What If Deku Had a Great White Shark Quirk

The world is not equal.

 

Izuku Midoriya learned this fundamental truth not at the age of fourteen, nor at the age of ten, but when he was just four years old. It was a lesson taught not through philosophy or quiet observation, but through blood, shattered metal, and the terrified screams of his peers.

 

In the era of Quirks, superhuman abilities were the norm. Eighty percent of the global population possessed some kind of uncanny power, ranging from the mundane ability to pull one's eyes out of their sockets, to the godlike power to control the very elements of the earth. In this society, children eagerly awaited their fourth birthdays, the general deadline for a Quirk to manifest. It was a time of immense joy and anticipation.

 

Izuku was no different. He was a bright, bubbly child with unruly green hair, wide emerald eyes, and a smile that could rival the sun. He was obsessed with heroes, particularly the Number One Hero, All Might. Izuku would spend hours clutching his favorite All Might action figure, watching the hero's debut video on loop, dreaming of the day he would get his own Quirk. He imagined breathing fire like his father, or floating objects like his mother. He imagined soaring through the sky, saving people with a fearless laugh.

 

But biology, as it turned out, had a cruel sense of humor.

 

It started with an itch.

 

It was a Tuesday afternoon at his preschool. The classroom was bathed in warm, golden sunlight, the air smelling of wax crayons, spilled juice boxes, and the comforting scent of the teacher’s floral perfume. The children were gathered in the center of the room, building blocks and playing make-believe. Katsuki Bakugo, Izuku’s closest friend at the time, was already showing off his newly manifested Explosion quirk, tiny pops and sparks resembling miniature fireworks crackling in his small palms.

 

"Look at this, Izuku!" Katsuki boasted, his chest puffed out with pride as the other children ooh-ed and aah-ed. "I’m gonna be the greatest hero ever! Even better than All Might!"

 

Izuku watched with stars in his eyes, clutching a plastic building block. "That's so cool, Kacchan! I can't wait to see what my Quirk is. Maybe we can be a hero team!"

 

Katsuki smirked, though there was a childish arrogance in it. "Maybe, if yours is strong enough to keep up with mine."

 

Izuku smiled, but the smile faltered. He dropped the building block, his small hand moving to scratch at his arm. It had been itching all morning. Not just his arm, but his chest, his back, and his neck. It felt as though he had rolled around in a field of fiberglass. Beneath his skin, a strange, burning pressure was building.

 

"Izuku? Are you okay?" asked the teacher, noticing the boy’s sudden pallor.

 

"M-My gums hurt," Izuku mumbled, pressing a hand to his cheek. It wasn't just a dull ache; it felt like a row of hot knives was pressing upward through his jaw. He had been drinking water all day, but his throat felt like it was coated in sand. The air in the room suddenly felt impossibly dry, suffocatingly hot.

 

He stumbled backward, bumping into a small metal desk.

 

"Does your tummy hurt, sweetie?" The teacher stepped forward, her brow furrowing in concern.

 

Izuku opened his mouth to reply, but what came out was not a word. It was a gasp that twisted into a wet, guttural choke.

 

Then, the pain exploded.

 

Izuku collapsed to his knees, clutching his head as a scream ripped from his throat. The sound was wrong. It wasn't the high-pitched cry of a four-year-old child; it was deep, resonant, and predatory. It vibrated against the windows of the classroom, making the glass rattle in its frames.

 

"Izuku!" Katsuki yelled, taking a step back as the other children began to panic.

 

The transformation was violent, rapid, and terrifying to witness. The soft, peach-colored skin of Izuku's arms began to darken, spreading like spilled ink until it settled into a cold, slate-gray hue. But it wasn't just the color that changed. The texture of his skin rapidly mutated, the soft epidermis hardening into microscopic, interlocking scales—dermal denticles, tough as armor and rough as heavy-grit sandpaper.

 

R-R-R-RIP.

 

The back of Izuku’s favorite All Might t-shirt tore open. From the line of his spine, thick cartilage and muscle violently pushed outward, forming a large, rigid, dark-gray dorsal fin. Izuku thrashed on the linoleum floor, his small hands leaving deep, gouging scratch marks in the tile as his fingernails blackened and thickened.

 

"Get back! Everyone get back!" the teacher screamed, her training kicking in, though her voice trembled with raw fear. She tried to approach the thrashing boy, but Izuku suddenly convulsed, his head snapping upward.

 

Three deep, vertical slits tore themselves open on either side of his neck, just below his jawline, extending down to his upper ribs. Gills. They flared wildly, gasping at the dry air. The oxygen in the room suddenly felt like poison to his radically shifting respiratory system. His lungs burned. He felt like he was drowning on dry land.

 

"Hurts! It hurts!" he tried to scream, but the words dissolved into a terrifying roar.

 

His emerald eyes, once bright and full of innocent wonder, began to hemorrhage black. The sclera darkened into a deep, abyssal void, consuming the whites of his eyes entirely. His irises bled from green into a cold, metallic, predatory silver.

 

Driven mad by the pain in his jaw, driven by a sudden, primal instinct to bite down on something—anything—to relieve the agonizing pressure of his shifting skull, Izuku lunged blindly. He didn't see a desk; his mutating brain only registered a solid object.

 

His jaws opened impossibly wide, his jawbone unhinging with a sickening crack. In a fraction of a second, his baby teeth were pushed violently out of his gums, replaced instantly by rows of massive, triangular, deeply serrated adult teeth.

 

His jaws clamped shut on the thick steel leg of the preschool desk.

 

CRUNCH.

 

The sound of metal buckling and tearing filled the room. The children shrieked. Izuku bit completely through the solid steel leg as if it were a fragile pretzel stick, tearing a chunk of the metal away and spitting it onto the floor with a heavy clatter. He panted, his chest heaving, his gills flaring and snapping shut in distress.

 

Silence descended upon the classroom, broken only by the sound of terrified children sobbing.

 

Izuku, his transformation complete, blinked. The haze of pain was slowly beginning to recede, leaving behind a profound confusion. His head felt heavy. His clothes were in tatters, ruined by the fin on his back. He felt strangely cold, yet his skin felt tight and invincible.

 

He slowly turned his head to look at his friends.

 

They were huddled in the far corner of the room, crying, clutching onto the teacher. The teacher herself was pale, staring at him not with the comforting warmth she usually possessed, but with unadulterated terror.

 

Izuku didn't understand. He looked down at his hands. They were large, gray, and monstrous. He reached up, feeling his face. His skin felt rough enough to draw blood. He felt the terrifying sharpness of his new teeth protruding slightly over his lips. He felt the pulsing slits on his neck.

 

"K-Kacchan...?" Izuku whimpered. The voice sounded like two grinding stones.

 

Katsuki Bakugo, the bravest boy in the class, the boy who claimed he feared nothing, was pressed against the wall. His red eyes were wide with shock and a deep, instinctual revulsion.

 

"Don't..." Katsuki stammered, his small hands sparking defensively. "Don't come near me... you freak."

 

Izuku’s heart shattered. He didn't know what was happening to him, but he knew one thing with absolute certainty: they were looking at him the same way people on TV looked at the bad guys.

 

They were looking at a monster.

 

 

 

The hospital room was sterile, white, and smelled overwhelmingly of bleach. For Izuku, whose newly mutated olfactory senses were suddenly thousands of times more sensitive than a normal human’s, the chemical smell was agonizing. It burned his nose and made his eyes water.

 

He sat on the edge of the examination table, a specialized hospital gown draped over his back with a slit cut down the middle to accommodate his dorsal fin. He was swinging his legs, staring at the floor. He hadn't spoken since the preschool.

 

The door opened, and Inko Midoriya rushed in, accompanied by a doctor holding a clipboard. Inko's eyes were red and puffy from crying. When she received the call from the school that her son had undergone a "severe, destructive mutation," her world had stopped.

 

She looked at the boy on the table. He was larger than he had been that morning. His skin was the color of storm clouds. His eyes were endless pools of black with silver rings, lacking any trace of the little boy she had kissed goodbye just hours ago.

 

But Inko didn't see a monster. She saw her son’s slumped shoulders. She saw the tears leaking from those terrifying eyes.

 

"Izuku!" she cried out.

 

Izuku flinched, shrinking back slightly, expecting her to look at him with the same horror the teacher and his classmates had. "Mom... I'm sorry... I'm a monster..."

 

Inko didn't hesitate. She crossed the room in three rapid strides and threw her arms around him, pulling him into a desperate, crushing hug.

 

"Oh, my baby. My sweet boy," she sobbed, burying her face into his shoulder.

 

When she pressed against him, her bare forearm slid against the skin of his neck. Because she moved against the "grain" of his dermal denticles, his skin acted like a microscopic rasp. It scraped her arm hard, breaking the skin.

 

A single drop of blood welled up on Inko’s arm.

 

Instantly, Izuku’s body went rigid. His silver irises dilated, swallowing the black sclera. A scent hit his nose—copper, salt, iron, and life. It was the most intoxicating, overwhelming smell he had ever encountered. A dark, terrifying, primal instinct flared in the deepest, oldest part of his brain. Prey. Blood. Bite.

 

His jaws parted involuntarily, a low hiss escaping his throat.

 

But then, Inko hugged him tighter, ignoring the scrape on her arm. "I'm here, Izuku. Mommy is here. You're safe."

 

Her warmth, the familiar smell of her lavender shampoo underneath the overpowering scent of blood, broke through the primal fog. Izuku gasped, his eyes returning to normal. He had almost bitten his own mother. He pulled away from her, horrified by what his body had just wanted to do, tucking his knees to his chest and crying dark, heavy tears.

 

The doctor cleared his throat, looking at his clipboard with a clinical detachment that felt entirely out of place in the emotional room.

 

"Mrs. Midoriya, I can confirm that your son has manifested a Mutant-type Quirk. A highly complex one," the doctor said, adjusting his glasses. "We've done a preliminary genetic scan and physical examination. It appears to be an extreme atavistic mutation, combining human physiology with the biological traits of a Carcharodon carcharias—a Great White Shark."

 

Inko wiped her eyes, keeping one hand gently resting on Izuku's knee, mindful of the rough skin. "A... a shark?"

 

"Yes. And not just cosmetically," the doctor continued, his tone turning serious. "His skin is covered in dermal denticles, making it incredibly tough and abrasive. His skeletal structure has reinforced itself with dense cartilage. He has functioning gills, which means he can extract oxygen from water, though he can still breathe air. His jaw pressure is... frankly, off the charts. We estimate he could bite through a solid steel girder with minimal effort."

 

Inko looked at Izuku in awe. "That's... that's an incredibly powerful Quirk."

 

"It is," the doctor agreed, though his expression remained grim. "But it comes with severe biological imperatives. His senses have been heightened to predatory levels. His olfactory glands are uniquely evolved. We estimate he can smell a single drop of blood from a mile away. He also possesses electroreception—the ability to sense the electrical impulses of heartbeats and muscle movements in his immediate vicinity."

 

"Is there a problem, Doctor?" Inko asked, sensing the hesitation in the man's voice.

