Edited 22.05.20.
This chapter's readability is brought to you by RottedKarma. They are to be cherished and admired for their patience.
16 August, 23XX
06:23 p.m. in Musutafu General Hospital, room A217
"IZUKU!" The famed Midoriya waterworks on full display, Midoriya Inko came rushing into the hospital room and made a beeline for her son. After having gotten a phone call from a policeman, who'd told her that her son had been involved in a villain attack… she'd been scared, no, scratch that, she'd been terrified, for Izuku, for Katsuki, she'd been terrified at the prospect of what the villain might have done to them; her mind had come up with dozens of scenarios, each one more horrifying than the previous one, each one prompting her to hit the gas pedal just the tiniest bit faster as she'd made her way through the evening rush hour as far as possible.
She couldn't remember a single thing about the drive itself, had been too busy trying not to panic and let the last vestiges of self-control slip, trying to keep the pictures out of her mind.
The scene that greeted her after she'd finally managed to get past the front desk nurse, scrambling upstairs and begging to all the entities that came to mind not to do this to her and at last burst through the door, dreading what she'd find… the scene had been almost surreal in its serenity.
Izuku – whole, healthy, bright-eyed – Izuku sat in a chair, greeting her with a smile that, to Inko, looked more beautiful than all the world. Next to him was a grumpy-looking Katsuki who was seated in a bed, making it abundantly clear to everyone that there were a million places where he'd rather be in this moment, and who unsuccessfully tried to conceal the smile that lit up his face when he saw her.
It was so blissfully normal that it made Inko's heart flutter with relief; her son, the center of her life, her son was safe, he would be okay, and that knowledge made her feel like an enormous weight had just been lifted from her shoulders.
"Hi, Mom, I-" Izuku was interrupted by a tight hug from his mom, cutting off any attempt at an explanation. "I'm… okay," he wheezed. "Minimal… injuries… I can't… breathe…"
Quickly, Inko let him go, slumping into a hospital chair as her panic gave way to exhaustion. She looked up, straight at her son, taking in the sight that could so easily have been taken from her today forever.
It took a long time until Inko found the strength to speak again, even longer until she actually did, but Izuku was calm, smiled, and waited for her to start talking. "Are you hurt?" Her voice sounded smaller than she would've liked. Too raspy, too vulnerable. "Do you feel alright? Are you in any pain?"
"Er… no, yes, only slightly?" Izuku answered hesitantly. "The doctors say I can go home whenever I want," and at that point Inko could have cried with relief, "but they want to keep Kacchan here because of his acid burns." And Inko's heart froze." "I want to wait at least until Aunt Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru have arrived," Izuku added, defiantly, as if fearing she might take him away from his friend now.
Inko, however, could only slowly repeat, "A-acid burns?" She looked at Katsuki, at Izuku, back at Katsuki, increasingly horrified. "K-katsuki… you have acid burns?"
Katsuki scowled in irritation. "It's jack shit. Won't even scar, they say, but still want to be completely fucking positive that there ain't any 'permanent damage'." He raised up his bandaged hands in demonstration.
"They're really sure there won't be any," Izuku quickly explained at his mother's horrified expression. "It's just that they don't want to take risks, that's why they want to keep him for observation."
Inko exhaled, all energy leaving her body. They were going to be okay. Both of them were going to be okay.
A few minutes later, Katsuki's parents arrived. They heard them before they saw them; Mitsuki's yelling was nothing if not distinctive.
As soon as they'd entered and made sure of both children's wellbeing, Mitsuki unleashed a barrage of questions on her son.
"Are you alright?"
"What the fu-? Of course I'm alright!"
"How are your arms?"
"There ain't anything wrong about them! Those fucking doctors are just overcautious!"
"Do you want your plush grenade?"
"SHUT UP, OLD HAG!"
"DON'T TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME, BRAT!"
Somewhere during the quickly spiraling debate between the two (Masaru's attempts to calm them down being more of a ritual than anything else at this point) Inko had started smiling, and her son had, too.
"They won't change, will they?" Izuku asked, looking at Mitsuki pounding her fist against the wall.
