Chapter 1: The OP Garbage Dealer, Part 1
"Thief! Someone help!"
"Catch me if you can! Heh!" The sludge villain gleefully zoomed down the street at a superhuman speed.
"Oi oi. We have unfinished business, you and I," a slightly irritated voice spoke up right next to the villain. The thief froze in inexplicable terror, feeling as if his next step forward would be into the ninth circle of hell. He turned around slowly.
The latest speaker was standing barely an arms length to the left of the sludge villain. He had a rather peculiar appearance. He was around 170 centimeters tall, and had a slim physique. He had red irises, not an uncommon genetic trait in this day and age. His eyebrows were light brown, a fact that would usually go unnoticed were it not for his most unique physical characteristic: he was bald. The noon sun gazed down upon his perfectly clear and reflective scalp, which in turn shone dazzlingly in every direction.
The villain felt his fear ebb away as he registered the guy's ridiculous appearance. The boy's clothes were very plain, a white button-up shirt and nondescript black pants. A middle school uniform? The villain scoffed mentally. He quirked a cocky and hideous smirk as he made eye contact with the boy. It was a mistake. His musings on the boy's age ceased immediately, all intelligent thought eclipsed by that inexplicable sense of dread. He felt as though he couldn't move a muscle, even though he currently had no muscles.
The boy's entire expression betrayed mostly nothing. It was almost...bored, were it not for a glint of seriousness in his eyes. That glint simply screamed at the villain that he was in some really deep shit.
"W-who are you?!" the terrified thief squeaked.
The boy adopted a ridiculous thinking pose, stroking his chin thoughtfully with his left hand, while holding up the elbow with his right hand. After a few seconds of contemplation, he gave his answer in a nonchalant tone. "I guess...I'm just a guy who was grocery shopping. Listen, the store that you messed up had some good sales going on. Now, because of you, I'm gonna miss it, which means that I'm losing money!" The boy raised his voice as he was reminded of his grievous financial loss. Now the pedestrians along the street were gawking at him as he continued his rant. "Did ya hear me?! I really wanna beat you up right now! ...But I'll give you a chance to surrender peacefully."
The villain gawked at the kid as hard as everyone else on the scene. "...Pfft! You think a pathetic little schoolboy like you can stop me? With your bald head, you can't even get a single girl! Haha! Baldy."
Said baldy was rather unamused. His face went even blanker than before. He took a deep breath, and the sludge villain's incapacitating fear from earlier disappeared entirely. "Yeah. You're right. No one...well, not that many people care about a baldy like me. However, we're not here to talk about that. Time's running out. I gotta get back to school before lunch break is over, ya know. Let's get this over with. And I'm not letting you get away."
"Oh? What are you gonna do about it?"
"I'll kick your ass."
"...Hahahahaha! That's the funniest thing I've heard since forever! You, kick my ass? Wait...YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A QUIRK, DO YOU?!"
The kid cocked an eyebrow lazily. "So you can sense Quirks?"
"That's right. I can sense the Quirks of anyone near me. I can even tell how strong their Quirk is. I sense nothing from you!"
"Really? That's weird. I could've sworn that you were quaking in your boots just now. Strange~" The deadpan expression was immovable, but his voice was blatantly mocking.
"W-why you!" The sludge villain formed a large tentacle and slammed it down on the damn brat so hard that cement cracked beneath the attack. "Hehehe. That's what happens to dumb brats like you!"
"Um, what exactly is 'that'?" a deadpan voice drawled from behind the villain, who nearly jumped out of his skin, even though he didn't have any at the moment. The attempted murder rainsed his tentacle, and indeed, there was on mangled corpse beheath it, nothing but the cracked road. The villain spun around and came face to face- quite literally- with his current bane. He drew a sharp breath and backed off a couple of meters.
"...How did you..." The villain didn't quite know what to say, which was far from a rare occurrence when it came to the baldy wonder.
"You can hardly feel anything with that sludge, can you? Your sense of touch in that form is far inferior to that of an average human. You can't even tell the difference between concrete and flesh. You know why? Quirks always come with some sort of trade-off. I don't need a Quirk...to kick your ass."
The boy fished a packet of tissues out of his pocket. Pulling out one of them, he methodically resealed the packet and returned it to his pocket. The next moment, the villain's sight went black, and something was rubbing against his eyeballs painfully. "Now then, you will stop struggling because you don't want me to crush your eyeballs, for reasons that you know best." The villain, reduced to two enormous eyeballs, managed to shiver.
