Chapter 3
Disclaimer: My Hero Academia is the property of Kohei Horikoshi and various production companies.
Key:
Normal Speech: "Sup my dude."
Screaming: "WHERE THE HELL DID IT GO!"
All Might: "Midoriya my boy!"
Thoughts: 'This was a horrible decision.'
Guess who? Pfft, as if you came here for someone else. Yes, it is I, your friendly, neighborhood, dumb as rocks writer, Moon Moon (no affiliation to the meme) back with another chapter of your favorite magical cinnamon roll. Enjoy, and thanks to all those review, favs, and follows.
Izuku appraised the band that now fit snugly on his right ring finger. Much like the bracelet that wrapped itself around his left wrist, it was ashen gray, but with a single jade gem fixed within the middle. Izuku found it reminiscent of his own eye, at least in its shade. He titled his hand, and the light that passed through it came out a ghostly green, casting a shade on his bedroom wall.
Despite its unique design and color scheme, the ring itself looked rather unremarkable. From a distance it was practically invisible. The only reason Izuku was so drawn to it, besides its obviously magical origin, was the quiet thrum that had felt coming off of it.
Thump.
Oh, and it had a heartbeat. That was something to note as well. From the moment he'd put it on, the ring had started to pulse with life, slowing and rising with his own heartbeat.
"It lives as you live, and as long as your heart beats, the ring shall pulse," he repeated Zelma's words to himself. While many details to his new accessory escaped him, Zelma had taken a moment to explain to him what it was.
"All magic will have a price." Those were her words. "When you draw from an external source, that price is a little less, but it is there. When you draw from yourself, which most advanced spells do, the price shall be great."
Izuku had almost fainted at hearing that what he experienced was on the lesser spectrum of pain, but Zelma waved him off. "No, what you felt when you crafted the sword wasn't the typical price. That was simply the effect of one's first use of magic. The stone in that ring is the result of your first use of magic. Your first spell was an incantation, as such your gem represents such. Within it is your power, but it can act as a conduit for the greater magics. An admirable quality to be in possession of."
Sitting up, Izuku stared at the large pile of books that lay across his desk. There were dozens of them, and after skim reading the first eight his headache had reached biblical proportions. Each one was filled with minor and basic incantations, though he had yet to try any of them.
"You must wait for your natural energies to restore themselves," she insisted. "You'll have plenty of time to practice, but until we next meet, you should rest and study. I'll be quizzing you after all."
So that had been it. Three straight days of study and rest. Now that summer break had begun, it was all he had to do. Each day he would read as much as he could, and dedicated himself to memorizing at least one spell. It would seem that the vast majority of them were single word summoning, but every now and then he found some with entire paragraphs for single actions.
Now it was midnight of the third day and Izuku hadn't used magic once. Feeling the ring beat once more, he bounced to his feet.
72 hours was plenty rest. Besides, he would be careful, one basic spell would satiate him until he next saw his teacher. Izuku sorted through the mountain of tablets, scrolls, and magical textbooks until he found his mark. A purple and black book, bound in leather, and large lettering on the title.
"This is it, 'Concept and Practice: Spell's Beginning.' Where was the page?" Izuku flipped through the text, looking for the write passage. "Here it is."
Izuku shuffled through another, equally ridiculous, pile of notebooks filled to the brim with his own notes on the various books.
"I might have more notes on magic than I do heroes," Izuku said aloud. Not a small feat to anyone that knew him.
Holding the old texts open with one hand, Izuku flipped through the oldest notebook with the other. He sorted through the paragraphs of notes, dozens of replicated and original diagrams, and a few theories he'd made about certain spells, but eventually he found what he was looking for.
Reading from his own paraphrasing, Izuku repeated, "Magic is the most fundamental science. It is the art of understanding and manipulating the energies of the universe, and universes beyond it." He scribbled a few more notes while he repeated them under his breath, "Matter is just energy condensed, therefore it to is energy to be manipulated. The most basic of spells, spoken incantations, are used to familiarize magic users. It's rare for an advanced mage to continue using such spells."
He turned his head back to the book and smiled. The most basic spell was levitation, and it made sense. It doesn't get any easier than moving something from one space to another. All he head to do was touch it with the palm of his hand, and once he was a little ways away, he would manipulate it to move.
