Hope you guys like it.
For the longest time since humanity has been around, they relied on two things: strength and ingenuity.
Strength was essential. Whether it was natural or gained, it helped man fight predators, it helped him hunt for food, and it helped him defend his territory. But strength alone wasn't enough as he learned how to innovate. It's what helped man create fire, spears, bow and arrows, castles, armors, steam engines, vehicles, computers, phones, missiles, and more.
It stayed like this for a long period of time until a child in China changed the balance as more people relied on their natural abilities and did less ingenuity on a grand scale.
But what if someone, who wasn't blessed with natural gifts, were able to turn the tide of what is even possible as a hero?
"You're quirkless."
The world seemed to stop for one Midoriya Izuku as he heard the words leave the doctor's mouth. Disbelievingly, he looked up and shakingly asked, hoping to himself that it was a dream, "What?"
"You're quirkless Izuku. I am very sorry, but that is something you have to accept." The doctor replied.
"B-but, there has to be a mistake, right?" Inko asked, seeing his son's dreams shatter in front of her eyes, "You can't be sure!"
The doctor sighed, "Look, I know it's a hard fact to accept in the current society, but there's nothing I can do. Those who are quirkless have an extra toe joint. You can see in the X-ray that your son does have that extra joint."
Izuku and Inko sat quietly, not knowing what to do, "I really am sorry." The doctor once again apologized as he got up to leave, with no words of comfort to add.
Inko seemed to regain her composure and restrained her tears, "Come on Izuku… let's go home."
The 4 year old nodded dumbly. He didn't know what to think. On one hand, he still had the hopes of being a hero, stuck in his mind. However, he couldn't dream of being a hero anymore. What could he bring to a fight that would change the tide of battle? He would never be as good as Kacchan who had such a cool quirk, who was suited to be a hero. It was worthless to try.
The ride back home had disappeared in a flurry of emotions. Inko hadn't spoken a word, not knowing how to comfort her son. She knew that Izuku's dreams were slowly fading away. She knew what she had to say. She had to encourage him to be a hero nonetheless, but could she do that? She knew that without a quirk, Izuku would end up getting hurt badly. Could she stand by and witness that?
The house was quiet when Inko and Izuku arrived. She noticed how melancholy her son was as he went to his room, not saying a word. Inko, in her shame, started cooking some katsudon in the silent kitchen, in hopes that her son's favorite dish can distract him from the revelation they both experienced. She knew it was temporary but anything was good to get her son out of his depressed state.
It didn't take long for her to make the dish. Looking down at the food that was getting cold and at the door to Izuku's room, she couldn't hold back the tears that threatened to fall down her face. She cried, thinking this was her fault. But what could she do? What could she say to her son? She didn't know what to do in this situation.
But she knew Hisashi could.
So after wiping her tears, she went and grabbed her phone, calling her husband. "Come on, Hisashi. Please pick up. Please…" "Hello?". Inko heard husband call out.
"Hisashi?", Inko called out.
"Oh, hi, honey. How's my doting wife and my little boy?". She can hear the joy in his voice, which only made it more painful to tell him about Izuku's diagnosis.
"Hisashi, I have some news…", Inko steadied herself. "About Izuku's diagnosis."
"Oh, sweet! Did he manifest his Quirk?! Is it like yours? Is it like mine? Or maybe it's-!". Hearing the excitement in his voice made her heart clench but she had to tell him.
"Izuku's Quirkless, Hisashi." The silence was deafening and it didn't take a genius to know that her excited husband was shook by what he just heard.
"What?" Inko heard her husband's voice but she couldn't tell what he was feeling at the moment.
"We went to the hospital, Hisashi.", Inko began to explain, feeling the sadness grip her chest. "And the doctor took Izuku's X-Rays and our son has double joints on his toes...and…" The tears started to fall down her face and she couldn't stop herself from crying. "I...I don't know what to do, Hisashi...I don't want to see our baby boy's dream die but…"
The phone was silent from the other end and Inko was waiting for a response.
"Continue supporting our son's dream." was all Hisashi said after a moment had passed. Inko was shocked for a minute.
"But...Hisashi-"
"Inko, I need you to listen to me." She heard her husband's voice get serious and listened. "Izuku will achieve his dream but first, he needs the support from his family, now more than ever."
Inko knew that that was important but.."How are we gonna help Izuku, Hisashi? I hardly have enough money to help support me and our son outside the bare minimums, even with the extra money you send to us." She didn't want to be a downer but she didn't know how she and Hisashi were going to help Izuku succeed.
