Once upon a time, way before quirks existed, the only way for humans to survive in the face of any problems that may have come our way was to adapt to them. Whether it was making tools to assist us in hunting, harnessing better materials for these items or even by simply changing an approach towards the problem itself when faced with it. Nowadays you could argue that quirks themselves are an adaptation to some form of issue we encountered down the line but whose to say? Anyway, sometimes the flashiest of quirks aren't the best for most situations, sometimes all a person needs is to simply adapt.
NAME: IZUKU MIDORIYA
AGE: 4
BLOOD TYPE: O
QUIRK: [NOT YET DIAGNOSABLE] QUIRKLESS
Inko looked up to the doctor from the Medical file of her son she had just finished reading.
"Are you sure about this doctor? He doesn't have a quirk?" She said, shooting a glance at the child in question who currently had a shaky smile on his face.
"I'm sorry but there's no hope for him, look we've run a few tests in him and his results have shown that he hasn't developed either yours or your husband's quirks, I believe you said you had small object attraction and fire breathing respectively but Izuku doesn't even have a mixture of the two. Normally I may have also considered the fact that he may be a late bloomer or he received some form of mutation however in this case I just can't see that happening as your son also has the extra join in his pinky toe, which I'll refresh both of you incase you forgot, but since quirks came around the only pattern that we found for whether or not someone developed one was the missing pinky joint, this has something to do with the human body evolving to get rid of unnecessary parts and possibly an adaption caused by the development of quirks." The doctor replied, he didn't sugar coat it and didn't seem fazed by the fact that the more he talked, the more Izukus face dropped.
"Ok then, thank you anyway doctor, we'll take our leave now." Inko bowed and pulled her shell-shocked son away.
Izuku was now 5 years old, the last year hadn't been the kindest to him since he was diagnosed as quirkless. He lost all his friends, including his best friend Katsuki Bakugo. Everyone picked on him and he would return home bruised and beaten up. However, one thing that Inko was proud of was with how Izuku kept his head down and continued studying, he was way ahead of everyone else his age, learning maths, English and science at the level of a 9 year old, while having just picked up history and starting quirk studies from online high school grade courses. He kept on making those quirk analysis notebooks of his and she was proud about his mental development.
Izuku was 6 when he started truly noting something strange, his day had been going as usual, he went to school and pretended to not already know what was being taught to them while still slightly showing off his intelligence whenever it was safe to do so, hell he even got beaten up in the more merciful way, which meant that Kacchan and his followers beat him up but at least only Kacchan used his quirk.
"YOU'LL ALWAYS BE A DEKU AND I WANT YOU TO NEVER FORGET THAT, YA UNDERSTAND YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT?" Kacchan screamed at him in his usual angry 'Better than all of you' kind of way as he left the classroom.
Izuku sighed, picked himself and his scattered schoolwork up from the floor and made his way home, "Strange," he said as he walked down the street, "That didn't feel as bad as it usually does."
He inspected his arms and his face shifted into a look of confusion.
"Huh, usually whenever he beats me up, Kacchan tends to leave a few burns on my arm, and I can still smell the nitroglycerine coming off of it but it's not really hurting." He shook off the worry and just accepted that he was probably getting used to the bullying and so the pain didn't affect him as much.
With each consecutive beatdown he received from Kacchan he realised how little they started to hurt, even when he would swear they should've been getting stronger as his friend gained better control over his quirk. By the end of that very same year though, Izuku would hardly feel the pain from explosions, punches and kicks. On top of his newfound tolerance though he would also come out almost completley unharmed.
Just over a year later Izuku regained hope in his dream.
"What the fuck has been going on Deku?" Kacchan had approached him after class one day out of nowhere.
"O-oh Kacchan, I-I don't understand what you're talking about." He stuttered, then jumped in his seat as a small explosion fuelled punch hit his desk.
"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME YOU PIECE OF SHIT! WHY THE FUCK HAS NOTHING BEEN AFFECTING YOU RECENTLY!? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE QUIRKLESS!" Katsuki screamed back at him before taking a deep breath and uncharacteristically calming down, "Or have you been lying to me for these past 3 years?"
