That's right. I fucking did it. I made my first My Hero Academia fan fiction. I actually wanted to write one since before the creation of Believer, but I didn't have any ideas that I could stick to. But after rewatching one of my most favorite movies, I finally had an idea.
Pride.
An inwardly directed emotional term that carries two antithetical meanings.
For a positive connotation, pride refers to a humble and content sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people. It is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging.
For a negative one, pride refers to a foolishly and irrationally corrupt sense of one's personal value, status or accomplishments, used synonymously with hubris. In Judaism, pride is called the root of all evil. Pride is sometimes, if not often, viewed as corrupt or as a vice. When viewed as such it is often known to be self-idolatry, sadistic contempt, vanity or vainglory.
From this comes the unattended evolution of pride. Hubris.
Hubris is to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to someone, nor because anything has happened to that someone, but merely for one's own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.
Izuku Midoriya is, unfortunately, one such victim of the hubris of another.
There sat on an office recliner one boy, one with unruly green hair and big curious eyes, which were overflowing with tears of anguish. Even if he had a smile, his lifeless and tearful eyes showed the sorrow that burned within. The door to the boy's room opened, revealing a tall woman with long green hair and a worried look on her face.
"Izuku?" asked the woman, no doubt she was Izuku's mother. "How are you feeling?"
Her answer was a slow and eerie turn of the recliner, showing possibly the most depressing, gut wrenching, and heartbreaking scene in her life.
Izuku was watching a video of All Might rescuing hapless civilians from a blaze caused by a powerful villain. Izuku was crying, but made no sounds. His lifeless gaze bore into Inko Midoriya's very being, the stare making Inko's breath hitch in her throat. Tears threatened to fall as they welled in her eyes.
"All Might... h-he's so great..." Izuku said, pointing a shaky finger at the video. "C-Could I... be like... that? Could I... be a... h-hero too?"
These words broke the already cracking dam of emotions. These words made Inko let the tears fall as she trapped her beloved son in a mother's embrace.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." Inko kept saying as she wept alongside her son. Exceedingly few in the super powered world that they lived in could ever hope to understand what it felt like to have their dream be brutally torn in two right before their very eyes and it wasn't fair that her own son had to be one of those few. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair!
"It's not fair..." Inko muttered, but her son didn't hear her.
It had been three years after that, having been bullied once again for having no individuality. No Quirk to speak of and the ones with Quirks continued to pick on him just to stroke their own egos.
Kids these days, I'll tell you what.
They continued to haunt him and taunt him and abuse him with the power given to them. Izuku was angry at that. They never actually earned that power, none of them did. Whatever entity decided to just give little bastards like Katsuki Bakugou a Quirk obviously didn't think about the consequences. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolute. Katsuki Bakugou was already a prideful, arrogant delinquent who would boast about the flashiness and power of the Quirk he would receive one day.
That day sadly arrived.
After that, Katsuki had become much more arrogant and pretty much angry at anything. Throwing explosion after fiery explosion, Bakugou continued to abuse his own power simply to assert dominance. Though the only question remained in Izuku's mind.
Why do they have to announce my worthlessness to the world for all to hear?
Izuku laid on the ground for a good thirty seconds before lifting himself to his knees, which were heavily bruised when he hit the ground. Being the very emotional individual that he was, Izuku cried. He cried a little harder when he remembered the haunting words of the doctor that evaluated him.
You'll never become a hero without a Quirk.
Tears fell down his freckled face and dropped onto his bruised knees.
"Still a weakling as always!" Katsuki yelled as small firecrackers went off in his hand.
Izuku, even if it would hurt, decided to tell him off, "W-What makes you think you're any better?" Izuku asked as he weakly stood up. "Y-You gained that strength... the power you always boasted about getting... and you never earned it. You said you wanted to be better than All Might? But look at what you're doing now!"
Katsuki was actually taken aback at Izuku's sudden outburst. What Izuku said finally registered into his mind and grew more livid by the second. Small explosions popped in his palms as his anger continued to rise.
"You want to be a hero and yet here you are, throwing a weak and innocent person into the dirt just because he didn't have a Quirk!" Izuku yelled, his unruly green hair rising and falling as the wind began to pick up. "If you ask me, I would say that's behavior fit for a villain!"
That was the final straw for Katsuki as he threw a very large explosion straight at Izuku, to angry to even think about what he did. The explosion created a thick dust cloud that shrouded Izuku's appearance.
