Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Juxtapose
This is how it all starts.
“A-All Might!”
Izuku manages, just in time, to grab the attention of the number one hero before the man leaps off into the distance. Part of him wonders what would’ve happened if he was just a moment too late. It takes seconds for him to realize exactly what would’ve happened and is unbelievably grateful that he wasn’t too late.
He likes his stomach where it currently is after all.
He got just what he wanted: All Might’s attention. The man is giving him an odd look, and Izuku pulls back in embarrassment before bowing his head low.
“What is it, my boy?” All Might asks in obvious curiosity, and Izuku starts to remember all too well just who it was that he had interrupted. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, but I suppose I could let you ask one question.”
“C-Can...”
“Hm?” All Might leans closer to Izuku, “I can’t hear you. You have to speak louder-”
“Can someone with a weak Quirk become a Hero like you!?”
The next moment, as All Might is leaning back in shock, Izuku clamps his hands over his mouth as the gravity of his decision sunk in. He had just yelled at his favorite hero. Like, at the top of his lungs. Red climbs up his cheeks to the tips of his ears, and Izuku takes a step back, his hands splayed open in front of him. “A-Ah, s-sorry about that, didn’t mean to-!”
He hears something from his front.
“Hahahahaha!” All Might is laughing. He’s laughing! “Don’t be so apologetic! I’ve heard louder voices than that, after all I occasionally work together with Present Mic! And I’m not innocent of speaking too loudly either, so you have not offended me!”
Izuku sighs in relief. “A-Alright, t-that’s good to know.”
“So?”
Izuku lifts his head, “Excuse me?”
All Might is looking at him curiously again. “What is your Quirk, young man? It’s rare for people to answer me that kind of question for someone else. Most of those people are either talk-show hosts mining for inspirational quotes or parents asking for their children. You are obviously neither, so you must be asking for your own Quirk. Tell me about it then.”
Izuku gulps. All Might sure cut to the chase. Depending on your perspective, that was also something inspiring about him. Right now, it only makes Izuku feel foolish.
“M-My Quirk is Minor Banishment.” He pulls pencil out of his pocket to show it at work. One moment, the pencil is whole, and the next it is as though someone took a bite out of it. Just a small chunk of wood, with the top of the pencil gone in what was a perfectly round cut. “I can make up to 10 grams of anything I touch disappear permanently at one time.”
All Might’s face is unreadable. “Only up to 10 grams?”
Izuku nods, unable to look at his lifelong idol as he throws the pencil away. Quite honestly, it felt really shameful, showing him even this much. Such a useless power... “And I can only activate it via touch.”
A large hand places itself on Izuku’s shoulder. He raises his head, only to see a pained expression on All Might’s face .
“Young man, I hate to say this but...”
#-#-#-#
Half an hour later, Toshinori walks out of an alleyway not far from the police station he had just dropped the Slime Villain off to careful watch. For a moment, he gives himself a pat in the back for a job well done without any complications. Sure, it had been a bit touch-and-go there, as well as impolite, with him nearly running out of time in front of the police chief, leading him to hand the bottle containing the villain before running off without as much as a by-your-leave from the officers, but he had managed.
And true, he could’ve dodged to whole having-to-hurry affair, but then it was worth it, spending those few minutes with that green-haired teenager.
Toshinori stops walking for a moment, shaking his head. He had forgotten to ask the boy’s name.
He puts that issue aside for the moment – after all, what were the chances of him meeting the boy again – and thinks about how the entire situation had been.
“Young man, I hate to say this, but I think you should rethink trying to become a Hero.”
Part of Toshinori hates the entire concept of heroes and villains.
After all, he came from a generation that – while already witnessing the advent of Heroes – had seen humanity from back before the problem of heroes versus villains wasn’t as bad as it was these days. While Toshinori admired heroes himself as a kid, he hadn’t seen a fight involving Quirks down the streets every other day as a child. Heroes used to work once a week at most.
These days, it was rare for a Hero to go on patrol without being called in to foil a bank robbery, stop a purse snatcher, or deal with whatever mayhem the local Villains could cook up. That in itself was worrisome, no matter how used to it the general population got. Would things only get worse, more dangerous as the days would pass?
