A bit longer than usual. Hope you guys enjoy it.

At first, when Izuku had begun to read the scroll, a feeling of trepidation came over him. Don't get him wrong. He was amazed at what he could one day be capable of, but at the same time did one person really need all this power.

Conjuring the elements, weaving illusions and boosting your strength to unfathomable degrees. And that was without getting into the absurd stuff like being able to heal perilous wounds or make exploding symbols or pocket dimensions from ink and paper.

Needless to say, it was all quite a bit to take in.

He had calmed down (and truthfully been a bit disappointed) when he realised that he was quite far off from being able to do any of those. He'd get there one day hopefully.

There was some good news. He could finally put a name to the energy he used— chakra. Apparently, people were born with chakra and the origins were unclear, but Hiruzen had been very clear to say that everyone had chakra in them.

That was definitely not the case nowadays at least.

Quirks were similar to chakra, but they seemed a lot less versatile but that came with the trade-off of being easier to master. Hiruzen had mentioned in passing how he had trained for months to be able to make a spark of fire from his chakra.

Quirks, presumably from being so closely tied to people's genetic code, just had an inherent mastery to it. They still needed to be trained, but it was as if a base level of knowledge came prepackaged with a Quirk.

Izuku had no such luck.

He would have to grind it out for the next year to get into UA. Thankfully, Hiruzen's scroll had more than enough information to help him get a handle on his chakra. He had already earmarked what he would train.

Chakra was a combination of physical and mental energy. So, as Izuku's mind and body got stronger his chakra did as well. It was also possible to run out of chakra which Izuku should probably have guessed.

All that aside, Izuku had a plan for what jutsu he would first learn. The scroll had a fair number of jutsu in it, but Izuku knew he had to learn how to walk before he could run.

And before he did walk, he studied how to walk.

The three easiest jutsu in the scroll (according to Hiruzen) were called the Substitution, Transformation and Clone. The Clone was cool, but undeniably the simplest of the three. The clones could not interact with any solid surfaces, but as a tradeoff, they barely cost any chakra.

The Transformation and Substitution were pretty much Quirks on their own. The former allowed him to transform into anything whilst the latter allowed him to swap places with another object.

There were some limitations, of course. Both the Transformation and Substitution worked best with objects around the user's size. If he went too small, it required accurate control and if he went too large it required heaps and heaps of chakra.

The activation process was also a bit of pain. The handseals helped Izuki mould and shape his chakra in the right patterns to execute jutsu but as things stood he could barely get his fingers in the right positions for some of them.

For the moment, before he went to Takoba Beach again, he was first going to get the handseals down. It would be awfully embarrassing if he lost a fight because his fingers got a cramp or something stupid like that.

"Izuku, I'm home!" his mother hollered at him, "I went to your favourite— What are these plates doing here?"

Izuku put the scroll down and dispelled his chakra in a hurry. He had been so invested in the scroll, he'd forgotten to eat and he'd also forgotten that his mother would come back home eventually.

What would he say if she caught him using his chakra?

He put the scroll in its box before putting it deep in his closet. He walked into the living room to find his mother inspecting the plates. She had a paper bag which probably contained takeaways of some kind.

"Hi, Izuku," his mom said her whole frame just seemed exhausted, "Where did these come from? Some of these are really nice, but—"

They did just kinda appear out of nowhere.

"It was from a news network," Izuku interjected and he took the paper bag from his mother to prepare it, "I think the Konoha ruin is getting a lot of attention and this was a way to persuade me to give them an exclusive interview. It's very nice of them."

"No it's not," his mother said with a raised brow, "The media just wants to get as money as possible. A child getting lost on an island and only being found by happenstance would be a slight on both the heroes assigned to the case and the resort owners. The public would eat that up."

"But the money could really help us out," Izuku knew his mother had been working far too hard over the years, "You wouldn't have to work so many hours and once I become a Pro, you wouldn't have to work at all!"

The last part about being a Pro had just slipped out and for just a moment he saw a flicker of pity come over his mother's face. That flicker was still enough to cause a surge of pain in his chest.

"Izuku..." his mother's tone was babying and it only served to amplify the pain he felt, "I thought you got over this. You can't be a Pro. You can do literally anything else."

It was too bad, the one thing he wanted to do was the one his mom didn't think he could do.

"You are many things. Smart, sweet, strong, but you don't have a Quirk. You could become a doctor or officer or—"

He wanted to show her what he could do. He could just walk up the walls or channel his chakra. Anything would do, but he didn't. Izuku wasn't mad at her— not at all. He understood her even, but for as long as he could remember his mother didn't have faith in his dream.

It hurt.

"It doesn't matter if I have a Quirk or not!" Izuku snapped at his mother and a part of him regretted it almost immediately, "I just wish you had some faith in me...There's so much I wish I could show you, but not like this."