Izuku thought about levitating his backpack or even his bed, but ultimately, the pencil in his hand seemed the least dangerous option. Following the pages instructions, he palmed the pencil before dropping it on his mattress. Backing up till his back hit the wall, Izuku muttered a single word and raised his hand..
"Volante," his stated. Izuku waited, trying to feel if there was any change in himself or the pencil. He felt none, and the pencil hadn't moved.
It was dull and lifeless, not even an inch out of place. Izuku felt the familiar shortfall of disappointment, but not defeat.
He stood taller, raised his hand, and cleared his mind of all thoughts. He stared at the pencil and thought of it cutting in half. He thought of doing it again, repeating the process until he was imagining the atoms that bonded to form the wood, and the quarks that formed the atoms. It was all energy in a different form, and magic was holding that energy and doing something with it.
When he'd summoned the sword, he had taken ambient energy from the universe, forming quarks, fusing them into protons, neutrons, and electrons. He made atoms and molecules into a specific shape and grew it into a powerful blade. This was nothing compared to that.
"Volante," he said again, to the same effect as before. The pencil didn't so much as shake, and Izuku glared at it. "Volante, volante, volante!" Nothing, nothing, and nothing.
He threw his hands in the air and collapsed into his chair. What the (as he'd learned through reading to be a real dimension) cosmic hell! He'd done his reading; complicated incantations like the sword summoning were leagues above simple one word actions. Is he supposed to skip as step, because as several of these books had implied, and sometimes vividly depicted in moving picture, that could end with him blowing up!
He huffed as he slammed his head against the table. What was he missing? What did he do last time that he didn't do this time? As he thought on it, he came to the conclusion that the answer was nothing. All he'd down last time was say the words. The magic had done its well… magic. There was next to nothing that he'd done for that spell.
Then a thought occurred. He really had done nothing for that spell. He said the words, but that wasn't all there was to any magical ability. A connection between the castor and object had to be made. Except he'd never done anything to connect to the sword. So how did he summon it, how was the energy drawn in to him?
"Zelma did it." Izuku knew before he opened his mouth. "Zelma connected me to the energies before I said the incantations. It was how she was talking to me, she opened me up to the magic before I'd even cast the spell."
Izuku practically dove towards the pencil before sitting down with it in his hand. He mentally broke down the pencil until is was a glowing mass of energy again, but then he did the same to himself. Every cell and every microbe, broken down to its most fundamental unit. Under the most intense microscope, him and the pencil didn't look the slightest bit different, and that was his connection.
The ring on Izuku's finger shined. It sped up with his heartbeat as he felt an invigorating wave roll over him. It was like taking a cold shower, but staying warm. His breaths felt cleaner, his smell sharper, and as he opened his eyes he saw the room in brilliant color.
Izuku stuck his hand out, and tentatively let the pencil roll out of his hand.
"Volante," he whispered. Before the piece of wood even touched the carpet, it stopped. Izuku couldn't catch his breath. Perfectly still, and an inch of the ground, the pencil floated as if it was held by an invisible hand.
"Alright," Izuku cheered. He jumped off the floor and danced around the levitating pencil. "I did it, I did magic!"
In the midst of his cheering, Izuku didn't notice the pencil begin to turn. Slowly at first, and then akin to something like a twirling baton. When Izuku looked down to continue admiring his handiwork, the pencil was running at the speed of a helicopter blade.
Not feeling any difference in his body, Izuku wondered if this was still his doing. He gently stuck out his hand and attempted to slow it down. Surprisingly, the pencil respond to his commands, sort of. It began to slow its rapid spin for a more controlled twirl, but Izuku could feel the current under the waves. He wasn't controlling it very well, and it was trying to pick up speed again. All that held it at bay was Izuku.
Without warning, the pencil stopped. It was still floating, but it didn't have the violent undercurrent that Izuku had felt before. Izuku smiled thinking he had gained control over it before a sharp pain stabbed through his palm.
He yelped in surprise, the pain wasn't so bad, but the shock had caught him off guard. Gripping his palm in his other hand, Izuku tried to rub away the stinging pain. It was like an ant bite, supremely annoying, but ultimately harmless. Was it the price for this specific spell? It was certainly less intense than he'd imagined.