Sometimes, Toshinori wakes up in his aching, deteriorating body, just to despair that the battle between heroes versus villains would never end no matter what he does as the Number One Hero, the Symbol of Peace.
Even without the debilitating injury he has to endure every day, Toshinori worries for the coming generation. One For All was hardly the only torch to be passed down to the next generation – so was the entire Villain problem. All the current generation could do was train the next one as best as they could and hope for the better – which brings Toshinori back to the subject of the boy.
It had not been the first time Toshinori crushed a child’s dreams. Again, part of Toshinori curses the concept of heroes and villains, planting in children’s minds the need to become heroes at this day and age. No matter how necessary it was, it always left a bad taste in Toshinori’s mouth to watch the next generation of Yuuei graduate, knowing that in less than a decade part of the batch will have paid the ultimate price for their work.
To be a Hero was to be a warrior after all. And a warrior always lives each day knowing it might be their last.
In a way, by dashing the hopes of a child who cannot become that warrior, he saves yet another life – but that isn’t what it feels like to Toshinori. In the end, what makes him any different from the villains he clobbers every day if he makes children cry?
Toshinori knows that many had poured their heart and souls into achieving their dreams. It was more than just a career, it was their life. If he stomped all over those dreams, wasn’t it like committing spiritual murder?
Still deep in thought, he leaves a Family Mart with a small bag of yogurt and popsicles in hand. He eyes the cold treats in the plastic bag with a little odd smile – at least, the damage to his stomach couldn’t stop him from treating himself like this every once in a while. All Might would’ve collapsed much earlier if he couldn’t enjoy a simple popsicle.
He rustles through his bag to take one for himself when he picks up the distressingly familiar sound of crying. As a Hero, Toshinori was very familiar with all different kinds of tears. He’d been exposed to it all too often, and this seemed to be the loud, sobbing kind of crying.
Not one that seemed to be in physical distress, so Toshinori could have probably ignored it... if his own feet weren’t already bringing him to the direction of the sobbing. Part of Toshinori sighs with a bit of a smile at this. No matter how cynical he got about being a Hero, in the end he was a Hero after all.
And when he arrives- oh.
He sees a familiar fluffy mop of green hair. The teenager in question is sitting on a bench next to a small puddle of his own tears. It’s in the middle of a park, and there is no one in sight around as the sun is already starting to set. Instantly, Toshinori’s hand tightens around the plastic bag he is carrying. Not even a second later, he is stepping forward.
It looks like he is finding out the boy’s name after all.
#-#-#-#
Izuku’s heart is in pieces.
After all, he just came from a meeting with his favorite hero, the one-and-only All Might himself. Normally, Izuku would be over the moon about the entire thing, had he not asked that question and got the answer that he expected but never wanted to hear.
All Might said I could ever become a Hero.
That... had been soul-rending to realize. For so long, Izuku had spent every waking moment hoping to become a Hero out of his respect and admiration for All Might. For the man in question to shoot him down just like that? Izuku couldn’t help but break into tears again as his hero’s words continued to echo in his ears.
A rustle comes from a bush, and Izuku stops sobbing for a moment to turn towards the source of the noise. He then has to jump up and hide behind the bench when a terrifyingly gaunt and skeletal man comes out of the shrubbery, carrying... a plastic bag in his hands?
“Um.”
Izuku’s puffy eyes blink. “Huh?”
The soft noise seems to have come from the gaunt man in front of Izuku. The man waves his thin spindly arms in front of himself in what must have been an attempt to look unthreatening. “I’m not a creeper. I’m just someone who heard a person crying, and my feet just took me here.”
The only reason why Izuku doesn’t blush in complete embarrassment is just how tired he feels. So instead, he sits back down on the bench, not meeting the gaunt man in the eyes. “S-Sorry if I interrupted your afternoon...”
To his surprise, the man sits himself to beside Izuku. The next thing he knows, he sees a blue, yellow and red object held just above his nose. “Want one?”
“T-This is...?”
“An ice cream bar. I eat them when I feel down. They’re the kind of popsicles that split-in-two, so I can take half if you’re worried that it’s poisoned or something.”