The boy turned to the crowd of astonished onlookers. "Yo, can someone take this? I gotta get back to school. If he tries any funny business, just squeeze his eyeballs a little. Uh, anyone?" The crowd was shuffling away while muttering excuses. The boy sighed softly.
"I'll take him." The boy looked up in the direction of the deep voice, and found an incredibly tall and emaciated man. The man had lemon yellow, ragged, straw-like hair, and the strangest eyes. They had pure black sclera, and honest-to-God glowing electric blue irises.
The boy smiled slightly. "Thanks, old man." He carefully transferred the villain to said old man's hands. "I really gotta go now. Bye!" He "jogged" away at a speed that probably made the motorists jealous. After all, there was no speed limit for pedestrians.
The emaciated man stared at the rapidly shrinking figure before it disappeared around a corner. The young man seemed to have a physical enhancement Quirk, a very strong one at that. His casual attitude when facing the villain, as well as his inefficient running motion, made it abundantly clear that he had tons of strength to spare. There was one thing, though. Didn't the villain say that he couldn't sense the Quirk? And the young man himself said that he didn't need his Quirk. On top of that, everyone knows that unlicensed public Quirk use is illegal. Could it be...? The man's mind drifted to his colleague, Eraser Head. That guy certainly performed superhuman feats without a Quirk. They were not quite on the same level as the young man's performance. No, not even close. But still...
It shouldn't be too hard to find him. After all, he's in middle school, and his appearance is very...distinctive.
"Hey, Kacchan! You really wanna go and embarrass yourself at UA's entrance exam? As if they'll let a Quirkless baldy like you in."
The damn teacher just had to make a scene that morning...
"Midoriya, you're applying to UA, right?"
"UA?"
"The acceptance rate is really low!"
"Well, it's just the support course." Deku answered with a cultured, even voice and easy smile, although to Katsuki, it was clear that the nerd was desperately resisting an urge to fidget.
"Still, it's UA! It's really prestigious!"
"Yeah! With how smart you are, I'm sure you'll do great!"
The spineless idiots would have continued to spew their idiotic lines, but that useless jerk of a teacher simply cannot uplift his favorite student without doing his best to torture his least favorite one...
"Oh yeah, Bakugo wanted to go to UA too, right?"
A stunned silence descended over the class. Katsuki rolled his eyes. "Why are you asking me? He had my paper in your hands a few seconds ago, that is, until you decided to throw all those files away. Have fun picking them up, I guess."
The teacher kept a poker face. He knew the outcome of the scenario all too well. Indeed...
"Pfft! You wanna go to UA?! Oh, man!"
"C'mon, Baldy. What's next?"
"I told you already. My dream is to be the strongest hero."
"Wahahaha! Right! In your dreams!"
The idiots continued saying stuff. Katsuki had no idea what exactly. The supermarket ad was far more interesting.
"You know why you'll never make it into UA? Because they don't accept people like you, only those who are actually going somewhere! Not only are you Quirkless. Your bald head makes you look like one of those pathetic gangsters! Heroes need to look cool. None of the top heroes are bald, Baldy!"
"Oh. Thanks for the trivia." Katsuki absently dug around in his right ear with his pinky. He wasn't feeling too good. What was it again? "Oh, right. Deku, I didn't get to buy anything at lunch because this villain was messing up the store."
"Again?"
"Yeah. The guy was kinda cool, I guess."
"Really. Okay, I'll bite." The two wordlessly made their way to the door.
"Hey, Midoriya, wanna come with us to the arcade?"
"Um, no thanks. I've got a project that I'm working on outside of school."
"Aw, c'mon. Don't be so nerdy! Plus you're hanging out with the baldy all the time."
"It's fine. He's helping me with my work. And I need to work hard if I wanna get into UA"
"He's right, y'know," Katsuki drawled. "Lazy little twerps like you aren't going anywhere big."
"Huh?! Who are you to talk, Baldy?!" Katsuki simply walked out the door without another look back. He paused in the doorway to throw back a lazy, mocking farewell wave with his left hand, his right hand already busy with his phone. Izuku followed him after a polite, charming goodbye that got his mediocre fangirls darkening their panties.
Once Izuku had caught up with him after skillfully dealing with the fangirls, Bakugo turned to face him with an amused smirk. Izuku sighed.