Izuku felt warm tears trace his face. His mother seemed surprised by the sheer emotion in his voice. He wiped them away as he met her gaze— filled with otherworldly confidence.

"I will get into UA and I will become an inspiration to everyone. To show them that they can become more even if the people in their lives don't have faith in them."

Izuku turned away from his mother and a small smile bloomed on his face even as tears continued to fall from his eyes.

"Because that's what heroes do."

Izuku walked out of the room and didn't look back even after his mother called for him. He locked the door behind him without bothering to lock it.

His mom was very good at respecting his privacy. He usually cleaned his own room before he left for school so she didn't often have much of a reason to come inside.

He had to map out a new schedule. He was returning to school in a week and he would have far less time to exercise and master his chakra. He also needed to set aside enough time for school work. UA wouldn't accept him if his high school scores were bad.

Izuku had plenty of empty notebooks and he took one from the top of the pile. It took him hours of online research and planning to come up with a suitable schedule. This was the easy part. The hardest was yet to come.

When Izuku was done, he was about to shut down his computer when he saw he had an email. He logged into his account and he blinked at the number of new messages.

Message from Japan News Network

Message from Archaeologists Association of Japan

Message from Star News

Message from Citizens United

The list went on and on and on.

The first was from the people who had sent him the items. They were very complimentary and polite and wanted to have an interview with him about the ruins. Izuku hesitated until he saw the price tag.

That was a lot and it was negotiable.

Izuku researched Japan News Network and he was it was a little unsurprising to see that it was a part of the Yaoyorozu umbrella. They probably felt the need to control the narrative of the whole thing to have minimal blowback on themselves.

To be fair, it really wasn't anyone's fault except for Kacchan. A part of Izuku was furious at Kacchan, but at the same time, he recognised that not only was it an accident, but he would have never gotten these powers if Kacchan hadn't blown that overhang to pieces.

Izuku checked the other emails and they were all pretty much the same. They all wanted to interview him about his experiences at the ruins. There were a few overzealous ones that Izuku would likely steer clear of, though.

They seemed to border between fanatics and conspiracy nuts and Izuku was wise enough to not deal with those types.

It took him over an hour to respond to all the offers. He put his computer on standby and as he climbed into bed he realised that he would be giving a ton of interviews and maybe some mainstream attention.

An introvert's worst nightmare.

"What have I done?"

6 Months Later — Takoba Beach

Izuku had his eyes trained on the washing machine before him. It was a good fifteen metres away from him and it was taunting him. He looked at the machine. The machine looked at him.

It was scared.

As it should be.

Izuku's chakra surged beneath his skin and latched onto the washing machine. The link didn't shatter and he fought to keep the storm of energy beneath his skin under control. The moon and stars above served as his only witness.

Finally, the storm reached a crescendo and Izuku felt his position shift instantaneously. He stumbled a bit awkwardly on the sand before regaining his footing.

So, the stability went down if he did a sealless Substitution at fifteen metres. An increase of three metres. Good. The sand probably exacerbated the effect too which was also good news.

Perhaps if he were on a more consistent surface then he could increase the distance. Still though, as it stood, this was the furthest he knew he could cast the jutsu without using any hand seals.

In the 6 months since Izuku had found the scroll, he had made, in his opinion, good progress on the Academy Three as Hiruzen sometimes referred to them as.

The jutsu Izuku felt the most comfortable with were the Clone and Transformation. That was honestly down to being able to practice them with ease. In the shower, on his bed, on the toilet and everywhere in between.

When those jutsu failed, one of two things happened. One, absolutely nothing besides a puff of smoke signifying the deactivation or failure or in the case of the Clone, a weird nightmarish copy/blob of Izuku gets made.

The second one had left some scars.

The Substitution was a lot more noticeable when it failed. The first time it had failed, Izuku had been sent flying into a fridge. It was pretty difficult to explain away the bruise to his mother and all the people at school.

Somehow, Izuku had a good feeling that telling them he flew into a fridge would make his tentatively decent social status take a hit.

The school had caught wind of him being found in the ruins. Or as he now called it— Konoha. The archaeologists working in the ruins had found the name a whole two months after Izuku had found it in the scroll.

Admittedly, that had made him just a little smug...

By the time of his return to school, he had given the first of many interviews to various news organisations and documentarians. No one at school had known the reasons for his absence especially since Kacchan had kept his lips sealed for some reason.

So when word of a boy from Musutafu discovering a ruin hit the news, Izuku had had to deal with a lot more attention than he was comfortable with. It did not help that the archaeologists working on Konoha had found evidence of Quirk usage in the ancient civilisation.

Konoha predated the Luminescent Baby by well over a millennium going by even the most conservative guesses. That made his involvement in all of it all the worse. The idea that Quirks had been present for that long dominated the news and with that revelation came a lot of speculation.

