feel things that he couldn’t before, as if his sense of touch was magnified to the point where he could feel the entire building at once, and it didn’t take much to put two and two together.

He was feeling the smoke in the entire building.

(Behind, and to the left.) Following the instructions, Izuku turned and focused on that particular direction, feeling a small shape moving in the smoke. He didn’t hesitate to dash forward, manipulating the smoke around him to create an ash dagger in his hand and tearing the door apart in three swift slashes before heading in.

In the outside, the two females had been reunited by an older man, which the people around them realized was the woman’s husband, who was consoling his daughter as she cried in his chest. He gave the building a sad look, knowing that they had lost most of what they had, but was relieved that his wife and daughter hadn’t been taken as well. A loud crash was heard, and they saw a streak of smoke break through one of the windows, impacting the ground in front of the family and creating a thick smoke cloud. Before anyone could react properly, a figure clad in a cloak ran out of the smoke and away from the scene, and both heroes present shouted in alarm as they took off in pursuit.

The crowd didn’t know what to make of the situation, had the building been set on fire by a villain and the villain stayed to watch it? They didn’t know. The sound of steps reached the family’s ears, and they turned to see a person identical to the villain from earlier calmly walking out of the smoke cloud, the cloud clinging to his cloak unnaturally, as if the smoke was being created by it. The family tensed in fear and stepped back from the seemingly villain approaching, until he stopped and reached inside his cloak, which had parted by itself for his hand to enter, and grabbed something from within.

The moment he pulled his hand out with the object he had grabbed however, the family stopped their retreat and the girl gasped, reaching towards him. “Duke!” She shouted in glee. The small animal in the ‘villain’s’ hand perked up, raising its head to look at the girl while his tail wagged happily.

“Don’t leave him stuck in a room like that in the future.” The villain said, the voice of a young boy coming from inside the cloak, as he walked closer and handed the dog to the daughter. “That way he can follow you out in case of an emergency, or at least he’ll be easier to locate.”

The father nodded, but a shout from the way the other villain had gone – was he even a villain in the first place? – alerted them that one of the heroes was flying back, using her gale quirk to boost herself back to catch the cloaked boy. “Well, that’s my cue.” The boy chuckled, turning back towards the smoke cloud and walking back inside of it. “Take care!” He called out to the family, before being obscured by the mass of grey. The hero arrived like a comet, dispersing the cloud by its entirety, but the villain wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Back in the same alleyway he had walked into to access the building, Izuku appeared in a spiral of ash, which quickly disappeared as he bonded with Clairen again in case someone remembered him from earlier, even if he doubted it. “That was too close.” He sighed, leaning against a wall.

(Way too close.) The panther groaned.

(But it was worth it, wasn’t it?) The unknown voice asked.

Izuku remembered the girl’s smile as she held her little friend, and he smiled as well. “Yeah, it was.” He pushed himself off the wall and walked out of the alleyway, heading home.

“Anything to do today?” Izuku asked Mei as they exited their school in the afternoon. Normally they would walk together to the train station for the girl to go back home, as she lived far from school while Izuku lived within walking distance. He had once asked why she studied in there instead of some other school closer to her own home, and her response was that she was kick out of most of them because of how intense her love for inventing – and lack of self-control, he added mentally – was.

“Yeah, I need to buy a few more materials for a new baby.” She nodded, pointing to the opposite direction to the one they take normally.

“Cool.” He nodded. Normally he would offer his help with at least carrying whatever she was going to buy, but the time he had done just that, it didn’t end well for him.

Never. Again.

The girl chuckled, punching his shoulder before walking off while waving at him, which he reciprocated with a smile, walking off as well.

‘Well, we have some free time this afternoon. Any ideas on what to do?’  He asked his partners.

[Training, maybe?] Maypul hummed. [You got my fighting style down, as well as Clairen’s, but I’m not sure about Elliana and Forsburn.]

{It’s not like I frontline all that much anyways.} Elliana shrugged.

(You still have to learn how to fight with my cloak.) Forsburn reminded him. (You learned how to fight with my dagger pretty fast, but my cloak has always been a massive part of my fighting style and you almost always forget about it.)

‘Yeah, that’s fair.’ Izuku chuckled weakly.

The boy continued to talk to his partners as he entered a tunnel that led into a small park that he’d have to cross to arrive home, not really aware of his surroundings more than he’d normally be. Because of that, he didn’t notice the mass of sludge seep through the manhole he had just passed by, until it grew eyes and a mouth, and called for him. “Ahh, a medium-size invisibility cloak! Don’t worry boy, this’ll be quick!” It laughed as it rushed towards the boy who only had enough time to turn and look at the wave of sludge in surprise, barely registering the danger as it enveloped him.

