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Izuku Midoriya’s teachers and classmates refer to him as the “plain, quirkless boy.” Often with a note of scorn in their voices. But if you asked them what makes him plain, they couldn’t answer you. Most of them have a vague impression of curly green hair, green eyes, and freckles. But not a single person could describe his face in more detail. They can’t bear to look at him directly. Their eyes slide over him, their human minds refusing to see what he truly is.
There’s no rational reason for such a gentle, kindhearted boy to make anyone feel afraid, so people ignore the nagging uneasiness in the backs of their minds. Izuku Midoriya is plain. Quirkless. And human.
He must be human—what’s the alternative?
The night Izuku Midoriya is born, two nurses and a doctor have nervous breakdowns. But Inko Midoriya is fine. She doesn’t even experience any pain during the birth. Afterwards, she recovers at a nigh supernatural rate.
Around the world, shooting stars rain down. Astronomers try for years to explain this unpredicted global meteor shower. Scientists don’t like to admit “We have no idea what just happened and it scares us.” They prefer a universe that obeys laws and order. Izuku Midoriya does not fit into that framework.
It takes a remarkable woman to raise a baby that sometimes turns into a ball of liquid darkness and other times sprouts tentacles. Inko simply holds her son through all his changes and rocks him until he looks human again. His glowing eyes burn repeated holes into the walls, but they never harm her.
Inko Midoriya is a lucky woman. If she plays a game of chance, whether a grocery store drawing or a Powerball lottery, she always wins. She can walk the streets late at night and never fear a mugger or purse-snatcher. When she picnics at the park or visits the beach, it’s always sunny. If she needs a cab, one shortly arrives. The fruits she picks at the grocery store are always fresh. The universe warps around her wherever she goes, making her life easier and more convenient.
Blessed are those who bear the children of the divine.
When Izuku is four years old, a drunk driver crashes into the sandbox where he’s playing. He dies immediately on impact.
His mother leaps up from the bench, running forward too late. Her horrified eyes fixate on her son’s blood leaking out from under the car wheels.
Then the car is gone. The sandbox is restored. Little Izuku stands holding his shovel and pail, a confused look in his eyes.
He doesn’t remember anything. He can’t understand why his mother clings to him, sobbing so hard her tears flood the sandbox. She doesn’t know why she’s crying, either.
The driver never existed. His own parents don’t remember him. He’s vanished from every photo album. His old art projects no longer hang from the family fridge. The liquor he drank has returned to the grocery store shelf. Anything he ever created is gone and anything he ever destroyed is restored. Not a single trace of his existence remains anywhere in the universe.
Izuku is blessed too, though in his case it’s less luck and more raw power.
Izuku doesn’t move like a human.
Sometimes he seems so fast, it’s as if he teleported. He moves through doors without them opening. In fact, his second grade teacher can’t remember ever seeing him walking. The boy must walk—how else does he get from one place to another?—but he’s never seen those legs move. Or touch the ground. (Out of the corner of his eye, the teacher glimpses many wings, razor-sharp and crawling with worms.)
Thinking about it gives him a headache.
Animals are scared of Izuku. The class gerbil falls over and plays dead whenever he walks into the room. The one time he tried to pet the rodent, it made a sound like it was being tortured.
The teacher never heard of a gerbil having a mental breakdown before. He takes pity on the animal and makes up an excuse to rehome it. The class gets a handheld digital pet instead.
The strangeness continues throughout the school year. Lights flicker and go out when Izuku is upset. Time does not seem to flow right in the classroom, extending when Izuku is interested in the lesson and contracting when he’s bored. The teacher replaces his watch four times.
When Izuku takes notes in class, one of his hands holds his binder steady, another writes with a pencil, and a third reaches for an eraser.
Wait—a third hand? Is that a hand or a tentacle? Something dark…shadowy…
The teacher reaches up to find his nose is bleeding.
Is this kid actually quirkless?
The teacher doesn’t wonder for long, because he forgets what he saw.
Humans fear what’s different from them.
The other children avoid Izuku. They whisper behind his back and mock him to his face. He can never find a partner for class projects. The teachers blame his quirklessness, but it started long before his diagnosis.
Katsuki Bakugo is a fearless boy. Any strange feelings, he simply shrugs off. He’s friends with Izuku when no one else will be. The two of them love talking about heroes together.
Sometimes Katsuki dreams about Izuku. This is not unusual—he dreams about his family and friends on a regular basis.
In the current dream, they continue their discussion of the latest All Might figurine. It feels like a perfectly normal conversation, but Katsuki knows it’s a dream because Izuku’s hair has turned white. It glows like starlight, matching the gleaming of his freckles. For some reason, he always dreams Izuku looking like this.
Izuku says, “I don’t like how they changed the portions. His legs look too long now. It’s not realistic.”
Katsuki snorts. “So what? Figurines don’t have to be realistic. I like all the muscles they added.”
“All Might looks muscular enough without them exaggerating it.” While Izuku speaks, one of his tentacles pulls out a dripping chunk of meat, like skinned cow’s leg.
Weird dream. “Ew. Are you going to eat that raw?” Katsuki asks.
