Midoriya Izuku isn't a stranger to weird dreams, but his newest one leaves him waking up oddly confused.
Most of his dreams are quite simple. Or the ones he remembers, anyway—those are the only ones worth thinking about. He wakes up one day, with a quirk. Or maybe he was born with a quirk in the first place. The circumstances of how he gets a quirk are always different, varied from dream to dream. but no matter what, he has a quirk. And he isn't useless anymore!
No, he can save people. He can help people. He can be the hero he's always wanted to be! And his classmates don't hate him anymore, and he doesn't get left out of anything anymore, and he's not told to kill himself over and over again by his classmates like his nightmares.
The quirks he dreams up for himself are always varied. Sometimes they are realistic—he has a fraction of his mother's power, Attraction of Small Objects, that he takes time to strengthen into a strong telekinetic quirk. He's never dreamed about receiving his father's Fire-Breath quirk, but he does dream of flames being able to reach out to him and dance upon his fingertips without getting hurt, a mixture of his parents' quirks.
Sometimes they're strange and unusual. One day he wakes up, part-elephant. Another day he's born with lobster claws for hands. Sometimes the quirks are based on other heroes. He can manipulate his voice and copy sounds, like Present Mic's sound-based quirk. He's super strong, like All Might. He can jump as high as Mirko or fly in the air with Hawks.
But in the end, they're all just that—dreams. Dreams of lives Izuku wishes he even had a chance of. The dreams are better realities that he would like to escape to, forever, but unfortunately, life isn't that nice to him.
He always wakes up, always Quirkless, always useless.
But that one morning, a day he will always remember, Izuku wakes up after what he's going to assume is the strangest, fever-induced dream ever.
There was someone else in his dream. A tall, elegant man—or maybe some sort of higher being? Perhaps a fae of some sort, his ears were quite pointed and long, but Izuku had never read about a fae having blue skin before. Planets and constellations danced around him like magic, stars sparking across his face and in his eyes. He looked like a prince, or maybe a king, with a crown made of the same rings that Saturn had.
And the person-deity-fae-thing said something… Even stranger to him.
"I am sorry for what you are about to go through. But you will not have to go through it alone, I promise."
It wasn't the effect of a quirk—or at least, Izuku doesn't think it was. Nothing shows up on the news if his neighborhood of Musutafu was attacked by a villain with a weird dream quirk, and the only classmates that ever got too close to Izuku at school were Kacchan and his friends. Most of the time their encounters ended violently, with either Izuku's belongings or his skin charred by Kacchan's explosions, but none of Kacchan's friends have any sort of dream-related quirk.
Nobody Izuku knows has a dream-related quirk. And Izuku knows the quirks of most of the people around him. So that wasn't a possibility.
Was it just a weird dream, then? He felt like he was floating in the void, cold and dark, but also—oddly comforting. The smell of ozone still lingered in his mind that morning as he rolled out of bed, kicking his All Might bedsheets off, and—
Oh. All Might.
… Right.
"You can't be a hero without a quirk."
Hm. He hadn't even thought about taking down all of his All Might memorabilia last night. He'd gotten home, showered and gotten all the sludge villain gunk off of him, and called it a night. Luckily, it was the end of their school week, so he could get away with sleeping in as long as he wants to.
His mom wasn't home. Midoriya Inko was a busy woman, providing for them both. She was a nurse at the Musutafu General Hospital, and while it didn't have the best hours, she still made enough money to keep them afloat. And made enough money to keep purchasing new gakuran for Izuku when his old ones get too blown up by Kacchan.
Izuku didn't think she knew about the way Kacchan—that is to say, Bakugou Katsuki—had been treating him since his diagnosis as Quirkless, but she never said anything. She helped teach him how to patch up the holes when they wore down, bought him new supplies when they'd been ruined by bullies, and stayed by his side when he needed a moment.
"I'm so sorry, Izuku…"
She wasn't that good with words. Izuku remembered, painfully, how she had reacted to his own reaction to his diagnosis.
The apartment was quiet, as normal. Rain plastered his windows, but a quick check at the weather app showed it would clear up in the next hour. Spring was beginning to pick up speed, if the cherry blossoms that lined their streets in Musutafu had anything to say about that.
