I stood in my childhood apartment as my mother lectured me about leaving the house at night, running off, getting into fights with Katsuki and scaring her half to death. I bowed my head as she asked if I had thought about how my father would have felt if I had been kidnapped by some villain.
"Wow, she's still going huh?" Cu Chulainn asked.
<I really scared her by leaving so early, so yeah.> I thought to him.
"But you got me, so net gain."
<I still haven't figured out how to say 'hey Mom I have Ireland's greatest hero in my head and his body'> I sarcastically thought.
Cu Chulainn lazily drawled
"Technically it's more your body is becoming mine."
<What?> I asked.
I could feel Cu Chulainn waving a hand in my mind for me to relax.
"Relax, your colouration will stay, just everything else changes."
<That's not really better!> I snapped.
"Oh yeah the six feet thing is going to be a pain in Japan isn't it? Always had to duck doors last time" Cu Chulainn said
<Last time? No wait, focus. Six feet?> I asked.
"Oh yeah, that's about how tall I was alive, although I guess you use the metric system here, so 3 meters? No, that's not right. But yeah, you should get my height eventually. Sprung up like a weed around thirteen twelve so watch out for that" Cu Chulainn said
<I feel like this is information you should have told me earlier> I groused to him in my mind
"Didn't know earlier, was digging into your circuits. I've had enough lectures from angry women to last a lifetime, and your mom is not nearly attractive enough for me to stay around" Cu Chulainn says.
<Please don't talk about my mom like that> I directed my weak but determined attempt at intimidation through the mental link.
"...Okay" Cu Chulainn says far too slowly for it to be anything other than a lie.
<I'm serious, I don't need to hear anyone talking about my mom like that!>
"Izuku, are you even listening to me?!" Mom demanded.
"Yes" I lied, badly.
"Then what did I say?" Mom asked.
Crap, I had been listening to Cu Chulainn, had to guess this right…
"That I should apologize to Kachan and I'm grounded?"
Mom's face twisted into that particular expression that parents have when they love their children, but dearly want to strangle them for any number of reasons
"AND ME IZUKU! THREE MONTHS!"
I bowed my head lower and said
"...Yes mom. I'm sorry I scared and worried you mom"
"Ooh rough break," Cu Chulainn says. "I guess this is a bad time to say I think your magic circuits are working?"
<No. I want to check that out, this whole thing only came about because I wanted one last hurrah before giving this magic stuff up> I thought to Cu Chulainn
Mom was right, I had been incredibly stupid and foolish to sneak into the night to perform a half baked ritual away from everyone else. Statistically I should have gotten lost, hurt or worse. Yet, at the time I couldn't bring it in myself to regret it, not when it had finally meant my dream could be fulfilled.
"Hey I get it. I didn't listen to my mom about danger either." Cu Chulainn said.
<I feel like that explains both a lot and nothing at the same time> I thought to him.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mother push back a lock of hair.
"Go to your room Izuku, I'll call you out for dinner." she said.
I nodded and walked to my room. Mom had in her worry and concern already taken down all of my occult related things and stuffed them in a box, she had left my All Might stuff alone though, which I was grateful for.
Cu Chulainn let out a low whistle.
"You uh, you really look up to this blonde haired…guy don't you?" He asked.
I sat on my bed and looked at the Silver Age All Might Bobble Head (Limited Earth Day Edition)
"Yeah…he's my idol, I want to be a hero like he is, saving people with a smile on my face."
"Like I said, being a hero isn't about saving people." Cu Chulainn said and then muttered "As dumb as that ginger."
"H--h-how can you say that?" I nearly screeched at him. Only for my voice to crack and make it a deep whisper.
"Because it doesn't. I saved people, but that was always sort of a side benefit. A hero is someone who is able to, through the force of their own personality and body, change the world. That's it. Believe me I've worked with some guys I'd have happily killed where they stood in life, but the world still saw them as heroes." Cu Chulainn said.
My hands balled into fists.
"I can't accept that,"
"Doesn't matter if you do or not. You've heard of Shuten Douji? She's in the Throne of Heroes." Cu Chulainn said.
My head tilted as I thought about that.
"The infamous demon that ruled Mount Ooe and was only slain by Minamoto no Raikou through treachery, after eating eighty-eight Princesses and Princes?" I asked. "How is she a hero?!"
"Like I said, a hero isn't someone good or evil, but someone who does great deeds. I'm remembered for my deeds fighting monsters and armies." Cu Chulainn said. "Not because I saved Ulster or any number of villages."
I felt my fists tighten so much that it almost felt like I would draw blood.
"I can't accept that. A hero isn't just a fighter, they save people."
"That's naive kid…you fight some villain to save someone else. But to that villain's family, you're just as much a villain. The men of Connacht hated me to my dying day, but I saved Ulster. So a hero who only saves people…that's not something you can do. So don't worry about it and just work to carve your name into history." Cu Chulainn said.
The harsh words he spoke weren't wrong, even then I could see their logic. Yet, in my heart all I could think of then was All Might's smile as he carried those people from that explosion. Of how much relief had been in their faces as he laid them down safe. 'Everything is alright now, for I AM HERE' and I had wanted to do the same thing. I still do really.
"No," I said. "I'm not going to be a hero who doesn't care about people…I am going to save everyone"
"Even your 'villains', " Cu Cuchulainn asked.
"Even them!" I declared defiantly.
"Don't go making promises so easily, kid. Your circuits are closer to mine now, promises have power, your own magic will try to enforce them. And that can end up fatal, breaking my oaths is what allowed that bastard to kill me.." Cu Chulainn seemed to shake himself
"Right now your circuits are still mostly asleep, so it doesn't matter too much, but when we wake them up…your oaths will be a part of your soul. "
"Magic hurts my soul?!" I whisper-shouted.
"Kid don't be an idiot, magic can hurt your soul if you're a dumbass, but it won't if you're mindful of your words." Cu Chulainn said.
"I'm not an idiot," I said churlishly.
Like most kids and teenagers I was absolutely wrong about that, but I am getting ahead of myself here. Back then, the world was black and white for me, there were heroes and villains. Yet, Cu Chulainn defied that dichotomy. While undeniably strong, and his love of fighting was like Miruko's, his words didn't have that reassurance. Rather they were deeply cynical about the nature of saving people. That to the people you saved you were a hero, but to those you didn't, you were a villain.
"Give it ten years. I'm not even sure if the Odin Runes will work in this day and age…so we'll start with a simple one…the alguiz and naudiz runes made in a circle together on a paper should make it untearable. We'll see how awake your circuits are" Cu Chulainn said.
I took out a piece of paper and made a circle of the runes he supplied. The alguiz looked like the English Y with a line in the middle while the naudiz rune looked a bit like a cross with a crooked bar instead of a straight one.
"Alright, you need to work on the penmanship but it should work, try it." Cu Chulainn ordered.
I lifted up the paper and it tore easily.
"Damn, the summoning didn't awaken your circuits at all like I hoped. Still there was something there, if you didn't have my body…hmm." Cu Chulainn trailed off.
I was still sulky as I asked. "How do I do that? Turn on my circuits like that?"
"Well I've got good news, and bad news kid" Cu Chulainn answered.
"Bad news first" I decided.