Inko chuckled. "I suppose not," she admitted, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence while increasingly violent threats resounded in the hospital's corridors.
Normalcy would set in again, eventually.
A while later...
"Oi, Deku?" Katsuki said. He'd asked for a few minutes of privacy from their parents (to be honest, he hadn't so much asked as he'd demanded it, in a volume that'd surprised even the doctors a few rooms away), and now they sat in the room alone. Usually the mere presence of the other would be enough to set both of them at ease, but not today.
"Yes, Kacchan?" Izuku was careful, as the look in Katsuki's eyes reminded him of his outburst at Gentle, and he knew what it meant.
Katsuki was angry. And it wasn't his usual kind of anger that burned hot, but short. No, it was the rarer, simmering anger that came from the depths of the blonde's heart, the one to look out for. It was the sort of anger that'd burn a hole in his soul if left unaddressed, like something you forgot in the oven for too long.
"We have to become stronger."
It didn't sound like an announcement, or a question. It sounded like a fact. It sounded like it was the one thing in the world that was certain, even if everything else crumbled away.
Izuku nodded.
The silence lasted only a few beats, before Katsuki burst out, "He said that he wasn't cut out for it!" There was some kind of cold, sharp desperation in his voice that didn't fit the eight-year old it belonged to. "And he was stronger than us! So! Much! Stronger!"
Izuku didn't say anything. Currently, Katsuki didn't need advice. Katsuki needed to let off steam.
"That guy was stronger than anyone I've met before... way stronger. And he talked about how he'd 'had his chance' or something. I mean… was he at a Hero school or something? And failed? That guy, who took down that villain like it was nothing?" Katsuki became increasingly agitated, talking faster and faster as if his mouth couldn't keep up with his thoughts. "I mean… what kind of competition is that? If he failed, just what kind of shit are we up against?" He looked at his bandaged hands in frustration. "If we want just as much as a chance to get into U.A., we can't go on like this. We have to get stronger. Way stronger. If that's what we're gonna compete with. Got it, Deku?"
Izuku nodded.
"But still," and now Katsuki was quiet. Maybe he'd remembered their parents might hear them if they were too loud, maybe he was simply pensive; either way, his voice was suddenly so low that Izuku had to concentrate on listening to understand him. "You know, Deku… it worked. What we did, it actually worked. We were holding our ground against a fucking villain. I mean... we ain't even ten years old, and we're still alive after that! We weren't just wasting our time with that training, Deku. It worked." Katsuki's eyes narrowed as he slowly flexed his fingers. "So, we're going to continue with that. At least with that. After all… fuck, our aim isn't just any Hero school. It's U.A. The competition's guaranteed to be even stronger there."
"You're right", Izuku said quietly. "We have a ways to go. We will get stronger, Kacchan! And we will get into U.A. for sure!"
"Of course we will!" Katsuki snapped back. "But… fuck, that was a real villain. That's what we're going to fight if we become Heroes. And… next time we won't have a Gentle at hand."
Izuku nodded. He knew what Katsuki meant. For all his talk about strength and training, and no matter how right he was about how it'd saved them today; in the end, they hadn't stood a chance against a villain. And as children, they weren't supposed to. But they wouldn't stay children forever. They'd grow up. And by then they'd have to be prepared.
15 April, 23XX – six years after HEROES started
03:13 p.m. at the cherry tree
"… 57… 58… 59… 60." Izuku finished his second set of push-ups and sighed. The weather was unseasonably muggy, and even though he'd barely been at it for half an hour, his shirt was already drenched with sweat, making moving around really uncomfortable. He grabbed his water bottle and took a few sips before getting up and bracing himself for his turn at the punching bag.
"Now DIE!" Katsuki yelled, and unleashed an explosion-fortified right hook that made the poor bag rocket upwards, nearly winding itself around the branch.
They'd had to replace the bag five times by now; this one, custom-made for people with destructive Quirks, had had actually resisted Katsuki for eight months, which really gave Izuku a sense of appreciation for the manufacturer.
