"If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
We've all heard the saying. In fact, we've probably heard it so often that by this point the line has become oversaturated. I always say, though, that unless life is also going to give you water and sugar, you're not going to get very far with that. And while I get that I'm completely missing the point of the saying, the point I'm trying to make is that you don't exactly get to choose what life gives you to work with.
In a world where eighty percent of the population is born with a quirk, of course, I managed to draw the short end of the stick, just like my mom. My brother got a quirk though, too bad it takes the form of a terminal illness without a cure that slowly kills its own user. All the money my mom puts in to keeping him alive and trying to find a cure, and yet the only thing doctors have been able to tell us is that the illness is quirk related.
Did I mention that my father ran out on us when I was five? That left my mom to earn enough money to support our family and pay for my brother's exorbitant medical bills. And in a society that's become almost completely dependent on quirks, a good percentage of high paying jobs go to the person who has a quirk best suited to the task. Which means that my mother is usually not in the highest paying positions. Despite that, we do our best to get by.
Close to a year ago, I had my entire life turned on its head. If I were to relate it back to my lemons metaphor, I'd say that I got some especially sour lemons and I was fresh out of sugar. I was walking home past an abandoned building when I heard some loud noises coming from inside. Of course, I didn't just walk past like any sensible person when they hear strange noises coming from a nearly collapsed building. I had to go check it out.
I didn't find exactly what I expected there. It was two people with very extensive power sets fighting each other. One of them was demolishing the place with what has to be one of the most ridiculous strengthening quirks I've ever seen. Their lighter punches shattered steel beams. The other was fighting was using a bizarre combination of quirks, ranging from lesser strengthening quirks to ones that slowed down his enemy. He was using so many seemingly different quirks that you got the impression he collected them like friggin Pokemon cards. But despite the massive number of abilities at his disposal and the fact that he seemed to be more resourceful, he was clearly outmatched.
Before long one of the other fighter's ridiculous punches connected and he was thrown to the ground hard. He didn't move a muscle after that.
The figure that was still standing smiled down at their defeated enemy, "Don't suppose you'll be able to get in my way again."
The figure then leaped away sending a gust of air in every direction. The force nearly knocked me over and by the time I regained my balance, they were already gone. I was unable to notice anything that would help me identify the person but I was fairly sure their voice sounded feminine.
Throwing caution to the wind I ran toward the figure on the ground. There was a large depression in the concrete where they had been slammed into the floor. From what I could tell the person was a young man, but his face was so twisted from the impact I couldn't tell anything beyond that. What surprised me most was that he started speaking.
"Didn't expect anyone to be around."
"Yeah, I didn't expect to be here, but you two weren't exactly being subtle."
He starts coughing up blood and groaning for a bit before speaking again.
"Well, It's not ideal but I guess you'll have to do."
"What are you talking about? Look I'll call an ambulance, just try to move."
Out of nowhere, his hand shot forward and he pressed his fingers onto my forehead. All of sudden I feel...something, rush into me. The next few minutes were a blur. My head became so disoriented. I do remember barely being able to hold a conversation with the emergency line respondent and the dying man saying three things to me.
"I just gave you something called All for One. I don't have the strength to explain, but it will become obvious what it does very quickly. I hope that you're the kind of person that will use it well. That girl I was fighting earlier, must be stopped. Remember my name, it may open some doors later. It's-"
To be honest I don't exactly remember his name. My memories of what he told me are very twisted, especially the most important parts. The next thing I clearly remember is waking up in a hospital bed.
Whoever gave me All for One was right on several counts though. It didn't take me long to figure out. It's a quirk that allows the wielder to steal and distribute other's quirks. I just accidentally brushed against someone while I was walking and felt their quirk flow into my body. Since then I've accidentally stolen five quirks, none of them too powerful, but nonetheless, I, a person who had very little, to begin with, has begun to take from others.
When I think about it, with a name like All for One, it was pretty obvious this power wasn't going exactly going to be the picture of justice. I mean, the name itself practically radiates evil. To be honest, I would prefer being quirkless to having power like this. The responsibility of using such a powerful and frightening ability is a heavy weight to carry. It's not like I can just give up the quirk either. To begin, I have almost no control of All for One. I assume that such a powerful quirk takes time to master, but I'm getting really tired of avoiding all human contact just to stop myself from accidentally using the power. From what I can tell, physical contact is a catalyst for the quirk, and while it doesn't always activate when I touch someone, I still have had to be very careful.
The second reason I can't just pass it on is that I have to be sure that the person I pass the quirk on to won't use the quirk for their personal gain. It's easy to give into greed when you have the power to take whatever you want. Which is why I decided to shoulder the burden of the quirk myself and refuse to let myself give into greed. I may not have much, but that doesn't give the right to take from others.