Izuku pouts. “Mom says I don’t have to cook the meat when I eat at home. I prefer it this way. It ruins the flavor when you drain the blood out. To me, it feels like eating charcoal. Don’t even get me started on vegetables. I don’t know how you stomach them, Kacchan. They have so little life, there’s no substance at all.”
“Vegetables are gross, but not as gross as what you’re eating,” Katsuki says, scrunching up his nose.
Izuku takes a bite. He sighs in contentment as he sucks up the blood. “Delicious.” The bones crunch as he chews. “Bone marrow is the best part.”
His eyes might be red. Or maybe they’re white. Or maybe they’re not eyes at all, but rather the black hole lurking at the center of the universe, devouring entire galaxies, hungry enough to swallow Katsuki whole and still have room for the rest of the planet.
Katsuki doesn’t like this dream, so he wakes up.
The next day, at school, Izuku runs up to him. “Kacchan! You can have my new All Might figurine.” He holds it out, grinning. “Since you like the extra muscles and I don’t.”
Katsuki’s blood runs cold. It wasn’t a dream. It was all real.
For the first time in his young life, Katsuki Bakugo feels true terror.
He screams and shoves Izuku to the ground. Then he hits him, over and over again, tears streaming down his cheeks. This thing has been inside his head. The sense of violation is too much. He shouts, “Monster, monster, monster!” in a frenzied, terrified chant.
Izuku allows every blow, reigning in his power with great care. He’s a nice child. He feels horribly guilty about scaring Kacchan so much, even though he still doesn’t understand what he did wrong to lose his only friend.
When Izuku is happy, his eyes glow.
Giving a class presentation on the history of heroes makes him so happy that an extra eye starts glowing on his forehead. More eyes sprout all over his body, like blazing colorless holes in reality.
Around the room, students fall over with blood leaking from their eyes, ears, and mouths. Yet no matter how it hurts, they can’t look away from the grotesque beauty before them: limbs from every sort of beast in the universe, a blinding halo made of fire, and those dreadful eyes roaring like a typhoon coming to sweep all of Japan away.
Katsuki shouts, “Oy, Deku! Two eyes at a time!”
The light vanishes as if flicked off. Izuku stands before the class, rubbing the back of his head with a single human arm. “Sorry, Kacchan.”
“You should be sorry! My head feels like someone took a hammer to it, you shitty quirkless freak!”
The teacher assigns Katsuki a detention for swearing. She feels perfectly fine. There’s no blood on her collar. She doesn’t know why she expected there to be a stain.
Not for the first time, Izuku stares at his lunch and resists the urge to vomit. His mother left the hamburger as raw as she could get away with, but when sandwiched inside an unappetizing plant-based bun, it looks revolting.
He breaks the hamburger into bits to make it look partly eaten. One of his teachers has started to worry that he might have an eating disorder. He knows she means well. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he eats his fill at home.
It pains him to look even more strange at school. Breaking off a small bit, he closes his eyes and brings it toward his mouth. His stomach twists in rebellion.
Katsuki stomps over and snatches up the burger. “Hey, Deku! I’m stealing your lunch.”
“Thank you, Kacchan.” Izuku nearly wants to cry with relief.
“I’m bullying you! This doesn’t mean we’re friends again or anything!” Katsuki makes a loud show of carrying off the lunch.
After that, Katsuki steals his lunch every single day. Izuku’s stomach finally stops hurting so much from eating bad food.
All Might is on patrol when he hears a cry for help.
Running at top speed, he arrives to see—the sludge villain he’d been hunting, crawling toward his feet and begging for mercy?
A teenage boy with green hair waves his arms. “Whoa! All Might!” He bites his lip. “I didn’t hurt him, I swear. He tried to steal my body.”
“You did well to stop him, boy.” All Might beams. “This one is a dangerous criminal.” He quickly puts his body between the villain and the child.
“I didn’t do anything. Please don’t think I’m a freak. It would break my heart if you thought I was a freak.” The boy jitters from foot to foot. “He started crying entirely on his own.” He points at the sludge villain.
The sludge villain, who took advantage of the chance to run away.
“Apologies! I must apprehend the criminal.” All Might takes off while he can still use One for All.
Later, as he watches Izuku Midoriya save his classmate from the sludge villain, All Might decides that he’s found his successor.
The boy shines in a way that hurts a little to see. All Might is so used to the power of One for All that it barely bothers him. He doesn’t notice several civilians in the crowd fall to the ground with blood coming from their eyes. All he sees is brilliant, beautiful heroism.
As the sludge villain mutters about unholy abominations, All Might resolves to send his prisoner to a psychological evaluation.
Izuku rubs his arm where he fell. Katsuki screams at him, “You’re supposed to bleed red, not black gunk. Repeat after me, you little shit: blood. Is. Red.”
“Thank you, Kacchan” Izuku says, smiling sheepishly.
Everyone else wonders what the hot-tempered blond child was babbling about. Izuku’s scrape looks perfectly normal and someone ought to bandage it up.