"It's going to hurt like hell but I think I can turn on your magic circuits."
"Why will it hurt like hell?" I asked.
"Because doing this the nice way will take way too damn long. Also I don't know it. Gimme an image" Cu Chulainn said.
"Image?" I asked.
"Keeping your magic circuits on all the time is asking you to burn them out, they need to go off and on. The image is how you do that. After the first time you should be able to do it yourself but I need to know what you want to use to make it easier for you" Cu Chulainn answered.
I held my hand to my chin and began to think.
"So the image would have to be of something turning off and on, or an action that does something, but there's no restriction on that that is, but it has to be something I can imagine easily, so something like a director shouting cut wouldn't work. But if it's too easy or too common I would randomly turn on my circuits wouldn't I? So it can't be something I think about often, but easy to imagine…" I muttered.
An idea began to form in my head, my father had a terrible habit of smoking, before he…went to America, he used to use his quirk to light his cigarette. I remembered watching him do it outside on the balcony because mom insisted. It's one of my strongest memories of him.
"Can you use a flame bursting into appearance? From a mouth?" I asked.
"Finally! Thought you would be mumbling forever." Cu Chulainn said. "A flame bursting into existence…that can work. Ready?" He asked.
I moved over to my bed again and put a pillow in my mouth
<Ready> I thought.
I was in fact, not ready. As Cu Chulainn forced my magic circuits open again after the first time with the ritual, my body began to shake and shiver before white burning hot pain lanced through my core to my brain and then my limbs. It was as if someone had poured molten steel into my limbs. Despite my best effort, I screamed into the pillow loudly, the muffled noise being just enough to keep my mother from running in. That or she had gone out, probably the latter.
I can't say how long I was on that bed, hours, days, weeks? Okay not that last one but hours at least before the sensation stopped, and I drifted back to sleep, my body heavy.
-----
After a fitful night, and my mother fretting that I had caught something from my Saturday sojourn, I walked into school trying to ignore the exhaustion my limbs felt. The walled gate slid open for me as I looked up at the simple stark beige walls of a mass produced square school that hadn't seen a proper painting in the last fifty years and yawned.
<Why am I still so tired Cu Chulainn?> I asked him.
Cu Chulainn seemed to think for a moment.
"Not sure, at a guess, your circuits are woven into your muscles a lot deeper than most, mine are too. So while I cycled through your circuits, your body was giving itself a full body workout without moving."
<Oh that makes sense> I said.
Aldera Middle School is in many ways a perfectly ordinary school. That is to say, the teachers who cared got burned out years ago, the administration is fighting tooth and nail to get any funding, and the students mostly don't want to be here. I slouched into my chair, and ignored the looks of the rest of my classmates.
Yeah, I was bullied as a kid, grew up quirkless, and being different, that either makes you the coolest, or something to be beaten back into line. Whether someone was cool or not was always random to me. Not to be anti-mutant, but you'd think the guy with the literal bug stalk eyes would get more hate than the normal looking kid without a quirk.
Still the teacher came in and the stares stopped as Mrs Suzuki, who had smoked a carton a day for the last twenty years, got us to pay some attention. Honestly, I don't really remember what happened that day, I remember what happened after school more. What I do remember vividly is every time I looked away from the board, Katsuki glared at me.
After school most of us began to walk or ride home. There was a park we all cut through towards the train. It wasn't much really, a few trees, a few slides and a swing set was about it. It was however, far enough from school and the train station that only really locals or us students went through it.
I was hurrying towards home, because I did not want to make my mother angrier. You would think that only moving small objects isn't scary until you realize that 'small objects' includes a lot of things you don't want pulled on like your earlobe.
"DEEEEEEKKKKUUUUUU" Katsuki roared.
I stopped and turned around to see an angry Katsuki. No, not angry. Angry was his default state, this was a furious Katsuki who had gone all the way from angry to super angry, to calm and back to angry. He stood there his hands sparked with small explosions as the rest of the students formed a circle around us. What…oh…this was Katsuki asserting dominance I realized.
"Kachan…c-can we not?" I asked, then added "I'm sorry for yesterday"
"Fuck that shit, Small Fry wants to go, kick his ass kid." Cu Chulainn chimed in.
<Not now, Cu Chulainn> I thought.
"Don't give me that weak ass bullshit Deku" Katsuki said and took a step towards me. "You got fucking lucky once, and once is all you get you worthless trash."
"Are you sure this guy's your friend? No judgment I hung out with Finn and he's an asshole" Cu Chulainn asks.
<Yes.> I said mentally, <Now let me focus>
"Kachan, I don't want to fight you," I said.
"I'm not letting you walk away thinking you're better than me Deku, so fucking find your balls and fight me you nerd" Katsuki snarled.
Better than him? What? I was so confused. I had never thought myself better than Katsuki, Katsuki was the golden boy of Aldera, number one contender for UA and hero in the making. I was…I was someone trying his best to help and be a hero in his own way.
"Kachan-"
"Don't fucking call me that!" Katsuki snapped and threw a left hook.
Just like the day before I ducked under it to avoid it. This time though Katsuki had planned for it, swinging his hand down to launch an explosion in my face. I staggered, but didn't go down. People usually went down when Katsuki put an explosion in them.
Cu Chulainn made a strange noise.
"Hey kid, you gonna fight back at all? This guy ain't playing around"
There was no desire at all in my body to fight back. Years had taught me that to fight Katsuki was a losing proposition, even with a newfound power (that I didn't understand) that sort of conditioning doesn't just go away. Maybe if I had ten months of him ignoring me, I could have built up my self confidence to something that could defy him, as it was. A large part of me was just frozen. Let the beating happen until they go away.
<But I don't want to…> I thought back.
Katsuki kneed me hard in the stomach, taking advantage of my distraction. Yet as much as it hurt it didn't do what he wanted, which was make me go down.
"Fucking Deku, take this seriously." Katsuki demands.
"Kaachan…" I said quietly as I stood up.
Memories flowed back from our childhood, of how we had been friends, then…how he abandoned me after I was known as Quirkless. How I kept getting in his way, the way I knew exactly how his explosions felt, he was my image of victory. But I had beaten…no Cu Chulainn had beaten him the other day. Cu Chulainn had said that he was going to hold his instincts back unless the fight was good…and this wasn't a good fight by any definition of the term.
A hard hook into my jaw sent me staggering back, but still I won't go down. The demiservant body was too tough, too durable for that.
<Cu Chulainn, please help> I asked in my mind.
"Look kid, you gotta be able to throw a punch. So hurry up and punch him" Cu Chulainn says.
"Worthless" Another blow to my chest. "Fucking" my face "DEKU" And then a final snap kick to send me finally to the ground. Katsuki stands over me
"FIGHT BACK DEKU!" He shouts,
"What does Katsuki expect him to do?" a voice floats from the crowd.
" He might be worthless, but he's taking those hits like a champ" another voice.
"It's kind of pathetic" a girl's voice.
"Kaachan…why?" I asked with a weak voice.
"Because a useless pebble like you doesn't get to say they beat me…I am going to be the fucking best, the best hero, the best fighter, the best thing to come out of this fucking school." Katsuki says. "So stand up, give me your best so everyone can see exactly how much of a Deku you are."