"If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
We've all heard the saying. Personally, it has been drilled into my skull so many times that I feel physically ill whenever I hear it. To me, the idea that you can turn around any situation with a positive outlook makes me sick. When life gives me lemons, I squirt them right back into life's eyes. That or I freeze them and use them as high-speed projectiles. Both are fun. I'm the star student of UA High's Class 1A, and I certainly didn't get there by waiting for life to give me anything, even lemons.
Normally the environment of Class 1A is generally one of comradery and healthy competition… fuck that. Nevertheless, I intentionally stand out in class and act friendly and kind towards everyone. Why do I go through something as insufferable as trying to be popular? Mostly because I have to make sure that no one sees me for who I truly am. It's hard to convince people of your enthusiasm for hero society when you secretly despise it several magnitudes more.
Keeping my grades up has never really been a problem, except for English. The class I am suffering through right now.
"Now class, can anyone identify the dependent clause in this sentence!"
The teacher only makes it worse. President Mic is insufferable and obnoxious. At least the rest of the class seems to feel uncomfortable, which brings me a sense of satisfaction, albeit small. After another 15 minutes of pure torture, we have lunch. Of all its annoyances I will admit that UA has top-notch food; they do bring in a gourmet chef after all. A few of my "friends" come up to me.
"Okudaira, are you heading to the cafeteria?"
Uh, yeah. Did it look like I was heading for the theater? I go to the cafeteria every day and by now they should probably know this. I guess they're just exchanging pleasantries. I hate pleasantries.
"Yeah", I replying in a bubbly voice, "you all can go ahead though. I'll be there in a minute."
The morons-I mean my friends wave to me and take off. Ugh, the taste in my mouth after talking like this something akin to dog turds dipped in cool ranch, or at least how I'd imagine that tasting.
I've managed to keep up this petty facade for a whole semester, which is nothing short of a statistical impossibility. My classmates may view me as nice and caring, but cunning and heartless are far better words to describe me. Despite the bottomless idiocy of people around me, infiltrating hero society has been easy. I have the looks, the intelligence and a flashy quirk to boot. I check all the boxes on the popular hero checklist.
This morning I heard something on television, "It's a mistake to think everyone is created equal."
It was said by some up and coming hero whose name is too unimportant to remember. I'm not sure if he was aware of exactly how true his words were. I was born with a skill set to take what I want in life. All I needed was the power to crystalize my dreams into reality. Then, I received a quirk called One for All. A crystallization of power passed down generation by generation. Its last wielder was a shining image of justice. It's hilariously ironic that I would be the next person to wield it.
Deciding I shouldn't keep my "friends" waiting too long I head to the cafeteria. After getting my meal, I still down next to them.
"Did you hear Inoue asked Nakajima out?", one of the girls asks me.
"Doihara, you shouldn't gossip about other people", I reply in my fake, awful voice.
"Aww come on, live a little, girl. It's what our high school life is like."
"I highly doubt UA is classified as typical high school life", another girl says, somewhat playfully. "Most of us have goals we're here to achieve."
Diohara scowls a little bit as the group has a bit of chuckle, and then vigorously returns to her food. Surprisingly the other girl has just enough intelligence to call Diohara out on who she really is: a catty bitch. The sooner I get rid of her, the better.
So, I continue maintaining my image as the school's perfect student. All in a day's work.
"If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Although I love myself a nice cold glass of lemonade, life often refuses to give me lemons in the first place. Instead, I get a half-eaten fossilized banana that's been sitting under my bed. At least with lemons, you can repurpose them into something decent, but rotten bananas you kinda have to just throw away. The way I look at it though, even if you can't do anything with the banana it's a pretty good reminder to clean your apartment for the first time since you moved in two months ago. Let me just tell you, the number of empty cups of ramen scattered around my room was astounding.
Hero work isn't really what I expected. I quickly came to realize that making your way up the ranks of herodom is actually pretty difficult, and until you do, you really don't make a ton of money. Especially a hero like me. The thing is, I'm lacking in one of the basic elements of modern heroism: a quirk. I'm the first hero that falls into that category since the dawn of hero society. Turns out that breaking through a decade old stigma is actually pretty difficult. Even though I'm compensated by the government, most of the time my role is downplayed and I get paid less.
At this point though, I'm pretty much used to it. I made a resolution a long time ago that I wouldn't let others discourage me though. I worked hard to get to where I am. Even so, I either have to team up with other heroes to work on larger cases or just deal with the smaller local disturbances. Don't get me wrong, having the ability to quickly hyper-analyze and react to a situation using a variety of martial arts, is pretty useful. But as a normal human, defeating villains with powerful quirks is infinitely more difficult. I still try to keep my hopes up though. Just the other day I was interviewed live on a segment on up and coming heroes.
