What if deku had transformed quirk muscles and having the strength of all might and having the speed of ingenium

 

 

 

 

Not all men are created equal.

 

It was a harsh, immutable truth of the world, one that society had to swallow when the first glowing baby was born in Qing-qing City, China. From that moment on, the paradigm of human existence fractured. The impossible became possible. The extraordinary became the mundane. Quirks—supernatural abilities ranging from the godlike to the utterly useless—spread across the globe like wildfire until eighty percent of the population possessed one.

 

For four-year-old Izuku Midoriya, this truth had yet to fully set in. He was at the age of pure, unadulterated anticipation. Four was the magic number. It was the age when the genetic lottery spun its wheel and bestowed upon you the power that would define the rest of your life. Every day, Izuku woke up, stared at his hands, and waited for something—anything—to happen. Would he breathe fire like his father? Would he be able to pull small objects toward him like his mother? Or would he manifest some rare, incredible combination of the two?

 

He wanted to be a hero. More specifically, he wanted to be like him. All Might. The Symbol of Peace. A towering colossus of righteous strength who saved hundreds of people with a fearless, booming laugh. Izuku had watched the video of All Might’s debut a thousand times, studying the sheer physical perfection, the overwhelming speed, and the undeniable power that made villains tremble.

 

But as the months passed since his fourth birthday, doubt had begun to creep into the back of his mind. A quiet, suffocating fear. What if I don't get a Quirk?

 

That fear followed him to the neighborhood playground on a stiflingly hot Tuesday afternoon. The air was thick with humidity, the cicadas screaming in the surrounding trees. But their noise was entirely drowned out by a sound much closer, and much more intimidating.

 

Pop! Pop! Crackle!

 

Katsuki Bakugo stood in the center of the sandbox, grinning with a ferocity that seemed unnatural for a boy his age. Small, bright explosions sparked from the palms of his hands, emitting the sharp, acrid scent of burnt sugar and ozone. He was a prodigy, and everyone knew it. His Quirk, 'Explosion,' had manifested a few weeks prior, and since then, Katsuki had ascended to the throne of the playground hierarchy.

 

"Wow, Kacchan! Your Quirk is so awesome!" one of the neighborhood kids cheered, eyes wide with idolization.

 

"Of course it is," Katsuki sneered, puffing out his chest. "It’s a hero's Quirk. I'm gonna be the greatest hero ever, even better than All Might! And the rest of you are just gonna be my sidekicks. If you're lucky."

 

Izuku stood at the edge of the sandbox, clutching an All Might action figure to his chest. He admired Kacchan. He really did. Katsuki was confident, strong, and fearless—everything Izuku wanted to be. But Katsuki was also mean.

 

That meanness was currently directed at a boy sitting in the dirt behind Katsuki, crying softly. The boy had accidentally bumped into Katsuki while running, and as a result, Katsuki had shoved him down and demanded an apology. When the boy had stuttered, Katsuki had set off an explosion near the kid's face to "teach him a lesson."

 

Izuku’s legs felt like lead. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. Every instinct in his small, fragile body screamed at him to stay back, to keep quiet, to not draw the ire of the boy with literal bombs for hands. He didn't have a Quirk yet. He was defenseless.

 

But his feet moved anyway.

 

Before his brain could fully process what he was doing, Izuku stepped between Katsuki and the crying boy. He held his arms out wide in a protective stance, though his entire frame was shaking so violently he looked like a leaf in a hurricane.

 

"T-That's mean, Kacchan!" Izuku’s voice was high-pitched, cracking with terror. Tears pricked the corners of his large green eyes. "Can't you see he's crying? I-If you keep going, I-I-I'll stop you myself!"

 

Katsuki paused, the sparks dying down in his palms as he stared at Izuku. For a moment, the playground was dead silent, save for the hum of the cicadas. Then, Katsuki's lips curled into a vicious, mocking sneer.

 

"You?" Katsuki stepped forward, slamming his fist into his open palm. A much larger explosion cracked through the air, making Izuku flinch. "You don't even have a Quirk yet, Deku. You're just a weak, Quirkless nobody. What can you do?"

 

"I-I don't know!" Izuku squeaked, squeezing his eyes shut. "But heroes don't hurt people!"

 

That was the wrong thing to say. Katsuki’s pride flared hotter than his explosions. The idea that this trembling, useless crybaby was trying to lecture him about being a hero was an insult he couldn't let slide.

 

"You think you can play hero with me, Deku?!" Katsuki roared, lunging forward. He reeled his right arm back, sweat igniting in his palm, preparing to deliver an explosive right hook directly to Izuku's face.

 

Izuku crossed his arms over his face and braced for the pain. He squeezed his eyes shut, his heart rate skyrocketing to a terrifying rhythm. His breathing became shallow and erratic. Panic, pure and unfiltered, flooded his system.

 

I need to be strong, Izuku thought desperately as the heat of the explosion neared his face. I need to be strong enough to stop him. Strong like All Might! Fast enough to get away! Please!

 

Then, something inside Izuku snapped.

 

It wasn't a metaphorical snap. It was a deeply physical, biological trigger. Deep within his DNA, an inactive sequence violently stitched itself together, catalyzed by the sudden, massive spike of adrenaline and fear.

 

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

 

Izuku felt a sudden, blinding heat originate in his core. It wasn't the external heat of Katsuki’s explosion; it was an internal inferno. His blood felt like it was turning into liquid magma, rushing through his veins at an impossible speed.

 

Thump-Thump.

 

His heartbeat echoed in his ears, but it didn't sound like a heart anymore. It sounded metallic. Heavy. Like the idle revving of a massive diesel engine.

 

VROOOOM.

 

"What the—" Katsuki’s voice was cut off.

 

Izuku’s eyes snapped open. The sclera, usually white, had become bloodshot from intense internal pressure. He looked down at his arms just in time to see his favorite long-sleeved shirt rip to shreds.

 

His muscles were expanding. No, they were erupting.

 

Fibers of muscle tissue multiplied and dense-packed themselves by the millisecond. His scrawny, four-year-old arms swelled, turning into thick, heavily corded trunks of hyper-dense muscle. His chest expanded, shredding the front of his shirt entirely. His shoulders broadened, packing on a terrifying amount of mass that defied all laws of physics and biology. He wasn't growing taller, but his body was ballooning into a miniature, absurdly muscled powerhouse. The sheer density of his new mass made the ground beneath his red sneakers crunch and sink into the sand.

 

But the transformation wasn’t just muscular.

 

A searing, tearing pain ripped through his calves and the undersides of his forearms. Izuku let out a breathless gasp as metallic structures forcefully pushed their way out from beneath his skin. Bloodless, biological metal grafted itself to his bone and muscle. From the back of each of his massive calves, three chrome exhaust pipes burst forth, gleaming in the summer sun. Similar, slightly smaller dual-pipes emerged from his forearms.

 

Izuku, now looking like a heavily muscled, biomechanical titan shrunk down to the height of a toddler, stood frozen. Steam—scalding hot and smelling faintly of high-octane gasoline—hissed from the pipes on his body.

 

Katsuki’s fist, carrying the explosion, finally connected with Izuku’s crossed arms.

 

Boom!

 

The smoke cleared a second later. Izuku hadn't moved an inch. He hadn't even blinked. Katsuki’s explosion had washed over his hyper-dense skin and dispersed like a gentle breeze against a concrete wall.

 

Katsuki’s crimson eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. He stared at his hand, then at the smoking, absurdly muscular boy standing before him. The imposing shadow Izuku now cast swallowed Katsuki whole.

 

"D-Deku...?" Katsuki whispered, his bravado entirely evaporating.

 

Izuku was equally terrified. He felt incredibly heavy, yet at the same time, thrumming with so much kinetic energy he felt like he was going to vibrate apart. His body was running hot—too hot. The metallic tubes in his legs began to glow with a faint orange heat.

 

"Kacchan... I... I feel funny..." Izuku whimpered. Because his chest cavity had expanded so drastically, his voice no longer squeaked; it resonated with a bizarre, booming baritone that sounded utterly ridiculous coming from a four-year-old.

 

The heat in his legs became unbearable. Izuku shifted his weight, instinctively stepping back to get away from the sensation.

 

That was his first mistake.

 

The moment his foot pushed against the sand, the engines in his calves roared to life. A deafening, mechanical screech tore through the playground, followed by a violent burst of blue exhaust flame shooting out of the pipes on his legs.

 

KRA-KOOM!

 

The sheer propulsive force of the engines, combined with the impossible, All Might-level strength of his hyper-dense leg muscles, caused the ground beneath him to simply give up. A crater ten feet wide and three feet deep exploded outward in a shockwave of sand and dirt. Katsuki and the other children were blown backward by the gale-force wind, tumbling into the grass.

 

Izuku didn't just step back; he launched himself.

 

Like a cannonball fired from a battleship, Izuku shot backward through the air at a blistering, incalculable speed. The playground was a blur. He traveled fifty yards in a fraction of a second. He had no control, no understanding of his trajectory, and no way to stop.

 

CRASH!

 

Izuku slammed back-first into the massive trunk of a centuries-old oak tree at the edge of the park. The impact sounded like a car crash. The ancient tree shuddered violently, its thick bark splintering as a dent the exact size of Izuku’s body was carved into the wood. Leaves rained down by the thousands.

 

For a terrifying moment, there was silence.

 

Then, with a weak hiss of steam from his leg pipes, Izuku’s body rapidly deflated. The hyper-dense muscle melted away in an instant, and the metal exhaust pipes retracted smoothly back into his skin, leaving no scars, only smooth, unblemished skin. He fell out of the indentation in the tree and landed in the grass with a soft thump, back to his scrawny, four-year-old self, wearing nothing but the shredded rags of his clothes.

 

He lay there for a second, blinking up at the sky. His entire body ached with a dull, throbbing exhaustion he had never felt before. His stomach, completely empty, let out a loud, rumbling growl.

 

Then, the shock set in.

 

"WAAAAAAAAAH!" Izuku burst into a flood of tears, the pain and the sheer terror of what had just happened finally breaking his composure.

 

Back at the sandbox, Katsuki slowly picked himself up from the dirt. His ears were ringing from the sonic boom. He coughed, waving the dust away, and looked at the massive crater where Deku had just been standing. He looked at the trail of torn-up grass leading all the way to the oak tree, where the so-called "weakling" was currently sobbing.

 

Katsuki’s hands began to tremble. It wasn't just fear. It was an existential threat.

 

His whole life—all four years of it—he had been told he was the best. He was the strongest. His explosion Quirk was unparalleled. But in three seconds, Izuku Midoriya had produced a display of raw, catastrophic physical power and blistering speed that made Katsuki’s explosions look like cheap firecrackers.