His hands immediately went for the sludge that had covered his mouth and nose, starting to enter his body. The villain just laughed. “Don’t worry boy, I’m just going to take over your body. It’ll all be over in forty five seconds, and then you’ll feel much better!” Izuku ignored him, trying desperately to change into another form that would help him more than Elliana’s support abilities – Clairen would be best, Plasma Echo would take him out of the situation in a flash, literally – but the pain from having his mouth forced open so far as well as the sting from the sludge itself was keeping him from properly focusing on it.

He could feel tears coming from his eyes and all of his partners trying to force connections with him so the boy could use their more powerful abilities to escape, but no matter how much Izuku tried, he couldn’t meet them halfway. He felt the energy from his body starting to wane, and he slowly stopped his trashing. Was that it?

<Giving up a bit too fast, don’t you think?>

Izuku’s eyes changed from green to yellow, his pupils becoming slitted sideways, and a small collar of green bubbles manifested itself around his neck, pressed against his skin by the villain trying to possess him. Said villain didn’t notice the change immediately, instead frowning when his sludge slowed to a stop, incapable of entering the boy. “Hey, what the hell?” He muttered, before it clicked. “It’s you, isn’t it? Give up already, brat, you can’t do anything to stop me!”

Izuku’s eyes met the villain’s. ‘Bet.’

The monster couldn’t even widen his eyes in surprise before it was splattered against the walls, his entire body feeling like it was under someone else’s control. ‘W-What the fuck?!’ He thought, straining to spin his eyes to stare at the boy. ‘Where did all this strength come from?!’

Izuku closed his eyes, extending his control to the mass of sludge inside his body and gathering it together at his mouth and throat. With a exhale, the boy blew a green bubble like one does with gum, the muddy substance being held inside where it couldn’t do anything more than float around. He then turned to glare at the villain he was holding, the poison around him multiplying until it became an entire veil around his body, and he made a waving motion with his hands, from his side until they were together in front of him.

The villain’s body flowed from the walls, gathering itself into a ball in front of the boy, who popped his bubble from earlier and then created another around the entire villain, capturing him again. The boy then relaxed, bringing a hand to his head in pain for overtaxing his quirk, then narrowing his eyes at the bubble in front of him again. He extended a hand towards it in a grasping motion, “Purifying Hold.” before twisting it clockwise, and the villain screamed as over half of his body was absorbed by the bubble, which turned a darker shade of green as it did, before falling unconscious.

Izuku collapsed to the ground, subconsciously knowing that the bubble would hold for a long time with how much poison had been fed into it. (… Brutal.) Clairen finally commented, her voice a bit weak.

{It’s Ranno, what did you expect?} Elliana sighed, already knowing that convincing the pacifist yet extreme frog to help Izuku would be a pain in the ass.

<I heard that.> The frog deadpanned from behind the snake, making her squeak in fear and jump behind Forsburn. Izuku mused that it was convenient how he was able to perceive such interactions from outside his mindscape, even if he couldn't 'see' it.

(Come on, you probably won’t like what you’ll hear.) Forsburn called calmly, guiding the frog into his sleeping quarters and out of Izuku’s ‘earshot’.

A loud ‘clang!’ caught Izuku’s attention, and he whipped his head to look at the manhole just on the other side of his bubble, where a tall and muscular man was climbing out of. Izuku was disoriented enough that he couldn’t recognize the man at first, but it changed in a second. “It’s all right now, young man. I am here!” The man announced with a laugh, making Izuku’s eyes widen comically when it finally clicked.

“All Might?!”

Chapter Text

“All Might?!”

The hero let out a booming laugh over the teen’s shocked exclamation. “The one and only, young man!” He walked forward, inspecting the floating bubble containing the villain he was chasing in front of him. “I see you have managed to catch a particularly slippery villain. I’ve been chasing him for a while now, but he managed to lose me in the sewers.” All Might turned to Izuku. “Forgive me for involving you in it.”

After a second to register All Might’s apology, Izuku jumped to his feet and shook his head wildly. “N-No! You don’t need to apologize to me, honest! Heck, it even helped with my quirk, so I’m thankful in a way!” Finally stopping to breathe, he chuckled. “For some reason my quirk only develops in situations like this.”

Raising his eyebrow, All Might hummed. “Well, I hope you quirk doesn’t need any more ‘development’, then.” He commented, noticing that the teen’s eyes were slowly shifting from frog-like yellow eyes to normal green eyes.

“I know how much it needs to go to get there, and trust me, it's not even halfway done.” Izuku muttered under his breath, the shock of meeting his idol receding just enough for him to act more like himself. When he looked at the hero again, his eyes widened. “Wait, that’s poison!”

All Might stopped before he plunged his hands into bubble to retrieve the villain. “A poison bubble quirk? Is it affecting him while he’s still inside?”

(Don’t worry, Ranno’s bubble is just a temporary prison, it doesn’t do anything besides holding whatever it is that is inside for a few seconds before bursting.) Clairen waved him off. (Trust me, I’ve been in there and it’s just annoying for the most part.)

