Sunday, May 2nd 2128 (281 Days until U.A. Entrance Exam)
Izuku groaned as he rubbed the palms of his hands over his eyes and then gazed into the bathroom mirror. It was the morning of the day before he went back to school, having taken around two and a half weeks off due to being kidnapped and then attacked by a feral animal with a Quirk the same day he was rescued. That was the official story anyway.
His Mother wanted to extend his time off after he came home three days ago looking like he had been beaten nearly to death and secretly joined a criminal group dedicated to fighting monsters, aliens, and other insanity, but he had talked her out of it. He needed to get back into a normal routine and back into studying if he ever wanted to hope of passing U.A.'s written exam. And if he was going to be getting called in to fight monsters and such then he needed a stable day life.
"Okay, you can do this." Izuku whispered to his reflection in the mirror. "She'll be so happy that she won't see any holes in the story. Or she won't want to see them." He reasoned as he left the bathroom and made his way down the stairs to where his Mother was watching TV in the living room.
"H-hey, Mom?" He stuttered to get his Mother's attention. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
"Of course sweetie!" His Mother answered with a smile as she turned the volume down with the remote and patted the spot on the couch next to her. "What do you want to talk about?" She asked as he sat down next to her, sweat beading on the back on his neck and forehead.
"I, I just wanted to tell you about something. Before I go back to school tomorrow." Izuku started, not looking at his Mother and keeping his hands placed firmly on his knees.
"What is it honey?" His Mother asked, concerned at her son's behavior. "If you need more time before going back to school I can easi-"
"No." He interrupted her before she returned to trying to keep him at home until she was sure that he was fully recovered from his ordeals. "I think… I think it's better if I just show you."
With a deep breath Izuku leaned forward and brought his hands off his knees so that they could cover his mouth. 'Here we go.' Izuku thought as he closed his eyes. "kewkak xexxex hujgt." He whispered behind his hands so that his Mother had no chance of hearing the magic words as he vanished from her sight.
He opened his eyes and looked at his Mother in the now slightly brighter living room. Her mouth was agape and her eyes were nearly bugging out of her head as the remote for the TV slipped from her hand. She tried to speak but instead she could only manage to move her mouth up and down a few times making some indiscriminate noises.
"yewfg qasw lofgh." Izuku said and the room dimmed slightly for him as he returned to the real world, reappearing as suddenly as he disappeared for his Mother. "Mom …I think I have a Quirk."
"H- How?!" She cried as she cautiously grabbed his shoulders to make sure that he was real. "You've, you've never shown any signs of having a Quirk! The doctor even said that it was impossible!"
This was it. Time to see if his lie was good enough.
"When I was… kidnapped." Izuku started. "I panicked and tried my best to escape. And after I tried everything I could think of I got desperate. I… don't know what I did but when the guy who kidnapped me came down he couldn't see me." He lied through his teeth. "He was so confused that the Hero who saved me caught him and his… accomplice by surprise while they fought." He was pretty sure that was what The Hunter had been charged as. That was before the Government Agents had come to take care of him, whatever that entailed. "Somehow I must have… turned it off because the Hero was surprised to find me in the room all of a sudden."
"But… where did this Quirk come from?!" His Mother asked confused, her grip on him loosening. "You should have gotten in back when you were six or seven at most!"
"I… I think I did." Izuku said quietly, looking away from his Mother.
"…What?" She asked equally quiet.
"…It was a few months after we went to the doctor's." He began the part of his lie that was complete fabrication and not based on actual, but much weirder, events. "I remember times when I'd be looking in the mirror and not see anything. Sometimes my clothes wouldn't… become invisible with me and they'd be just floating there."
"What?" His Mother asked and he gently took her hands off of him, not wanting to test the Quirk nullification of magic just yet. He sighed once again and made a show of breathing deep with his hands over his mouth to cover the magic words again. This time he made sure to focus on not bringing some of his clothes with him.
When his Mother's eyes widened and she looked down at his feet he knew that he had managed to leave his socks behind. He did a little kick for dramatics and she gasped in shock which brought a smile to his face.
