What if deku had his mothers quirk

 

 

The morning sun filtered through the sheer curtains of the Midoriya apartment, casting long, golden geometric patterns across the living room floor. Dust motes danced in the light, disturbed only by the frantic, rhythmic bouncing of a four-year-old boy.

 

Izuku Midoriya was a bundle of boundless, kinetic energy. He wore a faded, oversized All Might onesie that swallowed his small frame, the two iconic hair tufts on the hood flopping wildly as he jumped from the sofa to the floor, an All Might action figure gripped tightly in his small, chubby hand.

 

“Fear not, citizens!” Izuku shrieked, his voice a high-pitched, joyous mimicry of his idol. He thrust the plastic hero into the air, aiming it at an imaginary villain lurking by the television stand. “Because I am here!”

 

From the kitchen, the soft, rhythmic chopping of vegetables ceased. Inko Midoriya peeked her head around the corner, wiping her hands on her apron. A fond, albeit anxious, smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She watched her son battle his invisible foes, his emerald eyes wide and shining with an intensity that seemed too large for his small body.

 

Today was the day.

 

For the past six months, ever since Izuku had turned four, this day had been looming over their heads like a storm cloud. In the modern era, eighty percent of the global population possessed a unique genetic mutation, a superhuman ability known as a "Quirk." They manifested by the age of four, without fail. Some kids woke up breathing fire; others found they could manipulate water, turn invisible, or, in the case of Izuku’s best friend Katsuki Bakugo, sweat nitroglycerin to create dazzling, concussive explosions.

 

But Izuku? Izuku was four years and two months old. And so far, nothing. No sparks, no floating, no telepathy. Just a boy with an encyclopedic knowledge of heroes and a heart that beat entirely for the sake of saving others.

 

“Izuku, sweetie,” Inko called out softly, her voice barely carrying over the sound of a plastic villain being utterly vanquished. “It’s time to get dressed. We have to catch the train in thirty minutes if we want to make it to Dr. Tsubasa’s clinic on time.”

 

Izuku froze mid-jump, landing awkwardly on his stockinged feet. He spun around, his curls bouncing. “The doctor? Today?”

 

“Yes, today. We’re going to find out what’s going on with your Quirk.”

 

The boy’s face lit up like a supernova. The anxiety that had been gnawing at Inko’s stomach vanished for a fleeting second, replaced by the sheer, blinding radiance of her son’s hope. He didn’t view this as a diagnostic appointment to confirm a tragedy; he viewed it as the unveiling ceremony of his destiny.

 

“I’m gonna get my Quirk!” Izuku cheered, abandoning the All Might figure on the carpet and sprinting toward his bedroom. “I’m gonna be a hero! Just like All Might! I gotta wear my favorite shirt! The one with the silver age costume on it!”

 

Inko sighed, a shaky breath escaping her lips. She walked over, picked up the discarded action figure, and placed it gently on the coffee table. Please, she prayed silently to whatever deity governed the strange, mutated genetics of their world. Please, just give him something. Anything. It doesn't have to be flashy. Just don't break his heart.

 

 

 

The train ride to the clinic in Musutafu was agonizingly slow. Izuku sat by the window, his face pressed so hard against the glass that his nose was squished white. He was muttering under his breath, a habit he had picked up recently whenever his brain was moving faster than his mouth could process.

 

“Maybe it’ll be fire breath, like Dad,” Izuku whispered to his reflection, blowing a puff of air against the glass, hoping a spark would ignite. Nothing but condensation bloomed. “Or maybe I can pull things, like Mom! But what if it’s both? What if I can pull fire? Or breathe things toward me? No, that’s just inhaling... Maybe super strength? Kacchan got his Quirk so early. His explosions are so cool. I need a cool Quirk to stand right next to him. We’re gonna be the Wonder Duo...”

 

Inko sat beside him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her knuckles white. She looked down at her hands. With a small, subtle flex of her will, a stray mint wrapper sitting on the empty seat across from her gave a tiny twitch, before slowly hovering and floating into her open palm.

 

Attraction of Small Objects. That was her registered Quirk. It wasn't anything special. It was convenient for reaching the remote control when she was tired, or picking up dropped keys, but it was weak. It had a strict weight limit, and it required a line of sight and intense concentration. It was, as society often categorized it, a civilian Quirk.

 

Her husband, Hisashi, could breathe fire. It was a bit more combat-oriented, but still relatively mundane compared to the Pro Heroes on television. She knew the genetics. The odds of Izuku developing a world-shattering, All Might-level power were astronomically low. But she also knew that if she told Izuku to temper his expectations, she would extinguish the fire in his eyes.

 

“Izuku,” Inko said gently, placing a hand on his bouncing knee. “Remember what we talked about? No matter what the doctor says, no matter what your Quirk is, it doesn't change who you are.”

 

Izuku turned to her, his large eyes blinking in innocent confusion. “But my Quirk is gonna help me save people, Mom. With a smile! Just like him.”

 

Inko forced a smile, her heart aching. “Of course, baby. Of course it will.”

 

 

 

Dr. Tsubasa’s clinic was a sterile, brightly lit environment that smelled faintly of antiseptic and old paper. The walls were lined with posters detailing the anatomy of the quirked human body, charts explaining the evolutionary divergence of the pinky toe, and colorful, cartoonish diagrams meant to put children at ease.

 

Dr. Tsubasa himself was an older man, stout, with a bushy mustache and a pair of thick, round goggles perched on his bald head. He sat behind his large mahogany desk, scrolling through the digital X-rays on his monitor. The silence in the room was deafening.

 

Izuku sat on the examination table, swinging his short legs, his hands gripping the crinkling paper beneath him. He looked from the doctor to his mother, and then back to the doctor.

 

“Well,” Dr. Tsubasa finally grunted, leaning back in his leather chair, which squeaked under his weight. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The good news is, Mrs. Midoriya, your son is not Quirkless.”

 

Inko let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, her shoulders sagging in immediate, overwhelming relief. She covered her mouth with her hand, a small, choked sob escaping her.

 

Izuku’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “I have a Quirk?! I have one! Where is it? When does it come out? Can I shoot lasers?”

 

Dr. Tsubasa chuckled, a dry, raspy sound. He swiveled his monitor around to face them. On the screen was an X-ray of Izuku’s left foot.

 

“You see this here?” The doctor pointed to the bones of the foot. “In the early days of Quirk research, we discovered a direct correlation between the absence of the second joint in the pinky toe and the manifestation of a Quirk. It represents the next stage of human evolution. Stripping away unnecessary, vestigial parts to make room for new genetic coding. Izuku here only has one joint. Genetically speaking, he is completely primed for a Quirk.”

 

“But he hasn’t shown any signs,” Inko said, her voice trembling with leftover anxiety. “He’s past his fourth birthday. Most of his friends manifested theirs months ago.”

 

“It’s rare, but not unheard of,” Dr. Tsubasa explained, tapping a pen rhythmically against his desk. “We call it a latency period. Sometimes, the Quirk factor is present in the blood, but the biological trigger hasn’t been pulled. It usually requires a moment of intense emotional or physical stress, or sometimes, it just needs the child to understand the mechanics of what they’re trying to do. Tell me, what are the Quirks of the parents?”

 

“I can attract small objects,” Inko said, demonstrating by pulling a paperclip from the doctor's desk into her hand. “My husband breathes fire.”

 

“Hmm. Telekinesis and pyrokinesis,” Dr. Tsubasa mused. “He could inherit one, the other, a hybrid—like pulling fire, or breathing telekinetic waves—or a completely random mutation. Though, looking at his blood work, his Quirk Factor count is relatively low. I wouldn't expect him to be leveling buildings anytime soon.”

 

Izuku didn't care about the last part. His brain was hyper-focused on the fact that the power was inside him, just waiting to wake up. He squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his small fists, gritting his teeth, and pushing as hard as he could. He imagined fire. He imagined floating. He imagined strength.

 

He grunted, his face turning red.

 

“Careful there, kid, you’re gonna pop a blood vessel,” Dr. Tsubasa laughed, turning back to his desk.

 

As the doctor turned, his elbow knocked against a heavy, metallic fountain pen resting near the edge of the desk. The pen teetered for a fraction of a second before plummeting toward the linoleum floor.

 

It was a mundane event. A dropped pen. But to Izuku, whose adrenaline was spiking, whose desperate desire to prove he had power was peaking, it felt like the world slowed down into agonizing slow motion.

 

He didn't think about fire. He didn't think about super strength.

 

He saw an object falling, and instinct—raw, genetic, inherited instinct—took over. He threw his hand out toward the falling pen.

 

Come here.

 

It wasn't a physical action. It was a sensation. Deep within his chest, right behind his sternum, Izuku felt a strange, vibrating tug. It felt as though a microscopic, invisible string had suddenly shot out from his palm, attached itself to the metallic pen, and pulled taut.

 

He didn't just wish the pen to come to him. He physically felt the weight of it in his mind.

 

Yank.

 

The heavy metallic pen stopped dead in mid-air, a mere inch from the floor.

 

Dr. Tsubasa blinked, freezing in his chair. Inko gasped.

 

Izuku’s eyes snapped open. He felt the connection. He felt the weight of the pen dragging against his invisible grip. With a joyous, breathless laugh, he pulled his hand back toward his chest.

 

The pen defied gravity. It shot upward in a sharp, diagonal arc, flying across the three feet of space between the desk and the examination table, and smacked solidly into Izuku’s small palm. His fingers wrapped around the cool metal.

 

The room was completely silent for five full seconds.

 

Izuku stared at the pen in his hand, his mouth open in awe. He looked at his palm, then at the doctor, then at his mother.

 

“Mom...” Izuku whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of shock and unadulterated elation. “Mom, I did it. I pulled it.”

 

Inko was already crying, rushing forward to wrap her arms around her son. “You did, Izuku! You did!”

 

Dr. Tsubasa pushed his goggles back down over his eyes, leaning forward to inspect the boy with a newfound clinical interest. “Well, I’ll be damned. A latency break right in my office. Let me see that, kid.”

 

Izuku handed the pen back. Dr. Tsubasa placed it on the far edge of his desk. “Do it again. Focus on it. Pull.”

 

Izuku nodded, a fierce determination replacing his innocent awe. He held his hand out. He looked at the pen. He searched for that feeling in his chest—that strange, vibrating string. He found it. He cast it out. He felt it latch onto the metal.

 

Pull.

 

The pen slid across the mahogany desk, rattled for a second, and then flew into Izuku’s hand once more.

 

“Fascinating,” Dr. Tsubasa murmured, jotting down notes on his digital pad. “It’s a direct inheritance of the maternal Quirk. Attraction of Small Objects. Though, judging by the velocity and the suddenness of the break, it might be slightly more robust than yours, Mrs. Midoriya. Note how the object didn't just float to him; it snapped to him. A kinetic, forceful pull rather than a gentle hover.”

 

“Is that... is that good?” Inko asked, wiping her eyes.

 

“It’s a Quirk,” the doctor shrugged. “It is what it is. He won’t be breathing fire, and he certainly doesn't have a physical enhancement Quirk. The weight limit is likely tied to his own physical development and mental stamina. But congratulations, Izuku. You’re officially part of the eighty percent.”

 

Izuku didn't hear the doctor’s subtle dismissal of the Quirk’s power. He didn't care that he couldn't breathe fire or smash mountains. He held the metallic pen in his hand like it was Excalibur. He had a Quirk. He had the first stepping stone to UA High School. He had a power.

 

He was going to be a hero.

 

 

 

The next day, the Musutafu neighborhood playground was bathed in the warm, golden light of late afternoon. The air was filled with the cacophony of children shouting, the squeaking of swings, and the occasional, sharp POP-POP of miniature explosions.