Izuku doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just takes hold of one of the popsicle sticks. The man holding the other one easily snaps the ice cream in two between himself and Izuku. The man doesn’t hesitate to dig into his half. His brilliantly white teeth easily bit into the ice-cold treat and Izuku soon finds himself following suit.
For a few minutes, they just go on like that, eating their ice cream in silence. For some reason, Izuku starts to feel better. If this was why the man beside him ate ice -cream when he felt down, Izuku could see the logic in it. But he couldn’t imagine why this stranger felt like sharing this with some random crying teenager in a park he just met.
“Feeling better?” the man asks. One of his hands is already offering Izuku yet another popsicle. This time the packet was still unopened.
“No, I couldn’t…” Izuku waves his hands in polite refusal. For some reason, he doesn’t stutter in front of this man.
“Are you sure?” the man asks again, still offering the popsicle. “I still have three more in the bag. They might just melt if I don’t eat them fast enough, which would be a terrible waste.”
“...I would like to have another then. Thank you very much.”
They continue like that, just for a while longer, and the man beside Izuku remains silent the entire time outside his offering another ice cream bar whenever they finished one. He never asks why Izuku was crying. He just sits there eating, not saying anything but lending him an ear without saying a single word.
So Izuku starts to talk on his own.
“I met All Might today,” he began, opening the ice cream pack. Chocolate. “He saved me from a villain with a slime Quirk.”
Contrary to what Izuku expects, the man react with anything more than a nod at the name of the one and only Symbol of Peace. If it was something like shock or excitement, Izuku would understand as a few hours ago – was it really just a few hours ago? If someone did the same to him his mind would be racing a mile a minute. But to evoke no reaction whatsoever? Who was this man?
...Then again, this man has been anything but ordinary the entire time, so it might be just a thing with him.
Still, Izuku takes the nod as a sign to continue. So he carries on, “I have always admired him, you know? Still do, honestly, because I want to become a Hero. I need to become a Hero like him, like All Might.”
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why do you want, no, need to be a Hero like All Might?”
Izuku blinks at the sudden question posed to him by the man sitting beside him. It was the only thing the man has said outside of sharing more ice cream. A familiar flame ignites itself at Izuku’s chest, and he soon stands up, popsicle still in-hand as he yells:
“Why? To help people, of course! People ask me about this so many times, if I have any other reason besides that like fame or money, but do I really need a reason to become a Hero besides wanting to help people? To risk life for the sake of someone else?”
Every word gushes his out of him without a second thought. Izuku isn’t lying about being asked about it a lot – after all, people had to ask why he was so determined to become one at some point.
This time, it comes out a bit wearily than usual, but it somehow leaves the man dumbstruck for a moment. The moment passes quickly, as he soon recovers and coughs with what seems to be a smile.
“Your ice cream is falling apart.”
Izuku follows the man’s gaze, and sure enough, his ice cream is about to fall off its popsicle stick. He rushes to stuff the rest of it into his mouth, and as he glances to the side he is proven right.
The man in front of him is smiling.
The expression looked a little ghastly on the man’s angular, sunken face. But in the end, the man was smiling at Izuku as though he respected his ideals.
That... after this trying day, was a little comforting.
It might not be All Might, but knowing there was at least one person who thought so outside of his mother was comforting.
“Then why were you crying?” the man asks. The bluntness of the question reminds Izuku a bit of All Might. “Did he say anything to you?”
Izuku returns to his seat at that, not facing the man and instead glancing up at the skies dyed orange by the setting sun.
“Nothing I didn’t ask for,” Izuku whispers softly, as though a confession. “I asked him: ‘Can someone with a weak Quirk like me become a Hero like him?’ Part of me already knew the answer.”
He feels a hand on his shoulder again, this time much smaller than the one he’d felt earlier that day.
“From what you’re saying, it sure sounds like All Might could’ve been more tactful with what he said.” the man beside him comments. His voice had a note of... regret? Bitterness? Izuku couldn’t identify pin down the emotion in his tone. “He should’ve just not said anything, if all he had to say was just-”
“No!”
The gaunt man blinks in confusion at Izuku’s vehement denial.
Izuku relaxes the fists his instantaneous reply had made, feeling even more tired but he has to say this. The man before him has to know.
