EPISODE 0.0: Animal I Have Become

I can't escape this hell…
So many times I've tried but I'm still caged inside…
Somebody get me through this nightmare…
I can't control myself…

What is the difference between Destiny and Fate? Some would say that there is hardly any difference at all, that the connotations of the words themselves is what defines any boundaries between them. That "fate" is a word synonymous with "fight" and thus is a constant struggle to avoid at any cost. In contrast to its twin, "destiny" is accepted as something that should not be only be accepted but welcomed with open arms. Many are those who believe that the two cannot be broken or avoided for long, unaware that the supposed solidity is in fact quite fragile. Likely finely crafted glass, all that it takes is the softest touch to shatter fate and destiny alike.

Or in more simplistic terms, all it takes is a choice.

Go left instead of right. Wears shoes instead of sandals. Every action has a consequence big or small and as the saying goes, all it takes is a butterfly flapping its wings to give rise to a hurricane on the opposite side of the world.

In this particular circumstance, it was a Quirk.

A Quirk that in another time and another place would never have been used let alone recognized for what it was. In every possibility that existed throughout the multiverse, there was little to no change of the inevitable outcome for this Quirk and its user. First and foremost, the user would die, the cost of their power too high for they possessed neither the strength nor the experience to comprehend the scale of their meta-ability. As to what the Quirk itself could do, well, in most circumstances it did absolutely nothing as those whom were struck by its effects were freshly bought canvases before its great and terrible power. Blank and empty, thus unrealized.

Each and every time in countless iterations of this branch of Infinity, this event occurred over and over and over again, the sheer number immeasurable by the human scale.

Save for one.

Because no matter how impossible, how utterly improbable, there is always a chance and thus forever a choice. Left when they would have gone right, traveling down a path so much the same and yet so remarkably different than what might have been. To end up at the wrong place at exactly the right time and there you have it.

A butterfly's wings had flapped…

And a hurricane of change was born.

Izuku Midoriya was four years old when he learned that not all men are created equal. That no matter the strength of one's convictions, the strength of their Quirk was what made them a true force to be reckoned with. Weeks after he had been told point blank that he did not nor would he ever have a Quirk, he turned to his mother, tears in his eyes, asking if he could still be a hero regardless, the only answer he received was a sorrowful apology and not the answer he wanted to hear…

It was on the very day he turned five when someone finally started to tell him something else. Not directly in words or in action but in something more simplistic and frankly rather befuddling to the young boy.

Contrary to his hopes, neither Kacchan nor his own father made an appearance at his birthday this year though the latter at least sent a humble birthday card and a gift from the States. Another figure of All Might, much like the one that Izuku carried with him everywhere but different in that it spoke the fascinating language of English, was dressed in his very first costume, and he was getting sidetracked again!

Izuku shook his head firmly and looked once more to the package sitting next to his father's opened one. There was no return address and while it correctly had his home address, or so his mom assured him despite his concerns that it was meant for someone else, the name scrawled besides his own was "The Ninth."

The ninth what, the young boy had no idea and had even less when he opened the package up to see what it contained.

A small wooden plaque upon which was carved: It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, but because we do not dare that things are difficult. In the bottom corner was a small baby bunny peaking out from tall reeds of grass. Beneath it and carefully wrapped in soft paper was an All Might pen set and a rather humble looking notebook. The title on the notebook's cover was blank save for a tiny little sticker at the bottom corner, one that depicted a chibi rendition of All Might with a hand held up in victory and a speech bubble exclaiming "You can do it!"

Young Izuku appreciated the gifts, particularly the pens that he made sure to clean before and after every use for years to come, but he couldn't figure out who had given them to him or why. As the years passed by, the gifts kept coming without fail on his birthday and Izuku started noticing a trend of sorts between them.

There was always something that was clearly handmade and bore some manner of moral or words of encouragement upon them or in little typed notes packaged with them. Most of them were carefully carved plaques of wood bearing caricatures of rabbits or extra fluffy lambs. He especially liked the quilt that had been done in All Might's thematic colors and all but wore it as a cape during the following winter.

