hapter 4: The Strongest
An izuku landed flat on the concrete, back aching from the impact.
He groaned in pain as he sat back up after his fall. He looked to his left to see a bunch of him, tangled together on the ground. It was a very weird feeling.
"You adapted to this one pretty fast compared to the others," Aizawa said from somewhere above the pile.
One of him groaned. Then another. Then all four in sequence, a round of misery.
"Aw man. I seriously thought my last plan would get you." One of the izukus said from the bottom of the pile
"Eh. It was your closest attempt yet. And it might've worked if you could create more than four clones with this transformation." Aizawa praised the boy in front of him as he grabbed one of their shoulders and pulled them off the rest, untangling them
The morning sun glared down on the training grounds, dust kicking up as Aizawa set Deku, or at least one of them, on his feet. The other three clones peeled themselves off the concrete with identical wincing expressions.
Aizawa crossed his arms, scarf shifting slightly in the breeze. "Tho, four clones is double what you could create earlier so you are improving."
Deku rubbed his back and flashed a tired but proud smile. "Yeah! I've been practicing my stamina control during transformation. If I push it further, maybe five, or even six!"
One of the other clones grumbled while stretching, "Six?! You're gonna pass out again like you did after class yesterday..."
A third clone added: "...and then Ms. Midnight carried you to Recovery Girl like a sack of potatoes."
"Please don't remind me of that. And besides, that was before today's training session. Having multiple different bodies and feeling multiple different things all at once wasn't something I was used to yet." Izuku said.
Aizawa gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"Good. That means you're pushing your limits without breaking yourself," he said flatly, but there was something warm beneath the monotone. "Most students would've collapsed by now with that kind of quirk strain."
One of Deku's clones yawned dramatically and flopped back onto the ground like a deflated balloon. Another stretched its arms wide while muttering: "Sooo tired…" that one was then smacked upside the head by the one behind it
The original Deku rubbed his eyes, blinking rapidly to stay focused. "I-I'm okay! I can keep going! We've got another twenty minutes of endurance training!"
"Can we try again?" One of them asked
Aizawa looked at him for a long moment. Then at the clock on the wall of the training facility. Then back at the four identical small black and white beings who were all looking at him with the exact same expression of exhausted, slightly bruised determination.
"Two more rounds," he said. "Then you're done. You have registration in an hour and if you fall asleep during it I'm not covering for you."
The four Izukus grinned. It was a strange effect, four identical grins appearing in perfect sync.
"Don't grin," Aizawa said. "The next round you're not going to like."
The grins vanished.
"Wait-"
Aizawa's capture weapon shot forward.
The walk from the showers to Class 1-A's homeroom was becoming routine, but it didn't feel like routine yet. Every morning Izuku still caught himself glancing at the plaques beside the classroom doors as he passed, the little engraved numbers and course designations that still felt like they belonged to someone else's life.
General Studies. Support Course. Hero Course. He walked past all of them. He walked into the teacher's lounge to grab the attendance clipboard and the day's memos and the stack of handouts Aizawa had left on the designated shelf with a sticky note that read, simply, "Midoriya."
The teacher's lounge was empty at this hour except for Present Mic, who was eating what appeared to be a breakfast burrito the size of his forearm and humming a song Izuku didn't recognize. He waved as Izuku entered. Izuku waved back, grabbed the materials, and retreated before any questions could be asked. He still wasn't sure how much the other teachers knew about his situation, but he wasn't too in the mood to find out.
The hallway leading to 1-A was already buzzing with pre-class energy. Students clustered in loose groups, comparing notes, complaining about homework, rehashing training exercises from the day before. Izuku navigated through them with the hunched-shoulder efficiency of someone who had learned that eye contact invited conversation and conversation invited questions he didn't know how to answer.
"Morning, Midoriya-san!" Iida's voice cut through the ambient noise like a foghorn through mist.
Izuku flinched, nearly dropping the handouts. "G-good morning, Iida-kun."
"I saw your review of yesterday's training session that you sent to my email" iida started. "The tactical analysis you provided after the team exercise was quite insightful. I was hoping to discuss several points regarding my own performance and potential areas for-"
"dude. Let the guy breathe," kirishima said as he appeared next to iida as he took one of the handouts and had a look at what was on it.
"But I was merely-"
"Yeah I get it, you wanna talk to the dude. But you could at least let him put his stuff down first." Kirishima pointed out. A smile on his face as he looked at his classmate.
Iida paused, processed this, and nodded crisply. "Of course. I apologize, Midoriya-san. Enthusiasm can sometimes override my situational awareness."
"It's... it's fine," Izuku managed. "I'm happy to talk about it later."
The two boys moved towards their seats as izuku placed the handouts onto aizawas desk with a thud.
It wasn't long before aizawa entered class. Somehow izuku had gotten their before him, despite taking a shower and heading to his office.
Aizawa walked into the class to see izuku drawing stars in his notebook. It was starting to look like a starry sky or something.
"Still drawing stars," Aizawa said, entering the room without ceremony and dropping into his chair.
Izuku closed the notebook.
The rest of the class filtered in over the next several minutes. Ashido and Kaminari arrived together, tsuyu arrived a little later. Tokoyami glided to his seat with gravitas. Koda crept in quietly. Jiro had her earbuds in and didn't acknowledge anyone.
Bakugou entered last, and as usual, he gave deku an annoyed look. It was like everytime he saw him his day was ruined... Which didn't seem too farfetched
Izuku marked everyone present on the attendance sheet the moment they walked through, as always.
Registration passed without incident. Aizawa ran through announcements with the cadence of someone reading terms and conditions. No, there was no school holiday next week. Yes, the support course had requested volunteers for equipment testing, and no, volunteering did not excuse you from your other classes, Kaminari, stop raising your hand.
And as for the last announcement, he asked izuku to start handing out the handouts, which kirishima was already in possession of one.
"As you all know, we'll be going on a field trip to the usj. You're teachers have already been notified of this. And these handouts should tell you everything you need to know." Aizawa explained.
izuku noticed his phone was buzzing, so he took it out and noticed that it was Melissa texting him
Melissa: hey
Melissa: are you free during lunch
Melissa: i want to show you something
Melissa: in the support lab
Melissa: it's not done yet but
Melissa: i think you'll want to see it
Izuku stared at the screen. Six messages. From Melissa. Asking him to come to the support lab. To see something she'd been working on.
His face went through several shades of pink.
You: um, sorry. But yule have to wait to tomorrow. I have a field trip scheduled for today. To the USJ
He very quickly edited his text once he noticed the multiple errors
"Get off your shitty phone and gimme my damn handout deku!" Bakugou yelled as izuku had gotten so wrapped up in the text, he had forgotten he was handing out papers.
"Uh, sorry. I just-"
Bakugou grabbed one of the papers out of his arms and looked at it, waving izuku to go away.
Izuku sighed before walking away.
Izuku tucked his phone away quickly, face still warm as he finished distributing the handouts to the remaining students. Yaoyorozu accepted hers with a polite nod. Todoroki took his without looking up. Mineta tried to say something that Izuku very deliberately did not hear as he walked past.
His phone buzzed again in his pocket. He ignored it.
