Izuku stood like a soldier guarding the mailbox, waiting for the letter that would decide his fate. This was his only hope of becoming a real hero. Of becoming equal to his peers, really.
He'd known from age four that people weren't born equal.
"Mommy says you hurt daddy," said Tsubasa.
Vasile looked up from his coloring book, stared for a moment, then returned to scribbling with his crayons. Izuku watched in worry. Vasile wouldn't hurt anybody.
"You hear that?" asked Kacchan. "Looks like we got an enemy soldier. I say we show him how we fight!" He walked up to Vasile and blasted his Quirk in his face. The papers caught fire, burning away the cats and dragons Vasile had drawn.
Vasile started crying. Izuku couldn't stay away anymore. "Stop!" he shouted, running toward the group.
"Buzz off, Quirkless. There's no mercy on the battlefield," said Kacchan.
"I'm gonna shoot your legs right off, like pow pow," said Tsubasa, making finger guns and glaring at Vasile. "You'll go to the grocery store in a wheelchair."
Izuku stood between Vasile and Bakugou. "He didn't hurt anybody. He's no enemy soldier; he's lived here all his life just like us." He trembled as he spoke. Standing up to Kacchan was different now that Kacchan had a Quirk.
"You're worse than an enemy soldier then. You're a traitor! I'm gonna exe… exa… shoot you! Die!"
Tsubasa grabbed him and held him in the air as he struggled and cried. Kacchan blasted him with his Quirk while punching him. Flashes of pain hit all over his body. He knew he'd never be able to match them, not when the doctor had told him he would never manifest a Quirk.
Back then, the war was in Moldova. Vasile's family were the opposite of enemy soldiers - they had fled to Japan to escape the real enemies.
He squinted toward the corner where the mailman would approach. The odds were thousands to one. Every kid in the country was probably applying. But thousands to one was better than the nothing he faced otherwise.
Quirkless teens had never been allowed to apply in previous generations. When he'd heard in class he'd be allowed to apply, even Bakugou hadn't been able to dampen his spirits.
"How many of you are applying for the Inheritance Initiative?" asked Mr. Enpitsu.
A flurry of excited hands rose to the air. Every single classmate. Deku felt ashamed as he kept his down. Another thing people with Quirks could do that he couldn't.
"I'm glad to see so many enthusiastic patriots! This is an excellent learning opportunity. Who can tell us the difference between a hero and a Superhero?"
Bakugou answered without being called on. "The difference is I'm gonna be a Superhero while all these extras won't even be heroes. The BNS is gonna take one look at my Quirk and select me! I'm gonna be rich, famous, and powerful!"
"Yes, I have high hopes for you, but anybody in this class could become a Superhero!" Izuku knew the teacher had just forgotten about him again in his statement. Mr. Enpitsu walked along the seats, handing out forms.
When Mr. Enpitsu left a form on Izuku's seat, Bakugou shouted, "Hey! This loser shouldn't get a form! Quirkless people aren't allowed to apply!"
Mr. Enpitsu waved around the stack of papers. "That was true with the previous Inheritance, but this time, Quirkless applications are allowed!" He retrieved his phone and stared at it. "You see, the muscular tension levels are reduced and the overtaxing of neural capacity is minimized with the elimination of the opposing Quirk's antagonism."
"Eh?"
"They say without a Quirk, your body will be less likely to reject the new Quirk."
"That's bullshit. Only a strong person can Inherit. You better not fu-" Bakugou glanced up at the teacher. "You better not freaking apply. In fact, none of you extras should bother."
Mr. Enpitsu kept talking after that, teaching about Superheroes and their role in national pride, but Izuku couldn't listen. He was shaking with excitement, tears welling in his eyes. He had a chance. A chance to prove himself, to save people, to meet All Might! He wouldn't be weak, worthless Deku forever.
One pair of furious eyes stayed focused on Izuku. "I'm not gonna let a Quirkless loser like you shame the Inheritance Initiative by applying!"
When the teacher finished passing out forms, class ended and he walked out the door. Izuku stayed at his desk, admiring the form. Bakugou snatched it from his hands. "You need to stop getting in the way of the important people here."
"Hey… you can't do that."
"They're gonna take one look at me and let me in. The only way you'll get into the BNS is as a fucking practice target. And the only way you'll be a hero is in another life so you might as well kill yourself!" His hand exploded on the application form. Burning strips of paper floated to the carpet.
"Why?"
