Izuku Midoriya was on his way home after nearly being killed by that sludge villain while trying to save Bakugou. He felt ashamed. All he had done was be a hindrance, put Bakugou in danger by holding onto All Might thus causing the sludge villain to get free, and generally ruined everything.
'I wanted to apologize to All Might, but he was swarmed by interviewers. I didn't want to interrupt. I can always try to send a message through his website when I get home.' Izuku thought to himself dejectedly as he walked home.
"DEKU!" A familiar voice shouted from behind him.
Turning around, Izuku saw Bakugou running towards him. "Kacchan?" Izuku muttered.
Before he could even react Bakugou punched him in the gut, causing him to double over and fall to his knees. "Listen, I would never ask for a weakling like you to help me! Don't think you can look down on me! Got that! I was fine by myself! You're just a quirkless failure who won't even cut it as a rent-a-cop! You did nothing, don't forget it!" He then turned and began marching away angrily. "I don't owe you anything!"
Izuku stayed there for a moment, coughing and clutching his gut in pain as tears welled up in his eyes. Eventually he stood back up. 'Kacchan is right though… It's not like I did anything to help today. But… At least I tried. I guess now I should get back to giving up on my dreams…'
As he continued walking a familiar skeletal figure walked out from behind a corner at an intersection and blocked Izuku's path with a stern and rather angry look on his face. "You idiot… What were you thinking rushing in like that?! If I wasn't there to help, you would have gotten yourself killed!" All Might chastised him.
"But… Kacchan was in danger and the pros they—" Izuku started only to be cut off by All Might.
"They had it handled. By rushing in and interfering like you did you just put yourself in danger and made things even harder for them. And that's not even considering the other kid that the villain had hostage! You know, earlier when I told you that you weren't cut out to be a hero I was wrong. With that kind of behavior you aren't cut out for any branch of law enforcement. And now that you have something like this on your record, you can forget about even so much as joining the police force!" All Might stated with a tone of such finality it caused Izuku's already severely damaged spirit to start breaking more and more with every word.
Seeing his eyes start to well up with tears, All Might paused for a moment and rested his face in his hand. In a gentler tone he said, "Look, kid. Without a quirk, there's no way you can become a hero. And with what you did today there's no way you can join the police anymore either, even if your record was completely spotless from this point forward. I seriously wish you had just gone home instead of interfering. That way you would have at least had a future in a job somewhat related to hero work. But you didn't… It's not fair, I know. But that's the unfortunate truth of the world. Not all men are born equal and not everything is fair or just. That's just the way things work. I'm sorry… I should probably get going. Just, think about what I said, okay?"
Izuku said, nothing as he looked at the ground, tears dripping from his face as he started to sob.
Seeing Izuku crying, All Might had a pained expression on his face but Izuku wasn't even looking at him anymore so he couldn't see this. Izuku heard All Might turn and start walking away.
[All for One]
All for one had just so happened to be monitoring All Might with a tiny drone that he knew All Might wouldn't notice when he witnessed this interaction. And seeing what All Might had told that boy he couldn't help but smile and laugh.
He had seen the boy rush to the other boy's rescue on the news and he knew how One for All worked. So if anything he had been expecting All Might to choose this boy as his successor similarly to how All for One had chosen Shigaraki as his. After all, he certainly had that heroic spirit All Might himself was so famous for. And All for One was sure that All Might must have at least considered the possibility. So why be so cruel to the boy? Did All Might honestly think he was doing what was best for the child? Or was he just scared that the boy's body wouldn't be able to withstand One for All? In either case, All Might was a much larger fool than All for One had thought.
"Interesting…" All for One said to himself. On a whim he decided to keep an eye on the boy for a while. For some reason he just got a feeling from the child. Something he didn't quite know how to put into words. He found it… interesting. So he would monitor the child for a couple days just to see if his gut feeling was correct or not. If All for One deemed that the boy truly had potential like he suspected, then he would consider taking him under his wing since All Might clearly would not.
