A young, green-haired boy was on his hands and knees in his neighborhood park, having just received a couple new bruises and getting one of his new shirts singed by his childhood friend. "How can you not have a quirk?! Everyone has one!" His friend with ashen hair started laughing along with his three followers. "That just makes you a useless Deku!"
The green-haired boy started crying quietly as his friends walked away leaving him on the ground. "I'm not useless, I just haven't got my quirk yet is all. I'll get it soon." Limping over to the nearby sandbox, having scraped his knees on his fall, the boy started drawing in the sand, waiting until his mother wouldn't think he was crying again.
The sun was starting to go down, the boy was still at the sandbox as he heard his mother calling him. "Izuku, it's time to go home."As the boy, Izuku, got up from the edge of the sandbox, he winched a little at the pain from his scraped knees, falling forward and catching himself, his hands landing on the last thing he drew, a circle. Stepping over to help her son up, the woman saw a small amount of electricity coming from around her son's hands. "Izuku…?"
His tears started again, with a large ear to ear smile on his face, Izuku turned to his mother. "Mom, I have a quirk! I can be a hero now, like All Might!"
A young girl with pink hair came running over as Izuku said he got his quirk. "You just got your quirk? Can I see it?"
Vehemently agreeing, Izuku tried touching the sand again, but nothing happened. "Why isn't it working now?
"Your hands were on that circle when it happened Sweetie. Try fixing it and try again." Doing as she suggested, Izuku once again had a small amount of electricity coming from around his hands."
"Cool!" All I'm able to do is see a couple meters farther out." The girl pointed to her eyes, which were golden with a cross-hair on her irises.
"Your quirk looks so cool! Can you see small things clearly that far out?!" Finishing his last question, Izuku heard his mother clear her throat to get his attention. "Oh, I need to go. I'll be here tomorrow if you want to play. My name's Midoriya Izuku." He smiled before standing back up.
"I pass here every day, so I'll look for you." the girl giggled slightly at her pun. "And I'm Hatsume Mei. I'll see you tomorrow Izuku-kun."
"See you tomorrow Mei-chan!" Izuku waved as he took his mother's hand and walked home.
His mother smiled as she waved back to the little pink-haired girl as well. "Looks like you made a new friend Izuku." Turning her attention back to the boy, she saw his scrapes and burnt clothes clearly. "What happened Izuku?"
"Kacchan was really excited during our game of tag." Izuku half-lied to his mother so she wouldn't worry too much.
Later that evening, after Izuku was cleaned up, he started pestering his mom. "So what is my quirk? Do you think it only works on sand? Will I need to keep some with me to use it?"
She sighed a little. "All I could find that was like what happened at the park was something called 'Alchemy'. It's more focused on circles and changing things. Do you want to try it?" She almost didn't need to ask as Izuku was so excited he started to bounce a little on his feet. She put down a piece of paper in front of him that had a slightly more intricate circle on it, along with a pair of disposable chopsticks that she broke in a couple places. "Try putting these back together."
As Izuku touched the paper, the circle started to glow slightly along with the chopstick pieces. Focusing on the pieces, they slowly inched together, and the fraying from the breaks started to flatten out. Soon the seams from the breaks disappeared. "I did it!"
"Great job Izuku! But that's enough for tonight, time for bed."
"Ahh." He whined before slowly going to his room.
"Looks like Izuku is going to have to study quite a bit in order to his quirk… Izuku got a quirk!" She whispered to herself quietly, thinking out loud as tears of joy started running down her cheeks, glad for her son, whose dream has always been to be a hero.
The next afternoon Izuku had stayed behind at his kindergarten after every other child left. After showing off his quirk for his teacher who had accidentally torn their lesson plan for the month, he found his backpack's straps had broken, along with scorch marks on the facets. After trying to fix it himself with his quirk and it not working, his teacher offered to repair it for him. "You know Izuku, it's okay to tell people when you're hurt. We've seen and heard how Katsuki's been treating you since he got his quirk. We've even talked about going to his parents about it. But you keep trying to be his friend on your own. That's just like your quirks though. It's so easy to destroy, even accidentally, but creating, let alone repairing, requires dedication and focus."
"Ded-i-ca-tion?" Izuku asked, not knowing the word.
"Time and effort. Like your bag; it only took a few seconds for it to be broken, but it's taking a few minutes to fix." His teacher smiled as he snapped in the last piece of the new fasteners. "There we go. Now Izuku, we can't tell you who can and can't be friends with, but have you tried making any new friends besides Katsuki?"
"Mhm, I met a girl named Mei yesterday when I got my quirk!" Izuku answered, almost beaming.
"Well hopefully you'll be able to see her today and play a little." His teacher walked Izuku to the door before seeing him off.