There was the relatively mundane stuff like Quirks being a government project that spiralled out of control. That was an old classic. There was also the ridiculous like Quirks existing because of a migrating alien species that laid their seeds from planet to planet before returning to reap what they had sown.

That one had come out of left field.

Anyway, what this meant for Izuku was that typically he'd get recognised fairly often by people he'd never met. The people he did know would also badger him for answers, opinions and even money. As one could imagine, this made it far more difficult to slip off to Takoba Beach.

So to get some peace while out and about, Izuku had taken to wearing the ceramic mask he had gotten from Konoha. It had no straps and to his slight shame, it had taken him a few hours to use the Surface Sticking on the mask to keep it on.

Face coverings weren't all that uncommon in Japan. Some people weren't comfortable with the mutations certain Quirks granted and so they covered up. The first time he had worn it he had gotten barely any attention which was a godsend.

A ceramic mask was a bit unusual, but considering the fact that the Number 2 Hero was a man whose clothes were made out of actual fire, it barely made a ripple.

Izuku just kept the mask and his hood on long enough to get past all the crowds of people going about their day. Takoba Beach was as empty as ever and became a sanctuary for his training sessions which were usually early in the morning or began late in the afternoon.

It was a cool Thursday night and Izuku knew he had to return home eventually. He had gotten a bit overzealous and had lost track of time. The moon was shining down on him making his skin glow. His frame had gotten noticeably larger a result of his physical training.

His mother had obviously noticed that he had gotten bigger but aside from his larger appetite, she hadn't said much. Izuku was always training or studying so that meant he didn't see his mother as often as usual which was good and bad.

They had both silently agreed to not bring up the Hero stuff until it became relevant. They got along just as well as they always had, but certain topics were anathema to both of them. The only time they had come close to broaching said topics was when his mother signed off on the consent forms UA sent to all their applicants.

She signed it off without a word of protest. As a matter of fact, the only thing his mother had only ever taken umbrage with since their argument was the number of weapons in his room. Understandably, the racks of kunai and shuriken did not put her heart at ease.

To be fair, Izuku hadn't begun to use those at all. You needed a license for weapons and those weren't just handed out to middle school students. Plus, with the kill order ban on heroes, he'd need to show a lot of skill with them before being given the green light.

Izuku had to think of alternative ways to fight if he ever ran out of chakra. Hiruzen, who Izuku had slowly realised was as much a scholar as he was a formidable fighter, had mentioned being prepared for any situation.

Izuku hadn't run out of chakra at all yet. He hadn't even been close to wasn't sure if it was down to the amount he had, the control he had or some other unknown factor. What he did know was that he had to be prepared for a situation where his chakra was useless to him.

He had debated joining a dojo, but there was no chance he could squeeze that into his schedule as well. He was already running on just a few hours of sleep and more than once he'd fallen asleep in school on the bus and even here at Takoba a few times.

There were 24 hours in a day and somehow he needed more time.

Thankfully, the scroll had an answer for that.

The next section of the Scroll had him giddy with excitement. It was a jutsu called the Body Flicker that involved boosting his natural movement speed to an amazing degree. It would cut down on all the time he spent going from place to place giving him an extra ten hours every week once he got it down.

That was if he could get it down in the first place.

He had already seen with the kunai all those months ago that chakra could boost whatever it was channelled into and so far only the Konoha-made kunai and shuriken seemed to accept his chakra. Perhaps, it had to do with the forging method.

In any case, the Body Flicker confirmed that the same effect could work on his body. Apparently, masters of the Body Flicker could rapidly move from place to place in the blink of an eye. An especially amazing feat if the nauseating effects were as bad as the Scroll claimed they were.

Still, though, Izuku was cautiously optimistic that he could devise a way to boost his strength and speed even if it wasn't the Body knew that his chakra system extended throughout all parts of his body so he wouldn't be limited that way.

Izuku had already begun the research that he'd need to pull off Enhancement. The problem was the vast majority of people with super strength and super speed Quirks already knew how to control the boost or even worse their bodies were built to withstand those forces.

A great example was All Might. His Quirk wasn't exactly clear, but many had theorised that he had such precise control over his strength as well as special adaptations that made his Quirk so formidable.

No normal human (or at least normal Quirked humans) could punch hard enough to collapse a building and be perfectly fine afterwards.

In fact, there were many video compilations of people punching holes in stuff like boulders and tanks. The difference was that these people often also shattered every bone in their arms that proved this to be true.

Izuku hadn't seen one in years, but he knew that it was one of Kacchan's favourite pastimes. Not all Quirks were created equal after all and that was a big part of why hero worship was still a thing. The control and power displayed by Pro Heroes were awe-inspiring.

Izuku's body was not super resilient or made for super strength. Therefore, he theorised that like the Body Flicker he would have to reinforce his body and at the same time use the Enhancement technique for no blowback.

Needless to say, that was probably a long way away.

