What If Deku Experimented on Himself Like Bruce Banner

The wind howling across the rooftop of the nondescript apartment building tasted like ash and shattered glass. It whipped through Izuku Midoriya’s untamable green curls, chilling the sweat on his forehead and drying the fresh tears streaking his freckled cheeks.

 

“It’s not bad to dream. But you also have to consider what’s realistic, young man.”

 

The words hung in the air long after the man who had spoken them—the Symbol of Peace, the invincible All Might—had vanished into the smoggy skyline. Izuku stood entirely still, his worn red sneakers planted near the chain-link fence at the edge of the roof. He looked down at the bustling streets of Musutafu below. Cars looked like beetles; people were mere specks of dust caught in the grand, sweeping currents of a society built on miracles.

 

Miracles that were entirely out of his reach.

 

For fourteen years, Izuku had clung to a desperate, singular hope. He had believed that heroism wasn't just in the blood, but in the soul. He had filled thirteen notebooks with meticulous observations, analyzing the kinetic vectors of Mount Lady’s gigantification, the thermodynamic output of Endeavor’s Hellflame, the aerodynamic properties of Hawks’s feathers. He had studied the world of Quirks with the fervent devotion of a zealot praying for a god that refused to look his way.

 

And now, the ultimate god of this world had looked down at him, hollowed out and bleeding, and handed down the final verdict.

 

No. You cannot be a hero without a Quirk.

 

Izuku’s knees finally gave out. He collapsed onto the rough, tar-papered roof, the sound of his ragged breathing drowned out by the distant wail of sirens. His chest heaved, a physical ache blooming beneath his sternum. It wasn’t just sadness; it was a profound, suffocating grief. The death of an identity. Who was Izuku Midoriya if he wasn’t a future hero? Just a Deku. A useless, empty, obsolete branch of human evolution.

 

He didn’t know how long he sat there. The sky bruised into a deep purple, then faded into a smoggy, starless black. When he finally stood up, his joints popped, stiff from the cold. He picked up his yellow backpack. It felt infinitely heavier than it had this morning.

 

The walk home was a blur. He faintly registered the smell of burning rubber and the sound of crowds cheering a few blocks over—the Sludge Villain, no doubt, finally being subdued by someone worthy. Someone with a Quirk. Someone like Kacchan. Izuku didn’t go to watch. For the first time in his life, the prospect of watching a hero fight made him want to vomit.

 

When he finally pushed open the door to his apartment, the smell of katsudon wafted from the kitchen.

 

"Izuku? Is that you, sweetie?" Inko Midoriya’s voice called out, laced with her perpetual, quiet anxiety. She appeared in the hallway, wiping her hands on her apron. Her eyes, so much like his own, scanned his soot-stained uniform and his red-rimmed eyes. "Oh, Izuku... rough day?"

 

"I'm fine, Mom," Izuku said. The lie tasted like copper on his tongue. It was a reflex, a defense mechanism built over a decade of hiding bruises and burn marks. "Just... tired. I'm going to study."

 

He didn't wait for her to reply, slipping past her and closing the door to his bedroom. The lock clicked into place with a heavy finality.

 

Izuku turned and looked at his sanctuary. Every square inch of wall space was covered in All Might posters. Action figures stood in triumphant poses on his shelves. Bed sheets, alarm clocks, rug—all adorned with the trademark red, white, blue, and yellow. It was a shrine to a man who had just told him his life's ambition was a delusion.

 

Suddenly, the room felt suffocating. The grinning faces of the Number One Hero felt mocking, cruel. The bright colors burned his retinas.

 

Breathing heavily, Izuku dropped his backpack. He walked up to the largest poster—a rare, limited-edition print from All Might's Silver Age debut—and grabbed the edge. With a sharp, violent tear, he ripped it from the wall.

 

The sound of the tearing paper was deafening in the quiet room. It was a dam breaking. Izuku moved like a machine, tearing down poster after poster, throwing action figures into the closet, stripping the sheets from his bed. By the time he was done, his fingers were bleeding from paper cuts, and the room was barren, exposing the pale, sterile beige walls underneath. It looked like a hospital room. It looked like a morgue.

 

He sat at his desk, his chest heaving, amidst the wreckage of his childhood.

 

His eyes fell upon his charred notebook. Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13. Bakugo had blown it up and tossed it into a koi pond earlier that day. Izuku reached out, his trembling fingers tracing the scorched, warped edges of the cover.

 

Why do some people get explosions, and others get nothing?

 

It was a question he had asked since he was four years old, sitting in Dr. Tsubasa's office, looking at an X-ray of his foot. It’s the extra joint in the pinky toe, the doctor had said. An evolutionary leftover. You’re baseline human, kid.

 

But what did that actually mean?

 

Izuku opened the notebook. The waterlogged pages were filled with his neat, cramped handwriting. He flipped past the entries on Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady. He flipped to the back, to a blank, singed page. He grabbed a mechanical pencil.

 

Baseline human. The evolutionary precursor. But evolution wasn't a straight line; it was a messy web of genetic mutations, environmental triggers, and epigenetic switches. Quirks, scientifically termed the Meta Abilities, were the result of a sudden, drastic genetic shift that occurred just a few centuries ago. The luminous baby in Qingqing, China wasn't born from thin air; it was the result of a genetic sequence suddenly "switching on."

 

Izuku began to write. Not about heroes. About biology.

 

Over the years, to compensate for his lack of a Quirk, Izuku had obsessively educated himself. While his classmates were playing video games or practicing their powers, Izuku was reading university-level textbooks on molecular biology, quantum physics, and advanced genetics. He had wanted to understand the mechanics of what he was missing.

 

Hypothesis, Izuku wrote, the lead of his pencil snapping against the paper. He clicked it out again, his eyes narrowing, a strange, cold focus settling over him. The despair was still there, but it was coalescing, hardening into something sharp.

 

Hypothesis: The Quirk Factor is not a newly introduced organ or an entirely alien biological structure. It is a dormant genetic sequence present in all human DNA, including the so-called 'baseline' Quirkless.

 

He drew a rough diagram of a double helix.

 

The extra toe joint is merely a superficial genetic marker, a correlation, not a causation. If the genetic material for the Meta Ability exists within the dormant 'junk DNA' of the human genome, then it is not a matter of missing the biology. It is a matter of missing the catalyst.

 

He stared at the words. This wasn't a new theory. Dr. Kyudai Garaki had proposed similar concepts decades ago regarding the Quirk Singularity, before being discredited. But Izuku wasn't interested in the end of the world; he was interested in his own biology.

 

If the genes were there, sleeping in his cells, how could he wake them up?

 

Nature used environmental stressors. Radiation from the sun, chemical exposures, extreme survival pressures.

 

If I cannot be born a hero, Izuku thought, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the pencil, then I will build one. I will synthesize the Quirk Factor.

 

The fanaticism of a fanboy had died on the rooftop. In its place, the dangerous obsession of a brilliant, desperate mind was born.

 

 

 

Over the next six months, the transformation of Izuku Midoriya went entirely unnoticed by the world.

 

To his mother, he was simply growing up, albeit in a worrying, reclusive way. He stopped watching hero fights on his computer, opting instead to lock his door and stare at screens filled with complex bio-chemical algorithms and theoretical physics models. To his teachers at Aldera Junior High, he was the same quiet, unassuming underachiever who stared out the window, though his grades in the sciences suddenly skyrocketed to perfect scores.

 

To Katsuki Bakugo, he was still just Deku. The only difference was that Deku had stopped flinching. When Bakugo slammed his hands on Izuku’s desk, letting off miniature explosions that singed Izuku’s hair, Izuku didn’t cower and cry anymore. He just stared back with dead, exhausted green eyes, as if calculating the exact caloric output of Bakugo’s nitroglycerin sweat, before silently packing his bags and leaving. It infuriated Bakugo to no end.

 

But beneath this placid, hollow surface, Izuku was a man possessed.

 

His sanctuary was no longer his bedroom. It was Dagobah Municipal Beach Park.

 

The beach was a legendary eyesore, a dumping ground for the city's illegal industrial waste. Mountains of rusting refrigerators, crushed cars, leaking batteries, and discarded hero-support tech stretched for miles along the coastline. For Izuku, it was a goldmine.

 

Tucked away at the far northern edge of the beach, hidden behind a colossal fortress of crushed shipping containers, sat an abandoned maritime warehouse. Its roof was half-caved in, and the walls were rusted through, but the concrete foundation was solid, and more importantly, it was entirely off the grid.

 

This was Izuku's laboratory.

 

It was a Tuesday evening, the rain drumming a frantic rhythm against the corrugated tin roof of the warehouse. Inside, the space was illuminated by the harsh, flickering glare of scavenged halogen work lights.

 

Izuku, wearing a thick, grease-stained mechanic's jumpsuit, wiped a mixture of rain and motor oil from his forehead. He stood before his life's work.

 

It looked like a medieval torture device crossed with a modern MRI machine.

 

He called it the Genesis Chamber.

 

At its core was a repurposed industrial hyperbaric pod, the kind used for deep-sea diving decompression. Surrounding the pod was a dizzying array of technology Izuku had spent months stealing, scavenging, and illegally purchasing through dark-web broker boards using his mother's credit card (a sin he promised himself he would repay tenfold once he succeeded).

 

There were four massive magnetrons harvested from commercial microwave arrays, designed to agitate cellular structures. Connected to these were a series of high-capacity lead-acid batteries, jury-rigged to a stolen city-grid transformer to provide the immense electrical load required. And at the heart of the system, wired directly into the pod’s internal emitters, were three thick, lead-lined vials containing the most dangerous component of all.

 

Synthesized bio-electric gamma radiotopes.

 

Getting the materials for the radiotopes had been a nightmare. He had cross-referenced the energy signatures of heroes with light-and-radiation emission Quirks, specifically studying the bio-luminescence and energetic wavelengths of the Pro Hero, Captain Celebrity, and the radioactive outputs of certain villains. Izuku hypothesized that to break the genetic lock on his dormant Quirk Factor, he needed a wavelength of energy that could penetrate the cellular wall without immediately incinerating the flesh. Gamma radiation, slightly tweaked with bio-plasmic frequencies, was the answer. He had synthesized the glowing, viscous green fluid using heavy water, scavenged uranium isotopes from old medical X-ray machines, and complex chemical binders.

 

It was wildly unstable. It was insanely dangerous. It was a masterpiece of desperate engineering.

 

Izuku grabbed a heavy wrench and tightened a final coupling on the primary coolant line. His muscles ached. Despite his lack of a Quirk, hauling hundreds of pounds of scrap metal across the beach for six months had fundamentally changed his body. He was no longer the scrawny, soft boy who had cried on the rooftop. He was lean, corded with wiry muscle, his hands calloused and scarred from chemical burns and sharp metal.

 

He walked over to a bank of scavenged computer monitors set up on a folding table. Lines of code cascaded down the screens. He typed rapidly, bringing up the latest simulation model.

 

A 3D rendering of a human DNA strand appeared. As he ran the simulation, a digital wave of green energy hit the strand. The double helix vibrated violently, breaking apart and instantly reforming into a thicker, denser configuration.

 

Simulation Trial 4,102: Success.

Mutation sustained. Cellular regeneration limits holding.

 

Izuku let out a long, shaky breath. The math worked. The biology worked. On paper, applying this specific dose of bio-gamma radiation should force his cellular structure into a state of hyper-evolution, cracking open the genetic vault and manifesting whatever latent Quirk lay dormant inside him.