He was so caught up in the odd sensation that he didn't a few key things. Firstly, the pencil wasn't spinning, but it was now violently shaking. Second, it was putting off an absurd amount of heat. Third, the door to his room was opening.
Still looking at his stinging palm, Izuku noticed something strange on his peripheral. The room, which had been well and evenly lit before, now seemed to have dancing shadows. Looking back at the pencil, Izuku saw that it was on fire. A golden yellow aura of flames was enveloping the pencil.
"Ahh!" Izuku stumbled back, hitting his head against his bed frame.
Instinctively, Izuku yanked his hand towards the ceiling. The pencil followed his path of movement, taking an abrupt vertical turn and flying through the ceiling. The pencil had pierced through the ceiling of his room and the roof of his house, leaving a neat, a singed, hole straight through.
Izuku stared at it, and felt his heart race. After a moment of trying to calm himself and start breathing regularly, Izuku realized that he was breathing normally. He was hearing someone else catch their breath.
Izuku didn't move a muscle. He knew, he just knew, that it was Zelma. He'd look up and see flaring nostrils and angry eyes. She'd probably have a tirade ready about how he shouldn't have been using magic without her supervision, or how he could have endangered himself with a reckless use of magic. His heart skipped a beat at the thought of her revoking his right to use magic.
Could she do that? Probably. She said something about being a sorceress of the highest caliber, she could have a million and one ways to punish him. No he was starting to break a sweat. Why was she just waiting there? Was she going to make him apologize before she berated him, or did she just want him to stew for a few moments?
"Izuku?"
He shivered. That was not Zelma's voice. That was definitely not Zelma's voice. Like, if there was a spectrum for voices, this would be the opposite end it. "What was that?"
Izuku looked at the pair of shaking knees that stood in his open doorway. He worked himself up from the light grey sweatpants to see a woolly pink sweater that rested on the woman's shoulders. Above that set of shoulders was a full head of silky green hair done in a bow and ponytail. Her features were a lot like Izuku's, if not a bit rounded out and softer.
"Izuku?" she repeated, "What just happened?"
He didn't respond, nor did he break eye contact. His mother had just seen him telekinetically control a flaming pencil to shoot through their roof. How did he explain that? It was a trick? Sure, and so was the hole in their roof and the burning carpet.
Oh crap, the carpet's on fire. Pushing himself off the floor, Izuku begin to furiously stomp out the growing embers that threatened to consume his bedroom, not noticing his mother was now on the verge of tears. While he dug his heel into his burnt carpet, Izuku heard his mother sniff.
Preparing for the flood of tears, that apparently all of the Midoriya were able to produce without limit, Izuku was surprised to see a hopeful glint in his mother's eye.
"Do you have a quirk, Izuku?"
'Lie!' he ordered himself.
"Yes." Izuku stiffly said, "I caught my pencil before it hit the ground with my mind." Izuku gulped, "And then I set it on fire… also with my mind!" he rushed to explain.
There was a long pause in which Izuku deadpanned, and Inko stood silent, equally bald faced. Izuku silently prayed to any and every god he could think of (magic textbooks had informed him of the existence of a few hundred already) that she would take his words at face value.
"This is wonderful!" she cried.
"Yep," Izuku shortly replied, still in disbelief this was going so well. Then again, what else was she to think of what she just saw? As far as anyone knew, magic wasn't real.
"Izuku, aren't you excited, you can be a hero!" Inko Midoriya rushed to hug her son, who was so busy keeping the story straight in his mind that he didn't register what was going on.
"This is awesome," he said dumbly. "I-I can't believe it."
"Oh this is so great," she squeezed her son with uncanny strength, "We can register you in the morning, this is so incredible!"
With a totally flat tone, Izuku drooled, "I've never been so anxious."
"I love you sweety, I'll call the office right now." Rushing out of the room, Inko stopped just long enough to smile at her son one last time.
Once he heard her footsteps reach the ground floor, Izuku crumpled to the floor.
"I can't believe that worked," he sighed.
"Me neither," Izuku snapped to alert, "You are an awful liar, and stiff as a board too."
