Chapter Text
“...!” Izuku Midoriya jolted awake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat as a sharp, overwhelming sensation shot through him. Instinctively, he pressed his right hand to his chest, grounding himself in the present, reminding himself it was only a nightmare.
“...That damn memory again.” Izuku muttered, glancing at his nightstand. He grabbed his phone—5:00 AM. The dream had left him too shaken to fall back asleep; rest was out of the question now.
The nightmare replayed the events at USJ—the day he and his classmates were ambushed by villains intent on killing All Might. That was supposed to be his final class in the hero course; his so-called teacher had already told him he’d be expelled for being quirkless, calling him a waste of resources that should go to someone more worthy.
Izuku had spent his entire life enduring both physical and emotional pain. The adults who should have encouraged him hurled insults instead, while his peers bullied him relentlessly for the misfortune of being born quirkless. He always tried not to let it affect him, but the truth was, it did—he simply suppressed those feelings and pressed on. Despite constant setbacks—even his idol’s rejection—Izuku kept moving forward, determined to become a hero. But reaching U.A. hadn’t changed anything; everything was still the same.
From a homeroom teacher openly planning his expulsion by week’s end, to classmates who regarded him with scorn, and a faculty whose every interaction dripped with condescension, Izuku felt something burning deep inside—a fury he struggled to contain.
Yet he never acted on that anger. Since childhood, he’d been browbeaten into enduring everything without complaint—denied even the right to feel sadness or anger for fear of annoying others. But on that day, now branded onto his memory, those emotions slipped out. In a near-death moment, something inside him took over, and the light returned to his eyes.
His nightmare replayed those events—the stray projectile that pierced his chest should have ended his life, but instead became the catalyst for his quirk to finally manifest after years of believing he was quirkless. The pain of that moment was still fresh in his mind.
He remembered his life ebbing away as Eraserhead’s cruel, careless words echoed in his mind, his body growing colder and weaker from blood loss, the gaping wound in his chest draining him. Then, transported to the Flood Zone at USJ, his body became even colder—soaked and helpless as he drowned in the lake, abandoned by both classmates and villains who showed no shred of decency. All of it replayed vividly in his nightmare, even the surreal sensation as his mind hovered closer to death.
“Anger, frustration, hate. Those negative emotions you suppressed your whole life were the key to your quirk manifesting, yet you denied yourself access to them. So in a last burst of glory, I call you to embrace your power.” Izuku remembered seeing a strange figure in those moments as his life faded away. It looked like him...but the sclera of its eyes was pitch black, and Izuku could sense something was off about it. That other version of himself tried to take control, but a blinding light appeared out of nowhere, and then he heard a weak voice as his consciousness faded.
“...To see what lies inside a soul...to soothe the pain that lies within...and to turn that pain...into power...that is the true source of your strength...” The voice he heard then wasn’t his; it sounded older, more mature. Those words became his only focus as his vision filled with white light. When he could see again, he was back in the central plaza, holding the head of an injured Eraserhead, as a villain screamed for him to kill the man now that he was at his mercy.
Izuku could have crushed the man's skull at that moment. He had little love for someone who cared so little about his death, who told him that nothing of value was lost while he was still alive. But he refused.
The villain’s voice—shocked and outraged that Izuku had refused to kill Eraserhead—became background noise as he closed his eyes. Suddenly, he found himself inside a strange laboratory filled with black-skinned creatures floating in tanks. Izuku moved through the lab and found a large tank housing the only creature that reacted to his presence.
That creature was an abomination—a normal man with body parts removed and black limbs stitched where his human ones should be. The most human traits left were patches of light olive-green hair on his head where his brain wasn’t exposed, and thick lips. One of his eyes wandered while the other fixed on Izuku as he approached the tank.
Izuku touched the crystal tank with his left hand, and his hand passed through the barrier, meeting the creature’s right arm. Suddenly, he saw flashes of the creature’s life leading up to this moment. Not knowing why, Izuku moved his right hand to gently hold the creature’s left.
“It’s okay...you are not alone...I’m here.” He spoke softly, and the creature’s body began to glow with a dim green light as it evaporated. Before vanishing, the creature tried to speak, but no words came. Izuku read its lips.
“Thank...you...” Those were its words before everything turned dark again.
What happened after that was a blur. He remembered feeling air fill his lungs, his heart beating painlessly, and his fist connecting with someone’s face. Teachers’ and heroes’ words about his miraculous quirk awakening became background noise as he fixated on that bizarre moment in the lab after the incident was resolved, as all of that mattered little to him—he had survived a supposed death experience, and only truly processed it once he returned home after the incident.
The next day—Sunday—gave Izuku time to catch up with the world. Still unsure if he was alive or dead, he used the day without school to make his final decision. He decided he might as well quit heroism. The past week had turned him off from the idea forever. Seeing how vile Eraserhead was—and how the faculty let it happen because he was quirkless—showed him that heroism was dead in this world.
Izuku talked with his mom about it. Inko tried to dissuade him, hoping to atone for not believing in him in the past, but relented when Izuku revealed just how miserable he’d been—especially after Bakugo, whom Inko saw as almost a son, began tormenting him once he was diagnosed as quirkless to the point of constantly trying to bait him into committing suicide if he wanted a quirk so badly. They came to an agreement.
Izuku would willingly drop out of the hero course and attend a regular high school if possible. If transferring out of U.A. wasn’t an option, he’d at least switch to the general course—U.A.’s name still carried weight, and graduating from there as a general student would open more doors than another school could. With his mind made up, he walked to the principal's office to discuss his decision. That conversation led to his current situation at U.A.