"Izuku where the hell is your pride" Cu Chulainn demands
<In the Doctor's room floor with my quirkless designation>
"Smartass, either get your shit together, or I'm done." Cu Chulainn says.
<You can't…> I began.
"Don't give me that, you want to be a hero? WHAT SORT OF HERO DOESN'T STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES? SO TELL ME ARE YOU GOING TO BE HERO OR NOT?!" Cu Chulainn's bellow echoed in my head. My soul rattled around from his anger and disgust.
Katsuki gathers a larger and larger explosion in his hand.
"Pathetic….time to finish this."
That explosion…could hurt me even with the Demiservant body I had then. A part of me wanted to just let it happen. No matter what I did, Katuski would not get in trouble, and if I fought back that made things worse. It'd hurt, but it wouldn't kill me or anything. Cu Chulainn's words though stopped me.
Pride, pride was something to avoid, pride was something that made you arrogant, a bully, I didn't have any pride. I was Deku, the worthless quirkless nobody with an impossible dream.
Yet, it wasn't impossible, with the Demiservant body I could do it….I had…done something incredible. Where was my pride? I didn't have any…even my ritual had been botched.
The explosion came down and my world turned bright white for a moment as pain echoed through my body. It wasn't as bad as what Cu Chulainn had done yesterday, but it was still pretty bad. I hurt, I hurt so much.
"Damn Katsuki…that might have been too much you know?" Another voice.
"What'd you expect, he's quirkless..honestly that he's still here is impressive" another voice.
"When did he get abs?" a third voice.
Katsuki walked past me.
"Pathetic…I thought…fucking Deku." he sounded so angry and disappointed.
What sort of hero doesn't stand up for themselves? I didn't have an answer for that.
"It's kind of sad though…if Bakugo had killed him, then at least he wouldn't be wasting air." another voice.
"Yeah, doesn't he go on about being a hero?" A voice floated through the air.
"He does, but…look at him, he couldn't save anyone." Another voice answered
"Fucking Deku, couldn't be a hero even if he wanted to." One of Bakugo's lackeys said.
You can't be a hero
Just give up kid
I wanted to be…more than anything else a hero.
Cu Chulainn said nothing. I had failed his test, even at the time I knew that I had. Although I hadn't understood what he was looking for. It would be years later that I understood what Cu Chulainn wanted. One last truly good fight, to challenge himself at the peak of his abilities and win or lose go down swinging. For that he had answered my call, but he wouldn't be able to get that if I couldn't find the will in myself to fight.
"Alright you damn extras" Katsuki said loudly, a change from his earlier shouting. "Time to leave, let Deku pick himself up. He knows his place"
My place, my place everyone told me was to stand back, to keep my head down, go to a school I didn't care about and then a university I didn't care about, work for a company I didn't care about, and then die. I wasn't special, I wasn't worth anything, I didn't get to live out my dream.
But…my hand gripped the dirt below me. I had denied that, countless times, I had stood back up when they told me it was impossible. The words died in my throat, 'I will be a hero'
Cu Chulainn was wrong, a hero isn't just an exceptional person. A hero saves people, they fight yes but they save people.
"But Bakugo…" a voice said.
No he had to be wrong, because to save myself, to save someone who was *Deku* I had to deny that Cu Chulainn had a point.
A hero saves everyone they can, even at the cost of their own life. Yet, the only life on the line here was my own. At the time I remember that I asked myself
Why couldn't I feel angry?
Bakugo had hurt me, insulted me, isolated me, denied me, he had gone from my childhood friend to a bully. Yet for all that I couldn't be angry at him, I couldn't be angry at anyone.
"I said get out of here…I'm not wasting time on Deku and you shouldn't either" Bakugo said.
Who was I protecting? The sound of Bakugo's hand sparking again brought it into focus.
Kaachan was my image of victory, the mountain in my mind that I could not climb or assail. That was why I couldn't fight him, or stand up for myself. In my heart, I knew that was a mountain I could not climb.
'Kid you can be a hero' Cu Chulainn's words from yesterday filter back into my head.
I didn't agree with the Irish warrior in the slightest. He was a violent thug, but…but he had told me something no one else had. He had demanded what sort of hero doesn't stand up for themselves.
The answer was a hero who didn't believe they were worth standing up for.
So I laid there in the dirt, like so many other times. Tears streamed down my face. It was pathetic, I had the strength of a self described Hero of Ireland. Katsuki should have at least taken a hit against me…but I couldn't…
Rain fell on me, I blinked through the tears and laid there. The other children murmured quietly about how pathetic I was. In a manga or a tv show, this was the part where I got up and finally showed Katsuki that I wasn't worthless, that I too could be a hero. Yet, none of that happened, instead after they all left, I stood up alone in the park, covered in mud and water. My shirt was in pieces from Katsuki's explosions, but I didn't feel the cold.
All I could feel was shame at my own worthlessness.
"Well that was pathetic" Cu Chulainn said with a blunt finality.
"Yeah" I whispered.
"I can't teach you kid," The man said with an almost detached sorrow in his voice.
"...Because I lost?" I asked.
"Because you didn't even try. I could show you how to dodge through gunfire, compel fights, and dance on clouds, but I can't give you the will to fight, and without that, there's no point." Cu Chulainn said.
I could feel the contempt underlying his words, and while I at the time didn't know anything about ancient Ireland, I couldn't blame him either. A brutal vigilante he might be, but Cu Chulainn could only judge me by the standards of his people, and I was found wanting.
"I understand…" I said in a dull tone.
A day ago I had been close enough to my dream that I had tasted it. Now all that I tasted was the ashes of my own defeat.
"Go home kid" Cu Chulainn ordered.
My feet moved in a slow plodding place. If not for the rain, I probably would have been gawked at, but as it was, I was mostly alone, the only people out were those who didn't care. My mind didn't leave that park where Katsuki had torn me down, again.
-----
I honestly don't know how long I walked in the rain. Long enough that it started to get dark by the time I clambered up the stairs and pushed open my front door.
"Izuku, is that you?" my mother called out.
"Yes Mom" I said tiredly.
I closed the door and went by instinct to hang up my coat that I didn't have. The sounds of my mother's footsteps filled the apartment as she moved from the kitchen table to the foyer.
"You were supposed to come straight home after school, and---" Mom's words stopped mid sentence as she looked at me. "Izuku honey….are you okay?"
I
wasn't there to answer. My mind still on the, I couldn't even call it a fight, a fight implied that you at least did something to resist. On Cu Chulainn's disappointment, I had lost the one person who believed in me, because I couldn't find the will to throw a punch.
Oh there were excuses, my mind had given me so many excuses. He was my friend (but was he though?) Fighting was wrong (is it though?) I'd make Auntie Mitsuki sad (would I though?) and so on. In the end though all my excuses could do was give a bit of relief for the shame I felt.
Warm hands, soft hands pulled me into an embrace as my mother stroked my back.
"Oh honey…it's okay, it's going to be okay" She said over and over.
The part of me that was there didn't have the heart to tell her the truth. That I wasn't okay and I might never be. We stood like that for a while, her words tried to reach me, and I was too lost to hear them.
I'm not too sure what happened next, my mother must have led me to the kitchen table and sat me down. Yet, I don't remember how I moved from the foreway to the kitchen. I don't remember hearing my mother make a phone call. I do remember the miniscule plastic weight of the phone in my hand, and a voice that spoke out from across the Pacific. One I hadn't heard in months.