"I still don't think that "DIE!" is the best choice for a battle cry if you want to reassure the citizens", Izuku drily remarked. Katsuki huffed but didn't object as he cleared the way for Izuku.
He started with slow, deliberate straight-arm punches and kicks, mindful of how and when his strikes connected. His arms were still sore from the push-ups, so he made sure not to overexert himself as he gradually increased the speed of his movements, still paying attention to the rhythm of the impacts. Control was more important than speed; getting ahead of yourself just meant you were prone to make mistakes you could've easily prevented, which was why Izuku only upped the ante after he was sure his motions were as fluid and precisely timed as he could manage. Two strikes a second became three, three became four, four became five and so on, until he'd arrived at a veritable drumfire of impacts.
It came easy to him by now, a testimony to months of dedicated training exercises, until he'd managed to hit the bag just right, dead-center, every time. It'd been frustrating months; his progress had seemed slow to him, and sluggish, until, one day, he'd performed flawlessly. That day it'd hit him just how far he'd come since square one.
Now it was time for the difficult part. Izuku frowned in concentration, reaching for the tickling sensation of Matter Adaptation that slumbered within him. It obeyed without delay, fluctuating under the skin of his fists, while Izuku tried to adapt the material of the punching bag the exact second his fists connected with it.
In theory, this should lead to his fists taking minimal damage from punching hard surfaces by adapting their material. However, the level of fine-control necessary to pull it off was high; the timeframe he had for it amounted to just a few milliseconds. As a result he wasn't yet able to tailor his Quirk activation to his punches as he'd have liked to, and most of his test runs remained without satisfying results.
Suddenly, Izuku heard a slight shift behind him. Without hesitation he punched the bag again, not withdrawing his fist as his back took on the properties of the resilient material mere moments before Katsuki's strike connected with his rear.
"You're getting better," the blonde begrudgingly conceded. Izuku nodded without relaxing his efforts as he tried to sustain his rhythm as long as possible. After ninety seconds and two more parried surprise attacks he stopped, breathing heavily, but smiling.
"Did it work?" Katsuki asked gruffly.
Izuku nodded, looking at his fist that was indistinguishable from the bag in its blue-black color. "Only once though, but at least it proved that it is possible. " He frowned. "Still, I tried it 314 times, and it worked only once. I'd need a success rate of at least thirty percent if I want it to have any use in training, let alone in actual combat, which means I'd have to get about hundred times better at it to be able to maybe use it while sparring."
"Deku?"
"And that doesn't yet factor in that in sparring my opponent wouldn't just stand idle, but attack themselves, which means I may want to assume two hundred as improvement factor instead, which means it would take rather long to master without being a completely reliable asset in actual combat. There's also the problem that my Quirk doesn't work on living things, so it'd be limited to armored opponents."
"Oi, Deku?"
"Additionally," Izuku continued, picking up speed, "I can't be sure that it is geared for longer fights, since it requires many consecutive transformations, one for each punch. It'd only affect two different materials, so the physical fatigue wouldn't set in that fast, but it'd still limit its overall usefulness and make it more a backup technique than anything else. Therefore-"
"Deku! Cut it out!" Katsuki snapped.
Izuku startled and looked up, then sighed. "I did it again, didn't I?"
Katsuki glowered at him. "I hate it when you do that. Where does this fucking mumbling even come from? Somehow I doubt that your mom taught you."
Izuku rubbed the back of his head, abashed. "Sorry, Kacchan."
"And quit the 'Kacchan' already. It's annoying."
"You do call me Deku, though, and that's not even nice."
Katsuki rolled his eyes, but kept silent.
27 October, 23XX – eight years after HEROES started
05:08 p.m. at the cherry tree.
"You sure you want to do this?" Katsuki doubted. Not that he'd chicken out of this, but…
"I do. This idea… I think it has the potential to bring me to your level!" Izuku declared with a hint of trepidation, but determined nevertheless.
"In your dreams, Deku!" Katsuki retorted, though he couldn't really bring himself to feel angry at him. If the nerd wanted to do this, he wouldn't be the one to tell him otherwise. It'd make him a better sidekick, after all.