"Still weak as usual," Katsuki scoffed, leaving Izuku unconscious and literally in the dust.
Neither noticed the smoke and flame from the explosion was suddenly sucked into Izuku's body, as if it poured into a funnel.
Another two years, the time passing by in a blur faster than All Might could run. Izuku still lived the life of a so-called 'Quirk-less nobody,' though Izuku tried to make the best of it. He would still enroll into U.A. at some point, but sooner or later, his lack of a Quirk might come back to bite him in the ass.
Izuku still wrote his usual notes on Heroes and their Quirks, though he rarely did this anymore considering his crumbling will, his want to even do anything else. It had gotten to the point where Izuku would practice his smile in the mirror everyday before school so as to not show the grief festering within him. Izuku always felt something lurk beneath himself and chalked that up as his depression, but he would never admit it. Not even if it would save his own life.
It had gotten worse that one day.
"If you're so desperate, why don't you hope you'll get a Quirk in the next life and take a swan dive off the roof."
Izuku froze as he heard those cold and heartless words pour from Katsuki's mouth.
'And what if I did?' Izuku asked himself.
Izuku was now seated on his desk in his middle school, staring off into the sunset, a hollow and empty look in his eyes as he watched the sun slowly sink into the horizon. Just like his will, it was sinking below the surface. Especially after he had met All Might on just a stroke of dumb luck.
He just... couldn't feel anything anymore.
Katsuki's harsh but true words.
His mother's constant worry.
All Might's response to his long-waited question.
Could he still be a hero, even if Quirkless?
It left him feeling empty, as if nothing mattered.
Izuku didn't notice a small part of his hand turn into a small amount of a black matter that formed a ring going outwards like a solar flare before sinking back in and turning to normal skin.
Izuku walked to school the next day, though the students finally noticed just how... barren he looked.
"Why does he look so... lifeless?"
"It's like he's not even there..."
"He looks so... dead."
The teacher of the class looked up from his computer to see just what the students were talking about. His eyes widened slightly as he felt this very deathly air follow Izuku Midoriya. But still, Izuku was late for class, which was unusual. Izuku was usually the first one the enter the classroom. His backpack was nowhere to be seen, only his notebook, which he held lazily in his right hand.
"Mister Midoriya, you're late," the teacher said, though uneasily. "This is highly unusual. Do you have an explanation?"
No response. Izuku's eyes were no longer wide and curious, but drooped and unfeeling as he placed himself in his seat. The students and teacher shivered whenever Izuku's eyes fell upon them. It was... it was like he was blaming them. Izuku's eyes were accusatory, like he blamed them for somehow killing him on the inside.
It's all your fault!
The teacher kept shaking whenever he looked towards Izuku as he continued his lecture. Just what was it that caused him to become like this?
The principle sat at his desk as he looked through Izuku Midoriya's notebook while Izuku himself was in the principle's office out of concern for his well being. The principle asked a couple questions, but the perplexing part was that Izuku had not said a word ever since he arrived. It was odd and completely unlike him.
Hero Analysis for the Future.
The principle chuckled to himself. Even though he was Quirkless, he had the drive and proper attitude of a hero. The principle frowned, he knew that Quirkless individuals were the most oppressed people in the world.
It was even proven that seventy-five percent of suicides in the world consisted of Quirkless people.
The principle shivered as he remember reading those cases, but he couldn't dwell on those now.
How long would it take for Izuku to end his own life.
The principle shivered again. No! He shouldn't think that, he knew better than to assume that Izuku of all people would commit suicide because he didn't have a Quirk. The principle continued reading the notebook. Izuku was quite thorough and did not spare any details. But as he continued, his worry sprang forth when he saw the words, written in Izuku's handwriting, though it was devolved into a frantic scrawl. All of it written in red.
Worthless
Useless
Pathetic
It was just profanity after profanity, each word becoming more frantic, more wild, more powerful as he continued reading. All the while, the worry for his student began to skyrocket. Just how depressed was Izuku?
...
Izuku couldn't take it anymore.
What else did he have to live for? If no one believed in him, then what was the point?
Izuku sat in the classroom by himself, his head in his hands as he choked a sob, Katsuki having reminded him of the whole suicide comment. The world was such a cruel place. This world, this reality, wasn't meant for him. Izuku felt so completely out of place, why was he here? He belonged somewhere where people could treat him better. Izuku felt something, an anomaly, swirl inside him, but chalked it up as his inner turmoil. It began to grow stronger, as did his anger and sorrow. Izuku didn't notice the desks around him suddenly scoot further away from him, surrounding him in a circle. Still, he didn't notice. His thoughts began to consume him, as did his depression.