 

"Mrs. Midoriya, Quirks of this nature... Apex predator mutations... they often come with psychological or instinctual bleed-over. You saw him flinch when you cut your arm. If he is exposed to large amounts of blood, or extreme stimuli, his brain may trigger a 'Frenzy'—a primal state of aggression where instinct overrides rational thought. Furthermore, his body requires immense amounts of hydration and protein to sustain this mutation. If he gets too hot, or too dry, he will suffer severe dehydration rapidly."

 

The doctor sighed, closing the folder. "I won't lie to you. Society is not always kind to mutations that look... villainous. And with the destructive potential of his jaws, he will be heavily monitored by the Quirk Registry. We’ve tentatively named the Quirk: Apex."

 

Inko looked back at Izuku. The boy was staring at his hands again, his sharp teeth digging into his lower lip.

 

"My baby is not a villain," Inko said, her voice trembling but carrying a fierce, maternal steel. "He has a kind heart."

 

 

 

The return home was a quiet affair. The apartment felt different to Izuku now. The lights seemed too bright. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen sounded like a roaring engine to his sensitive ears.

 

That night, Izuku sat in his dark bedroom, illuminated only by the harsh, blue glow of his computer monitor.

 

The screen was playing a video he had watched a thousand times before. It was old footage of a disaster in a burning city. The camera shook, the audio was distorted by the roar of flames and the screams of civilians. And then, from the smoke, a massive figure emerged, carrying a dozen people on his back.

 

"Fear not, citizens! Hope has arrived!" the man on the screen boomed, his golden hair plastered to his forehead, a massive, unshakeable grin on his face. "Because I am here!"

 

Izuku stared at All Might. He looked at the hero’s bright colors, his human face, his reassuring smile.

 

Then, Izuku turned slowly in his rolling chair to face the full-length mirror on his closet door.

 

The glow of the monitor cast long, eerie shadows across his face. He saw the cold, lifeless black eyes of a killer staring back at him. He saw the sharp, jagged teeth that had torn through steel without a second thought. He saw the towering dorsal fin, a universal symbol of terror in the deep. He looked like the monsters All Might punched through buildings. He looked like the villains that terrorized innocent people.

 

When Katsuki had called him a freak, the other children hadn't disagreed. They had nodded. They had looked at him with sheer, unadulterated fear.

 

“Jaws,” Katsuki had muttered as Izuku was led out of the preschool by his mother. The nickname had stuck in his mind like a barbed hook.

 

The door to his bedroom creaked open. Inko stood in the doorway, the hallway light silhouetting her small frame. She held a large glass of ice water, having already learned that Izuku needed constant hydration.

 

Izuku didn't turn to look at her. He kept his eyes locked on the monstrous reflection in the mirror, while All Might’s booming laughter echoed from the computer speakers.

 

"Mom...?" Izuku's voice was raspy, the vocal cords permanently altered by the mutation.

 

"Yes, Izuku?" she answered softly, stepping into the room and setting the water on his desk.

 

Tears—thick and heavy—welled up in Izuku's black eyes, spilling over his gray cheeks. He pointed a trembling, clawed finger at the computer screen, and then at the mirror.

 

"Mom... All Might smiles to make people feel safe," Izuku choked out, his chest heaving as he tried to suppress a sob. "When I smile... people scream. When I look at people... they look like they want to run away."

 

He turned to his mother, his jagged teeth fully visible, his face contorted in a mask of absolute heartbreak.

 

"Can someone who looks like a villain... still be a hero? Can a monster save people?"

 

Inko felt her heart shatter into a million pieces. The universe had burdened her sweet, gentle boy with the visage of a nightmare. She could have told him that it didn't matter what he looked like. She could have offered empty platitudes.

 

Instead, Inko stepped forward, fell to her knees, and pulled her son into her arms.

 

"You are not a monster," she whispered fiercely into his ear, holding him so tight that his rough skin scratched her clothes. "You are Izuku Midoriya. You are my son. And your heart is more heroic than anyone's. I believe in you, Izuku. I believe you can be the greatest hero in the world."

 

Izuku buried his face in his mother's shoulder and wept. He wept for the normal life he had lost, for the fear he had caused, and for the long, impossibly hard road that lay ahead of him. But in the warmth of his mother's embrace, a small, stubborn spark ignited in his chest.

 

If he looked like a monster, he would just have to work twice as hard to prove he had the heart of a hero. He would become a symbol of peace in his own right. He would teach the world that they didn't need to fear the predator in the water—as long as that predator was on their side.

 

 

 

Ten Years Later

 

Aldera Junior High was an ordinary middle school in an ordinary suburb of Musutafu. The students were a standard mix of mundane and flashy Quirks. They worried about exams, gossiped about heroes, and navigated the awkward transition of adolescence.

 

And they all, without exception, gave a wide berth to the boy sitting in the back corner of Class 3-C.

 

Izuku Midoriya, at fourteen years old, was a leviathan.

 

He had grown to a staggering height of six foot three, his body packed with dense, corded muscle designed by nature to propel him through water at terrifying speeds. His uniform was custom-made; the back of his blazer and shirt were left open to accommodate the massive, scarred dorsal fin that protruded from his spine. The collar of his shirt hung loose to avoid chafing the sensitive gills on his neck. His ash-gray skin was as tough as Kevlar, his forearms thick and vascular.

 

He sat quietly at his desk, staring out the window with solid black eyes and silver irises. He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of thick, heavy-duty rubber he kept in his pocket—a habit he developed to satisfy the urge to bite down on things when he was bored or stressed.

 

"Hey, look at Jaws," a student whispered from two rows over, thinking he was being quiet.

 

Izuku’s auditory senses picked up the whisper perfectly. He didn't react. He was used to it.

 

"I heard he ate a stray dog once," another student whispered back.

 

"No way. I heard he bit the bumper off a police car."

 

Izuku sighed, exhaling a small breath of air through his gills. Ten years had taught him patience. Ten years had taught him how to suppress the primal instincts that lurked beneath his skin. He had learned how to breathe through his mouth when passing the butcher shop to avoid the smell of raw meat. He had learned to move slowly and deliberately in public, keeping his hands in his pockets to hide his claws, keeping his mouth closed to hide his teeth.

 

The teacher walked into the room, slapping a stack of papers onto his desk. "Alright, settle down, third-years. It's time to start thinking seriously about your futures. I'll pass out these career aptitude tests, but... why bother? I know you all want to go to the hero track!"

 

The class erupted into cheers, students showing off their Quirks. Fire, extending limbs, minor telekinesis.

 

Izuku didn't cheer. He just kept chewing on his rubber strip.

 

"Yes, yes, you all have wonderful Quirks," the teacher chuckled, trying to rein them in. "But remember, U.A. High School’s hero course is the most prestigious in the country. Only the best of the best get in."

 

"Hey, teach! Don't lump me in with these losers!"

 

The loud, arrogant voice cut through the chatter. Katsuki Bakugo kicked his feet up onto his desk, leaning back with a smug, self-satisfied grin. At fourteen, Katsuki had grown into a powerhouse. His Explosion Quirk was incredibly potent, and his physical skills were unmatched by anyone in the school—except one.

 

"I've aced all the mock tests," Katsuki bragged, sparks popping from his palms. "I'm the only one from this crappy middle school who has what it takes to get into U.A. I'm gonna surpass All Might and become the top hero!"

 

"Ah, yes, Bakugo. You are aiming for U.A., aren't you?" the teacher noted, looking over his clipboard. "Oh, that's right... Midoriya is also applying for U.A."

 

The entire class froze. The silence was absolute.

 

Slowly, every head in the room turned to look at the massive, gray-skinned boy in the back corner.

 

Katsuki’s feet slammed onto the floor. His red eyes locked onto Izuku, filled with a complex mixture of anger, resentment, and a deeply buried, instinctual caution that he hated himself for feeling.

 

For ten years, Katsuki had ruled the school. But Izuku was the one variable he couldn't control. Izuku didn't cower like the others. Izuku didn't fight back, either. He just existed, a looming, immovable presence that made Katsuki feel... small.

 

Katsuki stood up, marching down the aisle until he reached Izuku's desk. He slammed his hand down on the wood, a small explosion detonating against the surface. The smell of burnt sugar and ozone filled the air.

 

Izuku didn't flinch. He slowly stopped chewing his rubber strip, turning his head to look up at Katsuki. His black eyes were unreadable, devoid of emotion, yet possessing an intense, predatory weight that made the air in the room feel suffocatingly heavy.

 

"Listen to me, Jaws," Katsuki growled, leaning in close. "U.A. doesn't take monsters. They take heroes. You think you can pass the entrance exam? You think you can save people when they look at you and wet their pants?"

 

Izuku held Katsuki’s gaze. He could hear Katsuki’s heartbeat—it was elevated, beating a frantic staccato rhythm against his ribs. Izuku’s electroreception painted a perfect picture of Katsuki’s nervous system in his mind. Katsuki was angry, yes, but beneath the anger, his body was experiencing a stress response.

 

Katsuki was intimidated.

 

"I'm going to U.A., Bakugo," Izuku said, his voice deep, gravelly, and vibrating with quiet power. "I'm going to be a hero."

 

"A hero?" Katsuki sneered, though he took a half-step back. "What are you gonna do? Bite the villains to death? You belong in the ocean, freak, not on a hero billboard."

 

Katsuki turned and stomped back to his desk, the tension in the room slowly dissipating, though no one dared to speak for the rest of the homeroom period.

 

Izuku turned his gaze back to the window. Katsuki’s words stung, but they were nothing new. He knew what the world thought of him. He knew the statistics for mutant-type heroes with "scary" features. They rarely broke the top fifty. They were relegated to underground work, or night patrols. They weren't given the spotlight.

 

But Izuku didn't want the spotlight. He didn't care about the fame or the merchandise. He remembered the feeling of terror when he first transformed, the feeling of being out of control. He wanted to make sure no one ever felt that kind of fear, ever again. He wanted to use the terrifying power of an apex predator to become an absolute, unbreakable shield for the innocent.

 

And to do that, he needed to train. He didn't have a mentor. He didn't have a legendary hero passing down a secret power to him. He had his own two hands, his jaws, and a body forged by millions of years of evolutionary perfection.

 

He just needed a place to push that body to its absolute limits.

 

 

 

Dagobah Municipal Beach Park was a tragedy. Once a beautiful stretch of pristine white sand and rolling blue waves, it had been transformed over the years into an illegal dumping ground. Mountains of trash, rusted appliances, scrapped cars, and rotting furniture covered the coastline, completely cutting off access to the water. The smell of decay and rust was overpowering, keeping the public far away.

 

For Izuku, it was the perfect gymnasium.

 

The sun was beginning to set, casting a bloody orange hue over the horizon. The tide was coming in, the cold, salty water of the Pacific Ocean lapping against the piles of garbage.

 

Izuku stood at the edge of the water, far away from the prying eyes of the city. He wore only a pair of dark, durable swim trunks. In the fading light, his physique was truly intimidating. His chest and shoulders were incredibly broad, his torso crisscrossed with faint scars from pushing himself too hard over the years. His dorsal fin stood tall and proud on his back, a jagged silhouette against the setting sun.