"I think that I… suppressed my Quirk." Izuku reasoned when he came back to the real world. "Since the doctor said that it was impossible for me to develop one I figured that what I was doing was impossible and just…" He stopped talking as his Mother's eyes teared up and she tried to cover up a sob with a gasp. "Mom? What's wrong?!"
"I'm, I'm so sorry Izuku!" His Mother cried. "I… I shouldn't have taken you to that doctor! If I had just given you more time than you would have…"
"No!" Izuku quickly shouted to try and save his Mother's feelings from his lie. "There's no way you could have known! I hadn't shown any sign of getting my Quirk so you were right to be worried!"
"But then you ended up thinking it was impossible for you to have a Quirk and you had to be nearly killed to remember it!" She argued with tears beginning to stream down her face. "I… I told you that it was impossible for you to be a Hero!"
Izuku twitched at the memory of the event she was referring to. When after they had been told that it was next to impossible for him to develop a Quirk he had asked his Mother if she thought he could still be a Hero.
Her answer hadn't been what he was hoping to hear.
"Mom that doesn't matter now!" He said as he now put his hands on her shoulders. "What matters is that I can use my… Quirk to help people! I can be a Hero now!" He had to remind himself to say Quirk instead of spell or incantation.
"Izuku…" She said as she threw her arms around her son and hugged him with all her might. "I'm so happy for you!" Izuku circled his arms around her and returned the hug with a smile. "You can be a Hero!"
"Thank you Mom." He whispered as he sniffed to hold back his own tears. "I'll use my invisibility and intangibility to save as many people as possible! From Villains and… worse if need be!" He declared, getting close to revealing more than he should.
"…You're invisibility and you're what?" His Mother asked, pulling back to look at him confused.
"Oh! Uh, yeah." Izuku started to get flustered. "Um, my Quirk kinda has a… secondary effect." He smiled as his Mother's face just got more confused. "Remember when I left the house and got attacked by that iguana with a Quirk?" He asked and she nodded her head. "Well… the reason you didn't hear me leave was because I didn't need to open the door to get outside…"
This was going to take a longer to explain than he thought.
Monday, May 3rd 2128 (280 Days until U.A. Entrance Exam)
Bakugou leaned back in his seat with his feet propped up on his desk, as he waited for class to start, doing his best to ignore the idle chatter of the idiots around him.
He couldn't wait to get out of this shitty school and onto his path to becoming a Hero. It was getting harder and harder the closer the entrance exams for High School got. He prayed that U.A. lived up to its reputation and provided at least a modicum of challenge to him to liven things up.
He doubted it though. He hadn't met anything or anyone that had provided a challenge before so there was little chance of it happening in the future.
"Alright, settle down everyone!" Their teacher said as he walked into the classroom followed by…
Deku.
Bakugou stared as fucking Deku followed behind their teacher and stood next to him in front of the class, nervous as ever but with a new backpack. Guess he lost his old one when he got fucking kidnapped.
"Alright, as you may have noticed," their teacher said after they had done the proper greetings and were all seated, "Midoriya is returning to us today after his harrowing ordeal."
'That's one way to say picked up off the damn street by a psycho like it was nothing.' Bakugou thought as he looked at Deku who somehow looked no worse due to his troubles. Still there was something bothering him about that whole business…
Why the fuck had it not been a bigger deal?
When a crime was committed in an otherwise peaceful neighborhood there was usually a huge outcry about the absence of police or Heroes that could have stopped it. Then there'd be a number of Heroes that normally patrolled more high profile areas making a show of being in the suburbs or even daring the more dangerous neighborhoods.
But after Deku was found by some D-Lister there was… nothing.
No news about Heroes or the police making an effort to stop such a near tragedy from happening in the future.
No follow-ups about what the kidnapper had even wanted Deku for. No one knew if he wanted to ransom Deku, kill him, or fuck him and then kill him.
It was as if what happened to Deku was just something to be forgotten as quickly as possible.