“It’s more complicated than that, and it won’t. It just holds stuff for a while before it pops.” Izuku shrugged. “But still, better safe than sorry.”

The hero nodded. “That’s fair. But if it really is temporary, I’ll have to use an alternative method of restraining him.” He announced, putting his hand inside of the bag he was carrying and pulling two empty soda bottles. “I was going to take these to be recycled, but it’ll do for now. All objects have various uses, even fighting crime sometimes!” He grinned.

“If you say so.” Izuku said unsurely. “Poke the bottle into it, I’ll make sure it doesn’t burst until you’re done. All Might nodded, uncorking the bottle and poking it into the sphere, the sludge inside slowly sliding into it. Izuku gagged a bit and began to slowly reduce the size of the bubble, making the sludge fill it faster.

Before long both bottles were already filled, the villain’s unfocused eyes being seen floating inside one of them. At All Might’s thankful nod Izuku absorbed the remains of the sludge into the bubble and popped it, willing what remained of it to circle around his neck like a waving collar of poison, but much smaller now that he wasn’t focusing on his link with Ranno. He wondered what lasting transformation would affect him while semi-connected to the frog, but he honestly didn’t expect it to be the poison collar, since the transformations are almost always… well, physical. “I must thank you for your help once more, young man. Right now I need to take this one to the police station.” All Might said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Izuku smiled and began to nod, before his eyes widened. “A-Ah! If it isn’t a bother, could you give me an autograph?” He quickly asked, already fishing his hero analysis from his bag alongside a pen. The hero laughed again and accepted the items, opening it and immediately seeing a page with a drawing of him and an analysis of his hero career and quirk, though he didn’t get very close with the latter.

“I must say, these notes are impressive, young Midoriya.” He commented, remembering the kid’s name from his glance at the notebook’s cover. “I assume you want to be a hero in the future?”

“Yes!” Izuku smiled brightly. “It’s been my dream even before my quirk awakened. To save people with a smile, just like you!”

All Might chuckled a bit, writing his signature on the boy’s book before handing it back. “If what happened today is any indication of your abilities, I’m sure you can make it.” He turned away, walking out of the tunnel and missing Izuku’s shocked expression. “Now excuse me, and I’ll se you on the other side of the screen!” He laughed and jumped away from the frozen boy.

[… Izuku?] Maypul asked after a minute.

“He acknowledged me…” The greenette whispered, tears leaking from his eyes.

{Of course he did, you’re awesome!} Elliana rolled her eyes. {We’ve been telling that to you for years now!}

“I know, I know, it just… feels different coming from someone you’ve been idolizing for most of your life, y’know?” He mumbled, wiping the tears from his face as he walked out of the tunnel.

(Yeah, I do.) Clairen chuckled. (I grew up with the stories of the heroes of the past, and being acknowledged by them when we met and accepted into their group was quite a shock, to say the least.)

[Not as shocking as interacting with us and seeing how different we are from super heroes, I bet.] Maypul smirked, remembering how fast Clairen’s opinion on Zetterburn and Wrastor fell when she actually met them, not to mention Sylvanos a few months later. Clairen snickered, nodding.

(Well, it seems we missed quite a lot.) Forsburn commented, announcing his arrival.

{We met Mighty Man. He took the villain away in a soda bottle.} Elliana surmised.

‘Can you not?’

(I see.) The hyena nodded, as if the phrase was something he heard all the time.

‘Ugh.’ Izuku groaned. ‘Anyways, how’s he?’

(Annoyed at being used as a weapon in his eyes at first, but after explaining the situation a bit more and telling him your goals for the future, he agreed that he’d give you a chance.) Forsburn reported. (Right now he’s exploring the place.)

‘Right, I guess the plans for today changed then. I’ll send mom a message telling her the situation and we’ll go to the park so I can join you guys and meet him face-to-face - maybe teach him how to properly connect with me so we can talk without me focusing on the link.’ He mused, pulling his cellphone.

(He agrees.)

‘It’s decided then.’ The boy shrugs, changing courses and walking towards the city’s local park. He wondered how Ranno would act upon meeting him. From what his partners have told him of the others that weren’t awake yet, Ranno was a pacifist, never looking for trouble and trying other ways to settle disputes besides fighting, which suited him just fine, but was extremely brutal when things did come to blows, which suited him less fine.

Also, he doesn’t have a problem fighting if trouble came his way, and it didn’t take much for him to classify something a ‘trouble’, so he was a pacifist in name only, really, not that anyone dared to tell him that to his face. It doesn’t matter who you are, nor your species, nationality, or even gender – piss Ranno off, and he’ll kick you in the balls.

Once during a spar Clairen joked about how she was safe from that particular attack since she was a woman. Ranno told her that women had balls as well, they were just a little higher up, and then proceeded to kick her in the chest.

‘A short-fused pacifist.’ Izuku sweatdropped. ‘Because of course.’