"Now stay out of my sight so I can focus on winning." Bakugou stormed out.
He stood trembling, staring at the dying embers of the form. Bakugou was a jerk and would get in real trouble if he actually killed himself… but he didn't have to. He could ask for a new form. Bakugou couldn't stop him from filling it out, attaching the correct documents and essays, and sending it in the mail. Bakugou didn't matter anymore. The only people who mattered were the BNS guys taking applications.
He wiped his eyes and put on a smile just like the one All Might used in the recruitment commercial.
The mailman walked around the corner. Izuku tried to stay calm and steady, to wait like a mature and responsible young man. He couldn't. He had to know. He sprinted toward the mailman and the two collided, causing bags of mail to spill into the street.
"Hey, kid, you can't do that," said the mailman as Izuku sifted through the letters, searching for the one with his name.
"Is there anything for the Midoriyas?" he asked.
The mailman pushed him out of the way. "You stay out of the mail. You know I can't let anybody see what's in the bag. You know who could be watching."
"Yeah, but I gotta see my mail right now!"
The mailman sighed. "Identification papers, then?"
"Right!" Izuku fumbled in his pockets and took out his papers.
The mailman handed him three envelopes and some junk flyers - coupons for Fumi's ramen place and an ad for war bonds. Two of the letters looked like they should go to Inko, but one was addressed right to Izuku.
His fingers trembled as he opened the letter. It was probably a rejection. Everybody got rejections; it didn't mean anything…
Dear Izuku Midoriya,
The Bureau of National Superheroes is proud to inform you that you have been accepted for the first stage of the Inheritance Initiative of One For All. This acceptance is contingent on the completion of the following requirements...
He couldn't read the rest of the details past the welling tears. He'd be a hero, a real hero! If he beat the other contestants, of course. He rushed home, clutching the paper like it might run away.
"What's this?" asked Inko.
He had a million words to say, but he didn't know where to start. Instead, he just handed her the paper. This would make up for the time the doctor had handed her the paper for his Quirk test results.
She sniffled. "I'm so proud of you. I'm sorry I ever implied you couldn't be a hero. You're gonna make it. My little boy's going to make it!" Tears flooded down her cheeks. She hugged him tight, spinning him in a circle.
"I'm going to be a Superhero…"
"Let's go call Hisashi and tell him the news. He's going to be so excited!"
As Inko dialed, Izuku read through the rest of the paper. It had the time and date for Izuku to arrive at the Bureau of National Superheroes and a waiver for him and his parents to sign to make sure they knew he could get injured or killed by the process or his duties. He'd known that before signing up, of course. Every time, most of the class died, became too injured to fight, or dropped out before even inheriting One For All. The process of Inheritance was itself often deadly or crippling.
"Izuku has something he's really excited to tell you," said Inko, putting the phone in front of them.
"Hi dad! I don't know how to say this… remember how I wrote all those essays and took all those measurements to apply to inherit One For All?" He jumped as he spoke. "I got an envelope in the mail today and… I'm gonna meet All Might and Thirteen! I'm gonna save people! They're letting me in!"
"That is good news! You'll really be serving the country. I can't wait to tell my coworkers about this."
"Mom, dad, thanks so much for helping me apply. I won't let you down!"
"You better start training your body now," said Hisashi. "They'll train you hard in there and you'll need every advantage you can get. If you don't arrive strong enough, they'll kick you out when you get there."
"I'll do everything! I won't let a second go to waste!" He dropped to the ground and began doing pushups. The day's cheer made exercising easy.
"That's my boy!" Then he said in English to somebody else, "Yeah, just a second, be right there." He spoke toward the phone again. "Sorry, but I gotta head back to work now. You keep making me proud!"
On the western edge of Kiyashi ward, the wind blew a plastic bag through a giant, abandoned construction site. It hadn't been worked on since before Izuku was born. It was supposed to be a mall, way back before the war. The construction vehicles had been drafted for wartime use and the half-finished building had become rusted and overgrown.
He had checked and nobody owned the lot anymore. He wouldn't be trespassing.
Here, he could get in shape for the Inheritance Initiative while helping his country and community.
First, he walked through the mall room by room, crowbar in hand. The crowbar and saw were mostly to pry apart the building, but if there was anybody here to attack him, he was ready. Piles of rotting leaves and trash filled some of the rooms, blown in from years of wind. Every wall had names, slogans, and rude drawings spray-painted all over.