Arriving at the park a few minutes later, Izuku found no one else around to play with. "I guess Mei-chan's not here…" Turning towards his apartment building, Izuku saw the pink-haired girl sitting at a bench across the street, fiddling with something. "Mei-chan?"
"Hmm?" She responded, not looking up. "Why does it only show pink…?" She muttered. As Izuku stepped closer, the pink light from Mei's device shifted to grey. "Why did it change?"
"Mei-chan?" Izuku gently tapped her shoulder, drawing the girl's focus away from the device. "What is that?"
"It's supposed to light up whenever someone gets close, like a warning, but it's supposed to be in different colors." She handed the device to Izuku, and as she let go, it shifted entirely to green, getting a confused look from Mei as she looked back and forth between her device and the boy. "...Oh! That's why it only showed pink! I was the closest to it every time!" She smiled as Izuku handed the device back. "Thanks Izuku-kun!"
"You're welcome." He looked at the small set of tools next to the girl. "Do you make many of those?"
"This is my second one. My mom makes items for heroes and I want to be like her."
"Your mom works with heroes?!" Izuku started getting excited as Mei finished. "Do you know any she's worked with?!"
"She's made a couple of items for O'clock and Selkie. She also made a couple of the parts for Snipe's gun."
"Your mom sounds amazing!" Izuku was so excited talking about heroes, he started to get stars in his eyes.
They kept talking until both their mothers had come to bring them home. Izuku learned that Mei lived in the same apartment complex as him, just the next building over from his. They were even on the same floor and their apartments were directly across from each other.
The following weeks, Izuku and Mei ended up meeting most afternoons at the park across the street from their apartments. Izuku eventually learned that Mei's father was a surgeon at the local general hospital.
Once they both started school, Izuku stayed in the local schools in Musutafu, eventually entering Aldera Junior High, while Mei's mother insisted on her going to an all girl's school in the Shizuoka Prefecture near her Hero Support lab.
Aldera's final bell rang and the students started cheering as their Golden Week holiday officially began. "These damn nobodies get excited over every little thing." Bakugo Katsuki complained as he got up from his desk.
"You say that like you enjoy being stuck inside at a desk all day, Bakugo." One of Bakugo's followers said, coming up behind him.
"Shut it extra! Let's just leave already!" On his way out of the classroom, Bakugo deliberately bumped into Izuku while one of his followers slipped him a note without Bakugo seeing.
Sighing at the usual behavior he got from Bakugo, Izuku opened the note, "Midoriya, my dad said he has some more repair work if you're interested in earning some pocket money over the holiday." He smiled faintly. Izuku was barely acquainted with them, but at some point, one of Bakugo's friends heard about his quirk and mentioned it to their father who owned a small repair shop.
Making his way to the train station, Izuku felt his phone vibrate and quickly checked it. He had gotten a news alert and a text from Mei. She had gotten on the train to Musutafu from Shizuoka, and a villain was spotted near him. "Why today…?" Izuku quickly started running to the train station, "Why did Mei have to catch the first possible train today?!" As he rounded a corner a couple blocks from the station, Izuku saw a large mass of mudd, or sludge, barreling towards his direction. "I-i-is that the villain? Where are the heroes?" He turned around and ducked into a nearby alleyway, waiting for the villain to pass.
Just as he was going to message Mei back, the mass of sludge came into the alley. "You'll make for a good hiding place." He grinned as he eye'd up Izuku.
"Just my luck." Izuku whined to himself, running further down the alley. "Where did I put them?!" He started digging through his backpack.
"Where do you think you're going?" The mass of sludge sent out a tendril, grabbing Izuku's ankle, pulling the green-haired boy back to him.
As Izuku fell, a couple sets of gloves spilled out of his backpack and he quickly put one on, "Please be the right one!" Grabbing the tendril, a faint light started seeping out from Izuku's grip and the sludge villain started to bubble and steam.
"What the hell did you do, brat!" Izuku released his grip for a split second before grabbing closer to his ankle, causing the tendril to ice over. "Tsk, of course the first easy hiding place I find can control water!" A crash could be heard in the distance. "Crap!" The villain panicked before spotting a storm drain. He quickly slithered over it before vanishing into the sewers, snapping off his frozen tendril in the process.
"Don't worry, because I am… here?" A deep voice called out from the street. "Excuse me young man, did you see where the villain ran off too?" His slime trail came this way."
Izuku pointed to the storm drain as he got up off the ground. "He just got away." He answered, a little panic still in his voice as he grabbed the remaining bit of tendril on his ankle, freezing it solid before it cracked apart. "It sounded like he was looking for some kind of host to hide in." As he looked up to the hero, Izuku was in disbelief, "A-A-ALL MIGHT?!" He couldn't believe his childhood hero idol was standing in front of him. "Wh-wh-what are you doing here in Musutafu? I thought you were based in Tokyo."