 

But simulations were just that. The only way to know for sure was human testing.

 

He glanced at the empty pod. A cold knot of dread formed in his stomach. What if the coolant failed? He would be boiled alive in a sea of radiation. What if the calculation for his body mass was off by even a fraction? The radiation could shred his DNA, turning him into a puddle of necrotic flesh.

 

Consider what’s realistic, All Might’s voice echoed in his mind, unbidden.

 

Izuku clenched his jaw. He slammed his fist down on the metal table, the sound ringing out over the rain.

 

"I make my own reality now," he whispered to the empty room.

 

He was close. Just a few more calibrations, a few more safety checks. He planned to run the final experiment by the end of the month.

 

But as fate would have it, Izuku’s timeline was about to be violently accelerated.

 

 

 

The next day at Aldera Junior High was stiflingly hot. The air conditioning in Classroom 3-A was broken, and the afternoon sun baked the room through the large windows. Izuku sat at his desk in the back corner, completely ignoring the teacher’s lecture on pre-Quirk era history.

 

Instead, he was scribbling furiously in a new, unburned notebook. He was calculating the exact voltage threshold required to maintain the magnetic containment field inside the Genesis Chamber. If the grid fluctuated, he needed a fail-safe to prevent a complete feedback loop.

 

"Hey, Deku."

 

The voice was a low, dangerous growl.

 

Izuku didn't look up. He just kept writing. V = W/A. If the amperage spikes, the heat sink will melt within 4.2 seconds.

 

A hand slammed down on his desk, accompanied by a sharp, cracking sound and the acrid smell of burnt caramel. A small explosion scorched the corner of his notebook.

 

Izuku stopped writing. He slowly lifted his head.

 

Katsuki Bakugo stood over him, his crimson eyes narrowed into slits of pure, unadulterated contempt. Behind him, his two lackeys snickered, though they looked slightly unnerved by the heavy tension in the air.

 

"I'm talking to you, you Quirkless piece of shit," Bakugo sneered, leaning in close. "What are you doing? Still playing pretend? Still writing in your pathetic little diaries?"

 

"I'm doing math, Bakugo," Izuku said softly, his voice devoid of the trembling fear it used to hold. "Something you wouldn't understand."

 

The classroom went dead silent. The teacher at the front of the room pretended to look at his chalkboard, willfully ignoring the interaction. Nobody stood up to Katsuki Bakugo. Especially not Izuku Midoriya.

 

Bakugo’s eye twitched. His pride, fragile and massive as a glass cannon, couldn't handle the flat, unimpressed look in Izuku's eyes. Deku was supposed to cower. Deku was a pebble on the side of the road. Why was the pebble looking at him like he was an annoyance?

 

"You think you're smart?" Bakugo hissed, grabbing Izuku by the collar of his uniform and hauling him half out of his seat. Little pops of light crackled in Bakugo's palm, singing the fabric of Izuku's shirt and burning the skin over his collarbone. "You think because you stopped crying you're suddenly worth something? You're nothing. You're a genetic dead end. You're a defect."

 

Izuku stared directly into Bakugo’s eyes. The physical pain of the burn was nothing compared to the phantom pains of the radiation burns he had accidentally given himself over the last few months.

 

"Let me go," Izuku said, his voice terrifyingly calm.

 

"Or what?" Bakugo yelled, his temper snapping. With a roar, he threw Izuku backward. Izuku slammed into the back wall of the classroom, his head bouncing hard against the plaster. His vision swam with black spots, a sharp spike of pain rocketing through his skull.

 

His notebook fell to the floor, spilling open.

 

Bakugo stepped forward, looking down at the complex diagrams of DNA chains, bio-chemical formulas, and the sketches of the Genesis Chamber. He sneered, not understanding a word of it, but recognizing that it wasn't hero analysis.

 

"What is this trash?" Bakugo raised his foot, the sole of his sneaker glowing with heat, and brought it down hard on the notebook. An explosion ripped through the paper, tearing it to shreds and setting the fragments on fire.

 

Izuku sat slumped against the wall, a trickle of blood running down his temple. He watched months of physical calculations turn into gray ash.

 

Something inside Izuku snapped.

 

It wasn't a loud, dramatic break. It was the quiet, terrifying sound of a heavy steel door slamming shut, locking away the last vestiges of his patience, his fear, and his restraint. He looked at Bakugo, and for the first time, he didn't see a childhood friend. He didn't see an amazing future hero.

 

He saw a bully. A primate with a genetic lottery ticket, abusing his power because society allowed him to.

 

"You're pathetic, Deku," Bakugo spat, turning away. "Don't ever look at me like that again, or I'll blow your damn head off."

 

Izuku didn't say a word. He slowly pushed himself up off the floor. He ignored the teacher, who nervously told him to sit down. He ignored the stares of his classmates. He grabbed his yellow backpack, walked past Bakugo without sparing him a single glance, and walked out the door.

 

He didn't go to the nurse. He walked out of the school gates, out into the sweltering afternoon heat.

 

His heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The blood rushing in his ears sounded like the ocean.

 

He looked at his hands. They were shaking. Not with fear. With a raw, primal, incandescent rage.

 

He had played by the rules. He had endured the beatings, the taunts, the systemic isolation. He had tried to be a good, normal, Quirkless boy in a world of gods. And all it got him was a bleeding head and burnt dreams.

 

He wasn't going to wait until the end of the month.

 

He was going to do it tonight.

 

 

 

The sky above Dagobah Beach was an apocalyptic canvas of swirling black clouds. A freak summer storm had rolled in from the bay, plunging the coastline into premature darkness. Thunder rattled the rusted bones of the junk mountains, and lightning spider-webbed across the horizon, casting momentary, jagged shadows across the sand.

 

Inside the warehouse, the Genesis Chamber hummed like a living, breathing beast.

 

Izuku moved with frantic, single-minded purpose. He had locked the heavy metal doors of the warehouse from the inside, barricading them with a scrapped forklift. Nobody was getting in. He wasn't leaving until he was either a hero or a corpse.

 

He had stripped down to a pair of compression shorts. His skin was pale in the harsh halogen light, bruised from his encounter with Bakugo, and covered in small, healing cuts from his months of scavenging. He stood before the open hatch of the pod, feeling the cold air rolling off the heavy water coolant system.

 

He walked over to the control console. His fingers flew across the keyboard, initiating the startup sequence.

 

Power Grid: Nominal.

Coolant Systems: Active.

Bio-plasmic Emitters: Online.

Isotope Containment: Stable.

 

Izuku reached into his backpack and pulled out a single sheet of paper. It was a letter to his mother. He had written it weeks ago, revising it dozens of times. It was an apology for the lies, an explanation of his theory, and a plea for her forgiveness if she was reading it. He set it gently on the keyboard, weighting it down with his favorite All Might action figure—the only one he had kept.

 

He walked to the pod.

 

He stepped inside.

 

The interior was cramped, smelling of ozone, antiseptic, and cold metal. He lay back against the padded incline, pulling the heavy, multi-point harness over his chest and buckling it tight. He reached up and grabbed the manual release lever, pulling it down.

 

With a hiss of hydraulics, the heavy glass-and-steel door of the pod swung shut, sealing him in airtight darkness.

 

A moment later, the interior lights flared to life. Small monitors inside the pod displayed his heart rate, which was already skyrocketing into the 120s.

 

Izuku reached to his right and grabbed a thick, rubber mouth-guard, biting down on it. He then slipped two specialized intravenous needles into the crooks of his arms, wincing at the sting. These were connected directly to the bio-gamma radiotope vials. The radiation needed to be introduced directly into his bloodstream at the exact moment the magnetrons hit his body with the external frequency, creating a sandwich effect of energy that would crack his DNA open.

 

His hand hovered over the large, red initiation button on the pod's inner control panel.

 

For a single, terrifying second, doubt crept in. He was a fourteen-year-old boy. He had no medical degree. He was working in a garbage dump with stolen parts. If he pressed this button, there was a 90% chance he would die in unimaginable agony.

 

He closed his eyes.

 

He saw All Might turning his back on the roof.

He saw Bakugo laughing as his notebook burned.

He felt the suffocating, crushing weight of a society that looked at him and saw absolutely nothing.

 

Izuku Midoriya opened his eyes. They were hard, resolute, and burning with a terrifying defiance.

 

He slammed his fist down on the button.

 

The warehouse exploded into chaos.

 

Outside, a massive bolt of lightning struck a nearby electrical tower, sending a colossal, unintended surge of power directly into the city grid.

 

Inside the warehouse, the jury-rigged transformer intercepted the spike. Izuku’s calculations for the voltage threshold were perfect for the standard output, but the lightning strike overwhelmed the scavenged surge protectors in a millisecond.

 

Inside the pod, Izuku didn't even have time to register the error.

 

The magnetrons didn't just activate; they shrieked, glowing a blinding, incandescent white as they pumped thousands of times the intended bio-plasmic frequency into the chamber.

 

At the exact same moment, the automated IV pumps slammed the glowing green radiotopes directly into Izuku's veins.

 

The reaction was instantaneous.

 

Izuku threw his head back, his eyes rolling up into his skull, and screamed. The sound was muffled by the thick glass of the pod, but it tore his throat raw. It felt as though liquid fire had been injected into his heart, rushing through his arteries like a freight train of pure agony. Every single cell in his body felt like it was simultaneously exploding and being stitched back together with white-hot wire.

 

Through the glass, the dark warehouse was suddenly illuminated by a terrifying, pulsing emerald light. It wasn't the warm, heroic glow of a standard Quirk. It was a sickly, unnatural luminescence, the color of radioactive decay and toxic rot.

 

Warning: Containment Failure.

Warning: Radiation Levels Exceeding 10,000% of Target Threshold.

 

The automated computer voice was barely audible over the roaring hum of the overloading machinery.

 

Izuku writhed against the harnesses. His body arched so violently that his spine popped. Beneath his skin, his veins turned a violent, glowing green, bulging like thick vines.

 

The pain was beyond anything humanly comprehensible. His vision went entirely white, then red, then a blinding, neon green. He could hear his own heartbeat, incredibly loud, hammering against his ribs. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

 

But the heartbeat was speeding up. Getting louder.

 

He felt a terrifying pressure building beneath his skin, in his muscles, in his bones. He could hear a sickening, wet cracking sound. His limbs felt like they were being stretched on a medieval rack. The heavy, reinforced canvas of the safety harnesses began to groan, the stitching tearing.

 

Simulation failed, a tiny, frantic voice in the back of his dying mind whispered. Mutation unstable. Cellular structure collapsing.

 

But he wasn't dying.

 

That was the true horror of it. The radiation wasn't killing his cells; it was supercharging them, feeding off his adrenaline, feeding off his raw, physical agony.

 

And deeper down, it was feeding on something else.

 

As his consciousness began to slip away into the dark, drowning in a sea of green fire, the barrier between Izuku’s rational mind and his repressed subconscious shattered.

 

Fourteen years of swallowed anger. Fourteen years of biting his tongue, of looking at his shoes, of taking the hits and smiling through the tears. Fourteen years of pure, distilled rage at the injustice of the world.

 

The bio-gamma radiation latched onto that rage. It acted as a conduit, translating emotional fury into rampant, uncontrollable biological mass.

 

Inside the pod, Izuku's arm twitched. The skin, already glowing green, suddenly swelled, the muscle mass ballooning grotesquely. The leather harness over his chest snapped like a brittle twig.