Izuku knew that voice to be Zelma's. It was surprisingly lacking in anger or malice, but Izuku couldn't help but fear it. He couldn't see her still, but her voice wasn't projecting in his mind like usual. She was here, physically, in his room. He thought so anyway.
"Are you talking down to me because you're about to pass judgement like a vengeful god for using magic without your permission?"
"What?" she exasperatedly sighed. "I'm invisible boy, and right in front of you."
The section of the room before him began to bleed away like fresh paint in the rain. In hardly anytime at all, Zelma started to come into view. She stood in her typical armor and bodysuit, an impish grin on her features.
"Can you teach me a spell to see invisible things?" Izuku pondered aloud.
"Aren't we confident, asking me to teach you after you disobeyed one of my direct orders." Anger still absent from her voice, Zelma loomed over her pupil. That grin looked a little less impish and a little more demonic.
"Are you going to forbid me from using magic now?" Izuku flinched away as she chuckled.
"Dear boy, that isn't what you should be concerned about." Zelma reached to her hip, and Izuku saw his life flash before his eyes.
'She's gonna kill me, I knew it.' Flickering his eyes to anything that could save him, Izuku realized that nothing in this room would save him from a powerful mage like her. 'I have one option.'
For a single moment, Izuku and Zelma locked eyes. Izuku tensed his legs, and Zelma twiddled her fingers.
"Congratulations/ Please have mercy!" Izuku kneeled before his teacher while she held out her palm.
Izuku realizing that he hadn't just heard her incorrectly, looked up to see his master snickering at him. In her hand was a badly burned and splintered number 2 pencil.
"I thought you might want to keep a memento of your first independent use of magic." Izuku could tell from her voice that she was holding herself back from laughing. "I do hope you aren't too put off by it."
"I'm not," he insisted. "I was just expecting something else. And how did you even get this? I just sent it flying."
"Apportion," she plucked a piece of lint off of Izuku's shoulder, and in a puff of smoke it was replaced with a short bit of string. "It's a simple spell that allows one to replace one item with another. The only conditions are that the two things be relative to each other in mass."
"Woah, that sounds awesome!" Izuku was already thinking of all the potential uses for a spell like that. "When am I going to learn that?"
The paused for a moment. She looked at his doorway, where his mother had stood, and then turned back to him.
"I'm afraid you'll have to learn that on your own if you intend to do it anytime soon. From now on, your training will be a bit more focused towards specific magics."
"Why?" Izuku asked, "What happened to building up my base and find my specification later?"
"Your mother happened," she sternly pointed out. "She witnessed your use of mage-craft and now she intends to have you register what you just demonstrated as a quirk. In order to align your growing abilities with your perceived quirk, I'll be teaching you select skills. Now tell me, do you know how this registering process will go? Is there a need to demonstrate your '"quirk" or do they test your DNA?"
Izuku cupped his chin and pondered for a bit. "No, no demonstrations, but you have to provide details about your abilities."
"Well perhaps we should work out those details now," she lowered herself on a leg while she waved her hand. A comfortable looking chair appeared beneath her.
"Is now the best time?" Izuku poked his head out of his doorway, "My mom could be coming back any second."
"Could, but won't." Zelma motioned for Izuku to sit down. "I've slowed her kinetic motion by a factor of several billion. She feels normal right now, but in truth she could spend the next hundred years finishing her next step."
Izuku blinked. He stared in Zelma's eyes before admitting, "I'm not super comfortable with you using magic on my mom."
"It's not harmful and she won't know any different, now sit down. We have a story to get straight if I remember correctly," Zelma conjured another chair across from her and looked at Izuku expectantly.
Deciding not to annoy the person that could potentially leave his mother like that forever, Izuku took his seat. Assuming his thinking position, hunched over with his hand on his chin, Izuku began to speak.
"I told her about the telekinesis part, and about how I set it on fire, so she'll probably think I inherited that part from dad. But I need to word it carefully. Do I say it's two independent actions, I lift it and set it on fire, or is it just one ability, I lift it and as a result it sets on fire."
"I could teach you spells for each action respectively, but it seems rather inconvenient to have them both be a single action." Zelma suggested, "It was the first use of your "quirk," as far as anyone knows, so call it an accident."