He thought he could be a hero...
He wanted to save lives...
But...
Izuku's eyes dulled.
He was powerless.
Lub Dub!
A throbbing pain shot within Izuku's head, causing him to grip his head and scream. Izuku's face turned gray as his eyes became a milky white, as if a film was placed over his pupils. Izuku's head shifted a little in a vibrating fashion as he threw his head up to the air.
The room suddenly exploded into a sea of black matter, shattering the windows as a torrent of darkness spilled from the windows. With an inhuman roar, the black, fluid-like cloud sailed through the sides of buildings and through the roads, leaving destruction in its wake. Civilians screamed in terror and heroes gave chase to the dark mass of destruction.
Inko Midoriya gasped as she looked at the news.
A strange, torrent of darkness was laying waste to a part of the city in a frenzy. It was very large, menacing, and had a reddish core from within it that shone in its rage. For those of you who are curious, oleaginous meant rich in, covered with, or producing oil, or oily or greasy.
"I've never seen anything like it before!" yelled the news reporter. "I don't know what kind of Quirk this is or if it's even a Quirk or not, but it's causing chaos and destroying everything in its path!"
The dark cloud suddenly expanded, shrank, and then plummeted to the ground, causing bystanders to scream in terror. Once landing, the dark cloud exploded before shrinking even further, eventually revealing a humanoid shape. The camera zoomed in on the figure, revealing a boy with unruly green hair.
'Izuku?!' Inko screamed in her head, tears brimming at her eyes. Just what had happened to her baby?!
Izuku was hunched over as he entered a very dark tunnel, his body shaking like a screen door in a hurricane.
"We are live at Saitama Prefecture following what appeared to be a black cloud before it transformed into a young middle-school boy!" yelled the news reporter. "Heroes All Might, Eraser Head, and Midnight are heading into the tunnels to get to the bottom of this!"
The tears that brimmed Inko's eyes rolled down her cheeks. While she was happy that Izuku would get to meet heroes, she wished it were under much better circumstances.
"Wait... what's that?" the news reporter asked as she talked over her earpiece. "Okay, thank you... we have just received a call that confirms the identity of the boy. The boy in question is Izuku Midoriya, a student in a middle school once thought to be Quirkless, while the events that have happened here today have shown that to be completely untrue."
Inko choked a sob at the mention of her son. Though a part of her was happy that Izuku had a Quirk all this time.
But again, she just wished he had discovered it under better circumstances.
All Might, Eraser Head, and Midnight entered the dark tunnel in search of Izuku Midoriya, the student that was thought to be Quirkless. From the damages caused by Izuku's Quirk, it had to be immensely powerful and immensely unstable.
"The instant we find him, I will apologize to young Midoriya," Toshinori Yagi, or All Might, said, to which the others nodded. "A lot of this is my fault, so I must make amends."
"That would be wise," Nemuri Kayama, or Midnight, said, concerned for Izuku. "This has to be the worst case of Quirk Repression I've seen thus far."
Quirk Repression was when a child consciously attempts to repress their Quirk out of fear or were forced to do so through physical or psychological abuse. Sometimes, when a child is misdiagnosed as Quirkless when they in fact have a Quirk, they become so tied to the belief that they are Quirkless to the point of unknowingly creating a mental block of sorts. If Quirks suddenly manifest after that, they tend to erupt into a violent and destructive fury from years of being unused. So what they needed to do was calm Izuku Midoriya down and stabilize his emotional and mental state. By doing so, his Quirk would become more manageable and stable.
"Not to mention the Quirk Midoriya possesses," Shouta Aizawa, or Eraser Head, said. "A Transformation Quirk that gives him a very malleable body whilst able to cause untold destruction. We'll have to bring him to UA so that he could practice and learn to control his Quirk."
As it stands, UA carries the best facilities when it came to Quirk practice, as well as a ward for those with unstable Quirks. Students with rather unstable and dangerous Quirks tend to use the ward so as to not cause harm to other students. Japan had very few cases of Quirk Repression, but because of the first three cases, the government felt the need to have wards for those with unstable Quirks.
The walk was a little long, but they finally felt a presence that was growing closer the farther in they walked. It wasn't long before they heard the noises of what sounded like shifting sand. The Pro heroes looked up to see that a sort of oleaginous black cloud was occupying the ceiling.