 

He rolled his shoulders, his joints popping with a sound like cracking stones. He took a deep breath of the salty air, his gills flaring on his neck. The smell of the ocean was intoxicating. It smelled like freedom. It smelled like home.

 

Ten months. He had exactly ten months until the U.A. Entrance Exam.

 

He walked into the water. The cold was shocking for a brief second, but his body immediately adapted. The dermal denticles on his skin locked together, creating a perfectly hydrodynamic surface. As the water reached his waist, he felt the heavy burden of gravity lift from his bones. On land, he was heavy, lumbering, and awkward. He had to consciously control every movement to avoid breaking things.

 

But in the water... he was a god.

 

Izuku dove under the surface. The moment his head submerged, his gills opened fully, pulling oxygen directly from the water. His black eyes adjusted instantly to the murky depths, a specialized membrane sliding over them to protect them from the salt.

 

He kicked off the sandy bottom.

 

BOOM.

 

The acceleration was explosive. Izuku shot forward like a torpedo fired from a submarine. The sheer power of his legs and the undulating motion of his torso propelled him through the water at sixty miles per hour. The water roared in his ears, trailing a massive wake of bubbles behind him. He twisted, turning on a dime, his dorsal and pectoral fins providing absolute, flawless maneuverability.

 

He closed his eyes, tapping into his sixth sense.

 

Electroreception. The ampullae of Lorenzini, a network of jelly-filled pores scattered across his snout and face, activated. The dark ocean suddenly exploded into a map of electrical impulses. He could feel the faint, rhythmic pulse of a school of fish half a mile away. He could feel the scuttling of a crab on the ocean floor.

 

And he could feel the massive, metallic density of his target.

 

Izuku opened his eyes and swam downward. About fifty yards off the coast of Dagobah Beach, resting in twenty feet of water, was a sunken, rusted-out heavy-duty pickup truck. It had been dumped there years ago, its engine block flooded, its frame buried in the silt. It weighed at least two and a half tons, not counting the suction of the mud holding it down.

 

Izuku swam circles around the truck, assessing it. He had spent the last three months clearing the smaller debris from the beach—tires, refrigerators, microwaves. He had carried them out of the water by hand. But the truck was the final boss of his underwater training.

 

He swam to a pile of thick, heavy maritime chains he had scavenged from the local shipyard earlier that week. He grabbed one end of the chain, swimming down to the front axle of the sunken truck. With practiced efficiency, he wrapped the chain around the rusted axle, tying it off with a heavy maritime knot.

 

He grabbed the other end of the chain. He could have wrapped it around his waist, or his shoulders, but he needed to train his most devastating weapon.

 

Izuku opened his jaws and bit down on the thick iron links of the chain.

 

His teeth, harder than diamond and razor-sharp, locked perfectly into the gaps of the metal. His jaw muscles bulged, locking down with a bite force exceeding four thousand pounds per square inch. Once his jaws clamped shut, nothing short of death was going to pry them open.

 

He swam until the chain pulled taut, his body hovering horizontally in the water, facing the distant shoreline.

 

Izuku exhaled a cloud of bubbles. He narrowed his eyes, focusing entirely on the task ahead.

 

He kicked.

 

The water around him exploded. The sheer force of his initial thrust created a miniature underwater shockwave. The chain groaned, pulling taut against his jaw. The pressure on his neck and spine was immense, but his cartilaginous skeleton absorbed the shock, flexing and holding strong.

 

At first, nothing happened. The truck was buried deep in the mud, stubborn and immovable.

 

Izuku roared underwater, a terrifying, bubbling sound that scattered every fish in a one-mile radius. He kicked harder, his massive thighs burning with lactic acid, his calf muscles straining against the immense resistance. He whipped his torso side to side, generating massive amounts of torque.

 

Shhhhluck.

 

The sound of the mud giving way echoed through the water. The truck shifted.

 

Izuku dug deep into his predatory reserves. He didn't just pull; he swam with the manic, relentless energy of a shark dragging its prey into the deep. But instead of dragging it down, he was dragging it up.

 

The truck lifted from the silt.

 

Inch by inch, yard by yard, Izuku swam toward the shoreline, dragging the two-and-a-half-ton hunk of flooded metal behind him. The chain bit into the corners of his mouth, drawing a tiny amount of blood, but he ignored the sting. The taste of his own copper blood only fueled his adrenaline, sharpening his focus, pushing him right to the very edge of the Frenzy without falling in.

 

The water grew shallower. Izuku’s back breached the surface, his dorsal fin cutting through the waves like a black blade.

 

He reached the sand, his feet touching the bottom. He didn't stop. He transitioned from swimming to a brutal, low-to-the-ground crawl, his hands digging into the wet sand, his jaw still locked onto the chain.

 

He emerged from the surf like a primordial beast crawling out of the abyss. Water cascaded off his gray skin. His muscles were corded, trembling with exertion. With a final, monstrous heave, Izuku stood up on two legs, dragging the rusted pickup truck entirely out of the water and onto the dry sand.

 

He released his bite. The chain dropped to the sand with a heavy thud.

 

Izuku fell to his hands and knees, gasping for air. His gills flared wildly as his lungs took over, pulling in massive gulps of the cool evening breeze. His entire body was on fire. His jaw ached, his legs felt like lead, and his skin was drying out rapidly in the wind.

 

He lay in the sand for a long time, staring up at the darkening sky. The first stars were beginning to peek through the twilight.

 

He slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, looking at the massive, rusted truck sitting on the beach. He had moved it. He had dragged a flooded truck out of the ocean using nothing but his jaw and raw physical strength.

 

A slow, jagged grin spread across Izuku's face, displaying his terrifying rows of teeth.

 

He raised a gray, calloused hand, clenching it into a tight fist against the backdrop of the stars.

 

"Ten months," Izuku whispered to the empty beach, his gravelly voice filled with a quiet, unshakeable determination. "I will clear this entire beach. I will make this body unstoppable."

 

He thought of U.A. He thought of Katsuki’s sneer. He thought of the villains who used their power to cause fear, and he thought of his mother, who had looked past his terrifying exterior to see the boy underneath.

 

He didn't have One For All. He didn't have the power of a god passed down from generation to generation. He had a mutation that made children scream and adults cross the street. He had instincts that begged him to hunt, to bite, to destroy.

 

But Izuku Midoriya was not a slave to his biology. He was the master of it.

 

"I won't just be a hero," Izuku declared, his black eyes flashing with silver light as he stared at the horizon. "I'm going to be the Apex."

 

The predator had awakened. And U.A. High School had no idea what was coming.

 

 

 

The alarm clock did not stand a chance.

 

At exactly 5:00 AM, the digital device on Izuku Midoriya’s nightstand let out a shrill, piercing beep. For a normal human, it was a sudden annoyance to wake them from sleep. For a teenager with the predatory auditory senses of a Carcharodon carcharias, it was the equivalent of a flashbang detonating inside his ear canal.

 

A massive, slate-gray hand shot out from beneath the heavy, custom-made oceanic weighted blanket. Thick, dark, claw-like nails pressed against the plastic of the alarm clock. Izuku didn't mean to break it. He really didn't. But morning grogginess combined with a skeletal structure reinforced by impossibly dense cartilage and muscle resulted in a tragic lack of fine motor control.

 

CRUNCH.

 

The plastic shattered. The beeping died an abrupt, miserable death, replaced by the faint sizzle of crushed batteries.

 

Izuku groaned, a deep, vibrating sound that rattled the loose change on his desk. He slowly sat up, the heavy blanket falling away to reveal a torso that looked as if it had been chiseled out of granite. He rolled his neck, the three distinct vertical slits of his gills flaring wide as they sucked in the dry, morning air.

 

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his bare feet hitting the hardwood floor with a heavy thud. He sat there for a moment, rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrist—careful not to use his palms or fingers, lest the abrasive dermal denticles on his skin scratch his own corneas.

 

Today was the day.

 

Ten months had passed since he made his vow on the sands of Dagobah Beach. If one were to visit that beach today, they would not find a single rusted refrigerator, not a single sunken truck, not a single discarded tire. The coastline was immaculate, pristine white sand greeting the crashing blue waves of the Pacific. It was a local miracle, attributed by the news to a group of anonymous civic volunteers.

 

Only Izuku and the aching, micro-torn muscles in his back knew the truth. He had moved thousands of tons of garbage using nothing but his bare hands, his jaw, and a stubborn refusal to yield.

 

Izuku stood up, towering at six foot three, casting a massive, intimidating shadow against the wall of his All Might-themed bedroom. He walked into his adjoining bathroom and immediately turned on the shower, blasting the water as cold as it could go. He stepped in, letting the freezing streams cascade over his head and back.

 

His skin instantly drank in the moisture. The tight, uncomfortable burning sensation that always accompanied a night spent on dry land vanished. His gills pulsed rhythmically, filtering the running water, acting as a secondary respiratory system that left his lungs feeling flushed and energized.

 

As he washed, he went over his checklist. Hydration was his biggest weakness. His mutation required a massive intake of water to maintain the protective mucus layer over his dermal denticles and keep his gills functioning, even in the open air. Extreme heat, fire, or prolonged exposure to arid environments would rapidly dehydrate him, leading to sluggishness and, eventually, unconsciousness. He had spent the last ten months not just lifting heavy objects, but training his body to retain moisture longer, pushing his physical endurance to the absolute limit.

 

After a twenty-minute cold soak, Izuku stepped out. He didn't use a towel; his skin naturally repelled excess water, drying off completely within seconds of stepping out of the spray.

 

He walked into the kitchen, where the smell of sizzling meat hit his nose from halfway down the hall.

 

"Morning, Izuku!" Inko Midoriya smiled brightly from the stove. She had aged over the last ten months, the worry lines around her eyes a little deeper, but her smile was as warm as ever.

 

On the table sat Izuku's breakfast. It was not a bowl of rice and a piece of grilled salmon. It was a literal mountain of food. Three whole roasted chickens, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, two large steaks seared extremely rare, and two gallons of electrolyte-infused water. His metabolism was a raging furnace. To maintain his dense muscle mass and fuel his predatory biology, he had to consume upwards of ten thousand calories a day.

 

Izuku sat down at the reinforced steel chair his mother had bought him for his birthday. "Morning, Mom. Thanks for the food."

 

His voice was a deep, gravelly rumble. He didn't use utensils. He picked up a whole chicken in his large, gray hands and took a bite. His massive, triangular, serrated teeth sheared through meat, bone, and cartilage with absolutely zero resistance. To Izuku, chewing through a chicken thigh bone felt like a normal person biting into a soft carrot.

 

Inko watched him eat, her expression a mix of maternal pride and lingering anxiety. "Are you nervous, honey? Today is a big day."

 

Izuku paused, swallowing a mouthful of food. He picked up one of the gallon jugs of water and drained half of it in three massive gulps.

 

"A little," he admitted, his black eyes with their striking silver irises locking onto the table. "I'm not worried about the physical stuff. The beach training worked. I feel... strong. Stronger than ever." He flexed his hand, the tendons in his forearm shifting like thick steel cables under his skin. "I'm just worried about... everyone else."