"Honestly, how do you deal with all those guys? They're getting on my nerves."
"Oh, please. My hag of a mother is a much bigger problem. It's not like what they feel about me is gonna really affect me. You, on other hand...manipulation is going to be crucial to your future career, whatever that may be."
"Hmpf. I'm so jealous of you sometimes."
"Really? How many girls have you done already, Midoriya-sama~"
"EW! K-K-Kacchan!"
Katsuki grinned. "Honestly, you might end up keeping your virginity longer than me, despite my shiny head. You're just so green."
Izuku grimaced. "I can feel my brain cells dying. Horribly. In so many ways. Why do I hang out with you again?"
"Maybe it's because you followed me around like a lost puppy for six years?"
"I think it's more because you can't sew."
"And you can't cook, Deku."
"Fair enough."
"Oh, right. Banshee-Hag wants you to come over for dinner. See?" Katsuki showed his phone screen to Izuku, who rolled his eyes after reading the most recent messages. "It hurts a bit, since I missed the sale today." Izuku facepalmed. "Hey, Deku. Wanna take her up on her offer and pack some 'takeout' for me?"
"No way. You should spend more time with your family, Kacchan."
"They're annoying. She is annoying."
"My mom would freak out too if I just moved out."
"Che. She wouldn't let me do my own thing. You know how I feel about dreams."
"You were spitting blood."
"It's not just that. She actually calls me ugly. We look exactly the same. Well, looked. Her vocabulary is also a bit...advanced. Overall, she makes my ears bleed." Izuku sighed as Katsuki continued to bemoan the circumstances of his birth. Yeah, Bakugos sure are stubborn. The variety with blond hair. No, scratch that. Red eyes. No need to involve hair.
The skeletal man with yellow hair and weird eyes sat down tiredly on a bench and started chugging his two liter soda. He always did have an affinity for American things. His weakened body was very unfortunately unable to accept greasy foods. Truly unfortunate. He might be overcompensating a little with the soda, but c'mon, it's just soda. And the only people who would yell at him were Torino and...
Speak of the devil. The man's cell phone started playing a ridiculous ringtone. The call was answered promptly. Not many people had this number, and this particular caller was all too familiar.
"Hello?"
"All Might. Are you coming?"
"No. Listen, I need you to do something for me. Track someone down. Same as the old days."
"You're overworking again!"
"It's not exactly work. Just hear me out. I saw something pretty crazy today..."
"Alrighty. Now, the villain that I met today. He had a transformation type Quirk that turns his entire body into a sludge. He can move the sludge at will, even control the viscosity, without altering the composition, I think. He has enough strength to crack the pavement and move faster than most humans."
"Weaknesses?"
"Lack of tactile sensation. And his eyes. If his eyes are destroyed, he will die. I threatened him, and his reaction confirmed that. I guess that's where his brain goes."
Izuku finished typing everything into his laptop. He sat back in the shabby office chair with a pleased expression. "Hmm. This is interesting. So, what did you do?"
"Does it even matter? It's all the same to me. I barely did anything, just wrapped his eyeballs in tissue paper and handed it to some old guy to give to the heroes." Izuku nodded sympathetically. Bakugo groaned. "And I have to go to the hag's for dinner. I'd rather bite the bullet sooner than later."
Izuku stood up. "Let's go then."
"Lemme put on my costume first." Izuku shook his head and rolled his eyes.
"I'm flattered."
"I'm being prepared."
"You're just trying to mess with her."
"That too."
"So, what did you find out?"
"Name: Bakugo Katsuki. Age: 14. Attends Aldera Junior High School, third year. Quirk: Explosion. Allows him to excrete and ignite a nitroglycerin-like substance from his palms."
"..."
"You're not thinking about...that man?"
"I...I don't know."
"I don't think there is anything sinister going on with this guy. He frequents four places: a huge junkyard, two junk dealers, and a dilapidated townhouse. He pays a miniscule amount of rent for the latter."
"You're stalking him." All Might accused.
"...You know I'm always happy to help."
All Might felt his mouth dry up a bit. He nodded, before remembering that it was a phone call. "Yes," he rasped. "Thank you, Nighteye. Goodnight."
Why didn't the villain sense his Quirk, though. It's not even that uncommon of a Quirk.
Guess I'll just have to pay him a visit.