Inko
"Daisuki got his Quirk today!" Izuku chirped waving his chopsticks wildly and splattering sauce across the table top. "He can pull his eyeballs out of his head. Hana-chan accidently tripped into him and they just popped out and rolled away! Sensei made us all stand on our desks and not move until they could be found."
Inko laughed. "That sounds fun."
"Uh huh." Izuku took a bite of rice, absently scratching at his chest with one hand. "One of them rolled under the cupboard and Sensei couldn't reach it. I hope that my Quirk comes in soon! I wanna breath FIRE!"
"Aaaw," Inko pouted dramatically. "You don't want to summon things like me?"
"Your Quirk is cool too Mama!" Izuku was quick to reassure her, almost knocking over his juice as he waved his arms. "Maybe I'll get both and I'll be able to summon fire, that would be the absolute coolest!"
Inko laughed again, reaching forwards with a napkin to wipe his face clean of rice. "Yes, but big boys with Quirks need to eat all their dinner in order for their Quirks to come in strong."
Izuku's eyes went wide. "Really?"
"Uh huh." Inko nodded, crossing her arms decisively. "It's a well-documented fact."
"Wow." Izuku started shovelling rice into his face even faster, not even complaining about the peas like he normally did. He didn't even complain when Inko told him it was bed time and tucked him in. But he also didn't stop rubbing at his chest either.
"Mama?"
Inko shot bolt right in bed. Izuku's voice was trembling and quiet but it was enough to wake her. Her son was poised in the doorway, the light from the hall falling into the room and allowing Inko to see the tears brimming in his eyes and the way he clutched at the neck of his pyjama shirt with white knuckled fingers.
"Oh sweetheart," She crooned, sliding out from under the sheets. "What's wrong? Are you feeling poorly?"
Izuku nodded once and then burst into shuddering sobs. "My chest hurts Mama!" He wailed.
"Oh, sweetheart, come here." Inko said, scooping him up and carrying him over to the bed where she plonked him down on the mattress. "You're probably coming down with a cold, I'll get the thermometer."
Izuku's tiny hand grabbed at her sleeve before she could leave. "Uh uh." He sniffled. "It's not a cold, Mama, something's really, really wrong."
"Okay." Inko said, kneeling down next to the bed. "Can you show me where it hurts?"
Izuku nodded tearfully and then spread the hand clutching at his collar wide, fingers splayed across the centre of his chest, above his heart.
Inko frowned and reached out with her own hand, "Okay, sweetheart, can you tell me if this hurts?" She pressed her fingers just above Izuku's own and froze. Instead of squidgy skin her fingers had touched something hard.
"What the?" She breathed, scrabbling for the buttons on his top and peeling it off him. Izuku shivered as his thin shoulders hit cold air and Inko absently draped the comforter over him, staring at his chest.
Izuku was right. Something was very wrong.
A rectangle of flesh across Izuku's upper chest had been pushed forwards, the skin over it pulled painfully taught across it. Ridges formed patterns, swirling across the skin in a way that looked, almost like a face. In one corner the skin was cracked and bleeding where something sharp and brown was forcing itself forwards. Inko touched one finger delicately to the corner, careful of hurting Izuku further. It felt…like wood?
Inko frowned further, rubbing a soothing pattern on Izuku's arm as he continued to shake and cry.
"Izuku, sweetheart. I think your Quirk is coming in."
Iida
Iida had not anticipated the Zero Pointer.
The thought gave him a vague pang even as he turned to run. His brother, of course, would be far better equipped. He would have foreseen that the U.A exams would not be so simple as to merely involve such easily defeatable robots. Just another way that he would have to strive to improve if he ever wanted to catch up with his brother.
As he sprinted away, he caught sight of the Green Haired boy again. The boy had so far been treating the entire examination procedure as a joke. Iida had already had to chastise him twice. Once for talking during Present Mic's explanation, once for attempting to sabotage the Brown-Haired girl. Now the boy was once again acting against the norm. He was running towards the Zero-Pointer, not away.
