It was the night Midoriya got the acceptance letter that he decided to meet with his mentor at the beach they had spent the year clearing. After a brief congratulations, the two sat down, knowing they had many things to talk about.
"That was one hell of a blessing you got young Midoriya!" Toshinori said patting the boy's back, "Gotta say, if I'd had that sort of blessing, it'd have pissed off Endeavor to no end!" he said with a laugh, thinking about his rival and the number 2 hero in Japan.
Izuku knew a lot about Endeavor, sure he was no All Might, but being number 2 in the country was still a big feat. He gulped at the implication that he was now being compared to the hero before saying, "I-I don't think I'm at his level yet. B-besides I'm sure that robot would've been nothing to your strength."
"Ah, but it wasn't my strength, nor was it any of your peers. You alone took on that titan to save one girl, if that doesn't make you a hero, I don't know what does!" the man said with a smile, wiping a bit of blood away from his mouth and remembering not to overexert himself. "Never mind that though, how did it feel to use a blessing for the first time?"
"Painful," the boy began as his mentor spat up more blood in response, "Like every nerve I had was on fire. Just my luck to get a blessing that could kill me any time I use it." He looked down at his hands and arms as he continued to speak, "Weirdest thing is, the blast broke my limbs and burnt my skin, but somehow the hairs on my body didn't burn away." It confused the boy to see the hairs on his arms still standing after being engulfed in flames.
Toshinori laughed at the boy's last statement, "Well it's a miracle you get to keep your chest hair huh!" He couldn't help but try to lighten the mood. After a minute of chuckling he said, "What did you expect for your first time? It took me years to master the power given to me and I still messed up and hurt myself every now and again. You've got the power of not just a god like Prometheus, but all the people he chose before you. If you use it all at once you're bound to hurt yourself in one way or another."
Izuku heard this and thought for a second before asking, "So I need to use less of the blessing to use it more?"
"Exactly!" All Might screamed before returning to his hero form. "If you try cooking with the heat on high, you'd end up burning the food! What you need to do is lower the temperature of your power until you can handle the heat! Once you do that you can slowly raise it as your body adapts until you burn even hotter than the sun!"
"Right!" Izuku responded looking up to his idol, more determined to make this blessing his own.
Sometime later we see an enraged Bakugou yelling at a shaking Midoriya in an alley near their middle school.
"How the FUCK did you get into U.A. REJECT!?" Bakugou screamed. Hearing that he and Izuku had gotten accepted filled him with rage as he was being treated the same as someone who no one, not even the weakest Gods acknowledged. "I told you to stay out of my way! And now you've gone and bribed your way into my school just to spite me!" There was no other way he could've gotten in, he could've passed the written exam, but he damn well knew there was no hope of him passing the practical. Bakugou grabbed Midoriya's shirt collar before yelling, "ANSWER ME GOD DAMN IT!"
Izuku thought back to his talks with All Might, and the talk he had with his mother on the day of the exam. He felt his heart beat fast as he grabbed Bakugou's arm before saying, "I didn't bribe anyone! I got in just like you…" he paused to catch his breath before steeling his nerves to look Bakugou in his eyes, "There are people who believe in me and my dream, so I'm going to do everything I can to make it happen. Just like you Kaachan, remember?"
As he spewed his bullshit, Bakugou stared into his eyes expecting to see tears or something to show his weakness. Instead, he was greeted by eyes that radiated the heat of an open flame with the color to match. Bakugou blinked seeing this, only for the eyes of Izuku to return to normal as he reminded them of their promise as kids. The rage inside him died down as he let the Izuku go onto the floor. Not wanting to show weakness, Bakugou half-heartedly screamed as he walked away, "Just stay out of my fucking way!"
Bakugou walked back to his house quietly. He couldn't stop thinking about what Midoriya had said, about the promise they made. To be heroes, together. Why? Why did he hate the idea now? When did it all change? He wasn't angry, but he was sure he hated this feeling more. The only thing he could think of to get his mind off things was to train.
After he grabbed his gym equipment he headed off, only to stop at a house down the road from his. A new family had moved in years ago and it had a different paint job, but he remembered it like it was his own.
It was the Midoriya household.
Before he received his blessing, he would come over and play with the boy all the time. The two were inseparable. Until he got his blessing, and Izuku didn't. He saw Izuku's mother pour more and more money into rare treatments and pseudoscience to make one appear for her boy, only for nothing to work in the end. Eventually, they moved to an apartment complex, but he never bothered to ask where. It was too much for the young boy to handle, as he focused on the praise he received for his blessing to get away from it. "God damn it." He finally sighed and went off to train.