 

His eyes snapped open. The sclera, usually white, were a bruised, bloody red. His irises glowed like twin emerald suns.

 

He let out a sound that wasn't human. It was a guttural, earth-shaking roar that vibrated the very foundations of the warehouse.

 

Outside the pod, the computer monitors sparked and exploded, showering the room in glass. The Genesis Chamber's metallic hull began to buckle outward, dented by an immense force from within.

 

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

 

A massive, green fist—twice the size of a normal human's, corded with thick, pulsing veins—smashed through the reinforced glass of the hyperbaric pod.

 

The glass didn't just shatter; it exploded outward like shrapnel from a grenade.

 

The heavy steel doors of the pod were ripped off their hinges and thrown across the room, smashing through a concrete pillar.

 

A heavy, thick mist of vaporized coolant and green radiation poured out of the broken machine, obscuring the center of the room. The only light remaining in the warehouse came from the pulsing, radioactive glow emanating from within the smoke.

 

Heavy, thunderous footsteps echoed on the concrete.

 

Out of the smoke stepped a nightmare.

 

It was easily eight feet tall, entirely green, with shoulders as wide as a car. Its muscles were impossibly massive, shifting and undulating beneath thick, impenetrable skin. Its face was a twisted, monstrous caricature of Izuku Midoriya—a heavy, jutting brow, a jaw filled with flat, grinding teeth, and an expression of pure, unadulterated fury.

 

The creature looked down at its massive hands, clenching them into fists the size of boulders. It threw its head back, the wild mess of green hair whipping in the wind blowing through the broken roof.

 

It roared again, a sound of absolute dominance and terrifying rage, drowning out the thunder rolling across the bay.

 

Izuku Midoriya, the Quirkless boy who wanted to be a hero, was gone, buried deep within a prison of his own making.

 

In his place stood the Behemoth.

 

And it was angry.

 

With a single, devastating leap, the creature smashed upward, tearing straight through the corrugated steel roof of the warehouse as if it were wet tissue paper. It launched itself into the stormy night sky, landing hundreds of yards away in the center of the massive trash heaps of Dagobah Beach.

 

Mountains of scrap metal were sent flying like toys as the beast began to tear through the environment, howling at the storm, entirely out of control, a weapon of mass destruction born from a broken heart.

 

The Quirkless Equation had been solved. But the answer was a monster.

 

 

 

The first thing to return to him was the smell.

 

It was sharp, earthy, and damp. Pine needles and decaying leaves, laced with a faint, metallic tang—like a battery that had been left to corrode in the rain.

 

Then came the cold. A biting, pervasive chill that seeped into his bones, making his muscles lock and his teeth chatter violently. He tried to pull his blanket tighter around his shoulders, but his fingers only closed around wet, muddy soil.

 

Izuku Midoriya opened his eyes.

 

He immediately squeezed them shut again as a blinding stab of sunlight pierced his retinas, sending a concussive wave of agony through his skull. His head didn't just ache; it felt as though it had been cracked open, hollowed out, and filled with shattered glass. A low, groaning sound escaped his lips, sounding dry and raspy, like sandpaper scraping against stone.

 

Slowly, agonizingly, he forced his eyes open again, blinking rapidly to clear the blurred edges of his vision. He wasn't in his bedroom. He wasn't in the warehouse at Dagobah Beach.

 

He was staring up at a canopy of dense, emerald-green leaves, backlit by the pale, hazy sunlight of early morning.

 

Izuku tried to sit up. The moment his abdominal muscles contracted, a chorus of sharp, screaming pain erupted across his entire body. He gasped, collapsing back into the dirt. His body felt impossibly heavy, as if gravity had somehow doubled overnight. Every joint burned. Every muscle fiber felt as though it had been stretched to the absolute breaking point and then roughly snapped back into place.

 

What... what happened?

 

Panic, cold and sharp, began to cut through the haze of exhaustion. He forced himself to roll onto his side, ignoring the protests of his battered body, and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.

 

He looked down. He was completely naked.

 

He was covered head to toe in thick, dark mud, intertwined with dried leaves and pine needles. But beneath the dirt, his skin looked... wrong. There were massive, sprawling bruises coloring his ribs, thighs, and forearms. But they weren't the purple or black of normal contusions. They were a sickly, faded green, following the paths of his major veins.

 

His breathing hitched. He touched his chest. The skin felt hot, radiating a strange, feverish warmth into the crisp morning air.

 

The experiment, he thought, fragments of memory hitting him like physical blows.

 

The storm. The locked doors. The lightning strike. He remembered the overwhelming surge of power. He remembered the blinding light of the magnetrons, the horrific sting of the IV needles pumping the bio-gamma radiotopes into his bloodstream.

 

And then... pain. Pain beyond anything a human mind was built to endure. A sensation of tearing, of expanding, of burning from the inside out.

 

After that, there was only a terrifying, gaping void. A black hole in his memory.

 

He looked around frantically. He was in a dense forest. Judging by the incline of the terrain and the specific types of cedar trees, he was somewhere in the mountainous outskirts of Musutafu, miles away from the coastline.

 

How had he gotten here? Did the pod explode and launch him? No, that was impossible. He would be dead.

 

Izuku staggered to his feet. His legs wobbled like jelly, and he had to lean heavily against the rough bark of a nearby cedar tree to keep from falling over. His mouth tasted like ash and copper.

 

"Okay," he croaked, his voice cracking. "Okay. Think, Izuku. You're alive. The mutation sequence... it must have completed. Or aborted."

 

He held up his hands, expecting to see something different. A physical change. A Quirk. Maybe he could generate an energy field? Maybe he had enhanced strength? He concentrated, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to summon a spark, a flame, a telekinetic push—anything.

 

Nothing happened.

 

He was just a naked, bruised, freezing teenager standing in the woods.

 

Tears of frustration welled in his eyes. He had risked everything. He had endured unspeakable agony. And for what? To wake up in the dirt, the exact same useless Deku he had been yesterday?

 

A sudden, sharp rustle in the underbrush made him jump. A small deer broke through the tree line, pausing to stare at him with large, dark eyes before bounding away. The sudden spike of adrenaline made Izuku’s heart flutter, and for a split second, a sharp, phantom pain spiked behind his eyes, accompanied by an auditory hallucination—a low, echoing, guttural roar that seemed to vibrate inside his own skull.

 

He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, panting. He needed to get home. He needed to analyze the data. He needed to know what had gone wrong.

 

Izuku began to walk. The forest floor was merciless on his bare feet. Sharp stones, broken twigs, and thorny brambles tore at his soles, but he gritted his teeth and pushed forward, using the angle of the sun to orient himself eastward, back toward the city.

 

The journey was a blur of misery. His stomach cramped violently, a hollow, gnawing hunger twisting his insides. It wasn't just a skipped-breakfast hunger; it was a ravenous, desperate starvation, as if his body had burned through thousands of calories in a matter of hours.

 

After what felt like an eternity, the trees began to thin, giving way to an abandoned logging road, and eventually, the paved streets of a quiet residential suburb on the edge of Musutafu.

 

It was early, perhaps around 6:00 AM. The streets were mostly empty, save for the occasional passing car or early morning jogger. Izuku ducked behind a row of manicured hedges, his heart hammering against his ribs. He couldn't walk into the city naked. He'd be arrested, taken to a hospital, and his mother would be called. Or worse, the authorities would take his blood and discover the illegal radioactive compounds inside him.

 

He crept along the alleyways, moving like a ghost. Behind a modest, two-story house, he spotted a godsend: a clothing line strung across a small backyard.

 

Izuku felt a deep, sickening wave of shame wash over him. A hero doesn't steal, All Might’s voice echoed in his mind.

 

I'm not a hero, Izuku thought bitterly. I'm a survivor.

 

He hopped the low wooden fence, his bare feet silent on the dewy grass. He quickly snatched an oversized gray hoodie and a pair of baggy black sweatpants from the line. They were slightly damp and smelled of cheap detergent, but they were the greatest things he had ever touched. He pulled them on quickly. The clothes dwarfed his frame, but they covered the strange green bruising and hid his identity.

 

He vaulted back over the fence and began the long trek home.

 

By the time he reached his apartment complex, the city was waking up. The morning commute had begun, and the sidewalks were filled with people oblivious to the boy in the oversized hoodie trembling in their midst.

 

Izuku checked his watch—no, he didn't have a watch. He checked the digital clock in a convenience store window. 7:45 AM. His mother worked the early shift at the hospital on Wednesdays. She would have left by 7:00.

 

He practically sprinted the last block, taking the stairs to his apartment two at a time. He fumbled beneath the welcome mat, his shaking fingers retrieving the spare key. He shoved it into the lock, twisted, and pushed the door open.

 

The apartment was quiet. The smell of fresh coffee still lingered in the air.

 

Izuku locked the deadbolt behind him, sliding down the door until he hit the floor. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms, finally allowing a single, ragged sob to tear from his throat. He was safe. He was home.

 

But the relief was fleeting. His stomach gave another violent, painful cramp.

 

He scrambled up and stumbled into the kitchen. He threw open the refrigerator and began tearing into whatever he could find. He ate cold leftover rice with his bare hands, shoving it into his mouth. He drank half a carton of milk in one gulp. He tore open a package of sliced ham and ate the entire thing, followed by two apples and a sleeve of crackers.

 

He didn't taste any of it. He was just fueling a furnace that was threatening to burn him alive.

 

Once the immediate, clawing hunger subsided, he walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He stripped off the stolen clothes and stepped under the scalding hot spray. The water washed away the mud, the dried leaves, and the grime, swirling down the drain in a dark, filthy vortex.

 

He scrubbed his skin until it was raw, trying to wash away the memory of the pod, the lightning, the pain.

 

When he finally turned off the water and wiped the steam from the mirror, he stopped dead.

 

He stared at his reflection.

 

At first glance, it was still Izuku. The freckles, the untamable green hair, the wide eyes. But as he looked closer, the subtle, terrifying differences became apparent.

 

He was slightly taller. The wiry muscle he had built moving trash at the beach was denser, more pronounced, wrapping around his frame like tightly coiled steel cables. But the most alarming change was his eyes.

 

His irises, normally a soft, forest green, were slightly brighter. They caught the bathroom light in a strange, almost reflective way, like a cat's eyes in the dark. And beneath his pale skin, the faint, green spider-webs of his veins pulsed rhythmically.

 

He pressed two fingers to his carotid artery. His pulse was fast. Too fast for a resting rate.

 

What did I do to myself?

 

He dressed quickly in his own clothes—a simple white t-shirt and shorts. He needed data. He needed his computer to check the telemetry logs from the warehouse.

 

He walked into the living room, grabbing the television remote out of habit to provide some background noise while he thought. He hit the power button.

 

The screen flared to life, showing the anchor of the local Musutafu Morning News desk. Her face was pale, her expression grim.

 

"...repeating our top story this morning. A State of Emergency has been declared for the coastal industrial district following an unprecedented incident at Dagobah Municipal Beach Park late last night."

 

Izuku froze. The remote slipped from his hand, clattering onto the hardwood floor.

 

The news broadcast cut away from the anchor to aerial helicopter footage.

 

Izuku’s breath caught in his throat.

 

The warehouse—his sanctuary, his laboratory, the cradle of his experiment—was gone. In its place was a massive, smoldering crater. The concrete foundation had been pulverized into dust. The heavy steel walls were warped and peeled backward like the petals of a grotesque metallic flower.

 

But that wasn't the worst part.