Iida slowed just enough that he could turn and see what the other boy was doing. Charging the Zero Pointer was a futile effort. It would be better to expend your energy on defeating the robots that were worth points. Surely the boy could see that?
Oh! It was that Brown-Haired girl. She was trapped beneath rubble, directly in the Zero-Pointer's path.
As Iida watched the boy stumbled to a stop a short distance away. He fumbled with something out of Iida's vision for a moment. There was a brief tinkle of what Iida would later learn was breaking glass, and then the boy was holding a small black remote.
He pointed the remote at the girl and pressed.
There was a brief pause and then the girl was shooting forwards, out of the rubble. She shot towards the boy and then the two of them where clear. The boy dragged her down a side street, both of them stumbling over each other just as the Zero-Pointer's foot came down on where the girl had been.
Oh, Of course. Iida's eyes widened behind his glasses as he suddenly realised! That must be the true test of the Zero-Pointer.
He narrowed his eyes in the direction that the boy had disappeared. Just proof of how far Iida still had to go.
Uraraka
Sometimes Uraraka still couldn't believe that she had actually made it. That she had actually gotten in to U.A. and gotten so much closer to reaching for her dream. Staring at the door to class 1A it seemed almost impossible that she should be standing here.
Taking a deep breath, she cracked the door open and peered inside.
"Ah! It's you!" She shouted, a burst of relief blooming in her chest. Present Mic had told her not to worry but she hadn't been able to help it. "The Curly Haired boy! I'm so glad you made it in!"
The boy blushed but grinned back. "You too, it looked like you were doing really well in the exam so I'm glad all your hard work paid off!"
Uraraka grinned and bowed. "I am Uraraka Ochako, thank you for saving me!"
"Ah," The boy waved frantically. "Midoriya Izuku and please don't worry about it. My body moved on its own."
"Still," Uraraka chirped, bouncing back upright. "I was wondering, what actually is your Quirk? Because mine is gravity manipulation." She spread her fingers to display the hard pads on each tip. "Any yours is some kind of levitation? It'd be cool if we matched!"
"Ah." Izuku blushed further, glancing awkwardly at the floor. "That's not really my Quirk, My Quirk is sort of hard to explain."
Uraraka tipped her head to the side and then glanced back out the door. It didn't look like their teacher was coming.
"Can I see?" She asked. "It did save my life after all, I'm kind of curious."
Izuku bit his lip, "Okay, but don't freak out." He said.
Someone at one of the desks snorted loudly and made a gagging noise. "Oh, come on Deku," He snapped. "No-one wants to see that."
Izuku frowned, his eyes firming in determination. Then he started unbuttoning his shirt. Instead of skin the buttons fell away to reveal an ornately decorated wooden drawer, somehow jutting out of Izuku's chest. Uraraka stared. She couldn't help it. The edges of the drawer were covered in thick ropes of scar tissue where they cut into the skin and the wood was carved with evilly grinning faces with sharp, sharp teeth.
In the very centre of the drawer there was a smooth, round handle. The front was shaped oddly, with a thumb shaped divot marring its smooth surface.
"Dude, What the fuck is that?"
The boy that had spoken had bright yellow hair and was starring at Izuku was undisguised horror, as was the rest of the class. Uraraka couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. She'd heard of creepy Quirks but this just looked…
"Do you mind?" Izuku held out his hand for hers.
"Oh, no, not at all." Uraraka assured him. After all, she'd been the one who asked to see. She held out her hand and watched with undisguised fascination as Izuku pressed her thumb into the divot. There was a brief sting of pain and when Uraraka pulled her hand away a bead of blood was welling on the skin, like she'd pressed her thumb against a needle.
"Ow." She complained, popping it inside her mouth.
"Sorry." Izuku said. And then he pulled the drawer open and pulled something out of it.
Uraraka stared.
Izuku was holding aloft a small sheet of five stickers, each one a perfect caricature of her face.
