The Hopeless and The Auspicious
Izuku Midoriya had learnt one irrefutable fact over his fourteen years of life. Not all men are created equal. No matter how many teachers and politicians said otherwise, even if the number one Hero had said it to his face, the greenette would not believe it. For some context, the young man was currently being shoved into a trash can by an invisible force while enveloped in a faint green glow.
"How'd you like that, Dumbass?" His childhood friend, Katsuki Bakugo, growled, his posse of cronies cackling as Izuku was shoved into the container.
"You're barking a lot for someone who isn't doing any of the work, Kat." Groaned another greenette, who was slightly bobbing her hand in an up-and-down motion, synced up with Izuku's movements. This of course was Izuku's loving fraternal sister, Izumi Midoriya, who was currently using her telekinetic quirk, Psychokinesis, to repeatedly try and shove Izuku into the trash container, each time stopped by the boy's desperate grabs at the walls.
"C-Come on, g-guys, y-you've had your f-fun." Izuku stammered as he tried to reason with his captors, who seemed to laugh even more at his expense, "P-Please let me g-go-!".
The boy was interrupted by a burning feeling on his abdomen, searing at his flesh as he heard another vicious growl, "If you make another noise, I will put a fucking hole in your stomach." Katsuki looked at the greenette's scared viridescent eyes with a sick grin on his face, deriving some psychotic pleasure from his pain.
"Can we get this over with, I wanna go to the arcade!" Izumi whined to her boyfriend, who removed his hand from Izuku's stomach and turned to look at her.
"But you haven't even gotten him into the garbage bin!" Karsuki spoke in an annoyed tone, angering the green-haired girl.
"Fine!" She seethed, clenching her hand into a tight fist, pinning Izuku's arms to his sides, and then swinging her fist downwards, slamming the poor boy into the dumpster at high speeds, "Can we go to the arcade now?!". Katsuki conceded to his partner's demands and sulked towards the arcade, leaving an injured Izuku in a pile of garbage.
Eventually, Izuku mustered enough strength to heave himself from the dumpster, releasing a pained groan, "They need to be more careful!" He seethed to himself, "If it wasn't for my quirk, I could have been seriously injured.". Well, if it wasn't for his quirk, he wouldn't be in that situation in the first place anyway, so he can't really thank it for much.
"Zuku! When are you gonna wake up your quirk?" Izumi excitedly asked her identical brother, who was getting ready for his section of the sports day activities, the hundred-meter sprint, "I got mine months ago!". It was a known fact across the elementary that Izuku was the only one to not have awakened his quirk, already being five years of age without any signs of its activation.
Izuku finished tying his shoelace, a determined look crossing the young boy's face, "I don't know, but I know I will become the number one Hero with it! Just like All Might!". He then ran over to the starting line, getting into a running stance alongside the other children, preparing to run, the tension was palpable as the runner's friends and family cheered from the sides, Izuku's own mother, Inko, standing there too.
"Ready..." The teacher began, raising a little flag in anticipation, "Set..." Izuku tensed his little legs, prepared to launch off as fast as he could, a strange warm feeling growing in his chest as he did, "Go!".
Izuku pushed off as hard as he could, the strange warmth shifting its position into the sole of his right foot within a split second. Suddenly a strong gust of wind enveloped the boy's senses and he felt both of his feet leave the floor, he couldn't see properly due to the need to shut his eyes to block out the wind.
After a few seconds, the boy felt the air around his face lessen in intensity, reducing to a bearable level of resistance. Izuku felt it was safe to open his eyes, which he did just in time for his face to impact the floor, where he came to a rolling stop a few feet later.
"Izuku!" He heard his mother's panicked voice call from beside him, the sound of two sets of footsteps coming closer, one set much lighter than the other, "Baby, are you okay?!".
"Zuku! You teleported! Your quirk woke up!" Izumi's voice cheered completely oblivious to her mother's distress.
"It woke up!" Izuku immediately shot up, seemingly undamaged by the hard fall, "I wonder what it does! What should I call it?!" Izuku muttered to himself as he examined the starting line he had just teleported from, a small foot imprint was dented into the floor, steam emanating off of the small crater.
The greenette was quickly whisked away to the hospital for an emergency quirk examination, or an EQE, where he was made to describe the feeling of using his quirk and made to teleport over and over again. By the end of the experience, Izuku was left feeling very tired and hungry, having not rest for over two hours, finally, he was brought to a doctor for a debriefing on his quirk, alongside his mother.