A brisk wind washed over Izuku's position. He only had on a pair of shorts so the wind made him scramble for his shirt and hoodie. It was getting pretty cold out. He put his shirt, shoes and hoodie on before he began to walk out the maze that was the beach junkyard.

He had checked three times to make sure that the Scroll was still in his bag. Izuku had considered writing down the Scroll's contents, but he had decided against it. He tried to reason that it could be catastrophic if it fell in the wrong hands.

The real reason was that the scroll was way too long. Izuku was pretty sure that a team of ten transcribers would give up before they got halfway. Admittedly, it was stupid of him to take it everywhere, but if he didn't he would just worry that it was gone.

"Leave me alone!"

Izuku froze as he heard a woman's voice break the serenity of the beach. He heard other voices argue with the woman in question and Izuku bit his lip as he realised what was up.

If a bunch of criminals were harassing her then they must have known that this area was practically deserted. Even if he called a Pro, it would take a few minutes for them to get here and a lot could happen from now until then.

Izuku stuck to the shadows as he approached the arguing voices. It was quite a bit further than his usual entry/exit point into the junk maze. He stopped behind an enormous metal cabinet that was at least four times his height.

Stacks of cars were all around him and made it hard for him to get a sense of just how many people there were.

"Look lady, I'm not going to ask you again," said a deep voice, "Give us all your valuables. That includes the fancy necklace and ring you've got on. That looks like it's worth a lot, amirite Gear?"

"At least a few thousand, Crank," Gear replied with a very high-pitched voice, "We could get that car I've been eyeing up. The ladies will—"

"Please, not those!" the woman sobbed, "They're all I have left of my mother! Please we only met here to sell you this camera. You can take it for free! It's full HD and I've never used it! The seal on the box isn't even broken—OW!"

Izuku had heard enough. He was about to leap into action when he caught sight of his face in a rearview mirror. He would get into deep trouble if he intervened.

A Quirkless child taking on two criminals? And that child being the Konoha Kid too? That would be goodbye to anonymity and probably any decent Hero Academy— let alone UA.

That couldn't happen.

Izuku silently shrugged his bag off and he wiped his palms off before taking out his mask.

Hopefully, this thing was battle-ready.

Sumire could already hear Izuna mocking her now.

"Another full hard drive? You hoard too much, Sumire. "

"You interned for how much? You're too pliant, Sumire."

"Oh, you sweet summer child. You can't mix peanut butter and eggs, Sumire."

Their relationship had been short-lived for a myriad of reasons. One of the more prominent ones being financial. She was still looking for a job, but investigate journalists weren't in hot demand.

Izuna did not like that. He barely wanted her to work in the first place despite what he had said to his family at all those gatherings.

Sumire did not need nor did she want the camera. It had been a gift from a very rich and distant relative of Izuna who had heard about her dream at one of their family dinners.

The camera was objectively superb, but she couldn't even look at it without being reminded of all the squabbles she and Izuna had had over her career choice.

She'd found a buyer almost immediately and when she had heard they wanted to meet, she had driven to the meeting zone without researching the area first.

She didn't need the damn thing in the first place, though, and the price the buyer was offering was way too good to pass up.

Besides, people wouldn't commit crimes when heroes were around, right?

Wrong.

"You didn't have to slap her!" Gear said his voice grating on her ears, "Just rip the necklace and ring off and we'll be gone. I think she even left her car in the lot over there. It looks awful, but one man's trash and all that."

Her cheek burned from the slap Crank had given her. It had been enough to floor her and she looked up at her two assailants who were bathed in moonlight. Despite the fear she felt, she did not blink.

"Just give them over here, lady," Crank's eyes were a mismatch with one being a dull black and the other a bright red, "I can see you using your Quirk. It must be useless if you're just lying there in the trash!"

Crank laughed uproariously and Sumire hoped it would attract attention. That died when she realised how it sounded like it was barely extending past the general area.

"Hurry up, Crank," Gear said with a tinge of annoyance, "I can only muffle sounds for so long. We need to leave before a Pro finds their way here."

"Too late."

No sooner than a second after the words left his mouth did a shadow come over Crank and Gear. Sumire looked up into the sky to see a cloaked figure standing atop the metal cabinet she was leaning against. His whole body was draped in shadows giving him something of an intimidating presence.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Crank said taking out a gun which drew no response from the figure, "Heroes always have to identify themselves! I know what your silence means... We've got a wannabe over here, Gear!"

Sumire had moved away just enough to get a better view of her would-be rescuer. The black cloak was not closed in the middle and it revealed black skin-tight clothing underneath. The figure blended into the shadows near perfectly.

In fact, the only thing that made him stick out was the white mask with vague patterns over it that she could not quite make out.

It looked vaguely familiar, but Sumire was more concerned with the gun Crank was holding. Guns were still a thing and were a staple of criminals. The rise of Quirks had made acquiring guns a lot easier— a vestige of the panic that arose after the Awakening.