True to his mother’s concerns, Izuku found that transferring to another school was no longer an option. Not only had his quirk manifested, but whatever he had done in those moments after returning from the brink of death made Nezu determined not to let him out of his sight. Forced to remain at U.A., Izuku leveraged the little influence he had to negotiate his way into the support course. There, he was treated like a general course student, but he stubbornly refused to participate in any item-building classes, making himself a nuisance. It was a petty act—if Nezu wanted him to stay at U.A. so badly, Izuku decided he would become a burden. He had no desire to invent support items and intended to waste U.A.’s resources, just as Eraserhead once said he did in the hero course. His actions were fueled by spite for the institution that had treated him as lesser for being quirkless.
According to Nezu, the transfer would take a day or two. But Izuku wasn’t going to wait; he was committed to his newfound pettiness and returned to his class and bluntly told the students of 1-A that they didn’t deserve to be at U.A.—that the mere fact they thought themselves hero material was proof heroism was dead in this world and that in a fair and just world, none of them would have even been allowed to consider attending U.A. at all. Then, channeling Bakugo, he made his way into the support course classroom he had chosen and entered in the middle of class, making it clear to everyone that he intended to be a thorn in U.A.’s side. If the principal valued him enough to allow this, Izuku was determined to make them regret it.
Izuku’s life had always been shaped by the whims of others—people who should have cared for him but instead allowed him to suffer for the sake of convenience. Now, those same types regarded him as someone of value. For once, he intended to enjoy his new status among the so-called superior class of society, even if it meant making those he viewed as inferior feel the pain he once endured...But whatever high that Izuku could feel about this petty power move of his quickly died down in a week, and he simply became indifferent and apathetic to those around him.
All of that wasn’t him at all, and even if his anger was real and the emotions that drove him to this situation were his and his alone, Izuku found little comfort or even happiness in this situation, because, for as much as he said to himself that heroism was dead to him, his heart still yearned to be a hero.
Izuku fell into a routine as a regular student in the support course, making it clear he was only there to slack off. He had chosen this path, knowing he had virtually no skill in building support items and barely knew how to use a toolbox. Yet, to his surprise, Izuku displayed an unexpected talent for tinkering with materials in the support studio in order to construct fully functional motorcycles that looked dealership-bought but performed like high-end racing machines. He never imagined he possessed any talent for such work, having always focused on studying heroes and quirks rather than developing other skills. Yet, his quirk awakening seemed to come with a strange ability that made him quite the mechanic, even if he couldn’t explain how he did it. He would pick up a screwdriver, spot some tubes, and before he realized it, he was already building a motorcycle like he had been doing that his whole life.
Could that have something to do with his quirk? He didn’t know, as he refused to use his quirk after what happened, determined to show Nezu that any favoritism would be wasted since he wasn’t going to return to the hero course. Still, he remembered some of the memories he saw in that broken man, who worked as an illegal mechanic, fixing motorcycles for underground street races, before being turned into a monster.
Regardless, he planned to at least rest in bed with his eyes closed for a while before showering and starting his day. Today was Saturday, and since it was the day of the famous U.A. Sports Festival, only the participants were required to attend, while everyone else could stay home. Izuku had been ‘encouraged’ by Nezu to take part in the Sports Festival under the pretense of having fun, but Izuku saw through the real motive and flatly refused. By declining, he ensured his petty revenge was fulfilled; had he participated and performed well, Nezu could have pressured him to return to the hero course by leveraging his public impression. By not participating, Izuku denied Nezu that opportunity.
But he wasn’t going to stay in bed all day; he planned to take a train to Hosu to visit a bookstore that carried a book he wanted on advanced machinery and repair techniques. Given his newfound talent for building and maintaining motorcycles, he wanted to deepen his knowledge for the future. However, fate had other plans, and Izuku’s decision to stray from the path set for him would soon place him in an unimaginable situation.
“...” Nezu was looking at the sports festival from his office in the stadium, and was seeing that his attempts to get Izuku back in the hero course after what happened had failed because he had failed to account for the fact that Izuku’s spiteful streak would persist for long enough to make him refuse to take part in the sports festival despite the fact that Izuku’s burning hostility and hatred for them died down quite quickly for the way that things had looked in the past month.
The performance of all the students on the hero course of class 1-A, aside from Bakugo, was quite lacking, as Izuku’s hateful words that he told them before moving to the support course had caused enough damage to them to prevent them from performing properly in this event.
The recordings of the USJ showed how something took over the nomu seconds before it could crush Eraserhead’s skull, and how that creature was enveloped in a green aura as it stood still and defied Shigaraki's orders until the villain grew fed up with its refusal to move and tried to decay it. That nomu was turned to dust, a dust that quickly turned green and reformed into Izuku, who then delivered quite the brutal punch to Shigaraki’s head with enough force to cave his skull in one hit and sent him flying. The villain named Kurogiri created a portal made of mist to take the critically injured Shigaraki away, and then All Might was able to reach the USJ.
Izuku’s body stood in place where the dust that was once the nomu was, and he was quite unresponsive to any kind of stimulus for a while until the event was over, in which Izuku simply answered some questions by moving his head to say yes or no, but considering the unfocused gaze in his eyes and his muted emotional response to the fact that he had been almost killed, made Nezu think that whatever power Izuku awakened in that life-or-death situation was something more profound than a simple possession of someone else's body or to resurrect from someone’s ashes.
Nezu wanted so badly to see what kind of quirk Izuku had manifested, as after reviewing the recordings of the USJ and checking the cameras underwater that were in the flood zone, it was clear that Izuku had died for all intents and purposes, but his death had turned his body into a sphere of green energy that floated around and then got inside the nomu as it was ready to kill Eraserhead. But his attempt to try to converse with Izuku about trying to find a way to help him to understand his new power only ended up with Izuku, who was now in full use of his mental faculties, being quite hostile to him and telling him that he wanted to get out of the hero course because it wasn’t worth a damn if people like Eraserhead were allowed to get away with what they had done and if the treatment that he had received in the past week was something that heroes in the making could have without being reprimanded for their clear discriminatory stances on quirkless people.