"Well, Izuku's quirk is definitely unique, I can see that!" The bald man laughed, twirling away at his bushy moustache, "It appears to be completely unrelated to either you or your husband's quirks, surely a genetic mutation being the reason.". The doctor scanned over the clipboard in his hand, humming in thought, "Unlike what we originally thought, Izuku doesn't have a teleportation quirk, it just looks like that from our view.".
The two Midoriyas seemed to be perplexed by this statement, Inko clearly having seen the boy teleport in front of her very eyes, "Izuku can generate a huge amount of kinetic energy in his body, which he then channels into his legs, causing him to move at amazing speeds, blink and you'll miss him!" The doctor was awed at the boy's quirk. "We know he isn't teleporting because we managed to capture him on a video camera mid-activation, flying through the air!" He chuckled, twirling his moustache once more.
"We hypothesise that his body stores fat as pure energy, which is then transferred into kinetic energy once he activates his quirk, which would explain why he only has a body fat percentage of 2%, despite having the normal diet of an average child." Dr Garaki swivelled over to his computer, quickly pulling up a tab, which looked much like a character file on the boy, and scrolled down to a section labelled 'Quirk', "Now all that's left is for you to name your ability."
After a few minutes of deliberation, Izuku finally spoke, "I want it to be called Blinking All Might Speed Boost!" The two adults shared a look before immediately trying to convince Izuku to call it something else.
"W-Well, Izuku, that's quite the mouthful, isn't it!" Inko laughed, a sweatdrop forming on her forehead, "Wouldn't it sound much better if it was snappier? Fast, like your quirk.".
The doctor nodded along with the mother, adjusting his glasses as he spoke, "Indeed, how about you pick one of those words and run with that?".
After a few more minutes of brainwashing, the boy finally agreed that it was too long and decided to shorten it to "Blink!" He said, getting a sigh of relief from the two adults in the room. With that, the two left the hospital and returned to their home, where they were met with a mini celebration for Izuku's Quirk Awakening.
Izuku mostly looked back at his kindergarten days with fondness, being a time before strength was of any real importance, however, once he had gotten three years into Elementary School without so much as a meter's difference in his quirk's power, the harassment began. Katsuki began to tease him about only being able to Blink three meters, and never managing to land on his feet.
This only compelled the greenette to try and train his quirk, which proved to be useless as even after six years he could only move three meters, and not any further. If anything, Izuku found that his quirk had even more limits, he discovered; that there was a five-second delay between each time he could use his quirk, he could only use his quirk three times in a row before overheating, and if he used it more than that he would pass out from fatigue.
After that, things really went up in flames, Katsuki began to actively torment the boy by their fifth year of Elementary, and by the sixth he had the whole class laughing at Izuku. The boy had at least expected that Izumi would be there for him, but she had also abandoned him by their first year of Middle School, joining Katsuki in his active bullying of the poor boy.
It didn't help that Izumi was the family's unspoken golden child, unable to do any wrong in the eyes of their parents, due to her amazing potential and drive to become a Hero. Although Hisashi and Inko loved Izuku and were great parents, there was always an underlying bias towards Izumi if he ever brought up an issue he was having with her at school.
Izuku glumly walked into the underpass, deliberating his sub-par life with thoughts of just giving up, 'Why should I even try? They're right, I am useless.'. Suddenly Izuku snapped out of his trance of self-deprecation, shaking his head and plastering a smile onto his face, "What am I thinking? I need to keep smiling. That's what All Might would do!" He spoke to himself, letting out an 'All-Might' laugh to cheer himself up, "AH HA HA!".
Unfortunately, due to his laughing, Izuku didn't get the chance to hear the manhole cover slide out of its place, or the villain slide out of the hole. The greenette only found out that it was there after it launched itself at the boy, consuming him in a tsunami of sludge, "Real glad you're here kid, I didn't know he was in town!" The villain's garbled voice spoke as he stuffed himself down Izuku's throat.
The greenette could only let out a muffled scream as the villain continued to engulf him, slowly suffocating him 'I need to escape! Get out! Getoutgetoutgetoutgetout, GET OUT!'. The familiar feeling of Blink channelled into Izuku's core as he raised a foot towards the villain with the small level of consciousness the boy still had, "SMAWSH!" He cried in his muffled voice, releasing his massive amount of Kinetic Energy built up.