It really has been a journey. As a kid, I had always been the obnoxious superhero fanboy type. I have a collection of notebooks where I used to take notes about heroes. I watched disaster footage and scrutinized everything about them, which surprisingly has turned into a useful skill in and of itself. My dreams of being a hero were crushed pretty quickly though. I found out I was quirkless at four. For a while, my dream was crushed.
I wasn't one to be discouraged too easily though. I decided that there had to be a way to be a hero without a quirk. So, I started training myself. I spent most of my free time in a gym or some sort of dojo. I think the culmination of my dream came in my final year of junior high when I met my idol, All Might, the very person who had inspired me to be a hero. In short, he saved me from a villain, I passed out like the wimp that I was and when I finally woke up, he went to jump off. So, like any rational fourteen-year-old fanboy I grabbed onto his leg and as we were pseudo-flying, the force of his jump made me almost lost consciousness a second time. From there he scolded me for being too enthusiastic and went to leave again. Before he left though, I asked him a question. The question I had been asking myself for years.
"Even without a quirk...can I still be a hero? Can someone without a quirk become a hero like you?"
Those words would determine my destiny. Partially because they represented me making my dream heard loud and clear. And mostly because they took up just enough time for All Might's time limit to run out. Right in front of me, All Might shriveled up into a husk of his former self. He explained to me that he was severely injured in a villain attack five years before that wasn't made public. After making me promise not to mention it online he answered my question.
"A pro should always be ready to risk his life. Without power, can one become a hero? No, I should think not."
I couldn't believe it. My idol was telling me I couldn't become a hero. After ignoring all the people who had to told me to give up on being a hero, All Might's words truly permeated through my thick naive skull. For a few moments, I wallowed in a feeling of hopelessness. Then I felt a fire ignite deeper inside of me. The feeling of wanting to prove the world wrong burned deeper inside me than ever. Then I said something that fixed my trajectory into the future.
"With all due respect sir… just watch me. I'm willing to put my life on the line to save people and I'm willing to work as hard as I have to get the power I need to do that."
All Might looked directly into my eyes for a moment before he smiled and laughed.
"How can I say no to those eyes", he asked, rhetorically. "Kid, I don't think I've seen anyone with as much raw determination to be a hero as you. I feel foolish now for trying to make you give up. If that's how you feel...then prove me wrong!"
It was almost as if All Might's declaration was underscored by an explosion, probably because it was. Behind him, a loud boom resounded and a cloud of smoke curled into the air.
"Oh no", I whispered. "You could be over there saving them, but... I used up your time limit."
"You underestimate me", All Might said, a small smirk on his face.
Then his muscles blossomed and he was once again the symbol of peace. He leapt off the roof to continue saving people with a smile.
Later that day I was walking home, checking out the news stories. From what I could tell the incident involved the same villain who had attacked me. The villain was made completely of a liquid and he attacked my childhood friend Bakugou. I remember him choking me in order to take over my corpse before All Might had come to save me. I remembered All Might had imprisoned him in a soda bottle. I remember that once we jumped to the roof the bottle was gone. In short, it was my fault. My actions had caused people to get hurt and I couldn't forgive myself for that. Even after my declaration to All Might I was once again filled with self-doubt, but then out of the blue. All Might appeared in front of me once again.
"There you are young Midoriya."
And for the third time that day I nearly fainted. Both because of him suddenly appearing in front of me and also because a moment later he deflated once again.
"That's going to take some getting used to", I whispered weakly.
"Look, kid, I came back to thank you and offer my support."
"W-what? But it's my fault the sludge monster escaped."
"If we only judge a person based on their mistakes, we wouldn't be able to see anyone in a positive light. Look, kid, your declaration as quirkless nobody who still wanted to save people spurred me back into action. Without the fire and hope that you put into me, I wouldn't have been able to transform and save that kid. If I had met you a few months ago I would've given the power to achieve your dream, but unfortunately, that ship has sailed by this point."
"What do you mean by that?", I asked confused.
"Maybe I'll tell you one day, but for now, would you like my help becoming a hero? I may not be able to do much, but I'll help cultivate your dream."
"You would do that for me?"
"Yes. As much as it's my responsibility to save people from danger, it's also my responsibility to inspire the next generation to become heroes. And besides, didn't you tell me to watch you?"
Ever since then I've worked as hard as I could to become a hero. All Might supported me all the way. Even if I wasn't able to go to the high school I wanted to, he still made sure I had the tools to become the hero I had always wanted to be. More than that, he was always there for me, much like the father I had always wished I had. Which is why I feel so sad whenever I look at the headlines. On my TV, a news bulletin reads: Retired Pro Hero All Might Passes Away at 59.