He already had one potential successor in Tomura, but in the event Tomura failed it wouldn't hurt to have a potential "Plan B". Or if the boy failed to impress him, All for One could always just turn him into the base for a Nomu. Either one would work.
[Izuku]
When he got to his room, Izuku layed down on his bed unable to even so much as cry with his spirit so completely and utterly shattered by the day's events. He just kept replaying the entirety of the day's events in his mind. The more he thought about it the worse he felt and the worse he felt the more he couldn't stop thinking about it all. It sent him into a depressive spiral in which he could see no light at the end of the tunnel and no way out.
He looked at the All Might posters on his walls and felt sick to his stomach. It was a mixture of guilt, resentment, and shame all churning in his gut. Guilt for causing All Might and the other Pro Heros so much trouble. Resentment for what All Might had said to him. And shame for his resentment when he knew that All Might was just trying to help him. But he couldn't help it. After what All Might had told him, he couldn't help but resent him as much as he tried to rationalize away what All Might had said to him. He just couldn't help it. He couldn't stand looking at anything that reminded him of the Number One Pro Hero. The man he had idolized since his childhood and wanted so desperately to be like.
Getting up he tore the posters off his walls. But that wasn't enough. Even with the posters gone there was still All Might memorabilia filling his room. Gritting his teeth with tears spilling down his face, he began tearing his room apart, throwing all the All Might memorabilia on the ground and generally making a mess. By the end of it he didn't feel any better. If anything he just felt even worse.
Leaving his room he went downstairs into the kitchen and grabbed an empty trash bag. Turning around to head back up to his room, he saw his mother standing there with an extremely worried look on her face. "Izuku dear… I… When you got home earlier and I saw you crying I wanted to give you space but… Just a little while ago I heard you making a bunch of noise and… I saw your room… Izuku, please, tell me what happened."
Izuku looked down at the ground. Now he was worrying his mother too? He couldn't stand it. He was worthless… No, worse than that. He was just trouble for her and everyone else. A burden. That's all he was and all he would ever be… Maybe Kacchan was right and he should just kill himself? At least he wouldn't be a burden to anyone anymore… He shook his head to try to dispel these dark thoughts and said, "I… I'm sorry mom… I don't… I don't want to talk about it right now… Just… Just give me a bit of time to calm down… M-maybe I'll feel like talking about it later…" He told her, wiping the tears from his eyes.
His mother walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "Alright dear… But remember, I'm always here for you when you're ready to talk to me about it."
"Thank you…" He muttered before lumbering up stairs with the trash bag in hand. Once he was back in his room he began throwing every last bit of All Might memorabilia in the trash bag, including his All Might curtains which he had taken down a bit more carefully than the rest of his room as he didn't want to actually damage the house. When it was finally done he looked around his room and couldn't see any more All Might memorabilia. But… He did see one last thing. Laying on the ground next to his backpack was his most recent journal, the thirteenth he had written, as burned and destroyed as it was.
Walking over, he picked it up and began flipping through it. To say it was painful was an understatement. Yet, he had the urge to go through all of his journals he had ever written, hoping there might be some answer, some direction hidden somewhere in the pages. Getting up he retrieved all of his journals and began flipping through them, desperately searching for this elusive answer in all the hundreds of thousands if not millions of words he had written. Unfortunately, after a full hour of searching for the slightest shred of solace he found nothing. Absolutely nothing that could even remotely help him climb out of the hole he was in.
Eventually he came across one of his oldest drawings of what he wanted his hero costume to look like. He stared at it for a moment and his still flowing tears fell on the page, directly on the picture, both smudging it and wrinkling the page. Now instead of smiling, the picture appeared to have a menacing scowl on its face. Just another childhood memory and dream warped and ruined…
"I guess… I guess I wo-won't be needing these… s-since I'm not going to… to try to be a hero any… anymore…" Izuku sobbed as he picked up all the journals and threw them in the garbage bag with all the All Might memorabilia.
