Chapter Text
"Ninth."
"..."
"Hey, hey Ninth."
"..."
"WAKE UP!"
Izuku screams and bolts up to his feet. "What? Where? Who?" He looks frantically around the grey misty area he was in. The sound of a woman giggling has him spinning around so fast that he slips and falls flat on his face.
He looks up to find a very pretty woman crouching down in front of him. She smiles at him, "Aw, it is nice to be called pretty again, the others never say anything nice about my appearance any more." He jolts at that, had he been mumbling again? She grabs him under the arms and lifts him to his feet, they are both nearly the same height.
"Nah, the name is Nana kid, I was the seventh. Toshi was the eighth. You are the Ninth. And we," She pokes him in the head, "Are all up in here, that's how I can hear your thoughts."
He rubs at where she poked his forehead, "Up here? In my head? My mind?" He looks round at the smokey gray void, he certainly hoped this wasn't his mind. Though it would certainly explain some things if it was.
Nana, Nana Shimura he realizes. Her gloves are the same color that Yagi sensi based his whole color scheme off of, an her smile makes his look plastic in comparison. Now that he thinks about it, All Might had already told him that his smile WAS fake, looks like both of them were just trying to emulate their own hero.
"HA! I like you kid, quick on the uptake. And yea, Toshi always did try to smile like me. You're almost there but we are limited on time. Welcome to One For All." She does a grand sweeping gesture at all the lovely misty gray nothing. "hehe, you're funny Ninth. I think I'm going to like it up here. Come on, let's take a walk."
She starts walking before he realizes and he then has to do a short jog to catch up before falling in step with her. "First things first kido, OFA's changing again." Again? "Yep that's right, again." Oh right, the whole mind reading thing. "Eh, not quite mind reading. I am part of your quirk, and thus part of you."
"My quirk? Umm, isn't it All Might's? or yours even? Since-since he got it from you?"
She smacked him upside the head, "knock it off, it hasn't been mine since long before I died. And it isn't Toshi's anymore either." It isn't? But he GAVE it to me, it's his. She hit him upside the head again, "I said quit it kid! Yes, he gave it to you. That means that IT IS YOURS. Only YOU can decide what to do with it now. Well, mostly anyways."
Izuku rubbed the back of his head, that last time she it him had stung. "Mostly?"
"Haven't you noticed Ninth?" He looks over and down at her in confusion, "You'e looking down at me now, you are growing." He was looking down at her. He looked down at himself and found his arms and legs were longer and less bulky. He could also see his belly where his shirt was now no longer the proper length.
"This is why I am talking to you as early as I am now, OFA has changed again. And this time it seems to have decided to change you as well. For me and all the others before me it was just an extra power source, one that gave a pretty good boost to our bodies and our quirks. But it changed for the Eighth, even before his injury it let him transform."
A memory jumped to his mind, the first time he saw All Might transform. "I know he has already apologized to you over a dozen times for what he said to you on that roof. But I just want you to know it has literally kept him up at night, he looked up some statistics on quirkless people about a week after you started training, and nightmares are never kind."
He stops walking, "oh." He, admittedly hadn't really ever thought about it. Not about jumping, not about how All Might would have felt if he had. It had just been another expected disappointment. "I never held it against him in the first place, him coming back and apologizing later was more than-more than anyone has done before."
"Oh Kido," She pulled him into a hug and Izuku hugs her back on instinct more than anything else, "you never should have gone though any of that. I know you don't believe me yet, but it's true." She is right, he doesn't believe her, he is quirkless after all. She hugs him tighter. "Would you ever do that to someone who is quirkless?"
"OF COURSE NOT" No one ever deserves to have gone through what he did!
"Then why do you?" Because he is... quirkless? But other people shouldn't go through what he has, even other quirkless people. but he is... is...
For once in his life he seemingly has no tears to cry. He just stands there shaking, his breathing is normal and there are no tears in his eyes. But he just can't stop shaking. Miss Shimura keeps talking, but it all feels distant. Why can't he stop shaking?
"You are going to wake up soon, time passes like a dream when the current wielder is asleep." He is still shaking. "I don't know how much time has passed so be ready for anything. and hey," She pulls back from the hug, grabs his head and makes him look into her eyes. he is still shaking.
"Look at me, look at me and hear what I am saying." He looks, he stops trying to stop himself from shaking and he looks. "No one, quirkless or otherwise deserves to be hurt. You did not deserve to be hurt. I know you don't believe me now and might not for a while, so remember this. You Are No Longer Quirkless. One For All is yours, it is currently mutating your body and there is no way for ANYONE to realistically claim that you are quirkless again."
He, is no longer quirkless. His body stops shaking. He Is No Longer Quirkless. HE IS NO LONGER QUIRKLESS!
Every thing around them shifts and changes, it all looks the same but there is change, he can just feel it.
"Looks like you are waking up ninth, remember that OFA is yours now. All of us will be with you here," she pokes him in the head again, "and here" she pokes over his heart. "We are with you ninth, always. And good luck on your exams!"
Everything lights up-
-and he is opening his eyes to his bedroom ceiling, there is daylight streaming though his mostly closed All Might curtains like it does during the evening. It also feels like all of his muscles are made of steel and his eyelids made of lead, shutting his eyes for just a second certainly wouldn't hurt, right?