"The USJ facility is located off the main campus," Aizawa continued from the front, his voice carrying that particular brand of exhausted authority that somehow commanded more attention than any amount of shouting. "We'll be taking a bus. Departure is in thirty minutes. Use that time to change into your hero costumes and be at the front gate. If you're late, you're running laps until your legs give out."
A ripple of excitement went through the room. Uraraka was already out of her seat, grabbing Asui by the arm and talking animatedly about the rescue training they'd be doing. Kirishima was grinning, punching his fist into his palm. Even Tokoyami seemed quietly pleased, Dark Shadow peeking out from under his cloak with visible enthusiasm.
Izuku picked up his own handout and scanned it quickly. Rescue training. Disaster simulation. Multiple zones designed to replicate different emergency scenarios. The facility had been built by the school's support company and was apparently one of the most advanced training grounds in the country.
He was kinda excited. He wasn't sure if he'd get to train with the students or not, but even if he didn't that would be a whole bunch of new ways he would see them apply their quirks.
He folded the handout carefully and tucked it into his notebook.
"Midoriya-kun! Are you coming?" Uraraka called from the doorway, already halfway out with Asui and Hagakure.
"Y-yeah! Just give me one second!"
The classroom emptied quickly. Aizawa was already gone, having apparently vanished the moment announcements ended, which wasn't unusual for him. Izuku was alone with his notebook and the lingering sensation that he'd forgotten something important.
His phone buzzed again.
Melissa: oh
Melissa: the USJ
Melissa: uncle might mentioned that
Melissa: *might have
Melissa: anyway tomorrow then! Cause I won't be coming
Melissa: good luck today!
He stared at the messages for approximately fifteen seconds, face cycling through expressions he was grateful no one was around to see, before typing out a quick response.
You: Thanks! I'll come by first thing tomorrow. Promise.
He shoved the phone into his bag and hurried toward the changing rooms.
The bus ride was twenty-three minutes.
Izuku sat near the front, which meant he was adjacent to the driver and technically not part of the class seating arrangement, which meant he got a clear acoustic view of the ongoing conversation about Quirk rankings that erupted approximately four minutes in and did not stop.
"-I mean if we're talking raw power ceiling then Todoroki is obviously-"
"Bakugo scored highest on the entrance exam-"
"Scoring highest and being the strongest aren't the same thing-"
"They're literally the same thing-"
"Um, no, they are not."
Izuku had two pages of notes before they reached the highway.
"It's gotta be Bakugo," Kirishima was saying, looking genuinely excited as always. "Entrance exam scores don't lie. Seven hundred meters on the ball throw-"
"The Quirk apprehension test doesn't much count, seeing as most of us couldn't use our Quirks to the fullest in that match as we would in a fight," Yaoyorozu said, precisely. "If his full range is accounted for, the comparison becomes considerably less straightforward."
"Okay but like, in terms of straight power, bakugou obviously wins out"
"Neither of you are thinking about this correctly," Kaminari said, which caused several people to look at him in a way that suggested he was third-partying this conversation and nobody liked a third party. "It's not about output, it's about versatility. Like, Todoroki can do two completely different things. That's twice as many things."
"That's not how power scaling works," Bakugo said flatly, from the back.
"How does it work then?"
"It works however I say it works!"
"That's also not how-"
"Midoriya," Aizawa said from his seat.
The bus went quiet.
"The answer to the question... is Midoriya."
"...The TA?!"
Izuku looked down at his notebook as if it was the most important thing in the world. Mainly because he was way too embarrassed to look at the reactions from the rest of the class. Also because he didn't wanna meet bakugou's gaze
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say anything like that"
"Midoriya," Aizawa repeated, still not opening his eyes from his halfway-to-asleep slump against the window, "stop talking."
He stopped talking.
The bus erupted.
"Wait, the TA is stronger than Bakugo and Todoroki?" Kaminari voiced, rather shocked at aizawas declaration. "As in the clipboard guy? Who stands around watching us train? Im not even confident I know his name!"
"He's not even in the hero track!"
"Have you seen his Quirk? I haven't seen his Quirk. Has anyone seen his Quirk?"
"I asked him about it once and he got really shifty," Ashido supplied, leaning into the aisle "I thought he was just being kinda weird about it."
Izuku stared fixedly at the window, watching telephone poles whip past and wishing, not for the first time, that the ground would open up and swallow him.
"Technically," Yaoyorozu said, her analytical tone cutting through the chaos, "Aizawa-sensei said the answer to the question was Midoriya. He didn't specify what question was being answered."
"What other question would he be answering?!"
"Um.."
"Come on guys think about it. You said becoming a teaching assistant at ua was like really tough right yaomomo?" Ashido started "well he became aizawas teaching assistant, which must be much more difficult than becoming a regular teaching assistant despite being the same age as us. And we don't even know his quirk. Plus, didn't all might pull him aside to have some super secret conversation during our first combat training?"
"Oh yeah. When you put it like that he must be really powerful."
"There is a significant gap between 'secretly powerful' and 'stronger than the top two scorers in our class,'" Yaoyorozu said, though her eyes had taken on the analytical gleam of someone who was already rethinking her rankings of everyone in the class. "Aizawa-sensei, with respect, what are you basing that assessment on?"
"Experience," Aizawa said.
"Could you elaborate?"
"No."
Todoroki, seated two rows behind Izuku, spoke for the first time. "What's his Quirk?"
The bus went quiet again. Everyone wanted to know. No one had ever gotten a straight answer. Izuku had been a teaching assistant for over a week now, had observed every combat exercise, had taken notes on every student's Quirk, and not once had he demonstrated what he could actually do.
"That's classified," Aizawa said.
"That's so unfair," Ashido complained, slumping against her seat. "You can't just say something like that and then not explain it."
"I can and I just did."
"Why is it classified though?" Kaminari pressed, apparently emboldened by Ashido's frustration. "Like, is he secretly a pro hero in disguise? Is he All Might's secret love child? Oh man, is he a government experiment?"
"I'm not a government experiment," Izuku said quietly, mostly to his notebook.
"That's exactly what a government experiment would say!"
"Maybe his Quirk is, like, analysis?" Kaminari speculated, finger tapping his chin. "He does take a lot of notes."
"Analysis isn't a quirk," Jiro pointed out, one earbud dangling. "That's just being observant."
"Okay but what if it's combat analysis? Like he can see your weaknesses instantly?"
"Still not classified material."
"What if he's actually a third-year they're hiding among us for some reason?" Hagakure's gloves waved excitedly. "Like an undercover thing!"
Bakugou made a noise from the back that was somewhere between a scoff and a growl. "No you dumbass, he's the same age as the rest of ya."
"How would you know?"
"Cause we know each other dumbass!" Izuku couldn't see his expression, but he was sure it wasn't happy. And the fact that he smelt a little bit of smoke probably wasn't a coincidence.
Bakugou was clearly pissed, but based off their last conversation, he probably wouldn't blow up about it until he was alone... Which was.. not something izuku knew bakugou to do.
Oh and it didn't help his nerves that todoroki was staring him up and down like he was something to be studied.
"No but seriously what kinda quirk gets classified?" Kaminari asked the question
"A Classified one"
The USJ was bigger than Izuku had expected.