Any attempt to make peace with Izuku, from trying to move him to the class 1-B to then reprimanding Eraserhead, expelling his personal student from U.A. with the black mark that Eraserhead wanted to put on his file, or even kicking everyone else from the hero course to let him be the only hero student on the hero course of class 1-A were met with negative responses and even angrier rebutals filled with insults. Izuku, in those moments, was overwhelmed with the rage that he had endured for years and decided to make everyone in his vicinity whom he disliked suffer for it. A shaky compromise was reached as Nezu was trying his best to deny Izuku a chance to fully walk away from U.A. in order to study that quirk that had given that boy the power to cheat death, and while Izuku’s anger and vitriol ran quite hot and burned a lot of people on both class 1-A and class 1-H with petulant and nasty fury...in less than 4 days, said rage died down, and Izuku went from pure vitriol and spite to apathy and indifference.
Power Loader said that Izuku looked quite lost after those four days had passed, and while Nezu wanted to capitalize on said feeling of loss of purpose to entice Izuku back into the hero course, Izuku then showed a new skill that caught Nezu by surprise and ruined those plans.
Izuku was loitering around the support studio with his other classmates, who were quite wary of him, as Izuku’s volcanic temper in the past days had made them afraid of him, even if he looked quite dulled at the moment, and when one student of that class had a slip-up and made a screwdriver land near Izuku. Izuku simply picked up that screwdriver and moved like a puppet on strings as he wandered around the studio, picking things up to build something.
Izuku built an electrical engine for a small vehicle during that day of class in his second week of the support course, and each day until the end of that week, Izuku built components that, when combined, made an electric motorcycle whose specs and performance put it on par with a racing motorcycle that was fully assamble and was usable in the last day of that week. Izuku’s eyes and body movements during that week became less dull and puppet-like, and more human-like, until Izuku not only ended up building that bike but was able to explain, with a level of accuracy unseen in a kid who hadn’t built anything in his life, how he had done all of that. That action restored in a way whatever fire in his soul that had been almost snuffed out when that anger that took over him evaporated. The remaining weeks until the Sports Festival ended with Izuku now actively getting involved in the support course class in ways that had gone above and beyond whatever plan Izuku had to force Nezu to keep him around.
And that had put Nezu again in a catch-22 situation now that Izuku had refused to take part in the Sports Festival. Would he attempt to continue trying to get Izuku back into the hero course even if that meant waiting for the next sports festival, or would he leave Izuku alone in the support course, now that it appeared that Izuku had not only found a new purpose there, but was being an active member in that course in a way that prevented Nezu from trying to get Izuku out of there as he wasn’t behaving in that pedantic way that could justify his removal from that course?
Nezu didn’t know what to do, but as his mind tried to scheme a way to get what he wanted in this situation, an unexpected event caught him by surprise, and in said surprise, Nezu’s paws pressed the wrong button on his computer and made the big screen on the stadium show the emergency reporting on an incident in Hosu...
If Izuku could talk to his past self before he decided to leave home, he would have told him that he wasn’t in a hurry to buy that book and that he would have spared himself the pain of being involved in this situation if he had taken the lazy option that was given to him in that bookstore when they told him that the book he was looking for was in one of their stores in Hosu.
In that way, he would be at home lazing around and not be trapped inside a burning street while being surrounded by injured heroes as they tried and failed to deal with Stain, who had taken the fact that one of his victims managed to push him out of the alleyways and into the streets quite poorly and fought with a brutality and speed that kept all those heroes in a disadvantageous position despite the fact that Stain was alone.
“I don’t want to die...” Izuku heard the voice of a heroine who had been fatally injured and was struggling to keep herself alive. Stain had impaled her on her chest from behind with his katana, and it was clear that said blade had caused enough damage to let the poor heroine be now barely gasping for air as life left her body.
It could have been easier for him to simply walk away and leave that heroine to die without even bothering to look at her or feel compassion for her situation, as that had been the kind of treatment that he had received from U.A. After all, he had walked away from the world of heroism after the USJ, and he now bore little love for the society that did everything in its power to make him suffer for not having a quirk until his manifested in a situation in which he died...he could have done a lot of things in that moment, as this was not his problem, but his body moved on its own, and by the time he realized, he was holding that heroine’s hand and then that voice echoed in his mind again.
“...To see what lies inside a soul...to soothe the pain that lies within...and to turn that pain...into power...that is the true source of your strength...” That voice came to mind as he clutched the hand of that heroine, who was weakly moving her mouth as she was barely able to speak to him to ask him not to let her go, like he was her lifeline in those moments, and she was desperately trying, but failing to hold on to it.
Izuku closed his eyes, then opened them again, and now they glowed with a soft green light that even made his sclera turn green. This was the first time in his life that he was actively using his quirk after what happened on the USJ, and while he wasn’t going on autopilot mode as he had done during the USJ, Izuku felt that whatever his quirk was meant to do was quite easy to grasp for him now that he was trying to use it despite the fact that this was the second time that he was using it. As he closed his eyes again, when he opened them again, he found himself inside an average Japanese home, by the looks of it.
“This place...it may look different...but it feels like that lab.” Izuku muttered as he moved through the house, which had only one floor, and saw that only one room was open: a bedroom. Izuku entered the room and saw that there was only one crib.
“My baby...” That woman weakly said as she stared at that empty crib. Izuku walked to the woman and then touched her shoulder. That overwhelmed his mind with memories of the heroine before him.
From her humble beginnings as the third child of a humble family with four children, to how that girl became a woman and a heroine, and how she found love—a love that bore fruit in the form of a child. Yet tragedy struck her, as an accident caused by a villain during rush hour ended the life of her husband, and she was now alone, caring for her child while trying her best to handle both being a single mother and a heroine.