It was Izuku.
"Izuku Midoriya, I am the hero Midnight," Nemuri greeted. "This is Eraser Head and... you know All Might, right?"
The black cloud began to trickle downwards, but only slightly.
"Young Midoriya," All Might said. "I... I deeply apologize for the things that I said in my haste to bring a villain to justice... I hope you can find it within yourself to forgive me, but if you don't... I understand."
...
"I... I couldn't... take it anymore..."
The paused as they heard Izuku's voice for the first time. It was echo-y and distorted, but they got some semblance of a coherent sentence.
"... I wanted to be a hero... save lives... with a smile..." Izuku said as his form shifted a little. Izuku continued to shrink until he was a small black cloud on the ground. They could hear his voice cracking and choked sobs could be heard. "... Why do they... treat Quirkless people... with such... cruelty?"
Nemuri felt her heart break a little while Aizawa's usual deadpan expression hardened. Aizawa knew that Quirkless individuals were treated with either pity of prejudice. All Might digested the words, feeling even more guilty for saying the things that he said, but that was in the past. For now, Izuku Midoriya needed his help.
"Midoriya, what if I told you that you could be a hero?" Aizawa asked. The black cloud shifted a little, rising a bit in what looked to be a gesture of regained hope.
"... W-What?"
"Back at UA, we have facilities you could use to help practice control over your apparent Quirk, as well as discuss your future as a potential hero," All Might said. "We could set up a meeting with Principle Nezu and we can discuss your future with you and your legal guardian."
The black cloud rose a couple more inches before forming the shape of a humanoid. The standard middle school uniform and shoes wrapped around the humanoid before condensing into something more solid. Slowly, Izuku began to walk towards them at a gingerly pace, black smoke masking his head. Nemuri presented her hand to Izuku for him to take. Taking Nemuri's hand, Nemuri and the others led Izuku out of the tunnel.
Upon exit, they were suddenly swarmed with cameras, wanting a picture of Izuku Midoriya. Luckily Present Mic and Cementoss were there to disperse the crowd.
Nemuri felt Izuku's hand grip tighter, "Is something wrong?"
Izuku was shaking as they walked towards a van, "It's too loud," Izuku stuttered, his voice constantly switching from normal to distorted.
Nemuri made a gesture towards Present Mic, in which Present Mic nodded before turning to the crowd, "Everyone, quiet down, now! You're scaring him!"
The crowd only quieted themselves somewhat, but the flashing of cameras was beginning to get on their nerves. No wonder Aizawa was an Underground Hero.
Entering the van, Izuku was surprised to see his mother in the van with the others. Inko was called to be at their location to help with her son with his Quirk Regression.
"Izuku!" Inko cried before enveloping Izuku in a mother's embrace, one he gladly reciprocated. "I was so worried! Please, don't scare me like that!"
Izuku said nothing as they drove away.
Ten months had passed, but the incident was still fresh in the minds of the masses. Izuku was placed within a facility for his temporary containment. Inko had initially refused to do that to Izuku, but the government had insisted that they do this, as did Izuku, considering how unstable Izuku's Quirk was from being repressed for eleven years.
Right now, Izuku was in his ward going over his notes on his Quirk as well as looking for any discrepancies. Izuku had an awkward grin, he never thought he would have the opportunity to do this. In his ward was a bed with simple white sheets but with several scraps of paper littering it, each one with ideas and concepts for the usage of Obscurus. Around Izuku was also lots of Lego pieces that Izuku used to practice with his Quirk.
After some tests, Principle Nezu and Izuku had decided to call his Quirk Obscurus, which was Latin for "dark, dusky, or indistinct." From these tests, they learned that Izuku, in his Obscurus Form, was capable of not only changing his proportions in any way he wanted, but he could move mass amounts of objects around him via strong telekinesis. Something obviously inherited from Inko, as she was a minor telekinetic. It was also shown that Izuku was capable of turning himself completely invisible as well. They called this Wind Form. Inko had said that the ability to turn invisible was something Izuku's grandfather, on Inko's side, could do. But they couldn't find anything in Izuku's heritage that led to turning into a black cloud.
They had come to the hypothesis that Izuku's Quirk was originally Strong Telekinesis and that several years of never being used caused it to fester and mutate into something new.