"Stickers?" Someone muttered. "Is that it?"
Izuku rolled his eyes, clearly having heard. Then he peeled one of the stickers off and stuck it too a desk. A desk that started to float.
"Wow!" Uraraka said, staring wide eyed as the table, that she had definitely not used her Quirk on, started drifting towards the open window. "You copied my Quirk?"
"My Quirk lets me make objects that replicate someone's Quirk. I need their blood, though." Izuku explained, handing Uraraka the sheet. "I'm not sure how long they'll last. It's different for different things I make. But my Mum's Quirk lets her pull things towards her. I always get a remote that does the same thing when I use her blood."
"Wait a minute, though." A tall, muscular boy with blue hair and glasses said, coming forwards. "You did not have your mother with you in the exam. How could you replicate her Quirk?"
"Oh, yeah." Izuku fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small capsule. It looked exactly the same as an ink cartridge. Except it was a deep red. "We came up with these for when I'm on my own. I think this one is my dad's, watch."
He pressed the cartridge to his handle and then pulled the drawer open again. This time he pulled out what looked like one of those little bottles of bubble mixture Uraraka used to play with as a kid. It even had one of those little round wands that came with it.
Izuku grinned, dipped the wand in the liquid and blew.
"Holy Crap!" Someone yelped. Instead of blowing bubbles a long stream of fire had billowed from the end, scorching the ceiling and almost scorching off Uraraka's eyebrows. She laughed delightedly.
"That is so cool!" Yellow hair exclaimed. "Do me next!"
"Ooooh, and me and me." A very pink girl called. "I wanna see what you get!"
Izuku laughed nervously. Rubbing the back of his head and the tips of his ears glowing pink at the attention.
"Hey." Someone else called. She had long earlobes with plugs on the end and one of them was connecting her to the wall. "Not to break this up but I think someone's coming."
There was a mad rush for seats. Izuku scrambled to do up his shirt and redo his tie at once. By the time Eraser Head made it to the door it was to a room that was missing one desk, a slightly smoking ceiling and a classroom of students sitting perfectly to attention.
All Might
Yagi Toshinori had been prepared for the possibility that one of his students might one day find out about his Weakness.
He had not been prepared for this.
He had not been prepared for one of His students to witness him collapse on the grounds of the USJ centre, having only barely defeated a mutated creation of All for One. He wasn't prepared for his student to find this out shortly after being attacked by a group of villains with his Homeroom teacher a broken heap on the floor nearby.
Yagi did not get a chance to speak to the boy about what had happened. Not straight away. The other heroes had arrived to help and, in the chaos, Yagi had lost sight of him. He had been ushered into the infirmary alongside Aizawa. Despite him insisting that he was fine, and despite him requesting that they instead focus their entire attention on Aizawa, Recovery Girl had insisted on giving him a once over.
It was there in the infirmary that he'd see the boy again. Midoriya had come to find him.
"Um," The boy had said, edging round the curtain that separated Yagi from the rest of the ward and staring up at Yagi with large, fearful eyes.
Yagi had never felt like more of a failure.
"Midoriya, my boy –" He began, reaching out.
"Here!" Midoriya blurted, thrusting a pair of boots and gloves at him like a shield. They were done in his colours. Reds and blues and whites. The stripes on them even mimicked the lines of one of his silver-era costumes. Yagi let them fall onto his lap, staring at them uncomprehendingly.
"Sorry I didn't ask." Midoriya rambled. "It's just you left a lot of blood lying around and you were injured so badly and I just thought…" The boy trailed off.
Yagi frowned. "My boy, aren't you going to ask –"
"No." Midoriya interrupted, speaking so fast the words seemed to be fighting to get out first. "I know what it's like to have a Quirk that makes you…" He trailed off and rubbed at his chest where Yagi knew there was a thick know of scar tissue melded painfully to wood. "I figure it makes sense you wouldn't want people to know your Quirk had a time-limit or whatever, most heroes don't. They won't last forever though, so if you come by whenever you need a new set, I can just make them for you without anyone finding out."