“...!” Izuku then saw how cracks were emerging in the whole room, and now that he was 100% aware of what he was doing, he could sense that this was the sign that this woman’s life was quickly coming to an end. Those cracks expanded in the house and started to reach that woman, who was still looking at the crib to even acknowledge her situation, and Izuku was aware that this was the sign that whatever life she had left would come to an end when those cracks enveloped and destroyed her.
This was, in a way, what his quirk could do: to do a deep dive into a person's soul... and, with that dive, Izuku could gain understanding of that person if he wanted, and with that understanding came power. Even if this world crumbled with her passing, Izuku would retain a small fragment of this encounter, which would become a part of his own soul, as it did with that nomu, and would empower him.
He closed his eyes again and then was back in the outside world, his hand still clutching the dying heroine’s hands as the light abandoned her eyes, and the last of her life force left her body. This was a sad truth of this world, and a truth that he had faced in the USJ, and something that Izuku could have left as it was, as no one even bothered to do anything for him when he was in a similar situation to hers...but as his body moved on its own to reach that dying heroine and his mind overpowered his negative emotions and refusal to use his quirk...his heart now was the one overpowering all that anger and hatred that had been running inside of him, making him take the only choice that he knew he could take—one that wouldn’t leave him overwhelmed with regrets, even when he could only feel spite and anger in this world.
“This is not how her story ends.”
“Brother!” Tenya Ida shouted as he saw on the big screen in the Stadium how Stain delivered one nasty blow to the hero Ingenium, who was his older brother, when the hero killer’s sword pierced his stomach and impaled him. He was on a platform fighting against a pink-haired girl from the Support course as part of the last event, and the match was interrupted in a way that the live feed of what was happening in Hosu at that moment was shown to everyone in the stadium.
The hero Ingenium may have avoided falling victim to a sneak attack from Stain and fought back in order to push him out of the alleyways to force a fight into an environment that gave no advantage to the hero killer...but that only made things worse for everyone else.
Stain’s hatred for those that he considers fake heroes, alongside the sheer zeal and intensity of his commitment to his principles, only made Stain switch gears after being surrounded by fake heroes and simply fought like a man possessed, emitting almost a battle aura with a killing intent so raw and real that it froze those weaker-minded heroes that made them fall prey to his blade.
Collateral damage was something inevitable when villains and heroes faced off on the streets... but Stain’s sheer hatred and malice in those moments blinded him from anything that wasn’t trying to kill those that weren’t worthy of being heroes in his eyes. That main street in Hosu ended up becoming a burning battlefield as Stain’s clear disregard for his surroundings, aside from the level of violence that he employed on his quest to kill those in front of him, turned what was an ordinary street filled with people and open businesses into such a desolate scene, as Stain used his throwing knives with precision to cause some cars to explode when his knives caused the fuel tank of those cars to be punctured and release flammable gasoline that reacted poorly to the fire quirk of a hero in the area that was fighting him.
“None of you are worthy of even entertaining the thought of being heroes!” Stain said, pulling his blade out of Ingenium's body as the hero fell to the ground, injured and unable to feel his legs at all.
“I was trying to cripple you, Ingenium, when I attacked you in that alleyway in order to make an example out of you...But you fought back...and pushed me into the streets. Strength in numbers means nothing to me, as all you fakes lack the true conviction to not only stop me, but to be real heroes that would have spared you all from my wrath.” Stain said. Ida saw Stain raise his sword again, intending to deliver a killing blow to his fallen brother, whose injuries left him unable to avoid that blade that promised him a swift death.
His fight with that girl became a background noise as he stared at that screen, as he was an observer to what would be his beloved brother’s execution.
“Goodbye, you fake hero, may the world become a better place once you aren’t here to besmirch heroism with your lack of worthiness.” Stain said, his mind was made up, his blade was raised high, and he was about to swing it with the intention to decapitate the fallen hero.
Ida closed his eyes, unable to even look at that scene...but as Ida closed his eyes with the hope that what he was seeing wasn’t happening if he closed his eyes hard enough, and as Stain’s blade was halfway to reach Ingenium, something happened.
“What the...!?” Stain said, his body locking in place as he heard someone singing. He wasn’t the only one who heard that. The people who were watching the live feed also heard that. It was a wordless song, lacking lyrics or catchy phrases to catch people’s attention, but its melody carried a lot of weight and was strong enough to even stop Stain in his tracks.
“That voice...!?” Katsuki Bakugo said as he heard that song; the melody was soothing in a way, but it couldn’t mask the singer's voice. He recognized that voice, even if it was singing a song; it belonged to someone he had loathed since they were kids, as far as he remembered.
“...!” Nezu was shocked as he saw one of the live feeds recording how Stain was about to kill Ingenium, then moved to search for the one singing that song, and he was unable to believe what he was seeing.
It was Izuku Midoriya, gently carrying into his arms the body of a fallen heroine. His eyes were glowing green, and a small green light enveloped the body of said heroine. Stain could ask a lot of things about the situation, but he simply picked one of his throwing knives and tried to kill Izuku with it.
“Izuku, no!” Inko Midoriya said. She was in her home and was watching on her TV how Izuku had ended up in that situation, but as that knife flew at him and reached his face, Izuku’s body glowed green in that same moment, and that knife simply bounced away.
“When your spring of hope is dry.”
“Sleep where comets whisper by.”
“Sleep while constellations sigh.”
“Dream of me and hear my cry.”
Izuku's song, which had been a wordless hymn, now had lyrics. Nezu was seeing all of that in action, and that meant that Izuku, while ignoring the law on quirk use in public, was actively using his quirk for the first time in his life after the USJ incident.
“This is who I am!” Izuku said as his whole body was engulfed by that green light, then phased into the heroine he was holding in his arms. The heroine didn’t fall to the ground after Izuku disappeared...but gently floated in the air as a gentle green light enveloped her body.