A distant explosion caught his attention, and he turned his head to see a pillar of smoke rising up to the skies from a few streets away. He hummed. ‘Do you guys mind taking a look there first? I think showing Ranno how heroes work would be a good idea.’

<Yes, I’d like to take a look at the state of this world I have to live in now.> Ranno’s voice sounded, catching the boy by surprise momentarily.

‘I see you figured out the link.’ He snorted. ‘Clairen and Elliana got it by themselves too, but Maypul and Forsburn preferred to wait for instructions as to not do anything that might mess things up.’

<I’ve never been one to rely on others too much if I can’t help it. Besides, it wasn’t even that hard.’ Ranno shrugged. <Anyways, the conflict?>

‘Right.’ Izuku nodded and took off running while changing his link to Maypul, following the pillar of smoke. It only took him two or so minutes to arrive thanks to the minor speed and stamina boost he gains from linking with the raccoon-ferret, but he had to stop at the back of the crowd for a moment to find a good way to weave through so he could reach the front of the crowd. He noticed a gap to the right of the crowd and nodded to himself, walking towards it without noticing the tall skeleton-like blonde man arriving on the left of the scene, gripping the light pole to regain his breath for a moment.

After some sneaking, weaving and sometimes pushing through the large group of civilians, Izuku finally reached the front of the crowd, and his eyes widened when he glanced at the ongoing fight. ‘What?! How did he escape All Might again?!’ He gasped, incredulous by the very free sludge villain in front of him.

<Damn it, I was sure we had absorbed enough of it to keep him unconscious for hours!> Ranno cursed.

(I guess he’s a bit too resilient to be kept down by something like that.) Forsburn commented, his eyes narrowed in fury over the villain’s escape.

“Shit, I can’t do anything against this one!” Death Arms’ shout got his attention, and Izuku noticed that the hero was wiping sludge off his hand after his failed attempt at damaging the villain.

“There are too many explosions for me to be useful!” Kamui called out, dodging a lashing tentacle. “Backdraft!”

“Don’t look at me, I’m busy!” was the water-manipulating hero’s response from where he frantically tried to put out fires, though the villain only made more every time he managed to extinguish one.

Behind the crowd, Mount Lady arrived and immediately grew to her fighting size, but stopped when she looked down and saw that there was no way to go forwards without stepping on someone. “Shit, my only weakness! I need more space than this!”

Kamui did one last attempt to grab the villain, but an explosion blew his branches to bits, making him grit his teeth. “We’ll need to keep him busy until a hero with a better suited quirk arrives!”

[Really? I can think of more than a few ways to end this quickly with just these guys.] Maypul grumbled, a bit disappointed with her favorite hero.

(For example, taking care of the guy creating more fires before extinguishing the existing ones.) Clairen deadpanned, narrowing her eyes at Backdraft. (I know containing the fires is important, but with his water quirk diluting the sludge it would take only a few minutes at worst.)

Izuku nodded in agreement, and a conversation between civilians made his ear twitch. “Why aren’t the heroes doing anything? I’m sure attacking the villain would be more effective than trying to contain him.” One asked.

“They can’t. Apparently the villain caught a middle schooler and is using him as hostage to keep the heroes from going all out. It’s been like this for a bit.” Another explained.

Izuku furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Ok, now it makes more sense. Who did the villain capture anywa-’ He froze, eyes wide when he saw the blonde victim struggling with all his strength to escape the villain. ‘Bakugou?’  He thought incredulously.

(Well the explosions make more sense as well, now.) Clairen muttered. (Didn’t know the sludge guy could manipulate other people’s quirks like that, though.)

(That’s him?) Forsburn raised an eyebrow. (Well, at least I can see why people would praise him so much. His quirk is admittedly very strong.) The others who hadn’t met the guy before nodded in agreement and even Clairen had to give him that.

<Anything stopping us from just jumping in?> Ranno asked. <We took care of him pretty fast before, and even the explosions won’t bother us much if he can’t bring his mass close to us.>

‘Aside from the fact that we’re civilians and it would be against the law?’ Izuku pointed out. ‘We don’t have that level of power anymore. For some reason, when an echo awakens we immediately link and gain a massive power boost to take us out of whatever situation we’re in at the moment, like at the tunnel, or even just to show us what we will eventually be able to do. After that it’s back to square one, where we can only do basic things, and sometimes not even that. It took me so long to change Clairen’s flame from normal plasma into ionized plasma for Ion Lock, you have no idea…’ He explained, groaning slightly at the memory. ‘I guess we can use Full Synch to regain part of the power and control, but we’re not used to the link between us yet, so that’s out of the window as well.’ Ranno grunted, but nodded in understanding.

{Uh, Izuku?} Elliana interjected with some hesitation, which was very uncommon for the crazy snake. {I just remembered something and I don’t think you’ll like it…}

‘What is it?’ He asked with a bit of worry.

{Ranno controlled the villain’s body back in the alleyway, yeah?} She began, and the boy nodded. She took a deep breath.