A huge amount of air pressure shot from the base of Izuku's foot, shredding his right sneaker and blasting a hole in the side of the sludge villain. However, a cackle resonated from the man's mouth as he began to swiftly reform his body, "It'll take a lot more than that to take me down, kid!".
At that moment, dread finally set into the boy's mind, the knowledge that he was about to meet an untimely demise wasn't what scared him, but the fact that no one would care truly shook him to his core. He lost the will to fight back as the sludge began to consume him, with him being able to do nothing to stop it.
Suddenly, the manhole cover shot up from the floor, and a giant figure quickly followed afterwards, "Never fear! Why?" The man pulled back his titanic fist and flashed a reassuring smile, "Because I Am Here! Detroit SMASH!" Air pressure thousands of times stronger than what Izuku could produce rippled across the subway, tearing the sludge villain from Izuku's small form.
Through the heavy weight of drowsiness on his mind, only one thought resonated through Izuku's mind, and he mumbled "Is that All Might?".
Izuku slowly arose from his slumber in a daze, a light tapping on his cheek, irritating him, "Ar... ou...OK?" A jovial voice clearly registered in his ears, however, his still drowsy mind found it difficult to piece the incoherent noises together. The greenette cracked open his eyes, immediately being assaulted by a heavy barrage of colours; pinks, blues, yellows and whites all blurred together into one strange collage of hues.
"I'm glad to see you are all right, young man!" The now clear voice of Izuku's idol, his mind having mostly rebooted at this point, leaving the boy in absolute awe at the nigh godly figure standing in front of him, his eyes fully focusing.
"A-A-All M-M-M-Might!" Izuku managed to stammer out, pulling his heavily damaged notebook from his backpack, having suffered many a beating from Katsuki and Izumi alike.
He opened his book and speedily flipped to the first free page that he could remember, shocked to find that the man had already signed his notebook while he was unconscious. "Ha Ha Ha! A good pro knows how to spot a good fan! I love the sketches of me, young man!" Izuku turned a violent shade of crimson at this, not expecting to hear such praise from his idol, "Apologies, but I must take my leave! Crime doesn't stop itself!".
'What!? But he only just arrived!' These were the only thoughts Izuku managed to get out before he impulsively grabbed onto the man's pant leg, firing off into the sky with him.
'Hmm, I've been feeling heavier more recently. Perhaps an issue to bring up with Chiy-' All Might was snapped from his thoughts from the fearful wail that Izuku released once they were higher than most buildings, "Wha-What are you doing kid?! I love my fans, but this is too much!". The blonde attempted to shake Izuku off of his legs, to no avail, the scrawny boy had a surprisingly good grip, "Let go!".
"B-But I'll d-die!" All Might took a moment to realize this before he decided it would be better to just land, hopefully sparing the boy a pair of broken legs.
As soon as the two touched down All Might went full 'responsible adult', "Young man, what you just did was very dangerous and stupid! You could have died!" He said, ignoring the section where he could have killed him.
"I-I'm sorry, sir, I... I j-just really needed to a-ask you this q-question!" Izuku stammered out, mentally preparing himself for his mini-speech, and not noticing the increasing amount of steam releasing from the man, "C-Can you become a Hero, like you, with a weak quirk, like mine?". Hearing no response, the greenette decided to elaborate further, "I-I've always wanted t-to help p-people, and I want to calm them with a smile, just like you!".
The boy lost his stutter towards the end, gaining more confidence as his idol heard him out, so imagine his surprise when he saw a frail, skeletal man with wirey blonde hair standing in front of him, "H-Huh? Where d-did All Might g-go? Are you an i-imposter!?" Izuku began to panic as he stared at the man, the complete opposite of his godly idol.
"Trust me, kid, I am All Might..." The man spoke, his sunken blue eyes peering deep into Izuku's, lifting his shirt, he revealed a massive, gnarly scar spreading across the man's entire right half of his torso, looking vaguely similar to an impact shockwave, "About five years ago I received this puppy from an extremely powerful villain, and it practically eviscerated my stomach and most of my lungs." He explained.
Izuku covered his mouth in a mix of horror and sympathy, "W-Was this your f-fight with Toxic C-Chainsaw?" The boy asked, getting a dry chuckle from the crippled man.
"You've done your homework kid, but no, that scumbag couldn't put a scratch on me." All Might's smile seemed much hollower now, like the smile on a skull in a graveyard instead of that kind and caring one Izuku had grown to know, "I had to ask for this battle to be removed from every news outlet, we don't need the population seeing their strongest at his weakest. This also means that you can't run around telling others about this too." He warned the boy, who nodded profusely.
