Chapter Text
March 28, 2002: A day that started like any other, until late afternoon in Keikei City, China, when a glowing baby was born. In the months that followed, many other children across the world would be born with, or eventually awaken to exceptional abilities. Gone were the days of “normalcy,” and along came what is now known as the “Age of Quirks,” as these powers would be called when they were widespread enough to become the new standard.
August 15, 2206 : Izuku Midoriya, a four-year-old boy with messy dark-green hair, was sitting nervously with his mother, Inko, in the examination room of bald, mustachioed Dr. Tsubasa, with both mother and son anxiously awaiting the news on Izuku’s still-dormant quirk.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the boy is quirkless.” The doctor said very matter-of-factly. The news almost instantly froze the kid solid from sheer shock and heartbreak, while his mother, quietly holding back tears, began begging for an explanation. Something about toe-joints? Izuku wasn’t really listening anymore, still digesting not only what Tsubasa had said, but the implications of what it meant for his future.
‘Does… does this mean that I can’t… I can’t…’
Izuku would be stuck in his own head like this for hours, only starting to regain any sense of the outside world long after getting home from the doctor’s office. When he did realize where he was, he found himself sitting in front of his family’s computer, having turned on the same video he had seen hundreds of times before. The video he had built his very dreams off of for as long as he can remember…
“ There is nothing for you to fear now, because I AM HERE!!! And I will not rest until everyone here is safe and sound!”
The video showed the debut of All Might, officially the highest-ranked hero in Japan, and widely considered to be among the greatest heroes to have ever lived in all of world history. The video itself certainly made its mark on the world, showing a half-destroyed city block that was continuing to crumble from a fire started from a freak lab accident. Yet, despite the raging inferno surrounding him, a blonde, muscular, charismatic hero had been successfully rescuing people by literal dozens, all while wearing an unwavering smile that had been slowly-yet-surely enkindling hope in all present. In the end, he had managed to rescue thousands of people whose lives were in danger from the accident, with the only major casualties being those caught at ground zero.
“Izuku? Honey?” The kid was shook from his stupor at the sound of his mother’s voice finally getting through to him after a couple hours of letting his mind wander aimlessly. He slowly turned the office chair to face his mother, noticing his father, Hisashi, standing despondent in the doorway, silently looking over his wife and son. Inko, however, was right in front of Izuku, visibly struggling to fight back tears that Izuku had already begun crying the moment he recognized his mom’s voice.
“I-it doesn’t ma-ma- *hiccups* -matter what the doctor said, right? Don’t you think I can be a hero, mom? Dad?” Izuku struggled to choke the words out, hoping for someone, anyone , to say something encouraging, but what happened next made the poor boy feel even worse than before.
“I’m sorry, sweetie… I’m so sorry…” Inko finally broke down crying as she held Izuku tightly in her arms, feeling as though she had failed her son, and failing to realize that her handling this was her true failure of him in his heart. All the boy wanted was for at least one person to say that he could do it, even without a quirk, but her apologies at this moment spoke to him as a sign that she didn’t believe in him, and that his dream should stay as that, a dream.
The next four years wouldn’t get any easier for Izuku in the slightest. Not only did he still never develop a quirk, just as Dr. Tsubasa had said, and not only did he slowly turn into a pariah amongst his so-called friends when they began to realize this for themselves, but Izuku would soon lose the boy he considered his best friend, Katsuki Bakugo, a boy with pale-blonde hair that was just as prickly as his personality, when he developed a quirk of his own that let him create explosions with his hands. Katsuki and Izuku once shared the same dream of becoming heroes, both even idolizing All Might and considering him their personal benchmarks, but when the gap between the two boys and what they were capable of became evident, Katsuki went from being a friend to a tormenter.
Quirkless…
Useless…
Extra…
Deku…
Words that Izuku would suffer through almost every day since Katsuki’s change of heart, right alongside the beatings and explosions. Izuku wanted to say something to someone to try making Katsuki back off, but he would always be intimidated into silence by the blonde and his cronies, and Izuku also knew that their mothers were close friends from college. As much as he wanted to tell either mother about what Katsuki would do, he didn’t want to risk Inko losing one of the few people in her life after Hisashi had left.
With no one to turn to, Izuku thought that his life was over before it had truly begun. A broken dream, a broken family, nobody to call a friend… what was the point?
September 17, 2210 : Another day of school ending with Izuku running for his life from Bakugo and his toadies. Despite his best efforts to evade the bullies, they manage to catch up to Izuku and corner him in a small public park a few blocks from school, and to make matters worse, the chase made Bakugo work up a decent sweat, which would make his explosions even more potent. Thankfully, Bakugo had his cronies only watch this time, not wanting to raise any red flags (not that anyone would do anything about them anyways), leaving the blonde bully to beat and blast the broccoli boy into a blubbering breakdown before bouncing.
As Izuku laid in the dirt crying and clutching his bruises, he would, after who knows how long, be approached by another boy with spiky hair. While Izuku would very quickly recoil at the boy’s silhouette, this stranger acted very differently from what Izuku expected, almost the exact opposite of Bakugo, even.
“Do you need some help?” The boy asked, holding out a hand to Izuku. When the fearful greenette finally opened his eyes and began examining the unfamiliar boy, he noticed a few things. First was that he looked about the same age as Izuku, and while his hair was spiky like Bakugo’s, it was brown, with fewer yet larger spikes, and his eyes were a deep, comforting blue to contrast Bakugo’s fiery, unfriendly red.
After taking a moment to examine his apparent rescuer and tell himself that the offer seemed genuine, Izuku took the other boy’s hand and carefully stood up, making sure not to agitate his injuries. “Um, th-thank you…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m more worried about you , to be honest. Did some villain decide to stoop so low to beat up a kid?”
“Ah, um, I’m not really sure. I didn’t get a good look at hi-them,” Izuku tried lying through his teeth, not wanting to implicate Bakugo, though the nice boy didn’t seem convinced.
“If you say so. Wanna stick together in case he comes back?” The boy once again offered his hand, along with a very wide smile. Izuku couldn’t help but notice that the nice boy was missing a couple of teeth, yet his smile was quite intense and welcoming regardless. Wiping off his tears, Izuku decided to take the boy’s hand.
“Thank you. Um… my n-name’s Izuku Midoriya, by the way. What’s yours?”
“Oh, sorry about that,” he pulled his hand back and began scratching at the back of his head for a moment with a sheepish smile before shifting back to a confident one while pointing his thumb at his chest. “I’m Sora Ginokaze! It’s nice to meet you, Midoriya.”
While neither boy realized it at the time, this was the day Izuku Midoriya’s life would truly begin. This was the spark in the dark that finally illuminated Izuku’s heart.