"It was an accident," Izuku ashamedly admitted. "I didn't actually mean for it to start burning."
"Oh that," Zelma snorted, "You said the spell wrong, and as you've read, mistakes in magic are typically fatal. Next time, volantes, not volante."
"That's something else," Izuku leaned forward. "It's not unheard of, but it's still strange to yell out your attacks every time you use your quirk on this dimension."
"And you wish to learn some non-verbal magic so as to appear less dubious." Zelma hummed to herself, "That will limit it us, but it is for the best."
"So I can learn to do magic without words?" Izuku hopefully proposed.
"Any spell can be done non-verbally, but it is difficult. One must master a spell before they can manipulate it as such," she jabbed a single finger towards Izuku. "That means slowing down the number of spells you'll be learning even more. Your training will be a matter of quality over quantity."
"Starting when?" Izuku asked.
"Now," she stood up and walked towards Izuku's window. Reaching under her shoulder plate, Zelma pull out a single knife. Small, about the length of one's finger to their wrist, but Izuku could almost feel how sharp it was. With a quick jab, she stabbed into Izuku's wall just left of the window.
"Why?" Izuku cried out, but Zelma ignored him.
She pulled out four more knives and a stabbed each one into Izuku's wall, encircling the window. Once she finished, she took a step back and lowered her head.
Izuku continued to stare at his punctured wall (and roof) until he her a hum come from the woman. He slowly creeped towards her, though she seemed to ignored him. She kept her head lowered, hair shrouding her face. Still the high speed thrum seemed to reverberate off of her very being. Izuku was almost worried, but as he reached out to poke her back to her senses, she snapped her up upwards.
"Alright," she rolled her neck out, releasing a few audible pops. "Izuku, jump out your window."
"Excuse you," Izuku replied.
"Oh no, please. You first, I'll be right behind." Izuku didn't move. It took him seeing the lack of mirth on her face to understand how perfectly serious she was.
"Um, this is the second floor." Izuku gestured.
"I'm aware of our elevation." Zelma stood unmoved.
"So that spell you were humming," Izuku prodded, "Is that to keep my from breaking a leg on the fall?"
"No, not at all," she didn't hesitate.
"Do I have a choice in the matter," Izuku started to undo the latches on his window.
"No." she said. "Not at all."
Izuku lifted up the window and stuck his head out, gauging just how badly this was going to go.
"Could we fix my roof first?"
"When we come back," Zelma insisted. She started to tap her foot, to which Izuku sweated.
"This isn't how I saw today going," he sighed. Gripping the sides of his window sill, Izuku jumped up to catch his foot on the opening.
With one last deep breath, he pull himself up and out. There was a second of free fall, and Izuku yelped. Keeping his eyes closed, he prepared to eat a healthy amount of dirt.
Right as Izuku should have felt the impact of his tiny body on the Earth, he opened his eyes. He'd hit something, but it was not the ground. This was too… bouncy. It was like soft rubber, and it gave like a trampoline.
Izuku lifted himself up and felt the ground wobbled beneath his hands. It was like some putty-jello-rubber fusion. It was kind of comfortable, but Izuku did find himself wondering…
"What the hell just happened?"
"I turned your window into a portal," Zelma descended from above, landing gracefully, but sending waves that pushed Izuku off balance. "This is what we'll call the training space. Normally I wouldn't make one for someone that's still so fresh to the magical arts, but you have demonstrated how uncommonly bad you are at this."
"Thanks," Izuku drooped.
"So I've decided that this is where you should practice your spells when I'm not here to supervise."
Izuku looked around and saw that the room didn't have a discernible end. It was like an infinite universe unto itself, not unlike that found he'd been trapped in so many years ago, but this had light. In fact, it was colorful, like tie dye or the sky of a setting sun. It was almost childish…
"Is this a magical play plan!?" Izuku accusatory pointed at his master.
"Don't think to much on the labels," Zelma grinned at the boys obvious dismay.
"You're a jerk," Izuku huffed.
"Don't be so disturbed Izuku, I've presented you with an infinite training ground." She reasoned, "And I'm even giving you your first spell to master while you're here."
"How do I get in and out if you aren't here?" Izuku asked while Zelma opened up a portal in the air which dropped a massive pile of sticks.