 

Katsuki Bakugo stood at the top of the plastic jungle gym, the undisputed king of the playground. He had ash-blond hair that stuck up in spiky directions, and a permanent, confident smirk etched onto his face. At four years old, Katsuki had already realized a fundamental truth of their society: all men are not created equal.

 

He held out his palms, concentrating. Sweat beaded on his skin, and with a sharp flex of his fingers, a brilliant, crackling burst of orange fire and smoke erupted from his hands.

 

“Whoa!” cheered a boy with elongated, leathery fingers.

 

“Kacchan, your Quirk is so amazing!” praised another boy with small, red wings on his back. “You’re definitely gonna be the Number One Hero.”

 

“Obviously,” Katsuki scoffed, blowing the wisp of smoke from his fingers. “My Quirk is the strongest in the whole world. Even All Might will have to step aside when I get to UA.”

 

“Kacchan! Kacchan!”

 

Katsuki looked down. Running toward the jungle gym, his oversized red shoes slapping against the rubber mulch, was Izuku. The green-haired boy was out of breath, his face flushed, but he carried a grin so wide it looked like it might split his face in half.

 

“What do you want, Izuku?” Katsuki asked, crossing his arms. He liked Izuku well enough—they had been friends since they were babies—but lately, Izuku’s lack of a Quirk had made him a bit of a nuisance. A hanger-on to Katsuki’s rising star.

 

Izuku scrambled up the plastic steps of the jungle gym, bursting into the inner sanctum where Katsuki and his 'followers' were gathered.

 

“I got it, Kacchan!” Izuku panted, his eyes shining. “I went to the doctor yesterday! I got my Quirk!”

 

The atmosphere shifted. Katsuki uncrossed his arms, genuine curiosity briefly overriding his usual arrogance. “You finally got one? Took you long enough. Well? What is it? Show us.”

 

Izuku nodded furiously. He stepped back, giving himself room. He looked around the playground and spotted a small, smooth, grey pebble resting on the rubber mulch about ten feet away.

 

“Watch this,” Izuku commanded, his voice serious.

 

He held out his hand, his palm open and facing the pebble. He took a deep breath, narrowing his eyes. He searched for the string in his chest. It took a few seconds longer than it had in the doctor's office—he wasn't acting on pure adrenaline this time—but eventually, he felt the hum. He felt the connection anchor to the pebble.

 

Pull.

 

The pebble twitched. Then, it dragged across the mulch for a few inches. Finally, with a small burst of momentum, it hopped into the air, flying up the jungle gym, and smacked softly into Izuku’s waiting hand.

 

Izuku held up the pebble, beaming triumphantly at Katsuki. “See? I can pull things to me! It’s called Attraction! Just like my mom!”

 

Silence descended upon the top of the jungle gym. The boy with the wings blinked. The boy with the long fingers scratched his head.

 

Katsuki stared at the pebble in Izuku’s hand. He then looked at Izuku’s beaming face. Katsuki’s brow furrowed. He brought his hands up, producing another series of loud, flashy, destructive explosions that cracked like firecrackers.

 

“That’s it?” Katsuki asked, his voice dripping with sudden, profound disappointment.

 

Izuku’s smile faltered slightly. “W-What do you mean?”

 

“You pulled a rock,” Katsuki said, stepping forward, looming over the slightly smaller boy. “It didn't even go fast. It just floated to you. What kind of hero Quirk is that?”

 

“It’s... it’s telekinesis!” Izuku defended, clutching the pebble tightly. “I just got it! I have to train it. The doctor said it can get stronger!”

 

“It’s a housewife's Quirk,” the winged boy sneered from behind Katsuki. “My mom uses that to pick up her knitting needles.”

 

“Yeah,” the long-fingered boy laughed. “You can’t fight villains by pulling a rock at them. What are you gonna do? Pick up their trash?”

 

Izuku felt a hot flush of embarrassment creep up his neck. The pride that had been swelling in his chest for the past twenty-four hours began to deflate like a pierced balloon. He looked to Katsuki, hoping his best friend would defend him. Hoping Kacchan would see the potential.

 

But Katsuki’s eyes held no camaraderie. They held a terrifying, absolute judgment.

 

Katsuki looked at Izuku, reading the kanji of his name in his head. Midoriya Izuku. The character for 'Izu' could also be read differently.

 

“Deku,” Katsuki said, his voice flat.

 

“H-Huh?” Izuku stammered.

 

“Deku,” Katsuki repeated, a cruel smirk slowly spreading across his face. “It means someone who can’t do anything. It means useless. You made us wait all this time, acting like you were gonna get some amazing power, and you get a Quirk for doing chores. You’re useless, Deku.”

 

The words hit Izuku harder than a physical punch. It was a complete, shattering dismissal of his entire existence and his dreams.

 

“I’m not useless!” Izuku yelled, tears springing to his eyes, his voice cracking. “I can be a hero! I’ll get stronger! I’ll save people!”

 

“Save people?” Katsuki scoffed, a genuine laugh escaping him. He shoved Izuku’s shoulder, hard. “How? By pulling their shoelaces? You’re weak, Deku. You’re practically Quirkless. A Quirk like that in a villain fight? You’ll just be in the way. You’ll die.”

 

“No I won't!” Izuku shouted, pushing Katsuki back. It was a weak push, but it was enough to spark Katsuki's temper.

 

“You wanna go, Deku?!” Katsuki roared. He lunged forward, his hands sparking with heat and light.

 

The next ten minutes were a blur of chaos, shouting, and pain. Izuku didn't know how to fight. He only knew how to endure. When Katsuki blasted a small explosion near his face, the heat singed his hair and the concussive force knocked him backward off the jungle gym into the dirt.

 

Another kid, a younger boy who had been watching, started to cry. Katsuki and his goons turned their attention to the crying boy, mocking him for being annoying.

 

Izuku, his cheek stinging from the blast, his eyes blurry with tears, saw Katsuki advancing on the crying child. Instinct—that same heroic instinct that had compelled him to catch the pen—took over.

 

He scrambled to his feet and threw himself between Katsuki and the younger boy, holding his arms out in a trembling, protective barricade.

 

“S-Stop it, Kacchan!” Izuku cried, his voice wavering, tears spilling down his cheeks. “Can’t you see he’s crying? If you keep going... I-I'll never forgive you!”

 

Katsuki stopped, staring at the trembling, bruised boy in front of him. For a second, there was a flicker of something unreadable in Katsuki’s red eyes. But it was quickly swallowed by rage and pride.

 

“You’re pretending to be a hero?” Katsuki snarled, slamming a fist into his open palm, creating a large, intimidating explosion. “You don't stand a chance without a real Quirk, Deku!”

 

Katsuki and his followers rushed him. Izuku couldn't pull them away. They were too heavy. His Quirk was completely, utterly useless against them. He took the beatings, curling into a ball to protect his head, feeling the thud of kicks and the searing heat of minor explosions against his arms and back.

 

Eventually, they got bored and left him lying in the dirt.

 

Izuku lay there for a long time, listening to the fading laughter of the boy he had once considered a friend. His clothes were dirty, his skin was bruised, and he smelled like burnt sugar and ozone.

 

He slowly pushed himself up, wiping the dirt from his face. He looked at his right hand. He opened his palm. He stared at it, willing a rock, a leaf, anything heavy and substantial to fly to him and prove Katsuki wrong.

 

A small, dried leaf fluttered and drifted lazily into his hand.

 

Izuku crushed the leaf in his fist, a fresh wave of tears blurring his vision. He wasn't special. He wasn't powerful. Katsuki was right. It was a housewife's Quirk.

 

 

 

The walk back to the apartment complex was the longest walk of Izuku’s short life. The sun was setting, casting long, melancholic shadows across the pavement. Every step sent a dull ache radiating from his bruised knees and scraped elbows.

 

When he finally opened the front door, the smell of cooking rice and grilled fish wafted over him, a cruel reminder of the comforting home he felt he no longer deserved.

 

“Izuku? Is that you?” Inko called from the kitchen. She walked out into the hallway, wiping her hands, a smile on her face. “How was the play—Oh my god!”

 

Inko dropped her towel and rushed forward, dropping to her knees in front of him. Her hands fluttered over his bruised face, his singed clothes, the dirt smudged across his cheeks. Her maternal instincts went into overdrive, panic lacing her voice.

 

“Izuku! What happened? Did you fall? Were you attacked? Who did this to you?!”

 

Izuku didn't answer. He just stared blankly at her chest. He felt numb.

 

“Izuku, please, talk to me,” Inko pleaded, tears of worry pooling in her eyes. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Come on, to the bathroom.”

 

She practically carried him to the bathroom, sitting him on the edge of the tub. She retrieved the first-aid kit, her hands trembling as she applied antiseptic to his scrapes and bandages to his knees. Izuku didn't flinch at the sting. He just stared at the beige tiles of the bathroom floor.

 

“Was it Katsuki?” Inko asked softly, dabbing a wet washcloth against his cheek. When Izuku didn't respond, she sighed, a deep, heavy sound. “Oh, Izuku...”

 

Once he was patched up and changed into clean pajamas, Inko tried to get him to eat dinner. He managed two bites of rice before pushing the bowl away.

 

“I’m not hungry,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse.

 

He slipped out of his chair and walked down the short hallway to his bedroom. He shut the door with a soft click.

 

The room was a shrine. Posters of All Might in various heroic poses plastered the walls. Action figures lined the shelves. Bed sheets, curtains, even the rug bore the visage of the Symbol of Peace. To anyone else, it would look like a child’s paradise. To Izuku, at this moment, it felt like a mockery.

 

He walked over to his small desk and turned on his computer. His fingers, working purely from muscle memory, clicked through the folders until he found his favorite video. The video he had watched a thousand times.

 

An old, shaky video of a disaster scene. A bridge collapsed, buses burning, sirens wailing. The cameraman was panicked. And then, from the smoke and destruction, a massive figure emerged, carrying over a dozen people on his shoulders, laughing a booming, fearless laugh.

 

“He’s laughing!” the voice in the video cried out.

 

“It’s fine now,” All Might’s voice boomed through the computer speakers, filling Izuku’s dark room. “Why? Because I am here!”

 

Izuku sat in his swivel chair, watching the screen. The light from the monitor cast a pale, blue glow over his tear-streaked face.

 

He watched All Might leap into the air, defying gravity through sheer, unadulterated power. He watched him smash debris with a single punch, moving so fast he was just a blur of red, white, and blue.

 

Izuku looked down at his own hand. He held it up to the screen.

 

Pull.

 

Nothing happened. He tried to pull an action figure from his shelf. It twitched, rattled, and then fell off the shelf, landing pathetically on the floor.

 

He was so weak. His Quirk was so small. It wasn't power. It was a parlor trick. How could he possibly stand on the same stage as All Might? How could he save a dozen people from a burning bus when he could barely pull a pebble fast enough to hurt anyone?

 

The bedroom door creaked open.

 

Inko stood in the doorway, her heart shattering into a million pieces. She watched her son, sitting alone in the dark, bathed in the light of a hero he felt he could never become, crying silently into his hands.

 

She knew this video. She knew this routine. Usually, he would turn to her, his eyes shining, and ask if he could be just like him.

 

But tonight, Izuku didn't turn around. He just sniffled, his small shoulders shaking with the weight of a crushed dream.

 

“Mom...” Izuku whispered, his voice trembling so hard it barely carried over the sound of All Might’s laughter.

 

Inko stepped into the room, moving slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal. “Yes, Izuku?”

 

Izuku slowly rotated his chair. The expression on his face was one of absolute, harrowing despair. It was an expression no four-year-old should ever wear. His eyes, usually so bright and full of life, were dull, flooded with tears that spilled over his bruised cheeks. He pointed a shaky finger at the computer screen, at the towering figure of All Might.