 

The massive mountains of illegal trash that covered the beach for miles had been flattened. Deep, colossal trenches were carved through the debris, as if a hurricane made of pure kinetic force had touched down and torn through the coastline. Cars were crushed into cubes. Refrigerators were embedded into the sand.

 

"Authorities are currently struggling to identify the cause of the destruction," a reporter's voice narrated over the horrifying imagery. "The blast radius suggests a high-yield explosive, but Pro Heroes on the scene, including Kamui Woods and Death Arms, report finding no chemical residue consistent with a bomb. However..."

 

The screen cut to a shaky, grainy piece of cell-phone video footage. The caption read: Captured by a local resident 2 miles from Ground Zero.

 

"This footage was uploaded to the internet shortly after the initial shockwave," the reporter continued, her voice trembling slightly.

 

Izuku walked slowly toward the television, his eyes wide, his blood running cold.

 

The video was dark, illuminated only by the flashes of the thunderstorm. It showed the skyline of the trash mountains. Suddenly, a massive bolt of lightning illuminated the sky.

 

In that split second of blinding light, a silhouette was visible against the horizon.

 

It was massive. Easily the size of a small building. It was vaguely humanoid, but impossibly broad, with heavily muscled limbs that defied biological logic.

 

As the thunder rolled through the audio of the video, the creature threw its head back. Its eyes—two glowing, furious, radioactive green orbs—pierced through the darkness and the rain. It opened its mouth and let out a roar.

 

Even compressed through the television speakers, the sound was terrifying. It was a guttural, primal scream of absolute fury, a sound that bypassed the rational mind and triggered an ancient, reptilian fear deep in the human brain.

 

In the video, the creature then leapt. It didn't fly; it simply bent its massive knees and launched itself into the air with such force that the mountain of trash beneath it exploded outward. It soared through the storm clouds, vanishing from sight.

 

"The Hero Public Safety Commission has issued a gag order on the specifics, but internet forums are already dubbing this unidentified villain 'The Emerald Behemoth,'" the anchor said as the broadcast cut back to the news desk. "Citizens are advised to stay indoors and report any sightings of anomalous seismic activity or green luminescence immediately. This entity is considered armed, highly volatile, and incredibly dangerous."

 

Izuku stared at the screen long after the segment ended.

 

The room began to spin. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead. He backed away from the television, his legs trembling until the back of his knees hit the couch and he collapsed onto it.

 

No. No, no, no.

 

He brought his shaking hands up to his face.

 

I was in the pod. The machine overloaded. I woke up miles away.

 

He looked at the footage replaying in the corner of the screen. The glowing green eyes. The impossible leap.

 

He looked down at his own arms, at the faint, green bruising mapping his veins.

 

"It's me," he whispered into the empty room. His voice was fragile, shattering in the quiet air. "Oh my god, it's me."

 

He hadn't unlocked a Quirk. He hadn't evolved.

 

The bio-gamma radiation hadn't gently switched on a dormant gene. The massive electrical overload, combined with the unstable isotopes, had violently rewritten his cellular structure. It had weaponized his biology.

 

When the pain became too much, he had blacked out. But his body hadn't shut down. It had transformed. The sheer, unadulterated rage and terror he had felt in that pod had served as a catalyst, warping his flesh and bone into a manifestation of his own trauma.

 

A monster.

 

Izuku curled into a tight ball on the couch, burying his face in his knees. The implications crashed over him like a tidal wave. He was an S-Rank villain. If anyone found out, he would be locked in Tartarus for the rest of his life. Or worse, the HPSC would dissect him to figure out how a Quirkless nobody managed to synthesize a biological weapon capable of flattening a coastline.

 

The letter, he suddenly realized, his blood turning to ice.

 

He had left a letter for his mother on the console. If the police found it...

 

He looked back at the television. The crater was a smoldering ruin. The console was vaporized. The letter was ash. His identity was safe, for now.

 

But his body wasn't.

 

He needed to know the extent of the damage. He needed to understand the mechanics of what he had become before it happened again.

 

Moving with a frantic, desperate energy, Izuku ran to his bedroom. His walls were still bare, the pale paint a stark reminder of the day he had given up on his childhood dreams. He opened his closet and pulled down a heavy plastic storage bin. Inside were various chemistry sets, old microscopes, and medical supplies he had scavenged over the months.

 

He carried the bin to his desk and set up a makeshift laboratory. He pulled out a sterile syringe, a tourniquet, a set of glass slides, and a high-powered digital microscope he had rewired to project onto his computer monitor.

 

He sat down, his heart hammering in his chest. He wrapped the rubber tourniquet tightly around his left bicep, biting his lip as the green veins immediately bulged against his skin.

 

He uncapped the needle. His hand was shaking violently.

 

"Come on," he muttered to himself, forcing his analytical mind to override his panic. "You're a scientist. Observe. Hypothesize. Test."

 

He took a deep breath, steadied his hand, and slid the needle into the crook of his arm.

 

The blood that filled the barrel of the syringe was not the deep, crimson red of a normal human. It was dark, almost black, but backlit by a sickly, luminescent green glow. It looked like radioactive oil.

 

Izuku swallowed hard. He withdrew the needle, released the tourniquet, and carefully squeezed a single drop of his blood onto a glass slide. He placed a coverslip over it and slid it under the microscope's lens.

 

He plugged the microscope into his laptop and brought up the viewing software.

 

The image on the screen made his stomach drop out completely.

 

Human blood cells are relatively simple. Red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, floating in plasma.

 

What Izuku saw on the screen looked like a war zone.

 

His red blood cells were mutating in real-time. They were vibrating violently, their cellular walls constantly expanding and contracting. Interspersed among them were bright, glowing green particles—the gamma radiotopes. But they weren't being flushed out by his immune system.

 

Instead, his cells were absorbing them.

 

Fascinated and horrified, Izuku zoomed in on a single leukocyte (white blood cell). As a gamma particle collided with it, the cell didn't die. It absorbed the energy, rapidly divided, and grew thicker, denser.

 

"The radiation... it's trapped in a symbiotic loop," Izuku murmured, typing frantically on his keyboard to record the data. "My body is acting like a biological nuclear reactor. The cells store the gamma energy. But why did I transform? What was the catalyst for the mass-expansion?"

 

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

 

In the pod, he was terrified. He was in agony. But more than anything, he was angry. The memory of Bakugo burning his notebook, the memory of All Might's rejection, the sheer injustice of his existence. His heart rate had skyrocketed. Adrenaline had flooded his system.

 

Adrenaline, Izuku thought, his eyes widening. The endocrine system.

 

Adrenaline acts as an accelerator for the heart, increasing blood flow and oxygen to the muscles for a fight-or-flight response.

 

If his blood was saturated with volatile gamma radiation, an adrenaline spike wouldn't just increase his heart rate. It would act like a control rod being pulled out of a nuclear reactor. The increased blood flow would cause the gamma cells to rapidly divide and synthesize massive amounts of biological mass, drawing energy directly from the radiation to instantaneously build muscle and bone.

 

The transformation wasn't a permanent shift. It was a chemical reaction triggered by his own nervous system.

 

He was a ticking time bomb.

 

If his heart rate went up, if he got scared, if he got angry... the Behemoth would come out.

 

"I have to control it," Izuku whispered, his voice trembling. "I can't let it happen again. I have to stay calm."

 

He reached out to adjust the focus dial on the microscope, his mind racing with terrifying possibilities. What if he had a nightmare? What if he got jump-scared? What if someone bumped into him on the street?

 

The sheer terror of the situation suddenly spiked his anxiety. His chest tightened.

 

Thump-thump.

 

His heart rate fluttered.

 

His hand, hovering over the microscope, began to shake. His elbow bumped the edge of the glass beaker he had used to hold the sterile saline solution.

 

The beaker tipped over, rolling off the edge of the desk.

 

Time seemed to slow down. Izuku lunged for it, his fingers brushing the smooth glass, but he was too slow.

 

The beaker hit the hardwood floor and shattered with a sharp, explosive CRACK.

 

A jagged shard of glass bounced upward, slicing deep into the palm of his outstretched hand.

 

Izuku gasped, pulling his hand back. A line of dark blood welled up from the cut.

 

But the sting of the cut wasn't the problem. The problem was the sudden, sharp spike of frustration and fear that accompanied it. He had ruined the sterile environment. He was bleeding. He was a monster. He was out of control.

 

"Dammit!" Izuku hissed, gripping his bleeding hand.

 

It was a small flare of anger. Just a spark.

 

But a spark in a powder keg is all it takes.

 

The reaction was instantaneous.

 

THUMP. THUMP.

 

His heart slammed against his ribs, sounding like a sledgehammer on an anvil. A wave of heat, intense and suffocating, washed over his body.

 

Izuku looked down at his hand.

 

The blood welling from the cut was glowing. A bright, neon green light began to radiate from the wound.

 

"No," Izuku choked out, stumbling backward away from the desk. "No, no, stop!"

 

But his body wasn't listening.

 

The veins in his forearm bulged, turning a dark, bruised green. The muscles in his arm began to twitch and spasm violently. The skin over his bicep began to stretch, emitting a sickening, tearing sound as the muscle mass beneath it began to rapidly, impossibly expand.

 

The heat inside him flared into a roaring fire. His vision swam, the edges of the room turning a hazy, radioactive green.

 

Deep inside his mind, he heard it again. The roar. The Behemoth was waking up. It felt his pain, it felt his frustration, and it was clawing at the door of his subconscious, demanding to be let out to smash whatever was hurting him.

 

It's going to destroy the apartment. It's going to kill my mother. It's going to kill everyone.

 

Izuku fell to his knees, clutching his rapidly expanding right arm with his left hand. The pain was excruciating, identical to the burning agony of the pod. His right arm was already twice its normal size, the sleeve of his t-shirt tearing at the seam.

 

"Stop!" he screamed at his own body, his voice dropping an octave, taking on a rough, guttural resonance that wasn't his own.

 

He needed to lower his heart rate. He needed to cut off the adrenaline.

 

Desperation clawed at him. He remembered a hero interview he had watched years ago. The Pro Hero, Edgeshot, talking about remaining calm in lethal situations. Four square breathing. Inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. Command your body; do not let it command you.

 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut. He dug the fingernails of his left hand into his thigh, using the sharp, localized pain to ground himself in reality.

 

Inhale. One... two... three... four.

 

His lungs burned. The monster in his head roared, fighting against the restraint, demanding to break free.

 

Hold. One... two... three... four.

 

He pictured the ocean. He pictured the calm, rolling waves before the storm. He pictured his mother's smile. He pictured anything but the fire.

 

Exhale. One... two... three... four.

 

A ragged, shuddering breath left his lips.

 

Hold. One... two... three... four.

 

Slowly, agonizingly, the hammering in his chest began to decelerate. Thump.... thump.... thump.

 

The suffocating heat began to recede, drawing back from his limbs and pooling into a dull ache in his chest. The violent spasms in his arm slowed, then stopped.

 

Izuku opened his eyes. He was drenched in cold sweat, panting heavily on the floor of his bedroom.

 

He looked at his right arm. The massive, bulging muscle was slowly deflating, the green veins fading back to their faint, bruised state. The torn sleeve of his t-shirt hung limply around his normal-sized bicep.

 

The cut on his palm was no longer glowing. In fact, as he watched, the edges of the wound began to knit together, the accelerated, gamma-infused cellular division healing the injury in a matter of seconds, leaving behind smooth, unblemished skin.

 

He was whole again.