The same for the news of him getting attacked by some kind of wild animal after being rescued. Bakugou had only heard about that from his Mom who heard about it from a mutual friend of Deku's Mom. However, he was willing to write off the animal attack as Deku just being a fuck up as usual.
"Now before we get to welcoming Midoriya back proper and helping him catch up for all the time he's missed," the teacher said with a smirk gesturing to Deku, "Midoriya has a special announcement to make."
"My, uh, fellow classmates!" Deku announced nervously, fidgeting in place and making Bakugou snarl in annoyance. "I'm, um, back!"
There was a few moments of silence.
'Fucking wow.' Bakugou thought as Deku realized that he had more to say and continued.
"And, um, uh, during my troubles I was able to… learn something about myself!" Deku then took a deep breath and nervously rubbed his hands over his face before having them stop over his mouth.
And then he fucking vanished into thin air.
The class went dead silent as they all stared mouth agape at where Deku had been standing with the exception of their teacher who stood smirking at their reaction. It seemed that he had either already seen this or been briefed on it.
And a moment later Deku was back, reappearing as suddenly as he disappeared.
'…Fucking what?' Bakugou thought stunned, his eyes narrowing as his gaze turned into a glare. 'Fucking what?! How?! How in the hell was this possible?!' He thought as his emotions returned and he felt familiar rage soaring up. Through his rage he listened very carefully to the bullshit that Deku spewed.
How he had suppressed his Quirk after being told that it was next to impossible that he'd develop one by a doctor.
How he had rediscovered it when he had been kidnapped.
How he been trying to figure out what it was on his own and that he had invisibility and fucking intangibility!
Bakugou sat in his seat and listened carefully to everything that Deku said and the questions he answered before their teacher had him take his old seat and start class.
He listened and heard bullshit.
Bakugou waited until school was over to confront Deku.
He waited through their morning classes, never turning around to look at Deku when other classmates went up to talk to him in between class periods.
He avoided him at lunch, not wanting his… questioning to get interrupted by a teacher or the crowd of students who were eager to see if the rumor of Deku having a Quirk were true.
He left early when the last class ended, not even waiting for his friends to try and figure out how to spend the afternoon.
He didn't go home though, he waited for Deku to leave and followed after him.
Deku didn't take the path home that he normally did, probably because last time he got kidnapped, so Bakugou had to wait until he was in a suitably isolated. When Deku turned down an empty suburban street that led towards his house Bakugou saw his chance.
"Deku." He hissed as he came up behind the green haired nerd who froze in place and slowly turned around to face.
"K-Kacchan." Deku stuttered as Bakugou calmly grabbed his shirt by the shoulder and lifted him up slightly to glare down at him.
"Do you think that I'm an idiot?" Bakugou asked quietly.
"Wh-What?" Deku stuttered again and Bakugou snarled as he shoved him against a nearby wall.
"Do you think that I'm so stupid that I'll buy your little story?!" Bakugou shouted as Deku shook with fear. "You expect me to believe that you had a Quirk all along and just forgot about it?!"
"The doctor said it wasn't likely so when I-" Deku started to explain before Bakugou growled.
"Who the fuck hears that something is impossible and then when it happens assumes that they are wrong and not the person who said it was impossible?!" He argued. "Are you such a pansy that you trust some random doctor over your own senses and experience when they say he is wrong?!"
"I was like 5 or 6 years old Kacchan!" Deku argued right back. "I only activated it a couple times by accident before I suppressed it!"
"That's another thing!" Bakugou shouted. "How did you get so much control over your Quirk that you could stop it after only a few times?!" He heated up his palm holding Deku's shoulder to get a little smoke going. "Do you know how long it takes to be able to do that? No you wouldn't, you got extra play time while the rest of us were sent to Quirk control classes!"
"I… I don't know Kacchan! It just came naturally!" Deku said, averting his gaze from Bakugou.
"Naturally my ass!" Bakugou growled. "Do you have any idea how many clothes and toys I accidentally blew up as a kid?! There's no way that a sniveling little shit like you had no problems at all!"
"Well, well using the invisibility is kind of easy but I'm still having trouble with the intangibility!" Deku revealed. "Moving through things is still really hard and slow!"