He then grabbed the trash bag and brought it to the trash can outside to be picked up by the dump truck in the morning. He then went back inside.
{All for One]
All for One watched through the specially made infrared screen in front of him in amusement as the boy tore his room apart. He could tell resentment and potential hatred was starting to set in. But that alone wasn't nearly enough to be his potential successor.
He then watched as the boy went down stairs and his interaction with his mother. He frowned at that. Loving parents, a potential mark against the boy as such familial connections could make him weak.
He then watched the boy throw everything away. That was rather boring and he assumed the boy was just about done for the night. Then the boy picked up one last thing and instead of throwing it away he sat down on his bed and looked at it. All for One directed the drone closer so he could try to get a better look at it. His eyes had been destroyed in his last fight with All Might but he had a quirk that allowed him to continue to "see" through the infrared spectrum. And by the looks of it, the boy was holding a thin, rather destroyed looking, book of some sort.
After reading it for a bit, the boy retrieved twelve other books and began flipping through them as if searching for something. He searched through the books for about an hour. But he eventually seemed to just give up.
"I guess… I guess I wo-won't be needing these… s-since I'm not going to… to try to be a hero any… anymore…" He heard the boy say. He wasn't sure what those books were but that sparked his curiosity. Why would the boy need all these books for hero work? That confused him, and he didn't like being confused. So he wanted answers.
Fortunately for him it seemed answers he would receive, as the boy threw all the books in the garbage bag and took them out to the trash can outside his house.
Pressing a few buttons he called Kurogiri.
"What is it you require, my master?" Kurogiri inquired.
"I have found an… interesting individual. And I need to find out a bit more about him. He just threw several books away and I'm curious as to their nature. Warp to these coordinates and bring me those books." All for One ordered before giving Kurogiri the exact coordinates to the garbage can with the books.
Kurogiri hesitated, clearly caught off guard by this. But eventually he said, "At once." He then hung up. Moments later All for One saw Kurogiri appear in front of the trash can. Opening it up he pulled out the garbage bag and began rifling through it, setting the books down on the ground next to him. Once he had retrieved them all, he closed the trash bag again, put it into the garbage can, and closed the garbage can like nothing had happened. He then picked up all thirteen of the books off the ground and vanished from the screen.
"I have acquired the books, my master." Kurogiri stated from behind them.
"Good, good. What are they?" All for One inquired.
"They appear to be journals. Journals specifically about heroes…" Kurogiri stated. All for One then heard him set the journals down, pick one up and began flipping through it. He spent a few minutes reading before saying, "Oh… Oh my." He sounded quite surprised.
"What is it, Kurogiri?" All for One inquired.
"I'm reading the most recent one, despite its state of disrepair. From what is still legible it's full of notes about various heroes. Their strengths and their weaknesses. How they fight. Extremely in depth analysis of their quirks and them as individuals based on what the writer has observed and could find through research. They seem less like notes and more along the lines of in-depth research papers written by a professional analyst… This is an invaluable wealth of information… If this individual were a villain they would know exactly how to fight all these different heroes and would know exactly what weaknesses to exploit to not just win but win with the utmost ease assuming they had a strong enough quirk… Yet… I found it in a trash bag full of simple All Might merchandise like that a mere child might possess…" Kurogiri explained. He then paused and closed the notebook. "I believe Tomura could benefit from reading these if he is to come up with strategies to fight these heroes in the future… But, Master, if I may ask, who exactly is this individual you are looking into?"
"That is none of your concern, Kurogiri. Just a side project I have very recently gained an interest in… And based on what you have told me, my interest only grows… You may leave now, Kurogiri. But leave the journals behind for me. I have a device that converts visual light to infrared so I can read. Thus I wish to read these journals for myself to determine if they are truly as valuable as you claim or not. Then I will determine what to do with them and the one who wrote them." All for One stated.
"I understand, my master. I shall return to my duties watching over Tomura." Kurogiri stated.
