ENJI

I

The Pilot

Enji Todoroki was a simple man.

Well, maybe not simple. Straightforward, yes. Set in his ways, maybe. He'd lived his whole life abiding to the same few principles that had been passed down to him from his own father, and from his grandfather to his father, and…

Well, you get the point.

He went to the same restaurants for lunch, the same department stores for clothes, and he drank the same thing every morning- a banana chocolate shake packed to the brim with Whey protein.

Rarely, if ever, did Enji every stray from these daily routines- why would he?

Enji had worked his whole life to reach the level he currently rested at.

He was known for having the most solved cases out of any crime fighter, and by the age of 20, Endeavor had already taken his place as the No. 2 Pro Hero. He was one of the strongest heroes to walk the face of the Earth, and for that reason alone, he'd never strayed from his daily routine.

Not for his wife, not for his children, and especially not for anything else.

Today, though, that was going to change.

It was a particularly slow day at the Endeavor Hero Agency, and Enji was sitting calmly at his desk, looking over some expense reports, when his assistant busted through the door.

"Channel 5," She stumbled out, turning on the television in Enji's rather spare office on.

"There's some sort of villain attack, and he's taken some kid hostage!"

"Interesting," Enji replied plainly, leaning forward on his desk. He calmly placed the papers back down on his desk and stood up, walking closer to the television. "Which villain?"

"Some sludge villain," His assistant finally found the channel. "Look."

It was true. A rather goopy villain had in fact taken a rather ornery looking teenager in custody, and all the assorted heroes at the scene stood there, completely useless.

A grunt of annoyance worked its way out of Enji's body. These were the kinds of heroes that annoyed him to no end…the ones that would revel in the fame and glory, go to talk shows and autograph signings, but ultimately come up short when they were needed the most.

"Well, Mei?" Enji spoke up a few moments later. "Is there any particular reason you wanted to show me this?"

Mei wrung her hands together nervously. "Oh…I just t-thought that you'd want to, you know…"

Enji sighed, "No. If those excuses for professional heroes want to ever learn, this is how it'll happen. Besides, there's no point in helping, anyway. I have better things to do with my time."

Harsh? Maybe, but that was how Enji saw the world. It was sad, really, that the poor boy would die, but it made no sense for Enji to go try to help.

Why?

Well, it didn't aid him in any way, shape, or form.

Some might call it callous, selfish- irresponsible, even, but that was just how Enji worked. He had his feelings and his work, and those two things never interconnected.

Enji loved ice cream with nuts in it, but would he ever stop his professional day to go eat some? No!

During the workday, all that mattered was his goal- to eventually become the number one hero.

This obsessive drive had followed Enji throughout his entire life, with the earlier parts of his life being plagued by repeated failure.

When he was young, he'd taken entirely too long to manifest his quirk. Then, he'd almost been rejected by the best hero academy around at the time, been late to his provisional license exam- the list stretched on.

That's when he made the decision to dedicate himself to his studies and hero work, striving to become the absolute strongest Pro Hero in the country, but even then, the figure of All Might had proved itself too much of an insurmountable obstacle for him or anyone else to overcome, leaving Enji in a growing state of despair as he became more and more aware that closing the gap between him and the Symbol of Peace was futile.

He'd tried things, sure, eventually ending up on trying to create a hero stronger than All Might by finding a suitable mate, but even that had gone down the drain, as his children looked seemed to be disillusioned with the very idea of working with him to grow strong.

The point, of course, being that Enji wanted to be number one more than anything else, and in a day, he only did things he perceived to be beneficial toward his goal.

Saving that kid would mean putting off these expense reports, which would mean taking out more time out of his day tomorrow, which would mean his training would be cut short. And that, of course, would eventually dull his edge and he'd slip in the hero rankings.

"Unacceptable," Enji mumbled to himself. He opened his mouth again to tell Mei to turn the screen off and let him get back to work, but in his ruminations, he'd completely missed half of the situation.

"That idiot boy!" Mei gasped out, pointing at a new boy, wearing a similar uniform to the first one. The broccoli-headed idiot was breaking out into a sprint, running at the monster with all his might.

Enji sighed again. As a result of those heroes' incompetence, two innocent children were going to die. It truly was a- huh?

The green haired boy threw his backpack into the villain's eye, and to Enji's surprise, followed it up with a series of punches. Frantic, hurried punches, sure, but punches nonetheless.

To his keen eye, Enji noticed the small flashes of white as the boy tried his hardest to pry to villain off of his hostage.

Those flashes…Hisashi…

"Mei, where did you say this was?" Enji said, suddenly very intrigued about the boy.

Yes, he was starting to see the resemblance…if this truly was Hisashi's son, Enji would have to speak with the boy.

"I-It's downtown…"

"Clear my meetings for the rest of the day," Enji grunted, not even waiting for Mei's response as he opened one of his windows and jumped out.

Hellfame roared into existence, shooting out of his feet as went streaking down towards where the alleged fight was happening.

By the time Enji got to the scene, the fight had been taken care of. There was a faint drizzle pattering against the pavement, and the crowd had already cleared out.

To his luck, Enji spotted the green-haired boy from before walking away, towards one of the residential areas in town. He pushed a bit more effort into his flight and easily landed next to the boy, who yelped.

"Hey, kid," Enji greeted gruffly, raising a flame-covered hand in greeting. "What's up?"

"E-Endeavor, The Flame Hero!" The boy stuttered, his expression switching back and forth between utter surprise and worship. "You're the number two hero! You use your quirk Hellflame to"-

"Yeah," Enji cut the bubbly kid off. How to start, how to start…"That was some idiotic shit you did back there."

Oops.

"What's your name?" Enji continued, raising a fiery eyebrow at the kid, who was now looking down and muttering incoherently to himself. He nudged him. "Kid."

"Izuku Midoriya!" Izuku yelled, still looking downward. "Sir!"

Midoriya, huh? Yeah, that just about sealed the deal, then. No doubt about it, this had to be Hisashi's kid.

"Izuku. Now, then, what the hell were you thinking, running in there like that?" Enji reprimanded the boy. "You could've been seriously hurt."

"I-I don't know," Izuku all but wailed. "My body started moving before I had a chance to think. Almost on its own. All I knew is that I had to get in there and save Kacchan."

"Well, try to be more careful next time. Why weren't you using your quirk?"

"Oh, uh, I-I don't have one," The boy, Izuku, said lamely. Enji noted that he seemed even more dejected after saying that- maybe a point of sensitivity for the boy?

"Yeah, you do," Enji said, a look of confusion forming on his face. Izuku's head shot up. "You used it during your fight. Did you really not notice?"

"Uh…"

"Kid…" Enji trailed off, trying to find the right words. "Listen, if you don't know about your own damn quirk, I'm guessing something isn't right here. Do you know anything about your father?"

"My father?" Izuku looked thoughtful for a moment. "My mom doesn't really talk about him…"

Go figure.

"Oh, boy," Enji sighed, exhaling loudly through his nose. "That's…something."

"Did you know him?"

"Kind of," Enji admitted. "What I can tell you for sure, is that it looks like you've inherited his quirk."

AN: A MHA fic this time, where instead of All-Might, Endeavor got to Deku. And, of course, he had a super-secret quirk and all. You know. The whole nine yards.