 

Inko’s smile softened. She walked over and gently placed a hand on his shoulder, patting the thick, rough skin. "You remember what Gang Orca said in that interview you watched last week?"

 

Izuku nodded slowly. The Number Ten Hero, Gang Orca, was an absolute idol to Izuku. He was a man with an aggressive mutant Quirk, often ranked high on the "Heroes Who Look Like Villains" charts.

 

"He said... 'Intimidation is a tool. But kindness is a choice. You cannot change how people see you at first glance, but you can dictate how they remember you,'" Izuku recited, his deep voice carrying a quiet reverence for the words.

 

"Exactly," Inko said. "You might scare them at first, Izuku. You're very big, and you look very tough. But the moment they see you save someone, the moment they see your heart... they'll know exactly what kind of hero you are."

 

Izuku looked up at his mother. A jagged, toothy grin spread across his face. It was an expression that would make a seasoned criminal back away in terror, but Inko only saw the sweet little boy who used to wear an All Might onesie.

 

"Thanks, Mom. I'll make you proud."

 

 

 

The gates of U.A. High School were colossal, towering arches of glass and steel that represented the pinnacle of heroic academia. Thousands of hopeful middle schoolers swarmed the entrance, buzzing with a mixture of excitement, nervous energy, and fierce competitive spirit.

 

And then, the buzzing stopped.

 

It started at the back of the crowd and rippled forward like a wave. Conversations died in people’s throats. Laughter abruptly ceased. The sheer weight of the sudden silence was palpable.

 

Walking up the main paved path toward the school was a leviathan.

 

Izuku Midoriya moved with a heavy, deliberate, fluid grace. He wore his custom-tailored middle school uniform. Because of the massive, rigid dorsal fin protruding from his spine, a standard jacket was impossible to wear. Instead, his black uniform jacket had been heavily modified, split completely down the back and held together by thick, adjustable tactical straps that clipped around his ribs and chest, allowing his fin to breathe and move freely. The collar was pinned wide open, exposing the dark, throbbing gills on the sides of his neck.

 

He was head and shoulders taller than everyone around him. His ash-gray skin, the terrifying, unblinking abyss of his solid black eyes, and the sheer density of his physique made him look less like a prospective student and more like a high-ranking villain who had wandered onto the wrong campus.

 

The crowd parted.

 

It wasn't a polite shuffling out of the way. It was a frantic, instinctual scramble. Teenagers scrambled to the left and right, pressing themselves against the brick walls and hedges, creating a wide, ten-foot empty path for Izuku to walk through. It looked exactly like the Red Sea parting before Moses.

 

Izuku kept his hands deep in his pockets. He kept his eyes locked straight ahead, focusing on the massive H-shaped U.A. building. He could hear their whispers perfectly. His auditory sensors picked up every stuttering heartbeat, every intake of breath.

 

“What is that guy?”

“Look at his eyes... he looks like he wants to kill someone.”

“Is he a villain? Why is security letting him in?”

“Don't make eye contact. Just look away.”

 

Izuku’s jaw tightened. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, using the mild pain to ground himself. Don't let it get to you, he thought, repeating his mother's words in his head. Kindness is a choice. Kindness is a choice.

 

"Out of my way, extras!"

 

A loud, aggressive voice barked from behind him. Izuku didn't need to turn around. His electroreception instantly recognized the volatile, spiked electrical impulses of Katsuki Bakugo’s nervous system.

 

Katsuki stomped up the path, his hands shoved in his pockets, his posture slouched but exuding lethal confidence. He saw the path the crowd had made for Izuku and smirked, walking right up behind his former childhood friend.

 

"Still playing the silent monster routine, Jaws?" Katsuki sneered, stepping up to walk parallel to Izuku.

 

Izuku glanced down at the explosive blonde. "Morning, Bakugo. Good luck today."

 

The deep, rumbling calmness of Izuku's voice irritated Katsuki to no end. He hated that Izuku didn't rise to the bait. He hated that standing next to Izuku made him feel like he was standing next to a dormant volcano.

 

"I don't need luck," Katsuki scoffed, small pops of nitroglycerin sparking in his palms. "I'm going to crush this exam. And when they see that all you can do is look scary, they're going to throw you back in the ocean where you belong."

 

Katsuki sped up, shoulder-checking a random student out of his way as he marched toward the entrance hall.

 

Izuku exhaled a long breath through his nose, his gills fluttering. He unclenched his jaw and took a step forward—

 

And then he heard a sharp gasp.

 

Directly in front of him, a girl with round cheeks and short brown hair had tripped over her own feet. She was pitching forward, face-first toward the hard concrete pavement.

 

Izuku didn't think. His reflexes, honed by predatory evolution and endless training, took over. He moved with a speed that defied his massive frame. In a blur of gray motion, he closed the five-foot gap in a fraction of a second.

 

He dropped to one knee, throwing his massive hands out.

 

Smack.

 

He caught her. One massive gray hand securely gripped her upper arm, while his other hand caught her waist, stopping her face mere inches from the concrete.

 

The girl gasped, her eyes squeezed shut tightly. When she realized she hadn't shattered her nose, she slowly opened them.

 

"Whoa... I thought I was a goner," she breathed, a flush of embarrassment hitting her cheeks. She looked up to see who had caught her.

 

Ochaco Uraraka found herself staring directly into a pair of endless, abyssal black eyes with piercing silver rings. She saw the jagged, razor-sharp teeth protruding slightly from a heavy jaw. She felt the massive, terrifyingly strong hands gripping her waist and arm.

 

But worst of all, she felt the texture of his skin.

 

Izuku’s dermal denticles were literally made of microscopic, tooth-like scales. When he grabbed her, the rough skin of his palms scraped against the exposed skin of her forearm. It didn't draw blood, but it felt like heavy-grit sandpaper rubbing violently against her flesh.

 

"Ah! Ouch!" Ochaco winced, flinching away from his grip.

 

Izuku’s eyes widened. Panic—pure, unfiltered, socially-awkward teenage panic—struck him like a lightning bolt. He immediately let go of her, practically throwing himself backward as if he had just been burned.

 

"O-Oh my god! I-I'm so sorry!" Izuku stammered, his deep, terrifying voice suddenly cracking into an octave that did not match his towering physique. He threw his hands up in surrender, waving them frantically. "I-I didn't mean to hurt you! M-My skin is really rough, it's a mutation thing, I should have worn gloves, oh man, I'm so stupid, I-I'm so sorry, please don't call the police!"

 

Ochaco blinked. She stood up, rubbing her slightly reddened forearm. The terrifying leviathan of a boy who looked like he ate cars for breakfast was currently bowing at a perfect ninety-degree angle, trembling like a leaf, rambling apologies at a hundred miles an hour.

 

The absolute absurdity of the contrast hit her. A massive, bubbly smile broke across her face, and she let out a bright, melodious laugh.

 

"Hey, hey, it's okay!" Ochaco waved her hands, giggling. "It just startled me, that's all! Thank you for catching me. I'm super clumsy, and I would have totally face-planted if it wasn't for you."

 

Izuku stopped bowing, peeking up at her through his silver irises. "Y-You're not... you're not scared of me?"

 

Ochaco tilted her head, looking at his dorsal fin, his gills, and his sharp teeth. "Well... you do look pretty intense! But you just saved me from a nasty fall. Anyone who moves that fast to help a stranger is a hero in my book." She beamed, holding out a soft, pink-padded hand. "I'm Ochaco Uraraka!"

 

Izuku stared at her hand. It was the first time in ten years someone outside of his mother had offered to touch him willingly. He slowly reached out, his massive gray hand enveloping hers. He was incredibly gentle, making sure not to squeeze or rub his scales against her skin.

 

"I-Izuku Midoriya," he rumbled softly, his face feeling hot. If his gray skin could blush, it would be glowing neon red right now.

 

"It's nice to meet you, Midoriya!" Ochaco chirped. "Good luck on the exam! Let's both do our best!"

 

She gave him a cheerful wave and jogged off toward the entrance. Izuku stood frozen on the pavement, staring at his hand. A warm, glowing feeling bloomed in his chest. She didn't call me a freak. She called me a hero.

 

With a renewed fire burning in his core, the Great White Shark of U.A. marched into the testing halls.

 

 

 

The written exam was a breeze. Izuku had spent years studying hero laws, physics, and strategy, compensating for his lack of a flashy "emitter" Quirk with sheer intellect.

 

The orientation, however, was a test of patience.

 

Sitting in the massive, darkened auditorium, Izuku was forced to occupy a seat at the very edge of the aisle so his dorsal fin wouldn't impale the seat behind him. At the front of the room, the Voice Hero: Present Mic was screaming instructions about the practical exam, displaying graphics of 1-Point, 2-Point, and 3-Point villain bots.

 

Suddenly, a tall boy with glasses and engines in his calves shot up like a rocket. "Excuse me! I have a question!" he bellowed, pointing a rigid hand at the stage. After asking about a misprint on the handout regarding a Fourth robot, the boy violently spun around and pointed directly at Izuku across the auditorium.

 

"And you! The large student with the fin!" the bespectacled boy shouted. "You have been making a disturbing, wet hissing sound this entire presentation! If you have a respiratory illness, you should excuse yourself! You are distracting the rest of us who are taking this seriously!"

 

Every eye in the room snapped to Izuku.

 

Izuku froze. The "wet hissing sound" was his gills involuntarily flaring and filtering the dry, air-conditioned oxygen of the auditorium. It was a biological necessity.

 

Katsuki, sitting a few rows down, snickered loudly.

 

Izuku felt a flash of embarrassment, but he remembered Gang Orca’s words. Hold your ground. Be polite, but do not apologize for what you are.

 

Izuku stood up. He towered over the seating arrangement, his sheer size casting a shadow over the students near him. The bespectacled boy visibly swallowed hard, perhaps realizing he had just yelled at a boy who could bite his head off like a grape.

 

"I apologize if the sound is distracting," Izuku said, his deep, resonant voice echoing clearly through the massive room without the need for a microphone. "I have an aquatic mutant-type Quirk. My gills must cycle oxygen occasionally to keep my lungs functioning in this dry environment. It is not an illness; it is my biology. I will try to muffle it, but I am taking this exam just as seriously as you are."

 

He bowed respectfully and sat back down.

 

The room was dead silent. Present Mic blinked from the stage, adjusting his sunglasses. "Right on, listener! Gotta respect the mutant biology! YEAAAH! Anyway, back to the presentation!"

 

The bespectacled boy sat down stiffly, looking thoroughly chastised. Izuku let out a quiet sigh of relief. He had handled it. He hadn't lost his temper. He hadn't acted like a beast.

 

Now, it was time to unleash the beast.

 

 

 

Test Center B - The Faux City

 

Izuku stood before the massive, towering gates of the mock city. He was surrounded by dozens of other examinees, all stretching, hyping themselves up, or showing off their Quirks.

 

Once again, Izuku was given a ten-foot radius of empty space. The other students were actively avoiding him, whispering nervously. He recognized the engine-leg boy from the auditorium, doing rigid squats in the corner. He also recognized Uraraka, taking deep breaths near the front.