"Hey buddy, you alright there?" My father asked.
It must have been after midnight there, but he still sounded like he was there somehow. My eyes widened at the realization that my mother must have called him out of desperation.
"Dad?" I asked dumbly.
"Yeah…your mom says…you're going through something, and won't talk to her…hoping you might talk to me" Dad gives a self deprecating laugh.
"I…Just…" I fell silent.
Dad called exactly three times a year, on my mom's birthday, on my birthday, and on new years. I couldn't say we were close. I didn't hate him or anything, but it's hard to be close to a voice you hear so little. His work was hard, long hours and a bad timezone made it hard. When he was free it was the middle of night here, when we were, he was in the middle of catching up on sleep. I suppose that was why when I heard his voice, I was shocked away from the park.
"Did you ever get into fights?" I asked.
"Few times," Dad answered, "was a bit of a punk as a kid"
"But you fought back, you threw a punch, you did something right?" I pressed.
"Sure, after the first time, your grandpa made me take some Karate. So the next few times I was able to handle it better…what happened?"
A wave of despair and something else crashed over me.
"I…couldn't even throw a punch, I just stood there and took it…I hated every minute of it but I couldn't do anything."
There was a long silence on the other end as I felt my tears run over my face again.
"Oh," he finally said. "Well…that's different from what I expected."
"What did you expect?" I asked.
"About the only thing you got from me was my hair and my love of heroes…even if it's a lot more. But like your mother, you're a kind person, you don't like hurting people, so you take it, and take it, like she does. But eventually there's nothing more you can take, and you explode...how I met your mother actually…but yeah I expected you to have exploded and gone too far." Dad said.
"Even though I'm quirkless?" My surprise was audible.
"Even though. You don't need a quirk to beat the shit out of someone, I never…anyways, can you not tell your mother I swore?" He asked.
"Sure Dad…but I…don't know what to do, I feel like I'm…Deku." I finished off, not able to articulate my feelings.
"Deku? Unpack that one later with your mom." He yawned. "Izuku, what do you want? I know you say you always want to be a hero. But what do you want?"
I wanted to be a hero
'What kind of hero doesn't stand up for themself?'
I wanted to save people
'He doesn't look like he can save anyone'
I wanted to not be this way anymore.
"I want…I want to know how you found the will to fight." I said, my voice struggled to hold back the sob.
My dad didn't answer for a moment.
"...first real fight I got into for my pride, second was for my friend, third was for your mother, the last one was for you."
"For me?"
"Let's say there's a reason I'm in America and it's not for the higher pay. I'll tell you what my sensei told me when I was your age: ''The only reason to fight is to defend someone, but you too are someone, and worth defending."
"I am?" I asked quietly.
"Yeah Izuku, wouldn't have slugged my coworker if you weren't. I can't tell you what will give you the will to fight. But talk to your mother for all our sakes…" another yawn from Dad.
"...Okay…I'm sorry I woke you up" I said.
A wry chuckle.
"It's fine, would have felt bad if I hadn't been here for you. You okay?"
"Will be, I'll let you go to sleep," I said.
"Thanks…good night" Dad said and hung up.
As the dial tone rang, I looked over to see my mother, her hands worrying against themselves.
"The will to fight?" she asked.
"I got…attacked on the way home, and I…I just froze, I felt so pathetic, I still feel pathetic. I couldn't even throw one punch at him." The words fell out of my mouth.
My mother's eyes seemed to glow with fire.
"Who was it?" she demanded.
I flinched, not wanting to say. While Katsuki had been my tormentor for years, he was still the closest thing I had at Aldera to a friend. Besides, Cu Chulainn using my body had kicked his ass the other day, it made sense for him to get payback.
Her mouth formed a narrow line as I refused to answer.
"Katsuki then…" she said.
"I…I…why would you?" I asked.
"Because he's the only one at that school you would protect," Mom answered.
I winced, she had…a point. Mom folded her arms.
"I'm getting you out of that school" she stated.
"It's not going to be better anywhere else, and Aldera is…"
"Yes, yes, Aldera is the closest school to U.A. I don't care Izuku" she unfolded her arm to gesture at me.
"I'm not letting you stay in the same school as someone who does that to you."
"But I'm fine?" I tried.
An unamused stare shut that down more quickly than words ever could.
"I…don't want to cause trouble," I said.
Mom's face softened.
"I know, you're a special, kind, wonderful boy turning into a special young man…but this isn't okay, I'm your mother, it's my job to protect you."
I don't know what it was about that phrasing that set me off, but it did.
"Because I can't protect myself?" I half whined, half cried.
"You're not supposed to!" Mom snapped back. "That's not your…job, you're supposed to learn, read too much manga, listen to music, enjoy the life you have, and let the adults handle things."
"Well I can't do that" I said. "I can't do that and become a hero."
"Izuku…you just said you couldn't even throw a punch at someone beating you…what kind of hero does that?" Mom asked, echoing Cu Chulainn's words.
"I don't know, I don't…" I swung my fist down and cracked the table in half, it slumped with both ends splayed out into a triangle, the broken edge against the ground. "I don't know, and I'm tired of being Deku, but I'm fucking Deku, and I don't know how to fix it, and the one thing I thought fixed me, fixed nothing!" My voice yelled.
Mom was looking at the snapped table, but quickly looked back at me.
"Deku? That name Katsuki called you because he couldn't pronounce the kanji in your name?"
"Useless, because I don't have a quirk. That's what it means." I answered. Shit I hadn't meant to break the table.
"What" Mom asked in a cold anger filled tone.
"It's what I am…" I said, my self loathing came back full force.
I was looking down so I heard more than saw my mother snap the table legs in half. The slumped over ruins of the table clattered to the ground. Quirks are strange and usually limited, but heightened emotion or effort can push them past that limit briefly. I have no idea how angry or sad my mother felt at that moment. I can only imagine that the table legs stood in for a lot of people.
"Don't you ever say that around me again Izuku." Mom said after a moment "I won't stand for the best thing to happen to me to say that….how long have you been like this?"
I tried to come up with an answer, to recall at what point I had internalized Katsuki and the other's words. Yet, it felt constant for so long that there wasn't a time I could remember where I didn't feel like that.
"I…I don't know."
Mom hugged me, our mutual love of crying taking over as she sobbed, and so did I.
"Okay, we'll figure it out together. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, but I am now, and I'll never abandon you again. "
I still had no answer for my lack of fighting will, or for anything really, and I was sure that mom had questions about the table I broke, but in that moment all I could do was hold on to her as the exhaustion of the day caught up to me and I fell asleep.
I awoke to the sound of my alarm as it blared in the early morning. For a moment I was in that half awake, half asleep state where you think you're still dreaming. Something about a dolphin? I don't remember it's been so long. I sat up in my bed and looked down at myself. Despite Katsuki's beat down from yesterday, my body felt fine, better than that even. Like I could take on a dozen Katsuki's
I half expected Cu Chulainn to make a joke about that, but there was still nothing but silence in my head. Was he even still there I wondered. I moved to get change when there was a knock at the door.