It was the first day of classes and Izuku was walking down the hallway at U.A. on his way to class. A mixture of anxiousness and excitement kept him moving as he approached his classroom. The sign said 1A and the door towered over him at more than 12 feet tall. Before Izuku opened the door he thought to himself, "Ok, as long as I'm not in the same class as Kaachan or the guy with glasses that I met at the practical exam I should be fine." He took a breath and opened the door.
Just his luck, first an uncontrollable power and now he's in the same class as two people who despised him. This thought ran through his mind when he saw the two bickering about something until the guy with glasses came up to him at an alarming speed. Before Izuku could get away the guy with glasses was directly in front of him.
"Hello there, I'm Iida Tenya, we first met at the entrance exam a couple of weeks ago. What's your name?" The guy talked fast, almost like a robot programmed to say a line efficiently.
"I'm Izuku M-Midoriya, it's nice that we're in the same cla-,"
"Midoriya," he interrupted, "I must apologize for the way I treated you at the exam. I misjudged your intentions and was overly rude to a fellow examinee. I hope you can forgive me."
It was a pleasant surprise for Izuku, after his experiences with Katsuki he had assumed Iida would hold a grudge as well. They spoke for a bit about the exam before Izuku heard another voice pop up behind him.
"Hey, it's you!" came a familiar voice, it was the same girl he had saved during the exam. Now having a closer look at her he could see tattoos around her wrists and fingers designed to look like constellations. The girl smiled at Izuku before saying, "I'm glad you made it, I never got to thank you for saving me that day!"
"I-it was n-nothing," Izuku said as he felt his face heat up, "J-just did w-what I had to do." All the first-day stimulation was getting to him already and the first bell hadn't even rung yet.
"It wasn't nothing Midoriya!" Iida said, "You saw the true purpose of the exam while the rest of us ran." He scrunched up his face in discomfort as he remembered the event.
"If we're all done reminiscing, class is in session so get to your seats." The trio looked around for where the voice came from, only to find a person in a sleeping bag who was drinking from some sort of pack. He mumbled, "Did I stutter," as he began to emerge from the bag.
The class quieted down as they were introduced to their teacher, Shouta Aizawa, who bore a tattoo that started from the corners of his eyes that went behind his ears, reminiscent of glasses if they weren't connected in the middle. He was also clad in mostly dark clothing with a grey scarf, in all honesty, he looked pretty washed up for someone teaching at U.A. Though, Izuku felt like he knew him from somewhere.
"Put these on and report to the P.E. grounds," Aizawa said gesturing towards sets of gym clothes on the front desk. He then left the classroom without explaining where they were supposed to change.
What came next was a series of tests meant to see the capabilities of the students' blessings. A reasonable task for a school focused on its hero course, but a shock to have on the first day of classes. Many of the students protested, only to be met with the gritty realistic view of their teacher. "If you want to be heroes, we don't have time for frilly niceties," which was followed shortly by him saying, "The student who ranks last overall will be deemed 'hopeless' and instantly expelled."
Bakugou was chosen to lead by example as he threw a baseball more than 700 meters with his explosive blessing, screaming, "DIE!" as he threw the ball. It felt good to just unleash this power without the need to worry about anything else. The only other time he got to was during the entrance examination, but it put a smile on his face to know he'd get more chances to experience this.
As they continued their tests Bakugou continued to outshine most of the class with an exception here or there. "Like that guy with the literal wings of Hermes as his blessing, no way I could've outrun that." Though throughout every test he looked to a certain boy to see, no, to make sure he was failing. "It only serves him right after bribing his way in here. I can't wait until he's finally out of my hair!" He kept thinking thoughts like this whenever he wasn't examining his quirk, but something told him to keep his mouth shut till it was over.
Eventually, the rest of the class were up for the pitch and Bakugou saw how Midoriya was panicking. As he walked up to the platform Bakugou chuckled and said, "Serves you right reject, you were powerless then and you're powerless now." He didn't realize that four-eyes from earlier was close enough to hear him.
"I assure you that boy is not powerless. In fact, he might be more powerful than anyone here." Iida said, considering how the zero pointer had looked after Midoriya was through with it.
Bakugou glared at the four-eyed student saying, "Are you crazy! That damn reject doesn't have a blessing! How could you think he's got power?!" Anger began to build up at what he heard the boy say. There was no way Midoriya would have any power… Right?
Then he looked back to the Izuku, who had just received a lecture from Aizawa for some reason. He began to wind up for his pitch again, and there it was. Like before his eyes began to glow orange as he lunged forward and, at the last second of contact between Midoriya's finger and the ball, suddenly a mixture of force and flames propelled the ball just 2 meters shy of where Bakugou's ball had landed.
