Sorry it's been a long ass time since I've posted anything. I've mainly been distracted by video games and reading other fics to the point where the writer's block just kept building up, as well as things kind of being hectic around my family due to my grandmother passing from COVID.
So hopefully, I'll be able to get back to my usual schedule, but that might not happen until summer.
Writing this chapter as a whole was pretty damn difficult because of just how much I didn't want to set up the story's overall plot, so I apologize if some parts leave you a bit confused.
I honestly don't like having to do more time skips, but I can't really get the story going until the timeline gets to the year before Izuku goes to U.A., so please continue to bear with me if you find the pacing a bit fast.
(Plus if I stretch it out too much, it'll get boring asf for you to read and for me to write, so this is also me playing it safe.)
IV. Opportunity of a Lifetime
If one were to ask Raditz what his favorite planet was, he would have to answer with Earth, each and every time. With all the rich cultures, entertainment, and food, there really wasn't a better experience to be had in this part of the galaxy. His biggest (and most unrealistic) hope was that Frieza and his ilk would never come across this world, as countless others had been brought to heel by the Cold Dynasty.
In truth, he was expecting a barren wasteland occupied by a single boy, as all non-royal Saiyan infants were sent to wipe out weak planets, both because it was common sense, and as a way to prove their right to live.
If they were strong and succeeded, then they were eventually found and brought back into Saiyan society. But if they were weak and failed, then they were left for dead, and the disgrace of their memory and who they were (and what they could have been) were forever lost to time.
So when he stepped out of the pod and found himself face-to-face with a blue-haired woman pointing something akin to that of an energy rifle to his face, Raditz immediately assumed the worst, and it was with a heavy heart that he realized his failure to his liege, and their cause as a whole...until the woman asked him if he was from the Galactic Patrol, which considerably threw him for a loop.
As far as Raditz was aware, Earth's technological level was still too low for space travel to be developed, meaning that the inhabitants weren't supposed to have extraterrestrial knowledge. He briefly wondered if it was a comrade's doing, but that thought quickly dissipated when the woman explained her history with a Patroller by the name of 'Jaco'.
So after tentatively giving the woman (who introduced herself as Bulma) his name and what exactly he was doing here, Raditz was shown around the area he had landed in, and in exchange for sharing his space pod's technology as well as promising not to harm her family, was allowed to stay at Capsule Corp. and use their resources to conduct his recon mission and search for Kakarot's location.
A half-revolution around the planet's star ended up passing since then, and Raditz quickly realized that Earth really wasn't as primitive as everyone made it out to be. Sure, the majority of them lacked the ability to utilize energy, but that didn't mean that they weren't exactly powerless, either. After being given a crash course into Quirks (with Bulma going off on a tangent about her own), Raditz's respect for the woman and the species as a whole grew tenfold.
And when she showed him the DynoCap, he nearly salivated at the potential such a device presented. So many of his painfully-tedious reconnaissance missions would have been a lot more bearable had he been able to carry all of his supplies on his person.
And so Raditz decided to stay on the planet for the time being, learning everything he could about the planet and sending reports and as much information as he could through discreet channels, intent on making sure that someone could be sent to pick up the supplies. If things would continue to go as smoothly as they had been, then Earth would give Vegeta's resistance movement a massive advantage in their fight to overthrow the Colds in power.
But no matter how much time would pass, Raditz never forgot about why exactly he came to Earth in the first place. When he first arrived, he would regularly ask Bulma for any news or rumors about his brother, but in light of the obvious difficulty in discreetly finding someone that matched a Saiyan's description in a world full of Quirks, instead took it upon himself to travel around the planet to look for Kakarot himself.
Which was how he found himself in Japan, having to tolerate a group of Pro Heroes who liked to dress up as cats because he somehow ended up courting the one with brown hair, along with trying to get her nephew to stop moping around like a pansy.
He had no doubt his ancestors were mocking him right now. Five years prior, he'd have scoffed at the prospect of a mighty Saiyan warrior trying his utter damnedest to blend in with a population of weaklings. But then again, his Prince had tried to do the same thing, before Frieza eventually found out and had his lover and child killed, and then everything went to shit.
Raditz had even voiced his concerns when he finally came clean with Shino, but luckily with her profession, she wasn't the type to take things lying down (but only in combat, if you caught his drift).