“What the...!?” Stain said, unable to understand what was going on, and while his first reaction was to run at the heroine that was floating in the air in order to strike her down, his attempt was stopped seconds before he could impale her again, as a pulse of energy that emerged from her body pushed Stain away with enough force to send him flying into a wall.
The public saw how the heroine was now standing tall and proud...and how the gruesome wound in her chest that had been the cause of her death was now emanating a green light that was making said wound miraculously close. Her closed eyes now started to emit a green glow, and when she opened them, life had returned to her body.
The heroine then proceeded to sing, a thing that wasn’t out of the ordinary for those who knew who she was, as her heroine name was the Melodious Heroine: Melodia, and her quirk had the power to allow her voice to soothe others if she sang. But this time, her song was without lyrics, yet carried more than just her voice.
“Ahhh...!?” Ingenium then felt a sharp pain in his stomach, which made him panic as he didn’t know what was going on, but he saw how that gaping wound in his stomach that had reached his spine was emitting a green glow and how that pronounced pain was quickly fading away; he also started to feel his legs again.
He wasn’t the only one...All the heroes in those desolated streets that had been mortally injured by Stain or had suffered an injury during this fight were having a similar experience to the one that he had.
Stain somewhat recovered from that impact against that wall and saw with horror how all the fake heroes that he had attacked in that street were suddenly recovering from those injuries that he had caused to them in real time. Like one hero that had been badly burned by one of those flames that engulfed his body when one car exploded, his burned skin healed up in almost an instant, as that green glow enveloped the burned flesh and skin and left it as good as new.
Stain didn’t let that strange miracle get in the way of his crusade and tried to attack the first hero that he could reach, who was Ingenium, and tried to impale the hero again with his blade, but a green light flickered as his blade was about to impale Ingenium's stomach again, and his katana crumbled as Stain tried to force it to pierce Ingenium. Stain's refusal to back down and his insistence on impaling Ingenium while that green light shielded the hero's body deprived him of his main weapon.
But that wasn’t something that would deter the hero killer from enforcing his vision of justice and heroism in this world. Stain focused his mind and channeled both his hatred for those whom he deems unworthy and his uncompromising zeal for his self-appointed duty, and he took a more aggressive stance, with his face glaring at those heroes in front of him with enough intensity and hate that it scared those whose wills were far too weak to even look at the hero killer in the eyes.
"You dare to call yourselves heroes? The very word is poisoned by your filthy lips! You bask in the spotlight, wallowing in your own arrogance and hypocrisy, while true justice is trampled beneath your feet. I see through every lie, every mask you wear—and I will tear this rotten system down, no matter what pathetic resistance you muster! You think you can stop me? You are nothing! Every fraud will be exposed, every faker will fall. Only when the streets are cleansed of your corruption will true heroism be possible! I am the blade that cuts away your delusions—my conviction is unbreakable, my purpose righteous, no matter how blind you all are to the truth!" Stain’s words then came accompanied by something that couldn’t be seen on TV, a battle aura that threatened to flood that burning street as it swallowed all those heroes and froze them into place. The people who saw that on TV could sense the weight and the hatred in Stain's words, strong enough to scare the wits out of heroes who had been working for years.
The heroine who was singing was starting to sense that killer intent reaching her, and was almost about to stop singing...but then she heard a voice inside of her that encouraged her to sing, to not let that deranged villain win, as his rhetoric was only filled with the anger of a self-righteous fool who only accepted his viewpoint as the only truth in this world.
The heroine kept singing, her voice now accompanied by a chorus as her song pushed back that dark tide of killing intent that Stain had projected, and as that tide was pushed back, the heroes, frozen with fear, recovered from that shock as the green light that the heroine's song projected and enveloped them lifted their spirits.
“What!?” That was the only thing Stain could say as he felt something pushing his overwhelming killing intent away from the heroes, as the green light from the heroine’s song reached further and further. Stain, undeterred by it, decided to cut to the chase and took advantage of the heroes being still somewhat dazed as they were recovering from that projection of his killing intent being pushed back and rushed at the heroine with one of the few daggers that were still in his possession in order to slit her throat to stop her voice.
“Melodia! Look out!” Ingenium said, reacting to the situation a couple of seconds late, and while he activated his quirk to boost his speed to try to attack Stain, he wouldn’t be fast enough to reach her in time.
Stain was just a couple of seconds from reaching Melodia, but then all that green energy that made her eyes and hair glow was banished, and a sphere of green light emerged from her chest that quickly expanded and turned into Izuku. Izuku took advantage of his sudden manifestation in front of Stain to deliver a brutal haymaker to Stain's face. Stain was caught by surprise by Izuku appearing out of nowhere and was unable to dodge Izuku’s punch, which was strong enough to incapacitate him after his body hit the ground. The force of that punch not only sent Stain flying a couple of feet away from Izuku but also knocked out some of the teeth in his mouth.
There was a tense silence in the U.A. Stadium, as what they had seen on that big TV had been not only an act of pure heroism, but a crime as well. While Izuku had used his quirk in a heroic way and saved the day, what Izuku had done was not only illegal but also a crime, considering the blatant use of his quirk could get him in trouble. It mattered little that what Izuku had done could be considered a good Samaritan act, as his breaking the social rules in Japan made him quite dangerous to some people who were sticklers for the rules, even though he did a lot of good with his quirk by disregarding the law.
Some were grateful for what Izuku had done, like Tenya Ida, whose emotional state went through a rollercoaster as he saw his brother go from injured to healthy, then from scared to ready to act in such a short amount of time that he felt somewhat dizzy from how his emotions had quickly changed in that short amount of time. Others were shocked, like Nezu and the vast majority of his past classmates, who had seen Izuku’s heroic capabilities now that he had a quirk, and that sight only reignited Nezu’s ambitions to get Izuku back in the hero course, as that public display in a way could seal Izuku’s fate in the heroic business if things played out in a way that Nezu could manipulate to get the desired outcome...
