Ikumi Midoriya was about four when she really learned that the world is not kind or particularly fair.

Bakugo Katsuki grinned. "Okay! Today, we're playing Heroes vs Villains!"

The rest of the kids in the clearing cheered, Ikumi raising her fist last. Bakugo Katsuki grinned. "Right, who wants to be a Hero with me? Cuz I'm obviously the Hero."

Midoriya Ikumi hesitantly raised a hand. "Um..." The girl had a very distinctive appearance, with teal and cream fur and a sharklike muzzle. A pair of pointed ears stuck out of a mop of dark green hair, nearly matching her eyes. In spite of being the same age as them, she stood about two heads taller than the other boys.

"...could I be a Hero as well?"

One of the other boys scoffed. "What? No way, you should be the Villain!"

Ikumi looked down. "...but I never get to be a Hero..."

Tsubasa shrugged. "Well, that's because you look kinda scary."

"N-no I don't..."

The other boys looked between themselves. "Well, you look scary!" was the agreement.

Another boy chimed in. "Yeah, you're really tall-"

"-and you have sharp teeth-"

"...they're not that sharp..."

"Plus you've got those claws-"

Ikumi shuffled in place. She'd been trying to file her claws down to a more reasonable size. "No I don't."

Tsubasa pouted. "Do to."

"Do not."

Bakugo glared at them all. "Well, whatever!" He took a look at Ikumi's face. "Well, come on! You can be a Hero with me - you can be the scary Hero!"

Ikumi looked down at her feet. I don't want to be scary.


Much later...

Bakugo sighed, glaring at the scene in front of him. It was a relatively ordinary day at Musutafu station, save for the giant villain causing destruction. Dreadlocked, with a sharklike face and a wild look in his eyes, he roared in panic and rage, swinging wildly at the various heroes trying to contain him. Other heroes were on the sidewalk, keeping the general public out of harm's way. "Fucking typical," he grumble, looking up at his friend. "Bet you're loving this shit."

Ikumi nodded, eyes shining. "A giant Villain attack - oh! I wonder who's fighting him…" She scanned the buildings above, before she gasped a bit. "Oh! There's Kamui Woods! A real rising star!"

The man in front of her turned around. "Huh. A running…" His voice trailed off a bit as he looked at somebody's stomach… and then had to keep looking up to see who he was talking to properly, "…commentary?"

Ikumi Midoriya had been tall when she was four. At fourteen, she was gigantic. She stood nearly twice as tall as most grown men, only her school uniform hinting at her actual age. Her skirt ran all the way down to her calves, a pair of bright red running shoes complementing her fur colour nicely. In tears of physical build, you could call her curvy rather than slender, her uniform hugging her chest and hips closely.

Seeing a fight with a giant Villain was one of the only times when she actually felt short.

He briefly stared, then shrugged it off with a smile. "Kid, you're a real fangirl, huh?"

Ikumi nodded, forest green eyes flashing. Somebody behind her shoved her in the leg. "Get out of the way, I can't see!"

Her ears drooped as she seemed to shrink in on herself. "O-okay..." she mumbled.

Bakugo turned and glared at the pedestrian. "What the fuck did you-"

She gently laid a massive hand on her friends' shoulder. "Kacchan, it's not - it's not worth it."

Growling, Kacchan backed down. The man, much subdued, carefully squeezed his way closer, camera at the ready as the heroes swarmed the much larger Villain. The star-headed man in front gave him a dirty look, then turned back to the fight.

Ikumi gasped when she saw Kamui Woods' wooden arm start to unravel. "Oh, here it comes! Lacquered Chain-"

A huge blue of purple and white came from the Main Street, connecting with the Villain and sending him crashing into an office block. "CANYON CANNON!"

Ikumi's eyes widened when she saw a newcomer smash the Villain into the ground with a flying kick. "Gigantification... that's a really troublesome Quirk to use properly - she'll keep wrecking buildings like that unless she can modulate her height..." She scribbled frantically in her notebook, trying to get all of the details down. All around, people shoved past, trying to get pictures of the new Heroine as she flaunted her unique... assets.

The old man next to her gave her a cheerful smile. "That's a lot of notes you're taking, young lady! Do you want to be a Hero as well?"

Ikumi nodded, eyes sparkling. "Thanks! I'm going for it!"

Bakugo glared at the older man. "Like there's any fucking doubt." He glanced down at his watch. "We're gonna be late of we keep standing here, Iku."

"R-right." She carefully turned around, trying not to get in anybody's way. Bakugo, in contrast, just shoved his way past without regard to other people.

A businessman, not looking where he was going, collided with her legs in a similar fashion to running into a brick wall, falling down. He spluttered. "Watch where you're-"

His voice died down when he slowly looked up at the person he'd crashed into.

"O-oh! I'm sorry! I-I didn't see you!" She knelt down, offering a hand that seemed like it could wrap around his entire torso. "Do you need a -"

Hurriedly he picked himself up, bowing politely. "N-no need! I'm fine!"

Bakugo glared up at his erstwhile friend as she stared at the rapidly departing businessman with a despondent expression. "Come on, Iku! Hurry the fuck up!"

"C-coming!"


If Ikumi were inclined to figure out what made her life so awkward, it would be her height.

Inko Midoriya had been extremely surprised to give birth to an unusually large little girl with a rounded snout like a shark's.