"And another thing!" Bakugou practically screamed. "How the fuck do you have invisibility and fucking intangibility?!" He growled and Deku shrunk in on himself. "There's no way that a little shit like you would have two Quirks!"
"Kacchan I don't know what to tell you!" Deku cried out as he finally turned to look at him again. "I just got lucky that's all! Just like everybody else!"
"Lucky?!" Bakugou shouted. "My Mom can secrete sweat at will and my Dad's palm sweat can fucking explode. You really think it was luck that I got the Quirk I did?!" Granted as far as Bakugou knew they didn't hook up based on the possibility of creating a kid with the best combination of their Quirks. "Which is why I want to know, how the hell does your Mom's pulling small objects and Dad's fire breathing create what you have?! How does it even come close?!"
"Your parent's Quirks are no guarantee of what Quirk you're going to inherit!" Deku responded with his own Quirk knowledge. "They are just a good indicator! Sometimes children get completely random Quirks!" Bakugou just snarled in response. "Kacchan… what do you want me to say? What do you want to hear?" Deku asked, hopeful to appease him and be on his way.
"…Do you think I'm an idiot?" Bakugou asked again and Deku blinked in surprise.
"What?! No!" He answered quickly while shaking his head back and forth. "You're one of the smartest kids in class and aced the moc-"
Bakugou pulled him back and slammed him into the wall, shutting him up mid-sentence.
"Then why did you lie for years about not having a Quirk?!" Bakugou snapped. "You've made a fool of me and everyone else by making us think that you were Quirkless!"
"Kacchan I honestly didn't know!" Deku breathed out desperately. "I just reactivated it!"
"BULLSHIT!" Bakugou screamed and his palms began to pop and explode lightly. "You're going to tell me why you kept this secret for so long! Was it to see the looks on our faces when you finally showed it off and laughed at us?! Was it to use it as an advantage in the U.A. Exam to show off?! Was it t-"
A sharp ringing sound cut off Bakugou's rant.
They both blinked at the interruption and looked down at Deku's pocket where his cellphone was. Deku waited a moment before he tried to move his hand to pull it out and see who was calling him.
"Leave it!" Bakugou ordered and Deku stopped before pulling it out anyway.
"I'm… expecting a really important call Kacchan." Deku explained as he looked at the number on the screen. He gave a loud cry as Bakugou snatched the phone out his hand and turned away so Deku couldn't desperately take it back. After making sure that the caller id didn't say "MOM" or "DAD" Bakugou answered the call.
"Whatever business you have with Deku it can fucking wait." Bakugou greeted as Deku's eyes went white with fear.
"Kacchan no don't!" Deku cried out in fear. "Stop!"
"Who the hell is Deku?" An older woman's voice answered back tiredly and Bakugou raised an eyebrow.
Why the hell was an older woman calling Deku of all people? He doubted that the little dweeb had the stones to even look at girls online with their clothes on.
"Izuku Midoriya." Bakugou clarified, unhappy at having to call Deku by his actual name.
"Kacchan please!" Deku begged and Bakugou sneered at the pathetic display.
"Oh, well this is the right number then." The woman didn't seem to be happy with that news, she sounded as tired as ever. "Put your friend on the phone kid, I got important things to talk about with him."
"No." Bakugou answered and hung up, turning back to a horrified Deku. "Now, you're gonna tell me wh-" The phone rang again and Bakugou saw that it was the same number as before. Growling he answered the call again as Deku redoubled his efforts to get his phone back. "I said-"
"Listen here you little shit." The older woman calmly cut him off. "I don't care if you're his best friend, his worst bully, his brother, or his boyfriend currently engaged in your favorite activity of gobbling his cock." She explained and Bakugou was stunned for a moment before an unbelievable rage began to boil up.
"The fuck did you just say to me?!" He growled and Deku began to actively claw at Bakugou's arms to try and pry himself loose. "I'm gonna kill you lady!"
"Give me the damn phone Kacchan!" Deku said through gritted teeth. "Before you get yourself into trouble!"