After these tests, and with a couple days of practice, Izuku was able to use with Quirk with ease, though it was apparent that Izuku's Quirk would spiral out of control when dealing with festering negative emotions, something that Izuku was now easily prone to. As such, Izuku's class would have to be very careful around him.
Yeah, you heard right. Aizawa and Nemuri had decided to have Izuku attend UA by recommending him to Nezu. All Izuku wanted was to be a hero and his misdiagnosis had dashed him of his dreams, leading to constant bullying at school. Nezu and the staff felt that it would only be right to let Izuku attend their school, as long as he didn't slack off, of course. But they held faith that Izuku wouldn't slack off when it came to hero training, it had been his dream since he was four and no way in hell was he going to take this opportunity for granted.
Hearing the door on the other side of a bulletproof glass pane that stood between Izuku and the exit, Izuku looked to see Nemuri entering the room and with a bundle of green cloth in one hand.
"Hey, Izuku," Nemuri greeted. "How are you feeling today?"
Izuku smiled awkwardly, "I'm good, I've been practicing and going over notes," Izuku said as he extended his arm, his arm becoming shrouded in Izuku's Quirk.
"Nice, but I have something for you that you might like," Nemuri said as she placed the bundle through the exchange slot. Reaching into the exchange slot, Izuku pulled out a green scarf. Written in gold cursive was the word Hero.
"Your mother made that for you a couple days ago for entering the Hero Program," Nemuri said as Izuku put on the scarf.
Izuku had his hands on the top part of the scarf with his head angled upwards as he looked Nemuri in the eyes. Nemuri internally squealed from how cute Izuku looked doing that.
"So, Izuku, are you ready to meet your classmates?" Nemuri asked. "I'll also be your homeroom teacher."
Izuku nodded. If he was attending the Hero Course, then obviously he would have classmates to work with. He just hoped they were nicer than his classmates back in middle school.
Izuku and Nemuri walked through the halls of UA Academy, something Izuku thought he wouldn't be able to do in his wildest dreams, but it was happening and he couldn't be any happier. The click and clack of Nemuri's heels echoed throughout the hallway as they walked in a comfortable silence. Izuku was quite surprised to see that the doors for each classroom was at least ten feet tall, but Izuku thought that that was perhaps for those with Quirks that made people larger than normal.
They finally stopped at a door that said 1-A written in white. Izuku wore the standard UA uniform while his scarf was firmly wrapped around his neck and a red satchel at his side. His old yellow backpack was destroyed when his Quirk was unleashed, but luckily his notebooks survived.
Izuku could hear the room was bustling with activity as the students within were socializing with each other, but was muffled because of the door. Izuku was nervous, largely so. Izuku was worried that they would be afraid of Izuku's Quirk, considering the amount of devastation it caused when unleashed for the first time in eleven years. That nervousness and worry was short lived as Nemuri sensed this and placed a comforting hand on Izuku's shoulder.
"It's okay, I'm sure they're good people," Nemuri said reassuringly. "Now you wait here while I get the class calmed down, I'll call you in when ready, okay?"
Izuku nodded, looking towards the door. Nemuri walked in, causing some excited shouts from the males in the classroom.
"Alright everyone, settle down," Nemuri said. "My name Nemuri Kayama and I'll be your homeroom teacher for the next four years. While I like the energy and enthusiasm, I'd like things to be calm for a moment."
The class was listening with rapt attention until a girl with black hair, which was styled into a spiked ponytail, raised her hand.
"Yes, you in the corner?" Nemuri asked.
"Momo Yaoyorozu," Momo greeted. "I noticed that one of our desks is empty, is there a student whom we have yet to meet?"
Nemuri grinned, "Actually, that's why I want things to be calm," Nemuri said. "The student who will be sitting there is very nervous and gets scared pretty easily, so please be on your best behavior so you don't scare him off?"
Nemuri's smile widened when the class nodded together, though she could see the eagerness and curiosity in their eyes. She couldn't wait to see the girls' reactions to how cute Izuku was.
"Alright, you can come in now," Nemuri prompted. The class looked towards the door, wondering who the mystery student would be. First, they saw dark green hair that was in a state of uncontrollable bedhead, then they saw two big, curious green eyes peek from the around the corner above freckled cheeks. Finally, the mystery student walked through the door at a gingerly pace. He stopped in front of the teacher's desk, turned to the class, and gave a nervous wave.
"H-Hi, I'm I-Izuku Midoriya," Izuku said in a mix between nervousness and cheerfulness. "Please... t-take care of me..."
Inspired by Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.