 

“He saves everyone with a smile,” Izuku choked out, his voice cracking violently. “He’s so strong... and he never loses.”

 

Izuku lowered his hand, gripping his pajama pants tightly.

 

“Mom... Kacchan said my Quirk is useless. He said I’m just a Deku. He said a Quirk like yours can't fight villains.” Izuku looked up at her, his eyes begging for salvation, begging for a truth he desperately needed to hear. “Even if... even if I only have a small power... even if I can only pull tiny things...”

 

Izuku took a shuddering breath, the tears flowing freely now.

 

“Can I still be a hero? Can someone like me... be like him?”

 

Time stopped for Inko Midoriya.

 

She looked at her son, and in a flash of terrifying clarity, she saw the precipice they were standing on.

 

She felt the overwhelming, crushing weight of guilt. She was the one who gave him this Quirk. She was the one whose genetics had failed to provide him with the power he needed to survive in the world he wanted to enter. It was her fault he was bruised. It was her fault his heart was breaking.

 

Every maternal instinct inside her screamed to drop to her knees. To pull him into her arms, to weep with him, to apologize. To say “I’m sorry, Izuku. I’m so sorry.” To validate his despair and protect him by telling him to give up, to choose a safer path, to accept reality.

 

She felt the words rising in her throat. She closed her eyes, ready to apologize for her own blood, for her own Quirk.

 

But then she stopped.

 

She opened her eyes and looked at the computer screen. All Might was saving people. He wasn't apologizing. He was acting.

 

She looked back at Izuku. If she apologized now... what was she telling him?

 

If she said I’m sorry, she was agreeing with Katsuki. She was telling Izuku that her Quirk—his Quirk—was a curse. She would be confirming that he was, indeed, useless. She would be the final nail in the coffin of his dreams. She would teach him that his own mother didn't believe in him.

 

Inko Midoriya was not a Pro Hero. She was a housewife. But she was a mother. And a mother’s love possesses a strength that rivals any Quirk on earth.

 

She swallowed the apology. She choked it down, refusing to let it poison her son.

 

Inko walked forward, not with the hesitant steps of a guilty woman, but with the firm, unyielding stride of a mother fiercely protecting her child’s soul.

 

She didn't drop to her knees to weep in sorrow. She knelt down, maintaining a strong posture, and took Izuku’s small, bruised face in both of her hands. She wiped his tears with her thumbs, forcing him to look directly into her eyes.

 

“Izuku,” Inko said, her voice surprisingly steady, completely devoid of the trembling pity she had felt moments ago.

 

Izuku sniffled, looking at her in surprise. She wasn't crying. Her eyes were fierce, burning with a quiet, intense fire.

 

“Katsuki is wrong,” Inko stated, articulating every word with absolute certainty. “He is a boy who only understands things that are loud and destructive. But being a hero isn't just about breaking things, Izuku. It’s about saving people.”

 

“But... I’m so weak,” Izuku whispered.

 

“You are four years old,” Inko corrected him gently. “A muscle is weak before you exercise it. A mind is empty before you fill it. Our Quirk... your Quirk... is not a weapon of destruction. It is a tool. And a tool is only as useless as the person wielding it.”

 

Izuku blinked, the tears slowing down as he listened to her words.

 

Inko leaned closer, pressing her forehead against his. “Listen to me, Izuku Midoriya. You have a brilliant mind. You see things other children don't. You analyze heroes, you understand how they work, how they move. If you rely only on brute strength, you will always find someone stronger. But if you use this—” she tapped his forehead lightly “—and this—” she placed her hand over his heart “—there is no limit to what you can do.”

 

She pulled back, looking him dead in the eye.

 

“You want to be a hero?” she asked.

 

Izuku nodded slowly, a tiny spark returning to his emerald eyes.

 

“Then you cannot cry because you weren't given the biggest sword,” Inko said fiercely. “You have to figure out how to win with the tools you have. You have to train. You have to be smarter, faster, and more creative than everyone else. It will be hard. It will be the hardest thing anyone has ever done. But I believe in you.”

 

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tight, warm, empowering embrace.

 

“If anyone in this world can figure out how to save people with this Quirk,” Inko whispered fiercely into his ear, “it’s you, Izuku. You can be a hero.”

 

Izuku’s breath hitched.

 

He didn't need a booming voice of a muscular giant to save him. The voice of his mother, steady, unyielding, and absolutely certain, shattered the darkness in his room.

 

The words washed over him, extinguishing the lingering heat of Katsuki’s explosions, washing away the dirt and the humiliation. She didn't pity him. She challenged him. She believed in him.

 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his short arms around his mother’s neck, hugging her back with all the strength his four-year-old body possessed. He didn't cry tears of despair anymore. He cried hot, heavy tears of profound relief and overwhelming determination.

 

“I will, Mom,” Izuku sobbed into her shoulder. “I will. I promise.”

 

They stayed like that for a long time, the glow of the computer screen washing over them, the booming laughter of All Might serving as the background music to the birth of a very different kind of hero.

 

 

 

When Inko finally tucked him into bed, kissing his forehead and turning off the main light, leaving only a small All Might nightlight glowing in the corner, Izuku did not fall asleep.

 

He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

 

You have to figure out how to win with the tools you have.

 

His mother’s words echoed in his mind, ringing like a bell of absolute truth.

 

Katsuki was right about one thing: trying to fight a villain by throwing a single, slow-moving rock was suicide. If Izuku tried to be a hero like All Might—a hero who stood still and traded blows with monsters—he would die.

 

So, he couldn't be that kind of hero.

 

He had to be something else.

 

Izuku sat up in bed. He looked at his hands. He flexed his fingers. He closed his eyes and searched for that string in his chest. He found it instantly. It was small, thin, like a thread of spider-silk. But it was there.

 

He looked over at his desk. Sitting next to the computer was a stack of blank school notebooks Inko had bought for his upcoming kindergarten classes. Next to them was a pen.

 

Izuku slid out of bed. His bare feet padded softly against the carpet. He climbed into his desk chair. He grabbed the top notebook, a standard, cheap composition book with a black-and-white marbled cover.

 

He grabbed the pen.

 

He flipped open the cover to the very first blank page. He stared at the blue horizontal lines. For the first time in his life, he didn't draw a picture of All Might.

 

Instead, gripping the pen tightly, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in deep concentration, Izuku began to write. His handwriting was clumsy, blocky, the letters of a four-year-old just learning to master a pencil, but the intent behind them was sharper than a scalpel.

 

At the top of the page, he wrote:

 

MY QUIRK: PULLING THINGS.

 

He stared at it. Then, he began to list everything he knew, creating the foundation of his future.

 

1. I can only pull things to my hands.

2. It only works on things I can see.

3. Heavy things are hard to pull.

4. I have to pull hard to make things go fast.

 

He paused, chewing on the end of his pen. He thought about Katsuki’s explosions. They were fast. They were dangerous.

 

He wrote again.

 

Question: If I get stronger muscles, can I pull heavier things?

Question: What happens if I pull something sharp?

Question: What happens if I try to pull something heavier than me? Will it come to me, or will I go to it?

 

Izuku stared at that last question. His emerald eyes widened in the dim light of the room. A shiver ran down his spine, a spark of sheer, analytical brilliance igniting in his young mind.

 

If he anchored a heavy object... and he pulled it... physics dictated that the lighter object would move toward the heavier one.

 

If he pulled a building... he would fly toward the building.

 

He wouldn't just be moving objects. He could move himself.

 

Izuku grinned. It was a small, dangerous, thrilling smile. He closed the notebook. On the front cover, in large, messy, determined letters, he wrote a title.

 

Quirk Application & Mechanics: Vol. 1.

 

Izuku Midoriya did not have the power to smash mountains or change the weather. He had the power of a housewife. He was Deku.

 

But as he sat in the dark, his mind racing with vectors, momentum, sharp projectiles, and grappling hook mechanics, Izuku realized something profound.

 

The world thought his Quirk was weak. Katsuki thought he was useless.

 

Good.

 

Let them think that. It would make it so much easier to take them all by surprise.

 

Izuku crawled back into bed, slipping the notebook under his pillow. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in his life, he didn't dream of All Might’s power. He dreamed of his own. The spark of attraction had been ignited, and Izuku Midoriya was going to fan it into a storm.

 

 

The alarm clock on the nightstand did not get a chance to ring. At exactly 4:29 AM, a split second before the digital mechanism could trigger its blaring chime, a subtle, invisible force seized the plastic snooze button and depressed it with a soft click.

 

Across the room, fourteen-year-old Izuku Midoriya sat up in bed, lowering his outstretched hand. He exhaled a long, measured breath, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. It was a minor exertion, pulling the button down from ten feet away in the dark, but it was the first exercise of the day. A warm-up for the invisible muscle humming in his chest.

 

The world outside his window was still draped in the ink-blue darkness of early morning. The city of Musutafu was asleep, unaware of the boy who was already slipping into a pair of worn-out sweatpants, a plain white t-shirt, and heavy, steel-toed boots.

 

Izuku strapped a pair of customized weight braces around his wrists and ankles. They were bulky, filled with iron sand, adding an extra twenty pounds to his frame. He grabbed a pair of thick, leather rigger’s gloves from his desk, quietly opened his bedroom door, and slipped out of the apartment, leaving a note on the kitchen counter for his mother.

 

Ten years had passed since the day in Dr. Tsubasa’s clinic. Ten years since Katsuki Bakugo had christened him "Deku." Ten years since his mother had looked him in the eye and told him to figure out how to win with the tools he had.

 

He hadn't wasted a single day.

 

The morning air was crisp and carried the sharp, briny scent of the ocean as Izuku jogged the two miles to Dagobah Municipal Beach Park. It wasn't a park anymore, not really. It was an illegal dumping ground, a sprawling, mountainous wasteland of rusted appliances, rotting tires, shattered furniture, and twisted metal that stretched endlessly along the shoreline. The locals avoided it like a plague.

 

To Izuku Midoriya, it was the greatest gymnasium in the world.

 

He stood at the edge of the seawall, looking down at the mountains of garbage. He stretched his arms, rolling his shoulders until they popped. He closed his eyes, focusing inward.

 

When he was four, his Quirk felt like a single, fragile thread of spider-silk extending from his chest. Now, after a decade of relentless, grueling, secret training, that thread had thickened into a heavy, braided steel cable of telekinetic energy.

 

Izuku had spent years meticulously cataloging the mechanics of his Quirk in his Quirk Application & Mechanics notebooks—which were now on Volume 13. He had discovered two absolute laws that governed his power.

 

Law Number One: His telekinetic pulling capacity was directly proportional to his own physical muscular strength and mass. His Quirk was not an isolated psychic phenomenon; it was a physical extension of his body. If his arms and core were too weak to physically lift an object, his Quirk couldn't pull it either. The invisible "cable" would simply snap, resulting in a blinding migraine and a nosebleed. Therefore, to increase his Quirk's weight limit, he had to increase his body's physical limits. He couldn't just sit and meditate; he had to build muscle.

 

Law Number Two: The Law of Relative Mass and Anchoring. This was his most dangerous and thrilling discovery. If he latched his Quirk onto an object that was lighter than him, the object flew to him. But if he latched onto an object that was heavier than him—and firmly anchored to the ground—the physics reversed. The tension of the pull didn't bring the object to his hand; it violently yanked Izuku toward the object.

 

He didn't just have a housewife's Quirk. He had an invisible grappling hook.

 

Izuku cracked his neck and walked down the concrete steps into the maze of trash. He navigated through the narrow canyons of rusted washing machines and decaying dressers until he found a suitable clearing near the water's edge.

 

Sitting in the sand was a waterlogged, cast-iron bathtub, half-buried and filled with wet debris. It easily weighed upwards of two hundred pounds.