 

Deku had blocked his attack without flinching. Deku had broken the ground just by stepping.

 

Katsuki stared at his shaking hands. The superiority he had built his entire identity upon cracked. In its place, a dark, fiercely competitive inferno ignited. He gritted his teeth, his expression twisting into a scowl of pure, unadulterated rivalry.

 

He lied to me, Katsuki thought, his adolescent brain completely misinterpreting the situation. He had a Quirk all along. He was just looking down on me. He thinks he's better than me!

 

From that day forward, the dynamic between them changed. Izuku was no longer a pebble on the side of Katsuki's road to greatness. He was a mountain that Katsuki had to conquer. No matter what it took.

 

 

 

"Well, Mrs. Midoriya, I can safely say I have never seen a Quirk quite like this in all my years of practice."

 

Doctor Tsubasa, a stout, bald man with a bushy mustache, adjusted his glasses as he looked at the illuminated X-ray on his wall. Inko Midoriya sat in the patient chair, twisting her hands nervously in her lap. Izuku sat on the examination table next to her, happily eating his fourth consecutive protein bar provided by the nursing staff. Since waking up at the park, he had complained of a hunger so intense it made him dizzy.

 

"Is he okay, Doctor?" Inko asked, her voice trembling. "When they called me from the park, they said he destroyed a tree. I-I was so terrified."

 

"Physically, he is perfectly healthy," Dr. Tsubasa assured her, turning to face them. He tapped a pen against the X-ray, which showed Izuku’s legs. Normally, one would see the tibia and fibula. In Izuku’s X-ray, nestled perfectly alongside the bone and intertwined with the muscle tissue, were dense, metallic structures resembling the internal workings of a high-performance rotary engine.

 

"Your son possesses a Transformation-type Quirk," the doctor explained. "It appears to be a highly complex amalgamation of genetic traits. Does anyone in your family have a mechanical or strength-enhancement Quirk?"

 

Inko blinked. "W-Well, my husband breathes fire. And my great-grandfather had a Quirk that allowed him to run like a steam locomotive, but it was very weak. Only good for marathons."

 

"Fascinating," the doctor muttered. "It seems Izuku has experienced a rare genetic mutation that combined the heat-generation aspect of his father's fire-breathing, the mechanical biology of his great-grandfather, and a spontaneous, exponential muscle-density multiplier. When activated, his body dramatically increases its own mass, turning his muscle fibers into hyper-dense tissue capable of withstanding immense pressure and delivering devastating force."

 

Izuku stopped chewing his protein bar, his large eyes widening. "Like... Like All Might?"

 

Dr. Tsubasa chuckled. "In a way, yes, young man. Your physical strength, when transformed, is staggering. Furthermore, his body generates biological engines in his calves and forearms, allowing him to expel the immense heat generated by his shifting mass as a form of propulsion. It gives him explosive speed."

 

"T-That sounds incredibly dangerous," Inko gasped, clutching her chest. "He could hurt himself! Or someone else!"

 

"Indeed. A Quirk of this magnitude comes with severe, and I mean severe, physiological drawbacks," Dr. Tsubasa warned, his tone growing serious. "Mrs. Midoriya, the law of conservation of mass states that matter cannot be created from nothing. When Izuku transforms, his body has to pull the energy to create that hyper-dense muscle from somewhere."

 

"From where?"

 

"His own caloric reserves," the doctor said bluntly. "To put it simply, his Quirk burns energy at a catastrophic rate. If he activates his power without a massive amount of calories in his system, his body will begin to cannibalize its own fat and muscle tissue to fuel the transformation. He could starve to death in minutes."

 

Inko paled. "S-Starve?"

 

"Yes. Furthermore, there is the issue of heat. The engines in his legs are his body's way of venting the intense thermal energy his muscles generate. If he pushes his strength or speed too far, his engines will overheat. If they stall, the heat will be trapped in his body, cooking his internal organs, and tearing his muscles to shreds." Dr. Tsubasa sighed, rubbing his chin. "I'm formally registering his Quirk under the name 'Titan Engine'. But I must stress this, Mrs. Midoriya. He must not use this Quirk carelessly. He needs to eat. Constantly. A high-protein, incredibly high-calorie diet is mandatory for his survival."

 

Inko looked at her small, fragile-looking son. The idea that such a monstrous, demanding power resided inside him terrified her. But Izuku wasn't looking at the doctor with fear.

 

Izuku was staring at his hands, a massive, bright smile spreading across his face.

 

I have a Quirk, Izuku thought, his heart soaring. I have a Quirk that makes me strong and fast. Just like him.

 

"Mom!" Izuku beamed, bouncing on the examination table. "Did you hear that? I'm gonna be a hero! I'm gonna be a hero just like All Might!"

 

Inko forced a smile, though tears pricked her eyes. "Yes, Izuku. You're going to be a great hero."

 

 

 

Ten Years Later

 

Aldera Junior High was not known for producing greatness. It was a perfectly average public middle school in a perfectly average district. The student body was a mix of minor, flashy Quirks and mundane ones. Yet, among the sea of average teenagers, two students stood out like sore thumbs.

 

One was Katsuki Bakugo. He was the undisputed king of the school, possessing a Quirk so powerful and versatile that Pro Heroes had already begun eyeing him for sidekick positions before he had even graduated. He was loud, aggressive, and fiercely arrogant.

 

The other was Izuku Midoriya.

 

At fourteen years old, Izuku had not grown into the physical colossus one might expect. In his "base form," he remained surprisingly scrawny. He had untamable green hair, a smattering of freckles across his cheeks, and a perpetually nervous posture. He slouched, kept his head down, and mumbled to himself constantly while scribbling in heavily battered notebooks.

 

But there was one defining feature of Izuku Midoriya that made him an anomaly, a sight that every student at Aldera had simply grown accustomed to seeing.

 

He rolled a massive, seventy-quart, industrial-grade camping cooler with him absolutely everywhere he went.

 

Clack-clack-clack.

 

The heavy plastic wheels of the blue cooler rattled against the linoleum floor of the hallway as Izuku dragged it behind him toward his homeroom classroom. It was nearly half his size, strapped with bungee cords, and covered in hero stickers.

 

"Hey, Midoriya," a student called out as he walked past. "Whatcha got in the box today?"

 

"Oh, um, good morning!" Izuku stammered, bowing slightly. "Just the usual! Two dozen boiled eggs, five pounds of grilled chicken breast, a few trays of lasagna, and, uh, some protein shakes."

 

The student sweatdropped. "Right. Have a good one, man."

 

Izuku sighed, continuing his trek. Living with the Titan Engine Quirk was an exhausting, expensive endeavor. His metabolism in his base form was already incredibly high to compensate for his resting muscle density, but if he ever needed to actually use his Quirk, he required an absurd amount of fuel. He had to consume roughly ten thousand calories a day just to maintain his baseline health, and upward of twenty thousand if he engaged in any physical training. His mother worked overtime just to keep the fridge stocked, and Izuku had taken up a part-time job cleaning a local beach just to pay for his own groceries.

 

He rarely used his Quirk. In fact, he hadn't fully transformed since the playground incident a decade ago.

 

He had learned early on that his power was simply too destructive for modern society. When he activated Titan Engine, his body mass tripled. His strength became so overwhelming that trying to open a door would rip it off its hinges. Trying to walk would crack the pavement. And his engines... they were too loud, too hot, and too fast. He couldn't maneuver in tight spaces without his exhaust flames setting things on fire or his propulsion sending him crashing through walls.

 

So, he suppressed it. He studied heroes instead, filling notebook after notebook with hyper-detailed analyses of Quirks, fighting styles, and rescue tactics. He figured that if he wanted to be a hero with a Quirk he could barely control, he needed to make his brain his strongest weapon.

 

Izuku arrived at his classroom, navigating the bulky cooler through the door and parking it next to his desk at the back of the room. He sat down with a heavy sigh, popping the latch on the cooler and pulling out a large, foil-wrapped breakfast burrito. He took a massive bite, pulling out his notebook labeled Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13.

 

"Morning, Deku."

 

Izuku froze. The temperature in the room seemed to drop, even as the smell of burnt sugar drifted into his nostrils. He slowly looked up to see Katsuki Bakugo standing over his desk, his red eyes narrowed into a familiar, dangerous glare.

 

"M-Morning, Kacchan," Izuku mumbled through a mouthful of burrito.

 

Katsuki leaned in, placing his hands flat on Izuku’s desk. Small wisps of smoke curled from his palms, singing the wood. "I saw you watching that giant villain fight at Tatooin Station this morning. Taking more of your stupid little notes."

 

"It was a really interesting fight!" Izuku defended weakly, swallowing his food. "Kamui Woods was there, and a new hero named Mount Lady debuted! Her gigantification Quirk is fascinating, though the structural damage to the surrounding infrastructure is a bit problematic for city zoning—"

 

"Shut up," Katsuki interrupted, his voice a low growl. "I don't care about some giant bimbo. I care about the fact that you're still planning on applying to U.A. High School."

 

Izuku flinched, instinctively pulling his notebook closer to his chest. U.A. was the most prestigious hero academy in the country. It was All Might’s alma mater. It was the dream.

 

"I... I have to try, Kacchan," Izuku said, his voice quiet but surprisingly steady. "It's been my dream since we were kids."

 

Katsuki’s expression darkened. To anyone else, the dynamic between them looked like classic bullying. But it was far more complicated than that. Katsuki didn't bully Izuku because he thought Izuku was weak.

 

He bullied Izuku because he knew exactly what was hiding beneath that scrawny exterior.

 

Katsuki had never forgotten the crater. He had never forgotten the sonic boom, or the sight of Izuku tanking his explosion without a scratch. For ten years, Katsuki had trained his body and his Quirk relentlessly, pushing himself to the absolute brink, all driven by the fear that one day, the kid with the monstrous engines would stop holding back. The fact that Izuku walked around acting meek, hiding his godlike power behind a nerdy demeanor and a giant lunchbox, infuriated Katsuki to no end. It felt like an insult. Like Izuku was looking down on him, not even bothering to flex his strength because he didn't think Katsuki was worth it.

 

"You think just because you've got that freakish meat-engine inside you, you're better than me?" Katsuki hissed, a small explosion popping in his palm. "You think you can just waltz into U.A. and show me up, Deku?"

 

"N-No! Of course not!" Izuku waved his hands frantically. "I don't think I'm better than you, Kacchan! Your Quirk is amazing! You have so much control, and your combat instincts are incredible! I-I can't even use my Quirk without destroying the room or passing out from heatstroke! I just... I just want to stand in the same ring. I want to save people."