"I was on my way to meet with an old associate when the villain alert rang, so I decided to make a slight detour!" All Might laughed. "I better be off now!" He then jumped up to a nearby roof before leaping through the air, out of sight.
As he left the alleyway, grabbing his bag and its spilt contents, Izuku heard a low rumble from the railway, "THE TRAIN!" Running to the station and getting through the turnstile as fast as he could, Izuku just barely made it on the train. Looking around, he quickly spotted Mei further down the car he entered, thanks to her pink hair she stood out easily. "What got you going home right away today Mei?"
"Oh, Izuku," She looked up from a sketchbook that was in her hands, "did you just get on? I guess we're only a couple stops out then."
Nodding before she went back to the sketches, Izuku sat next to the girl. "So what amazing new 'baby' did you think up today?"
"Nothing too amazing honestly. I did get an idea for some light-weight collapse-able gauntlets you might be able to use though." Izuku glanced at the sketch and she was right, in terms of ideas, it wasn't one of Mei's typical over the top creations that would be made just to realize her thoughts, it was something simple and practical. "How fast can you transmute something like twenty-five pounds of oak?"
"It depends on the complexity of the structure I'm making. Simple shapes, maybe a couple seconds? If we're talking about an intricate mantle ornament, maybe a minute?" He stopped himself before he started muttering. "What did you have in mind with those gauntlets?"
"They'd just be something easier for you to use and carry around than those sets of gloves."
"I carry those sets of gloves around because they each have different formulas for different situations, although something to make simple weapons would be handy if I didn't have time." He hugged his backpack as he thought, "I need to thank your mom again the next time I see her." The train then slowed to a halt.
"Attention passengers, the line is currently suspended due to explosions near the railway."
Izuku and Mei looked out the window and saw a large green-ish brown mound slowly moving out of sight, "He's back already?" Just as the mount was out of their sight, a loud boom came from the same direction, with a smoke cloud in the same area. "Don't tell me…" Izuku ran off the train, stashing a couple of his gloves into his pockets.
"Izuku, where are you going?" Mei ran after him, until they both had a clear view of the source of the explosions.
"Mei, please tell me that isn't Bakugo in that pile of sludge." He looked over to Mei who was slightly confused. Being so absorbed in making her gadgets, she'd often forget people's names and faces. "Ashen-blonde guy, our age, same uniform as me, permanent scowl."
Mei focused on the moving sludge for a moment, her quirk now letting her see up to a few kilometers away. "There is someone in there like that." As she turned back to Izuku, he had already ran down to the street towards the sludge. Following after Izuku, Mei caught up with him as he saw Pro Heroes Backdraft, Death Arms, and Mount Lady on the scene with the latter two not intervening while Backdraft put out the fires caused by the explosions. "Izuku, you're not thinking of getting involved are you?
Already putting his gloves on, Izuku nodded before running up to Backdraft. "Backdraft sir, I can help get that kid out and help stop the villain!"
"Stay back kid!" Backdraft ordered, turning his back to Izuku.
"He tried taking me hostage less than an hour ago before he got scared off, and I can keep my distance while stopping the explosions, I just need some water!" He begged the Pro Hero. "The kid he has is a classmate!"
Barely acknowledging the boy's plea, Backdraft asked, "How much?"
"Enough to lead to the villain." Backdraft sent out a stream of water leading from the villain to Izuku's feet. Making contact with it, the water instantly iced over before slowly creeping onto the villain. "Come one! Faster! Colder!" Izuku started to visualize the molecules of the water vibrating. His mental image slowed down gradually until the molecules didn't appear to move.
Death Arms and Mount Lady were in awe, the sludge villain was rapidly freezing, and any explosions were now tiny puffs of smoke. "The kid actually did it." They both thought.
Looking up, Izuku saw the villain was frozen and he switched one of his gloves. Aiming for a spot next to Bakugo, he snapped his fingers, making a small spark that led to a moderate burst of flames, thawing the ice immediately next to it. Running up to him, Izuku grabbed Bakugo's hand and began pulling him free of the sludge.
"What the hell do you think you're doing Deku!?" Bakugo shouted at his classmate as he tried to pull him out of the sludge.
"Saving someone who used to be my friend!" With one last tug, Izuku freed Bakugo from the sludge villain, just seconds before it was shattered to pieces.
"I didn't ask you to save me Dek-!" Bakugo almost finished before getting slapped.
"That's no way to thank the person that just saved you!" A pink haired girl shouted at Bakugo, her hand in the air. She then grabbed Izuku's hand and pulled him away. "Come on Izuku, the trains should be starting again soon. And it seems he would have rather died than be saved by a 'friend'."
"You'd think he'd at least fake swallowing his pride…" Izuku muttered walking away from the scene.