{Ranno can only manipulate poison and poisonous substances.}

It took him a moment for it to click.

“H-Hey, wait! Boy!” Death Arms shouted in shock at Izuku, who had already taken off from the crowd and into the fray.

The shout caught the villain’s attention and he turned an eye towards the approaching figure, making his eyes widen in surprise and slight fear. “You!” He glared and lashed out with a tentacle of sludge. Inside the villain, Bakugou’s eyes widened in shock when he saw Izuku running towards him.

‘Can’t link to Ranno, Elliana would be too destructive or too weak for the situation, Forsburn is more of a technical fighter than a strength-based one, and while Maypul would be more than fast enough to evade the explosions, she’d need to get too close to be able to pull Bakugou out, so that leaves…’ He thought frantically, jumping to the side to avoid the villain’s attack. ‘Clairen!’ He snapped, sprinting towards the villain again.

(If we die because you wanted to save that asshole, I swear I’ll end you!) She snarled, but readied herself.

Izuku focused into his links and disconnected all but one, redirecting all four towards the remaining one, where they snapped into place and a wave of power overcame him. “Full Synch: Clairen!” He roared, and a maelstrom of plasma fire exploded from his body and circled around him, obscuring him from vision.

Full Synch was a technique they had come up a few years prior, but only managed to get a good grasp on it in the last summer break. It worked by focusing all of his links into a single echo in order to multiply the amount of energy that flowed between them, giving him much more power than what he would get when he just focused on their natural link. It did have its drawbacks, of course, but one in particular was rather odd.

The firestorm settled after a second and a black figure wearing a red cape sped forward faster than the boy had before, clearing three of his steps in only two. Another tentacle swept through the field to strike him but instead of evading, Izuku just summoned a blade made of plasma – neon pink with a blue tip, of course – and slashed the wave in half, cleaving through it with extreme ease without stopping or even slowing down.

The villain’s eyes widened in horror at the sight and sent four tentacles this time, fusing them into a single massive lance. This time Izuku recognized that it would be much harder to pass through that, so instead he jumped over it. With a twirl he slashed down at the tentacle with only the tip of his sword, and blue lightning spread from the slashes, locking the villain’s body and making him screech in pain.

When he touched the floor again and continued with his dash he saw that Bakugou also had a pained look in his face, and he clicked his tongue. ‘Looks like I need to take him out of there first.’

(Yeah, then you can go all out and OHKO sludgy.) Clairen agreed.

‘I can’t ‘one-hit’ him if I already hit him twice, Clairen.’

(You know what I meant.) While they bantered with each other, they were also observing as the Ion Lock dissipated and the sludge villain was able to move again, retreating his appendages into his main mass reflexively. His eyes cleared from the shock of being paralyzed, but widened again when he noticed that Izuku had taken advantage of his seconds of inaction to close the distance and jump straight towards him.

Or rather, his hostage.

Izuku hit the sludge mass feet first, sinking halfway to his knees, and plunged his hand in, grabbing Bakugou’s shoulder while his other hand grasped his plasma blade across his body and prepared for a sideways slash. Bakugou’s eyes widened when he realized the slash would also cut him, but before he could do anything Izuku struck. “Plasma Echo!” And the two teenagers were gone in a blur, reappearing a few meters away from the villain and leaving behind a star of plasma energy that exploded violently after a moment, making the sludge creature roar in pain again.

The villain zeroed on them and sent another wave of sludge in fury. Izuku scoffed, dispersing his blade and pulling his hands together, creating an orb of plasma between them. “Get a new trick already. Plasma Force!” His hands snapped outward and the plasma grew into an electromagnetic shield, blocking the sludge effortlessly. Izuku took the moment of safety to take a deep breath and turned to his old friend with a smirk. “Sup, Kacchan.”

Bakugou stared at the figure in front of him, not realizing he had talked to him for a second before snapping back into attention. “Deku, what the fuck?”

His shock was understandable to say the least. Gone was the green haired boy from the start of the fight, replaced by a slightly taller panther person, dark grey fur garbed in a red cape over black baggy clothes and a blue belt, eyeing him with pink eyes that glowed as bright as his blade. He giggled at Bakugou, and the blonde was confused by how… feminine it sounded.

“What, gonna keep staring just because I got sexy?” He asked cheekily, crossing his arms under his – yep, those where definitely breasts. She (?) looked back at the villain pounding away at her shield and sighed. “Well, let’s catch up later. This shield only lasts a few seconds and I wanna see if you’re still an asshole or if you grew out of it.” She prepared herself, summoning her blade by her side as if it was inside of an invisible sheath. She grimaced. “This is so going to take me out of commission for the day… oh well. Plasma Storm…” Her blade lost its perfectly straight form, breaking into a blaze of plasma barely contained by the panther. The shield was about to break, but before she could unleash the attack another figure jumped between her and the villain, making the sludge monster recoil in fear.

