It was another normal day in class for Izuku, the strange boy of Aldera High. He was quirkless, making many people think he was lesser than they because he was not born with what many would have called superpowers in the past.

It was true Izuku contained no quirk in his body and as such his life was filled with many hardships. Lack of friends. Constant bullying. Verbal harassment just to name a few.

But Izuku kept his chin up through all of this. Why? Because he aimed for the sky. He wanted to be the next number one Pro Hero of Japan, the title being carried by the current number one hero, All Might, for almost twenty years.

It was an impossible dream for Izuku since he was quirkless. They would ask how did he expect to fight villains with no quirk. And Izuku never had an answer for them, making the questionnaires shake their head at the boy's naivety.

But Izuku believed he had a quirk, one that hadn't been detected by modern technology. For when he looked up to the sky and saw the stars, the stars spoke. And he listened.

What Izuku heard was never intelligible. But he understood, somehow. The boy would find things like mathematics and science easier to understand after speaking to the stars. That's how he stayed at the top spot in academics for his class while he ran around his hometown analyzing heroes instead of studying hard. He still studied, but not as much as one expected for someone of his intelligence level.

Quirk analysis, Izuku's favorite hobby. He would watch fights between heroes and villains, finding weaknesses in both sides' quirks. He would record all his findings in multiple notebooks, in a written code made by Izuku himself. There were his treasures to be guarded, as the stars had suggested. And Izuku listened, for the stars never led him astray.

"Deku!" the green-haired looked forward to seeing his childhood acquaintance, Katsuki Bakugo, in front of his desk, "Why the hell are you applying to be a hero?"

Izuku flinched back as he noticed all of his classmate's eyes were on him. He could feel the star's disappointment with his actions. He gulped at the heated stare Bakugo was giving him. "W-what are you t-talking about Kacchan?"

"Teach just said you were applying to U.A.," the explosive answered, "If your head wasn't in the clouds, you had heard him!"

The teacher said something to the blonde, who ignored him. "You think you can compete with me?"

"No!" Izuku felt the anger of the stars when he blurted that out.

"Then why the fuck are you even going to it?"

"I just want to try since it's been my lifelong dream to be a hero, you know?" Izuku said quietly.

The laughing and taunting that came next didn't affect Izuku. No, only the feeling of the stars did. The severe disappointment radiating from them caused Izuku to go silent for the rest of the class.

When class was over, Izuku found himself getting excited over possible hero sightings. He felt the interest of the stars and knew he would find some cool heroes on patrol.

Something made Izuku look up and saw Bakugo approaching him. He saw the blonde's eyes were focused on his quirk analysis notebook. He could feel the protectiveness in him grow and clutched the notebook to his chest as Bakugo approached his desk.

"Give me that shitty notebook, you fucking freak," the bully demanded, a fist already cocked and ready.

Izuku saw no teacher and knew he had to defend his knowledge alone. These were his to keep, not to share. And Bakugo would not take them from him.

Izuku slid out of his seat, defiance set in him. "No."

Pain and blood erupted from his nose as the stars screamed in fury. Izuku fell to the ground, his arms still hugging his notebook. He was glad he never carried more than one at a time.

He could feel the exact locations and intensity of the bruises forming on his body as Bakugo and his two lackeys kicked. The blonde stepped on his face a few times and left a few more insults before he stopped attacking.

"Deku, if you really want to be a hero, you should take a dive off the roof and hope you get one in the next one life!" The stars hissed at the blonde's words and gave small comfort to Izuku.

The boy shakily stood up after his tormentors left the room. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He wasn't injured too badly where he needed to see a medical professional, but he roughed up enough that he needed to hide his injuries.

'I can't make my mother worry more than she already does,' Izuku thought to himself as he gathered his backpack to leave the classroom. He made a quick stop in the bathroom to clean the blood off his face before leaving Aldera High.

In the next few minutes, Izuku found himself walking down a narrow alleyway. He was taking a shortcut to another part of town since he had missed the train. Izuku wanted to get to the lively strip just to see what heroes would be there today. 'So many heroes there and I've never seen the same ones twice!'

He felt a warning coming from the stars, making the boy look behind him. A giant wave of green liquid had come out of a nearby manhole. "A medium of sized invisibility cloak, what luck!"