 

Izuku didn't stretch. He didn't need to. He stood perfectly still, his eyes closed.

 

He reached into his mind, actively suppressing his human consciousness and letting his predatory instincts rise to the surface. He felt his heart rate drop. He felt his blood vessels constrict, preparing his muscles for explosive action. His ampullae of Lorenzini flared to life, his face tingling as electroreception painted the world in his mind's eye.

 

Even through the massive steel doors, he could feel them.

 

The electrical hum of batteries. The whirring of hydraulic servos. The metallic pulse of the robotic targets waiting inside the city. There were dozens of them. Hundreds of them.

 

"RIGHT, LISTENERS! START!" Present Mic’s voice boomed from a loudspeaker.

 

The other students hesitated, confused by the lack of a countdown.

 

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL BATTLES! RUN, RUN, RUN!"

 

Izuku’s eyes snapped open. The silver rings in his black eyes flared with a lethal, predatory light.

 

BOOM.

 

The concrete beneath Izuku’s feet shattered into a spiderweb of cracks as he launched himself forward. The sheer concussive force of his initial sprint created a gust of wind that knocked two nearby students onto their backs.

 

He didn't run like a man. It was inefficient for his massive frame. He dropped low, his hands hitting the pavement, and he moved on all fours like a terrifying, terrestrial crocodile. His movements were a blur of gray muscle, his massive hands and bare feet gripping the asphalt as he propelled himself through the gates and into the faux city at sixty miles per hour.

 

"W-What the hell is that speed?!" a student screamed as they finally started running after him.

 

Izuku rounded the first corner. His electroreception pinged violently.

 

Three 1-Point robots rolled out from an alleyway, their optic sensors locking onto him. "Target acquired," they beeped in mechanical unison.

 

Izuku didn't slow down. He accelerated.

 

He hit the center robot like a freight train. He didn't even throw a punch; he just tackled it at full speed. The 1-Pointer’s metallic chest plate completely caved in under the kinetic impact of Izuku’s three-hundred-pound, muscle-dense body. The robot shattered into a dozen pieces, circuitry and oil spraying across the street.

 

Without losing momentum, Izuku dug his clawed fingers into the asphalt, pivoting violently. He grabbed the severed arm of the destroyed robot, spun like a hammer-thrower, and hurled it with devastating force at the second 1-Pointer. The chunk of metal decapitated the robot instantly.

 

The third 1-Pointer raised its guns to fire.

 

Izuku closed the distance in a single bound. He leapt into the air, landing directly on top of the machine. Driven by pure combat instinct, he opened his jaws and bit directly down on the robot's thick, armored neck joint.

 

CRUNCH.

 

His diamond-hard, serrated teeth sheared through the steel plating, snapping the hydraulic lines and severing the main power cables in a single, devastating bite. He ripped his head back, tearing the robot's head completely off its shoulders, and spat it out onto the ground with a mouthful of motor oil.

 

Three points, Izuku thought, spitting the foul-tasting oil from his tongue.

 

He didn't pause to celebrate. His electroreception was pinging wildly in every direction. He dropped back to all fours and sprinted down the street, hunting his metallic prey.

 

 

 

High above the arena, in a darkened observation room, the faculty of U.A. watched the monitors in silence.

 

"We have a very promising crop this year," a small, bear-mouse-dog creature named Nezu hummed happily, sipping a cup of tea. "Lots of mobility, lots of raw firepower."

 

"Indeed," Midnight, the R-Rated Hero, purred, leaning forward. "That explosive blonde boy in Area A is a total savage. He has the highest villain takedown rate by far."

 

"He relies entirely on his Quirk," Aizawa Shota—Eraserhead—noted dryly, his eyes scanning a different monitor. "His physical combat skills are decent, but he wastes too much energy."

 

"Look at Test Center B," Vlad King, the Blood Hero, interrupted, pointing a massive finger at one of the central screens. "Examinee number 7111. Midoriya Izuku."

 

The faculty turned their attention to the screen.

 

They watched in stunned silence as Izuku, moving like a feral beast, leaped off the side of a building, landed on the back of a massive 3-Pointer, and literally tore the machine in half with his bare hands, his dorsal fin slicing through a stray piece of shrapnel like a hot knife through butter.

 

"Good lord," Snipe muttered, adjusting his mask. "That ain't a student. That's a force of nature. His raw physical strength is off the charts."

 

"Mutant type," Nezu observed, pulling up Izuku's file on his tablet. "Carcharodon carcharias atavism. A Great White Shark mutation. Fascinating. He's utilizing terrestrial biomechanics perfectly to compensate for an aquatic physiology. But look at his eyes."

 

The screen zoomed in on Izuku’s face as he crushed a 2-Pointer beneath his heel. His face was a mask of cold, predatory efficiency.

 

"He looks like a villain," Aizawa stated bluntly, voicing the uncomfortable truth the room was thinking. "He fights like a villain. Brutal. Uncompromising. He's destroying the machines with his teeth, for god's sake. In a rescue scenario, that level of primal aggression is a liability."

 

In the back of the room, standing in the shadows, a skeletal, sickly man coughed into a handkerchief. Toshinori Yagi—All Might—watched the screen intently. His blue eyes narrowed as he focused not on the destruction Izuku was causing, but on the boy's movements.

 

He's aggressive, yes, All Might thought. But he's precise. He hasn't caused any collateral damage to the surrounding buildings. He's actively leading the robots away from the other students.

 

"Let's test their true mettle," Nezu smiled, his paw hovering over a large red button on his console. "Let's see how our promising heroes handle an un-winnable scenario."

 

He pressed the button.

 

 

 

Forty-five points. Forty-seven. Fifty.

 

Izuku spat another piece of metal from his mouth, wiping his chin with the back of his arm. He was panting heavily. The air in the faux city was dry, filled with the dust of crushed concrete and the heat of small fires started by other students' Quirks. His skin felt tight and itchy. His gills were painfully dry, fluttering desperately for moisture that wasn't there.

 

He was dehydrating. The intense physical exertion combined with the arid environment was draining his stamina exponentially faster than his ocean training.

 

I have enough points, Izuku reasoned, leaning against a brick wall to catch his breath. Fifty points should be enough to pass. I just need to survive the next two minutes.

 

Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet violently shuddered.

 

It wasn't a small tremor. It was a massive, localized earthquake. The buildings around him swayed, glass shattering from the windows.

 

Izuku’s electroreception screamed in his brain. A massive, towering wall of electrical energy was rising just two blocks away. The sheer scale of it was blinding to his sixth sense.

 

He sprinted out of the alleyway, looking down the main street.

 

Rising from the dust clouds, taller than the tallest buildings in the faux city, was the Zero Pointer. It was a monolithic, terrifying machine, rolling forward on massive treads that crushed the pavement into powder. Its single, glowing red optic swept over the street like the Eye of Sauron.

 

The examinees, who had been confidently fighting just moments before, froze in absolute terror.

 

"Less than two minutes remaining!" Present Mic announced over the loudspeakers.

 

"Run! Run away!" someone screamed.

 

The students broke. They turned and fled in a blind panic, sprinting away from the towering mechanical titan as it raised a massive fist, slamming it into a nearby building and sending a shower of debris raining down onto the street.

 

Izuku’s predatory instincts flared. Danger. Overwhelming threat. Retreat. Survive.

 

Every evolutionary fiber in his being told him to turn around and run. The machine was too big. It couldn't be killed. It couldn't be eaten. It was a predator larger than him, and the law of the apex dictates that you do not fight what you cannot conquer.

 

Izuku took a step backward, preparing to join the fleeing students.

 

And then, a scent hit his nose.

 

It was faint, buried under the smell of dust, ozone, and panic. But Izuku’s olfactory glands could detect one part per million in an ocean. To him, the smell in the dry air was as clear as a ringing bell.

 

Salt. Iron. Copper. Blood.

 

Someone was hurt.

 

Izuku’s head snapped toward the source of the scent. His black eyes dialed into the dust cloud near the base of the Zero Pointer’s treads.

 

Lying on the ground, her ankle pinned beneath a massive chunk of concrete rubble, was Ochaco Uraraka. A small cut on her forehead was bleeding slightly. She was struggling frantically to push the debris off her leg, tears of pain and terror streaming down her dirty face as the massive treads of the Zero Pointer rolled mercilessly toward her.

 

Izuku stopped breathing.

 

The smell of her blood hit his brain like a sledgehammer. The primal, dark side of his mutation—the Frenzy—roared to life. Blood. Prey. Attack. Devour. His pupils dilated until his silver irises were completely swallowed by black. A low, terrifying growl ripped from his throat, his jaws parting slightly.

 

No.

 

Izuku bit down on his own tongue, hard enough to draw his own blood. The sharp burst of pain cut through the primal haze. The heroic side of his soul fought back against millions of years of shark biology.

 

She isn't prey, his human mind screamed over the roar of the beast. She's the first person who treated you like a human. She's in danger. Move!

 

In the observation room, Aizawa leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "The mutant boy... he's stopped moving. Is he paralyzed by fear?"

 

"No," All Might whispered, gripping the railing. "Look at his legs."

 

Izuku dropped into a low crouch in the middle of the empty street. The other students had already blown past him, fleeing for their lives. He was the only one left standing between the Zero Pointer and Uraraka.

 

He didn't run. Running wouldn't generate enough force. He needed to utilize the technique he had developed to mimic the hunting pattern of a Great White Shark striking a seal from the ocean depths. He needed explosive, localized kinetic energy.

 

Izuku planted his bare feet into the asphalt. He bent his knees deeply, coiling the massive, cartilage-reinforced muscles in his thighs and calves to their absolute maximum tension. He focused every ounce of his strength, every ounce of his weight, into a single, upward trajectory.

 

"BREACH!" Izuku roared, a sound that shattered the remaining windows on the street.

 

He unleashed his legs.

 

The asphalt beneath him didn't just crack; it completely cratered. A shockwave of air blasted outward, kicking up a massive cloud of dust as Izuku launched himself into the sky.

 

He moved like a bullet. He soared over the fleeing students, over the ruined buildings, ascending rapidly into the sky until he was eye-level with the head of the colossal Zero Pointer.

 

Uraraka, lying on the ground, looked up through her tears. Her eyes widened in absolute shock.

 

High above the massive machine, silhouetted against the bright morning sun, was Izuku. His gray skin looked like armor. His dorsal fin cut a terrifying, majestic profile against the sky.

 

Izuku reached the apex of his jump. He was directly over the head of the Zero Pointer. Gravity began to pull him back down.

 

He twisted his body mid-air, bringing his right leg up high above his head. All three hundred pounds of his dense, muscular weight shifted into his heel. He didn't have One For All to shatter the robot with a punch. He only had his body.

 

He swung his leg down in a devastating, full-body axe kick.

 

SMASH!

 

Izuku’s heel struck the exact center of the Zero Pointer’s armored head.

 

The impact was cataclysmic. The dense cartilage in Izuku's leg absorbed the recoil that would have shattered a normal human’s bones into dust. The kinetic energy transferred perfectly into the robot.