 

Izuku collapsed flat onto his back, staring up at the blank ceiling. His body trembled uncontrollably.

 

He had stopped it. Barely.

 

But the realization that settled over him was colder and more terrifying than the winter air outside.

 

He couldn't fix this. There was no mathematical equation, no chemical compound, no surgery that could undo what the radiation had woven into his DNA. The Behemoth wasn't a disease he could cure. It was him. It was a physical manifestation of every dark, angry, broken part of his soul, armed with enough kinetic power to level a city.

 

And it was tied directly to his emotions.

 

If he went back to school, if Bakugo cornered him, if he was pushed too far... he wouldn't just cry anymore. He would kill him. He would kill everyone in the building.

 

He had to hide it. He had to build a cage around his own heart.

 

Izuku slowly sat up. He looked at the shattered glass on the floor, the drops of strange, dark blood. He moved to his desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a roll of medical tape and a heavy, thick leather wristband he had worn when lifting heavy scrap metal. He wrapped his right wrist tightly, concealing the most prominent green veins.

 

He then booted up a secure, dark-web browser on his laptop. He typed in a search query for a specific piece of medical technology.

 

Biometric smart-watch. Continuous heart-rate monitoring. High-decibel alarm function.

 

He needed an early warning system. He needed to know the exact moment his body began to betray him.

 

He ordered the watch, paying extra for expedited, overnight shipping.

 

As the order confirmation popped up on the screen, Izuku closed his laptop. He walked over to his window and looked out at the city of Musutafu. The sun was fully up now, casting a golden glow over the buildings. In the distance, he could see the towering glass structure of U.A. High School, standing like a beacon of hope for the future heroes of the world.

 

Yesterday, he would have looked at it with longing and despair.

 

Today, he looked at it with sheer terror.

 

He was no longer a baseline human. He was no longer just a Quirkless nobody. He was the most dangerous thing in this city.

 

He turned away from the window, pulling the curtains tightly shut, plunging his room back into darkness.

 

The Quirkless boy was dead. And until he could figure out how to tame the beast inside his blood, Izuku Midoriya would have to become a master of his own pulse. Or the world would burn.

 

 

 

The package arrived two days after the incident at Dagobah Beach. It was a small, unassuming cardboard box, dropped on the welcome mat of the Midoriya apartment by a tired delivery driver who had no idea he was delivering a shackle.

 

Izuku retrieved it before his mother could see. He took it to his bedroom, locked the door, and sat at his desk. With hands that still possessed a faint, almost imperceptible tremor, he cut the tape with a box cutter and pulled out the device.

 

It was a heavy-duty, military-grade biometric smartwatch. Designed for extreme sports and deep-sea diving, it was entirely matte black, with a thick reinforced rubber strap and a scratch-resistant face. But Izuku hadn’t bought it for its durability. He had bought it for its precision.

 

He strapped it to his left wrist, tightening it until the optical sensors dug firmly into his skin. He booted it up, navigating through the menus with clinical detachment.

 

Settings. Vitals. Heart Rate.

 

Set Upper Limit Threshold.

 

Izuku hesitated, his thumb hovering over the dial. What was the exact number? During his panic attack with the broken beaker, he had felt the heat start to build, the veins begin to bulge, just as the panic set in. The human resting heart rate for a teenager was around 70 to 80 beats per minute. A brisk walk brought it to 100. A dead sprint could push it past 150.

 

But Izuku wasn't dealing with cardio. He was dealing with adrenaline-induced gamma synthesis.

 

He needed a buffer. A safety net.

 

He scrolled the dial down. 140... 130... 120.

 

He pressed confirm.

 

Threshold set: 120 BPM. Audible alarm activated.

 

Instantly, the watch screen flickered, displaying a glowing green number.

 

82 BPM.

 

Izuku stared at it. It was slightly elevated, a testament to his lingering anxiety. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. He pictured a flat, gray, empty plane of existence. No heroes. No villains. No explosions. No fire. Just silence.

 

He opened his eyes.

 

74 BPM.

 

"Good," he whispered. His voice sounded hollow in the quiet room.

 

This was his life now. He was no longer Izuku Midoriya, the aspiring hero. He was a caretaker, the warden of a biological prison, tasked with keeping a monster asleep. Every emotion—joy, fear, excitement, anger—was a potential trigger. To survive, to keep the people around him safe, he had to become a ghost. He had to become a machine.

 

A soft knock on the door made the green number jump to 81.

 

"Izuku?" His mother’s voice was muffled through the wood. "Dinner is ready, sweetheart. Are you feeling okay? You've been locked in there since you got home from school."

 

Izuku stood up, adjusting the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt to ensure the watch was completely covered. "I'm coming, Mom."

 

Dinner was a quiet, suffocating affair. Inko had made katsudon, his absolute favorite. A week ago, the smell of the fried pork and sweet egg would have made him grin from ear to ear, his heart fluttering with simple, domestic joy.

 

Tonight, he ate it mechanically, his eyes fixed on the grain of the wooden table.

 

"How was school?" Inko asked gently, her brow furrowed with that familiar, maternal worry. She reached out, her hand resting over his.

 

The warmth of her touch, the sheer, unconditional love radiating from her, sent a pang of deep, agonizing guilt through his chest. He was lying to her. He was eating her food, sitting in her home, while housing a weapon of mass destruction in his veins. If she knew what he had done to himself, she would be terrified of him.

 

Thump.

 

88 BPM.

 

Izuku gently pulled his hand away, resting it in his lap beneath the table. He couldn't afford guilt. Guilt was an emotion. Emotion was a spike.

 

"It was fine," Izuku said, keeping his voice entirely flat. "Just studying. Exams are coming up."

 

Inko’s face fell slightly at his withdrawal, a shadow of hurt crossing her eyes. "Oh. Well, don't push yourself too hard, okay? You've been so tense lately. If... if Katsuki is bothering you again—"

 

"He's not," Izuku interrupted, his tone sharper than intended. He immediately checked himself, flattening his inflection. "Kacchan is just being Kacchan. It doesn't matter anymore."

 

He stood up, taking his half-empty bowl to the sink. "I'm going to go sleep. I'm tired."

 

He didn't look back as he retreated to his room. He couldn't bear to see the tears he knew were forming in her eyes. It was a cruelty, he knew, to shut her out like this. But it was the only way to save her life. If he let himself feel the agony of breaking her heart, the Behemoth might wake up.

 

He lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, the soft, rhythmic green glow of the watch illuminating his wrist in the dark.

 

65 BPM.

 

A mechanical lullaby.

 

 

 

The next morning, the gates of Aldera Junior High looked less like a school entrance and more like the jaws of a meat grinder.

 

For a normal student, middle school was a place of learning and socializing. For Izuku, as he stepped through the front doors, it was a minefield of sensory overload.

 

72 BPM.

 

The hallway was a cacophony of shrieking laughter, slamming lockers, and the aggressive popping of developing Quirks. A kid with a water-manipulation Quirk accidentally sprayed a geyser down the hall. A girl with vocal-amplification sneezed, rattling the windows.

 

With every sudden noise, Izuku’s heart gave a microscopic jump. He kept his eyes locked on the floor, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black uniform trousers. He walked with a stiff, measured gait, practicing his deep breathing. In for four. Out for four.

 

"Hey! Watch it, Quirkless!"

 

A heavy shoulder checked him from the side. Izuku stumbled, his back hitting a row of metal lockers with a loud clatter.

 

85 BPM.

 

Izuku looked up. It was one of Bakugo’s hangers-on, a kid with elongated, reptilian fingers.

 

"Sorry," Izuku muttered, his face a perfectly blank mask. He didn't wait for a response, simply side-stepping the boy and continuing down the hall.

 

The boy scoffed, confused by the lack of trembling or stuttering, but let it go.

 

Izuku slipped into Classroom 3-A and took his seat at the very back. The room was already stiflingly warm. He pulled his collar away from his neck, feeling a bead of sweat roll down his spine. He rolled up his left sleeve just enough to keep the face of the watch visible out of the corner of his eye.

 

78 BPM.

 

Manageable.

 

Then, the door was kicked open.

 

Katsuki Bakugo strode into the room like a king inspecting his conquered territory. His ash-blond hair was wild, his uniform completely unbuttoned at the collar, and his trademark scowl was firmly in place. The air in the room instantly grew heavier, charged with the volatile energy of his nitroglycerin sweat.

 

Izuku didn't look up, but his pulse betrayed him.

 

89 BPM.

 

Bakugo’s crimson eyes swept the room and immediately locked onto Izuku. The scowl deepened into a look of genuine, burning irritation.

 

Bakugo hadn't forgotten the incident two days prior. He hadn't forgotten the way Deku had looked at him—like he was nothing more than an insect. It gnawed at Bakugo’s monumental pride. Deku was supposed to be the bottom of the food chain. He was supposed to look up to Bakugo with that pathetic mixture of awe and terror.

 

Instead, the nerd was just sitting there, staring out the window with dead eyes, completely ignoring him.

 

Bakugo threw his bag onto his desk, the sound echoing like a gunshot, but he didn't approach Izuku. Not yet. The teacher walked in, and class began.

 

The next three hours were a grueling exercise in psychological endurance. Izuku couldn't focus on the math equations or the history lectures. He was hyper-focused on his own biology.

 

The chalk screeching against the blackboard. 82 BPM.

A heavy textbook dropping on a desk. 86 BPM.

Bakugo letting off a series of miniature, popping explosions under his desk out of boredom. 94 BPM.

 

By the time the lunch bell rang, Izuku felt as though he had run a marathon. His shirt was clinging to his back with cold sweat. He didn't go to the cafeteria. He stayed in his seat, pulling a plain rice ball from his bag, eating it slowly, trying to bring his resting rate back down to the 70s.

 

"Hey."

 

The word was entirely devoid of warmth.

 

Izuku stopped chewing. He slowly looked up.

 

Bakugo was standing directly in front of his desk, blocking the sunlight from the window, casting a long, dark shadow over Izuku. The classroom was mostly empty, save for a few students who immediately stopped talking and backed away, recognizing the danger in Bakugo's posture.

 

98 BPM.

 

"Hi, Kacchan," Izuku said softly. He didn't smile. He didn't flinch.

 

Bakugo slammed both hands down on Izuku’s desk. Small plumes of smoke curled from his palms, singeing the wood.

 

"Don't give me that dead-eyed bullshit, Deku," Bakugo growled, leaning in so close Izuku could smell the burnt caramel of his Quirk. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

 

"Nothing is wrong," Izuku replied, keeping his voice as monotonous as a dial tone. He deliberately looked past Bakugo, focusing on the chalkboard at the front of the room. "I'm just tired."

 

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Bakugo roared.

 

With a sudden, violent movement, Bakugo grabbed the front of Izuku’s uniform, hauling him out of his chair.

 

105 BPM.

 

Izuku’s feet barely touched the floor. His chair tipped backward, crashing to the ground with a loud clatter. The remaining students in the room gasped, a few edging toward the door to escape the inevitable violence.

 

Bakugo shoved Izuku hard. Izuku stumbled backward, his spine slamming brutally against the edge of the row of desks behind him. The sharp, physical pain lanced through his back, a terrifying echo of the agony from the pod.

 

110 BPM.

 

Beneath his sleeve, the watch let out a faint, rhythmic beep... beep... beep...

 

"You think you can just walk away from me?" Bakugo hissed, stalking forward, his palms crackling with bright, orange sparks. "You think you're suddenly better than me? You're a Quirkless nobody. You've been a pebble in my path since we were four, and you're gonna stay a pebble."

