A:N/ Hello there, this is my take on an alternate route that could've happen back when the series started. I always wondered back then about the possibility of Deku joining the military instead of inheriting All-Might's quirk. I also wondered back then what happened to the military of Japan when Heroes and Police took over the enforcement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but term military is non-existent in the headcanon of Boku No Hero Academia.
So... Here's my take on an alternate path Deku would take.
Edit: This is the second version of the story, I've posted this earlier and I just wanted to edit out a few errors and misspells that I saw.
Ambition
Izuku Midoriya was born quirkless. The timid and unassuming boy grew up idolizing All-Might and various other heroes that he sees on television. The starry-eyed boy squealed with glee whenever he would see his heroes flying across the skies or jumping from platform to platform, it made the young boy grow increasingly impatient to find out what kind of quirk he would possess one day.
The dream of becoming a hero was easily shattered when, during a trip to the doctor, a young Izuku was told that he was quirkless. A quirkless human born into a society filled to the brim with people having quirks. Izuku was distraught, he felt so weak and inferior compared to his peers who developed their own quirks.
"You don't have a quirk?" those words echoed through his young mind, delivering the finishing blow of his and Katsuki's rocky friendship. Something that he never thought would happen. Without a friend, bullied and mistreated because he didn't have a quirk, the young Izuku turned his back against the world.
Up until his fateful encounter with All-Might, the once fleeting spark that he had roared back into life, he was given hope by All-Might.
"You can be a hero." Those words alone shook him back into living his life the way he wanted to. He was never given a quirk, but even so, All-Might's words were comfort that he took to heart.
He fought and clawed his way through hardships. Izuku desperately sought for advice from numerous heroes, all of them trying to let him down easy, telling him that being quirkless immediately eliminates any possibility of him being able to sign up to become a hero.
"Honey, it's alright, you can be my own hero. You don't need to go out there and save the world, you can just help those around you." His mother still cheered him on. Inko, the woman who'd nurtured him and brought him up to be this young man that he is today. He held onto her words, trying his best to be a community helper while on his last year of middle school.
"Give it up, stupid fucking Deku. You're never going to be a hero." Cold words that stabbed Izuku on the chest upon a bad fight with Katsuki, the violent teenager grinning from ear to ear as he provoked Izuku, shoving him down and lighting up Izuku's treasured notebooks.
"Give them back…" Izuku growled, powerless and frustrated. Katsuki spat on the burnt notebook before kicking it towards Izuku, boring holes into the eyes of a weakling like him.
Izuku felt the anger boiling inside him as they days grew by. The powerless young man was constantly harassed and taunted, he even thought about ending it one day, but All-Might's words to him kept him going. He kept pushing through the pain and tears, the torment that he endured was all worth it if he could prove them all wrong.
Come graduation day of middle school, Izuku looked on wistfully at the numerous students that would go to U.A. He envied them, a dark flower blooming in his heart as he felt the world was playing a horrible joke on him. Subjected to further pressures and torment, the young man took a stroll by the bridge, sitting comfortably on the soft grass.
"How can I be a hero… When I'm quirkless?" he asked out into the open blue of the waters, he realized he was screaming at the top of his lungs in frustration. All the anger built up over the years, all of them came flooding out as he cried so hard. It was a soul-crushing sight for anyone to see, Inko had come to fetch him at the police station after he was reported by bystanders.
"Izuku… Let's go home." She hugged her son and kissed the top of his head. Maybe it was because of his upbringing that Izuku felt this way. Inko felt guilty that he never acquired any of his parents' quirks. Seeing her son being constantly harassed, and his plea to her that he didn't want to transfer schools all because the school he attended back then was a prep-school for students wanting to be heroes.
"Why is the world so unfair." The young man muttered under his breath, covered by the tear-stained sheets of his bed.
He walked aimlessly down to a dark path. He no longer believed in anything, it was all because he was quirkless. It was hard to accept, but to society… He was but a mere cripple.
"Cripple." Taunted Katsuki as he mocked Izuku when he passed the exams for U.A He dangled his admittance letter in front of the other boy, looking at him like a predator would look on his prey.
"Don't call me that." Izuku growled, balling up his fists on his sides and clenching his teeth. Katsuki didn't stop then, the boy had no sympathy for anyone that wasn't on his 'level' his arrogance and ego further fueled his enjoyment in tormenting Izuku.
"You should just jump off a building. Maybe in the next life you'll have a quirk. Fucking cripple." That was the last straw for Izuku. He didn't care if he would win or lose. All that he wanted to do right then was make Katsuki feel all the pain that he felt from the years of torment.
"Too slow, cripple." Katsuki swung a huge right hook towards Izuku's side, sending the boy staggering. He then ran up to Izuku, grabbing him by the arm before slamming him down hard onto the ground.
No one helped cripples. No one out of the numerous bystanders would dare fight a violent boy like Katsuki. Izuku looked amongst the crowd while he was down on his back, all of them looking at him with pity. Izuku squeezed the dirt in his palm slowly stood up, a menacing air surrounded him while Katsuki turned around with a grin on his face.
"The fuck do you think you can do, cripple? You think you can fight me-" in a blink of an eye, Izuku used the dirt from the ground to blind Katsuki, a dirty tactic that bought him time. Raking in some dirt from the ground, Izuku was still dodging Katsuki's heavy punches.