 

Katsuki scoffed, pulling his hands back and shoving them into his pockets. "Whatever. Just remember what I said. I'm going to be the only one from this crappy middle school to make it into U.A. I'm going to be the undisputed Number One. If you get in my way with those stupid exhaust pipes of yours, I'll blow you to ash before you can even rev up."

 

With that, Katsuki turned and stalked back to his seat at the front of the class, kicking his feet up onto his desk.

 

Izuku let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He reached into his cooler, grabbed a cold carton of milk, and pressed it against his forehead to cool his nerves.

 

"Settle down, everyone," Mr. Woods, their homeroom teacher, said as he walked into the room carrying a stack of papers. "As third-year students, it's time to start thinking seriously about your futures and what you want to do with your lives. I could pass out these career aptitude tests..."

 

The teacher paused, a smirk crossing his face as he dramatically threw the stack of papers into the air.

 

"But why bother? I know you all want to go to the hero track!"

 

The classroom erupted into cheers. Students began showing off their Quirks—stretching limbs, shooting small bursts of water, floating books in the air.

 

"Yes, yes, you all have wonderful Quirks," the teacher chuckled. "But no Quirk usage in school, please. Keep it under control."

 

"Hey, teach!" Katsuki called out, leaning back in his chair with an arrogant grin. "Don't lump me in with this bunch of losers. I'm not gonna be stuck at the bottom of the barrel with these D-listers. I'm the real deal."

 

The class instantly turned on him, shouting insults and complaining about his ego.

 

"You've all got weak Quirks!" Katsuki laughed, completely unfazed. "I've already aced all the mock tests! I'm the only one here who has the stuff to get into U.A. High. I'm gonna surpass All Might and become the top hero!"

 

"Oh, right," Mr. Woods said, looking at his clipboard. "Midoriya, you're applying to U.A. too, aren't you?"

 

The classroom fell dead silent.

 

All eyes slowly turned to the back of the room, where Izuku was currently mid-bite of a boiled egg. He froze like a deer in headlights.

 

For a moment, no one said anything. Unlike a Quirkless kid, the class knew Izuku had a Quirk. They had seen the sheer size of the meals he ate. They had heard the occasional, muffled clank of metal hitting the floor when he dropped a pencil and bent down too quickly. But because he never used it, and because his personality was so timid, they had largely written him off.

 

Then, Katsuki slammed both hands onto his desk, standing up abruptly. The aggression in his posture silenced any murmurs from the peanut gallery. He turned slowly, his crimson eyes locking onto Izuku.

 

"U.A. doesn't accept cowards who are afraid of their own shadows, Deku," Katsuki snarled across the room. "You can have all the raw horsepower in the world, but if you don't have the guts to press the gas, you're nothing."

 

Izuku swallowed his food hard. He looked down at his desk, his hands gripping the edges tightly. Kacchan was right. He was afraid. He was terrified of his own power. Every time he felt the engines in his legs threaten to spark, he remembered the shattering of the tree and the crater in the playground. He remembered the doctor's warnings about cooking himself alive.

 

But as he looked at his notebook—at the smiling, triumphant face of All Might drawn on the cover—a small, stubborn spark of resolve flickered in his chest.

 

I don't have control yet, Izuku thought, closing the notebook and packing it into his bag. But U.A. is where I'll learn. I have to go.

 

"I'm applying, Kacchan," Izuku said, his voice low, but carrying enough weight to reach the front of the room. He met Katsuki's fierce gaze with a calm, albeit nervous, green one. "And I'm going to get in."

 

Katsuki’s eye twitched. The sound of small, popping explosions crackled from his palms. The rest of the class leaned away from him, sensing the imminent danger. But the teacher quickly clapped his hands, breaking the tension.

 

"Alright, alright, that's enough," Mr. Woods said. "Settle down, Bakugo. Midoriya, please focus on the lesson. And for heaven's sake, put the lasagna away."

 

The school day passed by in a blur of mundane math equations and history lectures. When the final bell rang, Izuku was the first to pack up. He strapped his cooler shut, grabbed the handle, and hurried out of the classroom before Katsuki could corner him again. He needed to get to the grocery store. Chicken breasts were on sale, and he needed at least ten pounds for the weekend.

 

He charted a shortcut through the underpass, the heavy wheels of his cooler echoing loudly in the damp, shadowy tunnel. He was humming a theme song from an old hero cartoon, his mind completely preoccupied with calculating his caloric budget for the week.

 

He didn't notice the strange, gurgling sound coming from the manhole cover behind him.

 

He didn't notice the dark, viscous liquid seeping out of the grate, pooling onto the concrete, and slowly rising into a towering, gelatinous mass.

 

It wasn't until a cold, foul-smelling shadow fell over him that Izuku stopped humming.

 

"Well, well," a wet, slithering voice echoed through the underpass.

 

Izuku turned around slowly. His eyes widened in absolute horror.

 

Towering over him was a villain made entirely of dark green sludge. Two massive, bulbous eyes floated near the top of the mass, along with a jagged mouth filled with uneven teeth. The creature shifted and gurgled, its body reeking of sewage and rot.

 

"A medium-sized invisibility cloak," the Sludge Villain rasped, its eyes locking onto Izuku’s scrawny frame. "Perfect. I was running out of time. Don't worry, kid. It'll only hurt for about forty-five seconds. Then, it'll all be over."

 

Before Izuku could even scream, the villain lunged.

 

A massive wave of sludge crashed down on him, knocking him to his knees. The foul liquid forced its way into his mouth and nose, instantly cutting off his air supply. Izuku gagged, his hands flying to his throat, trying frantically to tear the sludge away. But it was like trying to grab water. His fingers just slipped right through.

 

"Stop fighting it," the villain hissed gleefully, sliding further down Izuku’s throat. "You can't grab me. Just let me take over your body. It's a win-win. I get to hide from that blond maniac, and you get to stop breathing!"

 

Izuku’s vision began to swim. Black spots danced at the edges of his sight. His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen. He thrashed violently, kicking his legs, but the sludge held him down with surprising strength.

 

I can't breathe... Izuku thought, panic setting in. I'm going to die. I'm going to die right here in this tunnel!

 

His hand blindly grasped at the ground, hitting the side of his cooler.

 

No! Izuku’s mind rebelled. I can't die here! I have to be a hero!

 

The primal fear of death triggered something deep within him. It was the same biological switch that had flipped all those years ago on the playground. But this time, Izuku wasn't a four-year-old child. He was fourteen, with a decade's worth of stored calories and a desperate will to live.

 

I need power!

 

"What the...?" The Sludge Villain suddenly paused, its eyes widening in confusion. "Why is it getting so hot?"

 

Beneath the sludge, Izuku’s body began to rapidly undergo a catastrophic physical metamorphosis.

 

The temperature in the tunnel spiked dramatically. The sludge wrapped around Izuku began to bubble and boil, letting out hisses of steam.

 

"Gah! Hot! Hot!" the villain shrieked, recoiling slightly.

 

That brief loosening of the villain's grip was all the opening Izuku needed. The transformation finalized in a fraction of a second.

 

VROOOOOOM!

 

A deafening, mechanical roar echoed through the tunnel, sounding like a dozen sports cars revving their engines simultaneously.

 

The Sludge Villain was violently thrown backward as Izuku’s body exponentially expanded. His scrawny school uniform was utterly obliterated, shredding into confetti as hyper-dense muscles swelled to monstrous proportions. His shoulders broadened into boulders, his chest expanded into a massive barrel, and his arms thickened into tree trunks of corded, vascular muscle.

 

But it was his legs and arms that caused the most damage. From his calves and forearms, the heavy, chrome exhaust pipes forcefully punched through his skin. Blue flames—blistering, concentrated jets of thermal energy—erupted from the pipes, illuminating the dark tunnel in a blinding azure light.

 

Izuku stood up. He was no longer a scrawny teenager. He was a biomechanical colossus, a towering mass of muscle and metal radiating intense heat. The remaining sludge that clung to his face evaporated instantly from the sheer thermal output of his skin.

 

He took a massive gasp of air, his lungs expanding.

 

"What... what are you?!" the Sludge Villain stammered, recoiling in terror from the sudden, towering titan before him. "You were just a scrawny little brat!"

 

Izuku didn't respond. His eyes were glowing with a terrifying, primal intensity. The engines in his legs whined, spinning up to thousands of RPMs. The heat was unbearable. He needed to end this instantly before his body cooked itself.

 

He didn't even throw a punch. He just needed to get away.

 

Izuku bent his knees slightly, angling the exhaust pipes on his calves backward.

 

First Gear.

 

With a thunderous explosion of blue flame, Izuku kicked off the ground. The concrete beneath him shattered instantly, leaving a massive crater in the floor of the underpass.

 

He moved with a speed that completely defied his massive bulk. The Ingenium-level propulsion combined with his hyper-dense leg muscles created an explosive dash that broke the sound barrier inside the enclosed tunnel. The resulting shockwave was catastrophic. The sheer concussive force of his launch created a localized tornado of wind pressure that hit the Sludge Villain like a freight train.

 

The villain's liquid body was literally blown apart, splattering into a thousand gelatinous pieces across the walls and ceiling of the underpass.

 

Izuku shot forward like a bullet, exiting the tunnel in a blur of blue flame and muscle. He skidded to a halt on the street outside, his heavy red sneakers carving deep trenches into the asphalt.

 

He stood there, panting heavily. The exhaust pipes on his legs were glowing cherry-red, hissing steam into the afternoon air. His muscles ached, crying out from the sudden, massive caloric burn. He could feel his stomach completely empty itself of the morning's meals just to fuel that one, singular dash.

 

"I... I did it," Izuku gasped, looking at his massive, trembling hands. His deep, booming voice vibrated in his chest. "I used it."

 

Suddenly, a loud, metallic CLANG echoed from the tunnel behind him.

 

Izuku turned his massive head.

 

Standing at the entrance of the tunnel, holding a plastic grocery bag, was a man who needed no introduction. He was towering, immensely muscular, and wore a simple white t-shirt and cargo pants. His blond hair stood up in two distinct tufts, and a massive, fearless smile was plastered across his face.

 

It was All Might.

 

The Number One Hero had apparently been chasing the Sludge Villain into the tunnel, only to arrive just in time to see the villain blown to smithereens by the sheer wind pressure of Izuku's escape.

 

All Might stood there, blinking in rare, genuine surprise. He looked at the splattered remains of the villain on the tunnel walls, then looked at the massive crater in the concrete. Finally, his bright blue eyes locked onto Izuku.

 

He took in the sight of the boy: the hyper-dense, All Might-level muscle mass, the smoking exhaust pipes protruding from his calves and forearms, and the deep trenches carved into the street from his sheer speed.