And he'd expected it to be very big.
The domed facility rose out of the campus outskirts like something from a science fiction movie, all sweeping curves and reinforced architecture designed to withstand whatever quirks were thrown at it. Through the massive entrance doors, Izuku could see the interior stretching out in every direction. zones meticulously crafted to simulate disasters, each one distinct and sprawling.
"This is incredible," Uraraka breathed, tilting her head back to take in the full scope of the structure. "It's like an entire city in here."
"Thirteen designed most of the zones herself," Aizawa said, leading the class through the main entrance plaza. "The Unforeseen Simulation Joint exists to prepare you for scenarios no amount of classroom training can replicate. Floods, fires, structural collapses, landslides, every disaster you can think of is represented here."
Thirteen started speaking. The space hero's helmet gleamed under the dome's artificial lighting as she addressed the class with the practiced enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loved her work.
"Welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint! Or as I like to call it, the USJ!" Thirteen spread her arms wide, encompassing the vast facility behind her. "As Aizawa mentioned, this facility was designed to train heroes in rescue operations across a variety of disaster scenarios. But before we begin, I want to say a few words about Quirks and responsibility."
Izuku had heard this speech before, or at least a version of it. Thirteen was famously passionate about Quirk safety and the ethical use of powers, a perspective born from firsthand experience with how catastrophically wrong rescue operations could go when abilities were misapplied.
"Your Quirks are incredible tools," Thirteen continued, her tone shifting from enthusiastic to earnest. "But they are also incredibly dangerous. A Quirk used carelessly during a rescue operation doesn't just fail to help. It can actively make the situation worse. I've seen it happen. I want each of you to leave here today with a deeper understanding of how your powers can save lives, not just defeat villains-"
Izuku would have started taking notes... Had he not been distracted by the incredibly strong feeling that he was being watched.
He must've developed a better sense for when he was being watched during his training with aizawa, as he was the only other person who seemed to tense up.
"-And lastly, I want to emphasize something that I think often gets overlooked in hero training." Thirteen paused, her helmet tilting slightly as she scanned the assembled students. "Saving people isn't just about defeating villains. It's about preserving life. Those are not always the same thing."
"Right then!" Thirteen clapped her gloved hands together. "With all that said, let's get started. The first exercise will be-"
"Um, miss thirteen. Is that apart of the excersize?" Izuku asked, pointing towards the fountain which was folding in on itself as a swirling mass of black mist covered the area.
The words were barely out of Izuku's mouth before Aizawa was moving.
"Thirteen. Protect the students." His voice was ice. His capture weapon was already unfurling from his shoulders, floating in the air, just about ready for use. "Midoriya, get everyone to the exit. Now."
"But sensei, what's-" iida was about to ask before izuku interrupted him a
"That's not part of the exercise."
The swirling mass at the fountain expanded outward. And from within that mist, figures began to emerge.
Dozens of them.
Villains.
The last to come out of the portal was a man with cyan colored hair, his body covered by dismembered hands as his red eyes stared through the cracks of the fingers
"Kurogiri," the man said, his voice rasping like dry paper, "where is All Might? I don't see him."
"It appears he's not here, Shigaraki." The mist itself spoke, yellow eyes forming in the darkness. "According to the schedule we procured, he was supposed to be present today."
The pale-haired man, Shigaraki, scratched at his neck viciously. "Not here. Not here. I brought all these NPCs and the final boss doesn't even show up?" His scratching intensified. "That's not fair. That's cheating. If he's not here, what's even the point?"
"Perhaps we should withdraw-"
"No." Shigaraki's scratching stopped. His visible eye swept across the plaza, past the students, past Thirteen, and landed on Aizawa. "No, we're already here. We'll just have to make sure All Might has a reason to show up." Under the mask his cracked lips raised into a smile. "Let's kill some kids."
The villains surged forward.
"Huddle up and stay together!" Thirteen shouted, her hand already raising, finger caps flipping open. "Iida, get to the main campus and alert the other teachers! The rest of you, defensive formation!"
"On it!" Iida was already sprinting, engines flaring to life in his calves.
The mist villain Kurogiri began to expand.
"I'm afraid I can't allow that," his voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "Young heroes though you may be, you are still merely students. My role here is to scatter you, and scatter you I will"
Before izuku could slam the omnitrix, the mist totally engulfed him, as well as most of his classmates.
He hit the ground hard.
The impact drove the air out of his lungs and sent his clipboard clattering away into the dark. He was on his hands and knees before he knew what he was doing, gasping, his ears ringing, his vision swimming with the afterimage of that purple-black void.
"Midoriya?"
That was Iida's voice. Izuku's head snapped up. Through the blur of his own disorientation he could see Iida standing a few meters away, his glasses askew but his he was already getting back up to his feet. Beside him, Kaminari was on the ground, groaning and clutching his head.
"Ow," Kaminari said, in pajn. "What was that? That was, what was that?!"
"Teleportation," Izuku said, pushing himself to his feet. His legs wobbled. His chest ached. That mist villain had dropped him from pretty high up, not high enough to kill them. But high enough to leave them in major pain. "Some kind of warping Quirk."
"Where are the others?" Iida asked, his voice steady despite the situation. His engines were still glowing faintly, ready to fire. "We were all together, and then-"
"That mist villain," Izuku said. "He must have used his Quirk to scatter everyone across the facility. Different zones, probably. Keep us separated."
"Divide and conquer," Iida murmured. "A classic tactic. If we're isolated, we're easier to pick off."
Kaminari scrambled to his feet, looking around wildly. "So what do we do now? We're stuck in some random part of this place with no idea where anyone else is, and there's villains everywhere, i'd say they're plan worked pretty well.'
Izuku looked around at the area, "We're in the Ruins Zone."
"Dang, that means we're pretty far away from the entrance huh?"
"Yes, but if we can get him to the door, he can get out and call the teachers to help us" izuku said.
"But are you sure that'd be okay? I don't wish to abandon my fellow classmates after all."
"Don't worry about it, we can protect ourselves." Kaminari said to the blue haired boy. "Way I see it, that's a pretty good plan"
"We need to move," Izuku said, keeping his voice low. "If the mist villain seperated students, he probably dropped villains near each group. They'll be searching for us."
"How do you know that?" Kaminari asked.
"Hey, there are some kids over there. Get em!"
A group of villains came around the corner. About 20, maybe 25
"That's at least 20 guys" Izuku muttered, eyes flicking across the approaching threat. "Iida, how long to get from here to the exit?"
"At full speed? Forty-five seconds, maybe less if I can find a straight path."
"Too long. They'll catch you before you clear the zone." Izuku's hand moved to his wrist, fingers hovering over the Omnitrix dial. "Kaminari, can you give us a shockwave? Something wide enough to buy Iida a window?"
Kaminari's face went through several expressions in rapid succession, fear, determination, and then a grin that was only slightly shaky. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Just, uh, don't stand too close to me when I let it rip."
"Noted." Izuku twisted the dial. The Omnitrix's faceplate rose, green light spilling across the ruined street. "Iida, the second Kaminari clears a path, you run. Don't look back, don't stop for anything. Get to the school and bring help."