Bakugo felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. "It was very brave of that young man to step in and save you like that." Looking up, he saw All Might standing next to him, covered in a dusting of ice.
Back on the train, Izuku was just staring at his feet, barely giving his surroundings any mind, "Bakugo is never going to change, is he?"
"Is he the one you got all those burns from?" Mei asked quietly, getting Izuku's attention, "I might have, possibly noticed them a couple times when you forgot to draw your curtain when changing." She started fiddling with her sketchbook.
"It's alright Mei, it's my fault for not closing them. It's not like it's the other way around." He started getting flustered at the thought of peeping on a girl, even accidentally. "T-t-those burns were from Bakugo though. I know we're not friends anymore, and I know he hates me, for some reason, but I wish we could have some kind of mutual… understanding I think would be the best word. Like co-workers."
"Is he the one who said he would end up being a better hero than All Might?" She asked, surprising Izuku a little.
Nodding as the train started up again, he answered, "Yea, he still says so, every so often. Everyone seems to think you just need a flashy quirk to be a hero. A lot of my classmates say they're going to be heroes because of that. Most of them even think I'm quirkless."
"Well if the villain encounter was caught by the news, they'll hopefully treat you better after the holiday Izuku." Mei paused for a moment, noticing a faint smile from the green-haired boy next to her. "You know my parents have been appreciative of your help whenever my babies go haywire." He chuckled at her comment.
"If it wasn't for me, I wouldn't be surprised if your mom banned inventing in the house."
"And that's why I'm not letting you go anywhere." Mei pulled Izuku into a loose hug, something she noticed Izuku got more embarrassed by over the last few years, but not sure why. "We'll both apply to U.A. together."
"Are you sure you'd rather not stay with your friends at your school?" There was a dead silence between them for a moment. "Mei, you've had some of the same classmates for eight years, please tell me you at least remember a couple of their names."
"Not at all!"
Her straightforward response earned a sigh from Izuku. "We're going to fix that at U.A." The train slowed down as it pulled into their station. "Ready?"
As they arrived at their complex, Izuku was the first to get home since his building was closer to the train station. Out of habit he grabbed the mail before going inside. The only piece that wasn't junk mail was an envelope with a return address for the JSDF, addressed to 'The family of Midoriya Hisashi'. The last Izuku heard, his father was overseas helping with a post-war relief effort. Stepping inside, he looked around and found a note from his mother. 'Izuku, your grandfather had an accident and is at the hospital. It's nothing serious, but I'm going to be in Hakusan with your grandmother until he's discharged and back home. Please let the Hatsumes know if you need anything I'm gone.' Since he was going to be alone for a few days, Izuku opened the letter from the JSDF. 'Dear Midoriya household, we regret to inform you that Sergeant Midoriya Hisashi has passed away…'
Izuku's eyes started watering over. Not as much as his mother when she started to worry, but his vision was getting blurred. Slowly making his way out of his apartment, he trudged his way to Mei's apartment, the letter still in hand. As he reached their door a few minutes later and rang their buzzer, Mei's mother, who shared her pink hair and golden eyes, answered the door, with Mei peeking from around the corner, "Izuku? What's wrong?"
Quickly wiping his tears before answering, "My dad.. died in an accident… the humvee he was in was attacked… while they were bringing relief supplies to a village…" his voice strained. Mei's mother pulled the boy into a tight hug, consoling him, with Mei joining her right away. "My mom, she's in Ishikawa with her parents… how am I going to tell her?"
"We'll call her and let her know. She's with family, they can help each other through it." She let go of the boy while Mei didn't budge. Mei's mother dialed her phone and went around the corner, "Hello Inko? … Yes, Izuku came over. … Are you with your mother at the moment? Izuku came to us with some terrible news. … He got the notice of Hisashi's passing away while with a supply convoy. … He was a good man Inko. … Yes, we'll be here for Izuku if he needs anything. Same goes for you when you get home. … We'll get through this Inko, both Izuku and yourself are strong." She walked back around the corner to see Izuku and Mei hadn't moved, and Izuku was crying into her daughter's shoulder. "Izuku, would you like to spend the night tonight?" Both teens looked up at the woman, Izuku's eyes red from his tears.
"I-I don't want to be anymore more of a b-b-bother than I already ha-ha-have." Izuku answered, hiccuping slightly.
"You're no bother at all, besides, you're the only person outside our family whose name Mei remembers." She laughed slightly, trying to cheer the boy up.
"Moooom" Mei responded at the slight insult, before hearing a strained chuckled from the boy in her arms.
"You're right." Izuku gave Mei one last strong hug before letting go, "Let me go get my things for the night."
Mei's mother smiled as Izuku went out the door. "Now Mei, go clean your room for Izuku."
Izuku froze as he heard the order. "I-I-I-I can sleep on the s-s-s-sofa!" He then ran out of sight.