"Now for your question," All Might began, causing Izuku to straighten in fear of what his answer may be, "In all honesty, most quirks aren't suitable for Hero work, it's just how the world works.". The greenette felt his heart drop as he heard the sentence leave the man's mouth, "That doesn't mean you can't help people, they get a lot of hate, but firefighters and police also help people.".
All Might began to walk to the door, not looking back at the now crying Izuku, "It's fine to have dreams, just keep them realistic.", and with that he shut the door, leaving the greenette alone and sobbing.
After making himself presentable, Izuku glumly walked down the stairs, his mind in a complete haze and swirling with the situation he had just been in, 'I should just die. I'm such an idiot, of course, they were right. Maybe there's still time to withdraw my application.'. As if it were by muscle memory, Izuku found himself amongst the crowd of onlookers at a burning street market.
Looking further into the scene, Izuku had to hold back vomit as he spotted the exact same villain that had attacked him, 'N-No! I thought All Might caught him?! He had him in his po-' Izuku's eyes widened as the scene of him grabbing onto All Might's pocket replayed through his mind. The greenette couldn't help but stare on in horror as he watched the monster he had released.
"I heard that he's captured a middle-schooler as a hostage," Someone in the crowd murmured, causing Izuku's guilt to increase tenfold, "What are the Heroes doing?! Why aren't they helping?" The boy looked at all of the responding Heroes, all either having an unsuitable Quirk or being preoccupied with crowd management.
"Step back everyone! The fire is getting further out of control!" Death Arms said as he used his large form to block the crowd from the disaster.
"Let go of me you fucks!" A familiar voice growled to Izuku's left, making him snap his head towards the form of Katsuki Bakugo being restrained by two Heroes, "My girlfriend is in that thing!". Izuku slowly looked back to the slime in dread, a glint of familiar green eyes catching his view, the only emotion displayed in them being complete fear and wanting to be saved, just like his.
It was as if the world had come to a stop, the greenette felt his quirk spur into motion, and the familiar feeling of energy collecting in his chest was all he could register before he moved. The only foreshadowing of the boy using Blink was a slight flash of green electricity at his feet, which was too late anyway, the only sign he had been there was a singed footprint on the floor.
Somehow managing to not fly over onto his face, for the first time, Izuku ignored the distant cries of Death Arms as he charged head-first into the flames, shocking a certain blue-eyed observer of the event, 'Crap! Crap! Crap! I didn't think this through at all!' Izuku inwardly panicked as he ran.
"I've already moved on from you, kid!" The villain laughed as it lashed one of its large tentacles at the boy, who managed to dodge it, somehow. Finally gathering enough energy, Izuku prepared to Blink once more, however as he was doing so, he released his backpack and threw it at the villain as he Blinked.
Izuku reached his sister as one of his pencils pierced the sludge villain's eyes, giving him extra time to claw the slime from the girl. Izuku soon realized that this was going nowhere, quickly trying to brainstorm a solution before it was too late. Suddenly, a memory from his own experience with the monster was brought to the forefront of his brain.
"What the fuck are you doing, Izuku?!" His sister cried as he plunged his arms deep into the sludge, wrapping her into a tight hug, "Get out of here!".
"No! You need to be saved!" He shouted back to Izumi, whose eyes seemed to widen in shock, "So let me save you!". He placed his shoeless foot upon the sludge, which felt as disgusting as it sounds, and began to channel his energy, he was reaching his limit and only had one shot at this, so he had to succeed.
"Brace!" He screamed as he blasted his final energy into the villain, blasting himself and Izumi back while also creating a huge hole in the villain, however, not enough to defeat it, like before. He looked to Izumi, totally exhausted with steam emanating from his very skin, "Run!" The greenette didn't have to be told twice, turning and sprinting back to the Heroes.
"I've fucking had it with you!" The villain screeched, pulling back a tentacle to attack the boy, "I'll just end you, you little shit!". Izuku braced for impact, curling up into a ball in anticipation of hopefully surviving the attack, which somehow never came.
"I preach what makes a great champion, but I see now that I do not live up to my own ideals!" All Might's booming voice spoke through grunts, clearly finding it difficult to keep up this form. "DETROIT!" The giant pulled back his mighty fist, a smile no longer on his face, "SMAAASH!" He launched his fist forward, splattering the slime villain all over the walls of the alleyway.