"Izuku honey, I called the school today, and told them you were sick, so don't worry about getting to school." Mom called through the door.
"Okay Mom" I said hoarsely
I went back to dress myself in my casual clothes, an old t-shirt that said 'this is not a shirt'.
Yes, my fashion sense is hilarious. I looked at my mirror…I had abs, I had abs for days…another benefit of Cu Chulainn? I wondered, it must have been. A part of me was happy to see my body so…not weak and scrawny, another part of me was asking if I really deserved it.
It wasn't like I worked out for ten months to get a body like this. It literally happened overnight, pain or no pain. I pushed the thought to the side, it wasn't like I could undo what I had done.
I went outside to have breakfast, and saw my mother tapping away on her phone. Despite the banal situation, the atmosphere felt tense to me. As if we were both one misspoken word from losing each other. I knew that she had promised that she would stay, but with Cu Chulainn's silence, and the remains of the ruined table in front of me. My heart wavered more than it should have.
Mom looked up from her phone, and tilted her head.
"Good morning, how'd you sleep?" She asked.
I shrugged. "Alright…thanks for carrying me to bed…sorry about the table."
Mom looked over at the broken wood.
"It's a table, it can be fixed or replaced. Are you feeling any better?"
Did I feel better? Not really, I still hated…everything about myself. The overwhelming shame was still there, the hatred of my inaction, the fear that this was all I was and so on. But, it wasn't as intimate as the previous day. I thought about lying to her then, to try and make her not worry and let things go back to normal. The determined glare from my mother's usually kind green eyes warned against it.
So instead I gave a shrug and said
"Not really. I still hate how useless I was but it's not as…big as yesterday." .
"Hmm, I'm not going to pretend I understand it. You're not usually one to get into fights" Mom was wistful before her words turned firm. "But…you're not useless, never tell yourself that. I've been looking into martial arts teachers for you. I don't want you to fight but…I hate seeing you like this more."
Cu Chulainn's harsh words flashed in my mind. How without the will to fight it was all useless.
"I don't think a martial arts teacher is going to help mom." I said.
Mom gave me a curious look.
"Why do you say that?" She asked.
"It's not about knowing how to fight…it's..you asked me about the will to fight. I know how to throw a punch" I threw a very light one there in the kitchen. "But I couldn't throw one…I froze."
"I see…" Mom sighed and put away her phone. "I think you should talk to one anyways. If anyone knows how to get over that barrier it'd be a martial arts teacher right?"
The words had a certain logic about them, but at the same time, it felt like a failure on my part. I couldn't rely on others to find my will, I couldn't…give up so easily.
'You can be a hero' I needed to prove myself worthy of that declaration.
"Maybe? I feel like I should figure this out myself." I said.
"There's no shame in asking for help Izuku." Mom said. "Your father sent me the contact info for his old sensei, who sent me a list of his students who went on to be teachers in their own right. Let's see one, if you decide that you don't want to learn from them, that's fine…but nothing wrong in looking."
I felt her subtle but very determined order laced in those words. I could argue about it for a while, but she would win, because I was a total momma's boy then. I still am really.
"Alright" I agreed.
Mom took her phone out and showed me a list of names, none of them were familiar, but there was only one on the list that stood out as female. Kendo Ikumi, I wondered if it had been harder for her, even though officially there was full equality…there was a reason why it had been my mom that gave up her work as a legal aid and not my dad.
"Did any of them look good?"
"Kendo maybe?" I offered. I had no real reason beyond curiosity.
"Alright, I'll make the call. In the meantime, get on the computer and see if you can find us a new table" Mom said.
So I spent my early morning on furniture websites and trying to avoid being linked back to Ikea, how it survived the Dark Age of Quirks no one knows. The most popular theory is that since it is impossible to get out of an Ikea, villains wanted nothing to do with it. What good was robbing a place you couldn't escape? So while other global chains buckled under the weight of constant villain (and ex employee) attacks and disappeared into unlamented bankruptcy, Ikea remained strong and very Swedish.
Mom came in with a gentle smile. "She's agreed to meet with us today, but it has to be over lunch, she has classes starting at two. So we have to leave soon. Did you find anything?" She asked.
I turned around in my chair and gestured to a table that was a bit more robust looking than our old one, but seemed cheap to me. Mom coughed and nodded.
"Well, it's a good back up option, get your things then," she said.
In her defence, I would later find out that I had picked a notoriously shoddy manufacturer. So my first attempt hadn't been as good as I thought at the time.
So off we went to Ahecoto City to a YoMatsu Beef Bowl place. I couldn't complain they didn't make it as good as my mother, but still, Katsudon. Yeah I had a problem.
-----
The YoMatsu was like most fast food joints, just spacious enough that you didn't feel claustrophobic but still centred around putting as many people as possible in seats while overworked kitchen staff work like mad in the lunch rush. Inside there weren't a lot of spaces to sit, but one spot was open by a very fit looking woman with red hair and blue eyes. Her hair was cut short, and she wore a casual set of jeans and a t-shirt that said 'Number 1' on it. Despite her not looking too old, I got the sense from how she held herself that she was closer to my mother's age. That and the fact that she was eating the exact same thing my mother had ordered to try and watch her figure.
"Oh there she is, Izuku go introduce yourself to Mrs. Kendo while I get our food" Mom ordered.
A bundle of nerves was I, but I nodded, walked over and bowed to her.
"Mrs. Kendo?" I asked.
The woman smiles.
"Hai, but you can call me Ikumi-sensei if you want, most of my students do."
"I-I-I'm not your student yet." I said.
"Your mother did mention that you were on the fence. Honestly if not for your dad I probably wouldn't be here." Ikumi said.
"You knew my dad?" I asked.
"He was my senior, until he had to quit for school. Anyways, what is it that has you on the fence?" Ikumi enquired.
I stuttered out. "I, well, I'm not sure I'd be a good student, I just don't know if I can fight…I couldn't the other day. I couldn't find the will to throw a single punch."
Ikumi's eyes narrow in thought.
"Sit down, you don't have to go into too much detail, but I'd say you were bullied?"
I sat down across from her and nodded. It wasn't…totally accurate at least to me back then but close enough.
"Hmm, and you can't stand up to your bully, even though you want to?"
"Hai" I stammered again. "If, if he goes after someone else, it's fine I can stand then..cant' do anything but if it's me, I just freeze up."
The older woman stirs her bowl with her chopsticks for a moment.
"What's different?" She asked too gently for me to put up my guard.
"They don't deserve it…I…"
"But you feel you do." Ikumi finishes.
I shrug, that was the core of it for me, I couldn't find it in me to fight for myself. Others? That's fine, that's what heroes do no matter what Cu Chulainn says, but me...no.
"That's a conundrum," Ikumi said as my mom sat down.
"What is?" Mom asked as she handed me my beef bowl.
I gave a tiny thanks and dug in.
"Well your son doesn't think he's worth fighting for, I'd have to say he's being bullied for his quirk...it's sad how much the younger generation thinks they're the end all and be all." Ikumi answered.
Mom and myself both swallowed hard.
"Actually" I managed to say without a stutter. "I'm quirkless"
Ikumi's eyes widened, while about twenty percent of the population is quirkless, that's mostly concentrated in the Global South. In Japan about 1% of the population is quirkless, and of them the majority are old folks. I was a living fluke from her perspective.