"You are going to hand this phone over to Deku, Izuku, or The Slugger. I don't care what he's called right now." She continued ignoring him. "If you don't I will find you, shoot you in your knee caps, and then dump you off with the first thing with enough tentacles to show you a good time. And let me tell you, tentacles don't work like they do in the Hentai. Way more blood and broken bones."
"What the fuck are you-" Bakugou was going to demand before he caught a glimpse of Deku's legs making movement below him.
The next moment was filled with pain as Deku kicked him square in the balls.
"HELLO! MS. ENTERTAINER?!" Deku shouted into his phone in a panic as he ran away from Bakugou who was curled on the ground clutching his testicles. "YES I'M SO SORRY! I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" And with that he raced down the street, disappearing with his Quirk when Bakugou was just getting back on his feet.
"I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU DEKU!" Bakugou screamed down the empty street, knowing that his being invisible and intangible didn't stop him from hearing his threat. 'I'm gonna kill you and then I'm gonna figure out what the fuck is going on!'
Izuku ran panting through The Between, nearly tripping over impossible to move litter and a very surprised blue iguana. He raced back to his neighborhood where The Entertainer was waiting near his house, ready to give him his supplies so he could start his duties for the little group they were a part of.
He threw a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Kacchan wasn't somehow following him to exact revenge for his kick to the Katsuki family jewels. When he felt safe he left The Between, ignoring the little pack of blue iguanas that the one he had startled had gotten together to try and kill him following behind him.
Sighing in relief he slowed to a walk and eventually made it to his street where on the corner was a small parked car. The Entertainer stood leaning against it with bags under her eyes and a frown on her face.
"You need to find a better class of people to hang out with." She said when Izuku walked up to her and started spewing apologies. "Come on, I got your stuff." She then turned around and entered her car from the driver's side and Izuku walked around to the passenger's and got in.
"A plain ol' .32 revolver, single action." She said as she opened her purse laying on the floor and pulled out a gun and handed it to him. When it practically fell into Izuku's hands it weighed a lot more than it should have and his blood started to go cold as he stared at it.
'This… this is getting a bit too real.' He thought as he looked at the stainless steel and black grip. He turned it over in his hands and swallowed deeply. "Where, uh, where is the safety?" He asked to be sure that this was safe to handle even if he was pretty sure it wasn't loaded.
"It's a single action revolver." The Entertainer answered and he stared at her. "…You have to cock the hammer to fire it."
"Oh! Okay, yeah." Izuku said as he examined the… his gun again. "…And the hammer is the what?"
Sighing she grabbed the weapon out of his hands and pointed it at the roof of her car. She slowly pulled the hammer back to make sure he heard the click sound of the hammer being pulled back into place. "Do I need to tell you where the bullets go?" She asked as she handed it back to him.
"No." He muttered as he held his gun again. "…How do I make the, uh, hammer go back down?"
"Just pull the trigger while pointing at something in The Between." She waved away. "Bullets don't do shit there unless they hit something living there."
"That… doesn't sound safe. Like, at all." Izuku said as he carefully kept his new revolver pointed at the floor and clutched with both hands.
"Good thing that you staying alive is your problem and not mine." She responded as she leaned back in and grabbed something from her back seat. "You can read up on gun safety on your own time. Here, a case of 50 .32 rounds." She tossed the box into his lap and he stiffened his arms and for a second was afraid that the action would somehow set off his gun.
Good god he wasn't ready to be holding this thing.
"And finally a throwaway cellphone, my contact number already set." She handed him a plain looking cellphone. "When I call you, you answer. Always. Got it?" She asked seriously and Izuku nodded cautiously. "Good, now get out. I got a pile of blow at my place that I'm going to use to spell my name and then snort and you're keeping me from it Slugger."
"Slugger?" Izuku asked confused, remembering how The Robber had called him that a couple days ago.
"Your codename: The Slugger." The Entertainer explained.
"…And that's my codename why?" Izuku asked even more confused.