Part of him felt guilty for roping her and Kо̄ta into all the conflict, but it truly was only a matter of time before it spread to Earth; spies were always bound to slip up sooner or later, and the presence of Quirks and Capsule Corp's technology was just too good of an opportunity to pass up for either side.
Six Months Later...
School couldn't have ended at a better time, Izuku supposed. Try as he might, he was just not a fan of having to take classes like Advanced Math and English, even though he knew just as much as the next guy how important it was. He just would very much rather keep learning strategy and improving his combat skills, but Toshinori had told him that he wouldn't be accepted in most hero schools if he had poor grades, and Raditz simply said that 'it was always the stupid fighters that went down first', so it wasn't like he had any choice in the matter, either.
Still, though, he could've gone without all the looks and whispers from his classmates when their homeroom teacher had outed him as being the person with the largest chance of being accepted into U.A. University, as well as more than a few of the girls in his class becoming a bit too chatty than he was comfortable with and giving him their phone numbers (though oddly enough, whenever he tried to visualize that memory, their faces were all replaced by Momo's).
It was pretty strange.
At the moment the bell rang, he stuffed everything in his bag at the fastest speed he was allowed to and hightailed it out of there, and was now just waiting for everyone else to finally start walking out to the front of the school. Once he spotted who he was looking for, he began walking towards the crowd with a wave of his hand.
"Yo! Kuririn!"
While Izuku had quite a bit of difficulty making friends with other children his age while growing up, he and Kuririn had more or less hit it off from the start, much like he did with Momo three years prior, but he had the fortune of seeing the other boy almost every day, so the status of best friend inevitably went to him (not that the Yaoyorozu heiress really minded - unbeknownst to Izuku, she was starting to see him as maybe just a little bit more than a friend).
Kuririn Kurige was a new student from Jaku City joining during the middle of the year, and had defended himself from bullies looking to make fun of his height and lack of a nose by showing off his 'Plasma Disc' Quirk after school. Impressed at the display, Izuku asked to analyze and write about it in his notebook, and alongside sharing a mutual interest in heroics, the two hit it off and soon became as thick as thieves.
(When Momo visited whenever she was able to, Kuririn regularly tried to leave Izuku alone with her, muttering something about a 'wingman' - much to his confusion.)
"'Sup?" Kuririn greeted in return, pocketing his phone and sharing a fist bump with Izuku. "We still on for training?"
"Yeah. My mom needs me to get something from the store first, but then we're good."
"Oh, okay." Kuririn nodded, and pulled his phone out and took a brief look at the time before pocketing it. "Well, I've got time to kill, so I guess I'll just join you."
After about twenty seconds of walking, the two reached the entrance of an underpass, and Izuku was beginning to feel some slight hunger pains. Shrugging off his backpack, he turned it around to fish out a DynoBar, before tearing it open and taking a bite, slightly grimacing at the taste. While he more or less liked grape juice as much as the next guy, the grape-flavor of the condensed food bar just seemed to be a complete miss. But it was also the last one he had left on him, so he didn't really have any choice, either.
If only he had a bacon-flavored one, right about now...
As Izuku was about to take his next bite, his nose was assaulted by just about the foulest stench he had ever come across in his life. Because of the enhanced senses that came with his alien biology, he was no stranger to the smell of animal waste and carcasses found in the wilderness of Mount Paozu, but this...this type of smell wasn't normal.
Clenching his teeth, Izuku willed himself to push down the urge to gag, before shoving the DynoBar in his pants pocket and reaching his hand out in front of Kuririn in a silent command to stop walking. "Whoever you are," he called out to the seemingly empty space. "You can come out now."
Off to his side, Kuririn looked at Izuku in alarm. "Is there someone here?" he asked.
Ignoring his friend's remark, Izuku kept his ki sense locked on to the now-revealed third person in the underpass, and turned around to witness a mass of sludge forming with an audible squelching noise, before it finished with a large set of eyes and teeth finally showed themselves.
"So you knew where I was, huh?" the man-made-of-sludge said, before his face broke out into an ominous grin. "Look where that got you."
A tense silence briefly filled the air, before the he lunged with his arm outstretched, and Izuku immediately reacted by tightly gripping the back of Kuririn's uniform jumping backwards to a distance that was well out of the Villain's range, before the two unceremoniously landed on their backs. With haste, Izuku stood back up and launched himself forward to deliver a punch that connected with the Villain's midsection, but soon became momentarily shocked as he saw his arm sink into his body instead of forcefully knocking it away.