All for One sat there for a moment. Once he was sure enough time had passed that Kurogiri had actually left, he stood up and grabbed the most damaged looking book. He then brought it over to the device that allowed him to read, activated the device, and began to read the journal. Not all of it was legible but the parts that were actually impressed All for One. If he didn't know their origin already he would never have believed that a simple boy had written it all. Picking up another journal from the stack, he read through it as well. Then the next. Then the next. Then the next. Until he finally reached the first journal the boy had written. It was less impressive than the boy's later works but All for One could tell that the boy had to be extremely young when he wrote it.
"This boy… He's certainly much more of an intellectual than Tomura… His analytical abilities towards heroes and their quirks could make him quite valuable if this could be trained and harnessed properly… But first, he needs to be broken down even more until his spirit is completely ground to nothing to eliminate all traces of who he once was and remove any traces of hesitation or weakness. Then I can mold and rebuild him into the perfect villain. I could even use his heroic drive and instincts to my advantage in that regard… Oh All Might, you have no idea just how much of a gift you have just handed to me. And by the time you realize it? It will already be too late… Hahaha!"
Flipping to yet another page in the first journal he saw the costume design the boy had drawn and how it had become smeared and warped by the boy's tear stains. He chuckled at the scowl the face now seemed to form. He quite liked it. If only because he could tell it was All Might's smile warped into something so much darker and more malicious. Perhaps he would have such a mask made for the boy once he took him under his wing.
[Izuku]
It had been a week since the encounter with All Might. Izuku's state of mind had not improved since then. If anything it had deteriorated further to the point he was legitimately contemplating suicide. It was so bad he had stayed home from school ever since it happened.
He was currently laying on his bed staring at the ceiling despondently as he had been doing for the past few days.
He heard a knock down stairs at the door of his family's apartment. His mother had gone to meet his father at the airport just a short while ago and he didn't feel like getting up. He just assumed that whoever was there would leave soon. However he was proven wrong as they knocked again, more assertively this time. "Izuku Midoriya? This is the Musutafu police. We know you're home. Please come to the door. We need to speak with you urgently… It's about your parents." A faint muffled voice shouted.
What? His parents? His mother hadn't even been gone for an hour. Why would the police be here to talk to him about them?
Getting up he walked downstairs and opened the door revealing a police officer with a solemn expression on his face.
"What about my parents? Mom just left a little over hour ago. What's going on?" Izuku inquired.
The police officer sighed and asked, "May I come in? You might want to sit down for this."
"S-sure…" Izuku said nervously. He led the police officer to the living room and sat down on the couch. The police man continued to stand with that grim expression on his face.
"There's no easy way to say this… I'm sorry, but your parents are dead." The police officer said in a sympathetic tone.
Izuku went completely numb. Shocked by what he had just heard. "What?" He asked.
"There was a villain attack at the airport… He took your parents hostage and well… Do you mind if I turn on the news?" The policeman asked.
Izuku nodded, unable to so much as form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence.
The police man picked up the remote control for the television and turned it on before switching it to the news.
What Izuku saw shocked Izuku to the core. His parents, beaten, bloody, and bruised, begging for the Pro Heroes to help them. To save them. Meanwhile the pro heroes stood by and did nothing. The villain had a powerful telekinetic quirk that none of the Pros that were present were suited to deal with, which he used to destroy most of the airport. But even if they weren't suited to deal with it, the Pros should have at least tried to do something. Yet they didn't. They just stood there doing nothing as his parents were held captive. Just like those heroes with the Sludgevillain when Bakugo was being held captive
The screen then switched over to a reporter. "It would appear the hostages were brutally tortured for several minutes before the perpetrator finally murdered them and escaped. The perpetrator is still at large. At this time it is unknown how many have died or been injured in this attack, but it is estimated to be in the hundreds" The reporter said in a grim tone.
