My Hero Academia: Symbiosis
OneTrueKingOfWinter
Chapter 3: Homecoming
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku had two choices when it came to returning to school.
The first was to walk in with his quirk obvious for all to see and tell everyone that he no longer was quirkless.
The other was to keep it secret and not tell anyone about it at all for the remainder of his time there.
There were pros and cons to each option.
Telling everyone was easily the more appealing option at first glance. Izuku didn't like lies in general, much less telling them. He just didn't like doing it.
Not to mention that if he told everyone, the way everyone would treat him would change. Maybe he could finally be just another student, not "That quirkless guy". Was wanting to be treated like a human being that damned wrong?
On the other hand, the cons of telling everyone was all about one person.
Katsuki Bakugou.
His "Old friend", was violent, angry, and flat out hated him for being quirkless.
A week ago he would probably have seen the idea of telling Katsuki that he had a quirk as a surefire way to finally end the bullying, if not mend their relationship.
Right now though, he had no idea how Katsuki would react. Frankly, he couldn't imagine that whatever Katsuki's reaction was would be positive.
And then there was the final thing. He didn't WANT to make up with Katsuki anymore. As far as he was concerned, that ship had sailed. He wasn't sure exactly when it had reached the point of no return, but it was probably delusional to think that the events last Friday had been the decisive moment.
It wasn't. It was just the moment Izuku had woken up.
As for not telling anyone…
Well, the biggest drawback was obviously that things would remain the way they were.
He'd keep getting treated like a pariah just for being "Quirkless", everyone would continue to look down on him, laugh at any perceived flaws, every little mistake, all his hopes, and dreams.
Katsuki, in particular, would treat him the exact same way he had always done. Probably even worse now, after their last encounter.
On the other hand, there were pros to not telling anyone.
Or rather, there were situations that it might be best to avoid altogether.
The most obvious was that without knowing how Katsuki would react, he could most certainly not rule out the idea that Katsuki might attack him. Like, really attack him, like three days ago.
If he did, Izuku WOULD fight back. And with the strength he now possessed… Well, there was going to be collateral damage. The absolute worst-case scenario would be if the two of them got into a huge fight at school, wrecked a huge part of it, and put each other in the hospital.
Win or lose, it would probably tank both of their shots at a hero career, much less getting into Yuei, where any pre-criminal record was guaranteed to get you rejected on the spot. In fact, pretty much all hero schools were like that.
He couldn't risk that. He just couldn't.
He had dreamed of what had just happened for an entire decade. It would be the ultimate cruel twist of fate, if after all of it, after all that suffering, after finally getting a quirk, he blew it all on a pointless bout with Katsuki.
He couldn't let it happen.
So, he had decided to keep his mouth shut, and his quirk hidden for the rest of his final middle school year. 10 months. He just had to keep this quirk a secret at school all the way to the end of February next year.
That was a daunting prospect, even if he decided on it as the only course forward.
At least his quirk had seemingly liked the idea. It had so far been very willing to just fuse to his school jacket and not randomly pop out. Just one time of it doing that, and the secret was out of the bag.
He'd tried to explain the plan and why it was necessary for 4 hours yesterday to it. He was pretty sure it didn't understand anything about his long explanation other than the point that he wanted to keep it hidden for the moment.
THAT it had understood, and shown great enthusiasm about.
He wasn't sure why of was so happy about that specifically, but then again… There were a lot of things he didn't understand about his quirk so far.
So, as he walked back into Aldera Junior High for the first time since awakening his powers, he felt… Well, a lot of things. Frustration for not getting to show everyone his quirk, fear that he'd get into a fight with Katsuki despite his efforts, and just all around not being comfortable at all.
Then again, he had never been comfortable here at all. As he looked up at the building as he walked through the yard, he realized something.
He hated this school.
He probably shouldn't be as surprised by that as he was, he didn't have any positive memories of his time here whatsoever after all. Yet the revelation really did surprise him.
He hated this building. He hated this school as an institution. He hated the fact that he was stuck here for the entirety of the rest of the year.
It was just like with Katsuki. It was like he finally woke up, after so long trying to make something of himself here and trying to pretend it wasn't just godawful.
He bit his lip and forced himself to keep going. Standing around and glaring at the building wasn't going to make any of this any easier.
He would have to suck it up and deal with it.
--
This was so much worse than he had assumed it would be.
Izuku had expected everything to be just the same as always.
It wasn't. At all. But not because anything had changed with the class itself. No, the change was with Izuku, not his fellow students.
Izuku had never, in his entire life felt as alone as he did now in this classroom surrounded by his peers.