Izuku goes through his usual motions for the morning. He'll take a quick shower, get dressed—he avoids any of his All Might merchandise, opting for a plain gray hoodie and jeans for the day—and make breakfast. They were running low on some groceries, so he made himself a bowl of fruit. Some of it was starting to get too soft, and he threw out the pieces that had started growing mold.
His phone pings loudly as he eats breakfast. He's a part of many different JANGL servers; most of them are focused on hero discussions, one or two about different popular hero games. He'd withdrawn from the All Might server the night before.
Being in a server dedicated to the number one pro hero so shortly after having his dreams crushed by the very same hero was too much. He'd miss the discussion, but honestly, it'd been getting a little stale in the chat anyway due to All Might's infrequent appearances.
Most of it was a tiring debate on whether or not he was retiring. Which, honestly, maybe he should— the man's been in the hero industry for so long, where's the new faces?
Izuku checks his phone; it's from one of the smaller servers he was on. Not entirely focused on hero discussion, but there were plenty of chat rooms in it for that.
ENDEAVORFANO1: anyone see endeavor take down that villain last night? he is so cool!
He rolls his eyes, closing out the app.
Izuku knows that there is homework he should do. His teachers at school, especially Okoru-sensei, his homeroom and history teacher, tended to pile up homework without much concern for the other classes. He felt like, somehow, Izuku got handed twice as much as his peers. He probably did, knowing how his teachers didn't like him all that much because he's Quirkless.
"Just not realistic…"
No. Izuku shakes his head as if it would magically will the thoughts away. He wants to be a hero, he's gonna be a hero, he has to be a hero. Even though everyone keeps telling him no, everyone keeps crushing his dreams (intentionally or unintentionally), he wants to help people.
He has to.
Izuku glances back at the fridge as he rinses off his plate and leaves it to try. Sending a quick text to his mom, he grabs his wallet, and the apartment keys, slips on his outdoor shoes, and walks out the door.
ME: I'm going to go out on a walk, I'll be back in a bit!
MOM: Okay, be safe, sweetie!
The rain had subsided a bit by then. The clouds are still gray, and the air is still humid, but a small bit of blue sky is trying to break through. It might not be enough, but Izuku needs to just get out of the apartment for a bit. Out of the apartment and far away from his All Might collection.
That collection cost quite a lot of money, money which Izuku knew his mom picked up extra shifts to cover because it was something that he cared so deeply about. And now what? He couldn't just throw it away without his mom knowing something was wrong, right? He could just pack it all up and hide it under his bed and in his closet, but then he'd have to get new sheets and pillowcases for his bed.
Why'd All Might have to turn out to be a Quirkist asshole?
Izuku pauses at the thought. He sighs. He doesn't know what he should have expected, from the number one hero. The same hero who didn't call for any medical assistance after freeing Izuku from the sludge villain, who didn't hesitate to make sure that Izuku could get down from the rooftop where he left him, standing. The same hero who probably had a quirk like his handed to him on a golden platter.
Izuku loves heroes, still. His phone buzzes with a notification of a fight occurring on the other side of Musutafu, between an unnamed villain and Kamui Woods.
If he sprinted across town, he could still catch it— no, wait, damn it, he left his notebook at home. He could record the fight on his phone, and play it back later? But he's running out of storage space from all the other hero fights he's recorded—
"Hey! Watch it, kid!" A woman pushes by him roughly, nearly knocking him off balance.
Oh, yeah, he's in the middle of the sidewalk. He should probably keep moving.
Izuku isn't quite sure where he's ended up. He took a turn into the more desolate parts of Musutafu, mostly to avoid a few of Kacchan's friends he'd seen wandering the streets. He didn't see Kacchan, but Izuku couldn't trust his own eyes to not know if he was there or not. His 'friend', if one could even call him that, could have just fallen behind the friend group.
Izuku knew what happened last time they'd encountered each other in public like that, and he could still hear the pop-pop-pop of Kacchan's explosions from behind.
But he'd taken one turn too many, and now… he doesn't know where he os. Of course, his phone is charged, and he could easily route himself back to his house, and he would soon, but this neighborhood in Musutafu was peaceful.