He used too little force.
But before Izuku could free himself and try again, his ears picked up a faint humming sound, and ducked to narrowly avoid Kuririn's volley of miniature Plasma Discs, with one of them even managing to sever the Villain's arm.
"What the hell?!" It didn't look like it did any damage based on his reaction, but it was enough to distract him as Izuku was able to effortlessly yank his arm free and fly backwards until he was standing next to Kuririn. He turned to share a look with the other boy for a brief second, before they rushed at him, with Kuririn yelling out a battle cry as his palms lit up with more Plasma Discs, while Izuku aimed to attack his only exposed weakness: his eyes.
The impromptu tag-team continued for another minute or so with Izuku landing quick jabs and flying above and around the Villain to dodge Kuririn's Quirk, until enough of the Villain's sludge-like body had been severed, and Izuku followed up with a powerful Kiai that managed to knock him back towards the opposite entrance of the underpass.
"You-you little shits!" the Villain yelled as he formed back together. "Just you wait 'till-"
"Until what, exactly?" a booming voice interjected.
If it were possible, the Villain seemed to go white at the newcomer's voice. "...oh."
"Oh...?"
"...Shit."
Toshinori's trademark grin seemed to turn shark-like as he reared his fist back. "I thought so."
"Remember to lift with your legs!"
"I'm...trying...! Do you know how heavy this thing is?!"
Izuku set down the pile of scrap metal he was carrying and walked over to the refrigerator Kuririn was struggling to even budge, before gripping its sides and almost effortlessly lifting it up over his head. "It's not that heavy."
"...Okay, now you're just rubbing it in," Kuririn deadpanned.
"Hehe, sorry," Izuku chuckled. "But how 'bout I give you a hand?"
Off in the distance, Toshinori casually took a sip of non-alcoholic beer as he watched his students from his camping chair. Seeing as how they handled their escapade just a few hours earlier was still illegal by Japanese law (even if one of them was technically Quirkless), Toshinori was obligated to give Izuku and Kuririn a verbal reprimanding, but increasing the severity of their training.
By a lot.
"How long do you reckon 'till they clear the whole thing?" Muten Rōshi asked next to him, sporting a bright green visor cap alongside his usual Hawaiian shirt and swim shorts.
"A few months, give or take," Toshinori replied.
The goal of having Izuku and Kuririn clear Takoba Municipal Beach Park of trash was to further build up their physical strength, as well as get Kuririn used to the idea of using his ki to strengthen his entire body (and in Izuku's case, get him used to strengthening individual limbs). But because the disparity of strength and experience between the two was so high, Toshinori had Izuku wear a set of weighted clothing in order to make the training worthwhile.
And if either of them were to get hurt or pull a muscle? Well, he always kept a small pouch of Senzu Beans on him during Pro Hero work, just in case.
The silence between the two men continued for several more moments, before Roshi spoke again. "You still thinking of giving Izuku One For All?"
"...Yeah," Toshinori replied. "I don't think there's really anyone better."
"Not even the Kurige kid?"
"Well, he might be a good fit, too," he conceded. "But he wouldn't be able to do as good a job as Izuku would." When he had first told him about just exactly how he was able to defeat Piccolo Daimaō when no one else could (and his subsequent injury from the bastard who killed Nana), Izuku had gotten this look in his eyes. Not too different from all the kids who admired All Might, but purer, in a sense.
He already had the motivation for a career in Heroics ever since he was a young child, when his mother and grandfather had to pull him aside and carefully explain why his father couldn't be there with them for more than half of the year, but he also had the desire to protect others, whether it be from run-of-the-mill Villains or schoolyard bullies.
Having such honorable reasons were few and far between in a society where superheroes were glorified and romanticized to extreme levels, and to be honest...Toshinori saw a lot of himself in the boy he grew to love as a nephew.
He wasn't sure how Sorahiko would take the news, but he definitely knew Mirai wouldn't react positively. While he considered him one of his most trusted friends and allies, the man was a just a little too overzealous in maintaining All Might's public image. He was more concerned with finding someone who could become 'All Might 2.0', rather than someone who could definitively replace him and develop their own identity.
"Well, I'd have to agree, in any case. When are you giving it to him?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "There's still a lot of time for me to figure out when."