Like with Katsuki and the school itself, it was like Izuku had been living in a dream, only to violently wake up and seeing things for the way they were.
He had no friends here.
He had known that already, of course, he hadn't had any friends for years. The only people who cared about him was his mom, a couple of friends of his parents, and now his own quirk, who's life was tied to his own.
Well, and his dad too probably.
Sitting at his usual spot, however, he finally GOT it. These weren't his friends. They had never been his friends. They were never going to be his friends, no matter what happened.
They had every single one of them, stood by as he was humiliated, partaken in it by refusing to condone it, and actively encouraged Katsuki every time he had put him down.
It would have been easy if this revelation had brought rage and anger like it did with the school and Katsuki.
But it didn't. He didn't feel angry or pissed off at them. Just a crushing wave of disappointment, sadness, and bitterness.
Why had he wanted to reveal his quirk exactly? So THESE people would deign to treat him like he was a human being with feelings and dreams?
Now that was a joke. A far bigger one than he had been a week ago.
The only friend Izuku had in this entire school, was currently fused into his jacket.
At least he could take some solace in that. Whatever happened next, he would not be alone.
The door opened and Katsuki stepped into the room.
Every muscle in his body tensed like steel coils like he instinctually expected a fight the moment Katsuki walked into the room. In his head, the anger that seemed to shoot into his mind whenever Katsuki came up took hold as he braced himself for the inevitable confrontation.
Instead, Katsuki didn't even glance in his direction, walked up to his own table, unceremoniously drop his bag by it, then sat down in his seat, all without saying anything.
Well, that was… Different.
The completely silent Katsuki was noticed by other people in the class too, not just Izuku.
They didn't get to begin gossiping about it though, as their teacher walked in 20 seconds after Katsuki.
Their sensei glanced over at Katsuki for a moment, looking kinda sad, then he just began the day like it was a usual and regular day.
--
Katsuki's change in demeanor didn't change as the classes went by. Instead, he was just completely quiet and focused exclusively on whatever the teacher said.
It was… So bloody of character for him, that Izuku wondered if it was some trick to lull him into a sense of false security.
It was a ridiculous assumption of course, but he honestly couldn't fathom why Katsuki was acting this way.
He got the answer at lunch.
As it turned out, he should have read that All Might Story two days ago bit more thoroughly than he did.
Having been occupied with dealing with his powers, and fixing and replacing everything that broke on Friday, Izuku had only skimmed the article, very much unlike how he normally did with any story involving All Might.
The teenager All Might had rescued turned out to be none other than Katsuki Bakugou. He had been held hostage by a villain who had possessed his body and had been rescued by All Might, saving him and a girl that had jumped in to try help Katsuki.
It seemed the experience had really shaken him up. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. On one hand, he didn't want anything bad to happen to anyone, not even Katsuki. On the other hand, a very large part of his mind felt incredible schadenfreude at it.
It was very unlike Izuku in every way, and the fact that he didn't question it beyond acknowledging the fact that these feelings did exist within him, should have been a major warning sign for the young hopeful hero.
Instead, he focused on the moment, and how it affected him in the now.
He'd gotten to hear the story after someone asked Katsuki about it directly, and in true Katsuki form, he had exploded at them for it.
Afterward, he did not go back to how he regularly was though, instead going back to his previous sulking silence after lunch(and prying questions) was over.
That was, definitely an improvement as far as Izuku was concerned, but he felt certain Katsuki would seek him out after school was over.
He didn't. Every time Katsuki saw Izuku that day, he just ignored him. It was… Unsettling in its own way.
Still far better than a confrontation though.
Katsuki's friends didn't share Katsuki's newfound seeming indifference towards Izuku. Both had given him constant worried looks during the day like they were desperately hoping he wouldn't call them out on it.
He didn't.
He just left for home, making sure to take a different path than Katsuki did.
Well, it had been a depressing school day, but he had managed to get through it without anyone even considering he had a quirk.
Katsuki was sulking and leaving him alone for now, though God knows how long that would last.
Now he just needed to repeat that over for almost 300 times, and hope nothing terrible happened during any of them. Easy.
--
"So, have you settled on a name for it yet?"
Izuku was in the process of biting down and chewing on a fish when the question was asked. He hastily chewed and swallowed it.
"Name for what?"
"Your Quirk dear. It's been 3 days now, and we still just call him "Your Quirk"."
Said Quirk was currently sitting(or the equivalent for a mass of moving liquid) on the sofa and watching tv. How he did that without eyes, Izuku didn't know.
He several theories on the subject, some he had disproven, other he still needed to- Oh right, his mom had asked him a question.
