A day off had not been his plan, but Inko had, to put terms lightly, insisted they go to yet another doctor. More prodding. More pricking. More and more tests. As he was being treated as a glorified lab rat, Izuku's mind wandered briefly.

Fragging great? Why did I say that? I don't even know what a frag is...

He continued staring at nothing as his body went on autopilot, doing the tests the doctor asked of him. That is, until he forced himself to focus and return to the present.

Whatever had changed in him, it clearly was not an emitter Quirk, given the drastic change to his appearance. The doctor kept on asking question after question. Looking at, Izuku found that his heels was tapping. Up and down, up and down, like a jackhammer. Anxiety? Because of this drastic change of course in his life? Or maybe excitement. All his life, everyone had looked down on him for being Quirkless. A factor he had no choice in or control over. He could see it all clear as day. His classmates laughing at him. Kacchan tormenting him like a sociopath with a stray dog. His teachers doing absolutely nothing.

Stupid bastiches... he inwardly snarled, only to once again catch himself. Where are these angry moments coming from? And what's a bastich?

His thoughts came to an abrupt halt with a small scream. Glancing over, he beheld his mother staring at him with saturated eyes and her hands over her mouth. She was looking at him. Specifically... his hand. His head tilted downward, towards a closed fist he could not remembering forming. And the blood dripping out of his currently gnarled fingers.

Raising his limb, he saw the edge of the armrest had been shattered and broken off. Had he acted in his brief anger? Suddenly, the pain registered itself to him. Grimacing, he straightened his fingers and rotated his wrist. He heard the doctor rise from his own seat and quickly walk over, telling Izuku not to panic. But the young Midoriya did not feel like loosing his emotional control (at least not again). No, he felt fascination more than anything. He had not even meant to do anything, and yet he had snapped solid wood on what could arguably be called a reflex.

Then, as the doctor gingerly took his arm in hand to inspect the wounds, Izuku felt something. An odd sensation unlike anything he had experienced. It was as if he had taken a painkiller that worked as soon as it had been swallowed.

Then, as he stared at his hand, the pieces of timber felt out of his now snowy flesh with no pulling from either him or the doctor. The obstruction gone, the three in the room could only watch as the holes in Izuku's hand sealed themselves shut; it was like watching a video on fast-forward. The bleeding stopped, the wounds closed, and whiteness covered what would have been scabs.

In a matter of seconds, it was as if it had never happened. Dumbstruck, Izuku twisted his hand over, looking at the back and knuckles. No damage there either. Rotating it back to having his palm presented to him, he was vaguely aware of the doctor staring down at his white hand.

"I think I figured out what your Quirk is."

School was awkward, to say the absolute least. Walking down the halls towards homeroom had earned him more than a few stares from his peers. Nobody could get a beat on the red-eyed albino who had showed up at their school. Most probably assumed he was a new transfer or a freakish foreign exchange student. Midoriya took a wild guess that most of his fellow students had paid more attention to the fact he was Quirkless than to his facial structure.

Before, he had stood out for being positively unimpressive. Now, it was because he looked like a walking Rorschach test. As he made his way to his destination, a surge of emotions raced through his system. He was elated at finally having a Quirk of his own, along with the one All Might had said would eventually be his. How everyone would react as they gradually found out who he was could be anyone's guess.

Walking through the door of his homeroom, he saw that roughly half of his classmates had already arrived and were either keeping to themselves or conversing with one another. But his arrival changed that. Most of them spared a glance, only to do a double-take at the apparent stranger, including the teacher.

Giving a sheepish smile, Izuku approached the large desk and bowed respectfully. "Good morning, Sensei."

The three words were enough for the elder to recognize his student. "Midoriya? What...?"

Reaching into his pocket, Izuku pulled out and handed over a note. "I went to a doctor yesterday," he explained. "He says my Quirk finally kicked in."

The educator just stared at him, mouth slightly agape, for a few moments before taking the note and reading it over. Leaving him with the printed words, Izuku made his way over to his desk and promptly sat down in it. More or less tuning out everything around he, he looked at his hands. No markings from the incident at the doctor's office. Truly, it had never occurred.

His nails had turned pitch black, like his hair. Pulling out a notebook, he opened it to the page dedicated to himself and began adding more notes. In all the excitement of yesterday, he had completely forgotten to do so earlier.

Quirk Name: Regeneration/Strength

Function: grants the user accelerated healing and enhanced physical power. Minor wounds heal almost instantly.

Weaknesses: Rate of healing from more grievous and dire wounds is currently unknown. Limit of strength is currently unknown.