 

Izuku stared at Bakugo. But he wasn't seeing the boy who used to be his friend.

 

He was seeing a catalyst.

 

Izuku could feel the shift happening. It started deep in his chest—a sudden, suffocating wave of heat. The blood roaring in his ears began to drown out the sounds of the classroom. His vision edged with a faint, hazy green.

 

Beneath his uniform, the veins in his chest and arms began to throb, pressing angrily against his skin. The Behemoth was waking up, summoned by the adrenaline, summoned by the pain, demanding to protect its host.

 

If I change here, Izuku realized with a jolt of pure, ice-cold terror, I will kill him. I will crush him into a red paste, and I won't be able to stop it.

 

112 BPM.

 

Bakugo raised his right hand, a larger explosion coalescing in his palm. "I'm gonna put you back in your place, Deku!"

 

"Kacchan, stop," Izuku choked out. His voice was beginning to deepen, a gravelly resonance tearing at his vocal cords. He grabbed Bakugo’s wrist, his grip like a steel vice.

 

Bakugo’s eyes widened slightly in shock. Deku had never fought back. And more shockingly, Deku's grip was incredibly strong. The skin of Izuku's hand was burning hot to the touch.

 

115 BPM.

 

The watch was beeping faster now, a frantic, high-pitched warning. Beep-beep-beep-beep.

 

"Get your hands off me!" Bakugo yelled, ripping his arm away and rearing back for a punch.

 

Izuku didn't wait for the blow to land.

 

Survival instinct overrode everything. He had to get away. He had to isolate the blast zone.

 

With a burst of kinetic speed that defied baseline human biology, Izuku ducked beneath Bakugo's swinging fist. His leg muscles, primed with a micro-dose of gamma radiation from the elevated heart rate, fired with explosive force.

 

He didn't just run. He launched himself.

 

He cleared the distance from the back of the classroom to the open doorway in a fraction of a second, the sheer force of his movement kicking up a draft that blew the papers off the desks.

 

Bakugo spun around, a furious insult dying on his lips.

 

Izuku was already gone.

 

"What the..." Bakugo muttered, staring at the empty doorway. He looked down at his wrist where Izuku had grabbed him. There were four faint, red finger marks blooming on his skin.

 

Out in the hallway, Izuku was a blur. He sprinted toward the nearest exit, his sneakers squeaking violently against the linoleum. Students and teachers were a smeared collage of colors as he blew past them, completely ignoring the shouts of the hall monitors.

 

117 BPM.

 

The air was burning his lungs. His skin felt like it was on fire. He burst through the school's side doors, hitting the pavement of the courtyard at a dead sprint, and vaulted the heavy iron gate surrounding the campus in a single, desperate bound.

 

He hit the sidewalk of the city streets and kept running. He didn't care where he was going. He just needed dark. He needed quiet.

 

He wove through the afternoon crowds, a phantom in a black uniform. He knocked over a display of fruit at a grocer's, barely registering the angry shouts. The city of Musutafu was a labyrinth of noise and light, every honking car and flashing billboard acting like sandpaper against his frayed nerves.

 

118 BPM.

 

He was so close to the edge. The monster was clawing at the back of his eyes, the green haze thickening, his muscles twitching and spasming with the desperate urge to expand, to tear through the confines of his human flesh.

 

Up ahead, between a pawn shop and a condemned apartment building, he saw a narrow, shadowed alleyway. It was choked with garbage dumpsters and smelled of rotting food and urine, but it was dark. It was isolated.

 

Izuku dove into the alley, sprinting past the dumpsters until he hit the dead end—a towering brick wall covered in graffiti.

 

He collapsed against the brick, sliding down to the filthy asphalt. He clutched his chest, his fingers digging into his shirt, desperately trying to manually slow the furious hammering of his heart.

 

Beep... beep... beep...

 

119 BPM.

 

"No, no, no," Izuku gasped, his breath hitching. "Stop. Please stop."

 

He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing the heels of his hands against his ears to block out the distant sounds of the city.

 

Breathe. In for four. Hold for four.

 

His body fought him. The radiation wanted to feed. It wanted the release of the transformation. But Izuku visualized a steel cage. He visualized dropping heavy, iron bars over the roaring green beast in his mind.

 

Exhale for four.

 

The watch beeped once, a long, sustained tone, before dipping back into a rhythmic pulse.

 

118 BPM.

 

Izuku let out a pathetic, shuddering sob. He was pulling back from the brink. The terrifying heat in his veins began to simmer down, retreating from his limbs.

 

116 BPM.

 

"Okay," he whispered to the empty alley. "Okay. I'm okay."

 

He let his head fall back against the brick wall, staring up at the narrow strip of gray sky visible between the tall buildings. He was drenched in sweat, completely exhausted. He had survived the day. He just needed to sit here for an hour, let his heart rate return to baseline, and then he could sneak home.

 

"Well, well. What do we have here?"

 

The voice was raspy, laced with a cruel amusement.

 

Izuku’s eyes snapped open.

 

117 BPM.

 

Standing at the entrance of the alley, silhouetted against the street light, was a man. He was tall, gaunt, and wearing a ragged leather jacket. His eyes were wide and twitchy, darting around nervously before settling on Izuku.

 

"A little UA-wannabe skipping class?" the man sneered, taking a step into the alley.

 

Izuku slowly pushed himself up against the wall, his legs trembling. "Please," he said, his voice weak. "Just leave me alone. I don't have anything."

 

"Oh, I doubt that," the man said, pulling a long, wicked-looking switchblade from his pocket. With a flick of his wrist, the blade snapped open. But it didn't stop there.

 

With a sickening crunch of shifting bone and metal, the man's entire forearm suddenly elongated, the flesh peeling back to reveal a massive, serrated blade extending from his elbow to his fingertips. A mutant-type Quirk.

 

The villain smiled, revealing rotted teeth. "A nice watch like that? A rich kid's uniform? You're gonna empty your pockets, kid. And if you scream, I'll carve you up before the heroes even hear you."

 

Izuku stared at the blade.

 

He wasn't afraid of the man. He wasn't afraid of being cut.

 

He was terrified of what was about to happen to the man.

 

"You don't understand," Izuku said, his voice dropping, the unnatural, gravelly resonance returning to his throat. He took a step forward, holding his hands up. "You need to run away. Right now."

 

The villain laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "Tough guy, huh? You think because you're cornered you can talk your way out?"

 

118 BPM.

 

"I'm not warning you for my sake," Izuku pleaded, his eyes flashing with a sudden, brilliant green light in the shadows of the alley. "Please. If you hurt me, I won't be able to stop it."

 

The villain's eyes narrowed. He saw the glow in Izuku's eyes and assumed it was a weak emitter Quirk—an intimidation tactic.

 

"Shut up and give me the watch!" the villain snarled, lunging forward with terrifying speed.

 

He swung the bladed arm in a wide arc, aiming to slash Izuku’s chest.

 

Izuku tried to dodge, but his back was to the wall. He brought his arm up to block.

 

The serrated edge of the villain's blade sliced cleanly through the sleeve of Izuku’s uniform, biting deep into his forearm. Blood—dark, hot, and glowing a radioactive green—sprayed across the brick wall.

 

The sharp, searing pain was the final nail in the coffin.

 

The watch hit the threshold.

 

120 BPM.

 

A high-pitched, continuous alarm shrilled from Izuku's wrist. But it was immediately drowned out by the sound of Izuku screaming.

 

It wasn't a scream of pain. It was a scream of surrender.

 

The villain stumbled back, his eyes widening in shock as the blood on his blade hissed and began to smoke, eating through the metal like battery acid.

 

"What the hell?" the villain gasped.

 

Izuku fell to his knees. The transformation was instantaneous and violently explosive.

 

The black uniform ripped to shreds as massive, corded muscles erupted from Izuku's back, shoulders, and chest. The sound of his bones lengthening and thickening echoed like rifle shots in the narrow alleyway. He grew from five-foot-five to six feet, then seven, then eight.

 

His skin turned a dark, bruised emerald, glowing with an internal, nuclear fire. The watch on his wrist snapped, the reinforced rubber shattering into pieces that embedded themselves into the asphalt.

 

The villain dropped his blade, his jaw slack with absolute, paralyzing terror. The scrawny teenager was gone. In his place crouched a titan of pure, irradiating muscle.

 

The Behemoth slowly stood up. It towered over the villain, blocking out the light from the street entirely. The alley was bathed in a toxic green glow.

 

The Behemoth looked down at its arm, where the villain had cut it. The wound was already sealing shut, steam rising from the flesh as the hyper-cellular regeneration did its work.

 

The monster turned its massive, heavy-browed head toward the villain. Its eyes were pools of furious, unblinking green fire. It exhaled, a hot blast of ozone-scented air hitting the villain's face.

 

"M-monster..." the villain whimpered, tripping over his own feet as he scrambled backward. "Stay back!"

 

Out of pure, panicked reflex, the villain thrust his bladed arm forward, aiming directly for the Behemoth's chest.

 

The Behemoth didn't even try to dodge.

 

The heavy steel blade struck the center of the monster's pectoral muscle. The metal didn't pierce the skin. It struck the impossibly dense flesh and shattered. Shards of steel exploded backward, peppering the villain's face and shoulders.

 

The villain screamed, clutching his ruined arm.

 

The Behemoth let out a low, rumbling growl that vibrated the very foundation of the buildings on either side of the alley. It reached out with a hand the size of a trash can and grabbed the villain by the throat.

 

With a casual, effortless motion, the Behemoth lifted the man entirely off the ground.

 

The villain kicked and thrashed, choking, his hands clawing uselessly at the thick, green, tree-trunk of an arm holding him. He was staring into the face of a god of destruction.

 

Inside the Behemoth's mind, Izuku was screaming. Don't kill him! Put him down!

 

But the Behemoth was driven by raw emotion. This creature had caused pain. This creature was a threat. Threats must be broken.

 

The Behemoth drew its other fist back, the muscles in its massive shoulder bunching like hydraulic presses.

 

NO! Izuku’s subconscious shrieked.

 

At the last possible microsecond, the Behemoth's aim shifted, influenced by the desperate moral compass of its host.

 

Instead of driving its fist through the villain's chest, the Behemoth slammed its fist into the brick wall right next to the villain's head.

 

The impact was catastrophic.

 

A shockwave of pure kinetic energy blasted down the alley. The brick wall exploded as if hit by a bunker-busting missile. The force of the blow shattered the windows of every building on the block. The ground shook violently, a localized earthquake that set off car alarms for a mile in every direction.

 

The villain, entirely deafened and paralyzed by the sheer concussive force, went limp in the Behemoth's grip, unconscious from the shock alone.

 

The Behemoth snorted in disgust. It opened its hand, letting the villain drop into a heap amid the rubble of the pulverized wall.

 

The threat was neutralized. The adrenaline was burning through its system.

 

Suddenly, the sound of sirens pierced the air. In the distance, the Behemoth could hear the shouts of Pro Heroes moving toward the source of the shockwave.

 

The monster turned toward the street. It didn't want to fight the flashing lights. It wanted to be left alone.

 

The Behemoth crouched low, the concrete beneath its massive feet cracking under the pressure. With a deafening roar that ripped through the city skyline, the creature launched itself straight up.

 

It cleared the five-story buildings with ease, soaring into the late afternoon sky, a terrifying green comet leaping from rooftop to rooftop, disappearing into the industrial district long before the first Pro Hero arrived at the alleyway.