"Don't worry about that. For now, I need you to listen to me very carefully." And she did so. The more she heard Hisashi explain it to her, the crazier it sounded but after everything Izuku had gone through today, she would do something to bring the joy in her son's eyes.
It was that same video he saw earlier before he and his mom went to the hospital.
All Might's debut.
Where the aspiring hero went to save an entire bus filled with injured civilians.
"FEAR NOT CITIZENS!", the smiling hero declared in the video. "BECAUSE I AM HERE!"
Those words struck differently to the melancholic Midoriya as they felt like a reminder of being the few that were powerless and the impossibility to achieving his dream, not the inspiring words that gave him.
Izuku heard a knock and he saw his mother holding the phone. He pointed to the screen where All Might was saving the day.
"Izuku, are you ok, sweetie?", Inko asked, hoping that her son was ok. But she knew he wasn't.
"Mommy?", Izuku asked his mother with tears and a sad smile as he pointed to the screen. "Do you think I can be a hero?"
She saw the hopefulness in her son's teary eyes. She wanted to say sorry for not giving her son a Quirk but she knew that would only make things worse and Hisashi trusted her to do the right thing.
"Yes, sweetie. I think you can be a hero.", Inko said with a happy smile and tears. Izuku looked at her with a hesitant expression.
"Really?", Izuku asked, quietly. Inko only nodded her head.
"I will be honest with you, Izuku.", she started. "I'm very worried about you getting hurt when you become a hero." She saw the sadness slowly start to seep into her son's eyes. "But I'd rather you be happy in trying and succeeding your dreams than live your life safe and miserable." Those words made Izuku jump out of his chair and hug his mom with happy tears coming down his face.
He looked at her face, which had tears of her own as she returned the hug. "Thank you, mommy."
Inko gave her son a warm smile. "You're welcome, honey." She gave her phone to Izuku. "Daddy wants to talk to you." Izuku looked surprised. He hadn't heard from his father for about almost a year after giving Izuku a collection of DVDs and toys from the Pre-Quirk Era for his birthday.
He grabbed his mother's phone and said, "Hi, Dad."
"Hey, son." He heard his father greet him.
"So you heard, huh?", Izuku hesitantly asked his dad.
"Yeah, your mom told me." Izuku looked nervous. "And I think you can be a hero." That surprised Izuku on how quickly Hisashi answered him.
"Really?"
"Of course, little man." Those four words made Izuku's heart swell with happiness. "But!" That sudden word caused Izuku to jolt for a bit. "It won't be easy for you." That level of bluntness floored the young Midoriya.
Izuku tilted his head, childlike naivety in his question. "What do you mean?"
"Izuku…", Hisashi started to explain, straining himself to tell his son through the phone. "While me and your mother have faith in you becoming a hero, the outside world won't." Izuku sounded upset at those words.
"Why?", a simple question being asked by the boy.
There was a brief pause. "Because the world, filled with many fantastical quirks of many varieties, believes that Quirkless means that you're useless in all things in life. Getting a job, gaining friends, receiving an education, and even finding love." The patriarch knew those words hurt his son's spirit and made him sniffle some tears away. "But I know that you're not useless. Mommy knows you're not, right?"
Izuku nodded his head. "Right."
"Do you still have that collection I gave you?", Hisashi asked.
"Yeah, I read some of the comics and watch some of the DVDs with mommy sometimes.", Izuku responded, remembering how despite how deep of an All Might nerd he was, still enjoyed reading comics revolving around Iron Man and Batman or watching Kamen Rider DVDs with his mom.
"Good, good." Hisashi chuckled, happy that his son was enjoying the relics from the past. "Now I have a question for Izuku."
"Ok."
"Did you notice how Batman and Iron Man don't have innate abilities?"
"Yes. They're normal humans that rely on skill, intuition, and technology. Unlike the majority of their teammates they have alternate ways of solving…" Izuku stopped himself before realizing what Hisashi was trying to explain to him.
If Hisashi was there, he'd be smiling from ear-to-ear with his son's answer. "Looks like someone figured it out." Izuku was confused by what his dad was saying.
"D-dad. I'm not a millionaire. I-I don't even know how to invent.", Izuku explained to his laughing father. He was more of a thinker with how he analyzed quirks in his notebooks.
"True.", Hisashi answered, humor still found in his voice. "But what if I gave you the books necessary to teach you how to invent your own gadgets?"
Izuku tilted his head, curiously. "There are books that can teach me that?"