It was then Izuku noticed someone behind the reporters. Someone extremely familiar. A skeletal form he immediately recognized as All Might. All Might himself had been there, but he did nothing as his parents were tortured and murdered. Izuku could feel the resentment he felt towards All Might rapidly changing to something else. Something darker. He couldn't place what emotion it was at first as he had never felt it before. Then it hit him. Hatred. He hated All Might. He had the chance to save Izuku's parents yet he had done absolutely nothing.
He gritted his teeth and tears began streaming down his face as he looked down at the ground and began sobbing.
At that point the police officer turned off the T.V. and said, "In light of your parents deaths I am here to bring you back to foster care."
Izuku stood up and ran to his room, slamming the door behind him.
He heard the police man follow him upstairs. He then shouted through the door, "I'll give you some time to process this and gather your things. I'll be downstairs waiting when you're ready to leave."
Izuku fell to his knees and cried his eyes out for several minutes before he eventually began to calm down a bit. "I… I have nothing left…" He muttered in realization. There was nothing left to live for. His dreams were broken, his idol had failed him, and his parents were both dead. He had nothing left. No reason to keep on living.
After getting dressed he opened his door as quietly as possible and snuck downstairs, where he saw the policeman watching the television. Seeing him distracted, Izuku snuck over to the front door and put on his shoes before opening it and bolting out while the policeman wasn't looking.
[All for One]
All for One watched the boy run out of the house, crying, with a smile on his face. Everything was coming together wonderfully. The villain he had paid to kill Izuku's parents had performed his task admirably and the fake police officer he had sent had acted the part excellently. And he chose this particular villain both for their telekinesis quirk, which was similar to Izuku's mother but significantly more powerful, and his pure sadism.
All Might being in the background of the news had also been semi-intentional. All for One had sent villains to terrorize the town for several hours so All Might would be forced to use up all the time he could spend transformed. And he had them attack in locations that would naturally lead All Might in the direction of the airport without seeming too suspicious.
The main reason for this had been to torment All Might as he would arrive too late to do anything to even try to stop the villain from killing Izuku's parents, not that All Might knew they were Izuku's parents but failing to save anyone would be crushing to him. However, All Might ending up in the background of the news had been quite the bonus as All for One was certain a boy as perceptive and analytical as Izuku would have noticed his former idol standing there doing nothing. It was absolutely perfect.
All for One assumed the boy was off to go attempt suicide at this point, which was exactly what he wanted. He wanted the boy broken to this point. To have the boy's entire world and world view come crumbling down around him. To force him to question everything he used to think about heroes and hero society. And when he was about to jump, All for One would pull him back from the edge and would show him a different path.
[Izuku]
Once he was outside he ran, and ran, scarcely stopping to catch his breath until he eventually arrived at his school. With tears in his eyes he made his way inside and walked up to the roof. As he was in his school uniform and it was the end of a school day, no one tried to stop him. Once he was on the roof he walked to the edge and looked down.
"Why…? My parents… Why didn't All Might do anything…? Why didn't any of them do anything…? Why, why, why…? Aren't heroes supposed to save people? S-so why didn't they save my parents…?" Izuku sobbed to himself.
"Oh, poor child…" Said a voice from behind him. "It's not fair, is it? Why must those without power suffer while fools with power sit back and do nothing as they suffer and die then get praised as heroes despite their inaction? Absolutely ridiculous…"
Izuku turned and saw a man in a nice suit wearing black headgear standing there behind him with both arms crossed behind his back.
"Wh-who are you?" Izuku sniffled, wiping the tears from his eyes.
"A friend… You know, I just so happened to see your interaction with All Might last week. When he told you that you couldn't be a hero because you didn't have a quirk… And I found it quite heartless of him… Do you wish to know why? I have known him for quite some time, so I know his quirk One for All can be passed to others. And because of his current state, he is looking for a successor. He even used to be quirkless like you himself before his master passed One for All down to him. Yet despite your desire to be a hero, despite your heroic attempts to save that other boy from that sludge villain, despite you having everything it takes to become a hero other than a quirk… He rejected you. Lied to you. Told you that you would never amount to anything despite having the ability to grant you the power to be his successor. The number one hero." The man explained.
