I don't own a thing
"speech"
'thought'
'Tenno thinking'
emphasis/sounds/other such things
---
The sound of a notification woke up Izuku from his meditation on the sandy beach of Dagobah, having used the deserted beach as a testing spot for his new technique, he had been laying down and recovering his stamina.
Quickly reaching into his bag, Izuku pulled out his phone and clicked on the notification bringing him to a brand new post on a hero news forum. He didn't even read the post, instead he instantly screenshotted and saved it as fast as he could, and just in time as well, looking back at the forum page, both the post and the user were gone, the post and their account deleted by moderators without any warning.
After his revelation, Izuku thought back to all the times he had spent on the internet, diving into any online forum that talked about heroes.
Any time a post was made about a Pro Hero committing crimes or just even criticizing them for their actions, they'd either get instantly taken down or filled with comments calling the original poster a bot or a troll and then the post would be taken down.
Within the days of his recovery, Izuku had made a filter that would alert him whenever a post containing keywords in their title and tags would be posted. There were lots of false positives but there were also far too many brand new posts mentioning a Pro Hero or their agency committing one crime or another.
'Did you get it?' Tenno asked as Izuku checked his saved files.
"Wolfmeister scammed me out of one million Yen!" Izuku read the title of the now deleted post, and continued to the rest, "She runs a protection racket? According to this user, she's working with local criminal gangs to collect money directly from the civilians that the gang hits as some type of a protection fee."
'Hah, a classic!'
"This isn't a laughing matter, sensei. Innocent people are being taken advantage of by people they are meant to trust." Izuku chided his teacher, though there was no real heat in his words, he had long learnt that for all the roughness Tenno's words held, he was also a deeply heroic person who cared about people... he was just really rough with his words sometimes.
'You know, after reading all those posts, I honestly expected you to turn your daily training into some hardcore bootcamp from hell and start punching every hero that was mentioned in these posts.' Tenno commented, 'Hell, I could teach you how to break into the HPSC HQ and then you can knock some heads together to fix the whole system instead of going after individual Pro's who committed crimes.'
Izuku sighed at Tenno's words, "Yes sensei, the system is broken but we cant fix it by just violence, it needs to be fixed from the inside, otherwise they'll label anyone who tries to do so as a Villain like they did to me, the harder you try to fight it from the outside the harder they resist." He didn't want to think about how many have tried already and failed, how many revolutions have been silenced and buried… literally.
It hurt to admit the type of villainy that rules the world from shadows.
"First you'd be labeled as a disruptor, then a villain, then a terrorist and all these titles, their words will turn the people away from your goal, your mission. They'll choose to support the corrupt system over someone labeled a Villain." Izuku finished his thought before rolling over the sand and shielding his eyes from the sun's glare. He didn't feel like he had the energy of doing much of anything after saying all of that out loud.
'Kid, I understand that someone being in your position being labeled a villain is extremely hurtful, but also, pardon the bluntness, the label is meaningless.' Izuku turned back around, quirking an eyebrow at the sky, 'they don't know your name, real name, because we both know you didn't have one for your vigilante persona. You didn't have a thematic outfit that was hard to replace or anything of the sort, the only thing they might latch onto would be your mask that got damaged in your previous fights and now is just ruined piece of scrap after the explosion.'
Izuku silently listened to his teacher, wondering where he was going with this.
'What I'm trying to say is, you can just change your outfit and no one will bother connecting an unknown villain with it. like before, your outfit was on the darker side, with gray and black. This time get some colorful ones, but still not too bright to not stand out like dark red or blue.'
"Or dark green." Izuku interjected into Tenno's ramblings
'Eh, I would err on the side of caution, due to your eyes and hair being the same color as the theoretical dark green outfit. A color that clashes with it would be a better idea instead because no sane person would do heroics while wearing such clashing colors. Maybe when you are in UA you can design a green outfit, but for now try out other colors. Just make sure to pick a color and stick to it as long as you possibly can, or else then your vigilante identity will be "the guy with the ever-changing hoodie" or something stupid like that."