He would have kept going, but a shadow fell over the paper, drawing his attention away from it. Looking up, he was met with a snarling face that had tortured him for the better part of a decade.

"Deku." Bakugo Katsuki seethed the nickname whilst baring his sharp teeth. Years of... whatever one could call their dynamic had made it impossible for the literally explosive teen to not recognize his favorite victim. "What the fuck happened to your worthless ass?"

Izuku, not wanting to rock the proverbial boat, gave a shy smile and slight shrug. "A delayed activation?"

His response was the wrong one. His tormenter growled and leaned in towards him, red eyes meeting redder eyes. "Cut the shit, Deku! Those are just fucking rumors! Lies!"

There it was again. That spark of anger that made Izuku adopt a veneer of being less than impressed. "Oh, I'm soooooo sorry, Kacchan. I wasn't aware you had become such an expert on Quirks since we last saw each other a few days ago. Hey, you wanna tell me why you didn't get one that involved a mute button? It would make all our lives easier."

As soon as he finished speaking, he regretted it. He would have covered his mouth on reflex, but he was too busy watching Bakugo practically foam at the mouth.

"Shut your damn mouth, Deku! You don't have Quirk, you fucker! I bet that's just fucking makeup all over you, ya freak!" Seeing no reason to sully his own uniform, Bakugo gripped Deku's sleeve and forced it up, rubbing it across the loser's face. Forcing it back and forth like a metronome, he was determined to prove Deku did not have a Quirk and was just pathetically putting on a show. After half a minute of nearly peeling off skin, he stopped. It was not face paint. Everything was still there. The whiteness. The black markings.

Izuku let out a weak smile as the wall clock finally chimed, signaling the beginning of class, thus forcing everyone, even the favored students, to get in their seats.

As he walked from his vehicle to the walkway that would lead him to the sand, Yagi Toshinori reread the message young Midoriya had sent him yesterday for what felt like the thousandth time.

So sorry. Cannot come to Dagobah today. Something has happened. I promise I will explain.

The boy he had chosen to succeed him did tend to mutter, but he always meant what he said. Young Midoriya was not the type to make excuses. Yagi figured that out the very first day they met. So whatever had happened must have been dire. A family emergency, perhaps? His thoughts momentarily drifted to his own mentor, Shimura Nana.

Would she have liked the young greenette? Yagi told himself yes, she certainly would have.

Making his way across the sand, he heard the clanging of metal. A small smile formed on his lips. Midoriya kept his word. Walking through all the debris, his caught movement not too far away. Judging by the silhouette, he guessed it was his protégé hard at work.

But he he stepped closer, the man known worldwide as All Might stopped dead in his tracks. The young man certainly looked like Midoriya... and yet was completely different. Black hair, white skin, red eyes, and sharp teeth. He brought to mind monsters from horror movies.

The creature seemed to notice him, as he gleefully. "All Might! Hello!"

The voice. It was Young Midoriya after all. The hopeful youth ran up to him and bowed deeply. "I profusely apologize for my absence! I'll work twice as hard to make up for it!"

"It's fine, Young Midoriya, really," he said earnestly. As his eventual successor rose, Yagi looked at him thoroughly. It was Midoriya's face as well. And the hair may have turned pitch dark, but it still had that signature messiness. "I'm guessing this is the 'something' your text mentioned?"

Nodding choppily, Izuku brought his hand up and made a fist. "I don't know why or how, but the doctors say my Quirk finally manifested." Suddenly, he stiffened and looked directly at his lifelong idol (not that All Might could tell, as Midoriya no longer had pupils or irises) with trepidation. "Does this mean you're not going to pass your torch to me anymore?"

All Might instantly put a reassuring smile on his face and hand on Young Midoriya's shoulder. "Of course not! Quirk or no Quirk, you are still you." It was the truth. Suddenly getting a Quirk did not make a person any less worthy of One For All. Every single previous User could attest to that. Seeing his student visibly relax, Yagi gently removed his hand. "So, what can you now do?"

Rather than a verbal response, Izuku bent over and picked up a piece of jagged scrap. Presenting his free arm, he pressed the discarded steel into the back of his wrist. Before Yagi could register what he was about to do, Izuku slid the metal across his pigment-free skin halfway up to the elbow, cutting it open and allowing blood to spill out.

Just as he was about to open his mouth, the Number One Hero stared as the wound quickly healed itself. Pulling out a piece of cloth from his back pocket and wiped the blood away. No scab. No markings at all.

Midoriya's face dropped into confusion. "I... I'm sorry about that. I could have easily just told you."

"No harm done, apparently."