Crank pointed the gun at the vigilante and said to Geat, "Things are about to get loud. You know what to do."

There was a burst of smoke before Crank fired a spray of bullets at the Mask. Sumire flinched as she expected a body to fall to the floor riddled with gunshot wounds.

Instead, a rusty motorcycle fell to the floor. It was enough of a shock to startle Gear and Crank and also give her enough time to scoot a bit away. Her ears still ringing from the loudness of the gunshots.

She did not run away, though.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Gear shouted to his partner, "I thought you took him down!"

"I thought so too!" Crank said with equal parts shock and horror as he scanned the area, "He definitely wasn't using a Quirk! I would've seen it!"

A flash of white off to the side caught all of their attention. It was the Masked Man. Crank emptied his clip in the direction of the man. The bullets went straight through the man and punched into the windows and tyres of the car behind him.

"Yeah, take that— what the hell?!"

Sumire's jaw dropped.

"I don't like this at all, Crank!"

Crank had seen it. Gear had seen it and most importantly, Sumire had seen it. She did not look away even as Crank fired his gun at her apparent saviour. The vigilante did not react as the last of Crank's bullets went right through him.

Before Sumire could even say anything, the man faded away as if he was a ghost.

"I don't understand what this is. This is—"

"Impossible," Crank said unknowingly completing her sentence before a distorted voice spoke out from the only exit path from the junkyard.

"You are going nowhere."

Crank pointed his gun at the man and this time he seemed to hesitate before he instead grabbed onto Sumire. She struggled against his grip, but she froze when the cold metal of the gun pressed to her skin.

"I've got one left in the chamber," Crank said and Sumire could feel the sneer on his face, "Put your hands up or this purple bitch's dentist will have a lotta work to do tomorrow."

"You don't have to do this," Sumire pleaded with the man and she was able to catch a reflection of their situation in a nearby mirror, "You're only making things worse."

"Shut up! Put your hands up, hood."

Izuku had been foolish and arrogant and everything else in the book.

His Transformation was still holding up and his Substitution and Clone had confused the criminals but he had messed up. He should have sent out another decoy clone before finding a way to escape with the woman with the purple hair.

Now, they were both in trouble.

He raised his hands to show he meant no harm. By some miracle, his hands weren't shaking with the fear and panic that was building within him.

"Thanks to your trickery, there's only one bullet left in here," Crank said with arrogance dripping from his cold smile, "A Pro would have never been caught like you were so I know you're just someone playing dress-up. Between the two of you, one of you is leaving with a bit of metal in you."

Izuku looked towards Gear who was standing still with an odd look on his face.

"Gear can't move while using his Quirk," Crank explained casually reminding Izuku of the situation at hand, "Time to choose, Hooded Man."

"Me. Shoot me," Izuku said his voice distorted and completely unlike his own, "She did nothing wrong."

The voice distortion wasn't something he was doing consciously. Maybe the mask was more interesting than he had first thought.

Was he really thinking about the mark's features right before he was about to get shot?

"Good answer," Crank said before shoving the woman harshly to the side, "Maybe you should be a Pro! You've got that martyr attitude down perfectly!"

Crank pointed the gun at the woman and Izuku reached towards the man with both his hands, "Leave her alone!"

"The necklace," Crank said ignoring Izuku causing the woman to shake her head, "Give it to me or you're the one who dies."

Izuku felt hopeless.

Was this what Heroes faced daily?

He wasn't ready for this.

He needed more time, more training, more knowledge.

More power.

Izuku felt his chakra surge beneath his skin and it began to emanate off of him in waves. The woman and Gear noticed it almost immediately, but Crank was the last to realise it.

Idly, Izuku noticed that his chakra wasn't the usual bright blue.

It was purple.

Crank fired a bullet at him, but Izuku felt something burst from his hand before he used it to slap something aside. It was only when he heard a windshield crack behind him that he realised that he had slapped a bullet aside.

Izuku looked at his hand and he saw a strange metal rod sticking out of his palm. It didn't hurt or anything, but it did feel like he had to take it out. The woman's eyes were screwed shut momentarily and Izuku saw that Crank had dropped his gun out of fear.

He pointed his hand at Crank and through no thought of his own, the rod was fired from his hand before slamming into Crank's stomach. The impact was enough to floor the rather well-built man.

The second rod was fired, but this one pegged onto Crank's shirt and pulled the criminal along before slamming him into the metal cabinet. The rod was buried deeply into the cabinet and Crank hung from it by shirt like a puppet with his strings cut.

He was unconscious.

Izuku realised that Crank must have hit his head on the metal cabinet. Ouch. That wasn't important, though. Izuku Substituted with the motorcycle from before and picked up the first rod.

It was warm.