"But what about you two-"
"We'll be fine." Izuku's voice was steadier than he felt. "Trust me."
Iida hesitated for exactly half a second. Then his engines roared to life. "Understood."
The villains were thirty meters out now. Twenty-five.
Izuku stepped behind a building "Kaminari, now!"
"Indiscriminate Shock: 1.3 Million Volts!"
The electricity arced outward in a brilliant cascade, lighting up the ruined buildings like a second sun. Kaminari's Quirk ripped through the narrow street, catching the front line of villains mid-charge and sending them convulsing to the ground. The ones behind them scrambled backward, shouting warnings, their advance shattered into confusion.
"Wheyyyy!" Kaminari's face went slack, his thumbs rising in a dopey double-thumbs-up. "That was a good one, wasn't it?"
Iida was already gone. The roar of his engines faded into the distance, a streak of blue light disappearing around a corner.
"He's through!" Izuku grabbed Kaminari by the collar of his costume and hauled him behind the crumbling wall he'd taken cover behind. "Nice work! Now stay low-"
"Hey, don't ignore us!"
A villain with some kind of blade arm came around the corner swinging. Izuku twisted the Omnitrix dial and slammed it down.
His skin slowly turned a sickly insect green as a large horn like structure popped out of his head.
His neck slowly shrunk along with the rest of his body as it started to look malnourished.
His backside extended out into a large thorax and his arms became spindly, with three fingers and spikes ripping out from the forearms
His legs bent backwards, in a totally unnatural way before bending back straight to a point. His feet grew while his legs did not.
Kaminari, still in his post-shock stupor, blinked slowly and made a sound that might have been "woah" or might have been the electricity still fizzling in his brain.
The blade-arm villain's attack hit empty air.
And then something launched from the light.
Izuku landed on the opposite wall, his now insectoid legs bent like coiled springs, his triangular head swiveling toward the group of villains with compound eyes that reflected their confused faces a dozen times over. The Omnitrix symbol glowed green on his chest.
"What the hell is that?!" one of the villains shouted.
"That's a kid!"
"Doesn't matter what it is, kill it!"
Three of them rushed forward, quirks activating mid-stride. One's arms elongated into whips. Another's skin turned to stone. The third just pulled out a knife, which honestly seemed a little underwhelming compared to the other two.
Izuku didn't wait for them to close the distance.
He launched.
The wall cratered beneath his feet as he shot forward, trajectory arcing over the villains' heads in a trajectory that was almost comically high. They looked up, tracking him, and that was exactly what he wanted.
He came down on the stone-skin villain's shoulders, legs folding, then released.
The villain was driven into the ground like a stake. Izuku was already in the air again, twisting mid-flight to kick the whip-armed villain across the face with a leg that had no right to move that fast. The man spun and collapsed, his own arms tangling around him.
The knife-wielder hesitated.
Izuku landed in front of him, crouched low, head tilted at an angle that was deeply unsettling on a face that looked like a grasshopper.
"Hi," izuku said. His voice was different in this form. higher, chitterier, with an almost musical quality that made the single syllable sound profoundly wrong coming from something that could jump over a building. "You should probably run."
The villain ran.
"Smart guy." Izuku straightened up and turned toward the rest of the group still about fifteen of them, clustered together now, reassessing. "Okay, so here's the thing. I don't want to hurt any of you. But I also can't let you hurt my students. So if everyone just wants to, I don't know, sit down and wait for the pros to arrive, that would be greatly appreciated."
One of the villains laughed. "You're outnumbered fifteen to one, bug-boy."
"Technically," izuku said, and his legs bent, "I'm at a seventeen to one disadvantage. But I feel like numbers aren't really the point here."
He launched again.
Fourteen villains later, izuku landed next to Kaminari, who had recovered enough to be staring with wide eyes and an open mouth.
"Dude," Kaminari said. "Dude. What is your Quirk?"
"Complicated." He said as he transformed back in a burst of red light.
"That was like really cool. You were like some kinda crash hopper or something! You get it? Cause you were... Crashing into things.. and you look like..- you get it, you get the joke"
Izuku nodded. It was a bad joke but he didn't want kaminari to feel bad "I really hope Iida's gotten to ua already."
Izuku said, worrying for this boy he'd come to consider a friend.
"So you must have a lot more tricks up your sleeve right? I mean sure your pretty powerful as is, but mr aizawa said you were the strongest guy here and I don't really think you could beat bakugou with whatever you showed off just now" denki stated to which izuku sweat dropped
He had forgotten about the bus, ride and how aizawa had talked about him, it was still really embarrassing.
The edge of the Ruins Zone gave way to a vantage point overlooking the central plaza. It wasn't a clean view, the collapsed buildings provided cover, but also obstruction, and they had to crouch behind a half-fallen wall to get a clear line of sight. But what they saw made the both of them go still.
Aizawa was currently fighting.
The plaza was a warzone. Villains lay scattered across the pavement, unconscious or groaning or simply too injured to move. The man with the severed hands was standing near the fountain, watching the carnage with an expression of detached interest. And in the middle of it all, moving like some kinda ninja, Aizawa was dismantling every villain who got close.
It was in this moment that denki had seen just how strong his teacher really was, and this was when Izuku finally got to see aizawa going all out, no holding back. In the span of fifteen seconds, Izuku watched him neutralize six villains without appearing to speed up or slow down. He was totally unstoppable.
Well... Almost unstoppable.
The giant bird like creature with the exposed brain that had come through the portal along with the hand villain. Izuku had noticed it earlier, standing motionless near the fountain, but now it was moving with a speed that didn't match its bulk. It crossed the distance between the fountain and Aizawa in the space of a breath, and its hand closed around Aizawa's arm before the teacher could react.
The sickening crunch of bone echoed across the plaza.
"Eraserhead," the hand villain said, his voice carrying an edge of genuine admiration. "You're so cool. But you're not the final boss. Nomu was built to fight All Might," Shigaraki said, scratching at his neck with increasing intensity. "Compared to him, you're basically a tutorial boss. No special mechanics. No second phase. Just... an obstacle."
The creature, Nomu, moved again. Aizawa was slammed into the concrete with a force that spiderwebbed the ground beneath him. His capture weapon went slack. Blood pooled beneath his head.
"Kurogiri," Shigaraki said. "Where are the students?"
"Scattered across the facility. The warping was successful." The mist villain's yellow eyes materialized near the fountain. "Should I retrieve Thirteen as well? She was incapacitated earlier."
"No. Leave the trash where it is. We're here for All Might." Shigaraki's visible eye swept across the plaza,
Izuku couldn't move.
He was frozen behind the wall, watching his teacher get beaten into the ground by a monster that wasn't even trying, and his legs wouldn't move. His hands wouldn't move. His mind was screaming at him to do something, anything, but his body had locked up like an engine without fuel. He wasn't sure what to do.
"Midoriya," kaminari hissed. "Midoriya, we gotta figure something out. That thing is flattening aizawa sensei."
"I know."
"Aizawa-sensei is gonna die if this keeps up"
"I know."
Kaminari was pale. "What do we do? What can we do?"
Izuku looked down at the Omnitrix. this thing was usually pretty unreliable, never giving him the form he asked for. But this one time, this one moment. He was praying for the watch to not screw him over
"I'm going down there," he said.