Izuku wanted to object, to say the man was lying, to say it was impossible to grant someone a quirk, to say All Might would never be so cruel. But after seeing All Might stand there and do nothing while his parents were tortured and killed had sucked any will to argue out of him. "W-why are you telling me this?" Izuku muttered.
"Because ever since that day I have been watching you. Because I saw in you what All Might didn't… You see, I have the power to steal quirks and grant them to others and I was observing you to see if you were worthy of granting a quirk. I hope you don't mind but to that end I have read the journals you tried to throw out and I must say I am thoroughly impressed with what I read, especially in the more recent volumes. That sort of analytical ability could be invaluable if honed correctly… So I have a question for you. You have suffered under the cruel heel of our current society which worships false heroes such as All Might and fails those with less power such as yourself time and time again while pretending to be oh so virtuous… So, would you like for things to change?" The strange man asked.
"What… What do you mean?" Izuku sobbed, wiping the tears from his eyes.
"I mean, a society like this should not exist. We should strive to do better. But as things currently are that would be impossible. So, would you like to help me tear down this corrupt and malignant society and build up something better? Would you like to become a true hero? Not just a pretender like All Might and the other 'pros'? Because I have the power to grant you the ability to do so. And unlike All Might, I believe in your ability to be a hero." The man inquired, taking a few steps closer to Izuku.
Izuku looked down at the ground for a moment, tears streaming down his face. This man was offering him a quirk, to make him a hero when All Might would not… "Wh-what do I have to do…?" Izuku asked.
The man chuckled darkly. He then held up a hand and suddenly someone came levitating out of the shadows before landing at Izuku's feet. Izuku immediately recognized the man as the villain who murdered his parents.
"Don't mind the broken jaw he has and his missing tongue. I just couldn't stand to listen to his foolish justifications for his actions… And don't worry about his quirk, I took it from him as I believe there is someone else who deserves it much more. But you asked me what you had to do… It's simple, just prove yourself to me. Prove you have the will and determination to make a change. Prove to me that you have the drive to get your hands dirty for the betterment of society." The man said. He then tossed a knife and stuck it tip first in the ground between Izuku's feet. "Or… If you don't have the will to do it, you can always jump off the roof to your demise. But that would be such a waste… Don't disappoint me now."
Izuku hesitantly grabbed the knife and took a couple of shaky steps towards the villain who had murdered his parents. "You… You killed my mom and dad! You… You tortured them and then you murdered them…" Izuku sobbed, clutching the knife so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
Kneeling down he stabbed the villain in the arm between the ulna and radius, causing the man to cry out in pain through his broken jaw. Izuku then dragged the double edged knife up and down the man's arm, between the bones, causing the man to bleed profusely and scream in agony. Leaving the knife embedded in the man's forearm between the bones, Izuku proceeded to start punching him as hard as he possibly could. He was unloading all of his rage, hatred, stress, and other negative emotions into the villain who murdered his parents.
He continued beating the villain for maybe five minutes before grabbing the knife again and stabbing him repeatedly. When he was done, he ripped the knife out of the now dead man's eye socket and stood up, clutching the knife in his hand.
The man in the black head gear clapped. "Wonderful! You did better than I expected. I thought you would just kill him but you went above and beyond, punishing him for what he did to you and your family. Hahaha! You will make for an excellent apprentice… Now, come, Izuku Midoriya. Someone has likely heard the screaming and the authorities are likely on the way." He held out a hand to Izuku. Izuku, still clutching the knife in his left hand, took the man's hand. Suddenly they were both enveloped by a black ooze. Izuku was surprised for a moment but held his breath, deciding to just trust the man, despite the fact that the ooze brought back bad memories of that ooze villain.
My notes: I saw AMVs of Izuku as a villain and decided to write my own take on it. This is mainly just a side project. Either way, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! So, do you think All for One should give Izuku multiple quirks to begin with, is telekinesis enough all together, or should he be able to earn further quirks in the future?