“If it’ll really impact you that harshly then I’d advise you to not use such an attack, young woman.” All Might said to her, looking at their target with a grin. “Just let it for the professionals to take care of him. Now that you have taken his advantage away, it’ll be a piece of cake. Like this! Detroit…” He pulled an arm back, and before the villain could even put up some semblance of a defense, the hero’s fist flew forward and hit him directly. “SMAAAASH!”

The resulting shockwave of air pressure was enough to not only completely disperse the villain into tiny bits of sludge, but also create a hurricane of wind big enough to reach the skies and gather drifting clouds, uniting them into a single mass. Izuku’s eyes widened and she immediately canceled her initial attack in favor of keeping her Plasma Force up, protecting her and Bakugou from the harsh winds. Once the tornado dispersed, the clouds were tightly packed enough to complete its cycle and start a small localized raincloud, dripping upon the crowd below.

While the crowd marveled over the sheer power All Might had, and the other pros finally snapped out of their reverie and went back to their tasks of restraining the villain and extinguishing whatever fires the hurricane hadn’t already snuffed out. Izuku manually dispersed her Plasma Force and fell to the ground, panting. “That… didn’t help… much… jackass…” She groaned between breaths.

All Might laughed. “Forgive me, I would’ve protected you from the winds myself, but your shield was still up and keeping me out. Nicely done, by the way.”

“Thanks.” She groaned, pulling herself to her feet and letting her transformation go. Her body was once again enveloped by a swirling mass of pink plasma flames, revealing his normal body in his school clothes once he it dispersed, even the ears that were always with him were gone. Izuku felt his links reconnect with their original echoes, but Clairen’s had completely vanished, broken under the strain of the transformation.

He sighed. She was fine in his mindscape, but their link would take a few hours to reform. Until then he wouldn’t be able to communicate with her or use her powers – not even the most basic ones.

All powers have their drawbacks, he supposed. It was more fun that way.

All Might’s eyebrows shot up when he saw the mutant girl in front of him transform into the boy from earlier in the tunnel – from how packed the crowd was, he couldn’t see the civilian running in aside from a green blur, and only got a clear look after he had transformed. Looks like his quirk really wasn’t just poison bubbles after all, but he’d never expect something like this even when Izuku had told him it was ‘complicated’.

‘Complicated’ didn’t even begin to describe it, he guessed.

The hero opened his mouth to speak once again, but had to close it again in surprise when Bakugou suddenly started to cough violently, gripping at his chest in pain. Both he and Izuku looked over the blonde in worry, but Izuku was the one who acted first, connecting to Ranno once again and putting one of his hands on the blonde’s chest, gripping his shoulder when he tried to push him away. “Purifying Palm.” Poison coated Izuku’s hand and slid onto Bakugou’s chest, glowing a toxic green for a moment before evaporating.

He loosened his hold on Bakugou slightly and was pushed away violently. “What the hell was that?! What did you do to me?!” He asked frantically, palming at his chest but not feeling any sort of liquid.

“Cured the poison inside of you, dumbass. It’s literally the name of the technique.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyways, it turns out that guy was more than just a pile of sewage after all. The poison doesn’t seem to pass through contact alone, though. Thank the elements for that.” He sighed, looking at scattered the pieces being collected by the heroes.

“Your quirk seems to be an extremely versatile one.” All Might praised, making Izuku rub the back of his head and Bakugou grit his teeth in fury. Before he could explode however, the hero turned to him. “And you, young man, should go to the paramedics over there.” He pointed towards an ambulance that had just arrived. “If you really were poisoned by the villain then it would be better if you were checked on before anything.” The boy wanted to argue, but he knew I would be futile against All Might. With a last glare at Izuku, he huffed and stomped away.

All Might then turned towards Izuku. “And you should go home. I’d offer to escort you, but I’ll have to direct the heroes in here as well as talk to the media, unless you were hurt by the villain?”

The boy’s head snapped to attention. “A-Ah! No, I’m fine, just tired. He didn’t even hit me.”

The hero nodded and bid him farewell, turning towards Kamui Woods to ask him to locate the villain’s eyes, as they seemed to be where the villain’s body originated from, as odd as it were. Izuku looked at him for a few moments before turning to look at Bakugou, receiving aid from the medics in the distance. He sighed and turned to walk away, discreetly connecting to Maypul as she would be the most useful in escaping the few reporters he knew would end up trying to follow him.

He was a good few blocks away and walking in the direction of his home when he heard a shout from behind him, turning to see Bakugou running towards him. “What.” He was too tired to deal with the boy, but he also knew it would be better to just get over it.

The blonde stopped a few meters away from Izuku, panting slightly before gritting his teeth. “I didn’t need your help, you hear me?!” He all but shouted. “It doesn’t matter if you have a weird quirk now, don’t you dare look down on me!”

