What makes a hero?
A simple question that most people thought of as rhetorical, a few more literal people would give you the legal definition of the word, and anyone in the professional side would give you the requirements to become a pro-hero.
But Izuku had begun to ponder the more moral side of the equation ever since the SSI and was a question brought back up to the forefront of his mind after his friends spent a lot of time ranting about the fire Endeavour caused.
He'd never thought of it too hard before when he was young, simply accepting his childish belief that heroes were the good guys who did their best to keep everyone safe even if they might not be that friendly.
But after he took off the rose colored glasses he saw what the hero industry really revolved around, money, beauty, and power.
Money was easy to see since heroes were more financially stable then most people believed with all the "villains" and natural disasters around for them to make a quick buck in the right areas, and the higher up the ladder they got the more money they earned along with sponsorships.
Power was the second easiest to understand, sure there was the surface level of raw power everyone agreed heroes had but Japan's heroes were one the rare few that held more power than the elected leaders of the country, there wasn't much difference from lobbyists and heroes with the latter were capable of destroying respected officials.
Beauty was almost laughable because entire branches of heroics was solely dedicated to sex appeal, Idol and Mascot heroes were hardly more than pretty faces with a gimmick but everyone sort of knew that deep down but Rescue heroes were just as bad with it being almost exclusively made up of "cute" people or those who could seem cute.
The third seemed to be the most egregious since even if you threw out the official 'sexiest' and 'villainous' hero categories and rankings, less than fifty heroes who were unappealing and "Inhuman" looking had made it to the top hundred in the last sixty years.
Then there were all the scandals that thrived off the hero community and made it an even more blood-thristy industry, and what was worse was the fact it was always the petty things the news focused on instead of the real problems.
The few times the news brought up the collateral damage heroes caused it was more often than not brushed aside as "acceptable losses" for the safety heroes gave them.
It wasn't until Izuku started spending his time almost exclusively in the red-light districts that he realized just how obsessively wrapped around heroes Japanese society had become.
Outside the districts he couldn't walk five feet without something to do with this hero or another being shoved in his face, and after talking with more than a few people who had moved to Japan he learned that this wasn't a global standard as he previously believed, and talking with people online he learned that the only other country that was as crazy about heroes was the united states.
It was an odd dissonance to learn but it wasn't hard to understand either... they had All For One pushing quirkist ideas to keep them as the perfect quirk pool to draw from and being one of the most "quirk friendly" countries was sure to draw in more powerful types of quirks.
And the US was hero obsessed since well before the dawn of quirks in 2075 and being the capitalist nightmare that it was, it's unsurprising they... marketed on it and that it was still affecting their culture today.
That wasn't to say the rest of the world wasn't as invested in heroes but Japan and the US were the major outliers with the highest numbers of heroes overall.
In fact the countries that weren't had the highest two-toes populations, like Switzerland, Australia, the European Union and the Baltic nations, all places where there was as many two-toes as there was quirked people, if not more in the cases of Switzerland (78%) and Australia (64%).
Which was such a surprise to him because he could hardly imagine what it would be like to have more two-toes than quirked people, even in his travels Izuku hardly knew more than five people out there as two-toes.
But he nipped that trail of thought off where it was for another day before he got fully lost in it.
With all of this new knowledge it had caused his view of heroes to fall rather flat compared to how high he previously held them, mainly because his mind couldn't help pointing out everything any given hero wasn't doing to help others, and that the things they were doing were just for popularity points.
There were very few heroes from his childhood that he still held in high regard, mainly because his students spoke of them, especially Eraserhead who seemed to be one of the few that actually worked in the heart of Yaizu's red-lights district instead of toeing the edge like most heroes seemed to.
And one of the heroes that he came to question the most was a hero he had idolized for most of his life, All Might.
On the surface All Might was a fantastic hero who encouraged those around him to reach for their dreams and that anyone could be a hero.
But the statistics around his career were... Just unbelievable, his numbers just made no sense.
The idea of a hero out there not having any casualties was a nice idea but completely unrealistic, there was just no way... even rescue heroes have death rates, numbers that couldn't be ignored.
Every hero has a death toll, even those with quirks that don't harm or even cause much damage... and then there's All Might, the same All Might whose strength quirk could affect the damn weather in a local area whose death toll was an unbelievable and utterly impossible flat total of zero.
There were many videos online of All Might flattening whole blocks and somehow he never killed one person, clearly someone was fixing his numbers and a big part of Izuku wanted to think that All Might himself wasn't responsible for it but then why hadn't he spoken out about the number being wrong?
And all the interviews of All Might stopped feeling charming but intentionally evasive, the man never gave any straight answers, not one even about minor things like his opinions on the weather for God's sake.
Izuku didn't want to believe the number one hero was doing anything nefarious but the evidence just kept building up and up and he was becoming more suspicious of the man's true intentions.