Gear, in contrast to Crank, was overweight and lacked any sort of co-ordination. The man also seemed exhausted from using whatever sound muffling Quirk he had and that made him easy pickings for Izuku.

Before he could do anything, though, Gear collapsed to the floor half-exhausted and half scared out of his mind.

"Please don't hurt me!" Gear said as he laid in the trash on the floor, "I'm not even violent I swear."

Izuku heard a snort and he saw that the woman was watching him rather intently now. She appeared a bit worse for wear but was ultimately uninjured. That was good news.

Izuku ripped off Gear's jacket before using it to tie the man's arms behind him. He removed the strange rod keeping Crank suspended before using his jacket to do the same. He then tied the two of them together for good measure before turning to the woman.

"Call Kamui Woods. His agency is the nearest to here. Are you okay?" Izuku said and the woman nodded as she typed rapidly into her phone sending an SOS to said agency.

They stared at each other in silence for a fair while. The woman had purple hair and red eyes that seemed to glow unnaturally underneath the moonlight.

"Yes, I am," the woman said sagging in relief, "Thanks to you."

"U-Uh, what?" Izuku stuttered and the distortion on his voice made it all the worse, "I don't deserve that. I almost got you killed! Things would have been—"

"A lot worse if you weren't here," the woman said before rising to her feet and walking right up to him, "What agency do you work for?"

"A-Agency?" Izuku's mind blanked underneath the woman's stare, "Best Jeanist's?"

"That sounded like a question."

"I don't work for an agency," Izuku said finally causing the woman to nod, "I was in the area and heard these guys giving you trouble. I'm not licensed, but I could not stand by and let that happen."

"Thank you," the woman said her eyes boring into Izuku.

Did she not need to blink?

All of a sudden, he was pulled into a hug. Izuku was frozen solid as the woman held onto him tightly.

"You may not be a hero, but you are my hero," the woman said stepping back, "Do you have a name?"

"Uhhhhhhh, the White Mask?"

"That still sounds like a question," the woman said, but before Izuku could respond the sound of sirens reached their ears, "You should go now. Unless you want to be sent to prison."

"R-Right!" Izuku said and he was about to beat it when the woman called out to him again.

"Any inspirational words for your newest fan? Or maybe an explanation?"

"I did what I had to do," Izuku said adjusting his stance and feeling the metal rods shift from their position tucked against his waistband. He had to put those in his bag. His fingerprints were all over it.

"Because that's what heroes do."

Izuku had fled into the darkness of the night as he heard the police cars turn the final corner. He dropped his Transformation and he weaved through the alleys of Musutafu eventually coming out on a busy street.

It was a weekday, but still, people were out and about. Izuku kept his head down as he bobbed and weaved through the crowds. The smell of food, sweat and alcohol wafted through the air only serving to make him antsy.

The police would be looking for someone a lot taller and bigger than him, but he still felt some trepidation. What if someone had followed him this? What if they saw him drop his Transformation? They could have recognised him from any of the Konoha specials floating around and the police would be at his home before he was.

Izuku left the populated area as he took a shortcut through the alleys. Normally, this wasn't an option at night, but right now he was all out of options. The rods he had created from seemingly nothing were in his bag with his scroll and they made loud clanging noises as he ran through the dark and empty alleys.

He got out near his house and he sped down the street only slowing down when he saw no officers or Pros outside the apartment building. He climbed up the steps two at a time before entering his flat in a hurry.

His mother was glued to the TV and he froze as he saw what was showing on the TV.

"We have never heard of this Takoba Beach Vigilante, but he will be apprehended," said Kamui Woods his tone cool and harsh.

"Is that really fair to him?" the reporter said shoving a mic to Kamui's face, "It is safe to say that if it were not for him, the victim a Ms Sumire Utsusu would not be up and about. Reportedly, you only happened upon her because the vigilante was there in the first place to subdue the criminals."

"That may be true. However, all Heroes must be licensed," Kamui said with an edge to his tone, "It will not always go so smoothly if a civilian intervenes."

"How smoothly would it have gone if the vigilante had not intervened?"

Kamui seemed to glare at the rather insipid reporter before turning away.

"That's enough questions. I have work to do."

"There you have it, ladies and gentlemen," the reporter said smiling towards the camera, "The Pro Heroes would rather you stand by than help your fellow humans— We at Starlight News will always bring you pure and raw news. This is Masukomi Sousa at the Takoba Beach Junkyard—"

"Izuku!"

Izuku flinched as he tore his focus away from the TV. His mother was looking at him and her face was scrunched up in concern.

"I called your name three times," she said as she turned the TV off, "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, just a little tired," Izuku said wiping the sweat off his forehead, "I think I'll go shower now. Did you make any food?"

"Of course I did," his mother said and she continued speaking as he walked away, "Are you sure everything is fine, Izuku? You look pale."

Izuku paused before taking a deep breath. He turned back to his mom and smiled.