 

The solid steel plating of the Zero Pointer's head buckled, caved in, and completely crumpled under the blow. The sheer downward force of Izuku's strike sent a shockwave down the robot's spine. The optics shattered. Internal explosions violently ripped through the machine's neck and chest cavity as critical systems were crushed instantly.

 

For a second, the world seemed to stand still.

 

Then, the massive Zero Pointer tilted backward, dead in its tracks, and crashed heavily into the faux cityscape, sending up a mushroom cloud of dust and debris that washed over the entire arena.

 

In the observation room, absolute silence reigned. Present Mic's jaw was practically on the floor. Vlad King was staring in disbelief.

 

Aizawa Shota’s eyes were wide open. He didn't use an emitter Quirk. He didn't use an explosive burst of energy. That was purely physical. He just caved in a titanium-alloy robot head with a single kick.

 

All Might, hidden in the shadows, felt a massive, wide grin stretch across his gaunt face. He saw the self-sacrifice. He saw the sheer, unadulterated heroism. You say he fights like a villain, Aizawa? Look again. That boy just laid down his life.

 

Back in the arena, Izuku was falling.

 

The adrenaline spike was fading, replaced instantly by the agonizing reality of his body. The kick had pushed him too far. The dry air and the extreme exertion had completely sapped his moisture. His vision swam. His gills clamped shut, painfully dry.

 

He hit the ground hard, rolling several times across the asphalt before coming to a stop just a few feet away from Uraraka.

 

"TIME'S UP!" Present Mic’s voice echoed across the quiet arena.

 

Izuku lay on his back, staring up at the sky. He couldn't move his arms. His mouth was dry, his tongue feeling like sandpaper.

 

He heard the sound of shifting rubble. Uraraka had used her Zero Gravity quirk on the concrete pinning her leg, pushing it off with a groan of pain. She limped over to him, her face dirty and bruised, but her eyes shining with absolute awe.

 

She dropped to her knees beside him. She didn't hesitate this time. She reached out and placed her hands on his massive, gray, sandpaper-rough chest.

 

"Midoriya...?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Are you okay? You... you saved my life."

 

Izuku slowly turned his head to look at her. The terrifying, black and silver eyes that had sent a hundred students running in fear were currently half-lidded, exhausted, and incredibly soft.

 

He forced his dry, jagged jaws open to form a ragged, tired smile.

 

"A-Are you... okay?" he rasped, his gravelly voice barely a whisper.

 

Before Uraraka could answer, a small, elderly woman in a nurse's outfit pushed her way through the gathering crowd of stunned students. Recovery Girl took one look at Izuku, her medical expertise instantly diagnosing the problem.

 

"Out of the way! The boy is suffering from severe acute dehydration! Get me water, quickly!" she ordered, pulling a specialized saline IV from her bag.

 

As the world faded to black around him, Izuku closed his eyes.

 

He hadn't been a monster today. He had been a hero. And as he slipped into unconsciousness, the sound of Uraraka's worried voice and the distant, awe-struck murmurs of his peers were the greatest victory song he could ever ask for.

 

 

 

The U.A. high school uniform was a symbol of prestige, honor, and the bright, heroic future that awaited those who wore it. It was tailored to perfection, crisp, and immaculate.

 

For Izuku Midoriya, it was also an absolute logistical nightmare.

 

Izuku stood in front of his bedroom mirror, staring at the grey blazer with gold buttons. When the uniform had arrived two days prior, Inko had practically wept with joy. But getting the garments to fit a fourteen-year-old boy who possessed the dense, towering physique of a heavily muscled adult and the biological appendages of a marine apex predator required a masterclass in tailoring.

 

His white button-up shirt had a specialized V-neck cut, dipping low enough to avoid rubbing against the sensitive, raw edges of the three gill slits on his neck. The back of the shirt and the blazer were completely split down the center. To keep the garments from simply falling off his shoulders, U.A.’s support company had installed a series of heavy-duty, elastic tactical straps that clipped across his chest and under his ribs. This allowed his massive, rigid, dark-gray dorsal fin to protrude freely without destroying the fabric.

 

He pulled on his red tie, leaving the knot loose. He checked his pants—thankfully, they were standard, though tailored significantly wider in the thigh to accommodate his tree-trunk legs.

 

He looked at his reflection. His solid black eyes with their striking silver irises stared back. His skin was the color of a stormy sea, textured like heavy-grit sandpaper. He didn't look like a high school student. He looked like a hired mercenary in a very expensive suit.

 

"Okay," Izuku rumbled, his deep, gravelly voice vibrating in his chest. "First day. Don't scare anyone. Don't bite anything. Smile... no, wait. Don't smile. Smiling shows the teeth. Just... look pleasant."

 

He tried to force his face into a 'pleasant' expression. He ended up looking like a mob enforcer sizing up a target. He sighed, a wet hiss escaping his gills, and grabbed his yellow backpack.

 

The commute to U.A. was a familiar exercise in isolation. As he rode the crowded morning train, the passengers instinctively formed a wide, empty circle around him. Mothers pulled their children closer. Businessmen kept their eyes glued to their phones, terrified to make eye contact. But today, there was a slight difference. When people noticed the U.A. crest on his blazer, the fear in their eyes was often replaced by a profound, baffled curiosity.

 

A monster in a U.A. uniform? their expressions seemed to say.

 

Izuku ignored them. He kept his hands deep in his pockets, listening to the rhythmic clack-clack of the train tracks, focusing on the electrical hum of the train’s engine through his ampullae of Lorenzini to keep his mind occupied.

 

When he finally stepped through the towering glass gates of U.A., a wave of nervous anticipation washed over him. The campus was massive, a sprawling metropolis of academia. He navigated the wide, pristine hallways, searching for his assigned room.

 

Class 1-A.

 

He found the door. It was comically large, at least a dozen feet tall. Izuku assumed it was designed for students with gigantification Quirks, which, for once, made him feel normal-sized. He reached out with his massive, gray, clawed hand and grasped the handle.

 

He could already hear the voices inside.

 

"Take your feet off of that desk immediately!" a rigid, authoritative voice demanded. "It is an insult to the great alumni of U.A. and the craftsmen who made it!"

 

"Huh?" a familiar, arrogant voice scoffed. "Which junior high did you go to, you four-eyed extra?"

 

"I attended Somei Private Academy! My name is Tenya Iida!"

 

Izuku recognized the voices instantly. The bespectacled boy who had yelled at him in the auditorium, and Katsuki Bakugo. Izuku closed his eyes, took a deep breath of the chalk-dusted air, and slid the massive door open.

 

The door rolled on its tracks with a heavy thud.

 

Instantly, the argument at the front of the room ceased. The conversations of the other students died in their throats. Once again, Izuku’s presence acted as a vacuum for sound.

 

Izuku stood in the doorway, towering over the room. His broad shoulders nearly filled the doorframe. The morning sunlight caught the rough, dermal denticles of his skin, making him look as though he were carved from solid granite.

 

Katsuki Bakugo’s red eyes narrowed into a fierce, hateful glare from where he sat with his feet kicked up on his desk.

 

Tenya Iida, however, did not glare. The tall, blue-haired boy stiffened, his eyes widening in recognition. He immediately abandoned his argument with Bakugo, marching straight toward Izuku with the rigid, mechanical precision of a marching band conductor.

 

The rest of the class watched in tense silence, fully expecting the massive, terrifying gray boy to swat Iida away like a fly.

 

Instead, Iida stopped three feet away from Izuku and bowed at a perfect, sharp ninety-degree angle.

 

"I am Tenya Iida!" he declared loudly. "I must formally apologize to you!"

 

Izuku blinked, taken aback. "Uh... for what?"

 

"For my shameful behavior during the orientation!" Iida shouted, still bowing. "I judged you based on a biological necessity, assuming you were being a disruption! Furthermore, during the practical exam, I completely failed to recognize the true purpose of the test. I fled from the Zero Pointer like a coward. But you... you leapt into the jaws of certain death to save a fellow examinee! You shattered that machine with nothing but your bare hands and your own physical might! You possessed the true makings of a hero all along, and I am deeply ashamed for having doubted you!"

 

The class erupted into shocked whispers.

 

“Wait, he destroyed the Zero Pointer? With his bare hands?”

“I thought he was a villain from the look of him...”

“Did you see his entrance exam score? He got zero rescue points but fifty villain points... wait, no, the board updated! He got sixty rescue points for saving someone! He placed first overall!”

 

Izuku felt the heat rush to his face. "I-Iida, please, stand up. You don't have to apologize. I understand why you were annoyed in the auditorium. And anyone would have been scared of that robot. I was terrified too."

 

Iida stood up, adjusting his glasses, a look of profound respect on his face. "You are not only immensely powerful, but humble as well! I look forward to studying alongside you, Midoriya!"

 

"Midoriya!"

 

A cheerful, melodic voice cut through the heavy atmosphere. Izuku turned to see Ochaco Uraraka pushing past a boy with strange, tape-dispenser elbows. She was practically bouncing on her heels, a massive, radiant smile on her face.

 

"You made it! I knew you would!" Uraraka cheered, stopping right in front of him. "I was trying to find you after the exam to thank you properly, but Recovery Girl said you were totally dehydrated and needed to rest. Are you feeling better?"

 

"M-Much better, thank you, Uraraka," Izuku stammered, rubbing the back of his neck, careful not to scratch his own skin. "I'm glad you made it into 1-A too."

 

"Of course! Though I wouldn't be here if you hadn't done that crazy kick!" She mimicked his falling axe-kick with a dramatic swish of her arm. "It was like, BAM! And the robot's head just went CRUNCH! It was the coolest thing I've ever seen!"

 

The tension in the classroom began to dissipate. Seeing the bubbly, friendly girl interacting so casually with the terrifying leviathan broke the illusion of his villainous aura. He wasn't a monster; he was just a very, very large, socially awkward teenager.

 

A boy with spiky red hair and sharp, jagged teeth akin to Izuku's suddenly stepped up. He slammed his fists together, a grin on his face.

 

"Man, you destroyed the Zero Pointer with a physical strike?" the redhead asked, his eyes practically sparkling. "That's so manly! I'm Eijiro Kirishima. My Quirk is Hardening, but it's not nearly as flashy as whatever you've got going on!" Kirishima activated his Quirk, his arm turning into jagged, craggy rock.

 

Izuku looked at Kirishima’s sharpened teeth and the rugged nature of his Quirk. He felt an instant, instinctual kinship. "I'm Izuku Midoriya. My Quirk is a mutant-type... Carcharodon carcharias. Great White Shark. My skin is pretty tough, too."

 

"Shark Quirk? Dude, that is so hardcore!" Kirishima beamed.

 

"Ribbit."

 

Izuku looked down. Standing next to Kirishima was a girl with long, dark green hair tied in a bow at the bottom, and massive, unblinking black eyes. Her posture was slightly hunched, her hands resting in front of her like a frog.

 

"I'm Tsuyu Asui. Call me Tsu," she said bluntly, looking up at Izuku's towering frame. "Your Quirk is aquatic, like mine. Though I'm a frog, and you're an apex predator. You look really scary, Midoriya."

 

Izuku flinched, his shoulders slumping. "I... I know. I'm sorry."