A clang startled him. Something big was moving around in the next room. He turned off his flashlight, grabbed the crowbar from his belt, and sneaked toward the noise.
Something jumped away from him, displacing a couple broken bottles and a tree branch. Izuku jumped back, only to see it was a deer. He laughed to himself and continued through the building, less jumpy than before.
He decided to clean up all the trash and leaves first. All day and into the night, he swept the leaves away and sorted the trash into metals and non-metals. His arms became sore and sweat from his forehead dripped onto his nose. When he finished, the moon was high in the night sky - well past the curfew his mom had set. He rushed back home, dropping off the non-metal trash in a dumpster on the way.
"You didn't answer my calls!" said his mom.
He stared at his phone, which indeed showed several missed calls. "Sorry, it was on silent."
"You know what could happen out there! I need you to stay in contact with me and get home on time. I was just about to drive out to see if you were okay!"
"I'm sorry. I'll do better next time - but I have to stay late sometimes. If I'm not putting my best effort in all day every day, I won't get the Inheritance!"
His mom sighed. "I know. I know how much this means to you and I really am proud of you, but can you please let me know when this happens? Set an alarm so you'll remember to call."
"You're right, I'll do that." Izuku flopped on his bed, clothes still on, and fell asleep before he knew it.
The next day, Izuku biked with the metal trash he'd collected to the Musutafu Salvage Committee. He used the last of his birthday money to get a sledgehammer and angle grinder (his mom didn't need to know about that one) and headgear to protect his eyes and ears.
Back at the abandoned construction site, he started out with a long reinforced concrete wall by the road not attached to anything, whacking it repeatedly and watching the chunks crumble away. The swings landed with a satisfying THUNK and the smell of concrete dust soon filled the air. He imagined getting turned away when he reached the Inheritance Initiative and swung faster.
His arms grew sore within a few minutes of continuous swinging. Blisters formed on his fingers under his gloves. The more rebars he unearthed and threw onto his bike's wagon, the more his arms shook. Sweat stung his eyes and soaked his clothes. The clouds always managed to dodge the sun. His arms felt heavy even without the sledgehammer.
As he progressed, the chunks of cement he could break off grew smaller. The blisters popped and bled. Finally, the sledgehammer fell from his hands and he sank to his knees.
It would be so nice to take a nap, he thought, panting. He reminded himself of the videos he'd seen of people who had dropped out of previous Inheritance Initiatives. Their normal-sized heads looked comically tiny atop the eleven foot tall masses of muscle and titanium their bodies had become.
If he wanted a head start on looking like that, he needed to exercise every moment he could.
He grabbed the sledgehammer, forced his sluggish legs into a standing position, and attacked the wall once again with all his strength. A large chunk of concrete crumbled off, revealing more rebar for the war effort. Though his fatigue made him slow, he managed to destroy the wall bit by bit until the timer on his phone rang, signifying it was time to go home.
Only a couple more square feet of wall remained. He turned off the timer and whacked with his sledgehammer against the complaints of his pained arms. The last few bits of wall collapsed into rubble. He left his bike in a hidden alcove of the mall and trudged home.
On schooldays, he would spend his class time tapping his legs and lifting his books, trying to get in as much exercise as he could without disrupting class. After school, he would spend a couple hours at the abandoned construction site before collapsing at home.
Bakugou had gotten in as well. He crowed about it every class, telling Izuku what a weak loser he was for not getting in. Izuku kept his acceptance a secret in case they revoked it and he ended up embarrassing himself.
He knocked down walls to get at copper pipes, then used his angle grinder to cut them apart. The rubble he dragged to the northwest corner so it wouldn't trip him up. Whenever he found a task getting too easy, he would speed up. His hands continued bleeding. Sometimes he sat down, dizzy, and found himself getting up when the sun had progressed further in the sky with no memory of where the time went.
A few days in, he couldn't hold his katsudon in when he got home and rushed to the bathroom to vomit. He'd thrown up a few times before, but not at home.
"Are you alright?" asked his mom.
"I'm fine." He turned on the faucet to wash his mouth.
"A car can't win a race if it's starting out with a check engine light." Her eyes filled with tears. "Your eyes have bags these days. Take some rest."
"You think, if I even get through the door, they're gonna let me rest in the Inheritance Initiative?"
"Yes, I do. The goal isn't to kill every kid who walks through the doors, it's to-"
"Last time more than half the class died."