“I understand why All Might said that.” Izuku murmurs, after a moment of silence, “After a while, I’ve thought about it myself, you know? What it’s like being the Symbol of Peace – no, what is it to be like someone who has to watch over Heroes.”
Like his mother. Like Midoriya Inko, who Izuku knows to worry a lot about him and his dream, who he knows that would keep on supporting him, no matter how much she would prefer him safe. But being safe was different from being happy for Izuku Izuku, and she knew that. He knew that she knew that, which was why she kept on cheering him on.
“To be a Hero means to keep people safe, even from themselves,” he continues to murmur beneath his breath, remembering a bad memory, “and if that means dissuading someone from an apparent suicidal course of action, then All Might did the right thing by telling me what he thought.”
Izuku has to close his eyes to prevent an incoming onslaught of tears.
“You don’t hate him, for saying it?”
The man beside him speaks again and Izuku makes a weak smile.
“I don’t. You weren’t there, you know. You didn’t see the look on his face. It was killing him to reply that to me, and his expression was of someone who was prepared to be hated for what he would say. He didn’t want to do it, yet he did it anyway.”
A tear fell over his cheeks, unbidden. “How can I not respect him even more for that, for trying to protect me from myself even though I might hate him for it?”
The man holds him close by the shoulder, allowing him to cry freely. For what feels like an hour, they stay like that, the entire situation quiet but no less emotional in its intensity as a stranger continues to comfort him without being asked, until Izuku finally pulls away.
By then, he has shed all of his tears and could finally start moving on.
#-#-#-#
“...there are ways to help people outside of being a hero, you know.”
Izuku wipes the corner of his eye as the man beside him says that. “Huh?”
“Doctors. Teachers. Repairmen. Cooks. Even politicians. All of these can be people that try to help others in their own way, with their own skill-sets. For you who’ve lived most of your life dreaming of becoming a Hero it might seem impossible, but you are still young. You can still choose another path.”
Izuku blinks, the idea of becoming something other than a Hero feeling almost alien after this long of wanting to be one.
“Plus... depending on you, you can still become a hero.”
This time, his eyes go wide, and he stands in shock at what the man before him just said.
The man doesn’t look at him though, continuing to speak as he focused his eyes onwards without meeting Izuku’s eyes. “If you are to be a student of Yuuei, there is an event that you must already know by now. It occurs once a year and is open to all of its students. The victor of the competition is granted the chance to become part of the Hero Class, if they aren’t already.”
“The Yuuei Sports Festival,” Izuku answers without having to be asked. “But for that... I’ll have to first be part of Yuuei, and why would such a renowned school take someone like me? It’s impossible unless-”
“-unless you find someone to sponsor you in the General Education program, and even then, you would still have to win the entire competition against all the future Heroes and the rest of the students in Yuuei,” the man continues, as though he was never interrupted.
“At least you’ve got the first one already. You just have to take the next step, if you are really sure about still becoming a Hero. And even if you don’t manage that, well then let’s talk about it at that point.”
Izuku blinks. Did the man in front of him just say... “Huh?”
“Congrats, kid.” The man in front of him smiles that same ghastly and comforting smile. “You’ve just caught the attention of an incoming teacher in Yuuei. Now, we’ve just got to get you signed up for the school properly, and from there you’ll be in.”
“EEEEEEHHHHHH!”
Izuku yells in shock, before a familiar blush lights up his cheeks in embarrassment for doing the same thing twice in one day. “Er, I’m so sorry-!”
“Don’t mind, don’t mind,” The man before waves it off with an odd little expression on his face, “I’m going to be working in the school where the loudest two people in the world would be by the start of next semester. I’ll have to be used to loud voices at this point.”
Izuku has to ask, “...I just told you about my Quirk. And what All Might had to say about it. So I probably won’t-”
“Forget what All Might, feh, Old Might just told you earlier.” The man interrupts, his voice sure, “He sure didn’t know everything about you when he said it, and Quirks aren’t everything. You have the heart of a real Hero, and don’t let what anybody tells you stop you from thinking that.”
“Kid, just trust in yourself, alright?”