Izuku found himself engulfed by green slime as he was being choked by the villain. He could do anything as he felt oxygen being depleted from his body and black dots entered his vision as the screams from the stars became stronger. As he fell unconscious, all he heard were the words. "Little star, this is not your end."


Yagi Toshinirio, better known as All Might, was speeding through the sewers. He was following the trail of a villain that had escaped earlier, one that sadly got away during the commotion of another villain's attack nearby. He saw the opening above him and knew the villain had used this manhole to escape.

All Might lept out of the sewers, ready to strike down the criminal. Instead, he came to the scene of a child sprawled against the floor with the villain he was chasing stuck in place as if petrified. The number one hero only took a few seconds to capture the slime villain in the empty soda bottles hidden in his cargo shorts. 'Great thinking Yagi!'

All Might then checked on the child. He found the boy still alive but unconscious, making the man let out a sigh of relief. Yagi then eyed a notebook out of the corner of his eye. The man placed Izuku on his side, just to make sure nothing obstructed the boy's airways before picking up the notebook. Yagi found himself getting a headache from reading the indecipherable characters on the page, the familiar sensation of him needing to spit blood coming up. The number one hero turned to a blank page for the pain to go away. He pulled a permanent marker out of his pocket that he always held on him to sign the blank page.

After he was finished, he heard a groan behind him. Izuku had awoken and All Might felt good, for another good deed had been done. Izuku sat up and noticed the glowing eyes of the number one hero. "All Might!"

The number one hero laughed at the excitement in the child's eyes. "Sorry young one to get you involved in my chase of this nefarious villain, but the man has been captured!"

"Might I ask how you incapacitated him?" The beefy hero asked with a blinding smile. It wasn't every day a child was able to take down a villain.

"H-huh? I didn't do anything!" All Might kept his smile up, knowing something was off.

'If the child did not do it, who did?' The number one hero asked himself. "Seems like you might have a guardian angel."

The boy's eyebrows scrunched up. "I don't know who would do that."

Izuku felt disappointment from the stars and then he knew who saved him. 'Thank you!'

All Might noticed the change in Izuku but stayed silent. He felt his time approaching its end. "Well, I have to get to the police to put this man behind bars. Check your notebook for a surprise."

Izuku never got a chance to question All Might as the man had turned into a blur, leaving only a gust of wind that made a notebook into Izuku's lap. Seeing it was one of his treasured tomes, Izuku put it into a tight grip. He opened it, going past his notes until he sees All Might's signature. It felt like an intrusion of privacy but also he felt the exhilaration of getting All Might's signature. Izuku felt like it was an even trade, for he only began on this notebook. A few pages for a rare signature that no regular person held meant Izuku had come on top of this trade deal.

Izuku's hands traveled over the number one's hero signature, feeling some strange sense of power inscribed in the writings. It was something he would look into later when he got home. His mother said she was making his favorite tonight, Katsudon.

Izuku dusted himself off. He looked up to the sky and felt goodness wash over him. He felt the need to overlook his tomes tonight as if something new would be shown to him. He did not doubt the stars. Ever.


After getting home, Izuku went straight to his room. He sat at his desk and pulled out his current hero notebook, jumping to the page with All Might's signature. He analyzed every aspect of the number one hero's kanji. Izuku began to leave notes on the same pages, which lead to some strange mural-like figure being formed. The boy stared at his new creation, sudden inspiration hitting him.

He grabbed all of his previous notebooks, tearing out the most detailed pages of each one. With a handful of tape and a stapler, Izuku assembled everything together. His thirteenth notebook's first page was All Might's signature now, as Izuku knew it was now the cornerstone of everything he needed. He turned to the next few pages, all detailing Bakugo's quirks over the years. These pages were taped and stapled together from scraps, making a jumbled mess that was jarring to the normal eyes. The last remaining pages were just a catalog of quirks he detailed over the years. Most were long-time Pro Heroes, like Endeavor, or classmates he had known for a long time, such as Tsubasa.

He flipped to the first page again, a message coming from the stars. He remembered their previous words earlier today. He knew something great was going to happen to him soon. He just needed to be patient. He had waited since he was five years old, so anymore waiting was nothing new.

Izuku closed the notebook. He had decided that this notebook, this tome, needed a better cover than the flimsy one it currently had. He would shop for something tomorrow since there was no school.