"Why yes, son." Izuku's dad replied. "But you gotta tell me which books you would need to learn how to invent." This made Izuku focused as he looked up at Inko, who looked at Izuku with humour at her son's determination.
"Mom, can you hold the phone for me?", Izuku asked his mother as she did so. The energized Midoriya went through Iron Man and Batman comics to pick certain aspects of their intelligence, their skillsets, their costumes, and their origins. Iron Man was an individual that relied on his engineering prowess as well as his knowledge of weaponry and physics whereas Batman was someone who used small scale items to help turn the tide of a fight and was extensively adept in combat.
The focused Midoriya wrote down a list on what he would need to know in order to become a hero.
"Alright," Izuku took the phone from his mother, "I will need a lot of advanced mathematics books to understand the physics of how my costume will work. Oh! That reminds me, I will need a lot of beginner books to understand the basics of science and calculus before I can actually invent anything. I really want to invent things that would let me fly too, so books on aerodynamics would be really cool! Oh! And books on architecture and tailoring so that I don't destroy my inventions by mistake. And a guide on metalworking too!" Izuku said, his excited voice making Hisahi laugh.
Izuku stopped short in between though, "It's not going to be too expensive right?"
Hisahi was possibly frowning. "You don't need to worry about the money. I'll get those books for you." he responded, seriousness laced in his voice. "But I want you to promise that you will read all of those books. You will have to make leaps beyond your classmates and study things that even those with degrees do not know."
Izuku nodded with determination, "Yes dad!"
"Good. However, you should not only build up your mind but also your body. So I'm going to search for a dojo or martial arts centre near you. And if that doesn't work out, your mother and I will find videos and books for you to learn from." That made Izuku excited with various combat styles he'd possibly learn.
"Thanks dad," Izuku said happily, wiping his tears from his eyes. His hopes for his dream to be a hero had been reinvigorated. No one was going to stop him!
"Alright now, let's go have dinner, Izuku!" Inko said with cheer. It warmed her heart that despite Izuku's disability, he was still going to try to achieve his dreams. And even though it was far into the future, she had faith that he would succeed.
"But mom, I have to start learning!" Izuku responded with child-like indignance.
Hisashi laughed from the other side of the phone, "You still don't have the books. You need to spend a lot of time to make up for your lack of quirk but that doesn't mean you can't have fun. You're still a kid, little man. Go on and have dinner and I'll talk with you more in the morning. Don't want you to fall ill, now do we?"
"Alright," Izuku resigned, "But you are going to teach me in the morning!"
Hisashi laughed through the phone, "Sure thing, Izuku. Love you, son."
"Love you, too.", Izuku answered, joyfulness found in him again. After that, Hisashi hung up.
Even though he knew that it was still a long shot, Hisashi was still hopeful. None of the
Midoriyas would know just how much the world would change with that one conversation.
Inko watched her son eat his katsudon, excitement and determination expressed. It made her happy that her son's light wasn't put out, that his dreams could still be reached within the improbable.
But it made her scared of what Izuku's friends, teachers, or random strangers will do to him when they find out that he's Quirkless. But she remembered what Hisashi said to her if their son faces discrimination.
"If our son faces any form of discrimination in his schools, please tell me and give me evidence. I'll make a lawsuit when we have enough money." Inko knew that Hisashi would never do something like that if he wasn't serious about it.
Inko looked at the table in worry. "But what if it's not in school, Hisashi? There's a chance that strangers will give our son a hard time."
"That's why we're giving him ways to learn how to create. I know Izuku won't give up on this, that's why I want him to learn to create stuff that can help him defend himself. And even then, we can give books that can teach him how to fight."
"Are you sure this would work?", Inko asked.
"It's a Hail Mary, Inko. There's a high probability that this might backfire." She heard exasperation in her husband's voice but that didn't stop him from supporting their boy. "But it's better than nothin. It all depends on Izuku's answer."
Inko looked up from her food to see her son already done eating. He had a couple of action figures, All Might, Iron Man, Kamen Riders Kuuga and Build, and Batman next to him as he was sketching something on a piece of paper.
Inko tilted her head in confusion. "What are you doing, sweetie?"
Izuku looked up at Inko, with an expression of genius just finding a breakthrough. "Mom, I got an idea."
All of the greatest things started from an idea.
For those of you who are worried that I've forgotten about Omni Falls, don't worry. I haven't I'm just collabing with soulofdarkandlight on this story that he's helping by being a beta