 

For a moment, the two titans simply stared at each other.

 

Izuku, completely starstruck and overwhelmed, felt his Quirk give out. The massive caloric drain took its toll. With a pathetic hiss, the heavy muscle melted away, the pipes retracted, and Izuku shrank back down into a scrawny, trembling fourteen-year-old boy, standing in the middle of the street in nothing but his shredded underwear.

 

His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he tipped backward, passing out from the exhaustion.

 

Before he could hit the ground, a massive hand caught him.

 

All Might held the unconscious boy gently, looking down at him with a mixture of absolute awe and intense curiosity. He had been a hero for decades. He had seen thousands of Quirks, battled the strongest villains in the world, and possessed the greatest power known to mankind.

 

But as All Might looked at the smoking craters and the splattered villain, one thought crossed his mind.

 

Good lord, All Might thought, his trademark smile softening into a look of profound realization. What a magnificent power.

 

 

 

"Hey! Wake up! Come on, kid, back to the land of the living!"

 

A massive, calloused hand was gently, yet firmly, tapping the side of Izuku Midoriya's face.

 

Izuku groaned, his eyelids fluttering open. The harsh afternoon light filtered through his eyelashes, temporarily blinding him. His head throbbed, his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and his stomach was fiercely twisted into a painful, hollow knot. He felt a cool breeze wash over him, which was strange, considering he had been wearing his middle school uniform just a few moments prior.

 

"Ah, good! You're awake!"

 

The voice boomed like a brass bell, echoing off the concrete walls of the underpass.

 

Izuku’s vision cleared. Towering above him, silhouetted against the bright opening of the tunnel, was a mountain of a man. He had a chiseled jawline, a fearless, V-shaped smile, and two distinct tufts of blond hair standing tall on his head.

 

Izuku scrambled backward, his heart leaping into his throat. "A-A-All Might?!"

 

"In the flesh, young man!" All Might planted his hands on his hips, throwing his head back in a hearty laugh. "I must apologize! I’ve been tracking that villain all day, and I'm afraid I let him slip into the sewer system right beneath my nose. If you hadn't stepped in, things could have gone quite poorly! You have my thanks!"

 

Izuku looked around wildly. To his left, his massive blue cooler rested safely against the wall. Next to it, inside two empty two-liter soda bottles, were the viscous, gurgling remains of the Sludge Villain. All Might had apparently scraped the villain off the walls while Izuku was unconscious.

 

Then, Izuku looked down at himself.

 

He squeaked in horror, crossing his arms over his chest and pulling his knees up. When he had activated Titan Engine, the rapid, monstrous expansion of his muscle mass had completely shredded his school uniform. He was currently sitting in the middle of a public street wearing nothing but a tattered pair of All Might-themed boxer briefs and his red sneakers.

 

"M-My clothes!" Izuku stammered, his face turning the color of a tomato.

 

"Ah, yes! A side effect of your rather explosive Quirk, I presume!" All Might reached into his pocket and pulled out Izuku’s charred, completely ruined notebook. "I took the liberty of returning this to you. And I added a little something extra!"

 

Izuku took the notebook with trembling hands. He opened it to the centerfold. There, taking up two entire pages, was All Might’s sprawling, massive signature.

 

"AHH! It's a family heirloom! I'll pass it down for generations!" Izuku shrieked, bowing repeatedly until his forehead practically scraped the concrete.

 

"Well, I must be off!" All Might said, turning toward the street. He tapped his cargo pants, where the bottles containing the villain were securely tucked into his pockets. "I need to get this foul fellow to the authorities before he causes any more trouble. Stay safe, young man! And make sure you get something to eat—you look completely drained!"

 

All Might crouched, his immense leg muscles tensing like coiled springs.

 

Izuku panicked. This was his chance. He had spent his entire life idolizing this man, dreaming of the day he could stand beside him. But more than that, he desperately needed answers. His Quirk was a monster—a mechanical, hyper-dense titan that destroyed everything around him and threatened to cook him alive from the inside out. If anyone could understand the burden of catastrophic physical power, it was All Might.

 

"Wait!" Izuku cried out, scrambling to his feet. "I have to ask you something!"

 

"No time to chat! A pro is always busy!" All Might shouted.

 

BOOM.

 

With a shockwave that cracked the pavement, All Might launched himself into the sky, soaring over the city skyline like a human missile. The wind pressure kicked up a cloud of dust in his wake.

 

High above the city, All Might let out a breath, enjoying the feeling of the wind rushing past his face. That boy back there, he thought, recalling the terrifying display of blue flames and sheer kinetic force. That was a Quirk of extraordinary caliber. The sheer wind pressure he generated just by dashing... it rivaled my own Detroit Smash. If he learns to control it, he'll be a force of nature.

 

"Um... excuse me!"

 

All Might practically spat blood. He looked down.

 

Clinging to his leg for dear life, his cheeks flapping wildly in the intense wind pressure, was Izuku Midoriya. Still in his underwear.

 

"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" All Might bellowed, his eyes bulging out of his head. "LET GO! NO, DON'T LET GO! YOU'LL DIE!"

 

"I TOLD YOU I HAD A QUESTION!" Izuku screamed back, his eyes watering profusely. "MY EYES ARE DRYING OUT! AND MY STOMACH HURTS!"

 

"JUST HOLD ON! I'LL FIND A PLACE TO LAND!"

 

All Might frantically scanned the cityscape, spotting a tall, unoccupied commercial building. He adjusted his trajectory, angling downward and landing heavily on the rooftop, sliding a few feet against the gravel.

 

Izuku instantly let go of his leg, collapsing onto his hands and knees. He dry-heaved, trembling like a leaf. "Th-That was terrifying..."

 

"Good grief, boy! What were you thinking?!" All Might scolded, rubbing the back of his neck. "I understand you're a fan, but that was incredibly reckless! If I hadn't noticed you—"

 

All Might suddenly stopped. He clutched his side, a violent, hacking cough ripping through his chest. A thin trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

 

No, All Might thought frantically. Not now. The time limit...

 

Steam began to pour off All Might's body, hissing like a punctured radiator. Izuku, finally catching his breath, looked up.

 

"All Might, I'm sorry, but I really need to know," Izuku began, his voice desperate. "My Quirk... it's called Titan Engine. When I use it, I get so strong and fast, but it ruins everything. It burns all my energy in seconds. If I use it too long, I overheat and my muscles tear themselves apart. Everyone says it's too dangerous. They say I'm a liability."

 

Izuku clenched his fists, staring at the gravel.

 

"Can someone with a Quirk they can't control... a Quirk that hurts them and destroys the things around them... can someone like that ever become a hero like you?!"

 

Izuku closed his eyes, bracing himself for the answer. He waited for All Might's booming, reassuring voice to tell him that with hard work, anything was possible.

 

Instead, he heard a wet, deflating sound.

 

Izuku opened his eyes. All Might was gone. In his place stood a skeletal, emaciated man in baggy clothes. He had sharp, angular features, sunken eyes with glowing blue irises, and an unnervingly long neck.

 

Izuku let out a bloodcurdling scream. "AAAH! AN IMPOSTER! YOU'RE A FAKE! WHERE'S ALL MIGHT?!"

 

"I am All Might," the skeletal man sighed, wiping the blood from his chin. His voice was entirely different—quiet, raspy, and exhausted. He sat down heavily against the rooftop railing. "You know how guys at the pool suck in their gut to look tougher? It's kind of like that."

 

Izuku's jaw dropped. The math wasn't mathing. "B-But... how?"

 

All Might pulled up the left side of his t-shirt. Izuku gasped. Covering the entire left side of All Might’s torso was a massive, grotesque scar. It looked like a cluster of jagged purple lightning bolts radiating out from a central crater of destroyed tissue.

 

"I got this in a fight five years ago," All Might explained quietly, his eyes distant. "My respiratory system was nearly destroyed, and I lost my entire stomach. I've had multiple surgeries just to stay alive. Right now, I can only do my hero work for about three hours a day. The rest of the time, I look like this."

 

Izuku was paralyzed by shock. Five years ago? The only fight All Might had on record five years ago was against Toxic Chainsaw, but that villain couldn't have caused damage like this. This was something darker. Something the public didn't know about.

 

"A Symbol of Peace who saves people with a smile must never be daunted," All Might continued, looking out over the city. "I smile to show the pressure of heroes, and to trick the fear inside of me. Pro heroes are always risking their lives. Some villains just can't be beaten without pushing yourself to the brink."

 

All Might turned his hollow eyes toward Izuku. The gaze was piercing.

 

"You asked me if someone with an uncontrollable, self-destructive Quirk can be a hero," All Might said. He paused, weighing his words carefully. He thought back to the tunnel. He had seen the raw, catastrophic power the boy possessed. But he had also seen the aftermath—the boy collapsing, naked, starving, and unconscious in the middle of the street.

 

"Your power is undeniably incredible, young man," All Might said honestly. "But a hero's job is to save people, not to become a victim of their own Quirk. If you step onto the battlefield and your engines stall, or you pass out from caloric exhaustion in the middle of a rescue, you won't just get yourself killed. You'll doom the people relying on you."

 

The words hit Izuku like a physical blow. He felt the air leave his lungs.

 

"I cannot, in good conscience, tell you to become a frontline hero right now," All Might said softly. "Not if your power threatens your life every time you use it. If you want to help people, become a police officer. It's a noble profession. But until you can tame the beast inside of you... it's too dangerous."

 

All Might stood up, opening the door to the roof's stairwell. "I'm sorry, kid. It's the harsh reality."

 

The door clicked shut.

 

Izuku stood frozen on the rooftop for a long, agonizing time. The afternoon sun beat down on his bare shoulders, but he felt entirely cold. He had finally heard it. Not from his doctor, not from his mother, and not from Kacchan. He had heard it from the Symbol of Peace himself.

 

His Quirk was a liability.

 

 

 

It took Izuku half an hour to walk down the stairs, sneak through the alleys in his underwear, and retrieve his cooler from the underpass. Thankfully, he always kept a spare set of gym clothes bundled in a plastic bag at the bottom of the cooler, just in case.

 

He pulled on a pair of oversized gray sweatpants and a baggy green t-shirt, strapped his cooler tightly, and began the long, depressing walk home.

 

The heavy plastic wheels clattered loudly against the pavement. Izuku’s head hung low. He felt like his heart had been hollowed out. All those notebooks. All those hours spent calculating dietary requirements, enduring Kacchan's bullying, dreaming of the U.A. entrance exams. It all felt so pointless now.

 

BOOM!

 

The ground shook beneath Izuku's feet. He stopped, looking up.