 

Izuku stood fifteen feet away. He widened his stance, planting his heavy steel-toed boots firmly into the sand to create a physical anchor. He raised his right hand, fingers splayed. He narrowed his eyes, targeting the lip of the heavy iron tub.

 

He reached into his chest and cast his invisible cable out. He felt it connect, a solid, heavy thunk resonating in his mind as his telekinesis locked onto the iron.

 

Pull.

 

Izuku grunted, his core tightening violently. The muscles in his arm bunched, veins rising against his skin as he mimicked a pulling motion. The invisible tension pulled taut.

 

The bathtub groaned. The wet sand around it shifted.

 

"Come on," Izuku hissed through his teeth. He doubled his focus, dragging his arm backward through the air as if pulling a physical rope hand-over-hand.

 

With a sickening schlupp, the bathtub broke free from the suction of the wet sand. It dragged forward, scraping heavily across the beach, carving a deep trench in its wake. Izuku kept the pressure on, sweating profusely, fighting the burning sensation in his chest and the sheer strain on his triceps and lats. He pulled it ten feet before the strain peaked behind his eyes.

 

He severed the connection. The bathtub stopped dead.

 

Izuku dropped his hands to his knees, panting heavily. "Two hundred... and fifty pounds," he gasped, running the calculations in his head based on the drag coefficient of wet sand. "New... new personal record."

 

He allowed himself a thirty-second rest before standing back up. Strength training was only half the regimen. Mobility was the other.

 

Izuku looked up. Towering above him was a precariously stacked mountain of crushed cars, crowned by the rusted arm of an abandoned yellow excavator, jutting out like a steel branch some thirty feet in the air.

 

He took a deep breath. He took three running steps forward, leaping into the air.

 

Mid-leap, he shot his hand upward, aiming his Quirk at the heavy steel bucket of the excavator. He felt the connection lock. Because he was in mid-air—entirely unanchored—and the excavator was infinitely heavier than his one-hundred-and-forty-pound frame, Law Number Two engaged.

 

Yank.

 

Izuku didn't pull the excavator down. The excavator pulled Izuku up.

 

He shot into the air, hurtling upward at a terrifying, unnatural speed, dragged by his own telekinetic force. The wind roared in his ears. The rusted bucket approached his face with lethal velocity.

 

This was the dangerous part. If he held on too long, he would smash into the steel and shatter his bones.

 

Three feet before impact, Izuku severed the connection. His upward momentum carried him seamlessly over the top of the excavator bucket. He flipped gracefully in the air, landing lightly on his steel-toed boots atop the mountain of cars.

 

He stood up, looking out over the waking ocean, the rising sun painting the horizon in streaks of violent orange and bruised purple. The wind ruffled his untamable green curls.

 

He clenched his fists, feeling the lingering hum of power in his blood. He wasn't All Might. He couldn't obliterate the trash with a single punch. But he could control the battlefield. He could dictate gravity, momentum, and positioning.

 

He was ready for UA High School. He just had to survive ten more months of middle school first.

 

 

 

The bell rang, signaling the end of homeroom at Aldera Junior High. The chaotic din of teenage chatter immediately flooded the classroom. Papers rustled, chairs scraped against the linoleum, and students eagerly showed off minor Quirk tricks to their friends.

 

Izuku sat in the back row, his head down, meticulously sketching a new support gear concept in his notebook. It was a design for wrist-mounted spools of high-tensile carbon wire. If he threw a dart attached to the wire, he could use his Quirk to pull the dart back, turning it into a retrievable capture weapon. It required less mental strain than pulling an unattached object.

 

"Since you're all third-years, it's time for you to think seriously about your futures!" Mr. Tanaka, the homeroom teacher, announced over the noise, holding a thick stack of career aptitude forms. "I'll pass out these printouts for your desired career paths, but... who am I kidding? You all want to go to the hero course, right?!"

 

The classroom erupted in cheers. Students proudly activated their Quirks—stretching limbs, glowing hands, levitating pencils.

 

"Yes, yes, you all have wonderful Quirks," the teacher chuckled, trying to wave away the smoke and lights. "But remember, using your Quirks in school is against the rules!"

 

"Hey, Teach! Don't lump me in with this bunch of losers!"

 

The arrogant, booming voice cut through the noise like a serrated knife. Katsuki Bakugo sat leaning back in his chair, his feet kicked up on his desk. He wore his uniform with the top buttons undone, projecting an aura of absolute, untouchable superiority.

 

"I'm the real deal," Bakugo sneered, holding up a hand. Small, crackling explosions popped off his palm like fireworks. "These guys will be lucky to end up as sidekicks to some busted D-lister. I'm going to UA High School. I'm going to surpass All Might and become the top hero!"

 

The class murmured in a mix of awe and annoyance, but no one dared challenge him. Bakugo’s Quirk, Explosion, was undeniably top-tier. He had the power, the grades, and the terrifying combat instinct to back up his arrogance.

 

"Ah, yes," Mr. Tanaka checked his clipboard. "Bakugo, you are aiming for UA High. And... oh. Midoriya. You're applying for UA as well?"

 

The entire classroom froze. The silence lasted for exactly two seconds before the room exploded into uproarious, mocking laughter.

 

"Midoriya?! No way!"

"The pebble-puller? Are you kidding me?"

"UA's hero course? They don't have a janitor track, Deku!"

 

Izuku didn't flinch. He didn't cower in his seat, nor did he frantically try to defend himself as he might have when he was a child. He simply kept his eyes glued to his notebook, calmly shading in the schematic of his wrist spool. He had long ago learned that reacting to their mockery only fueled their fire. To them, because his Quirk couldn't break a desk in half, it was useless. He had deliberately kept his weight-limit training a secret. Let them think he could only pull erasers and dropped coins. The element of surprise was a tactical advantage.

 

But his lack of reaction irritated a certain ash-blond powerhouse.

 

Before Izuku could blink, Bakugo was out of his seat and standing over his desk. Bakugo's hand slammed down onto the wood, a localized explosion detonating right over Izuku's notebook.

 

Smoke billowed. The class went quiet again.

 

Izuku sat perfectly still. The desk was scorched black. But Bakugo's hand was empty.

 

Bakugo frowned, lifting his palm.

 

Izuku was holding his notebook safely in his lap, beneath the desk. A split second before Bakugo's palm made contact, Izuku had used a sharp, concentrated burst of his Quirk to yank the notebook downward into his own hands, pulling it out of the blast radius.

 

Bakugo’s red eyes narrowed, a dangerous vein popping in his forehead. He hated that. He hated when Deku used his stupid little trick to evade him. It felt like a subtle, insulting defiance.

 

"You think you're clever, Deku?" Bakugo growled, smoke curling from his fingers.

 

"I think I'd prefer my notes not to be incinerated, Kacchan," Izuku said quietly, finally looking up. His voice was calm, analytical, devoid of the trembling fear Bakugo expected to see. "Explosive residue degrades paper quality."

 

"Don't give me that nerd crap!" Bakugo snapped, kicking Izuku's desk, forcing the wood to slide back and pin Izuku slightly against his chair. "Listen to me, you Quirk-deficient reject. You have a parlor trick. You're a glorified magnet. If you take the UA exam, you're just going to embarrass this school and die in the process. Withdraw your application."

 

"The school's reputation isn't my concern," Izuku replied evenly, holding Bakugo's furious gaze. "And UA abolished the rule against non-combat Quirks entering the hero course years ago. I have every right to take the exam."

 

Bakugo leaned in close, the smell of burnt sugar radiating from his skin. "You're a pebble on the side of the road, Deku. Stop trying to act like a boulder. You want to be a hero so bad? Give up trying to polish a turd of a Quirk. Save us all the trouble."

 

Bakugo turned away, scoffing loudly as he walked back to his desk. "Stupid Deku. He'll get himself killed the first time he faces a real villain."

 

Izuku slowly pushed his desk back into place. He placed his unharmed notebook on the scorched wood. He wasn't angry. He was just tired. He was tired of a society that equated destructive capability with heroism. A society that believed if you couldn't level a city block, you couldn't save a life.

 

I'll prove them wrong, Izuku thought, his jaw tightening. I'll show them the gravity of what I can do.

 

 

 

The walk home that afternoon took Izuku through a series of underpasses, a route he often chose for its quietness. It allowed him to mutter out loud about his gear designs without drawing strange looks from pedestrians.

 

"If Hatsume Industries ever opens their patent registry, I could theoretically adapt a localized magnetic dampener," Izuku muttered, pacing through the shadowy tunnel, tapping his chin. "But that would interfere with the telekinetic wavelength. If I rely purely on kinetic pull... wait, if I pull a rotating object, does the angular momentum increase the drag?"

 

A strange, sickening squelch interrupted his thoughts.

 

Izuku stopped. The sound echoed from the darkness of the tunnel ahead. It sounded like thick, wet mud being churned in a blender.

 

From a manhole cover a few yards away, a massive, putrid wave of dark green sludge erupted. It smelled like raw sewage and rotting garbage. The sludge twisted and coalesced, forming a towering, fluid mass. Two bulbous, yellow eyes and a jagged mouth full of irregular teeth formed in the center of the liquid.

 

"A medium-sized meat-suit..." the Sludge Villain gurgled, its voice wet and echoing. "Perfect. I was running out of places to hide."

 

Izuku took a step back, his analytical mind snapping into overdrive. Villain. Fluid body structure. No solid mass to target. My Quirk is kinetic; it pulls solid objects. If I pull fluid, I'll just rip a handful of water out of him. It won't stop his forward momentum.

 

The villain lunged.

 

Izuku tried to dodge, throwing himself backward, but the sludge was too fast and covered too wide an area. The thick, foul-smelling liquid crashed over him, pinning his arms to his sides and surging up around his neck.

 

"Don't fight it, kid," the villain hissed, forcing the sludge over Izuku's mouth and nose. "It'll only hurt for about forty-five seconds. Then it'll all be over. Thanks for being a hero for me."

 

Panic, cold and primal, spiked in Izuku’s chest. He couldn't breathe. The sludge was forcing its way down his throat, choking him, burning his lungs.

 

He needed to fight. He activated his Quirk blindly, desperately. He felt for the manhole cover on the ground beneath them. He found it. He anchored himself to the villain's internal mass—which was difficult because it kept shifting—and pulled the heavy iron lid.

 

The heavy iron disc flew upward, slicing through the sludge like a blade, but the liquid simply reformed around it. The manhole cover clattered uselessly to the concrete.

 

It doesn't work! Physical strikes and kinetic pulls are useless against non-Newtonian fluids! Izuku’s vision began to darken at the edges. His lungs screamed for oxygen. Was this it? Was Bakugo right? Was he going to die in a dirty tunnel because his Quirk wasn't suited for combat?

 

Suddenly, a massive, deafening CLANG echoed through the tunnel. The manhole cover was blown entirely off its hinges, flying down the street.

 

A colossal figure stepped out of the shadows.

 

"Have no fear, young man!" a booming, larger-than-life voice echoed, vibrating the very air in the tunnel. "For I am here!"

 

Izuku's fading consciousness barely registered the towering, muscular form of All Might.

 

The Number One Hero pulled back a massive fist. "TEXAS... SMASH!"

 

The air pressure from the punch was apocalyptic. A localized hurricane erupted in the confined space of the tunnel. The sheer wind pressure hit the Sludge Villain like a solid wall of concrete, blowing the liquid body apart into a thousand splattering droplets.

 

Izuku was thrown backward by the wind, gasping greedily for air as the suffocating slime released him. He hit the pavement hard, but he didn't care. He was breathing. He looked up, coughing violently, to see All Might quickly scooping the scattered villain remnants into two empty plastic soda bottles.