"I see, that must be hard." Ikumi said with a pitying tone I had grown used to, and hated a little.
"Hai, but you can help him right?" My mom pressed with a nervous energy.
Ikumi took another bite of her food and finished off the vegan beef bowl.
"Hmm, not at my dojo. I can teach him a lot, kicking, guarding, punching, you name it. That won't help him though."
"I know, I know, I need the will to fight if I want to be a hero or even just not useless…" I muttered that last part.
"You want to be a hero too huh…" Ikumi got a fond look on her face. "You're not useless because you lack a quirk, but you feel useless because people tell you that you are, am I right? They used to tell me I was useless too."
"But you're so…healthy" my mom settled on instead of 'buff'
Ikumi chuckles.
"My quirk just makes my fingers bigger, which while a fun party trick isn't terribly useful. So yeah they used to tell me my quirk was worthless, and that I'd never do anything useful or be a hero. In the end I didn't want to be a hero, I just wanted to prove I didn't need my quirk to be powerful, so I joined a dojo and things went from there."
"So…how did you…overcome it?" I asked.
The red haired woman looked out the glass wall of the YoMatsu.
"Overcome the words? Through my sensei and friends at the dojo. They saw something in me they liked, I didn't understand it, but I wasn't going to let them down."
"So, even if I can't fight for myself, I can fight for others. The need to protect then? But my mom and dad are fine, they're really the only ones I need to protect. So what does that mean? Wait a hero protects everyone, so is that what dad meant that you too are worth defending?" I trailed off my muttering as Ikumi chuckled.
"A bit of a motormouth aren't you?" She asked rhetorically. "But yes. You'll learn one day that you too are worth something, but that's not a lesson I, your mother or anyone else can give you. Until then, if you want to fight, fight for others, fight for the ideals you hold dear, or I dunno, fight to learn a lesson."
'I can't teach you kid without the will to fight' Cu Chulainn's words echoed.
"I think I understand." I said slowly.
I couldn't fight for myself, I might never be able to, but for others I could do that. To make sure my mother didn't worry herself sick…I thought I could do that, but there was only one real way to put it to the test.
A smile from Ikumi
"I don't think your son needs martial arts training, not yet Mrs. Midoriya. Just some advice."
Mom bowed.
"Still thank you Mrs. Kendo, you went out of your way to meet us and I think you helped a lot."
My mind wasn't really on the conversation, but on what I was going to do.
I needed to be a hero, I needed it like air, and I had a chance, I had a chance, but only if I could prove myself to Cu Chulainn…or was that the only way? The question wiggled its way to the forefront of my body. While having Ireland's Man of Light actually teach me would be an incredible boon. My body was still turning into a Demiservant's body. I saw that this morning with my magic abs. With it the ability to be a hero was still there.
No, I wouldn't know how to do…all the things that Cu Chulainn did as naturally as breathing, from fighting to runecraft, but I could learn. He had learned once. I just needed a place to figure out my limits.
"Oh it's no problem, I don't mind going out once and a while and besides it was nice to talk a bit of philosophy, my students are tired of hearing it." Ikumi said.
"Even so, can I at least cover your lunch?" Mom asked.
"No, no it's fine, just let me know if your son finds his reason for me." Ikumi waved the offer off.
"What?" Mom asked.
"The barrier your son faces, it's not one that's overcome so easily. You usually see it when someone moves from sparring to a real fight. However, if one overcomes it then one can reach their true potential." Ikumi answered.
"Did you overcome it?" I asked absently.
"A question I only answer for my students." Ikumi said enigmatically. "I've got to go, it was nice meeting you Izuku"
She rose and gave a polite sort of bow as we exchanged farewells.
Fight for others or your ideals…that was the advice that she had given me. Yet my ideal was to save others, so it was one and the same wasn't it? As we travelled home mostly in silence, I could only look down at my fists.
The Will to Fight, did I really have it? Ikumi had said that I would find it when I had to fight for something I valued. I didn't value myself, which was an odd thing to say. It wasn't like I wanted to be hurt, attacked or bullied, but I could take it. Better that I take it then someone seriously getting hurt. I would learn in time that I did have, but not that day, and not for years later.
At that moment though, I had to learn the limits of my body and focused on that instead of the will to fight.
-------------
Mom kept me out of school as long as she could, which turned out to be four days. As much as she wanted to move me to other schools, it was difficult to do transfers mid school year for someone with such 'poor prospects' as myself. There was a reason I had gone to Aldera instead of one of the prep schools, and it wasn't because I couldn't make the grades. She also eased up on my grounding from three months to three weeks. Apparently she felt that Katsuki kicking my ass was punishment enough, that or she was trying to make up for her own guilt. I never really had the courage to ask.
So on Saturday I returned to the school and kept my head down as I tried to figure out the best way to see what I could actually do without giving things away. While I had no quirk, I knew that anyone who saw my five foot nothing frame throwing around engine blocks would assume I was using a quirk. Which was illegal, because for some reason the government didn't want me to throw around engine blocks.
Today was science, and we were doing climate. Usually the climate classes talked about the herculean effort that the U.N. and other groups put in to keep the planet from cooking us all via extensive use of quirks, but today the teacher was talking about the ocean currents.
"And we can see this in action at Takoba Beach. While there are a number of unscrupulous businesses that dump there illegally, most of the debris is from the ocean washing up garbage from other countries, primarily from the Philippines and Indonesia. Unfortunately the clean up cost for the beach would be…quite a bit, and with the currents, well the Mayor doesn't see it as worthwhile when we can invest more into U.A. Even though…"
I ignored the rest of the teacher's semi-common complaints about how U.A. Stole all the funding in Musutafu for itself. How U.A. didn't need to have yet another city training ground nor another grant for a fifth stadium because the third-year students kept destroying theirs and so on. It wasn't even wrong per say, but U.A. was where All Might learned, and thus could do no wrong in my mind at the time. Still, the mention of all the dumping at Takoba Beach triggered an idea. What if I used all that washed up garbage to make a wall to hide from the public? Then I could really cut loose without worry.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like that was a good plan. I needed to research good tests for physical abilities on the internet and go from there. It felt good to have a plan, even if Cu Chulainn's silence had made me more worried than ever. Would my abilities go away before I had a chance to seriously test them? If so, I could try the ritual again, although I don't want to think about who I would get this time. While the Irish Hero wasn't someone I could agree with, he wasn't a true villain, what if I got Dracula in my head? I didn't want to be a vampire. Still don't want to be a vampire, nothing against people with blood quirks, or anything, but I wouldn't want one even if I could have a quirk.
I took out my Hero Analysis Notebook Volume 9 and began to write down ideas.
-----
Three weeks passed more or less as the previous year and a half of my life had gone. Wake up, eat, go to school, run home as fast as possible, do homework, eat, do Hero research online, go to bed. It was a monotonous existence, but it was a comfortable rut to walk in.
Every so often as I ran to school I would test myself a little, seeing if I could crush a metal rail in my hand, jump up high on the school roof, little things like that. Near as I could tell, while I wasn't getting any better, my abilities hadn't really decreased either.