 

A few blocks down the street, thick plumes of black smoke were billowing into the sky. The sharp, unmistakable sound of explosions echoed through the city blocks.

 

A villain attack? Izuku's instinct kicked in. His feet moved on autopilot, dragging the heavy cooler behind him as he jogged toward the commotion. No, stop it. You're not a hero. You're a liability.

 

Despite his internal scolding, he found himself pushing through a large crowd of onlookers gathered at the edge of a commercial shopping district. The heat radiating from the street was intense. Several buildings were actively on fire, the glass of their storefronts shattered by concussive blasts.

 

"It's a monster!" one of the bystanders shouted. "The heroes can't get close!"

 

Izuku squeezed his way to the front of the barricade. When he saw what was happening in the center of the street, his blood ran ice-cold.

 

It was the Sludge Villain.

 

The monstrous, gelatinous creature had reformed, towering nearly two stories high. It was thrashing wildly, causing immense collateral damage.

 

Izuku’s eyes instantly darted to the Pro Heroes on the scene. Death Arms, Kamui Woods, Backdraft, and Mount Lady were all present, but they were completely useless. Backdraft was too busy putting out the fires. Mount Lady couldn't fit into the narrow, two-lane street without crushing the surrounding buildings. Kamui Woods' wooden branches would catch fire if he got close, and Death Arms simply didn't have the strength to grapple with a liquid opponent.

 

"We have to wait for someone with a suitable Quirk!" Death Arms yelled over the roar of the flames, holding back the crowd. "Stand back! We can't do anything right now!"

 

Wait... how is the villain here? Izuku thought, sheer panic rising in his throat. All Might put him in bottles! He put them in his pockets!

 

Izuku remembered the wind pressure when he grabbed All Might’s leg. He remembered the feeling of All Might struggling in the air.

 

The bottles must have dropped, Izuku realized, a wave of sickening guilt washing over him. This is my fault. Because I couldn't let it go... I caused this.

 

"Look out! The kid’s throwing another explosion!" a civilian screamed.

 

Izuku blinked. Kid?

 

He looked closer at the center of the sludge mass. The villain wasn't just thrashing aimlessly; it was struggling to contain something. A hand tore through the viscous green liquid, setting off a massive, desperate explosion that shattered another window.

 

Through the clearing smoke and sludge, Izuku saw a face.

 

Ash-blonde hair. Crimson eyes wide with suffocating panic.

 

It was Kacchan.

 

Katsuki Bakugo was drowning in the sludge, his Quirk firing wildly in a desperate attempt to free himself. But his explosions were only giving the villain more ammunition, feeding the chaos and spreading the fires.

 

"He's got a tough Quirk!" the Sludge Villain roared gleefully. "Once I take over his body, I'll be unstoppable!"

 

Izuku stood frozen. The Pro Heroes weren't moving. They were waiting. They were waiting for someone else to show up, someone with the perfect Quirk to solve the problem without taking any risks.

 

But Kacchan was dying now.

 

Izuku looked at Katsuki's eyes. The arrogance, the pride, the fierce superiority—it was all gone. Replaced by the agonizing, primal terror of a boy suffocating to death. Their eyes met across the fiery street. It was a silent plea.

 

Before Izuku’s brain could process the overwhelming danger, before he could remember All Might's warning or Doctor Tsubasa's diagnosis, his hand flew to the latches of his cooler.

 

Clack. Clack.

 

Izuku threw the lid open. He grabbed a massive, two-liter thermos filled with a dense, thousand-calorie hyper-protein shake he had prepared for emergencies.

 

He didn't sip it. He ripped the cap off, unhinged his jaw, and chugged the entire viscous liquid in less than four seconds. He slammed the empty thermos back into the cooler, his stomach instantly stretching and painfully processing the heavy load.

 

"Hey, kid! What are you doing?!" Death Arms shouted, turning around. "Get back behind the barricade!"

 

Izuku didn't listen. He vaulted over the yellow police tape and sprinted directly toward the blazing inferno.

 

"Idiot! Stop!" Kamui Woods yelled, reaching out.

 

But they were too late.

 

Titan Engine. Activate.

 

The transformation was violent and immediate. The influx of raw, processed calories was instantly incinerated by Izuku’s hyperactive metabolism.

 

As Izuku ran, his body rapidly expanded. His baggy gym clothes tore at the seams, stretching to their absolute limits as his shoulders widened and his arms thickened into massive, vascular trunks of hyper-dense muscle. The sheer weight of his new mass cracked the asphalt with every step.

 

SHNK-SHNK!

 

From the undersides of his massive forearms and the backs of his expanding calves, the chrome exhaust pipes violently punched through his skin. Steam hissed from the valves, mixing with the smoke of the burning street.

 

The Pro Heroes gasped. The scrawny teenager had suddenly transformed into a biomechanical titan, radiating immense heat.

 

"What the hell is that Quirk?!" Mount Lady gasped, shielding her face from the sudden wave of thermal energy.

 

Izuku knew he had very little time. He had consumed a massive amount of calories, but holding this form was like keeping a massive boulder balanced on a needle. He couldn't afford a prolonged fight. He couldn't afford to hesitate.

 

I need to close the distance instantly, Izuku thought, his mind operating at a hyper-focused speed. The fires are too hot. Kacchan is suffocating.

 

Izuku planted his heavy right foot, bending his knees. He angled the massive exhaust pipes on his calves toward the ground behind him.

 

"FIRST GEAR!" Izuku roared, his booming, baritone voice rattling the shattered windows.

 

BOOOOOOM!

 

Blinding blue flames erupted from his leg engines. The propulsion was instantaneous and catastrophic. Izuku didn't run; he turned himself into a living missile. The force of his launch shattered a ten-foot radius of the street behind him, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and debris.

 

He crossed the fifty-yard distance between the barricade and the Sludge Villain in a fraction of a second. The sheer velocity of his movement created a slipstream that sucked the surrounding flames into his wake, temporarily extinguishing the fires along his path.

 

The Sludge Villain barely had time to blink before the monstrous teenager was suddenly right in his face.

 

"YOU AGAIN?!" the villain shrieked in absolute terror, recognizing the mechanical colossus that had obliterated him in the tunnel just an hour prior.

 

Katsuki’s eyes widened, recognizing the freckles and the wild green hair, despite the terrifying muscle mass and the roaring exhaust pipes. "D-Deku?!" Katsuki gagged, coughing up sludge.

 

"Let him go!" Izuku bellowed.

 

He didn't have time to pry Katsuki out gracefully. He had to obliterate the villain's hold entirely.

 

Izuku planted his feet, the engines in his legs screaming as they dug into the asphalt to halt his momentum. He drew his right arm back. The hyper-dense muscles in his bicep and forearm bulged, groaning under the strain of their own density.

 

But Izuku knew pure strength wouldn't be enough to disperse the sludge perfectly without hurting Kacchan. He needed maximum velocity.

 

VROOOM!

 

The dual exhaust pipes on Izuku’s right forearm ignited. Concentrated blue flames shot backward out of his arm, violently propelling his massive fist forward at a speed that broke the sound barrier.

 

"Detroit..." Izuku muttered, borrowing the name from his idol out of pure instinct. "...SMASH!"

 

Izuku's fist didn't directly hit the villain or Katsuki. It struck the air directly in front of them.

 

The resulting shockwave was apocalyptic.

 

The sheer concussive force of the hyper-dense, rocket-propelled punch instantly super-compressed the air. A localized tornado exploded outward from Izuku's knuckles. The wind pressure was so overwhelmingly powerful that it tore the Sludge Villain off Katsuki atom by atom, splattering the viscous green liquid across a three-block radius.

 

The flames in the surrounding buildings were blown out instantly, smothered by the vacuum of the punch. The Pro Heroes and the crowd were thrown to the ground, shielding their ears from the deafening sonic boom.

 

Even the clouds above the shopping district were forcefully parted, allowing a solitary beam of late-afternoon sunlight to pierce through the smoke and illuminate the street.

 

In the center of the crater, Izuku stood frozen, his fist still extended. Katsuki was lying on the ground behind him, gasping greedily for air, completely freed from the sludge.

 

Silence descended upon the street, broken only by the sound of falling debris and the hissing of Izuku's overheated engines.

 

Izuku’s arm was smoking. The exhaust pipes on his forearm and calves were glowing a dangerous, brilliant white-hot. He felt a searing, tearing pain rip through his muscles. The caloric reserves from the protein shake were entirely depleted.

 

Clank.

 

The metal pipes retracted into his skin. His hyper-dense muscles melted away instantly, his body rapidly deflating back to its scrawny, fourteen-year-old baseline. He stumbled forward, his legs giving out completely, and collapsed onto the shattered asphalt, utterly starved and exhausted.

 

For a long moment, nobody moved.

 

Then, the Pro Heroes snapped out of their stupor. They rushed forward, securing the scattered remains of the Sludge Villain and attending to the boys.

 

What followed was a confusing, overwhelming blur for Izuku. Death Arms and Kamui Woods dragged him to the side, aggressively scolding him for his recklessness.

 

"What were you thinking, kid?! You could have gotten yourself killed!" Death Arms yelled, though his eyes kept darting to the massive crater Izuku had created. "There’s no excuse for vigilantism! Leave it to the pros!"

 

"But... but you guys weren't doing anything," Izuku mumbled weakly, his stomach growling fiercely. "He was dying."

 

The heroes flinched, looking away in shame. They knew he was right. They had stood by while a child suffocated, and another child had to step in with power that rivaled the Number One Hero to do their jobs for them.

 

On the other side of the crater, Katsuki was being praised by the paramedics for his resilience and his powerful Quirk. But Katsuki wasn't listening. He sat wrapped in a shock blanket, his crimson eyes locked onto Izuku.

 

Katsuki’s pride was entirely shattered. The boy he had bullied, the boy who claimed he couldn't control his Quirk, had just moved faster than the eye could see and unleashed a punch that changed the weather. And he had done it to save him. It was a humiliating, infuriating, yet undeniably awe-inspiring reality that Katsuki couldn't reconcile.

 

 

 

The sun was setting by the time Izuku was finally allowed to leave. He was too exhausted to even wheel his cooler properly; he just slung the strap over his shoulder and dragged his feet down the quiet suburban street leading to his apartment.

 

His muscles ached with a deep, pulsating pain. The doctor had been right. Using Titan Engine without a proper fuel source was agonizing. He felt like his body was cannibalizing itself.

 

"Deku!"

 

Izuku stopped, turning around slowly.

 

Katsuki Bakugo was storming down the street toward him, his face twisted in a complex mix of anger, humiliation, and fierce determination. He stopped a few feet away, panting heavily.