"YOU THINK I WANTED TO BE BORN WITHOUT A QUIRK!?" Izuku yelled, weaving another punch from Katsuki, the dirt that he gathered up earlier was still clamped on his hand.
"FUCKING DIRTY RAT, YOU WON'T AMOUNT TO ANTHING YOU FUCKING LOSER!" in a last-ditch effort to even the odds, Izuku smeared the most dirt from his hand onto Katsuki's rendering his sweat-glycerin quirk from being unable to ignite. It wasn't a clean job though, Katsuki broke Izuku's hand in the process of their trade for blows.
Izuku was bruised, he bled from a cut under his eye and his right hand was already broken. This was his last move, anything after this would be him trying to defend himself. Katsuki was still unable to use his quirk, the dirt that had been smeared on his hands blocked the sweat glands from his hands. He readied both of his fists, raising them up and looking at Izuku with murderous intent.
"I'll show you your fucking place, cripple." He charged at Izuku and swung a punch, Izuku who predicted it luckily weaved away, using the last of his strength to get a clean uppercut onto Katsuki, knocking the other boy down.
The bystanders that watched were stunned. Izuku was heaving for breath, the cut from earlier had bled more leaving a grisly sight for the on-lookers. There was a man amongst the crowd who broke up the fight. The man was bulky, had a black bandana on his head and wore a trench coat that hid his ripped body. The man eyed at both of the boys, tending to Izuku first.
"Here kid, lemme help you out." He said, leading Izuku to a nearby fountain to wash off. Katsuki was still on his back, looking at the sky with an unreadable expression on his face.
'Knocked down by a cripple, huh.' He thought, looking around at the disappearing crowd to see Izuku with the older man. He got up on his feet and trudged towards the other boy.
"You… You fucking loser… Why would you still fight when you have nothing to gain…?" Katsuki muttered, Izuku looked at him straight on as they both stared down.
"I… Had nothing to lose." That earned him Katsuki's respect. The blonde teen finally understood his ex-childhood friend.
'So this is what it feels like…' he thought through the throbbing spot on his jaw that Izuku had left. One last look towards Izuku before he left, he finally acknowledged his former friend.
"You got guts, Izuku." He said, nodding before silently taking his leave.
The raw emotion from the fight drained Izuku. Takeshi, the older man whom watched over Izuku patted the young boy on the shoulder, helping him apply the gauze for Izuku's cut. They both sat down at some of the tables at the convenience store, drinking soda.
"You're quirkless?" asked Takeshi, Izuku wordlessly nodded and gripped his cold drink harder. Takeshi laughed at the young man, earning him a glare from Izuku who felt offended.
"If you're just going to laugh at me, then I should just leave."
"No wait! I'm also quirkless, I'm laughing because this is the first time in a while that I've seen a quirkless person like me." He admitted, Izuku noticed something on Takeshi's trenchcoat, a shiny piece of metal that glinted from the light that gently grazed upon it.
"You have potential kid!" Takeshi said, seeing Izuku's eyes that scanned through his coat. He took out his badge and showed it off to the young boy.
"JGSDF?" Izuku asked, looking at Takeshi for answers.
"Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. I'm the last of my kind, a dying breed." Takeshi replied sadly.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm a soldier. One of the last remaining operatives that's still deployable and active." Japan Ground Self-Defense Force was part of the Japanese military. Heroes weren't part of the military, but they had the law by their sides.
"Soldiers… That hold guns and killed people…" Izuku muttered in fear, remembering the history lessons that they had back then. Takeshi took no offense to the boy's initial fear, it's true that they held guns and killed people, but it was kill or be killed in those situations.
"I fight, so that everyone I love could live happily while admiring the heroes that don't do the killing. Knowing that they can live a life without worry as the heroes protect them. I fight the battles that heroes won't. That is what it means to be a 'soldier'."
Uncredited, disgusted upon, those are the views towards soldiers in their modern society. Soldiers like Takeshi were viewed as nothing more as relics of the past, a group or warmongers as they were accused.
"I'm quirkless. I'm disposable and can easily be replaced, kid. But I fight and I'll fight the battles that are fought where anyone could get killed. Why? Because someone has to do it heroes can only put villains to jail for petty crimes."
In their history books, it was said that the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force was one of the last remaining branches of their military. The police were bigger than the military in their age because they needed to regulate the heroes more. What happened to old soldiers like Takeshi?
Left in the shadows…
That was the moment Izuku realized that he was like Takeshi, viewed by the world as cripples.
'Then I'll fight too. With or without a quirk.'
This was the beginning of the story, of how a quirkless boy became a soldier. A soldier whom would fight in the front lines, putting themselves in the line of fire from the guns of the enemy.
- Initializing Project Dark Horse -
~ End
A:N/ Takeshi or Knuckleduster is a character I've adopted from the spin off series of Boku No Hero Academia, Vigilante's. He's a character that I grew fond off because there was something about him that gave off the vibes that he was a former soldier. I built upon that idea and here we are now with this story. It would be a long and drawn out one, but I hope this would inspire more readers to write stories based off of Deku still being quirkless.