Abandoned, of course, and some of the buildings were covered in graffiti, but it's quiet. He can hear the ocean in the distance, so he figures he isn;t too far from any main roads, maybe even near that old beach full of trash. It'd almost be a perfect place to just sit for a moment, to get away from the crowds and bustling city streets.
Aside from the rumbling of thunder overhead. Oh, great. Is today just Make Everything Bad For Izuku Day?
Izuku didn't even open his mouth, but the gods above curse him more, anyway. He ducks into the doorway of one of the abandoned buildings seconds before it starts to pour down. "Great. Can this day get any worse?"
A flash of lightning above him answers that question. Screw you, Midoriya Izuku, the weather seemingly says.
He groans, pulling his phone back out. There's some new notifications on it from the different servers he was on, and a private message from one of his server friends.
CATNYAP, or just Cat, as he introduced himself, was one of the few people Izuku had met online and felt a kinship with. He doesn't know Izuku is Quirkless, and Izuku didn't know his quirk. As much as he wanted to, it was a sore subject for Cat, so he left it alone, just as Cat did his. They were both around the same age and lived closer than they had expected. Cat is only in the next city over, and they could meet up in real life if they wanted to, but…
Cat is one of Izuku's only friends. If he finds out, when they met up, that Izuku was Quirkless, and hates him for it…No, Izuku can't stand the thought.
CATNYAP: hey mini, you good?
ME: Yeah, I am. Why?
CATNYAP: you changed your pic from all might to just a picture of some flowers. ive never seen you without an all might pic.
ME: I just wanted a change! That's all, nothing suspicious!
CATNYAP: u said it, not me
CATNYAP: everything ok tho? it's not k again, is it?
ME: K had nothing to do with the change!
ME: But, um.
Izuku sighs.
Cat is a lot smarter than he let on. He knows a lot about underground heroes, which is how he and Izuku started to bond two years ago.
Specifically talking about underground heroes. Cat had been able to spot one of their favorite ones, Eraserhead, on a patrol once, and when he shared that story in a mutual server, Izuku was the only one who had believed him. They started privately messaging each other about underground heroes, and whatever information they could dig up, but they also started to talk about their personal lives, too.
Cat is living with foster parents who aren't the nicest to him. Izuku sometimes talks about his bullies. They don't go into the reasons why the people around them were cruel, but it's nice to find solace with someone online going through a similar struggle, even if neither of them had all the details.
ME: Some stuff happened yesterday. I guess you shouldn't meet your heroes.
ME: I got caught out in some rain, I'll explain when I get home!
Another roar of thunder takes Izuku off guard, and he jumps, banging his back into the door of the building. Whatever it had been made with, it wasn't that sturdy, or maybe the wood had begun to rot. Either way, the door slams open with a loud thud the moment Izuku hit it, and he stumbles backwards into the dark of the building.
…well, it is better shelter than just hiding in the doorway, at least. A quick glance at his phones' weather app tells him that the rain should be passing in about ten minutes, so there's nothing wrong with taking shelter in a creepy, decrepit, old, abandoned building, right?
The main room is dark and empty.
He turns his phone flashlight on.
There aren't many things in the main room, but what did exist, were covered in old, rotting tarps. A table with a missing leg sat collapsed in the center of the room. No pictures, or any decorations, are up on the walls, but there was something about the way things had been abandoned that were alarming to Izuku. Things had been abandoned in hast. But… Why?
He takes another step into the building. Of course, he knows that this is eerily similar to one horror movie he'd watched the other week, but there's no way this building is haunted by the ghost of a scorned Quirkless girl who wanted revenge on the adults in her life that wronged her.
… right?
Well, Izuku doesn't fully believe in ghosts, but maybe there is more out there than the human mind can comprehend.
They can't even understand the origin of quirks, after all! Many theories exist as to why humans reached their next stage of evolution as such, from mice carrying disease like the pre-quirk era pandemics or solar flare nonsense affecting people's DNA. The religious believe that they were blessings or curses from the gods they worship.
Maybe Quirks came from ghosts—now, that's a crack theory, he thinks to himself, with a scoff.