 

"Are you alright, my boy?" All Might asked, turning to Izuku with his trademark, brilliant smile. "Apologies for getting you caught up in my villain pursuit! But thanks to you, I've captured the evildoer!"

 

Izuku was dumbstruck. It was him. It was really him. The man from the videos, the man who had inspired his entire life. Izuku scrambled to his feet, ignoring the burning in his throat. He frantically searched his pockets for his notebook.

 

"All Might! Sir! I'm a huge fan! Please, an autograph—" Izuku opened his scorched notebook, only to find a massive, sprawling signature already taking up a two-page spread. Izuku bowed at a perfect ninety-degree angle. "Thank you! I will treasure it forever! It will be a family heirloom!"

 

"Hahaha! Excellent!" All Might boomed, turning away and squatting low, preparing to jump. "Now, I must bring this villain to the authorities! Stay safe, young man!"

 

"Wait!" Izuku yelled, taking a step forward. He had to ask. He had spent ten years agonizing over this question. His mother believed in him, yes, but she was his mother. He needed to know from the pinnacle of heroism itself. "Wait, please! I have to ask you something!"

 

All Might didn't hear him, or didn't have time. The hero leaped, rocketing into the sky like a missile.

 

Izuku didn't think. Instinct took over. He couldn't let All Might leave without answering the question.

 

As All Might shot into the air, Izuku aimed his hand at the hero's massive, solid leg. He activated his Quirk.

 

Yank.

 

Law Number Two engaged. All Might weighed over six hundred pounds and was moving with immense upward kinetic energy. Izuku, weighing a fraction of that, was instantly ripped from the ground. He shot into the sky, dragged violently in All Might's slipstream, his invisible telekinetic tether locking him to the hero's trajectory.

 

"Holy whoa!" Izuku screamed, the wind tearing at his face as the city rapidly shrank beneath him. He was terrifyingly high up.

 

All Might looked down, his eyes bulging in shock. "Hey! Kid! What are you doing?! Let go! Are you crazy?!"

 

"If I let go now, I'll fall and die!" Izuku yelled over the roaring wind, keeping his Quirk fully engaged, maintaining the invisible pull that kept him tethered to the hero.

 

All Might groaned, realizing the boy was right. He angled his descent, aiming for the roof of a nearby commercial building. They landed with a heavy thud, All Might leaving cracks in the concrete, while Izuku gracefully severed his tether just before impact, rolling across the rooftop to bleed off his momentum.

 

"Good grief," All Might sighed, wiping his forehead. "That was incredibly dangerous, young man! A telekinetic tether? You need to be careful with how you apply that!"

 

"I'm sorry!" Izuku said, standing up, brushing the dirt off his knees. "I'm sorry, I just... I had to ask you a question. It's... it's really important."

 

All Might looked at his watch, a shadow passing over his face. "I really don't have time for this, kid. I have to turn this guy in—"

 

"Can someone with a weak Quirk become a Pro Hero?!" Izuku blurted out, bowing his head, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

 

The wind howled across the empty rooftop. All Might stopped walking.

 

"People tell me my Quirk is useless for combat," Izuku continued, his voice trembling but resolute. "I can pull small objects. If I train hard, I can pull heavier things, and I can use it to maneuver, like I just did. But I don't have super strength. I can't cause explosions. I can't break villains apart with a punch. I have to rely on tactics, on tools, on outsmarting them."

 

Izuku looked up, his emerald eyes burning with ten years of repressed desperation. "Can someone who has to fight like that... can a telekinetic who only has a utility Quirk... ever stand on the same stage as you? Can I be a hero who saves people?"

 

All Might looked at the boy. He saw the fire in his eyes. But All Might also knew the grim, bloody reality of the hero world. He had seen friends with versatile, clever Quirks get torn to shreds by monsters with overwhelming physical power. He himself was currently operating on a severe time limit, his own body destroyed by a villain of unfathomable strength.

 

Tactics were good. But against true evil, against raw, apocalyptic power, tactics without physical force were a death sentence.

 

"Young man," All Might said, his voice losing its booming quality, settling into a heavy, solemn tone. "Pro Heroes are always risking their lives. Some villains simply cannot be beaten by clever tricks or pulling debris. It takes overwhelming power to protect the innocent."

 

Izuku's breath hitched.

 

"I cannot, in good conscience, tell you that you can become a Pro Hero fighting on the front lines without a combat-oriented power," All Might said, the words falling like lead weights onto Izuku's chest. "It's good to dream. But you need to be realistic. If you want to help people, become a police officer. They get a bad rep because heroes take all the glory, but it's a fine, honorable profession."

 

All Might turned away, walking toward the rooftop access door. "Your Quirk is good for utility. But don't throw your life away trying to be something you're not equipped to be. Stay safe."

 

The heavy metal door slammed shut, leaving Izuku alone on the roof.

 

The silence was deafening.

 

Izuku stood frozen. The Number One Hero, the man who embodied hope, had just echoed the same sentiment as Katsuki Bakugo, as his teachers, as society. Be realistic. Your Quirk isn't enough.

 

A heavy, suffocating weight pressed down on Izuku's shoulders. The urge to cry, to scream, to fall to his knees and finally give up, flared wildly in his chest. Maybe they were right. Maybe his mother was just trying to protect his feelings. Maybe all those hours pulling trash on the beach were a colossal waste of time.

 

Izuku looked down at his calloused hands. He thought of the heavy iron bathtub. He thought of the excavator bucket.

 

He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white.

 

No.

 

His mother wasn't lying. She hadn't pitied him. She had challenged him. All Might was a man who solved problems by punching them until the weather changed. Of course he couldn't see the value in pulling a lever, tripping a foe, or redirecting momentum. All Might viewed the world through the lens of a hammer, where every villain was a nail.

 

I am not a hammer, Izuku thought, a cold, hard resolve solidifying in his gut, replacing the despair. I'm a scalpel. He's wrong. I'm going to prove him wrong. I'm going to prove them all wrong.

 

Izuku turned and walked toward the stairs. He had training to do.

 

 

 

He was halfway home when the explosion rattled the windows of the street.

 

Izuku paused. That sound... it was a concussive blast, sharp and rhythmic. He knew that sound intimately. It sounded exactly like Bakugo's Quirk, but massively magnified.

 

He followed the noise, turning down a commercial shopping street. A massive crowd had gathered, held back by police tape. The air was thick with black smoke and the acrid smell of burning concrete. Fires raged in the storefronts, shattering glass and causing civilians to scream.

 

Izuku pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He froze.

 

In the center of the street, amidst the burning wreckage, was the Sludge Villain.

 

He must have dropped the bottles when I grabbed onto him! Izuku realized with a sickening jolt of guilt. This is my fault!

 

Several Pro Heroes were on the scene. Death Arms, Kamui Woods, and Mt. Lady were standing on the periphery, watching helplessly.

 

"I can't get a grip on him!" Death Arms shouted, rubbing his heavily muscled arms. "He's completely fluid!"

 

"My wood will just burn in these fires!" Kamui Woods grunted, shielding his face from the heat.

 

"I need at least a two-lane street to use my size, I can't fit in there!" Mt. Lady added, gritting her teeth.

 

They were waiting. They were waiting for someone with a better Quirk matchup to arrive.

 

Izuku looked back at the villain. The sludge was massive, churning violently, creating a terrifying vortex of slime. But in the center of the mass, thrashing wildly, was a figure.

 

Ash-blond hair. Furious, tear-filled red eyes. Explosions popping weakly from suffocating palms.

 

It was Bakugo. The villain had hijacked his body, using his Explosion Quirk to keep the heroes at bay while he tried to completely suffocate the boy and take his meat-suit.

 

Izuku watched as Bakugo struggled, his mouth covered in slime, his eyes wide with a terror Izuku had never, ever seen on his former friend's face. Bakugo was drowning in the middle of a burning street, surrounded by heroes who were doing absolutely nothing.

 

It takes overwhelming power to protect the innocent. All Might's words echoed in Izuku's head.

 

The heroes were waiting for power.

 

Izuku didn't have power. He had a housewife's Quirk. He had an invisible string.

 

Before his conscious mind could even process what he was doing, Izuku Midoriya ducked under the police tape and sprinted full speed into the inferno.

 

"Hey! Kid, get back here! You'll die!" Death Arms roared, reaching out to grab him, but Izuku was already gone.

 

"Deku?!" Bakugo gurgled, his eyes widening in shock as he saw the green-haired boy sprinting toward the monster.

 

Izuku’s mind was a hyper-accelerated computer, running calculations at lightspeed. The villain is fluid. Pulling the sludge won't work. Pulling Kacchan entirely won't work—the sludge has too much surface tension, it would be like trying to pull a car stuck in wet cement, I'd just rip Kacchan's clothes off or snap my own mental tether. I need to disrupt the villain's focus first, break the surface tension, then extract.

 

Izuku reached into his pocket as he ran. He pulled out a handful of loose yen coins and a few heavy steel bolts he carried for tinkering.

 

He didn't throw them. He dropped them on the ground in front of him.

 

As he sprinted past the dropped metal objects, he activated his Quirk, anchoring his pull to the coins and bolts, but aiming the vector forward, through the villain's eyes.

 

He pulled.

 

The coins and bolts shot off the pavement like bullets, accelerated by Izuku's kinetic telekinesis. They flew in a sharp, blinding arc and embedded themselves directly into the Sludge Villain's bulbous, yellow eyes.

 

"GAAAAAAH!" the villain roared in agony, the sludge violently recoiling as the metal pierced its sensitive ocular organs.

 

The surface tension of the sludge loosened for a fraction of a second.

 

Izuku didn't stop running. He was ten feet away now. The heat of the fires blistered his skin.

 

He slid on the pavement, dropping low. He planted his steel-toed boots firmly into a crack in the asphalt, creating a flawless, unbreakable anchor for his body. He couldn't afford to be pulled forward.

 

He looked at Bakugo. He needed a solid, heavy anchor point on Bakugo's body. The sludge was covering his arms and chest. But poking out from the slime, just beneath Bakugo's chin, was the heavy, solid brass top button of his Aldera Junior High uniform collar.

 

Izuku reached his hand out, his fingers curling into a rigid, trembling claw. He focused every ounce of willpower, every single hour of dragging heavy bathtubs and rusted cars on the beach, into the center of his chest.

 

He cast the cable. He felt it lock onto the brass button with a heavy, metallic CLANG in his mind.

 

PULL.

 

Izuku screamed, a raw, primal sound of absolute exertion. He threw his entire upper body backward, acting as a human winch.

 

The invisible cable snapped taut with the force of a freight train.

 

The physics were brutal. The sludge tried to hold onto Bakugo, acting as a massive, suctioning weight. Izuku was trying to pull Bakugo out. The opposing forces met in the middle.

 

Izuku's boots ground against the asphalt, scraping backward. Veins popped on his forehead, his nose beginning to bleed a steady stream of crimson from the sheer mental and physical strain. His chest felt like it was tearing open. He's too heavy! The sludge is acting as an anchor! Pull harder! PULL!

 

"DEKUUUU!" Bakugo roared, recognizing what was happening. He didn't fight the pull. He leaned into it, firing a localized explosion at his own feet to blast away the sludge holding his legs.

 

With a sickening, violent tearing sound, the sludge gave way.

 

Izuku's telekinetic pull ripped Katsuki Bakugo entirely out of the villain's mass. Bakugo flew through the air, carried by the momentum of the pull, and crashed heavily into Izuku, sending both boys tumbling violently across the hot asphalt, away from the villain.

 

They rolled to a stop. Bakugo immediately rolled over, hacking and violently coughing up green slime, gasping for the oxygen he had been denied.