"I know I can't appeal to your sense of self-preservation or my own concern for you, so I'll just say: if you go too hard and injure yourself, they won't let you in at all. Besides, you'll grow stronger if you give your muscles time to repair."
He looked away. "I just- you know I've never had an opportunity like this before. If I don't give it my all, I'll never forgive myself. I want to show they didn't make a mistake in that envelope."
"Sometimes, giving it your all isn't just throwing yourself at the problem as hard as you can. You have to think about the best way to get the result you want, not just the most obvious one." She put her arm on his shoulder. "If you 'give it your all' but split your head open after fainting from heat stroke because you didn't take a break, is that really giving it your all?"
"What do you think the other teens are doing?"
"The rest of the Inheritance Initiative recruits? Probably training, but they're kids. Not everybody your age has the same discipline and focus as you, so they're probably playing video games and partying as well. You don't have to spend every second on this to get ahead."
"They all have Quirks, though."
"They let Quirkless teens apply for a reason and you were chosen for a reason. Don't let it all go to waste by burning out."
"Maybe… maybe I can look up more information about the Inheritance Initiative instead of just exercising, so I can better analyze what I need to do."
"That's a good idea. And remember, I'm proud of you no matter what." She hugged him.
The girders were the hardest part. He spent sweaty weekends and long evenings tearing into them with the angle grinder, sparks flying, until he had chunks small enough to lift. He wondered how the scrap metal he was providing would be used. A tank or two? An airplane? Boats? Bullets? As long as he was helping out, he was happy.
His calloused hands no longer bled and he never found himself dizzy anymore. Wall after wall fell to his sledgehammer. When he sat at his desk in school, he felt restless, full of energy, ready to run and jump and train.
The pile of rubble grew taller and taller until it outgrew the shrinking walls. Every employee at the Musutafu Salvage Committee knew him by name. He still looked nothing like the pictures of Inheritance Initiative guys, but he doubted he was supposed to - Bakugou hadn't looked any different in class, after all.
Finally, days before the Inheritance Initiative would begin, a single concrete wall remained standing at the abandoned construction site. THUNK! The familiar sledgehammer felt light in his hands. THUNK! THUNK! THUNK! The wall turned into more rubble, which he added to the pile.
He climbed the pile of rubble, stared at the rest of the now empty lot, then screamed into the sky. Tears filled his eyes. He had done it. The mall was no more, and every sliver of metal in the building had been donated to the war effort.
As Izuku walked toward the entrance line, he saw another boy screaming.
"What do you mean, I don't meet the physical standards? You guys are supposed to make us reach those standards with your training!" He was short, with large purple bumps in his hair.
The government worker responded to him with something Izuku couldn't hear and the boy stomped off, glaring at the people around him.
Izuku's breathing quickened. What if he didn't make the physical standards? What if he didn't make them right in front of Bakugou? He didn't see Bakugou, so he either already made it through or hadn't arrived yet.
The line moved quickly, with everybody handing in their papers before having a physical checkup.
A crowd of parents and friends watched them. He was surprised to see Endeavor in the crowd, the Number One Hero. Part of him wanted to break from the line and ask for an autograph, even though Endeavor wasn't known to give them. He felt too nervous to appreciate being near the hero, though.
Finally, only one boy stood in front of him. "Hitoshi Shinso," he said, handing his papers to the government worker.
The man stared at each paper intently. "This copy of your Household Registration Document isn't certified. I'm sorry, but we can't let you in."
"It's just one paper. Can I go get a certified one and come back?"
"No, those are the rules. Next applicant."
Izuku flipped through his papers to make sure his copy was certified. Sure enough, it was… but what if he had missed any of the other rules about the required documents?
Shinso didn't move. "Wait, no, I can go home and get the original and be back in half an hour. Please. I need to be a Superhero. I've been training for months for this."
"Sir, you need to leave."
Shinso's head slumped and he walked away, leaving Izuku at the front of the line.
"I'm, uh…" He forgot his own name for a tense moment. "Midoriya Izuku!" He thrust his papers at the man, barely wanting to look. As the man looked through them, Izuku wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"All checks out. Follow the nurse down the hall for your physical tests."
He could barely breathe, expecting to have to show off some impossible feat of strength. Instead, the nurse drew his blood, then weighed him, measured him, and hooked him up to various machines. A woman laid her glowing hands on his shoulders and nodded to the other staff.
The nurse's next words made his eyes well up with tears.
"Everything looks good. Head on through that door, Midoriya. Welcome to the Inheritance Initiative."