Of course, some heroes took on ghost-like themes for their gimmicks. The hero Ectoplasm, while not being made of what ghosts are theorized to be made of, did pick his name and look from somewhere.
In the old tales of old pre-quirk heroes, many different ones could see ghosts, interact with the supernatural, or somehow hunt them. Ghost hunting shows are all scams, anyway, but they were fun to watch in Izuku's downtime. Watching grown adults get scared at their own shadows is funny to Izuku, for some reason.
But there hasn't been any actual case of someone claiming to have a Quirk that allows them to see ghosts being the truth. Most of them are charlatans in the end.
Curiously, Izuku takes another few steps into the building. A flash of lightning outside illuminates the room more. To his left, there's a decaying staircase going up to what he imagines is a second floor, and to his right, the remains of a kitchen. There aren't any appliances, looking like they'd been taken long ago, but their outlines had been imprinted on the walls.
Psst!
In the corner of his eye, Izuku catches a strange flicker of something. A bug, or dust? Whatever it is, it disappears before he can focus too much on it.
No, silly. Over here!
It isn't exactly a voice that Izuku is hearing. It feels like something else—something strange. It vibrates in his chest and the understanding is there. Another flash of light catches his attention in the corner of his eye, and he turns again, the other way. Nothing's there.
Probably just a cruel prank, he thinks. Or maybe it's a villain? A villain, luring him into an abandoned building to, what, kill him? Steal his organs? Hold him for ransom?
Not that they'd get enough money for him, anyway. Even if it weren't for the fact that they're not the most well-off folk in Musutafu, he's Quirkless, and something tells him that his organs wouldn't sell all that well on the black market.
And then, a third time—
Follow me! Follow me!
The light materializes right in front of Izuku, sending a chill down his spine. It looks like a small blue flame, and it flies around him like a curious bug or moth, spinning around him, before disappearing into the darkness of the house.
What the hell?
Izuku knows better than to follow something like that into the darkness. It's suspicious. A Quirk at work? Trying to make him look stupid? Trying to hurt him? He can't just trust a random light that appears in front of him.
After a few seconds of waiting for it to come back, he sighs. It's probably his imagination—he knows it's a bit overactive at the worst times, which might be why he's so obsessed with trying to be a hero, imagining a better world not just for Quirkless people like him, but everyone, everywhere.
He shines his flashlight towards the direction the blue light disappears to, and it leads to a strange tarp, draped across the back wall of the building. A clap of thunder shakes the building, and a gust of wind shoots into the building from the still-open door, and there's definitely a hole behind the tarp.
Izuku checks his weather app; it says the storm should only be about another ten minutes, before letting up for enough time for him to get home. He doesn't want to wander back out onto the streets now, he's already chilled from the sudden rain pouring on him with no notice, but he doesn't want to stay sheltered in the abandoned building anymore.
He glances to the open, and then, back to the tarp. What's behind it, though?
You know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat.
He takes a few careful steps forward to avoid the broken glass on the ground, before reaching out to the tarp and pulling it back. He was expecting a stairway, or a hole in the wall that needed patching up that was never properly fixed, but he doesn't find either of those. It's a metal stairwell, descending into the darkness. A faint glow reflects from the bottom of the stairs from his phone's flashlight.
"Um… hello?" His voice echoes and bounces off the walls of the large, open room. Then it's quiet. No response to his question, or greeting. It doesn't look like anything is at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe this building is actually abandoned, and his paranoid, overactive imagination is filling up with the worst-case scenarios?
And then, it happens again. The small blue light materializes at the bottom of the stairs, before fading slowly into the darkness, as if it were a campfire slowly dying.
He takes a hesitant step on the stairs, testing his weight. It doesn't buckle under him or break, so he takes another step, reaching for the metal railing to his side. Hugging the railing, he angles his phone down so he doesn't miss any steps before he hits the bottom of the stairs. A light switch is on the wall to his left, and he flips it, not expecting the lights to turn on.
But they do.
The lights illuminate the room to life around him. It looks like some sort of… laboratory. But in the most cartoonish way possible. Izuku imagines what this could have looked like in its prime, clean and pristine tile floors, metal walls, the instruments and equipment neatly and readily stored on the shelves.