"N-No! I swear as far as I know I'm quirkless and haven't lied to you once!" He'd had some doubts the more he thought about it but hadn't really tested it out, 'I don't even know what to test for, but honestly? It most likely wasn't a quirk, everyone told me that I was quirkless including the doctor so why would that suddenly change out of no wher-'
"DEKU STOP FUCKIN MUMBLING!"
"AHHH! S-S-SORRY K-K-KACCHAN I DIDN'T EVEN REALISE I WAS DOING IT!" He shouted back getting up and running off home.
"I'LL LET YOU OFF FOR NOW DEKU" Katsuki called to him as he left.
Izuku returned home, thankfully it was one of the few days of the school week that his mother let him go home by himself due to her considering him to be smarter and more mature than most people his age.
'Ok Izuku, think carefully about what's been happening for the past 3 years, You know that something hasn't been adding up, Kacchan has pointed out that he thinks somethings happened, so you might as well test it… problem is you don't know what IT is.' Izuku thought to himself as he turned a corner and saw his house straight ahead in the distance.
'Thinking about it logically, I've been getting beaten up as usual for the past 3 years and yet slowly I've been coming out of the fights with less bruising, cuts and most importantly burn marks. However something pointed out to me by mum is that whenever I return with the odd injury they have healed quite quickly… although I can't say for sure that this is also related. If this were in fact a quirk, then I should try and think about what it may realistically be…'
Izuku unlocked the door and shouted into the house to let his mum know he had returned, 'HEY! I'M BACK!" Inko turned towards the door and greeted her son and after talking about his day at school (While not admitting to being beaten up again.) Izuku told her that he was going to go into his bedroom to relax a bit.
"Ok Izuku, but don't get too comfy as dinner will be ready soon."
"Sure mum I just need to… uhh… finish writing some analyses in my notebook." He replied, technically not lying as he hated doing so, especially to his mum, and he entered his bedroom.
'So I have a few options to what this is,' he thought as he pulled out a fresh notebook from his All Might branded storage unit, taking an All Might branded pencil and sitting at his All Might branded desk, 'If this even is a quirk in the first place, based off of the fact that I've noticed how it works on wounds I can assume regeneration of some sort, one note against this though is the fact that I come out of it sturdier in some way,'
"So maybe a defence related one? But then how does the regen fit into it?" He started to mutter softly, "Hold up Izuku, think harder than that, what if its affected other parts of your life? Then it wouldn't simply be a regen or defense boosting quirk. Hell you still don't know if it actually makes you sturdier… how would you test THAT out?" he closed his eyes and thought about it for a second before looking back up and glaring at a pair of scissors he had in a pot with his other stationary. "How sure am I that this affects my bodies healing or its defence? About 70%? Don't do anything stupid Izuku…" he paused for a second, before breaking out into a huge grin, "Screw it, clearly somethings up and I'm WAY too curious to sit around and not test this thing out!" he grabbed the scissors with his right hand and turned his left hand over so the palm was facing upwards, "Ok Izuku, just gotta be kind of careful." He sliced into the palm of his hand, he noted that even though he thought he added a bit more force than necessary, it didn't go as deep as it should have and other than a very faint stinging, he didn't feel much pain at all. "Ok, so defence has infact gone up," he said as he scribbled into his notebook "Now I gotta wait to see if the regeneration is a factor or not…"
Izuku is interrupted by a knock on his door.
"Izuku, dinners ready." His mother said from behind his door.
"Coming" he quickly replied, putting the scissors away and joining his mum for food.
An hour passed and Izuku returned to his room after they finished eating, "Moms katsudon is the greatest!" he said to himself as he sat back down at his desk. "Now, the moment of truth." He had avoided thinking about what would happen with his self-inflicted injury during dinner. As he finally looked at the palm of his hand, he started smiling. Instead of a small line of red you'd expect to see from a relatively fresh cut he found that it had already become a paler white than his own skin. "'It's become a scar? Strange, no other cut I've received up until now has scarred over but maybe it just takes a while for it to happen. In the mean time though…" his smile turned into full blown ecstatic laughter.
"Izuku! What's going on?!" Inko shouted as she burst into his room.
Izuku turned to her as tears started to well up in his eyes, "I… I have a quirk mum."