As Midoriya stood there with his burnt and broken finger, Bakugou stood in shock. Looking at the reject of the gods, his anger was momentarily replaced by confusion. Then Iida spoke, "Because he can do that."
At that comment, Bakugou's confusion was once again used as fuel for his rage, as he lunged toward Midoriya screaming, "You Bastard! You had a blessing this whole time and you hid it from me! What sick game were you fuckin-," he was stopped by his teacher before he got to his target.
"Would you all stop making me use this blessing, I've got dry eye dammit!" His teacher yelled before looking into his eyes and saying, "You better cool off before you regret your outburst." After that he let the explosive boy go.
Katsuki couldn't understand it. Why? He'd been asking that question a lot recently, and it made him even more upset that every answer led to more fucking questions. He looked back at Midoriya, angry at him, at the damn god that blessed him, at the stupid fucking promise they made, and at the betrayal he felt having been lied to all these fucking years.
He didn't have any of the answers he wanted, and he sure as hell wasn't going to get them from the bastard who lied to his face for years. So, he just seethed in silence for the rest of the day. When it was finally announced that no one would be expelled Bakugou didn't even care. There were other schools, with other hero courses, no matter what they would meet again in the future with a blessing like his so there was no point in expelling him now. Bakugou would spend many hours training later that day to try and cool off, only to get more upset in the process. A singular question always managing to resurface in his mind.
"Why?"
The next day of classes came sooner than most students wanted as they were still getting into the swing of things. They were introduced to their new curriculums that would include basic education along with hero foundations and mythological studies. The first being obvious since they came to this school to become heroes, but the second needing some explanation amongst the group of students.
A boy with red spiky hair spoke up first asking, "Why do we need mythological studies? I've never heard of that as a required course for high school students before."
"You all have blessings that in some way relate to a god-like power from mythology. Many of you already know this and the specific stories relating to your own powers, however, in this day and age a hero needs to be every bit as prepared as they can be when facing a villain. That said, knowing even the basics of their mythology can help you discern certain aspects of a villain's powers and can be the thing that tips the scale in a battle." Aizawa stated as if he were explaining the obvious. "Who knows, you might even learn a moral or something if you pay attention."
A lightbulb clicked in many of the student's heads as he said this, including Izuku's. He'd been somewhat obsessed with analyzing the powers heroes got that he never stopped to think about who they got them from or what they meant. If he could Identify a tattoo on a villain correctly, he could narrow down the villains' possible threats and thereby allow him to come up with suitable encounters. Typically, these kinds of studies were reserved for aspiring Oracles, but they could be really helpful in certain situations.
As he thought about this, homeroom came to an end and the day progressed smoothly until it was time for the hero foundations class.
Seeing his mentor as the teacher for this class excited and motivated Izuku as he began to change into his costume. As he did, he remembered how his mother showed the costume she made to him with pride. It was a symbol of her support for him, and he was proud to wear it, even if some of the other costumes looked a little cooler. It resembled all he thought a hero should be and made sure he was always saving people with a smile.
As he arrived with the rest, Izuku looked around at the other costumes taking note of how they looked. Some decided to wear full-body costumes like his while others were more exposed. He saw a guy with red hair who bore almost nothing but his tattoo across his torso and back, it was an assortment of several mountains that each contained an empty space within them. It was hard to tell what that could relate to, but that was why they needed the mythological studies class.
"Alright! Now that you're all here let's get this lesson started!" All might said, which pulled Izuku away from his thoughts, "Today we will be doing mock battles in teams of two. Heroes versus Villains style!" He continued to explain the rules while Izuku and his classmates wrote their names on sheets of paper and put them into the drawing box.
Once all the names were in the box, All Might took it and shook it around for a second before pulling out the first names. "Our first mock heroes will be, Izuku Midoriya and Mina Ashido, and their villains will be Katsuki Bakugou and Shoto Todoroki!" All might said as Izuku's face went pale.
Izuku looked over his shoulder to see a pink girl waving at him excitedly, next to a cold glare from Katsuki. Izuku gulped as he thought, "Oh boy…"
Author's Note: I wanted to get this out sooner, but exams and moving have gotten in the way somewhat. I'm still glad I got to write a little bit during this chaotic time. I have also just realized that this site really doesn't like separating scenes with lines or similar things. I've been using those to make it more clear when a scene changes but I guess that must've been confusing without them. I might switch to another platform that supports those types of breaks if I find one. I guess that's a problem for future me though.