“SHITTY DEKU!” And then there was Bakugo, whose contempt and hatred for Izuku subsided in a way when Izuku decided to abandon the hero course, to the point of not reacting to Izuku’s parting words before he walked away from class 1-A as they were words that an extra like Izuku could only say...but now that Izuku not only had done something heroic, but his actions that day would eclipse whatever victory he could obtain from winning the sports festival, as while the winner of the sports festival would appear on the news...Izuku’s actions of not only turning the tide in the fight against Stain but also being the one who delivered the final blow to that villain mean that Izuku’s fame would increase to a point that would make Bakugo’s feats play second fiddle to what Izuku had done. Bakugo cared little about the fact that this didn’t mean that Izuku was back to wanting to be a hero; the mere fact that Izuku had done something that would overshadow him was enough to make him scream in rage and fury at the sheer injustice of what had happened. But all of that was not of Izuku’s concern.
Izuku was now in the middle of that burning street, his arm still extended, as just a couple of seconds had passed since he decked Stain in the face. And the only thing that he felt at that moment was a subdued sense of euphoria. After all these past weeks of living his life with a dulled sense of purpose, until he managed to build that bike and feel something akin to genuine joy when he got that letter of acceptance to the hero course, it was a relief.
It was clear to him that, for all he wanted to deny it. His whole being was one that yearned to be a hero, and not even all of what had happened to him could extinguish that side of himself by the looks of it.
Izuku had a lot to think about, but for the time being, he just returned to where he was before he decided to get involved and recovered the plastic bag that had the book that he had bought before he simply walked away and left the heroes alone to clean up the mess that Stain had caused. His resentment for the heroes was still too strong to bask in whatever joy his actions brought to him at the moment, and there was also the fact that he had violated the law about quirk usage and wasn’t in the mood to deal with any hero or police about what he had done.
He simply moved to his original destination by taking another route, which was the Housu train station, and completely acted as if the people in that train that were looking at him with awe and some concern as they recorded him with their phones for some reason weren't there and returned home to return with his mother. The only thought that he spared for those heroes was for the heroine, who was a single mother and had a child to return to.
It was some of her past visions and the sight of someone who depended on her that pushed him to let his heart do the talking in those moments and to remember himself, for a couple of instants, what had driven him to become a hero and act on those feelings to do what he knew was right regardless of how upset he was with the hero community in general.
His life would become more annoying now with his actions if he took into consideration Nezu’s intent to get him back in the hero course...but he barely cared about that in those moments. He had done some real good today and made a difference...far more than whatever Bakugo or those bastards on class 1-A could do on their own.
“Hmm...Hm...Hm...Hm...Hm...Hm...Hmm...” The next day of class came, and Izuku was now on the last train that he needed to take before reaching U.A. Just because he lived in Mustafu didn’t mean that he could take a more direct path to U.A. without worrying about the time. Izuku lived somewhat far from U.A., and unless he wanted to be late, he needed to take a train, as walking there would take him much longer than necessary. Izuku considered stopping taking the train and simply walking to U.A., even if it meant always being late, just to be petty... but he preferred not to waste his time, even when he was that mad, and dropped the idea. Besides, he did try once to do that one Sunday...and it wasn’t worth it.
The people who were in that train car with him were seeing how Izuku was just sitting there and humming a song as he waited until he reached his station. And as much as Izuku was actively ignoring their gaze, it was clear that they were looking at him.
Izuku cared little now about the people who were looking at him, even if those gazes were of awe as they had recognized him from the incident that happened in Hosu, which was televised, as he learned when he returned home, when he saw how his mom looked at him with some concern in her eyes. And Izuku was honest with himself, but he was being somewhat of an idiot for thinking it wouldn’t end up on the news, given how people in this day and age could almost become reporters of hero fights with their phones. What Izuku wasn’t aware of was the reach that the recordings of that fight had in those moments when the fight raged on.
He wasn’t aware of the fact that Tenya Ida, who had entered that train car, was looking at him with a mix of gratefulness and regret, as Izuku’s words that day, after he walked away from them, came to his mind in order to deter him from trying to talk to Izuku and thank him for saving his brother’s life as he wasn’t sure that his attempt to talk with him would be welcomed as he remembered what happened last time that one of them tried to talk with him.
One or two students of class 1-A had tried to talk with Izuku, now taking a more positive attitude with him, now that he manifested a quirk, in order to try to dissuade him from his current course of actions, and were violently rebuked and insulted in ways that could make even Bakugo be shocked into silence.
“You know what, Yaoyorozu? You’re the poster child for privilege. Everything’s been handed to you on a silver platter. You strut around here like you earned your place, like you busted your fucking ass to stand in front of me as a hero student. But let’s be fucking real—you didn’t. The only fucking thing you have going for you is that quirk of yours. Without it, you’d be nothing. You’re not impressive, you’re just a basic bitch with a glorified party trick as a quirk. Your quirk doesn’t even give you a flashy superpower. All you can do is make shit. In a world where everyone drools over explosions and lasers, you’re as bland as plain fucking rice. You lucked out with the recommendation exam and skipped the actual challenge that almost everyone else faced in order to enter the hero course. If you had to take the real entrance exam, you would’ve flopped like the fraud you are. Hell, maybe your parents paid your way in—wouldn’t surprise me. Take away your quirk and your cash, and you’d fade into the crowd, just another spoiled brat with nothing to offer but a pretty face and a fat wallet. You’re a pampered little rich bitch, pretending to be a hero, riding privilege while the rest actually had to fight for their spot. Don’t kid yourself—nobody’s fooled. You’re not here because you’re exceptional. You’re here because you won the lottery of life the moment you were born, and deep down, you fucking know it.” Ida remembered how Izuku literally made Yaoyorozu run away crying when she tried to approach him a couple of days later, after he moved to the support course, and her attempts to try to persuade Izuku to return to the hero course by telling him that he was committing a mistake and that he was being blinded by anger were met with pure and unadulterated hostility. Ida also remembered how Todoroki tried to prevent Izuku from walking away after he did that in order to force Izuku to apologize...and how Todoroki ended with a black eye and separated from his consciousness after Izuku punched him in the face with enough force to throw him to the ground. The sad thing was that the next week, Izuku stopped acting like he was in a permanent state of anger and was acting like he was exhausted all the time, so maybe everyone in class 1-A would have spared themselves from a violent altercation and tongue lashing if they had let Izuku alone for some time instead of trying to get him to return to the hero course as soon as possible because they agreed with Eraserhead about how Izuku had decided to waste the potential that he had now out of anger and pettiness.