"You get in by jumping out your window," she pointed up into the sky. Following her finger, Izuku saw his window, and through it, his room. "And you get out by calling out 'Home,' but today is a special case. The way home won't open until you can successfully use this spell, 10 times in a row."
On que, a single dry twig floated up from the pile and set itself down in between Izuku and Zelma. She held her palm towards it and whispered, "Ignium."
The stick burst into flames, almost explosively. Izuku stumbled backwards before looking at his teacher, and then to the massive pile of sticks.
"If I only have to do it ten times, then why are there so many sticks?"
Zelma simply laughed, "Oh, you think this will be simple, that's adorable."
Like a ghost, Zelma began to fade away, seemingly bleeding out of existence itself. She disappeared with a grin on her face, leaving Izuku alone with the pile of sticks.
"That was deeply concerning," Izuku said to himself.
Walking over to the pile, Izuku took out a single stick and threw it back a few meters. He widened his footing and put his palm forward the way his teacher had.
"Ignium," he said. Instead of the stick catching fire, an explosion went off in the palm of Izuku's hand. Rather than the stick catching fire, Izuku was launched into the large pile.
Getting out of it, Izuku stared at the stick he had intended to burn, completely untouched. Looking down at his arm, the lower half of his sweater's sleeve had been blown off, and the parts that remained were burning tatters.
"I hope she unfroze mom," the boy sighed.
In a puff of smoke, an old yellow parchment appeared in front of Izuku. In bold lettering at the very top were the words, 'She's back to normal speed, but here's a few other things I forgot to tell you."
'I already don't like what she's going to say,' Izuku thought.
'The first is that time doesn't pass faster in the playhouse, I mean training dimension, than it does in yours. One minute out there is one minute in here, so time is still of the essence. Next, the training dimension has several innate healing abilities, so you don't have to worry about hurting yourself... unless you cut your head off. There's very little I can do for that.'
Affirming that for himself, Izuku looked down to his palm. While the clothing was still in tatters, his actual hand was just fine.
"Huh," Izuku smiled, "This is good news actually."
'Finally, the cost of the particular spell I taught you is something of a delayed effect, so pace yourself and emphasize control.'
Izuku reread that line, "Delay? By how- AHH!" Izuku couldn't finish that sentence as an intense, and ironic, burning sensation seemed to eat away at his stomach.
Now curled over and dry heaving what felt like char out of his lungs, Izuku noticed that the room apparently wasn't going to heal him from these sorts of pains. But, much like his failed attempt to levitate the pencil, the pain was brief, and it was more the shock than anything that had taken him.
"If your- hack-," Izuku spit out a small piece of coal (no really, charcoal) and continued, "Just sending out helpful advice, is there anyway I could maybe lessen the pain. I feel like if I'm already dying mid-battle I'm all the way useless."
Seemingly in response, another puff of smoke appeared before him. Hidden within in was another letter.
'Mages use their bodies as conduits for all sorts of cosmic and ethereal energies. In the same way that a larger piece of wire can conduct a larger charge of electricity, I stronger body can better handle the strain of magic. In simpler terms, exercise. A lot.'
As soon as Izuku had finished reading, both papers curled up and into themselves, becoming tighter and smaller until they seemingly popped out of existence.
Alone in the endless, vibrantly colorful, expanse of his new training place, Izuku pushed himself off of the ground. Sitting up, he stared at the pile of sticks, and grinned.
"I could complain, but honestly, magic is fun."
Chapter 2 is done, and I hope you enjoyed. Just a few side notes, I'm okay with OP character stories, but I just suck at writing them, so this isn't going to be that. Izuku's training and progress is going to be a slow crawl because he isn't a natural prodigy like every other anime protag, and he is severely limited in what he can practice now that Inko has seen his "quirk."
Also, aren't you happy for Momma Midoriya, now she thinks her baby boy has inherited both his parent's quirks. This is everything she wished for.
Super thanks to everyone that followed and favorites, mega thanks if you left a review, and LET's Go Plus Ultra.
P.S. The sludge villain incident never happened in this AU, but we will see some interactions between Izuku, Bakugou, and All Might before he gets to U.A.