Still, as my punishment for scaring my mother half to death (and then to near actual death the next day) finally ended, I was excited to go over to Takoba beach at the ungodly hour of four in the morning. This time though, I had the presence of mind to tell my mother I was 'exercising' saying that Ikumi had inspired me. She had kinda, so it wasn't a lie.
I was pretty confident in my endurance, Katsuki had hit me as hard as he could and I had taken a step back instead of a knee before he followed up. The real question was my speed and strength. So as I stood in the middle of the garbage dump that was Takoba beach, I set my sights on a small compact car, I think it was a Honda, and began to lift.
The car went straight up into the sky, and I fell over as I slammed the car back down onto the sand, with a loud crash. I looked up at the early morning sky, first test of strength…more than a small car. How heavy a car could I lift? I got up, and looked around for a bigger car that fell off a ship-ship or something. My grunts echoed in the morning as I dragged cars around to try and make heavier and heavier weights for me to lift. The answer turned out to be four small cars at once. After that the sand couldn't support me at all.
Speed was a little trickier to test, I knew how fast things were supposed to fall, so I came up with the idea of piling up a small tower of cars, measuring it, and then seeing if I could run down faster than I could jump down. At least I was good at maths. The initial tests suggested I was probably about as fast as Ingenium's recorded average speed. Granted when pushed Ingenium could go a lot faster, but still that was pretty damn fast for a kid who hadn't even grown into his adult size yet.
As I set more cars up to see how high I could jump. I heard the sound of a boat coming in off the water. That was odd, even then I knew it was odd. Takoba was a dump, but not the sort you take boat trips to look at in the wee early hours. As gently as I could, I put down the car and climbed up to the pile I had already made. I laid down to hide myself as I looked over to see what exactly was happening. The boat was a small dinghy good for speed and would hold five people if that. It was piloted by a woman with adorable otter features, although she carried herself as she was the baddest bitch in the world which was sort of at odds with her appearance. Beside her was a more relaxed older looking man wearing a fedora and overcoat. He lit up a cigarette as they landed against the shore.
"Fuck Takoshi do you have to light up?" The woman asked.
"Depends, do you want me ready to use my quirk Hifumi?" Takoshi asked.
Hifumi folded her arms angrily.
"Yeah but right beside me? Those things give you cancer."
The other man waved his free hand.
"Ah don't worry about it. I know a guy who can fix it right up."
The roar of an SUV engine mixed with the squeal of brakes as a vehicle came to a stop in the parking lot above. Two doors slammed open then a third.
"Shit! Looks like Gouzu and Meizu didn't get away clean after all" Hifumi swore. "Boss will be pissed"
"As long as they got the package, it'll be fine." Takoshi said as he ate his lit cigarette and set another alight.
Package? Smuggling? No by the sound of it, a Robbery I decided. Where were the heroes? Or even the police.
Two more figures came running from the beach. Both male, one was sort of tall and gangly, with a wicked looking hook in his hand. The other man carried a water bottle filled with..paint? Something like paint was what I thought at the time. On the tall one's shoulder was a sack…and it was moving.
"What the fuck Gouzu?" Hifumi demanded.
"Butler held out for more money. Had to get rough, got found" The tall one, Gouzu answered.
"Almost out of paint, but the cops and heroes all think we're heading over to Acetoh " The other one Meizou answered.
A whimper echoed from the sack.
"Well then our paycheque is good."
The realisation that they were kidnapping someone happened both slowly and all at once as I found myself on my feet. I don't remember standing. All I remember is this overwhelming need to *act*
I wasn't going to let someone be kidnapped in front of me. The fire of determination burned in my soul with my magic circuits lighting up a bright red in my mind.
The next thing I knew I was on the boat, my fist outstretched in front of me. Tokashi slammed into a fridge a good twenty feet from where he had been.
"Holy fucking shit kid, where did that come from?" Cu Chulainn asked out of nowhere.
"What the fuck?" Hifumi asked.
"Vigilante! Meizou take him out," Gouzu ordered.
<Later not now> I snapped.
Meizuo threw his bottle of paint at me and it burst into a copy of an enormous rhinoceros that charged at me. It's horn lowered as it moved with thunderous steps across the beach to gore me. I caught the paint rhinoceros by the horn and learned that it was in fact a brightly coloured acid. My fingers burned as I roared in pain and threw the rhino at my shoulder into the ocean.
"He, he threw it?!" Meizou shouted in disbelief.
The otter woman -Hifumi- attacked me from behind with a powerful kick slicing into my spine. It was hard enough to stagger me as she followed up with another kick to the back of my head. I still didn't go down, so she kept kicking me, strong legs supplemented by her using her tail to keep her balance.
"Ugh, I hate fighting women," Cu Chulainn said. "Duck now"
I ducked as he told me and Hifumi found nothing but air as I launched myself backward into her like a rocket. Back tackles aren't real things, but it was enough to send her for a loop, as we rolled over into a heap. She tried to grapple and choke me out with her tail. I drove my elbow into her side and felt something break. I hit her twice more before she let go, clutching at the mess of her rib cage that I had just made.
"Fucking uselss ass…Meizou get the boat" Gouzu said as he tossed the sack into the boat.
"Brother…" Meizou said.
"I know, it's fine, this idiot relies on his quirk." Gouzu said.
I didn't bother to correct him as I took a low stance and charged.
Only to have a hand come out of nowhere and hit me into a car. I looked up to see a long rubbery arm return back to Gouzo's shirt.
I got up, and ignored the blooming pain in my spine. There was someone to save. I fixed a smile on my face and charged again. This time I saw the fist coming for me and was able to block, but it still sent me away from the boat. I landed feet first on a safe vault and launched myself back towards them. Only to get hit from above and slammed into the dirt, my face ate sand and a few other things that aren't good for you.
Meizou started up the engine and began to push it off the sand. No, I couldn't let them get away. I had to do something. No matter how fast I attacked, that damn fist. I stood up, and charged again, this time I turned to try and hit the fist back, but I missed and landed in a pile of automotive parts.
"Nice try Vigilante" Gouzu said mockingly, as the boat took off from the shore, the engine roaring as it sped away.
Gouzu reached out with his rubber arm to grab onto the boat, and pulled himself onto it.
No…no there had to be…something I could do. I stood up and found my hand on a tire rim. It was an impossible shot.
"Heh, that? You got this" Cu Chulainn said.
I didn't have time to question it as I threw the tire rim as hard as I could at the boat. True to his promise the metal rim slammed into the boat's engine, hard enough to shatter the engine and the tire rim.
Okay I stopped them…and my mind suddenly realised that the kidnapping victim was still in the sack. Without another thought I ran towards the shore line and jumped towards the sinking boat.
I landed in the cold salt water, not too far from the boat and began to swim towards. That's when Gouzu's hand wrapped around my throat, and began to choke me.
"You little shit, if I have to go to Tartarus…" I heard him snarl as he held me just below the surface, there was nothing that I could push off of in order to get leverage. So his arm just pushed me down, down and down.
Out of desperation I slammed my fist into his rubber arm. I hadn't expected it to do much, make him flinch or something, but instead it tore the arm clean off. No bone provided resistance, only cartilage, the water turned red as the arm flinched back.
Now free of being choked, I shot to the surface like a rocket. As I broke through the water, I greedily sucked down air. A part of me noticed that despite being under for a good two minutes, I didn't need that much air. The rest of me ignored it, my eyes focused on the boat where Gouzu cradled his handless arm while he screamed. The ship was still sinking.