"Midoriya, that's suicide-"
"I know what it is." He stood up. His legs were shaking, but he stood up anyway. "But, like you said, Aizawa-sensei is going to die if someone doesn't help him. And I'm the only one here who can take a hit from that thing and get back up."
"How do you know that?"
He didn't. he wasn't sure wether this thing would give him the right form to take a hit. But he had to try.
He slammed his hand down on the Omnitrix.
His whole body grew in size, as he developed hard scales that peppered his body. On the outer side of his body these scales were a brownish color. Meanwhile on the inner part of his body, these scales were a cream like color
A tail ripped out from his backside, reaching about 3 meters long.
When it was over, he was enormous.
Twelve feet tall. Armored plates running down his back. Arms that looked like they could punch through reinforced concrete and ask for seconds. He took a step and felt the ground tremble beneath his weight.
"Oh," Kaminari said, barely a whisper. "Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. That's-" He swallowed hard, his voice cracking with equal parts terror and awe. "Woah. This one's a real... humungous... saur." He winced at his own joke even as he said it. "That was bad. I know that was bad. I'm sorry."
The giant creature, the Humungousaur, turned its massive head toward Kaminari and for a moment, it said nothing.
Then he spoke, his voice way deeper than ever before. "That was terrible."
"I KNOW."
The Humungousaur turned back toward the plaza, looking at the giant monster which was slammed his teachers head into the ground.
"Stay here," Izuku said. "If this goes wrong, run."
He launched himself off the ledge.
The impact of his landing shook the plaza. Concrete cracked beneath his feet. Every villain still standing turned to look. The hand villain tilted his head, his visible eye narrowing in clear curiosity and confusion. He hadn't seen anyone on the battlefield like this.
"A new player," he said. "What's this? Another hero brat?"
The Humungousaur straightened to its full height, standing at a good twelve feet tall. Way taller than anyone else on the field. He was a good few feet taller than even the nomu, which had stopped beating up aizawa and was now staring dead at the dinosaur like opponent in front of it
"Nomu, forget eraser, just kill that kid" shigaraki yelled at the creature, causing it to get up off of the bloody and beaten aizawa and rush at humongousour at incredible speed
"Stay away from my teacher," Izuku Midoriya said.
The Humungousaur hit the Nomu like a meteor.
The impact cratered the plaza floor, concrete rippling outward in concentric rings The shockwave knocked over the nearest villains, sent debris skittering across the fountain plaza, and forced the hand villain to take a step back for the first time since the attack began.
"Damn, this one's tough. Gonna need the nomu to kill him for good." Shigaraki muttered to kurogiri
The nomu retaliated with a punch of its own, delivered right to izukus neck, knocking the wind out of him
Then Nomu's fist caught him in the ribs.
The blow lifted him off his feet. He hit the ground rolling, crashing through the remains of a decorative planter and coming up in a crouch, those punches really hurt, had he been any other form he might've been instantly defeated.
"You're tough," Shigaraki observed, scratching at his neck with quick, jerky movements. "That's annoying. Nomu was supposed to be the only one. Who even are you?"
The Humungousaur didn't answer. It was already moving again.
Nomu met him in the center of the plaza. This time Izuku didn't try to grapple. He threw a punch instead, a full-body swing with every ounce of his twelve-foot frame behind it. It connected with Nomu's jaw. The crack echoed off the dome ceiling. Nomu's head snapped sideways.
But that didn't even stagger it.
And just like that the two collosuses were brawling it out, throwing blow after blow at one another at speeds no one else could quite track.
Each punch was cracking the concrete and creating shockwaves that kept anyone from getting close to this clash of the titans.
Humongousour grabbed the nomu by the waste, tossing it into the mountain zone and chasing after it,
The moment he got close enough he rammed the creature with his shoulder, trying to push it deeper into the mountain but it stopped him by grabbing his face with one of it's hands. It would've crushed his eye completely, had izuku been any slower to slip out of its grasp.
Tho this left him completely open to getting kneed in the jaw, causing him to spit up saliva.
The creature kept piling on the punishment, throwing a punch that would've totally launched him had he not grabbed onto a tree and anchored himself to the ground.
He then uprooted the tree and slammed it at the creature like a baseball bat, which threw it to the ground.
While it was on the ground, humongousour started beating it with the tree, as if the tree was some sort of bat.
The nomu quickly regained its bearings. Punching the tree, and totally ripping it in half. But izuku wouldn't let it get up as, the moment it stood, izuku rammed it using the tree that was now splintered and pointy at the end.
The tree totally speared the creature. But that wasn't enough to stop it as it started walking through the tree to get to izuku which put a hole in its stomach.
It swung but humongousour dodged, grabbing the creature by the shoulders and headbutting it, causing it's footprints to indent into the ground.
While it was slightly dazed from this, izuku took the opportunity to slam one of his fists down into the creatures brain, which caused it to start screaming in pain and confusion.
Izuku kept the attacks to its weak point coming. Slamming a hammer arm down onto the creatures brain, which nailed the creature even deeper into the ground.
Ad humongousour was charging up another hammer arm the nomu grabbed him by the leg and slammed him into the ground hard enough to leave a crater the size of a car. Izuku kicked free, rolled, came up swinging, and caught Nomu across the face with an elbow that would have decapitated anything human.
In this case, what it did was rip the nomu out of the ground. Allowing it to regain its bearings and rush him, grabbing him by the waste and pushing him towards the water zone
At the edge of the plaza, behind a collapsed section of railing, half of Class 1-A watched in silence.
They had found each other in the chaos. Uraraka, Ashido, Kirishima, Sero, and Jiro had stumbled together near the Mountain Zone, and from there they'd worked their way toward the central plaza, picking off straggler villains as they went. They'd heard the fighting before they'd seen it. They'd felt it in their bones.
Now they saw it.
"Holy crap," Kirishima whispered. He was hardened to his maximum, his skin a jagged shield of rock, and even he looked fragile compared to what was happening in the plaza. "Holy shit, that's Midoriya?"
"What?! How can you tell?" Uraraka asked in shock
"Look at that thing on his chest, it's the same as the watch on midobros wrist." Kirishima pointed out.
"Holy crap, yeah. That has to be midoriya."
"He's going toe-to-toe with that thing," Ashido said. "and they're totally tearing up the usj. This level of power is just... Insane."
"You can say that again," Jiro said, her earphone jacks twitching with every impact. "I've never even seen pro heroes fight on this level. None the less someone my age."
"That's manly as hell," Kirishima said.
No one argued.
Uraraka's eyes tracked the fight, her mind racing through the implications. She'd known Izuku was hiding something. Everyone had known. The way Aizawa had talked about him on the bus, the way he deflected questions about his Quirk, the way he carried himself like someone who was always holding something back. But this? This was a whole new level. No wonder aizawa had called him the strongest person here. With something like that in his back pocket it was clear that he was
"We should help him," she said.
"How?" Sero asked, and it wasn't dismissive. It was genuine. "What are any of us supposed to do against that?"
Uraraka didn't have an answer.
Bakugo had an answer.