All Might offers fair warning to his chosen successor: “The power of One for All can be a lot to handle. It’s not made for humans. Centuries ago, an eldritch abomination tried to consume our world. His younger brother, more kindly inclined towards humans, drove him off. Then the younger brother left behind a fragment of himself to protect us, in case the older one ever came back.”
Izuku holds up All Might’s hair. “Then this contains the power of an eldritch abomination?”
“Yes. I had strange dreams for years after receiving the ability. Sometimes I still do.” All Might hesitates. “They’re not always unpleasant dreams. They can be beautiful. But some people can’t handle them. If you find it too much, I’ll take it back, I promise. There’s no shame to it. Many of my predecessors had to try several successors before they found someone suitable.”
Izuku swallows the hair without hesitation. For a brief moment, All Might glimpses sharp teeth—rows and rows of them, like a shark. Izuku licks his lips.
In the depths of the ocean, the earth splits open to reveal lava. On a distant coast, a scientist stares at her rapidly moving seismograph, terrified that this may be the big one. Volcanoes around the world shake. Asteroids hurl towards the earth in increasing numbers and sizes.
Then, abruptly as the crisis came, it all stops. The scientist rubs her eyes, relieved she was only seeing things.
Back at the beach, All Might asks, “How do you feel?”
Izuku shrugs. “I’ve never felt better.”
“That’s odd. I thought you’d have collapsed by now. Why, I remember bleeding from my nose for weeks afterward.” All Might feels a tiny bit uneasy, but he convinces himself that he simply got lucky with his first pick for a successor. He can already tell that young Midoriya will be something special.
In a distant place, All for One opens his many eyes.
He felt the very moment when his infant son swallowed a fragment of his younger brother. He felt the universe shake in response, before his child suppressed the power.
All for One has been tracking the pieces of his younger brother. The idiot child ripped off so many bits of himself and lost them around the universe that he barely exists anymore. It’s been an irritating process putting them back together again, and he expects he won’t get any gratitude for it either, just more bitching about how he shouldn’t eat inferior yet delicious species. Maybe if someone hadn’t been such a picky eater, he wouldn’t have ended up as a weak, incorporeal shadow.
In other words, All for One already intended to take a trip to Earth for some time. But now he has a new incentive.
All for One has been waiting impatiently for his child to be born. In his current state, his offspring is barely more than a fetus. One day he will rip free from his mortal flesh and become what he’s always been meant to be. If humanity is lucky, he won’t destroy their world in the process.
It’s a disappointment to All for One that today will not be the day for him to greet his son. He considers options. If he can force the infant to use more of his uncle’s power, perhaps by threatening some of those inferior bipedal organisms, then he can speed up the conversion process.
All for One is impatient. He doesn’t care what happens to the small world. He just wants to be able to hold his child in his many arms.
Soon. Very soon. Daddy is coming.
OMAKE TIME!
Omake: Warning, NSFW
Izuku: Mommy, who’s my father?
Inko: An ancient and powerful eldritch deity.
Izuku: Very cool and explains a lot. But I don’t like him because he abandoned us.
Inko: In all fairness, your father did warn me that between his different perception of time and his very existence breaking this world, he wouldn’t be able to stick around much. I knew I was signing up for single motherhood. You’re a blessing, my little angel.
Izuku: If you say so. I still wonder why you’d agree to such a lousy deal. He doesn’t even pay child support. What did you like about him?
Inko, thinking: Do you know how hard it is to find a man with tentacles even with the modern proliferation of quirks?
Inko, out loud: He had a very winning personality.
#Izuku, after meeting All for One: You call THAT a winning personality? #Inko sips tea nervously and tries not to look her son in the eye
#
Omake: Pesky Younger Siblings Are Picky Eaters
One for All: You realize I shattered into pieces because I was desperately trying to stop you from swallowing the whole universe?
All for One: You make it sound like my fault, which is quite impossible, I’m never at fault. Also, I would have shared a couple galaxies with you.
One for All: I don’t want to eat galaxies. They have people living in them.
All for One: But those are the tastiest parts! Look, you’re making yourself sick with this diet of yours. Just consume a life-sustaining planet or two. They’re highly nutritious. How can you know you don’t like it if you won’t even try it?
#
Omake: Also NSFW: Cannibalism
All for One: Darling, I’m home!
Inko: You’ve been gone fourteen years, not sure why you’re still calling me that.
All for One: Fourteen years? That’s about the amount of time it takes to make a grocery run, right?
Inko: You’re lucky you’re cute.
All for One: We need to talk about our son. Mostly, you’ve done an excellent job raising him, but he’s a picky eater. We need to work on that. I don’t want to go through the same thing I did with my younger brother.
Inko: Picky eater? What are you talking about? He won’t eat plants, but you told me your kind is carnivorous. He likes all kinds of meat: anything from fish to cow. I had to make him stop eating rats because they’re unsanitary.
All for One: But he won’t eat humans.
Inko: …
Inko: Even the tentacles aren’t worth this, get the hell out of my house.
#FYI, All Might can also sprout tentacles in this AU due to One for All #Inko: Hmm #Absolutely nothing could piss All for One off more than his ex dating All Might #Inko: You have my interest! #Uh-oh, AFO had better move fast if he wants to win his mate back