I swam towards them, as Meizou tried to throw more of his acid bottles at me. Yet, it didn't matter even as the burning acid poured over me, I stood up on the boat. I wonder sometimes what they thought in that moment as I stood up on their sinking boat. A kid had torn through them, either knocking them out or worse, and lept, farther than anyone without a specialised quirk should be able to. Were they scared of what I would do as a vigilante? Or were they in shock that it had all happened? I don't know, I never saw them again after that morning.
I picked up the sack and put it over my shoulder. The pain of the canvas irritated me, but I was too hooped up on adrenaline and magic to truly notice.
"You can't…." Meizou tried to say.
Gouzu had a far simpler statement as he pulled a knife from somewhere and charged me. I'd probably attack the guy who took my arm too to be fair. I didn't know what to do. Then my body moved again, a crescent kick that took Gouzo's other hand and turned it into a mangled mess.
<Cu Chulainn?> I asked.
"You're still as Osakabahime would say: 'A bitch ass baby'. But, you've won me over for now. Just no more of this just standing there and taking it bullshit" Cu Chulainn said.
<I…I'll try> I said.
I didn't know if I could stand up for myself, still on the other hand, if I could do all this, standing up for myself should be easy right? I hoped so.
"Good now let's get out of here, still gotta get to shore" Cu Chulainn said.
"Who the fuck are you?" Meizou asked as he tried to comfort his brother.
I didn't have a good answer for this. In my dreams I had answered All Might Junior or Mighty Mite, but that all sounded so vapid now. I had nearly died, they had nearly died. They still could die.
"...Just…a concerned citizen" I answered.
With that I jumped back off the ship and swam to shore. The sack was heavy on my back as I swam with one arm. I imagined someone made of metal or something like that to explain it as I got to shore. I heard in the distance two more splashes as the brother's swam to shore somewhere else.
I know, I should have found a way to take them in or something, believe me I know. At the time though, all that mattered to me was saving the person in the sack. And even now knowing what happened later, I still think that was the right decision for me.
My clothes were utterly drenched as I came up on the shore, my body shivered as I dragged the sack on to the softest looking pile of sand I saw. Then I went to open it up only to see the sack had been sealed tight by some adhesive fabric. So instead my hands went to different sides of the sack and I pulled.
A loud rip echoed over the beach as the canvas came apart in my hands. The sun shone over my back as I looked down to see a girl about my age with black eyes, almost like onyx and black hair. She was taller than me and wearing night clothes. She looked afraid, so I tried to smile in a comforting way.
I immediately ruined any sort of cool impression I might have given by stumbling over my words.
What I meant to say 'Hey, are you okay? You're safe now, no one's going to hurt you'
What came out: "H-h-hey you okay yousafenownohurt"
"What?" She asked.
Cu Chulainn let out a chuckle.
"Harsh. Eh, first rescue and your first damsel too. If you didn't fuck up I'd be more surprised."
"I..I I'm sorry…you okay?" I tried again with a little more success.
"Better…you're not…who I thought you'd be…did you save me?" she asked.
I blushed. "I did…um…did you want my shirt or something?" I asked.
A long silence fell between us.
"...No," She said. "I'm- I'm Momo Yayorozu. Thank you for saving me…but my parents won't give you any money for that…aren't you a little young to be a hero?"
Yayorozu, why was that name familiar? I wondered at the time. I would later remember why it was familiar, the Yayorozu Conglomerate owned both my dad's company and my neighbourhood. They were one of the last true Zaibatsu forged in the Dark Age of Quirks over the corpses of the Mitsubishi and Yasuda. In effect I had rescued the closest thing Japan had nowadays to a princess.
I waved a hand.
"I um, didn't do it for money, y-you needed help is all…I'm just a student like you"
Momo blinked at that, and nodded.
"Thank you…um, do you have a phone?" She asked.
I checked my pocket where my now waterlogged phone helpfully reminded me why you should never buy knock off phones. Water resistant to thirty metres, right.
"S-sorry" I stammered. "I…have one at home?"
Momo shivered as the waves lapped against the shore. Then she seemed to concentrate for a moment before a fully formed, if archaic cellphone popped out of her skin. She looked thinner but she quickly dialled something on the phone and held it up to begin talking.
"Hello. Father" She said
A male voice too faint to make out said something.
Momo looked out to the ocean
"Yes I'm safe."
More of a tinny male voice I couldn't understand.
"I'm at…" Momo looked at me.
I mouthed Takoba Beach.
She nodded and continued.
"Takoba Beach, no I don't know what happened to the kidnappers."
Momo's eyes went wide.
"Edgeshot is on his way?"
More talking.
"I see, I'll wait for him in the parking lot." She finished and hung up the phone.
In retrospect I stared pretty hard at the phone and by extension her.
"My quirk, Creation, lets me make anything inorganic that I have memorised the molecular structure of." Momo said.
Later, she would tell me that she had said that to try and keep me on a safe topic, apparently a half naked green beanpole tearing through five criminals is disconcerting. She was hopped up on adrenaline and cold and didn't realise she could trust me yet.
"That's amazing" I said without thought, "Anything inorganic? Would that include things that aren't technically real? I-island had a prototype flight suit that worked as powered armour but they couldn't make enough Yukawanium in order to power it for more than a few minutes…would it be possible to make true nanomachines? Hmm no it has to be something you know the molecular structure of, that would limit it to items with easily repeatable structures, carbon is probably the easiest?"
Momo coughed.
"Um, I'm going to wait for Edgeshot, thank you again for saving me."
I stopped abruptly.
"You're welcome. I said, as my voice broke.
"Gotta say, mumbling up like that ain't exactly gonna win you any damsels kid" Cu Chulainn said sardonically.
<D-damsels?> I stammered. No I don't know how I stammered in my head back then.
"Yeah, probably lost that one, but maybe you'll get another chance, you're a bit young anyways." Cu Chulainn says. "Plenty of fish in the sea."
<I..I didn't save her for that> I said having managed to shake my embarrassment.
"So what? You save people, they're gonna be grateful. Part of that is going to be attractive, and not attractive women throwing themselves at you." Cu Chulainn said.
<I'll deal with it then if it happens> I said. I could barely look a girl in the eye. The idea of that happening seemed like something out of poorly written harem manga.
Momo reached the top of the stairs into the parking lot. She then turned around and waved at me with a smile. The sun framed her as some sort of goddess princess, ethereal and yet beautifully real.
My smile hurt my face as I waved back.
The sound of a car caused her to stop as she ran over to…Edgeshot I guess.
Holy shit her family knows a pro hero? That's was so fucking cool.
"We should probably get back." Cu Chulainn said, "You know you never gave her your name?"
"....Dammit" I said.
Still despite the disappointment that I had lost the chance to ever see Momo Yaoyorozo ever again. I still smiled and couldn't stop.
I had been a hero. That was all that mattered.
AN: This was originally two chapters, but on review I felt that ending chapter two with such a downer didn't work quite right if I was only updating once a week. So I combined chapters 2-3 most other chapters won't be this long. Once again I'd like to thank Slamu for helping me with the word choice and beta reading.
