Water.
More water.
Oh look, some sodium and chloride ions.
More water.
Eww, wait was that urea?! Quick, speed up the hand-
More water. More sodium and chloride ions. Thankfully, no more urea. Who peed in the pool? Why? Maybe he didn't want to know, just this once.
Funnily enough, there weren't too many others in the pool. He could probably narrow it down to one or two suspects- nevermind. He wasn't a snitch (but he was pretty disgusted), and he had better things to think about, anyway.
Izuku enjoyed swimming. In the ten years since his quirk registration, swimming was one of the only times when his quirk's feedback was consistent. Normally, his quirk would chatter in his head about the latest volatile organic molecule it found on his hand coming from somewhere (that was definitely ethyl mercaptan, and oh god, he could smell it now, too), and it got overwhelming. He'd learned to filter it out when he wanted to, but it was an unfortunate side effect of having his quirk, and also having a pretty good memory. Thankfully his mom helped him a lot, especially with academic knowledge he needed to know for his quirk, and other life lessons she usually gave him. Ah, he was almost done with his last lap.
Having finished his laps, he got out of the pool, and headed to the locker rooms. This was a heated, indoor pool, and he was lucky that the Mon Karamarī Swim Club was only about a 15 minute walk from home. It was run by a nice elderly couple who had fish and squid heteromorphic traits, and their children, who Izuku had never really interacted with, unfortunately.
Although Aldera Middle School had offered for him to try out for the swim team, Izuku had a bad feeling about it, especially since he had noticed a few…odd things about Aldera. The teachers had a pretty overt bias to strong quirks, and gave him and his somewhat friend Bakugō free reign to use their quirks. They also seemed to try and pass this belief down to the classmates, but his mom had seen right through that.
9 years earlier…
Inko was about to pick Izuku up from kindergarten. Izuku had taken to school pretty quickly, and he didn't make much of a fuss about going there.
"How was your day at school, Izuku?"
"It was great Mom! The t-teachers at Aldera say that I-I have a very powerful quirk…and they seem to like me a lot, too!"
Inko was a little concerned. "Are you sure they said that?"
"Yeah! They said me and Kacchan were gonna be great heroes someday!"
"What did they say about the other kids in your class?"
"T-they didn't really say much to them."
Scratch that, Inko was very concerned. Were the teachers Quirk Supremacists? Would there be any problems? Now might as well be a good time to ingrain some values in Izuku. Her grandfather had fought against the MLA, and she would certainly educate her son on exactly why quirk supremacists were terrible.
She drove on in silence, gathering her thoughts, before finally asking Izuku, "If someone in your class had my quirk, what would the teachers act like to them?"
Izuku thought for a moment, before saying, "I-I think they would be ignored?"
"What about if someone was quirkless in your class? What would the teachers do?"
"T-they would also be ignored?"
Inko gave a halfhearted smile at that. "The quirkless child being ignored would be the best outcome. At worst, the teachers would actively bully them. I think I don't need to tell you that bullying isn't great, right?"
Izuku frantically nodded. He'd remember this conversation for a while.
He'd done some research, and with it, came a new wariness of the Aldera teachers. Their attitude had…infected several people who would go around and mock those with weak quirks. Izuku had done his best to stand up to them, and the teachers didn't punish him, unlike the other kids.
He wasn't complaining. Those bullied kids weren't, either. Although the self-proclaimed popular kids did their best to socially isolate him, he wasn't that concerned. Aldera wasn't the kind of place you'd want friends from, unless those friends were also bullied by the idiots.
Lost in his thoughts, Izuku had already changed out of his swimwear, and begun walking home. There was a villain fight earlier today, with Kamui Woods, Backdraft, Death Arms, and a new debuting heroine, Mount Lady. He questioned her choice of trying to work in a big city, and stealing Kamui's capture (but it was her debut so it could be forgiven), but any new hero would be a great help to keep crime rates down.
He'd begun the walk back to his house, when he remembered that he still needed to visit the Gurībasu merch store, since they finally started carrying a new All Might brand pillow cover.
The shortest route was to head back to Aldera, take a tunnel, and then head straight to the store, then go home. He'd have to text his mom first though.
With that done, time to buy the pillowcase!
The tunnel slurped.
That's strange, thought Izuku. Tunnels don't make slurping noises, or have eyes, or teeth-
"A villain?!" His mouth finished processing before his brain did, and before fear had time to set in.
Step one: run!
He began to pump his legs, hoping to outrun this slimy villain, but it wasn't to be. He may have been fast for a kid his age, but the sludge villain was faster.
Step one failed.
The slime villain caught up to him, and began constraining his arms and legs. Then, it began to speak, with a horrid reverb to its voice. "Don't worry, it'll only hurt for 45 seconds. Thanks for your help. You're my hero."
Izuku clawed at the slime that surrounded his mouth. That simply wouldn't do. He had so much to live for! Like that All Might pillowcase! And his mom!
Should he use his quirk?
He had 43 seconds to decide. No, he was using his quirk, repercussions be damned, he needed to LIVE!
So he pressed his hand flat onto the sludge villain, and- Ew. Gross. Sewage.
But, he could manipulate liquids thanks to Renovate, and this sludge villain was going down!
Oh right, 41 seconds.
Sploosh! The sludge villain lost coherence, and became a tiny, harmless being with both eyes and a small amount of liquid - enough for two liters, maybe?
More importantly, Izuku was free! Although, what an incredible smell he'd discovered.
Note to self, Izuku thought, ask for a full decontamination shower and brush your teeth extra hard today.