Ida looked at his eyes for a couple of seconds before averting his gaze, and while the anger was still there, there was a softer light in them that dulled that anger that once was a warning for them to stay away from Izuku, that didn’t mean that it was safe for them to get near him now...but maybe one day they could try to have a civil conversation without pissing him off.
“...” There was a cautious atmosphere in class 1-H at the moment. All 20 students in the class, alongside Power Loader, were looking at Izuku at the moment, as if he had grown a second head. Izuku was minding his own business now in the support studio, as he just hummed a song as he worked on whatever he had gotten his hands on at the moment.
Izuku was now in a state of mind in which he was starting to actually try to act like a support course student and tried to build something, even though it was clear that whatever talent he showed to build an electric motorcycle wasn’t translating that well into working on whatever support item he had mindlessly set himself to work on. The attempt was genuine, and it wasn’t, as Izuku wasn’t making any real progress in whatever he was building, but everyone in class 1-H was still too unsure about Izuku to even get curious about what he was doing in case he got hostile with them, as he did with his ex-classmates.
Izuku’s week-long spite-fueled stint may have been as violent as a volcanic eruption...but said fury and rage were solely focused on his ex-classmates and the heroes that were against him. At worst, his new classmates were on the receiving end of a condescending glare or two, as even when Izuku was filled with anger at the world and willing to make everyone around him suffer...Izuku wasn’t someone who harmed those who hadn’t done anything to him. His ex-classmates that were so eager to make a united front against him and constantly tell him to quit the hero course because he was a liability because he was quirkless, and those teachers that not only allowed Eraserhead to get away with what he had done but were backing him up as they tried to discourage him from being in the hero course in a more polite way, but held the same opinion as Eraserhead, were fair game to Izuku’s anger in those moments. While punching Eraserhead crossed his mind, the only time he tried to talk to him—to tell him to grow up, stop with that petty tantrum, and stop wasting everyone's time—would have been catharsis. Izuku simply told him that the moment the Nomu had his head in one of his hands and was about to crush his skull, the only reason he was still alive is because he took over that monster and refused to crush his head like a ripe fruit, even if he wanted to do it after all that he had said and done to him before the USJ; and that got the hero to not only look at him with shock on his face, but to leave him alone.
“Midoriya...?” Power Loader said. He was looking at Izuku now, and saw that while that anger in his eyes was still there in the way that Izuku looked at him for a couple of seconds before he changed his face to be less hostile, there was a softer glint in his eyes that wasn’t there during Izuku’s apathetic phase in class.
“Yes...? Do you need something from me, Sensei...?” Izuku said. His tone was more neutral than aggressive, but the hero was still somewhat cautious around a student who had shown to be quite volatile for a whole month before the incident in Hosu.
“Principal Nezu wishes to talk with you about what happened during the Hosu incident...” Izuku could have acted surprised at those words, but it wasn't as if what he had done there wouldn’t have ended up with him in this situation. Izuku left that screwdriver on the table and then simply sighed.
“Fine...Let’s see what that rat wants now...” Izuku said. If Power Loader needed something to know that Izuku was still upset, then to hear how Izuku referred to Nezu as a rat with that disdain in his voice could only prove he needed to reach that conclusion.
Nezu considered that Izuku still had that heroic spirit that once drove him, even if it was now buried under anger and bitterness—emotions that led him to walk away from the Hero course and join the Support course out of spite. Power Loader, for all his agreement with Nezu, still felt the best course of action was not to pressure Izuku, but to let him work through his anger and negative emotions at his own pace, hoping he would eventually find some healing. Meanwhile, the hero community was insistent when it came to those who seemed a perfect fit, and Izuku’s heroic actions during the Hosu incident—showing not just how flashy his quirk was, but also how powerful—had only increased his value as a potential hero. That, in turn, made Nezu fear U.A.’s reputation might suffer from not having Izuku in the hero course despite his clear credentials, unless they forced him back into it. After the blowback U.A. faced due to Bakugo’s behavior during the sports festival, and Bakugo’s anger when Izuku’s actions were broadcast on TV, Nezu wanted to take steps to prevent U.A.’s name from being dragged through the mud when people inevitably wondered why someone like Izuku wasn’t in the hero course—especially when there was a villain in the making, like Bakugo, still present.
But sadly. Power Loader knew that any sensible choice in this situation would be ignored as Nezu focused on Izuku after his quirk manifested, and the power it showed piqued his interest, leading him to take reckless steps to get closer to what he wanted. Unless Izuku fully walked away from U.A. or found a way to outmaneuver Nezu in a way that his desires to force Izuku back into the hero course would be foiled, Nezu wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted.
Power Loader may not have had a strong relationship with Izuku, even though he was now his student, but he did take his role as home room teacher seriously, and Izuku was under his care now, even if it was just a formality at the moment. He just hoped that the situation would calm down eventually, but only time would tell how this mess would be resolved.
It was now round three in this particular fight between Nezu and Izuku. And while Nezu believed that now he had enough leverage to force Izuku’s hand to return to the hero course because he had committed a crime when he used his quirk to turn the tide during that incident with Stain, and tried to imply that he would deal with any legal issue that his actions could have on him if he moved to the hero course, Nezu still failed to understand that one simple action born of human decency from Izuku’s part that drove him to act in a fully heroic way the past day in Hosu didn’t mean that Izuku was fully back into the heroic mindset.