Izuku froze for a second, and then narrowed his eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?!” He growled back, startling Bakugou slightly. “Who cares if you asked for help or not?! You were in danger and I could take you out of it, end of story! That’s what heroes do, dumbass!” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “I thought that after your bullying of me came to light you would have changed for the better, either by yourself or auntie forcing you, but it looks like I was wrong. You’re still the same egotistical bully I knew back then. I’m disappointed.”

Bakugou flinched and looked away for a moment, but said nothing. After a few moments of silence, Izuku sighed. “Look, since I know you’re too prideful to freaking apologize to me, I’ll just say it.” He looked at the other boy dead in the eye. “I don’t give a damn about what happened between us anymore. What’s in the past is in the past, and you kind of helped me unlock my quirk anyways, so in a way I owed you a minor one – that’s gone with me saving you, bitch, don’t even try – but we’re not friends anymore. I don’t think we were for more than just these past few years we’ve been apart.” He went silent for a few seconds, then turned and walked away. “It doesn’t matter what you thought of me then or think of me now, I’m going to be a hero and you can’t stop me. You’re going to UA, am I right? So will I.

“I’m giving you a chance to become better, Bakugou. We’ll meet again at UA High in a year. Prove to me that you grew the fuck up then, and maybe I’ll bother with calling you by name again.” He didn’t turn to see what Bakugou’s reaction was, and honestly he didn’t care much. If Bakugou changed for the better then great, if not he’ll just prove that he wasn’t a pushover anymore.

(You’ll seriously give him a chance?) Clairen asked in disbelief.

‘I may not be a doormat anymore, but I still believe in second chances. If he decides to put effort in it, we’ll see.’

Forsburn, Ranno and Elliana nodded in understanding, and both Clairen and Maypul did as well a second later, though it was clear they were both still uncertain. [If you’re sure…]

‘Honestly, I’m not. But I can fight back if it comes back to bite me in the ass in the futur-’ “I am here!”

“Holy sh- All Might?!” Izuku shouted in surprise at All Might’s sudden appearance, dashing from inside a side alleyway. “What are you doing here, you were surrounded by fans just now?”

“Getting away from them was a piece of cake!” The pro laughed for a moment. “For now, however, I need to talk to you.” His laugh subsided and he gave Izuku a serious look. “That boy from earlier. It seems like the two of you are on bad terms with each other, and yet you put your life at risk for him. Why?”

Izuku took a moment to register the question, but when he did he furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s obvious, no? A hero doesn’t let their own personal feelings before another person’s life. If they are in danger, we save them.” He narrowed his eyes in determination. “And I plan on being one of the best heroes in the future.”

All Might kept staring at him for a full second, and then broke into a wide grin. “Good answer. Follow me.” He nodded and walked back into the alley. Izuku hesitated for a moment, then followed. After a few seconds passed, they both found themselves in a darker part of the alley, almost completely obscured from view from the streets. All Might looked around for a moment, nodded, and turned back to Izuku. “Now, what I’m about to show and tell you is an extremely important secret, so I urge you to keep silent, alright?” At Izuku’s nod, the hero took a deep breath and started exhaling smoke, covering his entire body.

Izuku watched it in fascination, then yelped when the smoke exploded outwards, covering most of the area around them and obscuring All Might completely. “All Might? What is… this…”

The smoke cleared away, revealing a tall and extremely thin man, who looked halfway into turning into a skeleton. The man sighed. “Finally…” He turned to the shocked boy. “I assume you have questions? Well, let’s take the most important ones out of the way first, then. Yes, I really am All Might, this is just my civilian form, you could say. Ever wondered why I’ve never seen out of work? This is why – this is so far from my hero appearance that people would never make the connection. As for why I look this bad? Well, that’s a long story, but basically it comes down to this.” He sat down on the floor and lifted his now oversized shirt, showing a massive scar taking over most of his torso.

“Holy shit…” Izuku gasped.

[(T-That’s…)] Clairen and Maypul choked in unison.

{How the fuck is he still alive?!} Elliana shouted in disbelief.

Ranno and Forsburn just grimaced, both analyzing the wound.

“Pretty ugly, isn’t it?” He grunted. “I got this from a really big fight, about five years ago. Destroyed my respiratory system almost completely, and my stomach was gone. I went through an absurd number of surgeries to keep me alive, but they wore me down so much that I can only maintain my hero form for about three hours a day.” He let his shirt drop. “And made me look like this outside of it.”

Izuku kept looking straight at where the scar was located for a moment. “Five years ago… was it Toxic Chainsaw?  No other villain was recorded getting a good hit in during that year.”

“You know your stuff, but no.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t recorded for a reason. I am supposed to be the perfect hero, no? What would people think if that hero was brought down like this?” He sighed. “I always save people with a smile, but right now that smile only serves to hide my fear.”

“… Why tell me this?” Izuku finally asked.

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” The hero chuckled. “Have you ever wondered what my quirk is, exactly?”