Since looking at some of the horrible numbers of heroics matched with All Might's rise to frame, hero accountability went down and things like hero/civilian death tolls, collateral damage, heroes injuries, and villain incidents shot up into the highest numbers seen in recorded history.
Many would argue that last point and Izuku would concede that in the local area he was patrolling crime would drop to a non-existent point but they missed how crime would be booming everywhere else because they knew All Might wasn't there to stop them.
All these things made him think back to what Awa-Kun had asked of him.
Do you want to be a hero? Or in his case, do you still want to be a hero?
And honestly... he was doubting his desire to become one, a small sliver in his heart would always be devoted to his dream of being a hero... But now, now he didn't think that he could ever become one, not one that would be accepted widely for his controversial and vocal views on their society.
A snap of fingers brought Izuku out of his mind and he glanced around before landing on one of the Vespas "Hey we're almost at the range Deku, might want to come out of your head." the man advised and flustered Izuku for getting so caught up in his own mind that he forgot where he was and what he was doing remained silent and just nodded his head.
Today would be his final lesson before the test he scheduled to try for his license and permit, and in an attempt to ignore his growing anxiety he retreated into his thoughts as he followed one of the Vespas to one of their many on site facilities.
The buildings were all mostly the same and he had gotten as used to them as he was to the back rooms in the red-light districts, finding the supplies exactly where they were always left and made his way to an empty stall and put on all of his safety gear without any instruction.
Which is exactly what he wanted for his last few lessons, he needed to be able to put on all the gear and prepare his weapon without fail, in the test he wouldn't have anyone holding his hand and depending on who ran the range they would be actively looking for reasons to fail him.
He couldn't give them anything and the Vespas had done their best to help him get over his reluctance to pick up a weapon.
He picked up the small handgun he had been provided, loaded it with practiced ease, held the gun up, stared down the range at the target set up, then waited for a moment to be absolutely sure that his aim was straight before firing five shots.
Izuku lowered the gun flipping on the safety then placed it down and pressed the button that would bring the paper target down to him so he could see his shots up close, rotating his shoulder to deal with the recoil, he hadn't fully gotten used to the recoil just yet but it wasn't nearly as bad as when he first started shooting.
The five shots were in a cluster but could have been grouped closer together and scowled at them then set the target aside and was about to put the new one up when a thought crossed his mind.
"Hey, can I add something to this real quick?" Izuku asked a passing Vespa, the woman blinked then nodded "Great, is there a printer around here?" Izuku inquired and got another nod then she pointed to a machine down the otherside of the range.
"Thanks." Izuku chirped and immediately took out his phone to search up an imagine of Endeavour and taped a printed copy onto the paper target before he placed it up and sent it back down range, it was a petty move admittedly but he felt like he could get away with one or two things like this after all the good he's done.
This time his five shots were much closer together and Izuku nodded satisfied with the results and got another ten paper targets with Endeavour's face taped on them ready before reloading the gun and took aim again.
A week later Izuku sighed shaking his head as he walked out of another range that had "failed" him and took out his phone to get directions for the only other range the Vespas had found for him and began driving toward it, just a touch irritated.
He had put off a day of his studies to get this test done and if things continued the way they were he'd likely have to wait until he got to the next prefecture to try and get his license then, and he would be disappointed if he had wasted his time running around instead of doing his course work.
Hoping this time would be different Izuku walked into the next range and gave his information and why he was there, the woman behind the desk was certainly surprised to see him and had taken the information about the laws letting him apply for his requested certification the best out of the first three people.
She had to speak with the range master about him applying, and as they tersely spoke to each other Izuku prepared himself to be turned away again for being too young, but was pleasantly surprised when the range master ultimately told him to come back for the test.
He wasted no time and went through all the motions of the test with the range master watching him and his every move.
And the test the man needled him for why exactly he was trying to get a gun but Izuku had nothing to hide and told the man it was for self-defence, not because he was going to be hunted down by All For One of course but that his work took him through dangerous areas and having a gun would only be a last resort in case the worse happened.
The range master had him wait in the lobby as he considered his test score, which was the farest he had gotten in the process but Izuku couldn't say he was completely hopeful it would go his way this time.
But after a few more moments the range master asked him to come over to the side and had him make a copy of his fingerprints on a paper and told him: "It will take time, but you will have a paper copy of your license sent to the address you listed in about two weeks, you can take that to licensing bureau at this address, and until you get that you can't purchase or own a weapon. I won't approve a conceal carry permit." they told him.
Izuku nodded, he'd work with that for now and find a way to get the permit later and he wasn't going to bother with a shop to get a gun, he knew one of his students legally collected them and would just ask her to buy a weapon for him and then transfer ownership to him.
Thankfully he could put down the address of his buildings instead of his home address, he did not need his mom or his friends asking why he was trying to get himself a gun.
Mainly because he really didn't want to explain about All For One or why he was being hunted but this man, they were barely getting back to normal after the fire and they'd likely lose their minds over this ancient evil.