Izuku told Nezu in fewer words that he didn’t care at all about the consequences, as he knew how society treated people with the right quirk, and whatever consequences could befall on him because he broke the law would not only be swept away under the rug because his quirk was flashy, but also that people would look positively on him because he did something heroic and worthy of breaking the law. Izuku remembered quite well how people in Mustafu were that eager to praise Bakugo’s quirk all the time and didn’t consider his bullying other kids in the middle of the street with his quirk as a villainous action, but as a hero hopeful getting quite rowdy with others, and only got an occasional slap in the wrist that amounted to nothing more than a half-hearted warning to get bakugo to relent when he got dangerously close to permanently harm someone. So he knew that genuine acts of heroism that actively helped people wouldn’t even become a problem for Izuku, even though Nezu tried to tell him that he had gotten himself in a lot of trouble.
That session of politeness judo between both of them ended again in a stalemate that left both sides in the same position, with Izuku still out of the hero course and with Nezu still unable to get what he wanted, but then Nezu decided to bring up the topic about Izuku’s quirk.
"I don't need anyone to teach me how to use it. I figured it out the moment it made a dive into that heroine's soul." Izuku said, directly refusing Nezu's attempts to involve him in a controlled training session—especially with Eraserhead present to neutralize his quirk should things go wrong. Izuku had no intention of seeing Eraserhead again until he saw him defeated and broken.
“Soul...?” Nezu said. The topic of what kind of power Izuku obtained because of his quirk was something that had kept him awake some nights as he pondered what could be, so to hear from Izuku that it was related to something more mystical than tangible caught him by surprise.
“Yeah...soul, I can turn into a being of pure energy and dive into a person’s body to reach their soul in order to connect with them to see what they see, to feel what they feel...and to know what they know...” Izuku said. He knew that it was a risky move doing this, as the last thing he wanted was to give Nezu any more reasons to force him to return to the hero course, but as Scheherazade did with that wicked king in order to prolong her life for 1001 days. Izuku was going to give Nezu small crumbs of information in order to keep him not only interested in him, but also to make his refusal to return to the hero course more frustrating, as the more bits of info that he got from him about his powers, the more Nezu would want to get him back into the hero course.
“I see...” Nezu said. As Izuku predicted, Nezu then started to listen to his words about his quirk, as his quirk was something that was quite unheard of. Izuku took great pains not reveal all the information that he knew, as he wanted to keep Nezu on the hook for a long time in order to make him feel how Izuku had felt his whole life about his dreams of heroism and how U.A. made what could have been a glorious moment into something unbearable, but he shared a little bit of information.
“Melodia was mortally wounded when I decided to move inside that battlefield, and there was something that pushed me to use my quirk even if I didn’t want to. But considering that she is alive now, I ended up using my quirk there anyway.” Izuku said. He made a vague description of his experience as he activated his quirk first to peer into her soul as she was dying, not talking about how he had seen some of her most emotional memories and how those memories had moved him to save her, and how he then returned to his body before fully diving into the heroine’s near dead body to revive her and save her life in the process.
Nezu pestered him with questions about how that process felt, what kind of energy his body was composed of when he activated his quirk, and if the process of diving into a person’s body was what had empowered Melodia’s quirk to allow her to sing a song that healed and protected people over a wide radius when her quirk only allowed her to calm and soothe people that heard her voice when singing. Izuku gave him vague answers, not only because he was unwilling to answer those questions fully, but because some of them were things that not even Izuku knew yet.
“Who knows...That was the second time that I used my quirk, and while I was able to be more in control of it and became more aware of its inner workings when I used it on Melodia, there are things that still eluded me about this quirk of mine.” Izuku said. He was being half-truthful here, as while there were things that he was learning about his quirk, Izuku had decided that he had shared enough for the day and was going to leave Nezu hanging there.
Izuku wasn’t going to share how he had learned in a way to replicate a more or less powerful version of what Melodia did when he dived into her soul and temporarily fused with her with his own quirk, as that detail would definitely make Nezu never relent on his pursuit of being a hero until he either caved in or found a way to get around Nezu’s desire that would disarm him.
“...To see what lies inside a soul...to soothe the pain that lies within...and to turn that pain...into power...that is the true source of your strength...” Those words that echoed in his head, in a way, gave a basic explanation of how his quirk worked. He saw what lay on the souls of that creature in the USJ and that heroine, and soothed the pain that they suffered in those moments. The Nomu got a small comfort before it was destroyed, and that heroine was revived when she was about to die. From that experience, Izuku gained greater power.
What he gained wasn’t something that he would share with Nezu, as Izuku refused to open himself to anyone who had slighted him or had been an accomplice of those who made him miserable, and while Izuku was able to understand that not everyone in U.A. had been that intent on opposing him like Eraserhead, part of U.A. faculty and Class 1-A, had been with him. Izuku wasn’t sure that everyone else in U.A. would be better than those bastards who had soured him on being a hero.
Izuku walked away from Nezu’s office after he considered that he had shared enough information, and then moved on with his life. He had now better things to do than to give a damn about U.A.’s toxic environment and how U.A. wanted him to be back on the hero course now that he showed that he had a flashy quirk that made him a perfect fit for heroics.
A hero society that considers people like Eraserhead heroes, despite all the lives he ruined with his false expulsion scares and his refusal to do his job because he was tired of being an underground hero, and believed that undeserving students like Bakugo deserved to be in the hero course simply because he had a flashy and heroic quirk, regardless of his clear villainous behavior, was something that Izuku had no desire to be part of. As far as Izuku was concerned, U.A. and Japan could suffocate in the toxic environment they actively cultivated.