 

"Listen to me, you nerd!" Katsuki shouted, pointing a shaking finger at Izuku. "I didn't ask for your help! I didn't need you to save me! I would have gotten out of there on my own!"

 

Izuku just blinked tiredly, not having the energy to argue.

 

"Don't think this changes anything!" Katsuki snarled, his voice cracking slightly. "You're still a freak who can't even use his Quirk without passing out! I'm still going to be the Number One Hero! I don't owe you anything!"

 

With that, Katsuki turned on his heel and marched aggressively in the opposite direction, leaving Izuku standing alone on the sidewalk.

 

Izuku sighed, adjusting the strap of his cooler. Kacchan would never change.

 

He took a few more steps toward home before a massive shadow fell over him.

 

"I AM HERE!"

 

Izuku yelped, jumping backward as All Might practically materialized out of a nearby alleyway in his towering muscle form.

 

"All Might?! What are you doing here? Did you lose the villain again?!" Izuku panicked, looking around for the sludge.

 

"No, no! He is safely in police custody!" All Might laughed booming, before suddenly coughing up blood. With a hiss of steam, he deflated back into his skeletal form, wiping his mouth. "Ah, forgive me. I pushed my limit quite a bit today."

 

"You... you followed me?" Izuku asked, confused.

 

All Might’s expression turned serious, his sunken blue eyes locking onto Izuku. He stepped forward, placing a gentle hand on Izuku's shoulder.

 

"Young man. I came to apologize, and to thank you," All Might said, his raspy voice filled with genuine reverence. "Earlier today on the roof, I told you that your Quirk was too dangerous. I told you that you were a liability. I told you to give up."

 

Izuku looked down, the familiar sting of rejection returning.

 

"But then," All Might continued, "I saw what you did. I was in the crowd, young man. I was out of time, powerless to act. I watched the Pro Heroes stand by and wait for a perfect solution while a boy died."

 

All Might squeezed Izuku’s shoulder.

 

"But you didn't wait. You had a Quirk that hurts you, a Quirk that drains you... and yet, you threw yourself into the fire anyway. You drank your fuel, you activated those magnificent engines of yours, and you broke the sound barrier to save a life. You did what none of us had the courage to do."

 

Tears began to well up in Izuku’s large green eyes. His bottom lip quivered.

 

"Top heroes have stories about them from their school days," All Might said softly, smiling. "Most of their stories have one thing in common. Their bodies moved before they had a chance to think."

 

Izuku fell to his knees. The heavy cooler slipped off his shoulder, hitting the pavement with a thud. He buried his face in his hands, openly sobbing. All the stress, the fear, the isolation of the last ten years poured out of him in a torrent of tears.

 

"I was wrong about you," All Might said, looking down at the crying boy. "Your Quirk is destructive, yes. It is dangerous, yes. But it is also a gift of overwhelming power. Power that, if properly harnessed, can protect the entire world."

 

All Might knelt down, placing himself at eye level with Izuku.

 

"Young man... you can become a hero."

 

Izuku cried harder, clutching the fabric of his sweatpants. It was the one sentence he had waited his entire life to hear.

 

"However," All Might chuckled, standing back up and crossing his arms. "You clearly have no idea how to drive that sports car of a body you possess! If you go into the U.A. entrance exams swinging wildly like you did today, you'll cook your own organs before you even score a point!"

 

Izuku sniffled, looking up. "I... I know. I don't know how to control the heat. Or the mass."

 

All Might grinned, a fierce, determined fire burning in his sunken eyes.

 

"Then it is a good thing you met me! Your Quirk relies on hyper-dense muscle mass to withstand the propulsion of your engines. Who better to teach you how to manage overwhelming physical strength than the man who built his career on it?"

 

All Might pointed a bony finger directly at Izuku.

 

"I am officially offering you my tutelage, young man! I will train you. I will teach you how to control your Titan Engine. We have ten months before the U.A. entrance exams. It will be the hardest ten months of your life. You will eat until you're sick, and you will train until your muscles scream. Do you accept?!"

 

Izuku looked at the frail man before him. He saw past the skeletal frame and the baggy clothes. He saw the heart of the Symbol of Peace, offering him a lifeline.

 

Izuku wiped his eyes, standing up tall. He clenched his fists, his resolve hardening like steel.

 

"Yes, All Might!" Izuku said, his voice steady and determined. "I accept! I'll do whatever it takes!"

 

"Excellent!" All Might laughed heartily. "Then rest up tonight, young Midoriya! Because starting tomorrow, we're putting your engines into overdrive!"

 

 

 

Ten months.

 

Three hundred and four days of hell, sweat, and thousands of pounds of pulverized concrete and rusted metal.

 

That was what it took to clean Dagobah Municipal Beach Park. What was once an illegal dumping ground filled with mountains of broken refrigerators, crushed cars, and rusted industrial equipment was now a pristine stretch of white sand and crashing ocean waves.

 

And standing at the edge of the water, panting heavily as the rising sun painted the sky in brilliant hues of orange and pink, was Izuku Midoriya.

 

He hadn't magically become a towering bodybuilder in his base form. At fifteen years old, he still possessed a relatively lean, unassuming physique. But the changes beneath the surface were drastic. His muscles were dense, coiled like high-tension wire, heavily defined and vascular. He no longer slouched.

 

"HAHAHA! A magnificent finish, young Midoriya!" All Might boomed, standing on the seawall in his muscle form. He pointed a massive finger at the clean beach. "You didn't just meet my expectations, you bulldozed right through them!"

 

Izuku smiled weakly, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He reached down and unlatched his ever-present cooler, pulling out three densely packed, specialized nutrition bars. He devoured them in seconds, his hyperactive metabolism greedily converting the thousands of calories into fuel.

 

Over the past ten months, All Might had taught him something crucial: throttling.

 

Before, Izuku’s Quirk operated like a light switch—it was either completely off, leaving him vulnerable, or completely on, turning him into a massive, uncontrolled titan that destroyed everything in a twenty-foot radius. Under All Might’s tutelage, Izuku learned to treat his body like a manual transmission.

 

He learned "First Gear." By only slightly increasing his muscle mass and running his leg engines at a low idle, he could increase his physical specs to superhuman levels without burning through his caloric reserves in five seconds flat. He could fight longer, move smarter, and maneuver without blowing up city blocks.

 

But today, there was no holding back. Today was the U.A. Entrance Exam.

 

"Are you ready, my boy?" All Might asked, his voice softening with genuine pride.

 

Izuku looked down at his hands. The skin on his forearms and calves was scarred with faint, metallic striations where the exhaust pipes frequently breached his flesh. It was a painful Quirk. A monstrous Quirk. But it was his.

 

"I'm ready," Izuku said, his green eyes burning with resolve.

 

 

 

U.A. High School was less of a school and more of a fortified city.

 

As Izuku walked through the towering front gates, he couldn't help but marvel at the sheer scale of the architecture. The H-shaped main building loomed against the blue sky, practically radiating prestige.

 

Izuku was dressed in a specialized tracksuit his mother had custom-ordered for him. It looked like standard athletic wear, but the calves and the undersides of the forearms were lined with heavy-duty, heat-resistant zippers, allowing his exhaust pipes to emerge without shredding his clothes every time he transformed. He dragged his heavy blue cooler behind him, the plastic wheels rattling against the pristine brick walkway.

 

Okay, Izuku, he thought, taking a deep breath. You've got thirty thousand calories packed in the cooler, and you ate a massive breakfast. Your fuel tank is completely topped off. Just stick to the plan. Use First Gear to gather points, and only bulk up if you absolutely have to.

 

"Stupid Deku."

 

Izuku froze. He turned his head to see Katsuki Bakugo walking past him. Katsuki hadn't changed much in ten months, though his aura of aggressive superiority had only sharpened.

 

"Kacchan," Izuku acknowledged quietly.

 

Katsuki stopped, glaring over his shoulder. Ever since the Sludge Villain incident, their dynamic had shifted into a tense, suffocating cold war. Katsuki no longer threw random explosions at Izuku's face. He didn't need to. He knew exactly what Izuku was capable of now, and it infuriated him.

 

"Don't think you can just cruise through this because you've got some raw horsepower," Katsuki growled, his crimson eyes narrowing. "I'm gonna crush this exam, and I'm gonna crush you. Stay out of my way."

 

Katsuki shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked off toward the auditorium. Izuku sighed, adjusting the strap of his cooler.

 

He took a step forward, but his heavy sneaker caught the edge of a raised paving brick. His center of gravity plummeted.

 

Oh no! I'm going to faceplant before the exam even starts!

 

Instinct took over. The biological switch in his brain flipped.

 

First Gear: Micro-Burst.

 

In a fraction of a millisecond, the muscles in Izuku's left calf condensed and expanded. The zipper on his pant leg snapped open. A single, chrome exhaust pipe breached his skin, firing a tiny, suppressed burst of blue flame.

 

The micro-propulsion righted his posture instantly. He didn't even fall. He simply blurred, appearing perfectly balanced on his feet half a second later. The exhaust pipe retracted seamlessly, and the zipper dangled open.

 

"Whoa! Are you okay?"

 

Izuku blinked, looking to his right. A girl with a round face, rosy cheeks, and short auburn hair was staring at him with wide, amazed eyes. She had her hand outstretched, as if she had been about to catch him.

 

"I thought you were going to fall," the girl said, blinking rapidly. "But you moved so fast! I barely even saw it! It was like... zip!"

 

"O-Oh!" Izuku stammered, his face immediately turning crimson. A girl was talking to him. A very cute girl. "I, um! I tripped! But then I didn't! Because of my Quirk! I-It's a speed thing! Well, and a strength thing. It's complicated!"

 

The girl laughed, a bright, bubbly sound that instantly eased Izuku's nerves. "That's awesome! My Quirk is Zero Gravity. I was going to make you float so you didn't hit the ground, but you totally had it handled! I'm Ochako Uraraka!"

 

"Izuku Midoriya!" he squeaked, bowing slightly.

 

"Well, let's both do our best, Midoriya!" Uraraka pumped her fist enthusiastically before jogging off toward the building.

 

Izuku stood there for a moment, a goofy smile plastered across his face. I talked to a girl! he cheered internally, before grabbing his cooler and hurrying inside.

 

 

 

The orientation auditorium was massive, packed with thousands of hopeful students. The lights dimmed, and the Voice Hero, Present Mic, exploded onto the stage with deafening enthusiasm.

 

"WELCOME TO MY LIVE SHOW, EVERYBODY! LET ME HEAR YOU SAY HEYYYY!"

 

Silence.