 

When Kamui Woods and Death Arms finally arrived at the scene, all they found was a shattered alleyway, an unconscious, terrified villain, and a shredded black uniform belonging to Aldera Junior High.

 

And lingering in the air, the faint, ozone scent of a monster that was only just beginning to wake up.

 

The television screens across Japan did not stop flashing for twenty-four hours.

 

In the neon-lit heart of Tokyo, crowds gathered beneath massive Jumbotron displays, their faces bathed in the harsh, sterile glow of breaking news alerts. In the quiet, traditional homes of Kyoto, families huddled around small sets, dinners growing cold. In Musutafu, a palpable, suffocating dread had settled over the city like a thick fog.

 

The image looped endlessly: a grainy, shaky cell-phone video of a towering, hyper-muscular green titan launching itself from an alleyway, soaring into the dark sky, leaving a shockwave that shattered windows for three city blocks.

 

“Repeating our top story,” the impeccably dressed anchorwoman said, her voice tight with thinly veiled panic. “The Hero Public Safety Commission has officially classified the unidentified entity from yesterday’s incident in the Musutafu commercial district as an S-Rank Villain. The media has dubbed the creature ‘The Emerald Behemoth.’”

 

The screen cut to a live feed of the HPSC headquarters. The President of the Commission, a severe woman with piercing eyes, stood at a podium surrounded by microphones.

 

“This is not a standard villain threat,” the President stated, her voice echoing through the press room. “The Behemoth possesses a physical mutation Quirk of unprecedented kinetic yield. It has demonstrated zero capacity for rational communication, zero regard for property or life, and possesses an inherent radioactive signature that makes close-quarters combat incredibly hazardous. Effective immediately, Martial Law has been declared in the Musutafu Industrial Zone, where the entity was last tracked. Pro Heroes are authorized to use lethal force. I repeat, this is a shoot-to-kill mandate. We will not allow a rabid beast to threaten the peace of our society.”

 

In the Midoriya apartment, the television hummed quietly. The room was dark. Inko Midoriya sat on the sofa, her hands clasped tightly over her mouth, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. She wasn't crying because of the monster on the screen. She was crying because her son's bedroom door was wide open, his bed was unslept in, and his phone went straight to voicemail.

 

She didn't know the truth. She only knew that her fragile, Quirkless boy was missing in a city being hunted by a god of destruction.

 

Miles away, the Musutafu Industrial Zone was a labyrinth of steel, concrete, and deep, impenetrable shadows.

 

It was a sprawling graveyard of abandoned shipping yards, chemical refineries, and colossal warehouses that smelled of rust and saltwater. At 2:00 AM, a cold, biting drizzle began to fall, slicking the tarmac and causing the streetlights to cast long, distorted reflections.

 

Deep within the canyon of corrugated steel shipping containers, the Behemoth crouched.

 

It was huddled in the narrow space between two rusted towers of cargo boxes, its massive knees drawn up to its chest. The creature was shivering, though not from the cold. The rain hitting its impossibly broad, green shoulders hissed and turned to steam, instantly evaporating against the radiating heat of its gamma-infused blood.

 

Inside the Behemoth’s mind, the world was a chaotic, overwhelming storm of sensory input and raw, unfiltered emotion.

 

To the Behemoth, everything was too loud. The distant wail of police sirens felt like ice picks being driven into its eardrums. The flashing red and blue lights reflecting off the low clouds were blinding, aggressive, and infuriating. The smell of ozone, engine grease, and its own hyper-accelerated sweat was suffocating.

 

But worst of all was the voice.

 

Deep, deep down, beneath the roaring ocean of gamma radiation and primal fury, there was a tiny, fragile, weeping voice.

 

Stop, the voice whispered, echoing in the cavernous hollows of the monster's subconscious. Please, make it stop. I want to go home. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

 

The Behemoth didn't understand the voice. It only knew that the voice belonged to the host, the small, frail thing that had created it. The Behemoth had been born from the host's pain, from the burning sting of the explosion on his shoulder, from the crushing despair on the rooftop. The Behemoth's entire biological imperative was to protect the host.

 

But how could it protect the host from the world, when the entire world was screaming at it?

 

The Behemoth let out a low, rumbling whine, a sound completely incongruous with its terrifying appearance. It sounded like a massive, wounded dog. It pressed its hands—fists the size of wrecking balls—against the sides of its head, trying to block out the sirens.

 

It just wanted to be left alone. It wanted the noise to stop. It wanted to sleep.

 

Suddenly, the hair on the back of the Behemoth's neck stood on end. The subtle, microscopic shifts in air pressure alerted its hyper-evolved senses a fraction of a second before the attack came.

 

"Target acquired. Sector Four, loading dock B. Engaging!"

 

A sharp, cracking sound split the air.

 

THWACK. THWACK.

 

Two thick, steel-cable grappling hooks shot out from the darkness, wrapping violently around the Behemoth's thick wrists. The cables snapped taut with the screech of high-tension winches.

 

The Behemoth roared in surprise, stumbling forward as an immense force tried to pull its arms apart.

 

High above, perched on the edge of a massive dock crane, the Pro Hero Snipe adjusted his mask, his custom-built rifle smoking in the rain. "Got him tethered. Move in! Do not let him break the lines!"

 

From the shadows of the shipping containers, Kamui Woods launched himself into the air. "Pre-emptive Binding: Lacquered Chain Prison!"

 

A torrent of thick, reinforced wooden branches erupted from the hero's arms, surging toward the Behemoth like a tidal wave of timber. The wood wrapped around the monster's torso, its legs, its neck, binding it tightly in a cocoon of unbreakable bark.

 

"Hold him, Kamui!" a booming, feminine voice echoed through the yard.

 

The ground shook violently. Mt. Lady, fully utilizing her Gigantification Quirk, stepped over a row of warehouses. She was sixty-seven feet tall, her face set in a mask of grim determination. She reared back her massive leg, aiming a devastating kick directly at the bound Behemoth. "Canyon Cannon!"

 

The coordination was flawless. A textbook A-Rank villain takedown.

 

But the Behemoth was not a villain. And it was not bound by the standard laws of Quirk biology.

 

As Mt. Lady's foot connected with the Behemoth's chest, a shockwave rippled through the industrial yard, blowing the rain horizontally.

 

Kamui Woods smirked beneath his wooden mask. "Direct hit. He's down."

 

But the dust cleared, and the smirk vanished.

 

Mt. Lady's massive foot was stopped dead in its tracks. The Behemoth hadn't moved an inch. Despite being bound in wood, despite being tethered by steel cables, the monster had caught Mt. Lady's giant heel with its bare hands.

 

"What?" Mt. Lady gasped, trying to pull her leg back. She couldn't. It felt as though her foot was embedded in solid bedrock.

 

The Behemoth looked up at the giant woman. Its eyes, previously wide with confusion, narrowed into slits of incandescent, radioactive green fire. The fear was gone.

 

The threat had engaged. The adrenaline spiked.

 

Thump-thump.

 

A wave of intense, blistering heat rolled off the Behemoth. Kamui Woods yelled out in pain as the wood binding the creature began to smoke, then combust. The gamma radiation pouring from the Behemoth's skin was incinerating the Lacquered Chain Prison from the inside out.

 

With a deafening roar that shattered the glass of every warehouse within a mile, the Behemoth flexed its arms.

 

The steel cables tethering its wrists didn't just snap; the heavy-duty industrial winches on the cranes above literally tore themselves out of their concrete mountings, raining debris down onto the tarmac.

 

"He broke the tethers!" Snipe yelled over the comms, aiming his rifle. "Opening fire!"

 

Snipe unleashed a barrage of high-caliber, armor-piercing rounds, his Homing Quirk guiding every bullet directly toward the Behemoth's head and chest.

 

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

 

The bullets struck the Behemoth's green skin and flattened upon impact, falling to the ground like useless pebbles. The creature didn't even flinch. The kinetic energy of the bullets was instantly absorbed by the gamma-infused cellular structure, feeding the monster's strength.

 

The Behemoth gripped Mt. Lady's foot tighter. The veins in its arms bulged, glowing brighter.

 

"Let go of me, you freak!" Mt. Lady shrieked, losing her balance.

 

The Behemoth didn't let go. With a guttural grunt of sheer, impossible kinetic power, the eight-foot monster twisted its torso and heaved.

 

Mt. Lady, all sixty-seven feet and hundreds of tons of her, was lifted entirely off the ground. She screamed in terror as the Behemoth swung her like a baseball bat, slamming her massive body directly into a row of empty chemical silos.

 

The explosion of collapsing steel was deafening. Mt. Lady shrunk back to her normal size to avoid being crushed by the debris, tumbling into the rubble, unconscious and bleeding.

 

"Yu!" Kamui Woods screamed, seeing his teammate fall. Fury overtook his tactical discipline. He launched himself directly at the Behemoth, turning his arm into a massive, sharpened wooden lance. "Die, you monster!"

 

Kamui thrust the lance directly at the Behemoth's face.

 

The Behemoth didn't dodge. It simply opened its mouth and clamped its heavy, flat teeth down onto the wooden lance. The dense wood splintered instantly. The Behemoth grabbed Kamui Woods by the torso.

 

The Pro Hero gasped, feeling the breath driven from his lungs. The heat radiating off the creature was unbearable; Kamui's bark-like skin began to scorch.

 

The Behemoth raised Kamui Woods high above its head, preparing to snap the hero over its massive knee like a dry twig.

 

"Hey! Ugly!"

 

A volley of explosions detonated against the back of the Behemoth's head.

 

The monster roared, dropping Kamui Woods, and spun around.

 

Death Arms, a hero possessing immense physical strength, stood thirty yards away, alongside Backdraft and a dozen heavily armed police officers.

 

"Fire everything we have!" Death Arms bellowed. "Do not let him advance!"

 

The police opened fire with riot guns, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Backdraft unleashed a torrent of high-pressure water.

 

It was a mistake.

 

Pain and irritation were the Behemoth's fuel. The more they attacked, the angrier it became. And the angrier it became, the stronger it got.

 

The Behemoth grew. Its height pushed past nine feet. The muscles in its chest and legs expanded, tearing the remnants of Izuku's already shredded pants. The green glow emanating from its eyes and veins became blinding.

 

The monster slammed both of its fists into the concrete ground.

 

The resulting seismic wave tore the asphalt apart, sending a rolling tsunami of jagged concrete and dirt directly toward the police line. Cars were flipped into the air. Death Arms was thrown backward, crashing through a brick wall. The police line was decimated in a single, devastating instant.

 

The Behemoth stood amid the ruins of the loading dock, breathing heavily. Steam poured from its mouth and shoulders. It looked at the broken, groaning heroes surrounding it.

 

It beat its chest, a primal drumbeat of victory and dominance, and let out a roar that pierced the heavens, daring anything else to challenge it.

 

“FEAR NOT, CITIZENS!”

 

The voice dropped from the sky like a thunderbolt. It was loud, resonant, and overflowing with an absolute, unshakable confidence.

 

The heavy, dark clouds above the industrial zone suddenly parted, blown away by a massive downdraft.

 

“HOPE HAS ARRIVED! BECAUSE I AM HERE!”

 

A colossal figure slammed into the tarmac fifty yards from the Behemoth. The impact created a massive crater, throwing up a cloud of dust and rain.

 

As the dust settled, the Symbol of Peace stood tall.