"I'm fine, Mom. I promise," Izuku said with a warm smile, "I think I just pushed myself too hard today and I've still got some homework I didn't finish in the afternoon."

Silence.

"...alright," his mother said finally, "I'm glad you're okay. With all these crazies running around who knows what could've happened. You heard about what happened at Takoba, right? People cannot just take the law into their own hands. That's what the Pros are for."

"I saw the police cars drive that way," Izuku said feeling a bit queasy, "It's a good thing they caught those two criminals."

"Were there two of them?" his mother queried, "I didn't see anyone mention that. Usually, that type of stuff only comes out later. I guess something like this would have some leaks."

Izuku let out a sigh as his mother explained away her own question. Finally, he was able to peel off and go into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and he undressed as he waited for the shower to heat up.

Izuku inspected his face in the mirror finding his skin to be unnaturally pale. He closed his eyes as he recalled the short scramble between him and the two criminals.

If those rods hadn't appeared when they did, he would have been—

Izuku stumbled over to the toilet before puking right in the bowl. His skin crawled and his head throbbed as the reality of the situation settled on him.

He could have died.

He was alive by mere happenstance.

If Crank had fired a bit more to the right then Izuku would have bled out in the heart of a junkyard with nothing to his name. No lives saved, no children inspired, just...nothing.

That caused another bout of puking. It went on until he was dry heaving and it was only then that Izuku saw the room was filled with steam from the shower.

He went to the sink to rinse his mouth and he frowned as he saw blood leaking from his nose. He wiped it away before hopping into the shower. The biting heat of the water helped to calm him down and by the time he was out of the shower he felt a lot calmer.

He dressed quickly and finished off the last of his homework before opening his bag. He took out the metal rods and he marvelled at them. One had a blunt end while the other ended in a dastardly sharp point.

These had come from his skin. There was no blemish on either of them even the one that had deflected a bullet. Interestingly, they were warm to the touch almost as if they had their own source of heat.

"Could it be?"

There was only one way to find out.

Izuku channelled his chakra into one of the rods and he blinked as he realised that the rods weren't rejecting his chakra. He pulled the chakra he had put in the rod out and to his surprise it crumbled away to dust.

"Cool," Izuku breathed as the dust blew across his room and then dissipated in barely visible sparks of blue.

He did the same to the other rod which left him with neither of the weapons he had used against Crank and Gear. That was good. A sharpened rod would have definitely not been the sort of thing to keep with you— at home or elsewhere.

Izuku tried to summon another rod, but he sighed as nothing happened. It reminded him of his discovery of Water Walking and Surface Sticking which Hiruzen alluded to being exercised for gaining control of one's chakra.

Somehow, he had to reverse engineer the rods. They were too useful for him to simply ignore and what if they popped out if he got startled by a cat or something in public? That would be an awful look.

Izuku got ready for bed and before he slept he saw that "TBV" was trending. It probably wasn't important. Izuku fell asleep almost instantly the day's events catching up with him.

It was all buried and gone, now though. He probably wouldn't have to worry about the incident for the rest of his life.

The next morning Izuku was slightly surprised to see the Takoba incident still being talked about.

It was a slow news day. That's what he told himself to keep himself calm.

He kept calm as radio show hosts talked about a hooded man with a shining white mask as well as mentioning Gear and Crank by name.

It was a slow news day.

Izuku had made it to his class, he was confident that the thing would blow over by lunch.

It's not like what he had done had been spectacular by any stretch. He would just be the flavour of the morning before fading into blissful—

"Did you see the video?!" shouted one of his classmates, "The TBV deflected a bullet! Do you know what kind of reflexes you need for that?"

—ignorance.

"Deflecting a bullet? That was decent at best! What was cool was how TBV just appeared like a looming shadow. Those guys looked so scared!"

TBV. Takoba Beach Vigilante. How did Nara know the specifics though?

"His name isn't TBV! That's what the feds call him. You heard the video. He wants to be called The White Mask!"

Video? What was going on?

Izuku scanned his class to see everyone in his class engaged in conversation and sure enough, they were all talking about the Takoba Beach Vigilante or, in simpler terms, him.

"He got shot like 4 times and then just faded away! That's an amazing Quirk!"

It was a slow news day?

"That's not his Quirk He fired these weird objects from his hands and was glowing purple. That is definitely his Quirk. Did you see that Crank guy after he got hit with one? He could barely move!"

This was really bad.

"I think the best part about The White Mask is his attitude," said Ami dreamily a girl who looked down on Izuku and quite a few others, "He's so dreamy! I'm glad I found the video on that Sumire chick's website."

Izuku froze as he fully processed Ami's words.

"Where's the video?" Izuku said to Ami surprising himself and the others with the urgency in his voice, "Is this from the Takoba Beach Vigilante?"

"Wow, Midoriya. You said all that without stuttering," said one of Ami's friends her tone mocking, "I guess spending some time in that ruin did you some good."