 

"TOUGH CROWD!" Present Mic laughed, completely unfazed. He pointed to a massive screen behind him. "Alright, examinees! Here's how this is gonna go down! You'll be conducting ten-minute mock urban battles in replica city centers! You've got three types of faux villains out there, worth one, two, and three points respectively! Use your Quirks to bust 'em up and rack up that high score!"

 

Izuku was furiously muttering to himself, scribbling notes in his new notebook while simultaneously sucking down a massive pouch of high-calorie nutritional slurry.

 

"...assuming the robots have reinforced armor, standard blunt force might not be enough, I'll need to use localized propulsion strikes to pierce the outer chassis, if I apply maximum torque to my elbow while venting heat from my forearm..."

 

"Excuse me!"

 

A loud, booming voice cut through Izuku’s muttering.

 

A tall, broad-shouldered boy with slicked-back blue hair and rectangular glasses stood up abruptly, pointing rigidly at the stage.

 

"On the printout, there are four types of villains, not three!" the boy declared loudly. "If this is a misprint, then U.A., the premier hero academy in Japan, should be ashamed of such a foolish error! We examinees are here in this place because we wish to be molded into exemplary heroes!"

 

The boy suddenly turned, pointing his rigid arm directly at Izuku.

 

"In addition, you over there with the curly hair!"

 

Izuku froze with the nutrient pouch still in his mouth.

 

"You've been muttering this entire time! And what in the world are you eating during a formal orientation?!" the boy scolded, chopping the air with his hand. "It's distracting! If you're here on a pleasure trip, then you should leave immediately!"

 

Several students snickered. Katsuki, sitting two rows ahead, clicked his tongue in annoyance.

 

Izuku's face burned. He quickly lowered the pouch. "I-I'm sorry! It's for my Quirk! I need the calories!"

 

Present Mic waved his hands. "Okay, okay, examinee number 7111! Thanks for the great message! The fourth villain type is worth zero points! It's an obstacle! A massive gimmick that will rampage in close quarters! My advice? Just run away from it!"

 

The blue-haired boy bowed perfectly. "Thank you very much! Please excuse the interruption!"

 

As the boy sat down, his eyes lingered on Izuku for a moment longer. He noticed Izuku reaching down to zip up the side of his right pant leg. For a split second, the boy's sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a faint, circular, metallic scar on Izuku's calf.

 

The boy, Tenya Iida, frowned. Metallic ports on the calves? he thought, glancing down at his own legs. No, it couldn't be. Only my family possesses the Engine Quirk. He must have a minor mutation.

 

 

 

Battle Center B.

 

The faux city was staggering in scale. It looked like a genuine slice of Tokyo, complete with skyscrapers, alleyways, and intersections, all surrounded by a massive concrete wall.

 

Dozens of examinees stood before the towering iron gates, stretching and psyching themselves up. Izuku stood near the back of the pack, carefully unzipping the sleeves of his jacket and the legs of his tracksuit. He took one final, massive bite of a protein bar, swallowing it dry.

 

He felt a heavy gaze on him. He turned to see the blue-haired boy from the auditorium marching toward him with robotic precision.

 

"You!" the boy said, stopping in front of Izuku. "I am Tenya Iida from Somei Private Academy."

 

"O-Oh! I'm Izuku Midoriya," Izuku replied, slightly intimidated by the boy's intense posture.

 

"Midoriya," Iida said, his eyes dropping to Izuku's unzipped calves. "I noticed during the orientation that you possess a rather unusual physical trait. And your claim about needing caloric intake... tell me, is your Quirk mechanical in nature?"

 

Izuku blinked, surprised. "Um, yes. Partially. It's a Transformation Quirk. I have internal engines."

 

Iida's eyes widened in genuine bewilderment. He hiked up his own pant legs, revealing the massive, silver mufflers permanently embedded in his calves.

 

"My family, the Ingenium line, has possessed the Engine Quirk for generations," Iida said, thoroughly fascinated. "Our engines are fueled by orange juice. To see someone outside my bloodline with a similar biomechanical structure is... astounding. How many cylinders?"

 

"Uh... it depends on the mass," Izuku muttered, scratching his head. "When I fully transform, it's roughly equivalent to a 1,200-horsepower rotary engine. But I run on raw carbohydrates and protein, not juice."

 

Iida’s jaw dropped. "Twelve hundred?! That's—that's vehicular output! What do you mean, 'fully transform'?!"

 

Before Izuku could explain, a blaring siren shattered the air.

 

"RIGHT, LET'S START!" Present Mic's voice echoed over the loudspeakers from the observation tower. "WHAT'S WRONG? THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL BATTLES! RUN, RUN, RUN!"

 

The crowd of examinees froze for half a second before scrambling into a massive stampede toward the open gates.

 

Izuku didn't run with them. He closed his eyes. He visualized the calorie tank in his stomach, the heavy gears of his heart, and the dense fibers of his muscles.

 

First Gear.

 

The transformation was silent but terrifyingly fast. Iida, who had just begun to sprint, glanced back and nearly tripped over his own feet.

 

Izuku’s scrawny frame expanded. His shoulders popped, his chest broadened, and his arms swelled with hyper-dense muscle, stretching his t-shirt to the tearing point. From his exposed calves, the triple-barreled chrome exhaust pipes violently emerged, hissing with scalding steam.

 

Iida stared in absolute shock. He... he grew?! And his mufflers just... appeared?!

 

Izuku opened his eyes. They were burning with a fierce, emerald light.

 

"Excuse me, Iida!" Izuku’s voice was no longer that of a nervous teenager; it was a booming, baritone roar.

 

Izuku bent his knees, his heavy sneakers cracking the pavement. The exhaust pipes on his calves ignited with a blinding flash of blue flame.

 

VROOOOOOM!

 

The mechanical screech echoed across the entire starting area. Izuku launched himself forward, blowing completely past Iida and the rest of the examinees. The wind pressure from his sheer acceleration knocked several students off their feet. He became a blur of blue fire and muscle, shooting straight down the main avenue of the replica city.

 

Inside the observation room, an array of massive monitors displayed the exam in real-time. The Pro Heroes of U.A.'s faculty sat in darkness, watching the applicants.

 

"Whoa, look at the speed on that kid in Area B!" the hero Snipe whistled, leaning forward in his chair. "He just cleared four city blocks in under three seconds!"

 

"Ah, yes. Izuku Midoriya," Nezu, the principal of U.A., murmured, sipping his tea. The small, white animal smiled knowingly. "His Quirk registry states it is a combination of hyper-dense muscle mass and internal heat-propulsion engines. A fascinating and highly destructive mutation."

 

In the back of the room, All Might stood in his skeletal form, clutching his hands tightly. Show them, my boy, he thought. Show them the fruits of your labor!

 

Back in the city, Izuku came to a sliding halt in the middle of a four-way intersection. His leg engines idled, blowing hot steam over the asphalt.

 

TARGET ACQUIRED.

 

Three 2-Pointer robots rolled out from the alleyways, their red optical sensors locking onto Izuku. They raised their mechanical arms, preparing to fire.

 

"Target lock!" one of the robots buzzed.

 

Izuku didn't even flinch. He didn't need to bulk up into his maximum muscle form for this. His First Gear strength was more than enough.

 

With a quick burst of his leg engines, Izuku vanished. He reappeared instantly above the first robot, bringing his heavy right heel down in an axe kick. The hyper-dense muscle, combined with the downward propulsion of his exhaust, cleaved the robot perfectly in half. The metal chassis crumpled like tin foil.

 

The second robot fired a volley of rubber bullets. Izuku dashed to the side, the blue flames trailing behind him like a comet. He closed the distance in a millisecond, grabbing the robot by its metal arm. With a roar of exertion, he ripped the arm entirely out of its socket, spun, and hurled the severed limb into the third robot, obliterating its optical sensor.

 

"Six points!" Izuku boomed.

 

He didn't stop. He couldn't afford to. Even in First Gear, his body was burning calories at an alarming rate. He needed to clear the area fast before his stomach emptied and he started cannibalizing his own muscle tissue.

 

Izuku sprinted through the city, acting like a biomechanical wrecking ball. When he encountered a group of 1-Pointers, he used his Ingenium-like speed to run circles around them, punching through their armor with localized, engine-boosted jabs from his forearms. When a massive 3-Pointer tank-robot blocked his path, he shifted his muscle mass entirely into his legs, jumping thirty feet into the air, and came down with a two-handed smash that cratered the robot into the concrete.

 

The other examinees in Area B could only watch in awe and despair as Izuku decimated the villain population.

 

"What is with that guy?!" a student yelled, watching Izuku rip a 2-Pointer’s head off with his bare hands. "He's like a tank crossed with a fighter jet!"

 

Iida, running at full speed on his own engines, kicked a 1-Pointer into a wall. He paused, watching Izuku rocket past him down an alleyway.

 

His speed rivals my own Recipro Burst, Iida thought, his mind racing. But he doesn't just have speed. He has monstrous, unbelievable physical strength. It's a flawless combination of mobility and power. He is... he is extraordinary.

 

In the observation room, the teachers were rapidly taking notes.

 

"He's got thirty-five points already," Midnight noted, licking her lips. "And such a fierce fighting style! But he's breathing awfully heavily for someone only a few minutes into the exam."

 

"His Quirk requires massive caloric fuel," All Might spoke up, his voice disguised slightly to hide his personal connection to the boy. "The heat generated by his engines and the sheer density of his muscles put an extreme tax on his stamina."

 

"We'll see how he handles the real test," Nezu said, his paw hovering over a large red button on his console. "A hero's true worth is tested not in how they fight, but in how they respond to overwhelming odds."

 

Nezu pressed the button.

 

 

 

Izuku leaned heavily against a brick wall, panting. His First Gear form was beginning to slip. His muscles ached, and his stomach was fiercely cramping, a clear sign that his thirty thousand calories were almost completely incinerated.

 

Forty-two points, Izuku calculated, wiping sweat from his brow. That should be enough to pass the practical. I just need to survive the remaining two minutes. I'll power down and...

 

RUUUUMBLE.

 

The ground beneath Izuku's feet violently shook. The tremor was so intense that nearby streetlamps shattered.

 

At the end of the main avenue, the buildings seemed to part. A shadow fell over the entire block.

 

Izuku looked up, his emerald eyes widening in absolute horror.

 

It was the Zero-Pointer. But calling it a robot felt like a gross understatement. It was a mechanical leviathan, easily the size of a twenty-story skyscraper. Its massive, tank-like treads crushed buildings as if they were made of cardboard. Its single, glowing red eye swept over the fleeing examinees below.

 

"LESS THAN TWO MINUTES REMAINING!" Present Mic announced.

