Chapter 2 – Sparks of Creation
By the time Sozo Midoriya turned five, life had already started to split into two distinct worlds.
The first was ordinary—warm breakfasts, the smell of detergent on clean clothes, the hum of his aunt's apartment in Musutafu.
The second lived under his skin, coiling like quiet lightning.
He'd been sent to live with Aunt Inko after his parents accepted work abroad. She welcomed him as if he were her own. Izuku was smaller than him by a few months, green-haired and wide-eyed, always talking about All Might and the meaning of courage.
For Sozo, it was like living next to sunlight. Blinding at times, but real.
---
Deku's obsession with heroes wasn't an act. He filled notebooks with sketches of Quirk mechanics and hero costumes, muttering to himself like a little scientist.
But one evening, when Sozo went to hand him a snack, he found Deku crying behind his desk, a hand over the page.
"Kids at school said I'll never be a hero," he whispered, trying to wipe his face fast enough to hide it. "Because I don't have a Quirk."
The words were familiar—too familiar. They echoed Sozo's own test results, the sterile disappointment of being labeled quirkless even when something vast lived inside him.
He crouched beside his cousin, calm voice cutting through the tremble.
"Would you believe me if I said power isn't always given? Sometimes it's made."
Deku blinked. "You mean, like training?"
"Closer to… building."
He smiled faintly, already hearing the hydra stir within him, its voice sliding along the edges of thought. Why not share, little creator?
That night, while Deku slept, Sozo sat at the small kitchen table with a blank page.
He drew circles—one inside another—until they began to look like the outline of a watch face. Around it, he added ten sigils, each pulsing faintly in his mind: flame, crystal, speed, strength, light, shadow, storm, plant, metal, and instinct.
The hydra whispered, curious.
> "Another form of life?"
"Not quite," Sozo murmured. "A bridge. A way for someone who believes to become what they admire."
He focused. The hum filled his chest, deeper than a heartbeat. Energy coiled through his fingers as he whispered the phrase that had become instinct:
"Embodiment—grant form to thought."
Light answered.
The sigils lifted off the page, spinning slowly, fusing together into a smooth crystal band that floated before him.
It wasn't metal. It wasn't stone. It was possibility condensed into matter, flickering with soft green light.
When the glow faded, the band landed in his palm. Small enough for a child's wrist. Warm. Alive.
> "You understand it well," the hydra said. "It will hold."
Sozo nodded, sweat tracing his temple. "It's not mine. It's his."
---
In the morning, he slipped into Deku's room. The boy was half awake, hair sticking in every direction.
"Hey," Sozo said softly. "Hold out your hand."
Deku obeyed without question, blinking sleep from his eyes.
The crystal band dissolved into light and flowed around his wrist. The moment it touched him, faint lines crawled up his arm, settling into the shape of a glowing sigil.
"Whoa—what is this?" Deku gasped.
Sozo smiled. "Something you earned the second you refused to stop believing."
The glow brightened, then dimmed. For a moment, nothing else happened. Then Deku tensed—his body flaring with golden light. His outline blurred, muscles shifting, bones reshaping.
When the light cleared, he wasn't human anymore.
He was crouched low, covered in orange fur, no eyes visible, teeth gleaming—a creature halfway between a lion and a reptile, primal and powerful.
"Wildmutt," Sozo whispered, awe softening his voice.
Deku stumbled, testing the ground with clawed feet. He let out a bark that rattled the windowpanes.
"I can smell everything!" Deku shouted, his voice layered with a guttural echo. "This is—this is amazing!"
Sozo grinned. "It'll last as long as you can handle it. No timer. Just stamina."
Deku pounced from wall to wall, laughter replacing all the tears from the night before.
For the first time, he didn't look like a boy wishing to be a hero. He looked like one learning how.
---
When the transformation faded, Deku collapsed on the rug, exhausted but glowing with joy. The sigil on his wrist shimmered faintly, proof of permanence.
"You gave me a Quirk," he said quietly.
"I gave you a choice," Sozo corrected. "What you do with it is yours."
The hydra murmured approval, a ripple of pride in his blood. Creation spreads, as it should.
But the act had drained him. His head pounded; his skin buzzed with leftover energy. The hydra's presence grew heavy, pressing against the edges of his mind.
Too much output. Stabilize.
Before he could answer, pain bloomed down his spine. He fell to his knees, gasping.
Blue light erupted from his back—two serpentine shapes bursting outward, translucent and roaring without sound.
Deku flinched back. "Sozo?!"