"I… I don't know mom. It's kinda silly but…"
"Yes?"
"Well, it's like… I had this whole page with possible different names for him. And I had tried finding one he liked, but…"
"It hated them." Inko guessed.
"Well yeah, that too. But… During that I kinda… got this feeling like I KNEW he already had a name already. And… I didn't want to call him something that wasn't his own name."
A short silence followed, until Izuku continued.
"Man, that sounds so stupid when I say it out loud…"
"It's not stupid, sweetie. I mean, it's clearly sentient."
She looked to the side, where it was watching an ancient action movie called Rambo first blood. It was so old it predated the first appearance of quirks.
That it had mastered the art of streaming services would have been proof enough on its that it was indeed sentient. But there was more.
"It's not stupid to think it might have picked a name for itself, but… couldn't you get it to write it down for you? I mean, if it can't actually speak, then surely you could get it to write it down on paper right? It can hold things after all."
"Yeah, that was my first thought too." He bent down and rummaged through his bag for a moment, then fished out his black notebook.
After flipping through the book, he held it up so she could see.
"Well, that's… Clearly a language of some kind, but… I'm sorry baby, I've never seen it before."
He closed the book, then put it back in the bag.
"Yeah, I didn't recognize it either… I spent three hours just looking up alphabets on Wikipedia trying to find something that matched it, but I didn't find anything."
"I… I see."
"It probably created the language on its own. Which would make it Really, really smart."
"That's… That's a good thing though, isn't it?"
"Yeah, if I could find some way to reliably communicate with him, he could be an amazing help. The heroes with quirks like mine generally have a huge advantage if the being they've created can think for itself and do independent stuff separate from you."
Inko glanced worriedly over the Quirk for a moment, just in time to see the scene of the protagonist of the movie break down mentally and cry.
"Well… If you think it'll help I hope you can make it work sweetie."
She put on her usual smile again.
"So, are you sure you don't need any snacks for your training Izuku? I can make something for you no problem before you leave."
Izuku blushed slightly. "It's… It's fine mom. We'll only be gone 3 hours or so. And we're not really doing any strength training today, anyways. But… Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it. I really do."
She smiled at him. "Just… Be safe baby okay?"
"We will."
17 minutes later, Izuku and his black, inky companion walked down the stairs out of his apartment complex.
17.30.
He would head back home at 20.30.
Truth be told, he kinda just wanted to train all the way to midnight, but his mom would be worried sick if he stayed out that long.
He had been wondering where exactly he would do his training. He'd thought about it long and hard.
He had considered the beach. Then he had thought about it, and realized that training on shifting sands when you wanted to train balance was mayhaps not the smartest thing in the world.
His next choice had been a nearby park. Then when he had visited it yesterday, he realized that this kind of training in a park was a surefire way to get the attention of other people. The beach was a bit better, but there were still tons of people walking by it all the time. Anyone of them could decide to take issue with what he was doing and call a policeman over.
Something he most definitely didn't need.
He was technically, kinda, most definitely breaking the law here after all.
Quirks weren't meant to be used in public by anyone except licensed heroes.
So, he had to find somewhere more remote, somewhere people didn't visit as night began to set in.
He knew of one such place. It was quite a bit farther away than he'd have liked, but as he was learning, it was amazing how quickly you could get from place to place if you never got tired of running.
He didn't run at his absolute top speed all the way, of course. That would instantly give away he was using a quirk after all. But he still ran as fast as any normal human could have and he ran with no stops to catch his breath.
God, it felt amazing.
Even stopping for red signs, he made the trip in just a bit over half an hour.
All the way out of the city, and into a place of green grass and trees.
--
Izuku had not expected to feel as melancholic as he did coming back here.
If going to the beach had felt like a return to where it all began, then this trip back to the forest of his youth was a return to where it had started going wrong for him in life.
That was wrong of course. It was kindergarten where it had all gone wrong for Izuku.
Still, several of his earliest memories of when Katsuki had turned from his friend to his bully was from here, in this forest.
Confusion.
He sighed.
"I've got some… Bad memories from here." He explained.
Lots of happy ones too, but they were were generally drowned out by his later ones.
Anger. The same kind of anger he had felt in his mind as Katsuki walked into the classroom earlier that day.
"Yeah. Mostly about him. In any case, we're not here for reminiscing about that. We're here to train."
"Let's start with… Jumping."
He'd thought about it, and had decided that rather than doing a bit of everything each day, he would instead do these one thing every day each week.
At least until he had gotten a good handle on things.
The thing he needed right now was control. Not more power, he already had that in spades. His powers weren't the strongest strength quirk there was by a longshot, but it was strong. Strong enough for him to become a hero… If he could master it.