But what it is now is a bit of a disappointment. Strange items are scattered on the tables and floors, half-broken or decayed from age. Some of them are odd to find in a lab. Izuku spots a butterfly net and a thermos among a pile of what look like guns, but they're large, silver weapons with barrels too large to fit an average bullet. They look more like laser guns from a budget science fiction movie.
Maybe this is a film set? Oh, no, am I stumbling into a film set, about to ruin everything? The thought is pushed aside as he notices the dust floating in the air around him, and coating everything else in the room. Unless someone on a film set had a Quirk that would allow them to control dust—a cool thought, what would the limits be on that?—he doubts he's stumbled onto a film set like this.
But what else could it be? If heroes had raided this building would definitely reach the news. Izuku's lived in Musutafu his whole life, and he's been a hero nerd since birth, but no case comes to mind that would match what he's stumbled into.
I should leave, Izuku thinks, as he hears the thunder clap above him again, though more distant and muffled than before. Surely now, there'd be no threat.
Yet, he finds himself carefully walking through the ruins of the lab, looking at everything that had been abandoned. Blueprints of some of the machines are strewn about are, interestingly, written in English. He can read a few of the English words, but most of it is lost on him.
Thermos… Catcher… Net?.. Fen- ton. Fenton?
What catches his eye is the back wall again. Unlike the tarp, this hole in this wall is clearly visible, and somehow, even more confusing. He couldn't think of any sort of science that would require the researchers to build a large, hexagonal-shaped hole into the back wall.
Loose cords catch his ankle as he steps forward, and he kicks them aside. That's a bit of a tripping hazard for him, but he's too focused on the hexagonal hole.
"What is this thing?" He wonders aloud. The hexagonal hole is smooth on the inside, with a few larger screws sticking out on one side. Papers strewn about don't help him in identifying it past a pad of decaying papers left on the nearest table.
Activation instructions…? Instructions! For the Fen-ton—Fenton, must be their name, or organization—Ghost… Portal?
Most of the instructions in the packet have been worn off with age, but the last words make Izuku pause. Ghost Portal?
To, what, ghosts?
Izuku holds back a laugh, leaning over the table to leaf through the papers. Most of it is English, and he can't understand it all, but the idea is too absurd to not look into. A ghost portal? How could one even build a portal to "ghosts"? Or maybe it was a portal to the afterlife? Or something had been mistranslated, or Ghost means something different here.
Or maybe it's a cult.
That's a definite possibility. Izuku needs to brush up on his early Quirk-Era history a bit more, but many cults popped up during the early days that claimed certain deities were responsible for Quirks; whether as blessings or curses.
He puts the papers back on the table.
"I should probably get some photos in here, and tell a hero about this place." Izuku mumbles to himself, glancing around the lab again. He'll probably get told off—again—by whatever hero he brings this to, but a building like this, with these strange weapons in it, wasn't safe. Especially if it's open enough for a junior high student like Izuku to stumble into it and poke around.
Izuku turns back, again, to face the ghost portal, glancing inside it.
It's a stupid move to take a step into it, but Izuku's curious. He kicks aside another loose cord, feeling along the cold, smooth metal of the wall of the hexagonal hole. Despite its age, there were no signs of rust or decay, almost like it had been built yesterday. Aside from the cords threatening to ensnare his feet and knock him down, of course.
Well, that's enough adventure for today. The storm had surely passed by then, and he should be heading home. He'll bring the photos to the police tomorrow, or something, and hopefully they'll believe him, and not think he's trying to prank the local, overworked, under-funded police department.
Just as he turns, the cords Izuku kicked aside before catch his foot. "Oh, c'mon—" Izuku mumbles, and sets his right hand on the wall to help him balance as he untangles the cord.
Click.
A click?
Izuku moves his hand away from the wall, and in the faint light of the lab spilling in, it isn't a loose screw he had seen before. It was a much larger button, bright green, with the word "ON" scribbled in white chalk over it.
The next thing Izuku remembers was the ghost portal humming to life, and pain.