Izuku couldn't help but burst out laughing at Tenno's ramblings, going on and on about sufficiently heroic color combinations and how vibrant they should be to not stick out too much.
'Heh, got you to finally crack huh.' Izuku hummed, as the laughter died down. 'What I'm trying to say kid, is that it might make your chest ache right now, but deep down you understand that no matter what label is put on you, you will still be you.'
Izuku splayed out onto the sand like a star fish, staring at the clouds in melancholy. 'I need you to close your eyes and listen,' Izuku did so, following his teacher's guidance, 'don't listen to the sea, nor the birds in the sky,' Doing so, Izuku cut out all those sounds from his hearing, 'don't listen to me either. Do you hear it.' that one cause some confusion to Izuku but he still followed.
He frowned.
At first there was only silence, but slowly, gradually he begun to hear something.
Voices.
People speaking to one another, neighbors and friends greeting each other, families telling stories, children playing, laughing.
Living their lives.
Izuku opened his eyes, only to find the world blurred out. Reaching a hand towards his eyes, it came back wet. Tears were spilling down his cheeks, unbidden.
'Izuku,' His attention was brought back to his teacher, yet he still thought about the people around him, 'I may have not known you long, but I know this. No matter what labels the world gives you, no matter how much the people scorn you, you will always fight for them, you will always be willing to reach out a helping hand when they need it.'
Izuku sat up, the tears now flowing freely.
"Sensei, I-" Izuku's words were cut off when a number of emergency vehicles rushed past the beach, blaring their sirens. Izuku's head following them like a dog spotting a squirrel through a window.
'I know kid, I know. Now, go be a hero!" Izuku wordlessly grabbed his items, put on a jacket, quickly tied his shirt around his head to hide his face and rushed after the vehicles.
---
"-ked by an unknown villain, the authorities are still search-"
Katsuki stared at the TV screen as he sat on the living room couch, curling a dumbbell, his free hand came up to grab the remote, rewinding the footage.
Those same ugly shoes, that same damned mask that he saw at that damned beach.
Fucking Deku thought he was some hot shit and now here he is, attacking heroes.
Or at least that's what the media claimed.
"Nah." Dumbell dropped onto the floor with a metallic thud.
Two dozen.
He had rewound and watched the footage over two dozen times, too many cuts, too many skips.
Too many fishy statements.
Deku was many things; worthless, pathetic, coward, nerd, creepy stalker, hero obsessed freak and many more.
But even after all that there was one thing even he wouldn't do.
Attack a Hero.
That meant, whichever so called hero he attacked, wasn't much of a hero to begin with.
And looking at the villain's list of crimes, he has a good idea why that fire spewing extra got a first hand experience with that quirkless freak.
"Tsk, doesn't matter." Katsuki shut off the TV and stood up, "Hero or Villain, I'm still gonna beat his ass the next time. He can fight whoever he wants in the meantime, it won't change a thing. I will be the Number One."
---
In another part of Mustafu, an old man stood in a dirty alleyway looking at news footage on his phone.
He reached into his coat pocket with his other hand and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter, before reaching back into his coat after lighting the cigarette. This time he pulled out a folded piece of paper containing bunch of names.
He looked at the list and then at the news still playing on his phone, he checked it twice before huffing and putting away his phone, crossing out a name with the newly freed hand.
"This new generation is looking promising, Kid's got some balls."
Putting away the list, the old man begun walking deeper in to the alley, his trench coat fluttering behind him.
---
AN: I had some action planned but I also wanted to do some justice to this conversation and because of that I managed to write myself into a corner. Had to bring in some derailment at the last second or else the chapter would've ended at like 1k words.
also part of this chapter was written while I had a fever so pardon the nonsense.
there might be a drop in quality and length of later chapters due to needing to focus on a J*B
Anyway, hope you enjoyed.
~ Expect next chapter around November 28-30th ~
If you like my work and have the ability, please support me on Ko Fi (/rottensarcophagus) or pa tre ohn (/RottenSarcophagus)