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The video is posted with little fanfare, but the stats on views and shares quickly skyrocket.
The Voice Hero: Present Mic retired years ago, but he still does his radio show. And once in a while, when deemed appropriate (and with consent from all involved), video clips from an in studio camera pop up on HeroTube.
In this video, the recording opens up on a moment of laughter shared by the host and his former student, the now number one hero, Deku.
The two take a moment to recover their breath before Present Mic wipes away a tear and launches right back into the interview. “Seriously though, so far as I can tell, the question that seems to come up everywhere about you is your name. And they’re all asking why. Why pick Deku as a hero name?”
Deku sits up straighter at that. His face settles into a well known smile and he leans forward, starting to respond. He pauses. His eyes flick over to the camera, then to the microphone, and finally to Present Mic himself.
The smile fades into something a bit more melancholy as Deku starts to speak. “There were.. several reasons why I chose the name originally. I continued to grow as a hero and as a person and I eventually realized that not all of that came from good places.”
Attentive viewers can see Deku begin to twiddle his thumbs. “In fact, a lot of it came from mindsets that I don’t want to promote, so I won’t go into why I chose it at first. But as for why I kept it? Well…”
Deku trails off a bit before giving himself a small shake and looking back up at Present Mic. “So there’s this fact about me that’s public but not well-known. And of those who know it, a good chunk don’t actually believe it.“
Present Mic is leaning in now, eyes sparkling behind his signature sunglasses as Deku plows on. “See the thing is, my quirk didn’t come in until I was 15.”
Mic's reaction is immediate, nearly shooting out of his chair as he shouts. “WHAT?!”
Deku chuckles and brings his left hand up to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I get that sort of reaction a lot. Mr. Aizawa nearly had an aneurysm that I’d kept such important information from him when I finally told him. But uh, at the entrance exam, I was the most fit I’d been in my entire life up to that point and when my quirk first manifested during said exam, it broke my arm and both my legs. Docs figured if it had manifested any earlier, at a time when I was less in shape… I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Wait so, that first year… all of your broken bones..”
A wince can be seen on Deku's face at the reminder. “Yeah that was because I was still learning how to use my quirk. And still working on improving my physique.”
Mic's glasses had been knocked slightly askew by his sudden movement earlier, and he still hasn’t fixed them. “But- Why didn’t you tell anybody? We could have adjusted your training, helped you figure out the limits without needing to injure yourself so badly. We would’ve done so many things differently!”
“I- I know that now, and I appreciate it. But back then? I was scared. I was so terrified that if anyone found out, they would be disgusted. That they’d think I had cheated my way into UA somehow, that I’d faked my quirk.” He shook his head. “I was afraid that I would get kicked out of UA, prevented from being a hero, and everything would go back to how it was before."
The room sits in silence for a moment, but then Present Mic speaks up – quietly. “What do you mean, ‘how it was before'?”
Deku sighs. “The world,” He hesitates. “Well, society doesn’t like quirkless people. In fact, I’d go so far as to change that ‘doesn’t like' to ‘hates'. Death threats were not uncommon. Suicide baiting. Beat downs. I could go on. And my refusal to give up on being a hero just pissed people off more, since I refused to ‘know my place'. But really, I just wanted to help people. And if I was going to get turned away no matter what I did, I might as well aim high, right?” He shrugs and lets his hand fall to his lap.
“I’ve been a pro hero for over a decade now, and I still have more scars from growing up than from my hero work. And before you ask why I never sought help, I did. Most people… didn’t care.”
Mic adjusts his glasses back to their proper position and surreptitiously wipes away a tear, but he stays silent as his guest continues speaking.
“Teachers in class subtly encouraged mistreatment of me and pretended they never saw what my classmates did. If I went to the faculty, they claimed that I was bitter and jealous and making up lies to lash out at those who had brighter futures. And school got very good at brushing aside the concerns brought up by my mother or Ground Zero's parents. Eventually I stopped telling them what happened and even actively hid it because they couldn’t stop it so I thought it better to not worry them. It was stupid, but it was what I did.
“When I was 14, 10 months before the entrance exam, I met someone. Someone who had also subconsciously suppressed their quirk for their own survival at one point. Someone who knew what it looked like. And they started training me so that I could get to a point that would allow my quirk to manifest.”
Deku leans into his microphone, apparently knowing how quietly his next words will come out and wanting to make sure that they’re heard.
“Sometimes I almost wish that it hadn’t been true. That I was truly quirkless. That I’d found a way to become a hero regardless and managed to prove just how much a quirkless person can do. I-. I don’t know if I would have succeeded. But regardless, that’s not how the cards fell. That task is something that I’ll have to leave to someone else, assuming society manages to leave someone still determined enough to try.”
Deku straightens up and continues, “As for my name? As long as I Am Here, there is not a single person who is worthless. As long as I Am Here, no one is useless. And as long as I Am Here, every single person who gets called a deku,” he spits the word out like poison, “knows that they share that title with a pro hero.”
The video ends on a shot of Present Mic pulling the number 1 hero into a hug.