Aizawa Shouta isn't technically on a patrol. It's mid-afternoon, right after a storm had cleared through Musutafu, and he was taking a short-cut to Dagobah Beach through
Dagobah Beach, where he had agreed to meet Shinsou Hitoshi for training the next day. The boy had caught his eye on patrol a few nights ago. It was reckless to be a child and to walk around at night by oneself, but he did so, anyway. The quirk usage was something else, though. While he'd caught him in an act of illegal quirk usage, Shouta was impressed by the boy's control of the quirk.
Brainwashing.
He'd understood the boy's plight, being looked down upon for having a scary quirk. His was Erasure, after all, an ability that stopped others quirks from working, even occasionally, working on mutant-types. Of course, everybody had been afraid of Shouta in school, and he continuously had to fight back against the stereotypes and boxes other people had tried to put him in.
His crawl from junior high to U.A.'s General Education to finally, the Heroics Department, was a painful, grueling process. One that made him who he was today, but one that was unnecessarily cruel to him. He'd vowed to himself, the day when he stood on that stage for graduation in his class of a bunch of heroes who later went on to become great on their own, if he had a chance to he would try to make things better for people with quirks like him.
It was only logical, of course. There was an emotional, biased drive to it, sure, but the world he was in was a world focused on the flashiest, strongest quirks. As each generation began to get stronger than their predecessors, those with the weaker quirks, the scarier quirks, would get thrown aside, even when the potential to do great things with them was stronger than the next idiot who walked into U.A.'s hallways with a quirk that made them super strong or super fast.
He wanted to get to Dagobah Beach the day before, to make sure that there would be no prying eyes during their training. The beach was a trash pit, of course. Many things had been dumped there over the years or had drifted ashore from the sea. Not many people went to Dagobah Beach unless it was to mourn the loss of what he had heard was, in all cases, a decent beach.
He wouldn't be training Shinsou at that beach. It was probably full of risks, from falling refrigerators to rusty microwaves, and he wasn't sure how far Shinsou was on his vaccinations. Though, it was an iconic meeting place that he'd hoped the teen would remember, one where people wouldn't notice anything strange or unusual, and a spot right in the middle between his Musutafu apartment complex, Shinsou's foster home, and the buildings where he'd planned to take Shinsou to train.
The sudden storm had stopped him in his path, though he didn't mind having to spend an extra thirty minutes at the cat café he had sheltered himself in (totally not planned on his route, it just so happened to be there, whatsoever). Once it had cleared up, he starts his walk again, cutting through a small street of abandoned buildings, when something catches his eye.
A person's collapsed on the sidewalk, not moving.
Musutafu isn;t the nicest neighborhood in their area of Japan. It's the sort of neighborhood that heroes kept safe during the day, but abandoned at night, which is where the crime mainly happened. A few vigilantes and two underground heroes kept the city safe, occasionally Shouta if he's in the area, but those numbers had dwindled in the last few years. The more abandoned parts of the city brought less of that safety, day or night, though the street Shouta has decided to cut through was most definitely one of the streets that was straight-up abandoned by both the good guys and the bad guys.
The street is too short and small to carry out any major operations on either side. There were other better, more logical locations to do business.
The person laying on the sidewalk does set off an alarm in his mind, and Shouta steps closer. He feels something inside him freeze. They're not just a short person, they're a child. Once he realizes this—a few seconds after initially noticing them, and he curses at himself for not realizing the moment he saw them—he runs over to their side, and drops down.
Pulse? It takes a moment to find, but it's there. Faint and slow. There's a faint scent of electricity and ozone in the air and burned skin. Their clothes were singed by something—electricity, Shouta figures, but how could they be hit with electricity in the middle of the city—
The storm. Had the child—a boy, by the look of his messy curly hair, face with still too much baby fat on it, dusted with freckles—been stuck out in the storm, and struck by lightning? How long had he been here? Did his family even know?
Focus, Shouta. Trying to focus on the details was a distraction from the current reality. He pulls out his phone and immediately dials for help.
"I need an ambulance right away. There's an injured minor, showing no signs of consciousness, at the end of Jaku Street, right before Dagobah Beach. There is a faint pulse, and signs that they might have been struck by lightning…"