He'd been watching from a different angle, crouched behind a collapsed pillar near the entrance to the Flood Zone. He'd been watching since the Humungousaur had first slammed into the plaza, and every second of it had made something inside him burn hotter and hotter until he couldn't stand it anymore.
That was Deku. He didn't need to see the stupid watch thing. He could just tell
This was the same Deku who had followed him around as a kid, notebook in hand, muttering about Quirks he didn't have and dreams he couldn't reach. The same Deku who had shown up at UA with some shitty job. The same deku who wouldn't stay down. And now deku was in a form that towered over him and had a level of power he could only imagine reaching
When the hell had that happened?
When had Deku gotten strong enough to fight on this level? When had he closed the gap? When had he left Bakugo behind?
The thought was unacceptable. The thought was a splinter driven deep under his skin, impossible to ignore, impossible to remove. Bakugo Katsuki did not get left behind. Bakugo Katsuki did not watch while someone else fought the strongest enemy on the field.
"Like hell," he snarled under his breath.
He launched himself out of cover before he'd finished the thought.
Explosions propelled him across the plaza so fast that he barely registered as a streak of light. He came in high, both palms aimed, and the twin blasts that erupted from his hands caught Nomu square in the side of the head. The creature staggered. Not much. Just a half-step. But it was the first time anything other than Izuku had made it move.
"Deku!" Bakugo's voice was a roar that matched the explosions. "What the hell do you think you're doing?! This isn't your fight! This is my fight! This is my-"
Nomu's arm swung wide.
Bakugo saw it coming. He was already twisting, already firing a blast to propel himself out of range. But Nomu was faster than it looked, faster than anything that size had a right to be, and the edge of the swing caught him across the shoulder. He went spinning into the fountain with a crash that sent water exploding in all directions.
He was back on his feet in an instant, drenched, furious, one arm hanging slightly lower than it should. "You bastard-"
"Kacchan, get back!" The Humungousaur's voice was a grinding roar. "This thing isn't something you can handle, you can't just-"
"Shut up! I can do whatever I want! I'm going to be the number one hero you damn nerd, and I ain't gonna let some damn bird get in my way!"
Nomu was on him again. Bakugo barely dodged, blasting himself sideways, and the fist that would have caved in his skull cratered the fountain instead. He landed hard on the wet concrete and rolled, coming up with his palms already sparking.
Then ice swallowed Nomu's legs.
It came from the left, a glacier in miniature, freezing the creature from the waist down in seconds. The ice groaned and cracked as Nomu flexed against it, but it held. At least for the moment, it held.
Todoroki Shouto walked into the plaza with frost curling off his right side and his expression as unreadable as ever. "So, this thing is the strongest enemy on the field huh? If I beat it, then that makes me the strongest person here right?"
"Get outta my way icy hot! The only person who deserves to be called the strongest is me!"
"Let's see how well you're determination holds up when I defeat it first."
The ice cracked. Nomu's leg tore free, shattering the frozen restraints, and the creature turned its dead gaze toward Todoroki.
The Humungousaur hit Nomu from behind while it was distracted, a full-body tackle that drove it face-first into the concrete. He held it there for a two-count, three-count, four-count, then it threw him off like a horse bucking a rider. He crashed through the remains of a market stall and came up gasping.
"Midoriya." Todoroki's voice was calm, but there was still some bite in it, almost as if he was frustrated. "You've done enough. Regroup with the others. We'll handle this."
"I can still-"
"I said leave. This is a fight for the strongest. So just sit back and watch me take that title from you."
The Omnitrix beeped.
Then it beeped again.
Then again.
Before he knew it, a red light engulfed him, making him humanoid again.
He looked at Bakugo, soaked and furious and already pushing himself up for another attack. He looked at Todoroki, who was surrounded in ice and looked like true number one material. Two of the strongest students in Class 1-A. Two of the strongest future heroes in the country.
They had this.
Or at least, they had it more than he did right now.
He watched Bakugo and Todoroki square off against Nomu, and the thought that settled in his chest wasn't anger or frustration or despair. It was something quieter. Something that tasted like acceptance.
They're stronger than me.
It wasn't self-pity. It wasn't even resentment. It was just a fact. For all the power the Omnitrix gave him, for all the forms and abilities and potential, he was still learning. Still growing. Still the kid who'd been Quirkless for fifteen years and was only now starting to figure out what he could do.
Bakugo and Todoroki had been training their whole lives. They'd been born with power and honed it every day since. The gap between them wasn't something he could close in a week and a half. Maybe not in a month. Maybe not ever.
The fight continued without him.
Bakugo and Todoroki circled Nomu like wolves around a bear, and the bear was not cooperating. Everything about the creature was designed to overwhelm. Its speed. Its strength. Its regeneration. It didn't tire. It didn't slow. It didn't make mistakes.
And that was really making taking this thing down seem impossible
"Stop freezing the ground where I'm standing, you half-and-half bastard!"
"Stop melting my ice before it can immobilize him!"
"I'll stop exploding em when they stop getting in my way dumbass."
Nomu punched through an ice wall and nearly took Bakugo's head off. Bakugo retaliated with a point-blank blast that would have killed a normal person three times over. The nomu simply stood there and took it, it's regeneration fixing what little burn damage his explosion did.
"This thing's cheating," Bakugo snarled. "How is that fair? How is any of this fair?"
"Villains don't care about fair, if you don't get that you don't deserve to compete with me" Todoroki said, and the frost spreading across his right side was starting to slow. He was reaching his thermal limit. Too much ice, too fast, and his body temperature would drop below functional levels. He needed to use his fire. He hadn't used his fire once since the fight began.
They were being worn down slowly and they couldn't keep fighting like this.
Above them, at the edge of the plaza, the rest of Class 1-A was doing what they could.
Uraraka had organized the stragglers. She'd spotted the villains who were still conscious, the ones who hadn't fled when the Humungousaur had started smashing through their ranks, and she'd coordinated a clean-up operation with the kind of tactical efficiency that would have made Iida proud. Ashido was melting escape routes shut. Sero was taping down anyone who moved. Kirishima was providing a front line for anyone who tried to fight back. Jiro was tracking enemy positions with her earphone jacks and calling them out as they moved.
It was working. The villain stragglers were being neutralized. The ones who could run were running. The ones who couldn't were surrendering. The plaza was becoming less of a warzone by the second.
But the real fight was still happening in the center.
"Shigaraki," Kurogiri said, his mist-form coalescing beside the hand villain. "Several of the students have organized a counter-offensive. Our forces are being thinned. Additionally, I've detected movement from the main campus. Reinforcements are likely en route."
Shigaraki scratched at his neck. Harder now. Faster. "This isn't how it was supposed to go. We were supposed to kill All Might. We were supposed to win. Why aren't we winning?"
"The large one engaged Nomu longer than anticipated. The students are more capable than the files indicated. And All Might-"
"Isn't here yet." Shigaraki's scratching slowed. His visible eye, the one not obscured by the hand on his face, fixed on something across the plaza. "That one. The big one. He's not big anymore."
Kurogiri followed his gaze. Izuku, running towards the fight looking exhausted.
"What the hell is he doing?"
The fight was still ongoing, but the two teens had slowed down considerably. How the hell did midoriya fight this thing head on? They were at risk of death Everytime this thing moved.