 

All Might’s golden hair defied the rain, his bright blue eyes narrowed in absolute focus. His massive, muscular frame was tense, his iconic red, white, and blue suit plastered to his body by the storm. He took one look at the unconscious heroes, the devastated landscape, and the towering green monster before him.

 

The perpetual, comforting smile on All Might's face vanished. It was replaced by a grim, terrifying seriousness.

 

"You have caused enough suffering tonight, villain," All Might said, his voice booming over the sound of the rain. He cracked his knuckles, the sound like breaking boulders. "I will be ending this. Now."

 

The Behemoth stared at the golden-haired man.

 

Deep inside the sunken submarine of Izuku's consciousness, the tiny voice gasped.

 

All Might... Izuku's soul wept. He's here. He's going to save them. He's going to stop me.

 

But the Behemoth didn't feel relief.

 

The Behemoth felt the host's memories. It saw the rooftop. It saw the golden-haired man turning his back. It felt the crushing, suicidal despair that had driven the host to the laboratory in the first place.

 

To the host, All Might was a god.

To the Behemoth, All Might was the source of the host's deepest, most agonizing wound.

 

The Behemoth didn't just want to fight All Might. It wanted to break him.

 

The monster's eyes flared with a radioactive intensity that made All Might squint. The Behemoth didn't posture. It didn't roar.

 

It simply vanished.

 

All Might's eyes widened in sheer shock. So fast!

 

The Behemoth cleared the fifty-yard distance in a microsecond, appearing directly in front of the Number One Hero. The monster threw a devastating right hook, aiming to tear All Might's head from his shoulders.

 

All Might brought his arms up in a cross block just in time.

 

KRACK-OOOOOM!

 

The collision of their bodies created a localized sonic boom. The air pressure dropped so violently that the rain around them was vaporized instantly.

 

All Might felt the bones in his forearms groan under the immense pressure. He was shoved backward, his boots carving deep, smoking trenches into the reinforced concrete for twenty yards before he managed to dig in and stop.

 

What incredible power! All Might thought, his mind racing. This isn't a Quirk enhancement. This feels like raw, biological mass! It's like fighting a living mountain!

 

"TEXAS SMASH!" All Might roared, countering immediately. He pulled back his right fist and unleashed a punch with enough wind pressure to level a city block.

 

The hurricane-force wind slammed into the Behemoth point-blank. The force of it peeled the asphalt off the ground and ripped the roofs off the nearby warehouses.

 

The Behemoth was thrown backward, tumbling through the air and crashing into a massive stack of shipping containers. The containers crumpled like tin cans, burying the monster under hundreds of tons of steel.

 

All Might stood straight, his chest heaving. He wiped a streak of rain from his brow. "It is over," he announced to the empty yard. "You fought well, but you cannot—"

 

SKREEEEECH.

 

The sound of tearing metal cut him off.

 

From the pile of crushed shipping containers, two massive green hands burst outward. The Behemoth pulled the steel apart as if it were parting a curtain. It stepped out of the rubble.

 

It wasn't bleeding. It wasn't bruised.

 

It was bigger.

 

The Behemoth was now standing nearly ten feet tall. The gamma radiation was actively responding to All Might's overwhelming power, forcing the monster's biology into a state of hyper-evolution to match the threat.

 

The Behemoth ripped a massive, fifty-foot steel I-beam from the wreckage, wielding it like a baseball bat. With a terrifying roar, it charged All Might.

 

"Very well!" All Might shouted, leaping forward to meet the charge. "Let us see whose spirit is stronger!"

 

What followed was not a hero fight. It was a natural disaster.

 

The two titans clashed in the center of the industrial zone. Every time their fists met, a shockwave rippled through the air, shattering windows miles away in the residential districts.

 

The Behemoth swung the I-beam, aiming for All Might's ribs. All Might ducked beneath the swing, the steel beam whistling over his head, and delivered a devastating uppercut to the Behemoth's jaw.

 

DETROIT SMASH!

 

The punch lifted the massive monster off its feet, sending it flying straight up into the air.

 

All Might didn't wait. He bent his knees and leaped after it, intercepting the Behemoth in mid-air, hundreds of feet above the city.

 

"CAROLINA SMASH!" All Might brought both hands down in a vicious cross-chop, striking the Behemoth directly in the chest.

 

The monster plummeted back to earth like a meteor, crashing through the roof of an empty chemical refinery. The entire building collapsed inward upon impact, a massive cloud of dust and debris rising into the stormy sky.

 

All Might landed softly on the edge of the crater, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

 

A sharp, stabbing pain erupted in his left side. All Might coughed, bringing a hand to his mouth. When he pulled it away, his glove was stained with bright red blood.

 

Damn it, All Might cursed internally. My time limit. I've only got about ten minutes left of my muscle form. I have to end this now, or I'll revert right in front of the press helicopters.

 

He looked down into the ruined refinery.

 

Through the dust, the toxic green glow pulsed, brighter and more angry than ever.

 

The Behemoth climbed out of the crater. The impact of the Detroit and Carolina Smashes had finally drawn blood. A cut above the monster's eye bled that dark, glowing green fluid. But as All Might watched in horror, the wound aggressively stitched itself shut, sealing seamlessly in seconds.

 

The monster's chest heaved. It looked at All Might, and for the first time, All Might noticed something completely unnerving about the way the creature moved.

 

It wasn't fighting like a trained villain. It wasn't using martial arts or strategic positioning.

 

It was swinging wildly. It was throwing a tantrum. The body language was that of a terrified, enraged child lashing out at a world it couldn't understand.

 

The Behemoth charged again, abandoning the steel beam, tackling All Might around the waist. The sheer momentum carried both of them backward, crashing through the concrete walls of three successive warehouses.

 

All Might grappled with the beast, his hands locked against the Behemoth's massive shoulders. He was losing ground. The creature's strength was scaling infinitely. Every second the fight dragged on, the Behemoth was getting stronger.

 

If this continues, All Might realized with a jolt of genuine fear, he is going to overpower me. I will lose.

 

All Might pushed back, using every ounce of his remaining strength to throw the Behemoth off him.

 

The monster stumbled, but caught its balance. It raised its massive fists, ready to pound All Might into the dust.

 

But it paused.

 

All Might was panting heavily, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. The Symbol of Peace was injured.

 

Deep inside the Behemoth's mind, the tiny voice screamed.

 

Stop! He's hurt! You're hurting him! He's All Might! STOP!

 

The Behemoth clutched its head, a sudden, agonizing war raging between its gamma-fueled rage and the host's unwavering, fanatical love for the hero before them. The monster let out a sound that tore at All Might's soul—a jagged, screeching wail of absolute anguish.

 

All Might froze.

 

He looked closely at the monster's face.

 

The radioactive green eyes, normally burning with fury, were wide and glossy. Thick, glowing green tears were streaming down the Behemoth's massive, misshapen cheeks, sizzling and turning to steam as they hit the rain-soaked pavement.

 

It's crying, All Might thought, his heart dropping. This isn't a mindless beast. This is someone who is suffering in unimaginable agony.

 

The Behemoth beat its own head with its fists, taking steps backward, trying to get away from All Might, trying to get away from the noise, trying to get away from the conflict inside its own body.

 

All Might realized his mistake. He had been fighting this creature as if it were a villain to be defeated. But it wasn't a villain. It was a victim to be saved.

 

Hitting it with pure destructive force only triggered its defensive mutation. He needed to incapacitate it without triggering its rage. He needed precision, not power.

 

"I am sorry," All Might whispered.

 

The Behemoth looked up, confused by the sudden change in tone.

 

All Might moved. Not with the explosive, thunderous speed of a Smash, but with the fluid, perfectly calculated grace of a master martial artist.

 

He closed the distance instantly, slipping inside the Behemoth's guard.

 

"OKLAHOMA SMASH!"

 

All Might didn't punch the monster. He struck with an open palm, aiming specifically for the solar plexus, driving the strike upward directly into the Behemoth's diaphragm at a hyper-specific angle.

 

It was a nerve strike amplified by One For All.

 

The impact wasn't loud. There was no shockwave.

 

But the Behemoth's eyes bulged. All the air was instantly, violently forced from its lungs. The paralyzing strike disrupted the creature's nervous system, severing the adrenaline supply that fueled the gamma synthesis.

 

The Behemoth gasped, a pathetic, wheezing sound. Its massive hands reached out, blindly grasping at All Might's cape.

 

All Might caught the monster's wrists, holding them gently.

 

"It's okay," All Might said softly, his voice cutting through the rain. "You don't have to fight anymore. Rest."

 

The Behemoth's glowing eyes flickered, the green fire dimming into a dull, exhausted ember. The massive legs buckled.

 

All Might caught the creature as it fell forward, supporting its immense weight against his own shoulder.

 

And then, the impossible happened.

 

The searing heat radiating from the monster began to fade. The dense, impenetrable muscle mass began to rapidly liquefy and shrink, the gamma radiation retreating back into the host's bloodstream, folding inward on itself.

 

Thick, noxious clouds of green steam billowed off the creature, obscuring All Might's vision. He held on tightly, feeling the body in his arms rapidly losing mass, shrinking from ten feet, down to eight, down to six.

 

The hissing of the steam gradually faded, replaced by the quiet, steady patter of the rain.

 

All Might stood in the center of the ruined industrial zone, surrounded by a thick fog. He looked down at the figure he was holding in his arms.

 

It was no longer a monster.

 

It was a boy.

 

He was small, frail, and incredibly pale. He was completely naked, his body covered in faint, fading green bruises. His mop of unruly green hair was plastered to his forehead by the rain and sweat. He was entirely unconscious, his chest rising and falling in shallow, exhausted breaths.

 

All Might stared at the boy's face. The freckles. The round cheeks.

 

The world seemed to stop spinning. The rain went silent. All Might's blood turned to liquid nitrogen in his veins.

 

No, All Might thought, his breath catching in his throat. No, it can't be.

 

He remembered the rooftop. He remembered the desperate, pleading look in those green eyes.

 

Can I be a hero, even without a Quirk?

 

You also have to consider what's realistic, young man.

 

All Might felt a physical wave of nausea wash over him. He fell to his knees in the rubble, carefully cradling the unconscious boy against his chest.

 

"What have you done to yourself?" All Might whispered, his voice cracking with a profound, soul-crushing grief. "My boy... what did my words drive you to do?"

 

He looked around. In the distance, the wail of sirens was growing louder. The press helicopters were circling like vultures, their spotlights sweeping through the fog, searching for the S-Rank villain.

 

If the HPSC found out the Behemoth was a fourteen-year-old Quirkless boy, they wouldn't help him. They would lock him in a black site. They would dissect him to weaponize his blood. They would ruin whatever was left of his shattered life.

 

All Might’s time limit was screaming at him. His muscles were burning, threatening to deflate.

 

But he couldn't let them take the boy. He owed him. He owed him everything.

 

All Might unclasped the heavy, reinforced cape from his costume and wrapped it securely around Izuku Midoriya, completely hiding his bruised, naked body from the elements and the prying eyes of the world.

 

With the last remnants of One For All burning in his veins, All Might stood up, holding the bundled boy securely to his chest.

 

"Do not worry, young Midoriya," All Might said, a single tear mixing with the blood on his chin. "I am here. And I will not fail you again."

 

With a final, desperate leap, All Might launched himself into the storm, vanishing into the night, carrying the most dangerous weapon on earth—a broken boy with a monster in his heart—toward the only place that could possibly keep him safe.

 

U.A. High School.