 

Izuku lay on his back, his nose bleeding, his head pounding with a migraine so fierce his vision was blurred. But he was smiling.

 

The Sludge Villain recovered, its eyes regenerating. "YOU LITTLE BRATS! I'LL KILL YOU BOTH!" The massive wave of sludge surged forward, rising up like a tsunami to crush them.

 

Izuku couldn't move. He had burned out his Quirk muscle. He was totally spent.

 

Suddenly, a massive, muscular arm gripped Izuku's shoulder, and another gripped Bakugo's.

 

"I told you... to be realistic," a deep, furious voice boomed from the smoke.

 

Izuku looked up. All Might stood over them, in his heavily muscled form. The hero was bleeding from his mouth, his face a mask of absolute, terrifying rage.

 

"But you... a boy with no physical power... you taught me a lesson today!" All Might roared, stepping in front of the boys. "I am pathetic! I let my own limitations stop me, while you risked everything!"

 

All Might pulled back his right arm. The air pressure in the street vanished, sucked into the vacuum of his impending strike.

 

"DETROIT..."

 

The villain tried to retreat, realizing its doom.

 

"SMASH!"

 

The punch did not just hit the villain. It hit the very atmosphere. A shockwave of pure, compressed air exploded down the street, vaporizing the Sludge Villain into a fine mist, instantly blowing out the fires in the storefronts, and creating a localized tornado that spun up into the sky.

 

Seconds later, it began to rain. All Might had changed the weather with a single punch.

 

The crowd was dead silent. Then, they erupted into deafening cheers.

 

Izuku wiped the blood from his nose, staring up at the towering hero in awe. That was power. That was undeniable, overwhelming power.

 

But as Izuku looked at Bakugo, who was sitting next to him, breathing heavily and staring at Izuku with a complex mix of absolute shock and wounded pride, Izuku knew something else.

 

Power changed the weather. But tactics saved the boy.

 

 

 

The aftermath was a blur of flashing lights and loud voices.

 

The Pro Heroes aggressively scolded Izuku. Death Arms pointed a thick finger at his chest. "What you did was incredibly stupid! You could have been killed! You have a weak Quirk, kid, you don't go charging into a fight like that. Leave it to the pros!"

 

Izuku just nodded, letting the words wash over him. He was used to it.

 

Meanwhile, Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady were praising Bakugo. "Your Quirk is incredible! Holding out that long, the explosive power... you're going to make an amazing hero one day!"

 

Bakugo didn't look happy. He sat on the back of an ambulance, glaring fiercely at the ground, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.

 

Eventually, the police let them go. Izuku began the long walk home, the adrenaline fading, leaving him exhausted and sore.

 

"DEKU!"

 

Izuku stopped, turning around.

 

Bakugo was storming down the street toward him, his face contorted in a snarl. He stopped a few feet away, breathing heavily.

 

"Listen to me, you Quirk-deficient loser," Bakugo growled, his voice trembling slightly. "I didn't ask for your help! I had it under control! I didn't need a... a pebble-puller to save me! Don't you dare think you're better than me! You're nothing!"

 

Bakugo turned on his heel and marched away, his pride desperately trying to piece itself back together.

 

Izuku watched him go. Bakugo was lying. They both knew it. Bakugo had been drowning, and Izuku's "pebble-pulling" Quirk had physically overpowered a monster that multiple Pro Heroes couldn't touch. The dynamic between them had cracked, permanently.

 

"I am here!"

 

Izuku yelped, jumping back as All Might suddenly burst out from an alleyway, striking a dramatic pose.

 

"All Might?! What are you doing here? Did you lose the press?" Izuku asked, bewildered.

 

"Hahaha! Escaping the press is a breeze for me!" All Might laughed, but then, a burst of steam erupted from his body.

 

Izuku watched in horror as the massive, muscular hero deflated like a balloon, leaving behind a skeletal, gaunt, blood-spitting man in oversized clothes.

 

"W-What happened?!" Izuku panicked.

 

"Relax, kid. This is my true form," All Might sighed, wiping a trickle of blood from his chin. "A severe injury five years ago limits my hero time. I'm telling you this because... well, because I owe you an apology, young Midoriya."

 

Izuku blinked. "An apology?"

 

"I told you earlier today to be realistic. To give up your dream because you lacked the overwhelming combat power of a front-line hero," All Might said, looking at Izuku with a profound, piercing respect. "But today, surrounded by heroes with powerful Quirks who did nothing but wait... you, the boy with the 'weak' utility Quirk, were the only one who acted."

 

All Might placed a large, bony hand over his heart.

 

"You didn't punch the villain. You used your environment. You blinded him, you anchored yourself, and you pulled your friend to safety using sheer physical and mental endurance," All Might said. "You showed the tactical brilliance of a veteran Pro and the heart of a true hero."

 

Izuku felt the tears welling up in his eyes. Ten years. Ten years of holding onto his mother's words, of training in the dark, of being mocked and pushed down. And now, the Symbol of Peace was validating it all.

 

"I was wrong," All Might bowed his head slightly. "You can become a hero. And I want to help you."

 

Izuku gasped. "H-Help me?"

 

All Might stood up straight. "Your Quirk relies heavily on your own physical stamina and strength to increase its limit, correct? And you want to enter UA High School in ten months?"

 

Izuku nodded furiously.

 

"I am currently looking for a successor to pass my own power onto," All Might admitted quietly. "But... I have already decided to meet a promising third-year student at UA for that purpose. My Quirk is not meant for you, Midoriya. Giving you a power that requires a brute-force approach would ruin the incredible tactical mind you've developed."

 

Izuku didn't feel a shred of disappointment. He didn't want All Might's Quirk. He wanted his own to be enough.

 

"However," All Might smiled, a genuine, warm smile. "I know a thing or two about pushing the human body to its absolute limits. If you are willing, I want to take you under my wing. I will design a training regimen for you that will break you down and build you into a physical powerhouse. I will teach you close-quarters combat to supplement your telekinesis. We will turn your 'pull' into a force of nature."

 

All Might held out his hand.

 

"What do you say, Young Midoriya? Will you let me help you become the hero you are meant to be?"

 

Izuku looked at the skeletal hand. He thought of the beach. He thought of his notebooks. He thought of his mother.

 

He reached out and grasped All Might's hand firmly.

 

"Yes, sir," Izuku said, his emerald eyes burning with an unshakeable, gravitational force. "I'm ready to work."

 

Ten months remained until the UA Entrance Exam. The grind was over. The real work was about to begin.

 

 

The crisp, salty air of Musutafu’s coastline was shattered by a sound akin to a high-powered rifle discharging.

 

CRACK.

 

A two-pound, perfectly spherical tungsten bearing tore through the air at a terrifying velocity, punching a clean hole directly through a rusted car door before embedding itself deep into the engine block with a metallic screech.

 

A hundred feet away, standing amidst the pristine, white sands of a newly cleaned Dagobah Beach Park, Izuku Midoriya lowered his hand, his chest heaving with exertion. Sweat dripped from his chin, tracing the lines of a physique that had been completely revolutionized over the past ten months. The soft, rounded boy who had been mocked by Katsuki Bakugo was gone. In his place stood a lean, tightly coiled teenager with muscles carved from granite and absolute sheer will.

 

"Incredible! Absolutely incredible!"

 

All Might, in his skeletal, gaunt form, sat atop the seawall, clapping his bony hands together. He wore a baggy tracksuit, but the pride radiating from his sunken blue eyes was larger than life.

 

"Your velocity has increased by another twelve percent since last week, Young Midoriya!" All Might called out, coughing slightly into a handkerchief. "The kinetic force of that recall was enough to pierce quarter-inch steel!"

 

Izuku wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, his breathing slowing. He held out his hand, palm open. He reached into his chest, finding the thick, heavily reinforced "cable" of his Quirk. He mentally tethered it to the tungsten bearing buried in the engine block a hundred feet away.

 

Pull.

 

With a sickening crunch of tearing metal, the bearing ripped itself backward out of the car, flying through the air and slapping solidly into Izuku's heavy leather rigger’s glove. He closed his fist around it, the metal still warm from the friction of its own impact.

 

"It's all thanks to the physical regimen you put me on, All Might," Izuku said, walking toward the seawall. "My Quirk’s weight limit and velocity are directly tied to my physical strength. By maximizing my core and upper body strength, the 'cable' can withstand drastically higher tension before snapping."

 

Izuku reached to his waist, where a custom-made tactical belt sat. It was lined with small, heavy pouches, each containing a perfectly spherical tungsten bearing. He slipped the warm bearing back into its slot.

 

Ten months of grueling, soul-crushing labor. Moving mountains of garbage, lifting refrigerators, towing rusted trucks through wet sand. All Might had been a relentless taskmaster, pushing Izuku past the brink of collapse day after day. But they hadn't just focused on brute strength. All Might had taught him CQC—Close Quarters Combat—focusing on agility, evasion, and momentum redirection.

 

Izuku’s fighting style was now a deadly dance of physics. He couldn't punch a hole in a wall, but he could throw a heavy piece of metal past an opponent, anchor his Quirk to it, and violently pull it back, turning the projectile into a homing missile that struck from behind.

 

"You've cleaned the entire beach, my boy," All Might said, looking out over the pristine shoreline, the morning sun sparkling on the ocean waves. "It's a beautiful sight. But more importantly, you've built a vessel capable of handling the rigors of UA High School."

 

All Might stood up, hopping down from the wall. He placed a heavy, reassuring hand on Izuku's shoulder.

 

"I won't lie to you, Izuku," All Might said, his voice dropping its usual boisterous tone, becoming quiet and sincere. "The entrance exam today will be heavily biased against Quirks like yours. It favors raw, destructive output. The system is flawed. But I have watched you turn a simple parlor trick into a lethal, tactical weapon. Do not let the scale of the exam intimidate you. You are a Pro in the making."

 

Izuku looked down at his calloused, scarred hands. He remembered Katsuki’s mockery. He remembered the Sludge Villain. He remembered the feeling of utter helplessness.

 

He clenched his fists, looking up into the eyes of his idol.

 

"I'm going to pass, All Might," Izuku said, his voice ringing with a cold, absolute certainty. "I'm going to show them exactly how much weight I can pull."

 

 

 

The towering, H-shaped glass structure of UA High School cast a massive, intimidating shadow over the courtyard. To most, it was an architectural marvel. To Izuku, looking up at it in his crisp black middle school uniform, it was the gate to heaven.

 

"Izuku! Wait!"

 

Izuku turned to see his mother, Inko, running up the sidewalk, clutching a small, neatly wrapped bento box. She was out of breath, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

 

"You forgot your lunch, sweetie," she panted, pressing the box into his hands. She took a step back, looking her son up and down. He had grown taller. His shoulders were broad. He carried an aura of quiet, dangerous confidence that she had never seen before.

 

"Thanks, Mom," Izuku smiled, a soft, genuine expression that eased her anxiety.

 

Inko reached up, adjusting his collar. "I am so proud of you, Izuku. No matter what happens today, no matter what those robots do... you have already proven yourself to me."

 

"I'll be home for dinner, Mom," Izuku promised. "I'll have good news."

 

He turned and joined the massive throng of students pouring through the main gates. The sheer variety of Quirks on display was staggering. Kids with extra limbs, scales, glowing hair, floating above the ground—it was a kaleidoscope of genetic miracles.

 

Izuku walked with purpose, his mind already running through tactical simulations. He checked the weight of his tactical belt beneath his uniform jacket. The tungsten bearings were there, secure and heavy.

 

"Stupid Deku. Get out of my way."

 

Izuku didn't stop walking, nor did he flinch, as Katsuki Bakugo shouldered roughly past him.