At those words, Izuku can’t help himself. He jumps forward to hold the gaunt man in front of him with a tight hug, and the man easily catches him. And though he takes a few seconds to stop flailing at the sudden hug, the man soon also returns it with what feels like a solemn promise of protection.
Too bad it gets interrupted by a sudden surge of coughing from the older man.
Izuku feels something warm, sticky, and metallic over his shoulder. He breaks off the hug to reach a hand over it, only to see his hand bloody. He snaps back in shock as he realizes the terrifying amount of blood coming from the other person’s mouth.
“M-Mister, did I just do something b-bad!? AAAAAAHHHH, you’re dying, you’re dying, I’m going to call the hospital-!”
He is stopped by a hand gripping his wrist. The man before him, despite the blood coming from his mouth in large gushes, is calm. “Don’t. This happens a lot to me, don’t worry. Honestly, it was a miracle that it took this long since I’ve met you.”
Izuku stares at his bloody face, then back at his phone, then at his face, and his phone.
“D-Delusions? Is this the lack of blood!? Mister, stay with me, you’re bleeding from the mouth, you are not alright, I have to call the ambulance-!”
#-#-#-#
Needless to say, it takes Toshinori several more tries to calm the teenager down, and by then the sky is entirely dark and the teenager before him is left more than a little embarrassed again.
Honestly, to Toshinori it would almost be endearing how the teenager looked in that moment, were not for the fact that the boy was still covered with his own blood. Hence, it felt more morbid than it had any rights to be.
Toshinori takes out a tissue from his plastic bag, from under the light of the streetlamp. At this point, they have stayed in this park for more than an hour, but Toshinori doesn’t feel like in much of a hurry.
Instead, he just wants to know more about this boy before him, whose name he still doesn’t know.
He had forgotten, how it was to just want to help people. Such a pure reason, despite all of the things that should’ve made the teenager before him bitter... Honestly, the child before him was inspiring, and that was even without his passionate and sympathetic defense of Toshinori’s famous alter-ego.
In that moment, Toshinori decided: this boy would be his successor.
He would’ve already offered One For All, were it not for the fact that the boy seemed to want to be able to prove himself to the world. Maybe in the future, maybe after a year of being a student in Yuuei, or if he won the Sports Festival before then, he would offer it, but for now... Toshinori could still wait.
He could still be All Might for a little longer, with this teenager by his side.
“Here. Wipe yourself with this. I’ve taken to carrying disposable tissues everywhere I go at this point, just for this situation.”
The teenager just waves a hand at the offered tissues, seemingly embarrassed. “N-No, I’m fine.”
“You’re still covered with my blood, you know. I know it’s messy, so don’t feel embarrassed when I’m the one who should be-”
A look of realization flutters across the teenager’s face. Toshinori starts to get the idea that he is about to see something that would surprise him. “No, I m-mean, I don’t need a tissue. See?”
He points a finger at his own shoulder, and before Toshinori’s own eyes, the shoulder, clothes and all, cleans itself bit by bit without any obvious effort whatsoever from the boy. The change is first unnoticeable, but then slowly the red and browns disappear from the boy’s shoulder until it is finally left pristine.
Wasn’t the boy’s Quirk just Minor Banishment?
“My Quirk lets me clean myself without much effort. By removing anything that might stain my clothes, I could clean it since I am always touching my clothes. I-It’s a meaningless use of my powers, removing stains from clothing, but at least it makes it easier for my Mom-”
Toshinori can’t help but smile. “Creative.”
If it was Toshinori who had such a Quirk, he would’ve not noticed such a possible use. For this boy to think of something like that, he definitely had a mind that could easily beat out Toshinori’s, that is for certain.
He would definitely put One For All to great use in the future.
The teenager before him blushes a bit more at the praise, rubbing the back of his head again, and Toshinori stands to his feet.
He offers his hand. It is rare that he manages to say these words as himself, so he makes sure to do it just right.
“My name is Yagi Toshinori, future teacher of Yuuei. May I ask your name?”
The teenager’s head snaps up, eyes bright and a smile on his face as he takes Toshinori’s hand.
“My name is Midoriya Izuku, future General Education student of Yuuei. Please take care of me!”