With a sigh of relief, Izuku walked over to a discarded industrial refrigerator. "That's not all, though." Planting his hands on the ivory machine, Izuku leaned forward, and shoved. The fridge ripped over and slid a decent amount of meters over the terrain. His mouth was already moving again before it had fully stopped. "What's even weirder is that I didn't sleep for a second last night, and yet I feel fine. Not energized. Not full of adrenaline. Just... fine."

"An interesting combination," All Might mused.

"But I've been thinking on it," Midoriya started, rubbing his chin. "Could it be that it keeps my body in a permanent state of optimal performance? Maybe not with exertion. I still felt fatigue moving some of the heavier junk before you got here. Maybe once I'm more accustomed to it, I can keep the exhaustion away longer. Build up strength and the like. And does the regeneration have a limit? The body needs energy to function, obviously, so if I keep getting hurt over and over in quick succession..."

On and on he went, contemplating the potential ups and downs of his newfound ability. It was not until he finally paused did Yagi voice a rather flat response. "You've certainly put a lot of thought into this."

"Yeah. I really need to update my analysis..."

Thus, the future Holder of One For All continued on with the task given to him by his idol and now mentor. Things were certainly easier now. Garbage that had made him sweat and strain could easily be swatted away. But that was not an excuse to slack off. Izuku stuck to his guns and worked as hard as ever. Moving piece after piece, building up pile after pile. With the sun setting, the day's work had been done. Both men prepared to leave for their respective homes.

Until something caught his attention. An old, rusted to the core tow truck, tires as flat as could be. And the hook and cable snapped off and resting on the bed. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, something, or someone, told him to try something.

Picking up the chain, he looked it over like a museum piece. Gripping a link situated half a meter below the hook. With his empty hand, he began wrapping it around his forearm.

"I don't know why," he said aloud, practically feeling All Might's puzzled look. "But I want to try something."

"I see..."

With one more lap and a tug, Izuku began to lightly rotate his arm, keeping a hold on the chain. After a few rather forceful attempts, he managed to get the hook spinning.

"This is oddly relaxing." Turning his head over to look at All Might, he maintained his rhythm. "This must be what gardeners feel like when they ah!"

Having let his attention become divided, he had unwittingly allowed his arm to bend inward, resulting in the small hook colliding with his temple. Most would have gotten a concussion. Or a cracked skull. The former greenette, luckily, only received a bruise that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"Okay," he breathed as he rubbed the still sore spot. "I need to work on that."

Another day of more stares was waiting for Izuku at Aldera Middle School. Suddenly, the class punching bag was worth some form of attention other than scorn or mockery. For nearly three years, he had taken it all on the chin. But now? Now, it drove him crazy. He damn near opened his maw, but instead, he bit down on his bottom lip's right side. His canine tooth dug into the skin to the point of drawing blood. Relaxing his jaw for a moment, he impulsively licked up the crimson ichor.

That was how the day went. Him keeping it all to himself. And it was fine by him. Let them all stare. He had better things to do. Focusing on his dream, for starters.

With the final bell of the day giving off its momentary caterwauling, he hastily made his way out, thinking over the incident from last evening.

"A tow cable... too small," he muttered. "It needs to be bigger. Like a butcher hook..." His pondering was cut short by way of a fist gripping the front of his blazer followed by his body being pinned to a wall.

"I dunno what the fuck is going on with you, Deku," Bakugo fumed. "And I don't fuckin' care! I told you once and I'm gonna tell you again! Don't you fucking dare apply to UA! I'm gonna be the only one from this dump to get in!"

"Let go of me," Izuku said darkly.

"What did you say?!" Bakugo demanded.

Izuku did not know what was driving him to act out, but he grabbed Kacchan's wrists, pried them off his person, and shoved his former friend away. "I said don't touch me, Clyde!" Once he was free, he dusted himself off. "Last I checked, the only authority you have over anyone is because of your Quirk. Well, here's a newsflash! I'm not so defenseless anymore! So back off!"

If Bakugo had been angry before, he was akin to a nuke at that point. "Who the fuck do you think your talking to?!"

Izuku panted deeply... and blinked a few times. Why am I poking the bear so much?! I never wanted to fight Kacchan before! But... I'm just so sick of him treating me like garbage!

Fortunately for him, or both of them, their little scuffle had attracted a few spectators. Including a couple teachers. The tension was still in the air, but both young men parted ways without trading any blows.

Walking towards the train station, Izuku's mind focused on one word exchanged between them. Why did I call him Clyde?

Parting Words: You can't have a Czarnian without a chain. You just can't.