Strange change of subject, but Izuku assumed it was somehow related to all this. “Yeah, I actively participate in a few forum threads that theorize about it. The most accepted one is that it is a general boost to all capabilities of the body, such as superhuman strength and speed, but also minor things such as super hearing.” He answered. He actually was the one who suggested that last one, after observing multiple occasions where the hero heard things that a normal person wouldn’t.

“That is correct, in a way, but is much more complex than that.” He smirked, using the boy’s words from earlier. “The truth however, is that my quirk has been passed down to me like a sacred torch.”

“Passed down?” Izuku muttered. It sounded impossible, but with his own quirk, he couldn’t really cry out in disbelief without sounding hypocritical, and he hated doing that unless he was doing it as a joke.

All Might nodded. “One person cultivates power over their life, and then passes on to another person, who does the same. The power to transfer power… I was crowned with ‘One for All’.” He smiled at the teen’s shock, standing up to look him in the eyes. “And now, I believe it is your turn.”

“M-My t-turn?!” Izuku choked, stumbling over his words. “Why me of all people?!”

“Because you have the heart of a good hero.” All Might’s smile widened. “Remember what we talked about before we came here? You set aside your own personal feelings in order to save a victim from danger. As you said, that is what a good hero does.” He straightened himself. “So, young Midoriya. Will you accept One for All?”

Izuku immediately wanted to answer yes, but he stopped to think for a second, and the more he thought, the more he realized something. “I-I’m sorry All Might, but I can’t.” He shook his head.

All Might’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and he let out a disappointed sigh. “Would you at least tell me why?”

“Remember when I told you that my quirk was complicated and kept evolving?” He began. “Well, I know exactly when it’ll stop evolving, and that’s the problem. I’m not even halfway there…

“My quirk has three mechanics: my echoes, their elements, and my connection to them. My echoes themselves are fully sentient, and their origin is… a long story, but not that relevant right now. Each of them manipulates an element related to the four elements of nature – Water, Earth, Fire, and Air – and when I focus on my connection to them I gain their powers at the cost of mimicking their bodies, like you’ve seen earlier. That was Clairen, and she can manipulate Plasma.

“The problem lies in the fact that there are twelve of them, each with their own abilities and personalities, and they aren’t all awakened yet. The all are awoken under very specific circumstances, and right now I only have five.” Izuku took a deep breath. “With so many different powers to control in the future, I already have too much on top of my plate, I don’t have the time to cultivate One for All, and I’d never put it on top of my own Quirk, no matter its importance.”

Even when Izuku stopped talking, the man in front of him stood silent, thinking over the imformation the boy had told him. “… I see. Yes, that is understandable.” He sighed. “However, One for All is power, not strength. It would fuse with your own quirk and make it stronger before it did anything to your body. Most likely it would increase your connection to your echoes while empowering them, maybe even making the other echoes wake up faster.”

Izuku blinked. “Oh. Well, that would certainly help… but that would just make me deal with three new echoes at once instead of one at a time, and I can’t risk that when I have to train for UA. I’m already having trouble with Forsburn and his Ash manipulation and Ranno woke up today at that, so I have Poison manipulation to train as well, and only ten months for it.” He stopped, looking like he wanted to say more, then bit his lip as if trying to make a difficult decision. “How about a deal?”

All Might raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You keep looking for another successor aside from me,” he began. “But if something happens that you end up needing to pass One for All forward urgently before you decide on a successor, then I’ll accept it.”

The hero thought it over for a moment, then nodded. “All right, that sounds reasonable. But on one condition.” He lifted a finger. “One for All is a dangerous quirk, so much power inside a body that isn’t prepared for it will only damage it when you finally decide to use it, so I’d like to help you train for it.” He smiled. “Even if you end up not taking the mantle, it’ll be a nice training for when I have to train my future successor, and you’ll have someone helping you with your training. Deal?” He extended a hand.

Izuku matched his smile, extending his own. “Deal.” He grabbed the hero’s hand and shook it, sealing their promise with each other.

The quickly bid farewells to each other and went on their different ways, both still wrapping around things that were said in the past half an hour. Izuku couldn’t keep a large smile from splitting his face, giddy over having the Number One Hero as his teacher for the next ten months and the possibility of inheriting his quirk, even if he had declined it at first. On the other hand the Pro Hero’s thoughts were both similar and different, more relaxed that now he had a good candidate for his quirk should he need to pass it on, but also distracted with something that had happened.

When All Might shook hands with Izuku, he could swear that he felt more than a single hand wrap around his, and for a second he could see twelve figures with extended limbs over his and the boy’s, all blackened and blurry except for five – a blue frog, a purple snake, a brown hyena, a green raccoon, and a black panther, which he had recognized as the boy's transformation - Clairen, he had said her name was. The visions only lasted for a moment and were gone when he blinked in surprise.

He looked down at his hand and shuddered. “Freaky…”