Bakugou fired a powerful explosion at the creature, but it didn't flinch, and it tried to counter attack with a punch that would've totally cratered his gut. But a spilt second before it had the chance to land, a decent sized rock hit the creature in its brain. Causing it to whiff the blow.
It turned to see an exhausted midoriya staring up at it with a rock in his hands.
"Midoriya/Deku, what the hell do you think you're doing!?" The two called out in unison
"Im sorry ma'am but I'm afraid your son will never develop a quirk. So he should give up on becoming a hero"
"You should pray for a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of the building."
"I'm sorry young man, but I'm afraid it's impossible to become a hero without a quirk."
"No. teaching assistants can't become heroes. There's very little precedent for teaching assistants at hero schools to be teenagers. And in none of those cases has anyone gotten a hero license"
izuku was not dumb. He saw the massive hulking beast rushing towards him, ready to take his head off and he wasn't dumb enough to think he could fight this thing.
This was likely going to end in his death.
He really should've just left this in the hands of todoroki and bakugou. They were stronger than him after all.
They had more than enough potential to become top rank heroes. Maybe even number one. They were the strongest people here.
And catching up to them from where he was now? That wasn't possible...
But... When he thought about simply standing down and letting these two fight for the title of the strongest... It made him sick to his stomach.. in a way he never thought he would be.
It must've been his pride welling up, after all. He'd gained quite a bit of confidence since getting the watch.
So he guessed, he just couldn't stand the thought of those guys taking the title of strongest from him now that he had it.
Though this was definitely gonna backfire spectacularly.
in the half-second before Nomu reached him and izuku was ready to accept his fate. something else reached him first.
A hand closed around his arm and pulled him sideways so fast the world blurred. Nomu's fist cratered the ground where he'd been standing a millisecond earlier, and Izuku was somewhere else entirely, deposited behind a chunk of rubble with a gentle but firm grip still holding his shoulder.
"You-"
"No need to fear young midoriya."
"FOR I AM HERE!"
Izuku watched as his idol stepped in front of the massive nomu that had been giving them so much trouble.
He loaded up a fist, and then punched the creature. Full force.
And then he slammed another fist into its body, and then another, and another and another.
It didn't take too long for the nomu to get sent flying like a rock being thrown into the air.
Izuku's back hit the rubble, but he didn't feel it. He was too busy staring.
All Might stood in the center of the plaza like a pillar of impossible certainty, steam rising from his shoulders, that trademark grin stretched across his face even as his eyes burned with focus.
"Apologies, students," All Might said, his voice carrying across the ruined plaza with the practiced projection of a man who had spent decades being heard over explosions. "Traffic was terrible. I got here as fast as I could."
"Kurogiri." Shigaraki's voice had gone flat. The scratching had stopped entirely. "The nomu lost"
"Shigaraki," Kurogiri said, his mist-form drawing tighter around the hand villain. "We must withdraw. Now."
"I can see that." Shigaraki's voice was barely a whisper. His hand had stopped scratching. His whole body had gone still in a way that was somehow worse than the frantic, jerky anger from before. "The Nomu was supposed to kill him. It was supposed to be strong enough."
"It was. He was stronger."
"That's not fair." The words came out flat. Dead. "This whole thing was rigged from the start. The Symbol of Peace. The Symbol of Peace." He said the title like it was poison in his mouth. "If he's always going to win, what's the point? What's the point of any of this?"
This isn't over," he said.
"Kurogiri. Get us out of here."
The mist villain expanded instantly, purple-black fog rolling outward in a wave. But he wasn't fast enough.
Ice crawled up Kurogiri's mist-form. It shouldn't have worked. Mist wasn't solid. Mist couldn't be frozen. But Todoroki had been watching, waiting, and the moment Kurogiri began to expand, he'd targeted not the mist itself but the armored plates around the villain's neck, the ones that seemed to anchor his physical form. The ice spread across metal and found purchase.
Kurogiri's expansion halted.
"You're not going anywhere," Todoroki said, frost curling off his right side in waves. His face was pale, his lips slightly blue from overusing his ice, but his eyes were fixed on the villains .
"Young Todoroki!" All Might's voice cut across the plaza, noticing what the teen was doing "Wait-"
But Todoroki was already attacking throwing A glacier in miniature aimed directly at Shigaraki, who was still standing motionless near the fountain. The ice surged forward, a wave of crystalline blue that would encase the hand villain completely and end this fight once and for all.
Shigaraki's hand rose.
It was almost casual. Five fingers extended. And when they touched the ice, the ice didn't just break. It died. It disintegrated into nothing, and the disintegration spread, eating through the ice wave like a disease, racing back along its own trajectory toward Todoroki.
"Dodge it ICY HOT!"
Bakugo's explosion hit Todoroki from the side and sent him tumbling. The disintegration stopped once It hit the end of the ice
"Decay," Shigaraki said. His voice was almost contemplative. "Everything decays. Heroes. Society. Peace. It all crumbles eventually. I'm just speeding up the process." He turned his head toward all might, who stared him down, with disdain. "That goes for you too All Might. The next time we meet... There'll be nothing left of you."
Just like that, he disappeared into the inky black mist that was kurogiri. And just like that, the usj incident, had ended.
The police station was too bright.
Izuku sat in a plastic chair that had been really uncomfortable three hours ago and had stayed that same level of incredibly uncomfortable. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed at a frequency that made his teeth ache. Someone had given him a cup of vending machine coffee approximately two hours ago, and it sat on the table beside him, cold and untouched and still smelling kinda good
The questioning had been thorough. Not accusatory, exactly, but thorough. Detective Tsukauchi had asked him to walk through the events at the USJ four separate times, each time from a slightly different angle, and Izuku had the distinct impression that his answers were being measured against each other for consistency.
He'd told the truth. Most of it. The parts he was allowed to tell.
"Yes, sir. I used my Quirk to engage the creature."
"Yes, sir. I was attempting to buy time for the other students."
"No, sir. I don't know where the villains came from or how they accessed the facility."
"No, sir. I've only had my Quirk for a short time. It's still developing."
The last one had made Tsukauchi pause. His pen had hovered over his notepad for just a moment longer than usual, and something in his expression had changed, but he hadn't pressed. Izuku wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
Now he was waiting for his mother to pick him up. She had called the bus and was on her way to pick him up outside of the station. He had told her he was fine and that he wasn't too badly hurt. But he was a terrible liar and he knew she wouldn't believe him.
Outside the station, the evening air was heavy with the promise of rain. Clouds had rolled in while he'd been inside, swallowing the last of the daylight, and the streetlights were already flickering on in hesitant yellow pools. Izuku stood just outside the main doors, trying to decide if it was worth sitting back down or if he should just wait on his feet, when a hand closed around his upper arm and yanked him sideways.
"Hey-!"
"Shut up."
Bakugo's grip was iron. He pulled Izuku away from the station like he was just hauling a piece of furniture. Izuku stumbled, nearly lost his footing, and found himself being steered into the narrow gap between the station building and the neighboring convenience store, an alley barely wide enough for two people to stand side by side.
Bakugo released him. Izuku staggered back against the convenience store wall, the brick rough against his shoulder blades, and looked up into the face of someone who was, quite clearly, absolutely furious.