Aside from the handmade gifts, there was always something store bought and easily found on a shelf at some store though it wouldn't be until his first year in middle school that Izuku found one. He had made such a scene that his mother had almost scolded him for it until he shakily pointed out the very camera he had received for his last birthday and the price tag with its many, many numbers.

Needless to say, his mother's reaction put his own to shame though for an entirely different reason.

Yet, for how (scary!) expensive a lot of those gifts were, they too followed a certain pattern. One that only helped Izuku in his steadily growing hobby of cataloging each and every Hero and Quirk he could lay his eyes upon. From high definition photographs to equally high quality video capture, Izuku swiftly found himself filling whole scrapbooks of information down.

It never truly hit Izuku until he at last heard the words spoken aloud to him by his own personal hero All Might. Hit him as solidly as a Detroit Smash directly to the face that the very hero who was his inspiration for all of his young life was not the first to believe in him but the second.

That summer, when his fifteenth birthday came on a day of blood, sweat, and far more tears than a human body ought to contain, Izuku found an anonymous package awaiting him once more and again found himself at a loss of what they could mean.

The first was a figurine, tiny and small, of a young squire boy freshly dressed for a long journey ahead and armed with a simple, if not positively gleaming golden sword held aloft in its grasp. The figure's head was turned to look back over his shoulders with its eyes alight with determination but sporting a shining smile on his face. The fact that the little squire boy was a picture perfect copy of Izuku himself did not escape him.

The second gift was a pair of thick gloves; the kind he was certain only Pro-Heroes could afford. The gloves bore a pair of words stitched onto the back "Plus" on the left and "ULTRA!" on the right. Izuku tried them on and wasn't surprised to find them a perfect fit when his eyes spotted a small note in the bottom of the box.

See you soon, Number Nine.

The sun was hours away still from rising on the distant horizon when they had arrived at the former trash heap now almost completely restored into a prestigious beach with crystal clear waves lapping at the gorgeous white sands of the shore. The source of the beach's rejuvenation was still hard at work, mere hours away from ridding the beach of its last scrap of garbage and a lone spectator stood far and out of sight of the diligently working boy, each regarding him in silent contemplation.

Though the boy was only a few months older than the one currently cleaning the former trash heap of a beach, the difference between them was almost as great as the day from the night. For one, this boy was tall, easily pushing seven-and-a-half feet in all and while he was slim in musculature there was a bit of gauntness to him as well, as though he were half-starved. His hair, a resplendent gold even in the wee hours of the morning, was brushed back along his head and fell down in spiky waves to the nape of his neck.

He was dressed in well-worn clothing, a pair of jeans with patchwork knees, a red t-shirt that was at best a decade or three old, and a jacket that went out of style back in the late twentieth century never-mind previous resurgences in this one. His shoes were a pair of mismatched customized Nikes made special for one whose feet did not fit the human standard. A pair of long, serpentine tails each slightly longer than he is tall, swayed in the air behind him, their clubbed tips glistening sharply with the barely sheathed spikes that adorned them.

He was not entirely Japanese despite what his name might imply but in a world where even the most benign of physical mutations resulted in hair colors ranging from the plain to the absurd, such details were of a minor inconvenience at best. Even in the darkened hours of a predawn sun, his distorted eyes of yellow pupils against crimson sclera seemed to almost shine as he stared down at the slightly younger boy working so diligently on the once trash-ridden beach.

His name is Itsuki Marumaru and he is impressed.

… Is he actually trying to pull that car to the top of the pile? Is he that focused on moving it off the beach that he hasn't noticed what he's trying to—Ah, I suppose succeeding is a more accurate statement… He squinted, eyes gaining a faint golden sheen. He chuckled, closing his eyes and shaking his head, smiling and revealing a larger than normal amount of sharpened canines. So that's what it is… A bit of A and a whole lot of B… BS more like…

He turned away from the beach and started making his way to the parking lot and down the sidewalk just as an ancient pickup truck came turning down the furthest corner. He paused, eyes flashing red for a moment but in the end, kept walking forward.