 

Bakugo had changed over the last ten months, too. He was angrier, more volatile, like a tightly sealed pressure cooker. Ever since the Sludge Villain incident, the dynamic between them had been irrevocably shattered. Bakugo could no longer claim Izuku was completely useless, and the sheer cognitive dissonance was driving the explosive boy insane.

 

"Good morning, Kacchan," Izuku replied evenly, not breaking his stride. "Good luck today."

 

Bakugo stopped, turning his head to glare over his shoulder, his red eyes burning with malice. "I don't need luck, you Quirkless wannabe. You're going to get crushed in there. Don't come crying to me when they carry you out on a stretcher."

 

Bakugo scoffed and stomped away, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

 

Izuku watched him go, feeling nothing but a profound sense of calm. The insults used to sting. Now, they were just noise. Bakugo was a physics problem, a mass of explosive kinetic energy. Izuku knew how to redirect energy.

 

As Izuku turned his attention back to the massive doors of the school, his heavy boot caught on an uneven paving stone. His center of gravity shifted abruptly, pitching him forward.

 

Whoops, Izuku thought. He instinctively reached for his Quirk to pull his collar upward to arrest his fall—

 

"Oops! Gotcha!"

 

Izuku stopped, hovering three inches above the pavement. He wasn't falling. He wasn't using his Quirk. The gravity acting on his body had simply ceased to exist.

 

He blinked, slowly floating upright as a girl with a bob of chestnut hair and bright, round pink cheeks stepped into his field of vision. She pressed her fingertips together, and Izuku suddenly felt his weight return, dropping an inch onto the soles of his boots.

 

"Sorry I used my Quirk on you without asking!" the girl chirped, offering a bright, sunny smile. "But it would be bad luck if you fell right before the exam, wouldn't it?"

 

Izuku looked at her, his analytical mind immediately firing off. Anti-gravity. Tactile activation. Five-point contact based on her fingertips. A complete nullification of mass.

 

"That's an incredible Quirk," Izuku said, genuinely impressed, meeting her eyes without a trace of the stuttering panic he would have had a year ago. "Gravity manipulation? Or mass reduction?"

 

The girl blinked, taken aback by his intense, unbothered composure. "Oh! Um, gravity! I make things weightless when I touch them. I'm Ochaco Uraraka!"

 

"Izuku Midoriya," he replied, giving a polite bow. "Thank you for the assist, Uraraka-san. It’s highly efficient. Though, manipulating gravity must put a heavy strain on your inner ear and vestibular system. Do you get nauseous if you overuse it?"

 

Uraraka's jaw dropped slightly. "H-How did you know that? Yeah, if I float too much, I throw up."

 

"Basic physics," Izuku tapped the side of his head with a small smile. "Every Quirk has a biological pushback. Well, I wish you the best of luck in the exam, Uraraka-san. Try not to float too many heavy things at once."

 

He gave her a final nod and walked into the building, leaving Uraraka staring after him with a slight blush and a perplexed smile. "Wow... he's intense."

 

 

 

The auditorium was cavernous, filled to the brim with thousands of hopeful students. The lights dimmed, and a spotlight snapped onto the stage, illuminating the leather-clad, eccentric form of the Voice Hero: Present Mic.

 

"WHAT'S UP, UA CANDIDATES?!" Present Mic screamed into the microphone, his voice amplified to deafening levels. "CAN I GET A 'YEAH'?!"

 

Dead silence.

 

"KEEPING IT MELLOW, I LIKE IT!" Mic recovered flawlessly. He pulled up a massive holographic display behind him. "LISTEN UP, EXAMINEES! YOU'LL BE CONDUCTING TEN-MINUTE MOCK URBAN BATTLES! AFTER THIS PRESENTATION, YOU'LL HEAD TO YOUR SPECIFIED BATTLE CENTERS!"

 

Izuku looked down at his examinee card. Battle Center B. He glanced at Bakugo's card, sitting two seats away. Battle Center A. They were splitting up students from the same middle schools to prevent cooperation. Smart.

 

Present Mic explained the scoring system. There were three types of villains—robots—worth one, two, and three points respectively. The goal was to use Quirks to destroy them and rack up a high score.

 

Standard video game logic, Izuku thought, clicking his pen rapidly against his notebook. Robots mean metal. Metal means heavy, rigid structures. They won't feel pain, so intimidation is useless. They rely on optical sensors and internal wiring. I can't punch through steel armor... but I don't have to. Armor is meant to stop external force. If I bypass the armor and attack the joints or sensory arrays, they're just walking toasters.

 

"Excuse me! I have a question!"

 

A tall, broad-shouldered boy with severe glasses and meticulously combed blue hair stood up, his arm raised straight into the air like a flagpole. A spotlight immediately hit him.

 

"On the printout, there are four types of villains! If this is a misprint, then UA, the top hero academy in Japan, should be ashamed of that foolish mistake!" The boy declared rigidly. He then spun around, pointing an accusatory finger directly at Izuku. "And you! With the curly hair! You've been muttering and clicking your pen this entire time! It's distracting! If you're here on a pleasure trip, then leave!"

 

The auditorium chuckled. Bakugo snickered.

 

Izuku stopped clicking his pen. He didn't shrink into his seat. He stood up, slowly, meeting the severe boy's gaze with a chilling, analytical calm.

 

"I apologize if my pen distracted you," Izuku's voice carried clearly through the quiet auditorium. He held up his notebook. "I was merely calculating the tensile strength of standard industrial robotics versus localized kinetic force. As for the fourth villain, if you look at the diagram, it clearly has a point value of zero. It's an obstacle. Like a Thwomp in Super Mario. You don't fight it; you avoid it."

 

Izuku sat back down, slipping his pen into his pocket. "Perhaps if you spent less time monitoring my habits, you would have deduced that yourself."

 

The auditorium went dead silent. The blue-haired boy blinked, his face flushing crimson.

 

Present Mic burst into laughter on stage. "THE EXAMINEE IN THE BACK HAS IT EXACTLY RIGHT! THANKS FOR THE ASSIST, LISTENER! The fourth villain is a Zero Pointer! It's a massive obstacle that will rampage in close quarters! My advice? Run away from it!"

 

The boy with glasses bowed deeply toward Izuku. "I apologize for my rash assumption! Thank you for the clarification!" He sat down quickly.

 

Izuku exhaled a slow breath. He wasn't trying to be antagonistic, but he was done being a doormat. Ten months of hauling trash had stripped him of his meekness. He was a weapon, and weapons didn't apologize for being sharp.

 

 

 

Battle Center B was a sprawling, hyper-realistic replica of a dense urban city block. High-rise buildings, narrow alleyways, traffic lights, and paved roads stretched out as far as the eye could see.

 

A massive crowd of students gathered before the colossal steel gates, stretching their limbs and hyping themselves up. Izuku stood near the front, his eyes locked on the seam of the doors. He wore a dark green tactical jumpsuit, heavily padded at the joints, with his belt of tungsten bearings strapped firmly across his waist. He wore reinforced, steel-toed boots and thick leather gloves.

 

He didn't bother stretching. His muscles were already warm. He unbuttoned the first pouch on his belt and slipped a single, heavy tungsten sphere into his right palm. He rolled it between his fingers, feeling its absolute, dense perfection.

 

"Hey, it's that intense guy."

 

Izuku glanced over his shoulder. The tall boy with glasses—Tenya Iida, as Izuku had heard others call him—was walking toward him, looking stern. Uraraka was standing nearby, watching them.

 

"I am Tenya Iida," the boy said, offering a stiff chop of his hand. "I misjudged you in the auditorium. You clearly possess a keen tactical mind."

 

"Izuku Midoriya," Izuku nodded briefly. "No harm done, Iida. In a high-stress environment, tensions are high."

 

Before Iida could respond, a blaring siren shattered the air.

 

"START!" Present Mic's voice boomed from hidden speakers. "WHAT'S THE MATTER?! THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL BATTLES! RUN, RUN, RUN!"

 

The massive steel gates began to groan open.

 

Izuku didn't wait for them to fully open. He didn't hesitate. The second there was a gap wide enough for a human body, Izuku exploded into a sprint, leaving the rest of the shocked examinees in his dust.

 

He tore down the main street, his boots pounding the asphalt. Adrenaline flooded his system, sharpening his vision.

 

Three hundred points available. Thousands of students. The density of targets will diminish rapidly. Strike first, strike fast.

 

He rounded a corner into a wide intersection.

 

CLANK. CLANK. CLANK.

 

A massive, olive-green robot rolled out of an alleyway. It had one central wheel, two heavy arms, and a single, glowing red optic sensor on its head. A massive '1' was painted on its chassis.

 

"TARGET ACQUIRED," the robot droned in a synthesized voice. It raised a blunt, metal arm, preparing to strike.

 

Izuku didn't stop running. He didn't try to punch it. He didn't flinch.

 

He flicked his wrist, hurling the tungsten bearing with all his physical strength directly at the robot.

 

But he didn't aim for the robot. He aimed intentionally high and to the right.

 

The heavy metal sphere whizzed past the robot's head, completely missing it, and sailed into the empty air behind the machine.

 

"THREAT AVOIDED," the robot calculated, stepping forward to crush the boy.

 

You missed, you glorified toaster, Izuku thought, his eyes narrowing into predatory slits.

 

While sprinting full tilt, Izuku raised his open palm toward the robot, his eyes locking onto the invisible space behind its head. He reached into his chest and lashed his telekinetic cable onto the flying tungsten bearing, which was currently ten feet behind the robot's skull.

 

PULL!

 

The invisible cable snapped taut with the force of an industrial winch.

 

The physics were instantaneous and brutal. The two-pound tungsten bearing, already carrying forward momentum, was violently arrested mid-air and yanked backward toward Izuku's palm with a terrifying, whiplash acceleration.

 

The bearing became a bullet.

 

CRUNCH.

 

The tungsten sphere slammed into the back of the robot's head at over two hundred miles per hour, completely bypassing the heavy frontal armor. It shattered the brittle plastic casing of the optical array, tore through the internal motherboard, and blew out the glowing red lens in the front, spraying glass and sparks into the air.

 

The bearing continued its flight, smacking safely and warmly into Izuku’s outstretched glove.

 

The 1-Pointer froze, its internal wiring fried. It collapsed forward in a smoking heap of useless scrap metal.

 

One point, Izuku tallied in his head, slipping the bearing back into his pouch and drawing two more.

 

He didn't slow down. He vaulted over the destroyed chassis and sprinted down the street.

 

From a rooftop above, a sleek, scorpion-like 2-Pointer dropped down, its tail poised to strike.

 

Izuku tossed both bearings into the air above him. He leapt off the ground, planted his feet on the side of a nearby parked car, and pushed off, doing a horizontal wall-run. As he moved, he threw his telekinetic grip onto the two bearings in the air.

 

He didn't pull them to his hands. He anchored them, creating a fixed point in the air, and used his Quirk to pull himself toward them, altering his mid-air trajectory in a sharp, physically impossible ninety-degree angle, dodging the scorpion's tail strike completely.

 

As he sailed over the 2-Pointer's exposed back, he released his pull, grabbed the bearings out of the air, and slammed them physically into the exposed ventilation grates on the robot's spine. As he landed on the ground and rolled, he violently yanked the bearings back to his hands.

 

The kinetic pull ripped the ventilation grates and the essential cooling pipes straight out of the robot's back.

 

The 2-Pointer seized up, internal motors overheating instantly, and exploded in a shower of sparks.

 

Three points.

 

Izuku grinned. The fear that had plagued him for years evaporated. He was in his element. He was a force of gravity, manipulating weight and momentum like a maestro conducting a violent, metallic symphony.

 

 

 

High above the mock city, in a darkened observation room, the faculty of UA High School watched dozens of monitors.

 

"We have a promising crop this year," Midnight purred, tapping her riding crop against her chin. "Look at that boy with the explosions in Center A! Such raw, destructive power!"