And if Deku's motivation to get stronger was to get on his level… ah well, he'd get more realistic one day.
"Right then." Katsuki shrugged and handed over the rubber glove. Nothing special about the thing itself, but it wasn't the point anyway.
Izuku nodded and dripped a few drops of water into its fingers.
"Only a small part of your nail! Remember that, Deku!" Alright, he was a bit tense. After all, this shit could lead to Deku losing his finger or worse if he fucked it up.
"Don't worry, Kacchan!"
"I don't," he snapped, but it didn't really sound convincing even to himself.
"I studied for my Quirk since I was seven," Izuku explained resolutely. "I even had additional tuition in chemistry and biology to make sure I don't go too far, and I know how dangerous this is. And you know I wouldn't do it if I didn't feel like I was ready, Kacchan." He swallowed. "And of course I'm not sure. I'm really nervous! But… I have to do this."
"Tch, whatever." Katsuki tried to keep the frown off his face and maintain the façade of indifference, but he didn't think he succeeded as he'd have liked. "Just get over with the shit already."
Izuku slid his hand into the glove. He took a deep breath and concentrated. He took his time for it; any distraction could prove to be disastrous, any mistake might be fatal. He'd visualized every step he had to take countless times, and he did it once more, as he focused on the water in the glove.
Oxygen, Hydrogen. Covalently joined. H2O. Molecules linked by hydrogen bridge bonds.
Water.
Matter Adaptation answered his call readily, and he was careful as he gently coaxed it through his hand, then through his pinky finger.
Only in one tiny bit of his finger nail. Only in that minuscule spot of hardened protein, only in that infinitesimal speck of alpha-keratin, there the adaptation would take place. Only there.
Focus, Izuku.
Focus!
The familiar tingling sensation coursed through his veins as the cells in his body, in blatant disregard for the rules of anatomy, reacted to the material and… adapted.
"Fucking hell!" Katsuki whispered, when Izuku doffed the glove.
There it was. On Izuku's pinky finger, the tiniest piece of nail had transformed into water.
Izuku grinned.
5th of April, 20XX – ten years after HEROES started
2:32 p.m. at Aldera Middle School
"It's high time now that you all start thinking about your future," Kayaba Tadashi, their current homeroom teacher, lectured. "I'll be distributing your high school choice forms now. This is one of the most important decisions in your life, so think your choice over carefully. Though…" The man then threw the forms into the air in a needlessly dramatic fashion that prompted some serious doubt about his professionality from Izuku's side.
"… you'll probably aim for the Hero course anyway!"
Right on cue the class burst out in pandemonium as every student simultaneously showed off their Quirk in the flashiest way imaginable.
Izuku sighed in resignation and picked up two forms from the floor while transforming his eardrums into fabric, hoping to muffle the sound somewhat. As usual, it had no effect. Due to some idiosyncrasy of his Quirk he didn't fully understand his senses were not hindered in the slightest by his transformations, intentional or not.
Izuku handed one of the sheets to Katsuki, who received it with a smirk that Izuku hesitantly returned as a smile.
Of course the two of them already knew what they were going to write, but that didn't change the fact that this was the very first official step on their way to Heroism. It'd be a stretch to say they were actually anxious about it, but it seemed the slightest bit daunting to him still.
"Yes, you all have wonderful Quirks," Kayaba scolded indulgently (on the other hand, at least he scolded them at all), "But remember that it is still forbidden for you to use them in…"
"Oi, teach! Don't put us together with those extras!"
Izuku sighed as without hesitation the whole class started to shout angrily in Katsuki's and, by extension, his own direction. He made himself a bit smaller and backed away from the blonde's desk, only moments before Katsuki quieted the crowd with an explosion and then proceeded to vocally demonstrate his resourcefulness when it came to the creative application of the Japanese language.
It was kind of impressive just how many insults one could fit in a single statement.
"Ah, yes," Kayaba made an attempt at deescalating the situation. "You two are aiming for U.A. High School, right?"