Scales crawled across his arms, his eyes slitting like a predator's. The air trembled.
"I'm fine—" he lied, voice rougher, layered with something inhuman. "It's just… the hydra reacting."
The heads behind him writhed, not solid yet, but there—draconic spirits formed from raw creation. They opened their jaws, exhaling a mist that crackled with lightning.
This was the Man-Beast Form. A half-step between creator and creation.
Sozo forced himself to breathe, grounding his thoughts. His pulse matched the hydra's rhythm—steady, ancient, vast.
The transformation subsided slowly. When the light dimmed, he was human again, but sweat-soaked and trembling.
Deku crept closer. "Was that your Quirk?"
Sozo stared at his shaking hands. "Something like that. My power isn't a gift—it's a responsibility. I can build, but every creation wants to exist more than I do."
---
The next few weeks became training in secret. When Inko left for work, the boys would sneak into the small park near their apartment, hidden by trees. Deku practiced switching in and out of Wildmutt form, learning to control his strength. Sozo worked on the next stage of his power: external manifestation.
It began small. A flicker of energy forming a claw, a wisp shaped like a tail. Each attempt drew on the hydra's memory, the same essence that had once become the crystal.
He could feel the difference now—this wasn't summoning from nowhere; it was projection. Turning understanding into matter.
By the tenth day, he managed it. A ripple of light expanded in front of him, coalescing into a creature roughly the size of a dog. Its body shimmered like living glass, colors shifting between red and blue.
It stood, blinked, and let out a low growl that sounded more like a question than a threat.
Deku's jaw dropped. "You—You made a Pokémon!"
Sozo chuckled. "Something close. I call them manifestations. Each one's tied to an element… and a thought."
He crouched, placing a hand on the creature's head. It tilted curiously, scales humming with energy.
"This one's Emberfang," he said softly. "Fire, courage, impatience."
He gestured, and the construct bounded forward, a burst of flame scattering across the dirt. When the smoke cleared, it stood proud, waiting for its next command.
Deku clapped like a kid at a magic show. "Can you make more?"
"Eventually," Sozo admitted. "But each one takes part of me with it. I have to earn them."
That night, while Deku slept, he tried again—another projection, then another.
Some shattered mid-creation; others flickered into brief existence, animal-like and half-aware. He started naming them all the same way: Frostcoil for calm, Voltis for speed, Thornback for stubbornness.
Each success left him closer to exhaustion, but also closer to understanding what the Arc of Embodiment truly was: the act of giving his soul shape, piece by piece.
---
The hydra's voice grew stronger with each success. You are learning the language of reality, Sozo. But every word costs you something.
"I know," he whispered into the dark. "But if I can give someone hope, it's worth it."
Even if it consumes you?
He hesitated. "Especially then."
---
It happened one cloudy afternoon.
He'd been showing Deku the difference between focus and force when the energy slipped—too much intent, too little restraint.
The ground vibrated. The air bent. Light spilled from his hands, flooding the small park.
Deku shouted his name, but the sound was drowned in the roar of forming scales.
A colossal silhouette emerged—ten ghostly hydra heads tearing through the air, each breathing a different element. Trees bent under the pressure. The sky seemed to flinch.
Sozo's vision blurred, every nerve screaming. He'd done it: true outward manifestation.
Not just energy, not projection—presence.
For a heartbeat, the hydra was real, standing in both worlds. Its heads turned toward him in unison, eyes ancient and knowing.
Then, slowly, they bowed.
He exhaled shakily, pressing his palms together. "Return."
The light folded inward, the hydra fading like mist. The earth stilled. Silence returned.
Deku rushed forward, grabbing his shoulders. "That was—That was huge! You—you made an actual monster!"
Sozo managed a tired smile. "Not a monster. A reflection."
---
They sat together on the grass, quiet. The sun dipped low, streaking the sky gold.
Deku stared at the sigil on his wrist, then at Sozo. "You could change everything, you know. If you can give power, the world won't stay the same."
"Maybe." Sozo glanced at his hands. The faint marks of scales still lingered. "But I'm not sure the world's ready for what it takes to make something from nothing."
He looked toward the horizon, voice steady but soft.
"Creation isn't about power. It's about purpose."
Deku nodded slowly. "Then… what's yours?"
Sozo smiled—small, tired, genuine.
"To make sure no one has to feel powerless ever again."
The hydra's voice curled in his chest, pleased. Then keep building.
And for the first time, Sozo didn't hear it as a command.
He heard it as agreement.
---
End of Chapter 2