 

"Indeed," Snipe nodded, adjusting his mask. "But power without control is a liability. I'm more interested in the tactical minds."

 

In the corner, obscured by shadows, a gaunt All Might watched a specific monitor focused on Center B, his skeletal hands gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles were white.

 

Eraserhead—Shota Aizawa—stood near the front, his tired, bloodshot eyes tracking the same monitor.

 

On the screen, Izuku Midoriya was a blur of green and steel. He wasn't destroying robots with massive explosions or lasers. He was dismantling them with surgical, terrifying precision. He would throw small metal objects past a robot, and moments later, the robot's head would cave in from behind. He was using heavy debris as anchor points to slingshot himself between buildings, moving faster than the eye could track.

 

"Who is the boy in Center B?" Aizawa asked, his voice a dry rasp. "The one acting like a human railgun."

 

Nezu, the principal, a strange amalgamation of a bear, mouse, and dog, clicked a button. "Ah! Izuku Midoriya. Quirk: Attraction of Small Objects."

 

"Attraction?" Vlad King scoffed. "He just ripped the treads off a 3-Pointer. That’s not attraction, that's heavy telekinesis."

 

"Technically, the registry says his weight limit was minimal," Nezu noted, sipping a cup of tea. "It seems the boy has discovered a workaround. By massively increasing his physical muscle mass, he's reinforced his telekinetic 'muscle.' And by pulling heavy, dense objects like tungsten at high velocities, he generates incredible kinetic force. It's a brilliant application of physics to overcome a biological limitation."

 

Aizawa narrowed his eyes. "He doesn't waste movements. He analyzes the weak points, strikes from blind spots, and uses the environment to his advantage. He fights like an underground hero."

 

All Might smiled in the shadows. Show them, my boy. Show them the power of a tactician.

 

Nezu placed his teacup down. "He has amassed forty-five villain points. Highly impressive for a utility Quirk. But... a true hero's mettle is not tested by how well they destroy. It is tested by how they react to true despair."

 

Nezu reached out and flipped a large, red switch on the console.

 

"Let's see how they handle the ultimate obstacle."

 

 

 

Izuku stood atop a crushed 3-Pointer, breathing heavily. He had fifty-two points by his count. He had burned through his adrenaline, and a dull, throbbing ache was beginning to form behind his eyes—the telltale sign of Quirk exhaustion. The constant whiplash of heavy metal was taking its toll.

 

Fifty-two should be enough, Izuku calculated, wiping sweat from his brow. I should spend the last three minutes doing reconnaissance or finding stragglers—

 

The ground beneath him violently bucked.

 

Izuku lost his footing, sliding off the robot as the entire city block groaned. The windows of the surrounding buildings shattered. A shadow fell over the street, blocking out the sun.

 

Izuku looked up, his blood running cold.

 

At the end of the main street, a machine the size of a skyscraper breached the pavement. It was colossal, a monstrosity of grey steel, glowing red eyes, and massive, crushing treads. It dwarfed the buildings around it.

 

The Zero Pointer.

 

"IT'S HUGE!" a student screamed.

 

Panic erupted. The examinees, who had been confidently destroying smaller robots moments before, broke rank and fled in sheer, primal terror.

 

Izuku turned to run. This was the obstacle. There was no tactical advantage to fighting a moving mountain. His tungsten bearings would be like throwing dust at a tank.

 

He took three steps toward the exit when a sound cut through the chaos.

 

A high-pitched, desperate cry of pain.

 

Izuku stopped dead. He snapped his head around, his eyes scanning the chaotic street.

 

The Zero Pointer raised a fist the size of a house, smashing it into the side of a building. Debris rained down like meteors.

 

Near the treads of the massive machine, trapped beneath a massive slab of fallen concrete, was Uraraka. She was pinned by her leg, her hands desperately trying to push the rock off, but she had reached her Quirk's weight limit. She was completely trapped.

 

And the Zero Pointer was rolling directly toward her.

 

Izuku’s brain froze for a fraction of a second.

 

Run, logic screamed. You can't lift that rock. It weighs tons. If you try to pull it, you'll just rip your Quirk muscle in half. You have no super strength. You can't save her.

 

The other students were running past him, ignoring her cries.

 

Izuku remembered Katsuki drowning in sludge while Pro Heroes stood and watched. He remembered the feeling of waiting for someone with a better Quirk to step in.

 

He didn't have All Might's power. He couldn't smash the robot.

 

But Izuku Midoriya was not going to stand and watch.

 

The throbbing in his head vanished, overridden by a surge of pure, heroic instinct. Izuku spun around and sprinted directly toward the towering behemoth.

 

In the observation room, the teachers leaned forward in shock.

 

"What is he doing?!" Midnight gasped. "He doesn't have the output for that!"

 

Izuku ran, his eyes locked on Uraraka, his mind executing calculations with terrifying speed.

 

I can't lift the rock. Law Number One: I can only pull what my body can lift. But Law Number Two... I can pull MYSELF to anything heavier than me.

 

Izuku looked at the environment. He needed height. He needed momentum.

 

Lying in the street ahead of him was a massive, heavy iron pipe, a piece of scaffolding blown off a building. It easily weighed a hundred pounds.

 

Izuku didn't stop running. He reached down, grabbed the iron pipe with both hands, and with a primal roar, hurled it up into the air, aiming directly for the Zero Pointer's face.

 

The pipe sailed upward, end over end.

 

Izuku jumped into the air, abandoning his footing entirely. He threw his hand up. He found the invisible cable in his chest and lashed it onto the flying iron pipe.

 

The pipe was heavier than his body, and it carried immense upward kinetic energy.

 

YANK.

 

Law Number Two engaged.

 

Izuku didn't pull the pipe down. The pipe violently ripped Izuku up.

 

Like a bullet fired from a gun, Izuku rocketed off the pavement, pulled by his own telekinetic force. He shot fifty feet into the air, soaring over the crumbling street, the G-force pressing his face back. He was a human missile, flying directly toward the Zero Pointer's chest.

 

"Woah!" Uraraka gasped, looking up through her tears as the green-haired boy flew through the sky above her.

 

As Izuku reached the apex of his arc, high above the crush zone, he severed the connection to the pipe. He began to fall, descending rapidly toward Uraraka and the fallen concrete.

 

The Zero Pointer raised its massive foot to crush the area.

 

I can't lift the rock, Izuku thought, the wind roaring in his ears as he plummeted, so I won't pull the rock!

 

Izuku extended his arms, diving like a falcon. As he neared the ground, he slammed his hands onto Uraraka's shoulders.

 

"Hold on to me!" Izuku screamed.

 

Uraraka wrapped her arms around his waist in sheer panic.

 

At that exact millisecond, Izuku activated his Quirk again. He didn't aim at the rock. He didn't aim at the robot.

 

He aimed his gaze at a reinforced steel streetlamp bolted into the concrete fifty yards down the street, far away from the Zero Pointer's treads.

 

He latched his invisible cable onto the base of the streetlamp.

 

PULL!

 

The strain was astronomical. He wasn't just pulling his own weight now; he was pulling his weight and Uraraka's weight, horizontally, against gravity.

 

Blood violently burst from Izuku's nose, splattering against his cheek. His vision swam with black spots, his brain screaming in agony as the telekinetic muscle reached its absolute breaking point.

 

But it held.

 

With a deafening CRACK of displaced air, Izuku and Uraraka were violently yanked horizontally across the pavement. They shot out from under the concrete slab like a canon ball, sliding across the asphalt just a fraction of a second before the Zero Pointer's massive tread came down, pulverizing the rock where Uraraka had been trapped into fine dust.

 

They skidded across the street, tumbling in a tangle of limbs before slamming heavily into the base of the streetlamp.

 

Izuku gasped, his Quirk automatically severing. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky, his chest heaving, his face covered in blood. The migraine in his head felt like a spike driven through his skull.

 

"TIME'S UP!" Present Mic's voice echoed across the ruined city.

 

The Zero Pointer froze, its red eyes dimming. The gears ground to a halt.

 

Total silence fell over Battle Center B.

 

Uraraka pushed herself up, trembling. She looked back at the pulverized concrete. She looked at the boy lying next to her. He hadn't destroyed the robot. But he had ripped her out of the jaws of death with terrifying speed.

 

"Y-You saved me," she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks.

 

Izuku slowly turned his head toward her, offering a weak, bloody smile.

 

"Basic physics, Uraraka-san," he rasped, before his eyes rolled back and he passed out cold.

 

 

 

One Week Later.

 

Izuku sat at his small desk in his bedroom, staring blankly at the wall. The bruises from the exam had faded, and Recovery Girl's kisses had healed his torn muscles, but the anxiety in his gut was a festering wound.

 

Fifty-two points. Was it enough? He had passed out before the exam ended. He didn't know the cutoff line. And worse, he had destroyed his body doing a rescue maneuver that earned him exactly zero villain points.

 

"Izuku!"

 

Inko burst into the room, sliding on the hardwood floor, a thick, pristine envelope clutched in her hands. The red wax seal of UA High School gleamed in the light.

 

"It's here! It came!" she squealed, practically vibrating with nervous energy.

 

Izuku’s heart stopped. He took the envelope. It felt incredibly heavy.

 

"Mom... can I open it alone?" he asked quietly.

 

Inko nodded, her eyes wide. "Of course. Take your time. I'll be in the kitchen." She quickly closed the door.

 

Izuku sat in his chair. He carefully broke the wax seal. He expected a letter, a simple 'yes' or 'no.' Instead, a small metal disc fell onto his desk.

 

The disc whirred to life. A holographic projection sprang upward, illuminating the dark room.

 

"I AM HERE AS A PROJECTION!" All Might's booming voice filled the room. The hero was in his suit, grinning widely from a desk.

 

Izuku gasped, pushing his chair back.

 

"Young Midoriya! You've had quite the week, I imagine!" All Might laughed. "I apologize for the delay. You see, I am teaching at UA High School this year! And I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing your exam results!"

 

All Might pressed a button. A scoreboard appeared on the screen.

 

"Izuku Midoriya. Fifty-two villain points!" All Might announced. "A solid score! Enough to pass on its own, barely!"

 

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

 

"But wait!" All Might held up a finger. "Do you think a hero course would reject those who do the right thing? Who risk everything to save a life?"

 

The hologram shifted, showing a video feed from the exam. It was the moment Izuku threw the pipe, the terrifying vertical launch, and the violent, horizontal extraction that saved Uraraka from being crushed.

 

"A hero course that ignores this is no hero course at all!" All Might proclaimed, his voice thick with emotion. "You didn't have the power to destroy the obstacle! So you adapted! You used your Quirk not as a weapon, but as a lifeline! You showed the very essence of heroism!"

 

A panel of judges appeared on the screen, holding up placards.

 

"Rescue Points!" All Might shouted. "Awarded by a panel of judges! Izuku Midoriya... Sixty Rescue Points!"

 

The scoreboard updated.

 

Izuku Midoriya: 112 Points. 1st Place.

 

Izuku stared at the number. One hundred and twelve. First place. He had beaten Bakugo. He had beaten everyone. Not by blowing things up, but by pulling the right things at the exact right time.

 

"You passed, Izuku," All Might smiled, reaching a hand out toward the camera as if reaching for Izuku himself. "Welcome. This is your Hero Academia."

 

The hologram clicked off, plunging the room into silence.

 

Izuku sat still for a long moment. He looked at his hand. He flexed his fingers. He didn't cry in despair this time. He smiled, a fierce, unbreakable smile.

 

He grabbed his notebook—Quirk Application & Mechanics: Vol. 13—and flipped to the next blank page.

 

He picked up his pen. The grind was over. The real work was about to begin.