Raditz had revealed that it was only a matter of time before the Planet Trade Organization set its sights on Chikyū's resources and technology, and because Izuku had been sent here outside of Frieza's knowledge (alongside a very good amount of information about Prince Vegeta's Resistance), there was a large chance of the tyrant himself getting involved in conquering the planet, and Izuku would need to have mastered One For All's stockpile of physical strength and ki by then.
He just prayed it wouldn't happen for years until they were all ready...
All of a sudden, Toshinori's thoughts were interrupted by a violent roar emanating from above, and he looked up to see something streaking through the sky at a speed much, much faster than a military aircraft in controlled flight.
It was going to crash-land, and very likely on or somewhere near a populated area. But what's more, was what he sensed inside the UFO.
"Sensei. Do you feel that?"
"I do," Rōshi replied. "You should probably try to make sure it doesn't hit anyone."
"Yeah. Please make sure the boys finish their training." With that, Toshinori pushed ki into his legs to lift himself into the air, before soaring towards the sky with a boom! as the sound barrier was broken.
Elsewhere, 50 km Above...
Hidden from view to the surface below, the green being known as Kami kept his gaze on the sky from his place on the edge of the Guardian's Temple, keeping a tense grip on his staff as he watched for the spaceship's trajectory. The Dragon Balls had already been collected in anticipation for any serious damage upon impact, thanks to his limited ability to see the future, but he was still unaware of whether or not the planet's new visitors held good intentions.
It was a stroke of good luck that the Saiyans had so far done the exact opposite of what he had heard of their behavior from Raditz's stories, but that was no reason for the World Guardian to start becoming complacent. After all, who was to say this next one would be the same?
Nevertheless, Kami maintained his focus on watching for the ship's trajectory, admittedly cracking a smirk or two at some of the reactions to the sight of it (he had been feeling particularly bored before all this started).
However, it wasn't until the ship entered the upper atmosphere that Kami's eyes widened as he came to a sudden realization: he recognized the make of the ship as well as the emblem that adorned it to be identical to the one belonging to that 'Jaco' fellow who first came to Earth around the same time as young Izuku Midoriya.
Meaning that the situation had to be dire if it called for crash-landing for a second time upon arrival.
Kami immediately turned around and started making his way towards the Temple with as much speed as his body could give him. "Mr. Popo," he called out, looking over to his assistant tending to the garden. "I'm going to be leaving for a bit. There's a matter concerning our newest visitor that requires my utmost attention."
"As you wish, Kami," the genie replied, quickly matching the Guardian in place as the two of them reached the building. Before long, Kami was standing in the center of the Room of Spatial Materialization, with Mr. Popo on standby next to the control switch, ready to activate the teleportation sequence.
"Where to?"
"Yunzabit Heights, Japan."
"Ah. Please give young Piccolo my regards."
Kami nodded. "Of course." It would be nice to see his son again, after all.
Wordlessly, Mr. Popo's hand began to glow a dim blue light to the point where it was threatening to release sparks, to which he set his hand on the rectangular panel, feeding his magic into Room. Almost instantly, the circle surrounding Kami lit up a brilliant white, and eventually, it culminated into a bright flash, and the Guardian was nowhere to be seen.
I know you wanted a continuation of where last chapter ended but I need this chapter done now, damn it, so I just opted to move that specific scene to either next chapter or the one after it.
Yup, Krillin's got a last name now, and I've decided to make Destructo Disc his Quirk.
Are the Saiyans are good guys here? No, not really, but I'll be getting into why exactly I'm pulling a Star Wars sometime in the next few chapters. It'll be good, I promise.
I know you think that Goku!Izuku getting OFA is overkill because he's already a Saiyan with ki control and complete mastery over the Oozaru, but you know who else is OP? The DBZ big bads. There's literally no rhyme or reason why Frieza and maybe Cell would be any weaker than in canon, so that's where One For All comes in, because there's just no way for him to get to the level canon Goku was at 18 without it.
A Goku that lived a relatively normal life is never gonna be able to get the combat experience and Zenkai boosts necessary to naturally match the world-ending villains in power (tl;dr he's actually weak as shit here compared to everyone outside Earth), so he needs the power boost OFA gives just to stand a chance against Frieza. If it helps at all, think of it as a replacement for the Kaio-ken, and that he won't be getting it for a while, at the very least.