Apparently her Quirk was a severely mutated version of her parents'. Her mother had a great aunt with a fox mutation, while her father had an unusually tall shark for a cousin. So the Doctors made a note on the birth sheet about her Quirk, noted her unusual size for a newborn, and that was that. Ikumi grew up a healthy and normal girl, at least mentally.

Ikumi had spent most of her life silently despairing as her Quirk kept making her grow bigger and bigger without giving her an off-switch. More than once she had begged, pleaded and outright wished that she would just stop growing. Her Quirk didn't listen and continued to make her the outright tallest person in any room.

There were a couple of fun advantages to being so tall - she'd once helped smuggle Kacchan and friends into an adult movie under a large coat, and had been the unchallenged basketball star at school until her height reached abnormal levels. But the disadvantages weighed out.

At nine years old she'd been the same height as her mother. Her mom may not have been a particularly tall woman, but it was plain mortifying to go in to a store and ask for custom clothes for a nine year old. Fortunately stores had developed a policy of customising clothing as necessary, but it was still frustrating. The look on her teachers' faces when they'd seen a junior student stand at their height had been funny, but the constant stares meant that she carried a proof of age card to stop people from accusing her of being a pervert.

She'd hoped, foolishly, that she wouldn't grow any taller. Then she'd hit puberty and suddenly her Quirk went haywire. It seemed that she grew out of her clothes every week, to say nothing of the fact that she was eating like a horse.

After the third time she'd hit her head on the ceiling, they had moved to a specialised flat for larger mutation Quirks. Practically everything needed to be specially made for her gigantic height. Ikumi had to duck through doors and move through a world built at half scale.

Things would have been bad enough if it was just her height causing her problems.


"Well, you're third years now. It's time for you to think about your futures!" Their teacher held up a stack of forms. "Now, I should probably hand these career forms out, but..."

he threw them in the air with a carefree expression. "I guess you all want to be Heroes!"

As their classmates cheered and started activating their Quirks, Ikumi slouched in her seat. In front of her, she could see Kacchan slouching in his chair, feet on his desk. She sighed, knowing what was likely to come next. As their teacher tried to calm his students down, Kacchan leered at his classmates. "Really, teach? Don't lump me in with these bozos."

Everybody around him glared at him. "Get over yourself, asshole!"

Ikumi hunched over more as Kacchan mocked their classmates. Hopefully this would all-

The teacher idly checked through the list of forms. "Oh, yes. Midoriya, you also applied for U.A., didn't you?"

And every eye was on her again. She shrank back as much as her size allowed. Nobody laughed because Kacchan was in the room, but Ikumi had always had a fantastic sense of hearing.

"Ikumi getting into U.A? Really?"

"She's kind of scary looking, would they let her in?"

Kacchan glared at their classmates. Ikumi stared down at her notebook.


"Kacchan, you can't murder our classmates," Ikumi sighed. They were walking home, down a quiet stretch of road.

Kacchan glared up at his friend. "Bet you I could. Bastards," he kicked a can across the street. "Bet they wouldn't be talking like that if you fought back."

Ikumi shook her head. "They would, Kacchan."

If she'd just been abnormally tall, life would have been easier. or if her mutations had only gone so far as a pair of ears.

But life is not kind or fair. People with extensive mutation Quirks got treated differently.

Ikumi had grown up as the largest child on the playground. Other girls had given her a wide berth when they were younger due to how different she looked from the rest of them. Playing games with the other kids meant that she had to be careful not to hurt them due to being so much larger and stronger.

She'd followed Kacchan around mostly because he was one of the kids who didn't give a damn what people looked like. It wasn't like she didn't have other friends, but Kacchan was her oldest and best.

Whatever animal her mutation mimicked, it was a strong one. Pencils and pens not made to withstand increased strength shattered in her grip. A couple of bullies had been dealt with simply by picking them up one handed.

Ikumi wanted to be a Hero and save people with a smile, but young kids got scared. Standing up to bullies resulted in the victim more often than not running away from her. Or the bullies ran over to a teacher and claimed that she was the one doing the bullying.

Physical education was practically a free period - her physiology was simply too different to be measured on a national metric. As long as she was doing exercise she was 'excused' from taking part in the national metrics. The basketball team had let her go citing it was 'unfair' for somebody to be using their Quirk to get an unfair advantage.

Kacchan thought that most people were idiots. He scowled up at her. "You gotta stand up for yourself, Iku! If you wanna be a hero-"

"-I-I have to be more confident. I know that," Izumi sighed.

He gave her a glare, then stomped off down the road. "Seriously, most of those guys don't have a great Quirk like mine or yours! Screw 'em!"

Ikumi managed a small smile. Good old Kacchan. He'd always been the most confident of the group, the leader. If she were being honest with herself, she envied his confidence, his surefire belief that he was the centre of the universe being reassuring.

Ikumi Midoriya wanted to be a Hero more than anything else.


An AU power swap for Izuku (how original, I know, truly I break new ground): what if Izuku was Ippan Josei (the giant fox lady that Izuku rescued)? I saw her design and character and thought, 'I could make a swap of this.

I feel this needs work even though I've laboured over this chapter for weeks. Unfortunately I'm crap at writing schoolgirl interaction and gossip. Mostly because I've never tried. I'm posting it mostly for criticism and other ideas to make this not garbage.

Bakugo is less of a dick, though it's pretty marginal. I had a bit of fun portraying him as 'supportive friend that occasionally is offensive without meaning to be.'