"Midoriya –"
"Thank you for saving me!" Midoriya shouted, bowing deeply and then, bravery clearly exhausted the boy sprinted from the room.
Yagi pulled the gloves on first. They were slightly too big. Designed for his full size not this shell. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and slid his feet into the shoes. For a moment he didn't think anything would work. One For All was, after all, impossible to steal. He wasn't sure if it could be copied.
Then he swelled up to his full size.
His chest didn't hurt. He couldn't even feel the steady drain of his weakened body crumbling under the strain of his Quirk. He felt truly, properly like himself for the first time in years. Like the self that Nana had believed in an entrusted her legacy too.
Alone in the hospital wing Yagi bowed his head over his knees and closed his eyes.
"Thank you, my boy."
Bakugou
Of all the people that Katsuki had to get stuck with during the most important exam of his life so far it had to be this idiot. He couldn't even just rely on the dead weight to go find some corner to hide in and stay out of his way for the fight cause the moron was still running after him, bleating "Kachan, Kachan," Like a particularly annoying parrot.
Like what good was this loser going to be in a fight? He was just going to drag Katsuki down. What could he do in this situation? Make more explosions? Katsuki had that covered. The dickhead couldn't even be trusted to fight properly without his tricks because that stupid drawer thing messed up with his mobility. One quick hit to the scar tissue and the wimp crumbled. Katsuki had figured that out when they were six.
Katsuki's cheek was throbbing painfully where he had taken a hit from All Might already. He'd been forced to hide in one of the fake building's while the guy was slinging around those high powered, shock wave inducing punches.
Katsuki narrowed his eyes, looking for an opening that he could exploit. Was that –?
"Goddamnit!" Katsuki cursed as a hand grabbed his arm before he could lunge out of the window.
"Kaccchan!" The moron whispered.
"What!" Katsuki snarled, spinning round. Something slapped against his head and then Katsuki was airborne.
He froze, glaring furiously as he spun in mid-air, for once shocked out of anger. In front of him Deku was unwrapping a pouch filled with dozens of capsules, each one labelled in his scratchy hiragana.
"What the fuck is going on?" Katsuki snapped. "How the fuck did you copy Round Face's Quirk? She's not even fucking here!"
Deku blinked up at him. His face was all squidgy and stupid-looking in its surprise and then he shook his head. "Wow Kacchan, you really don't pay attention to anyone other than yourself."
"The fuck's that s'posed to mean?" Katsuki growled. He was gradually starting to sink and he couldn't wait until this stupid thing wore off so he could beat the condescension off Deku's face.
Deku rolled his eyes. "I don't need the person there to copy their Quirk. I just need their blood."
"So what? You've been stealing everyone's blood?" Katsuki asked. If he saw his name on one of those things he was going to freak. "That's fucking creepy."
"I didn't steal, I asked." Izuku said. "And it's not creepy, it's useful."
Reluctantly Katsuki could almost see Deku's point. His cheek was still stinging painfully and he could see a vial labelled with Shitty-Hair's name and another one with Half 'n' Half's, it was giving him an idea. He felt an evil grin blooming on his face.
Maybe when he got down he wouldn't have to hurt Deku too badly after all.
Izuku
When Izuku was a child he had wanted to breath fire, sometimes it felt like he got his wish.
The drawer was clunky and awkward.
Sometimes when he lay on his back it felt like he was going to be crushed and when he stretched his arms too wide his scars were tugged and jostled painfully.
The kids at his school had thought it was disgusting. He'd gotten used to keeping it hidden. Changing in the bathroom and never, ever going swimming even in the hottest summers.
Sometimes, when he made too many things in one day he could feel blood and splinters burning in the back of his throat, changing each breath to a razors rasp and each exhale to an asthmatic wheeze.
Still, it helped him become a hero.
It let him save people.
And, after all, that was all he'd ever wanted.