Obviously, the villain needed to be contained, somehow. There were a few soda bottles around…maybe he could merge them into one giant bottle and maybe that would work? He had to try, at least.
Picking up a few scattered soda bottles, he fused them into one larger one, which could hold about two liters. Using his quirk again, he moved the goop villain into the bottles and screwed the cap on.
Just in time, too, as All Might emerged from a manhole nearby.
"I am here!...Oh. I am a little late." said All Might.
Izuku was almost paralyzed with hero-worship. Then, he belted out rapidly, "A-All Might! P-Please! COULD YOU SIGN MY NOTEBOOK?!" He bowed, too. Politeness was important!
"Easy now, fanboy! You wouldn't have been the one to capture this villain, would you?"
"I-I did, but it's only because the villain was about to takeovermybodyandIcouldn'tlethimdothatyouknowbecauseitismybodyandIkindofneedittolive-" Izuku descended into unintelligible rambling here.
All Might was vaguely impressed, but concerned. Didn't this kid need to breathe? Also, did the villain say take over his body?
"Easy there, young man! I think you should breathe now. And could you please explain exactly what happened?" Maybe with some pauses between words?, he thought to himself
"O-of course! So I was walking under this tunnel, w-when this guy, right here," At this, Izuku shook the bottle containing the slime villain.
"This guy, came up behind me and basically tried to take over my body. So I used my quirk in self defense, because he said I'd live for 45 more seconds, and I kind of wanted to live for longer than that." Izuku felt very proud of himself. He'd successfully talked to his idol!
"I am sorry that you got caught up with this villain! I was chasing him through the sewers, and he got away from me! Considering this is a self-defense case, you will not get into any trouble with the law. I will alert paramedics to your location, and please stay here until they find you!" All Might suddenly smiled a little wider, if that was even possible, and said, "I think, young man, that I will trade you a signature on your journal for that bottle. What do you say?"
How could Izuku say no?
They made the exchange, with All Might noticing that some of the notes this young boy made on his fighting style, and his supposed quirk, could have rivaled professional analysts. Most impressive.
"Now then, young man, I really must be off!"
Izuku smiled. Despite being almost choked out by a villain, today was a good day.
Hmm, there were explosions from nearby. Maybe it was a villain fight? Izuku decided to check it out, to see the heroes in action.
As he pushed his way through the crowd, the only thought that came to his mind was that he was seeing the heroes' inaction.
None of them were doing anything!
Mt. Lady apparently needed two streets to fit in, Death Arms had already been blasted back by the slime villain, Backdraft was focused on the fires, and Kamui Woods was complaining about type weaknesses. What was he, a Cottonee? Even Bulbasaurs could defeat Charizards (given some help, which was present at the scene)! They even had a water-type!
Wait, didn't All Might take the villain? How did he escape? Questions for later, apparently Bakugō was suffocating. Quick, think of something-
He was running towards the villain, without a plan. Someone shouted something behind him, but he paid no attention to it.
Izuku ran up to the villain, and he pressed his hand to the ground, to try and help Bakugō out of the villain. How'd this one escape from All Might?
Not important right now, he had to focus on manipulating the road. He'd almost gotten Bakugō free from the villain's clutches when All Might showed up again.
"I am here! Right on time!"
With that, All Might Detroit Smashed the villain so hard he made it start raining.
That was certainly annoying. Some nerve those heroes had, scolding him for letting Bakugō breathe when they couldn't do anything.
Even Bakugō had actually thanked him afterwards. Kind of. Not really. He'd said he was fine on his own, but he escaped faster with his and All Might's help, or something like that. Izuku honestly wasn't paying too much attention, too focused on the fact that he'd never gotten that All Might pillowcase before the store closed.
"I am here!"
That never got old.
"All Might?" After meeting him once already, Izuku was much calmer the second time. "Weren't you surrounded by reporters until now?"
"I stand for justice, not soundbites! Anyway, young man, I'd like to thank you for what you did out there-ggghhhhkk!"
Izuku screamed. He kept screaming for some time, as All Might spat out blood and transformed into a skeletal version of himself.
All Might(?) sighed, and said, "Hey, if you'd like to stop screaming any day now, I can explain."
Izuku clamped his mouth shut.
All Might(?) began, "I got a pretty severe injury about 5 years ago when I was fighting a villain. That injury caused me to become like this, and I can't maintain my hero form for more than 3 hours a day. It's kind of like when guys suck their stomachs in at the pool."
Izuku thought for a second. "Was that during your fight with Toxic Chainsaw?"
All Might(?) grinned. "You really do know your stuff, don't you? No, that punk couldn't hurt me. This villain fight went unpublicized, because if the public saw what happened to me…you can guess the consequences."
"Anyways, kid, I wanted to thank you for trying to save the other kid trapped in the villain, because that villain woke up mid-flight and escaped from that bottle you put him in! I think you'll make a great hero someday."
Izuku had to stop himself from sobbing. He knew that he could already be a great hero, but hearing it from All Might? That was different. And…should he tell All Might? He really should. He assumed his injury was extraordinarily bad, but not quite
Izuku took a deep breath, and began, "My quirk allows me to manipulate matter, including organic matter. I don't know if I can heal your injury, but I think I can, once I have enough experience. T-that is, i-if you think I could."
All Might was stunned. "W-well, young man…I had never hoped that I'd be free from this injury. If you wouldn't mind terribly, since tomorrow is the weekend and all, could you perhaps come with me to see Recovery Girl and Principal Nezu? They would need to know about this, anyway."
Meeting with the Principal of UA? And Pro Hero Recovery Girl?
How could he say no?