 

"Run!" Iida yelled, sprinting past Izuku. "That thing is an obstacle! There's no point in fighting it!"

 

The other examinees agreed, scattering in every direction to escape the path of destruction.

 

Izuku gritted his teeth. He's right. I'm almost out of fuel. If I try to fight that thing, I'll stall out and die.

 

He turned to run, his leg engines whining weakly.

 

"Ow!"

 

The cry was faint, practically drowned out by the grinding metal of the Zero-Pointer, but Izuku’s ears caught it.

 

He stopped and looked back.

 

There, trapped beneath a massive slab of concrete rubble that had fallen from a destroyed building, was Uraraka. The girl who had stopped him from falling. The girl who had spoken to him with a smile. She was struggling to push the debris off her leg, looking up at the colossal robot bearing down on her with terrified, tear-filled eyes.

 

No one else noticed her. Everyone was running away.

 

Izuku didn't think. The rational part of his brain—the part calculating calories, points, and safety—was instantly silenced. The biological trigger flipped, harder and more violently than it ever had before.

 

He didn't have the fuel for this. But he had the heart.

 

Titan Engine.

 

Izuku let out a bloodcurdling, monstrous roar as he forcefully bypassed his safety limits. He didn't enter First Gear. He went straight to Maximum Output.

 

His body violently expanded, doubling in size from his already bulky First Gear state. He transformed into an absolute colossus of hyper-dense, terrifyingly vascular muscle. His clothes shredded completely, leaving him in just his heat-resistant pants.

 

SHNK-SHNK-SHNK!

 

The exhaust pipes didn't just emerge; they erupted from his flesh, larger and thicker than ever before. Scalding, searing blood mixed with the steam hissing from the valves as the metal tore through his skin.

 

He was out of calories. His body immediately began cannibalizing its own fat and muscle tissue to fuel the transformation, sending a wave of sheer, agonizing pain through his nervous system.

 

"HEY!"

 

Izuku’s baritone roar shook the very air. Iida, who was halfway down the street, stopped and turned around in shock.

 

The Zero-Pointer raised its massive, building-sized fist, preparing to crush the street—and Uraraka with it.

 

Izuku crouched low to the ground. The exhaust pipes on his calves glowed a dangerous, blinding white-hot. He ignored the burning in his skin.

 

OVERDRIVE.

 

With an explosion so loud it cracked the glass in the observation tower miles away, Izuku launched himself.

 

He didn't just break the sound barrier; he shattered it. The ground beneath him didn't just crack; it vaporized, leaving a smoking crater thirty feet wide. He shot into the sky like a white-hot comet, a massive trail of blue and white exhaust flames following him.

 

Uraraka looked up, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the muscular titan soaring toward the head of the colossal robot.

 

Izuku ascended to eye level with the Zero-Pointer. His heart was hammering a lethal rhythm. His engines were screaming, threatening to detonate from the trapped thermal energy.

 

He pulled his massive right arm back. The exhaust pipes on his forearm ignited, boosting his swing speed to an incalculable velocity.

 

All Might did this with just his muscles, Izuku thought, his eyes burning with defiance. But I have engines.

 

"DETROIT..."

 

Izuku’s fist blurred as it shot forward, propelled by thousands of pounds of thrust and the hyper-dense mass of a colossus.

 

"...SMASH!"

 

His knuckles made contact with the steel face of the Zero-Pointer.

 

For a microsecond, the world seemed to stand still. Then, the laws of physics violently reasserted themselves.

 

The sheer kinetic force of the impact buckled the robot's armor instantly. But it was the shockwave that caused the true devastation. A localized hurricane exploded outward from Izuku's fist. The wind pressure sheared the entire top half of the towering robot clean off. Steel beams snapped like twigs, circuitry vaporized under the friction, and the colossal head was sent flying backward, completely obliterated.

 

Down below, the examinees were blown off their feet by the gale-force wind. Iida had to dig his own mufflers into the ground just to keep from being blown away, staring up at the sky in absolute, unfiltered awe.

 

In the observation room, there was pin-drop silence. Snipe's jaw was practically on the floor. Midnight was gripping the edge of her desk. Even Nezu’s teacup had stopped halfway to his mouth.

 

"By the gods," All Might whispered, a massive, proud smile stretching across his skeletal face.

 

High in the sky, gravity took hold of the remains of the Zero-Pointer, and it crashed backward into the city, effectively neutralized.

 

Izuku hung suspended in the air for a brief, glorious moment.

 

Then, the backlash hit him.

 

The exhaust pipes on his arms and legs suddenly sputtered, flashing from white to a sickly, dark red, before violently expelling thick, black smoke.

 

BEEP-BEEP-STALL.

 

His engines had completely overheated and stalled out. The thermal energy, no longer able to vent, rushed back into his hyper-dense muscles.

 

Izuku let out a strangled, agonizing cry as his muscles violently cramped and began to tear themselves apart from the inside. His massive, titan-like body melted away in a split second, deflating back into the scrawny, broken form of a fifteen-year-old boy. The heavy metal pipes retracted with a sickening crunch.

 

He began to plummet.

 

I'm falling, Izuku realized, his vision fading to black as the agony overwhelmed him. My arms and legs are broken. I don't have the strength to use First Gear. I can't brace for the impact.

 

He looked down at the rapidly approaching concrete.

 

Well... at least I saved her.

 

Izuku closed his eyes, accepting his fate.

 

"Slap!"

 

A sharp sting hit across his face. Suddenly, the terrifying sensation of falling vanished. Izuku opened his eyes slightly.

 

He was floating gently in mid-air, inches from the ground. Standing beneath him, holding her hands in a triangle formation and panting heavily, was Uraraka. She had managed to free herself with her Quirk and used a piece of debris to launch herself up to catch him.

 

"Release!" Uraraka gasped, touching her fingertips together.

 

Izuku dropped the remaining few inches, landing softly on the pavement. Uraraka collapsed next to him, severely nauseous from pushing her Quirk to its limit.

 

"TIME'S UP!" Present Mic screamed.

 

The sirens wailed, signaling the end of the exam.

 

Silence fell over Battle Center B. The remaining examinees slowly walked back into the street, staring at the decimated remains of the Zero-Pointer, and then looking at the broken, smoking boy lying motionless on the ground.

 

Iida slowly approached, his expression a complex mixture of shame and immense respect. He... he sacrificed everything, Iida thought, looking at Izuku's charred, bleeding legs. He knew the toll his Quirk would take, and he jumped anyway. To save one person. While I ran.

 

"Very nice work, everyone!" a sweet, elderly voice called out.

 

The crowd parted as Recovery Girl, U.A.'s youthful heroine, waddled through the rubble using her syringe-shaped cane. She approached Izuku and clicked her tongue, shaking her head.

 

"Oh, dear me. He's completely cannibalized his own muscle tissue, and his internal engines have suffered severe thermal scarring," Recovery Girl noted, kneeling beside him. "He needs immediate intravenous calories before I can even attempt to heal his bones."

 

She reached into her medical bag and pulled out a massive, intimidating IV bag filled with a thick, glowing nutrient paste. She swiftly inserted the needle into Izuku’s arm, squeezing the bag to force the high-calorie liquid into his starved bloodstream.

 

Once his color began to return slightly, she leaned down and planted a kiss on his forehead. Izuku's broken arms and heavily burned legs glowed with a soft green light as his cells rapidly divided, repairing the damage at the cost of the newly introduced calories.

 

Izuku groaned, his eyes fluttering open. "Ow..."

 

"You're a reckless one, aren't you?" Recovery Girl scolded lightly. "But... you have a good heart. Let's get you to the infirmary."

 

 

 

One Week Later

 

Izuku sat perfectly still at his dining room table. He was currently in the middle of a massive bowl of katsudon, but his appetite had entirely vanished.

 

Staring back at him, resting innocuously on the wooden table, was a crisp, white envelope bearing the wax seal of U.A. High School.

 

"Izuku! It's here!" his mother, Inko, cried, hovering nervously behind him. "Do you want me to open it?!"

 

"No, Mom," Izuku said softly, his hands trembling as he reached for the envelope. "I need to do it."

 

He carried the letter into his bedroom, sitting down at his desk. He stared at his All Might posters, taking a deep breath.

 

He wasn't confident. Yes, he had scored forty-two points in the practical, but the written exam was notoriously difficult, and he had completely destroyed his body at the end. What if he was deemed too great a liability? What if the teachers decided his Quirk was just too dangerous for a classroom environment?

 

With a shaking finger, Izuku tore the seal.

 

Instead of a letter, a small, metal disk fell onto the desk.

 

Bzzzt.

 

A holographic projection flickered to life, illuminating the dark room.

 

"I AM HERE AS A PROJECTION!"

 

Izuku gasped. It was All Might, wearing a sharp yellow suit, beaming at the camera.

 

"Young Midoriya!" All Might boomed. "I know it has been a week since we last spoke! I have been quite busy, as I am formally joining the faculty at U.A. High School!"

 

Izuku's eyes widened. All Might? A teacher?!

 

"You did remarkably well on the written exam, my boy!" All Might continued, his tone shifting to one of serious pride. "And in the practical... well, your display of power was nothing short of breathtaking! Forty-two villain points is a passing grade on its own!"

 

Izuku let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

 

"However!" All Might raised a finger. "A hero course that rejects those who do the right thing when the chips are down is no hero course at all! You put your life, your body, and your engines on the line to save a fellow examinee!"

 

The hologram shifted, showing a clip of Uraraka speaking to Present Mic after the exam, begging him to share her points with Izuku because he had saved her.

 

"Your actions inspired others, Izuku," All Might said softly. "You showed the true essence of a hero. Therefore, U.A. awards Rescue Points! A panel of judges watched your sacrifice!"

 

The screen updated, showing the scoreboard.

 

Izuku Midoriya: 42 Villain Points. 60 Rescue Points.

 

Total: 102 Points. 1st Place.

 

Izuku stared at the number. One hundred and two. He had beaten Katsuki. He had beaten everyone.

 

All Might pointed directly at the camera, his blue eyes piercing through the hologram, speaking directly to Izuku's soul.

 

"Come, young Midoriya," All Might said, extending his hand. "This is your Hero Academia."

 

The hologram clicked off, plunging the room back into silence.

 

Izuku sat there for a long moment. He looked down at his arms. He flexed his fingers, feeling the dense, coiled power resting just beneath his skin. He felt the heavy, metallic heartbeat of the engines in his chest.

 

For the first time in his life, he wasn't afraid of the monster inside him. He was ready to drive it.

 

Tears streamed down Izuku's face as a massive, unstoppable smile spread across his lips.

 

"I did it," he whispered.