"Blame Robber. Person who brings you into the group is the one who usually comes up with your codename." She said with a tired smile, the first he'd seen from her today. "Probably had to do with finding you in a baseball field and using a bat to kill one of the red leather dudes."
"…I guess." Izuku said, still unhappy with his codename. "I don't really play baseball… or any sports so it's kind of…"
"I really don't care how you feel about it kid." She said, the smile disappearing. "Now pack up your shit and get out. You'll probably get your first task in a couple weeks or maybe a month. It's been a slow year." As Izuku opened his backpack she slapped her hands together and cursed. "Shit! Almost forgot!" She dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a compass.
"See this?" She asked and before he could answer she continued. "This is a compass that only points to things from The Between when they enter our world. Robber used it to find the red leather dude attacking you." She handed it to him so he could examine it closer. "If you find any other kind of item that does weird or magical shit like that that doesn't kill you when you touch it make sure to try and grab it. We're always on the lookout for magical shit we can actually use."
"What is it?" Izuku asked as he ran his fingers over it. There were no distinguishing markings or any kind. Nothing to indicate that it was special or magical. "Besides a compass I mean. Why can it do what it does?"
"Fuck if I know." She answered with a shrug of her shoulders. "We have no idea if they're made magically or have magic put on them later. But you can tell if something's magic by casting a spell while holding it." She explained. "Magic reacts to magic. Go ahead, try it."
Izuku looked at her for a moment before he uttered the words to enter The Between. The compass in his hands shook just a little and his fingers tingled like a little bit of electricity had passed through them. But it was only for a moment and soon the sensation was gone.
"Ya see?" The Entertainer asked as he returned and handed over the compass with a nod.
"So magic reacts to magic right?" Izuku asked for clarification.
"Well, we can never be 100% sure about these things but it sure seems that way." She answered. "Why?"
"Well I've noticed that… nobody else seems to react when I go into and out of The Between." He slowly explained, remembering about how despite using his spell numerous times today and yesterday no one had reacted to feelings he had to magic. None of them had mentioned their skin crawling while watching him use it. "But I remember feeling the effects of magic before I got this incantation. When I got kidnapped I was put in some kind of paralyzing spell and then when The Hunter showed up I felt weird when he went into The Between. Not to mention the ritual that my kidnapper used to summon the Deep Tunneler."
"The what?" The Entertainer asked confused.
"The… big worm thing!" Izuku explained exacerbated that no one seemed to bother learning the names of the things they fought.
"Well, you said why you could feel the magic. Because the dude who took you cast a spell on you." She explained. "Magic… sticks to things. You can feel where a spell was cast and if you have one cast on you then you can become… sensitive to it. For a few days at least, then it naturally disappears." The tired smile was back. "But you're a Sorcerer now. Magic is in you all the time."
"None of the people you were near had a spell cast on them in the last few days or were Sorcerers. And given that the only spell you have requires touching people and most people have Quirks which nullifies magic you won't have to worry about accidentally exposing yourself." She eased his worries. "Just make sure they don't hear the words. You know what you got to do if that happens right?" She asked with a wicked evil smirk.
"…Yeah, I know." Izuku answered.
Knowing and being willing or able to do were two entirely different things.
"Good, now get out again. I got blow to do." She rushed him with his stuffing of his new tools into his backpack and practically pushed him out of her car when he opened the door. "Try not to get killed too soon kid! Or retire!" She said with a sharp laugh.
"We can retire?" Izuku asked perplexed. Actually, what was the long term like for this group? Could you leave after a few years? How long had it taken The Entertainer to become the second in command? Or The Boss to become… well, The Boss?
"In a sense!" She laughed as she made a gun with her hand and put it to the side of her head. "Bang!" She smirked as she pulled the passenger side door closed while Izuku stood there trying to comprehend what she was implying. "Second biggest killer after monsters!" She yelled as she sped off down the street and Izuku was left standing there with his new backpack loaded down with replacement school supplies, a new cellphone for "work", and revolver with so many bullets that he prayed he wouldn't need.
Across the universe an Old God heard his prayer and laughed across the galaxies.