After finding a relatively flat open spot where he wouldn't jump into any trees, Izuku put down his plastic bag by a tree and prepared to start. Then he burst into motion.
Maybe 4 meters, then he bent his legs down and sprung like a suddenly released coil. He flew through the air, just as far as he had on Saturday.
Then, as he landed, he didn't tumble and roll along the ground. No, this time he miscalculated as he was planting his feet, and slipped backwards and crashed to the ground on his back.
It didn't really hurt all that much, but he could feel the ache way more than he felt at the beach. Which made sense, this was ground after all, not soft sand.
He sighed as he got up.
His main problem right now was a lack of control and balance. He wasn't sure how he was going to handle becoming more used to not just break things as he gripped them, but in terms of the training he was doing now, there was only one real thing to do to fix his problems.
He would need to jump, again, and again, and again, and again until landing on his feet became second nature to him. There was no other way to do it. It was like riding a bicycle. You just had to keep doing it, again and again until you got it right, and your body remembered how to do it without you having to think about it.
It was the simplest kind of training imaginable, repetitive, boring and with little variation, but also essential to actually do until he got it right.
He got to his feet. Well, he had to get started on this, and delays would not help them get it done quicker.
--
This host was smart.
Many hosts it remembered had skipped the basics, and jumped straight into battle and combat, assuming their raw power would see them to victory.
They had generally been right. But as its memories returned from before the fog, it had begun to remember many cases where it had not.
Yes, an early crushing defeat was usual, then followed by recovery and a period of weariness where there had once been no fear.
That, or an early demise. That happened a lot too. Usually, hosts tended to live a long life, or a short one. There were few in between.
At least…. It thought so.
It had tried to remember how many hosts there had been in total… But every time it tried to pull back to the very beginning, all the memories returned to the darkness.
Even the memories of the hosts it had were still not complete. The images were there, but the words… The colors… The sounds... They were all missing, and the emotions, worst of all, were dull.
It was all so blank compared to its current existence which was bright, and vibrant and ALIVE.
It liked this planet so far. It's colors, the wind, the temperature, and air, but above all, it's dominant race.
This race was perfect. It was not as physically strong as many, many others it had seen, it was fragile, weak, and it had such EMOTIONS!
It was stunning. It had enjoyed it's host greatly, but it didn't stop there. Even the other members of the species was so full of emotions that it could sense them even without a bond. It could not taste them of course, but the simple fact to know it was there was energizing.
Like… Like… Like smelling something good, yes, that was the comparison. Like how smelling something good would work up one's appetite.
Crushing despair, hilarious joy, pure happiness, enormous highs, devastating emotional breakdowns, and above all Adrenaline in ALL its Glory.
It was all great, and it was all around all the time. And that wasn't the only thing that was all around the time.
The were battles, every day, at any time.
This nation was obviously at war with another force. That was the only explanation for all the constant attacks, which the warriors of this society were constantly putting down. And despite this, all the people went about without a care in the world.
Truly this was a species mentally built for war, unlike almost any he had seen when people willingly went to watch skirmishes as they happened! Madness.
But it was a madness it would embrace.
--
During his training, both at the beach and here in the forest, Izuku had learned a couple of lessons about super-strength that should have been pretty obvious when you thought about it, but somehow he had never even considered.
At the beach, he had learned that metal wasn't as solid for people with enhanced strength as it was for other people, and if you weren't careful with how much force you put on it while handling something, it crumpled like tissue paper.
In these woods, he had learned that endlessly kicking off from the same spot with strength like his, would turn the ground from compact earth to loose dirt, just like if he had hammered it over and over again with a sledgehammer.
Thus the area he jumped off from had now become an upturned patch where he had pretty much ruined all the grass. For the future, he had decided he would be more varied with where he jumped.
At least it had produced result.
For his max jumps, he had only managed not to fall twice, but he had begun to make real progress at his less ambitious jumps. That wasn't enough though. He would need to do this again and again and again until his body had it down to an art.
In the future when he began to push himself to his limits, it would be those maximum effort jumps that would be how he trained.
Twice succeeding out of 232 wasn't good enough. Not by any stretch. Nothing short of 100% success was good enough in this regard.
Still… There was something magnificently satisfying about actually doing something and seeing progress. No matter how little it had been.
So as he left the forest, covered in dirt from head to toe, he felt… Really good. Very, very, sore but like he had actually accomplished something with these hours of work.
Notes:
Originally this chapter was going to delve deeper into how venom viewed human society at this point, but i quickly realised it was a terrible idea to just go over all of his thoughts in one chapter.