 

"I wasn't finished, ribbit," Tsuyu continued, placing a finger on her chin. "You look scary, but your eyes are really nervous right now. And you're being super polite. I think it's a cute contrast."

 

Izuku’s jaw dropped slightly. Cute? No one had ever, in his fourteen years of life, called any aspect of him cute. He didn't know how to process the information, so he just stood there, his gills fluttering rapidly in shock.

 

"If you're just here to make friends, you can pack up your things and leave."

 

The voice came from the floor.

 

The entire class froze, looking down. Lying in the hallway, just outside the doorframe, was a massive yellow sleeping bag shaped like a caterpillar. It wriggled forward, and a man with messy, shoulder-length black hair and bags under his eyes that rivaled the Mariana Trench unzipped the top and stood up. He held a juice pouch in one hand.

 

"It took you lot eight seconds to quiet down," the man said, his voice flat, devoid of any warmth or enthusiasm. "Time is limited. You kids are not rational enough."

 

Izuku’s eyes widened. He recognized the man instantly. The capture weapon draped around his neck like a scarf, the dark clothing, the exhausted demeanor. Eraserhead. An underground hero. He doesn't like the media. What is he doing teaching at U.A.?

 

"I'm your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa," the man stated, stepping up to the podium at the front of the class.

 

The class gasped. Homeroom teacher?!

 

Aizawa didn't give them a moment to process. He reached into his sleeping bag and pulled out a stack of folded, dark blue gym uniforms. He tossed them onto the front desk.

 

"Put these on and head out to the P.E. grounds," Aizawa ordered. "Immediately."

 

 

 

The locker room was an entirely new trial for Izuku. While the other boys chatted and changed, Izuku had to carefully navigate pulling on his gym uniform. Like his school uniform, U.A. had specially designed this outfit. The blue track pants were standard, but the shirt was essentially a sleeveless compression vest with an open back. It left his muscular arms, his gills, and his massive dorsal fin completely exposed to the open air.

 

"Whoa, Midoriya, your back is crazy!" Kirishima exclaimed, walking past. "Are those scars on your fin?"

 

Izuku reached over his shoulder, his rough fingers brushing against the rigid cartilage of his dorsal fin. "Yeah. Marine debris. Sunken metal, fishing nets... when I train in the ocean, it's easy to get nicked."

 

"You train in the ocean?" a boy with blonde hair and a black lightning bolt streak asked. "That's wild. I'm Denki Kaminari, by the way. I'm an electric type! We’d probably be a bad matchup in the water, huh?"

 

Izuku’s ampullae of Lorenzini practically buzzed just looking at Kaminari. The boy’s nervous system was giving off micro-volts of electricity constantly. "Yeah," Izuku rumbled. "Electricity overloads my sensory organs. I have electroreception... I can feel heartbeats and muscle contractions."

 

The locker room went silent.

 

"Wait," a short boy with purple balls for hair squeaked, clutching his chest. "You can hear my heart beating right now?"

 

"Yes," Izuku said plainly.

 

"That is terrifyingly awesome," Kirishima laughed, breaking the tension.

 

Bakugo slammed his locker shut with unnecessary force. He didn't say a word, storming out of the locker room with his shoulders set in a tense, angry line. Izuku watched him go, a heavy feeling settling in his gut.

 

When the class finally gathered on the dirt field of the P.E. grounds, the morning sun was beating down harshly. Izuku felt his skin tighten slightly. It wasn't dangerously hot, but he knew he would need to drink water soon.

 

Aizawa stood before them, holding a clipboard. "We're doing a Quirk Apprehension Test."

 

"A Quirk Apprehension Test?!" the class yelled in unison.

 

"What about the entrance ceremony? The orientation?" Uraraka asked, stepping forward with a worried expression.

 

"If you're going to become a hero, you don't have time for such leisurely events," Aizawa replied coldly. "U.A.'s selling point is how unrestricted its school traditions are. That's also how the teachers run their classes. You kids have been doing these physical fitness tests since junior high, right? But you were forbidden from using your Quirks. The country still uses averages taken from results devoid of Quirks. It's not rational. The Ministry of Education is procrastinating."

 

Aizawa turned his gaze to Bakugo. "Bakugo, you finished first in the practical exam, didn't you? Wait, no. Midoriya overtook you with rescue points. Bakugo, you were second."

 

Bakugo’s eye twitched violently. The veins in his neck bulged. He glared at the back of Izuku’s head with a fury so intense it practically generated its own heat.

 

"Bakugo, what was your best result for the softball throw in junior high?" Aizawa asked.

 

"Sixty-seven meters," Bakugo growled.

 

"Try doing it with your Quirk." Aizawa tossed a baseball to Bakugo and pointed to a white circle painted on the dirt. "You can do whatever you want as long as you stay in the circle. Hurry up. Give it all you've got."

 

Bakugo stepped into the circle. He stretched his arms, a feral, terrifying grin stretching across his face. He wound his arm back, nitroglycerin sweat pooling rapidly in his palms.

 

"DIE!" Bakugo screamed, hurling the ball.

 

A massive explosion detonated from his hand, propelling the baseball into the stratosphere, leaving a trail of black smoke in its wake.

 

The class watched in awe. Aizawa held up a small device. It beeped. He turned the screen to the class.

 

705.2 meters.

 

"Know your own maximum first," Aizawa said lazily. "That is the most rational way to form the foundation of a hero."

 

"Seven hundred meters? Seriously?!" Kaminari gasped.

 

"This looks like fun!" a pink-skinned girl named Ashido cheered.

 

"We can use our Quirks as much as we want! As expected from the hero course!" another student yelled.

 

Aizawa’s eyes darkened. The air pressure around him seemed to plummet. "It looks like fun, huh? You have three years to become heroes. Will you have an attitude like that the whole time?"

 

Aizawa smiled, but it was a cruel, terrifying expression. "Alright. Whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential, and will be punished with expulsion."

 

"EXPULSION?!" the class shrieked.

 

"You can't do that!" Uraraka protested. "It's the first day! Even if it wasn't, that's totally unfair!"

 

"Natural disasters, massive accidents, and selfish villains," Aizawa droned, pulling his hair back. "Calamities whose time or place cannot be predicted. Japan is covered with unfairness. Heroes are the ones who reverse those situations. If you wanted to go talk to your friends at McDonald's after school, too bad. For the next three years, U.A. will do all it can to give you one hardship after another. Go beyond. Plus Ultra. Overcome it with all you've got."

 

Izuku clenched his massive fists. He wasn't afraid of expulsion. He had dragged thousands of tons of metal from the sea. He had shattered a military-grade robot with a single kick. He wasn't going anywhere.

 

The tests began.

 

Test 1: 50-Meter Dash

 

The students lined up in pairs. Tenya Iida and Tsuyu Asui went first. Iida’s engines roared to life, propelling him across the finish line in an astonishing 3.04 seconds. Asui bounded across in a very respectable 5.58 seconds.

 

"Midoriya, you're up with Bakugo," Aizawa called out.

 

The class fell dead silent. Everyone remembered the tension in the classroom.

 

Izuku stepped up to the starting line. Bakugo stood next to him, crouching low, his hands pointed backward, ready to use explosions to propel himself.

 

"I'm gonna humiliate you, Jaws," Bakugo whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying mixture of rage and adrenaline. "I'm gonna show them that a freak like you is nothing compared to me."

 

Izuku didn't look at him. He stared down the dirt track. Running on two legs was not his strong suit. His body was designed to move through liquid, not air. If he tried to run normally, he would be fast due to his raw muscle, but he would be clumsy and heavy.

 

He needed to adapt his biology.

 

Izuku closed his eyes. He focused on the specialized glands located beneath his dermal denticles. In the ocean, these glands secreted a thin layer of specialized mucous that reduced drag, allowing him to cut through the water with zero friction.

 

He forced those glands into overdrive.

 

Slowly, a clear, viscous sheen began to coat Izuku’s gray skin. It looked like sweat, but it was incredibly slick. He dropped to his hands and knees, assuming a quadrupedal stance at the starting line.

 

"On your marks..." a robot umpire droned.

 

"Get set..."

 

Izuku took a deep breath, his gills snapping shut to prevent dust from entering his respiratory system.

 

"GO!"

 

BOOM. Bakugo blasted off the starting line, chaining explosions together to fly forward over the track like a missile.

 

But Izuku didn't run.

 

Using his massive leg strength, Izuku dove headfirst onto the dirt track, parallel to the ground. As his chest and stomach hit the earth, the slick mucous coating his skin acted as a perfect lubricant. There was zero friction.

 

Izuku began to hydroplane on solid dirt.

 

He dug his clawed fingers into the earth and pulled himself forward with brutal, terrifying, swimming-like strokes. His massive legs kicked out behind him, undulating in a serpentine motion. He was literally swimming through the dirt, riding a microscopic layer of his own secreted slickness.

 

A massive rooster tail of dust kicked up behind him. He moved like a torpedo, a gray blur tearing across the earth at terrifying speeds.

 

Bakugo, flying through the air, glanced down, expecting to see Izuku far behind. Instead, he saw a gray blur blast past him on the ground.

 

Izuku crossed the finish line. He dug his hands into the dirt to brake, sliding another ten feet before coming to a stop, totally unharmed, not a single scratch on his tough skin.

 

"2.15 seconds!" the robot umpire announced.

 

Bakugo crossed a second later. "4.13 seconds!"

 

The class was dumbfounded.

 

"Did he... did he just swim on land?!" Kaminari yelled, grabbing his own hair.

 

"His speed is unbelievable!" Iida gasped, looking at his own engine legs in slight despair. "He beat my time without engines!"

 

Aizawa watched Izuku stand up and shake the dirt off his chest. The teacher's eyes narrowed. He's smart. He understands his own biomechanics perfectly and knows how to adapt them to terrestrial environments. He's not just a brute.

 

Bakugo landed hard, his chest heaving, his red eyes blown wide in disbelief. He stared at his hands, then at Izuku. The humiliation burned hotter than his explosions.

 

Test 2: Grip Strength

 

The students gathered around digital grip-measuring devices. A tall boy with multiple arms, Mezo Shoji, casually crushed his device to the tune of 540 kilograms. The class cheered him on.

 

Izuku took a device in his right hand. He didn't even activate his predatory state. He simply squeezed his hand into a fist.

 

The machine let out a pathetic, high-pitched whine. The digital counter spun so fast it blurred—400... 600... 900...

 

CRACK.

 

The reinforced plastic and internal springs completely shattered. The device exploded in Izuku's hand, raining springs and plastic bits onto the dirt. Izuku froze, looking down at the ruined machine in his massive, gray hand.

 

"Um... Sensei?" Izuku called out nervously, his deep voice carrying a hint of panic. "I... I broke it. I'm really sorry."

 

Aizawa sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just record it as 'Max', Midoriya. And stop apologizing for your own strength."

 

Test 3 & 4: Standing Long Jump and Repeated Side Steps

 

Izuku cleared the sandbox entirely during the long jump, utilizing his Breach technique to launch himself into the sky, landing heavily on the grass far beyond the measuring tape. For the side steps, he struggled slightly. His mass made lateral terrestrial movement difficult, and a short boy with purple hair (Mineta) easily beat him by bouncing between his sticky spheres.