The next half hour consisted of Izuku being rushed to an ambulance with Izumi, the latter of whom was taken to the hospital to remove any remaining slime from her lungs, Katsuki staying in the ambulance with her. The male greenette, however, was given an All Might energy bar and thoroughly chewed out by the Pro Heroes for running off into danger like that.
The difference in treatment was enlightening for the boy, whereas Izumi was praised as a Hero for being saved, the actual saviour only received passive-aggressive comments, hell, even Katsuki was told he had "The courage of a Hero!" And he didn't even do anything! So Izuku was left to just wander home, helpless and especially shoeless, having destroyed both in the attack by accident.
Suddenly, the large figure of All Might appeared in front of the scrawny greenette, scaring him, "Young man! I have an offer for y-*cough* For you!" The blonde shouted, blood spurting from his mouth as he shifted forms.
"Wha-All Might?!" Izuku stammered, a little freaked out by the still-bleeding Hero jumping out like that, "H-How did you e-escape the press?".
"HaHa! The press isn't an issue for a master Hero like myse-*cough*cough*" All Might laughed, spitting up even more blood than before, "I also must say something to you!".
"It's fine A-All Might." Izuku said, lowering his head in shame, "I shouldn't h-have jumped in, I j-just got i-in your w-way." The greenette felt anger bubble up in his throat as he remembered his conversation with the other 'Pro Heroes'.
All Might's face seemed to gain a thoughtful look for a second before he spoke, "You know, all great Heroes have one thing in common: when they are faced with the sight of someone in need of saving, their body just moves, not letting them think.". Izuku's head snapped up as the blonde described his experience to a T, the man wore a huge smile as he saw this, "And I can guess that happened to you today.".
Tears began to well up in Izuku's eyes as he listened, spurring the blonde to continue, "And out of all everyone at that villain battle, you were the only one to act, to truly fulfil the job of a Hero.".
"B-But you saved me All Might?" The greenette questioned, looking at the man in confusion as tears threatened to spill.
"That isn't all a Hero does," All Might said, confusing Izuku even more, "When I saw a weak, skinny boy run out to save another, I thought 'He's gonna die!'," He laughed, a genuine smile crossing his face. "But then you didn't, you managed to save the hostage from that villain, managing to get her to safety too, even at the cost of your own life." The tears finally managed to escape Izuku's eyes, beginning to trickle down his face, "And you inspired me to act, inspired me to do better. That is the true essence of a Hero.".
The tears were streaming down Izuku's face now as he collapsed to the floor in a mess of emotions, "Which is why I would to pass down my quirk to you.".
"Eh?" Izuku's tears abruptly stopped at that moment, going full 'Quirk Nerd', "Atransferrablequirkshouldbecompletelyimpossibleifitisrealitcouldcompletelychnagequirkscienceasitstandsfornowit-".
"Hey, kid, quit geeking out and let me explain my quirk at least!" He chided, giving the boy a light chop on the head, "My power is called One for All, and is a sacred torch passed down from one great Hero to another through generations.". All Might opened his palm and a bright, multicoloured light shone from it, amazing Izuku, "It is cultivated by one user and then passed down to the next to repeat the process, I am currently the eighth holder of the quirk, and I hope that you will become the ninth.".
Izuku wobbly stood up to face the man, who didn't even know his name yet, mustering all of his determination to not collapse from exhaustion, "I accept your offer, All Might!" He said, taking the man's hand.
That's all folks! I have had a serious case of anti-writer block and couldn't decide what to make for you all, so I just decided to bite the bullet and use a quirk I've had in my mind for months. I originally created Blink for a side character in a completely different type of fic (Which I may eventually make), but I decided to scrap it. The quirk kept gnawing at the back of my mind for months, though, so I decided this was the best way to use it.
As you can see this is an AU with Izumi Midoriya existing, so I decided to go for the tried and true 'sister hates brother' relationship. Since it is my first time creating a direct relative of Izuku, I've kept her mostly the same as the fandom image of her; Telekinesis quirk, identical to Izuku, and the stronger of the two.
I plan to give Izuku a much more balanced experience this time, compared to my last fic, but I will still boost everyone else too, just to be safe. And I will be keeping it an IzuOcha fic since a lot of people disliked my introduction of an OC last time.
Sorry for waffling so much, but I just wanted to clarify for readers, chapters will hopefully be released once a week, unless something comes up, in which case two will come out in one week. With that said, see you next chapter!