"What was that?" Bakugo's voice was low. Not shouting, at least not yet. But the restraint in it was worse. "What the hell was that back there?"
"I-"
"No. No, you don't get to 'I' anything. Not this time." Bakugo took a step forward, and the alley suddenly felt much smaller. "You've been Quirkless our entire lives. Our entire lives. And now suddenly you show up at UA and you're fighting some big ass monster? How? When?"
"I told you before-"
"You told me it was complicated. That's not an answer. That's not even close to an answer." Bakugo's fists were clenched at his sides, little sparks popping between his fingers. "I saw you, Deku. I saw what you turned into. That wasn't some weak-ass Quirk that just showed up late. That was power. Real power. The kind of power you don't just wake up with one morning."
Izuku's throat was dry. His heart was pounding against his ribs. But somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the instinct to apologize and deflect and make himself smaller, there was something else. And he was starting to learn it's name.
He met Bakugo's eyes.
"It's new," he said. His voice didn't waver. "The power. It's new. I didn't have it before. I wasn't lying about being Quirkless. I was Quirkless for fifteen years, Kacchan. You of all people should know that. You made sure I never forgot it."
Bakugo's jaw tightened. "Then where did it come from?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Can't or won't?"
"Can't. It's classified." The word felt ridiculous coming out of his mouth, but it was true, and he clung to it. "Aizawa-sensei made me promise. I'm not allowed to tell anyone."
Bakugo stared at him. The sparks in his palms intensified. For a long, terrible moment, Izuku was certain he was about to get blasted through the convenience store wall.
Then Bakugo's fist slammed into the brick beside Izuku's head. His raw knuckles hurting as they slammed into the rough stone but he didn't give a damn.
"Classified," Bakugo repeated. The word came out like a curse. "You expect me to believe that? You expect me to believe that you just happened to develop some incredible power right before showing up at UA, and it's classified, and you can't talk about it, and I'm just supposed to accept that?"
"I don't expect you to accept anything." Izuku's voice was shaking, but he didn't look away. "I know you won't. You've never accepted anything about me. But it's the truth. Whether you believe it or not."
Todoroki Shouto sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall.
His left side was warm. He'd used his fire today. Not much. Just a flicker, really, a brief bloom of heat in the medical bay when the cold had gotten too deep and Recovery Girl had told him to regulate or risk hypothermia. It hadn't been a choice. If he didn't do it there was a pretty good chance of death.
But it had still been his left side.
He thought about the plaza. About ice cracking against a monster that wouldn't stop. About Bakugo's explosions lighting up the dome. About Midoriya, twelve feet tall and armored, trading blows with something that could have killed all of them.
He thought about his father.
He would surpass him. He would. That was the promise he'd made himself years ago, the engine that drove every training session, every fight, every day. But today had shown him something. There were people his age who were already closing the gap. Bakugo. Midoriya. Maybe others.
The thought... It was infuriating
"You think this changes anything?" Bakugo's voice was still very low. But it was easy to tell that it was laced with confusion. "You think just because you got lucky, just because some power fell into your lap, that you can stand on the same field as me?"
"It doesn't matter how I got this power. What matters is how I use it."
"Oh really? You think your hot shit cause you stopped a few villains? You don't get it. Having a strong quirk isn't enough. You think that quirk is gonna make you a hero? You think this makes us equals?"
"No," Izuku said. "I don't think we're equals."
Bakugo's eyes narrowed.
"I think I'm going to surpass you."
The words hung in the alley like a challenge thrown at the feet of a king. Bakugo went very still. The sparks in his palms died. His face, already twisted with anger, went through a series of expressions Izuku couldn't quite track. Shock. Disbelief. And then, slowly, something that might have been rage, or might have been something else entirely.
"You," Bakugo said. "You're going to surpass me."
"Yes."
"You, the Quirkless nobody who followed me around for ten years taking notes like a creep."
"Yes."
"You, the teaching assistant who isn't even a real student."
"I don't care what my title is. I've wanted to be a hero since before I knew what the word meant. No matter what I did everybody kept telling me it wasn't possible, that I'd never be a hero, that is never be someone even worth looking at. And yet here I am. I ignored the impossible and got into ua. I've even been acknowledged by all might and Eraserhead. So I'll surpass you. I'll surpass Todoroki. I'll surpass All Might. I'll become the strongest hero there is. That's my dream. And I'm not going to let anything stop me. Not you. Not the rules. Not anything."
He thought about the way Midoriya had fought the nomu. With his life on the line, fighting on a level that todoroki wasn't capable of fighting on just uet
He thought about Bakugo, launching himself into a fight he couldn't win, screaming about being number one even as the monster swatted him aside.
Neither of them had backed down. Neither of them had even considered it.
Todoroki looked down at his left hand. He flexed his fingers once. Twice. Then he closed his fist.
"I acknowledge you both. But I'll still be number one."
"This power is my own now. It found me, and I accepted it, and I'll use it to achieve what I've always wanted. You can either deal with it, or you can get out of my way. So I'll see you at the top Kacchan."
Bakugo's hand dropped from the wall. He stepped back, and for the first time since the alley confrontation had begun, Izuku could see his whole face. The anger was still there. It was always there. But underneath it, buried so deep it was almost invisible, was something that looked almost like respect. Almost. "You've got a lot of nerve," Bakugo said. "Talking to me like that after everything."
"I know."
"I don't know where you got this confidence from, but I'm still gonna be the one to become number one. Not you Deku. Not that Icy hot bastard"
The silence stretched between them. It wasn't comfortable. It would never be comfortable between them. But it was something.
Then Bakugo turned away. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. Even with this new quirk, you're still Deku. And I'm still me. You've never beaten me before, and you're not going to start now. I'll leave you in the dust like I always have." He started walking toward the alley's mouth, hands shoved into his pockets. "Don't think this changes anything. You're still beneath me."
Izuku watched him go. His heart was still pounding. His hands were still shaking. But he was standing. And he'd said it. He'd actually said it.
"Kacchan."
Bakugo stopped.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being someone worth surpassing."
Bakugo didn't turn around. He stood there for a long moment, silhouetted against the streetlight at the end of the alley. Then he made a sound that might have been a scoff, and walked away.
Izuku leaned back against the wall and let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for eleven years.
The rain started a few minutes later, a light drizzle that pattered against the awning of the convenience store and made the streetlights blur into golden smears. Izuku stepped out of the alley and stood at the curb, letting the water soak into his hair, watching the traffic pass.
A bus rounded the corner. His mother was probably on it. She'd fuss over him and cry and tell him she was proud of him, and he'd go home and eat whatever she put in front of him and then collapse into bed and probably not sleep at all.
Tomorrow he'd go back to UA. He'd take notes and hand out papers and draw stars in the corner of his notebook. He'd train with Aizawa and talk to Melissa and try to figure out how to be a hero despite being a teaching assistant
"Just you wait..." izuku muttered under his breath as he looked up at the sky.
"Just you wait..." Bakugo growled through gritted teeth as he walked home with his hands in his pockets.
"Just you wait..." Todoroki whispered to himself in the dark as he looked down at his left hand.
"...Until I become the strongest."