There were a few chuckles here and there, but Izuku could not care less about that at the moment.

Ami realised that her friend's jibe wouldn't chase him off and she scoffed before answering, "It's trending number 1 everywhere. I thought a nerd like you would have known all about this, but I guess it's way above your paygrade. Besides, his name isn't the TBV or whatever."

Izuku ignored the laughs from the rest of his class as he got out his phone. Sure enough after searching Sumire's name, he was lead directly to a website with a purple design and an article at the very top. It was the headline that made him freeze.

"Exclusive footage of The Takoba Beach Vigilante in action."

Izuku clicked on the article and played the video. He frowned as he saw the whole encounter right from the perspective of Sumire. Izuku was dead certain there had been no cameras so how—

Her eyes. The lack of blinking. Sumire's eyes could record whatever she saw! That explained how everyone knew intimate deals of what was supposed to be an intimate conversation.

The video ended with him running away before it switched to a video of Sumire speaking to the camera.

"The White Mask saved my life and I could not stand the slander that was in the press," Sumire said and her eyes weren't red anymore. They were now just a normal black.

"I am Sumire Utsusu and as an investigative journalist, it is my prerogative to tell the public the truth!" Sumire said her passionate tone doing the opposite of calming Izuku down while the others around him were taken by Sumire's fire and fury.

"No one is safe. Even the White Mask will be brought out of the shadows and into the light. As you saw, he was a bit unsure of his name so I thought we could help him! There's a poll at the bottom of the page! Subscribe for more content!"

The video went black.

Out of slightly morbid curiosity, Izuku scrolled down and he eyed the options. Admittedly, there were quite a few good ones, but one stuck out to him.

"Kage?"

That was probably because of the whole shadows reference. It had a nice ring to it he had to admit. Maybe he could use it the next time he saved someone.

The next time? Where did—

"You voted for Kage too, Deku?" Kacchan's voice said as he appeared from nowhere, "Let's see if that woman's website allows changes. If you thought it was good, then it's definitely bad!"

Clearly, Kacchan had gotten over his guilt at the scavenger hunt situation. There was a chorus of laughs that echoed Kacchan's statement and despite it all, Izuku felt a needle of frustration settle deep within him.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

OC Corner:

Kenchiki Chaka (Crank) — Quirk: Detector. Can detect when a Quirk is being used. Cannot identify which Quirk it is.

Notes: A distorted depth perception and heterochromia is a side-effect of this Quirk.

*/*

Kinkin Fukumigoe (Gear) - Quirk: Muffle. He can contain the sounds made within a certain area. He can control the area of effect, intensity, but not the time limit.

Notes: It is very exhausting and novice users cannot move around when using it. A shrill voice is a particularly odd side effect of this Quirk.

*/*

Sumire Utsusu — Quirk: Video Camera. She can record anything her eyes see. The video can then be uploaded onto a hard drive made out of a special crystal that is attuned to the signals the recording process emits.

Notes: Sumire never has to blink — a very convenient side-effect thanks to her Quirk. Her eyes glow red when her Quirk is active.

Author Notes:

I'm having so much fun writing this story. Originally, this chapter would have probably ended with the Entrance Exam, but now I'm taking my time to flesh things out a bit more. Obviously, UA is where the party's at and all that, but I'm loving the preamble. Izuku hasn't encountered All Might in this fic, but he still has a teacher of sorts and he's a very dedicated student so I don't doubt given enough of a nudge, he'd still train his ass off. Even the vigilante thing was added in a bit later to my initial outline for this fic.

I usually take longer to bust these out (you can ask the readers of my others fics lol) but I'm just really vibing with this fic. Even the names of the OCs were carefully chosen through the use of the Japanese dictionary on my phone.

Maybe the names won't all make sense or will be unrealistic, but Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu makes names a pretty low bar to clear lol.

I think I mentioned this earlier, but I only watched until the end of the anime and I definitely didn't watch the movies. I may do that eventually, but honestly, I don wanna. There is like a 20ish per cent chance I do something with one of the movies so I wouldn't hold my breath. This fic will diverge from canon, but there will be a smattering of spoilers from across all 4 seasons.

There will be a few more OCs- some important; some not. That's unavoidable, I'm afraid.

Those of you on AO3 can see that the ship is now Izuku Midoriya/Undisclosed and also that it is F/M. I changed the tag in-between this update and the last. All that means is that Izuku's straight and you have to read to find out how that'll go. The romance definitely takes a backseat to the plot, though, which is why I feel like not tagging it isn't that important.

And that's about it really. A very big thank you to everyone who's been giving kudos, commenting, subscribing and all of that. I love seeing those numbers go up. It just gets me all excited to write.

Stay safe, it's been one hell of a year.

Don't do anything I would do and don't do anything I would do. There's a little grey area in there, that's where you operate.