Well, at least the fucking extras had shut up now. Time for the top dog to lay it out to them.
"That's right," Katsuki stated smugly. "It's the school with the best Hero course in the whole country! Only the best of the best get in at U.A.! The cream of the crop! And that's exactly while you're rabble… or did any of you pushovers actually bother to apply?"
When no one answered, Katsuki smiled sardonically. "See? None of you are Hero material. You don't aim for the top? Then don't bother trying!"
"Come on, Kacchan!" Izuku complained. "Why do you have to make them hate us unnecessarily?" Katsuki just tsked and rolled his eyes.
While their classmates were somewhat salty towards them for the rest of the lesson, Katsuki seemed to have effectively shut up most of the pests disguised as humans.
Needless to say, he was pleased.
"Alright, now it's official," Izuku cheered when they left class. "We're finally on our road to become Heroes!"
"We were on that road since we were four," Katsuki grumbled, more to keep up appearances than anything else.
"But still! Now there are two forms on the teacher's desk, with our names and 'U.A. High School' on it! Isn't that just amazing to think of, Kacchan?"
"Whatever. It's theory for today, so get on with it while I get some stuff for the old hag."
Izuku nodded and took out Hero Strategies for the future, Nr. 6. "Okay, so the first scenario is seven years old. You have a building in which at least five hostages are held, three of them children. The exact number of hostages is unknown. The villains are on the fourth floor, a group of six with one Lightning Armor, two Strength Enhancements, one Good Ears and two unknown."
"Hurry up already, Deku!"
Izuku cut him a look and proceeded: "Your Hero team consists of Ammit, Switch, Bunny Rabbit, Braindasher, Ray and Shikigami. You have an additional 12-man corps of policemen, and the building has two entrances plus a heliport."
They discussed Katsuki's rather straightforward strategy (which had involved just a tad too many synonyms of the word 'die' for Izuku's taste) while heading to the grocery store when suddenly Izuku got a strong sense of déjà vu.
They were in a small alleyway toward the store in a heated debate over Solar Zero's potential in indoor fights, when suddenly something emerged from the drain in front of them.
The creature was a dark, murky green that resembled vomit or mud, with two yellow eyeballs and a grin that showed too many teeth. The creature, which would later become known as the Sludge Villain, swiftly started to envelop Katsuki's body before they could even proceed what was happening. The blonde screamed in fury and thrashed against the sludge, managing to land two solid blows to its face before the villain got hold of his hands and, with visible strain, forced his palms away from him.
The whole procedure hadn't taken much longer than four seconds, and Izuku was left staring at him in shock.
"That body seems to be a lucky strike," the villain said with a chuckle. "Don't worry, it will only hurt for about a minute before I reach your brain and it's over."
The villain was cut off by a fist of solid concrete that connected with one of his eyeballs.
He was forced to back onto the street as a truly furious Izuku started to attack him relentlessly, a piece of asphalt in his left hand.
"LET… KACCHAN… GO… RIGHT NOW!" Every word was accompanied by a fierce punch, but…
He's liquid, the clear-thinking part of Izuku's mind realized. My blows can't harm him!
The villain sneered before striking him with Katsuki's palm. The boy's eyes widened in terror as Deku hurtled through the air from the force of his explosion, abused in a way that just shouldn't be, couldn't be, forcing him to let go of the asphalt piece.
It was the biggest and most dangerous drawback of Deku's Quirk. When he didn't have anything to adapt, he was completely defenseless.
So when Deku struck against a lamppost and slumped over, Katsuki could do nothing but watch, helpless, screaming against the thick, disgusting sludge that covered his face and started suffocating him.
A/N: And that's it for today! Next update won't take as long (hopefully…), as it's mostly finished already. Thanks for your support! And patience, I guess... ;-)
Keep those Reviews coming! It always motivates me to read your input, and I'll try and respond to everyone, so if you liked it so far or if you spotted something that could use some improvement, feel free to leave one!
As usual, constructive criticism is welcome, flames aren't.
Remember to go beyond ...
PLUS ULTRA!
Ramses, over and out