 

Izuku didn't mind. He knew his strengths and weaknesses.

 

Test 5: Ball Throw

 

Finally, it was time for the ball throw.

 

Ochaco Uraraka stepped up to the plate. She touched the ball with all five fingers, rendering it completely weightless, and tossed it into the air. It floated upward, ascending until it was entirely out of sight.

 

Aizawa showed the screen. It displayed a single symbol: Infinity.

 

"Infinity?!" the class screamed.

 

"That's amazing, Uraraka!" Izuku cheered, clapping his large hands together. The sound was like two cinderblocks hitting each other.

 

"Midoriya. You're up," Aizawa called out.

 

Izuku walked into the circle. Aizawa tossed him the baseball. In Izuku’s massive hand, the ball looked like a golf ball.

 

The class watched with bated breath.

 

He got 2.15 seconds in the dash, Iida thought. He broke the grip machine. He destroyed the Zero Pointer. What on earth is he going to do with a baseball?

 

Bakugo was practically vibrating with rage where he stood near the back of the group. His palms were smoking.

 

Izuku stood in the center of the circle. He didn't need to wind up like Bakugo. He didn't have an emitter Quirk to blast it forward. He only had biomechanics.

 

Izuku widened his stance, digging his bare, clawed feet deep into the dirt for maximum traction. He held the ball in his right hand. He twisted his torso backward, twisting his spine as far as it would comfortably go. He pulled his arm back, his massive bicep and tricep bulging against the dark gray skin.

 

He closed his eyes. Kinetic chain. Start from the feet, move to the hips, into the shoulder, and snap the arm.

 

Izuku whipped his body forward.

 

His hips snapped with terrifying speed, generating a massive amount of torque. The energy traveled up his spine, transferring into his shoulder, and finally down his arm. As his arm whipped forward, the dense, cartilaginous nature of his joints acted like a high-tension spring.

 

His arm snapped forward faster than the speed of sound. A literal sonic boom cracked through the air.

 

He released the ball.

 

The resulting shockwave kicked up a massive cloud of dust, blowing the hair back of every student in the front row. The baseball was utterly flattened by the sheer G-force as it left his hand, transforming from a sphere into an aerodynamic disk. It ignited, catching fire due to the atmospheric friction as it tore through the sky like a shooting star.

 

Izuku exhaled a heavy breath, his arm stinging slightly from the sheer velocity of the throw, though his body immediately began to repair the micro-tears in his muscle.

 

Aizawa looked down at his device. He didn't blink. He just turned the screen to the class.

 

1,204.6 meters.

 

Silence.

 

Total, suffocating, absolute silence.

 

"Over... over a kilometer..." Kaminari whispered, his jaw unhinged.

 

"With pure physical strength," Kirishima added, his voice trembling with a mixture of awe and terror. "He threw it over a kilometer with his bare hand."

 

Izuku turned back to the class, rubbing his shoulder. "Was that okay, Sensei?"

 

Before Aizawa could respond, a guttural, inhuman scream ripped through the air.

 

"DEKU!"

 

Bakugo Katsuki snapped.

 

His mind, built on a foundation of absolute superiority, completely shattered. The boy who was supposed to be a freak, the boy who was supposed to be a villain, the boy who was supposed to be beneath him... had just casually doubled his score.

 

Bakugo lunged.

 

He didn't think about Aizawa. He didn't think about expulsion. He saw red. He launched himself forward with massive explosions from both hands, hurtling through the air directly at Izuku’s back.

 

"Tell me how you did that! Tell me what kind of trick you used, you damn freak!" Bakugo roared, his right hand sparking with a lethal, point-blank explosion aimed directly at Izuku’s head.

 

"Bakugo, stop!" Iida shouted.

 

Aizawa’s eyes flared red. His hair levitated. He reached for his capture scarf, activating his Erasure Quirk. He intended to erase Bakugo’s explosions before they could connect.

 

But Aizawa was too slow.

 

Before Aizawa’s Quirk could fully take hold, Izuku reacted.

 

His electroreception had mapped Bakugo’s entire trajectory. His auditory senses heard the scream. Izuku didn't panic. He didn't flinch.

 

He simply turned around.

 

The moment Izuku’s eyes locked onto Bakugo mid-air, the atmosphere on the P.E. grounds fundamentally changed. It felt as though all the oxygen had been instantly sucked out of the air, replaced by the crushing, suffocating pressure of the deep ocean.

 

Izuku didn't move to strike Bakugo. He didn't raise his hands to defend himself. He simply stood tall, expanding his chest, his dorsal fin flexing aggressively. His gills flared wide open, revealing the dark, blood-red tissue beneath. His jaw parted, displaying row upon row of razor-sharp, serrated teeth.

 

And his eyes—those endless black abysses with silver rings—stared directly into Bakugo’s soul.

 

It wasn't a glare of hatred. It was worse. It was the cold, unfeeling, ancient stare of an apex predator looking at a creature that had foolishly wandered into its hunting grounds. It was millions of years of evolutionary supremacy distilled into a single glance.

 

Bakugo was mid-air. His hand was inches from Izuku’s face.

 

But Bakugo didn't fire the explosion.

 

His brain, functioning on pure animal instinct, hit the emergency brake. His body completely shut down. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His lungs froze. A primal, instinctual terror—the terror of a mouse realizing it is standing in the shadow of a hawk—washed over him like ice water.

 

Bakugo fell out of the air, landing awkwardly in the dirt right at Izuku’s feet. He scrambled backward, his chest heaving, his red eyes wide and trembling as he looked up at the towering leviathan before him.

 

Izuku stood over him, perfectly still.

 

Shhhwip.

 

Aizawa’s capture scarf suddenly wrapped around Bakugo, lifting the trembling blonde slightly off the ground. Aizawa’s hair was floating, his eyes glowing angry red.

 

"What do you think you're doing, Bakugo?" Aizawa growled, though his eyes darted to Izuku.

 

Aizawa had his Quirk active. He was looking right at Izuku. But because Izuku’s Quirk was a Mutant-type, it couldn't be erased. Izuku’s massive form, his sharp teeth, his black eyes—none of it vanished. He was utterly immune to Aizawa’s greatest weapon.

 

Izuku slowly closed his mouth. The crushing pressure in the air vanished instantly. He blinked, the cold predator in his eyes receding, replaced by the awkward, polite teenager.

 

Izuku took a step back, looking down at Bakugo. "I didn't use a trick, Bakugo. I just threw it."

 

Aizawa deactivated his Quirk, his hair falling back to his shoulders. He unwrapped Bakugo, who fell to the dirt, panting heavily, unable to meet Izuku’s eyes.

 

"We're wasting time," Aizawa said coldly, stepping between them. "Whoever causes another disruption will be expelled on the spot. Next test."

 

 

 

The rest of the tests passed without incident. Izuku continued to perform exceptionally well in the endurance and strength-based exercises, though he faltered slightly in the flexibility tests due to his rigid cartilaginous spine.

 

When the final tallies were calculated, Aizawa pressed a button on his device, projecting a massive holographic leaderboard into the air.

 

Izuku scanned the names.

 

1. Momo Yaoyorozu

2. Shoto Todoroki

3. Izuku Midoriya

4. Katsuki Bakugo

5. Tenya Iida

 

Izuku let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Third place. He had beaten Bakugo. He had proven his physical supremacy without a shadow of a doubt.

 

"By the way, I was lying about the expulsion," Aizawa said casually, tucking his device away.

 

The class stared at him blankly.

 

"It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your Quirks," Aizawa smirked, revealing a frighteningly wide grin.

 

"WHAT?!" half the class screamed.

 

"Of course it was a lie," a tall girl with black hair—Yaoyorozu—sighed. "It should have been obvious if you just thought it through."

 

I didn't notice at all, Izuku, Iida, and Uraraka all thought simultaneously, their faces pale.

 

"With that, we're done," Aizawa said, turning to walk away. "There are handouts with the syllabus and such in the classroom. When you get back, look them over."

 

As the class began to chatter, relieved that they weren't being kicked out, Aizawa paused near the entrance of the building. He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes locking onto the massive, gray form of Izuku Midoriya, who was currently laughing nervously as Kirishima aggressively complimented his throwing arm.

 

Aizawa Shota had seen many things in his career. He had fought terrifying villains. He had seen destructive Quirks that could level cities.

 

But Izuku Midoriya was an anomaly.

 

He has the raw, kinetic power of All Might, Aizawa thought, his eyes narrowing. But when he stood his ground against Bakugo... that wasn't hero aura. That was the terrifying, oppressive presence of a natural-born killer. If he ever loses control of those instincts, or if a villain manages to trigger that primal state... he could become the greatest threat this city has ever seen.

 

Aizawa pulled his sleeping bag back up over his shoulders.

 

I'll have to keep a very close eye on him.

 

 

 

The sun was setting, casting a warm, golden light over the U.A. campus. The gates were open, students pouring out to begin their commute home.

 

Izuku walked slowly, the heavy burden of the day lifting from his massive shoulders. His muscles ached, his skin was terribly dry, and he needed about three gallons of water and a raw steak the size of a tire, but he felt good.

 

He was a U.A. student. He was in the top three of his class.

 

"Midoriya! Wait up!"

 

Izuku turned around. Jogging toward him were Uraraka and Iida.

 

"Are you taking the train?" Uraraka asked, falling into step beside him. She looked up at him, entirely unfazed by his towering height or his terrifying black eyes.

 

"Y-Yeah. I take the red line," Izuku replied, feeling the familiar, warm flutter in his chest at her presence.

 

"Me too! Iida, which way are you going?" she asked.

 

"The station is in my direction as well!" Iida said, his robotic chopping motions returning. "I would be honored to walk with you both! Your performance today was truly awe-inspiring, Midoriya. Though I must admit, the way you stared down Bakugo... it was quite intimidating."

 

"Oh, right!" Uraraka shuddered playfully. "The air got so heavy! It felt like I was at the bottom of the ocean! What did you do?"

 

Izuku rubbed the back of his neck, his gills fluttering softly. "I didn't really 'do' anything. It's... it's a biological thing. When another predator—or something my brain perceives as a threat—acts aggressively, my body involuntarily postures to assert dominance. It's meant to end fights before they start without wasting energy. I'm sorry if it scared you."

 

"Scared us? It scared Bakugo!" Uraraka laughed brightly. "I've never seen anyone shut him up so fast! It was amazing!"

 

Izuku looked at the bright, genuine smiles on their faces. They weren't faking it. They weren't humoring the monster to keep him from lashing out. They genuinely liked him. They saw the Great White Shark, and instead of running, they had decided to swim beside him.

 

Izuku Midoriya smiled.

 

It was a jagged, toothy, horrifying grin that showed off rows of deadly, serrated teeth. A random civilian walking past them on the sidewalk literally shrieked and dropped their groceries.

 

But Uraraka and Iida didn't run. They just smiled back.

 

Mom, Izuku thought, looking up at the orange sky as they walked toward the station. I think I'm going to like it here.