Chapter 1: A Wild Quirk Appears!
It all began with a glowing child.
The birth of that child was the start of a new era in human evolution, the Era of Quirks. After this birth, people around the globe began to develop superpowers. No one knew exactly what was causing these quirks to manifest, but before long what was once thought supernatural became the new normal. The world became a superhuman society, with about 80% of the population possessing some uncanny ability.
Things weren't all great initially. The streets filled with chaos and confusion, and soon a dominant profession emerged.
It was the Age of Heroes.
With the rise of superpowers came an enormous increase in criminal activity. While governments were stuck trying to figure out how to reform laws with quirks in mind, courageous people started committing heroic acts to keep their cities safe, protecting innocents from villains who used their powers for evil.
With overwhelming public support, heroes found an official place as peacekeepers overseen by the government. Those who performed the best were paid the most and received all the fame and glory. Their careers depended on their ability to stay in the spotlight.
That was why, for a young Izuku Midoriya, it was obvious what his dreams and aspirations were. He wanted to be a hero, one who could save people and stop villains with a big smile, just like his favorite hero All Might.
There was just one slight problem.
His quirk hadn't developed just yet.
Izuku and his mother had been worried when he hadn't developed his quirk along with the other children in kindergarten. He had initially been worried but a trip to the doctor's had confirmed that Izuku wasn't quirkless but just a late bloomer, granted that didn't inspire much hope in Izuku. Late bloomers often develop very weak quirks and some quirks could stay dormant deep into a person's 20s or even in some rare cases, 30s.
Unlike other young children his age, young Izuku was relatively more mature. His father's unfortunate death while working overseas changed Izuku's perspective early on in life. He was more silent, and cynical, and had begun to pick up on things that no kindergartener had thought about, like how his mother bit her lip and stared at her purse, before putting things back on the shelves at the grocery store. The bags that were under her eyes when she woke up in the morning were telling her that she had been crying herself to sleep. Izuku couldn't blame her, he also seemed to fall into tears on some nights since the passing of Hisashi Midoriya.
It had led Izuku to some startling conclusions about his home life since his father's passing.
With Hisashi gone, there was no longer a stable income being provided to the Midoriya home. A man from the life insurance company had come by recently to speak with Izuku's mother and they had received a sizable fund but Izuku was under no pretenses that those funds would last forever. Based on how much his mother had been worrying about funds, Inko Midoriya had likely only kept what was necessary and put the rest into a savings account for either Izuku's schooling or her retirement.
They wouldn't be able to continue living with their previous spending levels. His mother would likely get a job but she wasn't as well educated as Hisashi, therefore it was likely her job wouldn't pay nearly as much. His mother would be busy and wouldn't be able to spend nearly as much time at home. Izuku was the man of the house now and needed to pick up skills to maintain the home while his mother was at work.
Finally, there was the biggest issue. Katsuki Bakugo, a young boy Izuku's age, had developed a strong explosion quirk. He looked down on anyone he perceived as weaker than him, especially those who didn't have quirks yet like Izuku. Izuku had kept close to him because they had been good friends growing up, a friendship encouraged by their mothers - who had grown up together as well. However, lately, Katsuki had begun to use his quirk on those he deemed worthless, nothing, or more precisely in Izuku Midoriya's case, Dekus.
It had already resulted in several burns, and if things continued, Izuku wasn't sure they'd be able to pay for the constant need for first aid supplies and doctor visits.
These thoughts occupied a six-year-old Izuku Midoriya as he sat on a playground swing. At six years old and without a quirk, Izuku couldn't help but bite his lip at the thought of not being able to follow his dreams or what those struggles might mean for the future of his now smaller family.
Mom has been looking for work, and my quirk still hasn't come in…what's going to happen to us? Izuku thought to himself. It was fair to say that the young child was dealing with a tumult of emotions. It was this distracted state that led Izuku to not realize that someone was approaching him. It was only when he felt the explosive shove from behind that he realized he should have been paying better attention to his surroundings.
"Heh, stupid Deku. What did I say last time about playing on this playground?" came an abrasive taunt from a familiar voice, a smirking Katsuki Bakugo.
"K-Kaachan! I j-just," Izuku called out, teary-eyed from the burns on his back. He struggled to stand back up but Bakugo just walked over and delivered an effortless punch to Izuku's face, knocking him back down to the ground.
"Shut up you quirkless loser. This playground is mine! Just cause your daddy died doesn't mean you can come and play on it," Bakugo said as he gave Izuku a hard kick. His eyes were filled with anger. How dare this worthless Deku come play on my playground. I'm gonna destroy him! Bakugo thought as he went to deliver another kick.
Izuku flinched as he was kicked hard in the stomach, tears continuing to flow down his face. Why? Why am I so weak? I wish. I just. I wish I had my - Izuku's thoughts were caught off as the world suddenly got very big. Or rather, he felt a rush to his head, and the veins around his right eye suddenly expanded. At that moment, he just saw everything.
He could see all around him, up to the borders of the park. When he meant everything, he meant everything. Bakugo was entirely flesh and bones, and he could even see the organs pumping on his inside, even his nerves were easily visible. His vision had gone from being only front-facing to being in a full 360-degree radius and stretching for vast distances. It was rather dizzying but could this be his quirk?
No, it wasn't just the 360-degree vision. His left eye didn't have that same ability. While Izuku had felt the veins on his right eye bulge as they seemed to carry more blood to the eye - maybe I need to drink a lot more water to increase its effectiveness - the nerve endings on his left eye were flaring, and threatening to give Izuku a headache. Everything Izuku saw with his left eye was…slowed down was the best estimation Izuku could give. No, no it was more. As he stared at Bakugo, who looked like he was moving in slow motion, his leg coming closer and closer, somehow Izuku just knew that he could copy that exact motion and stance should he attempt it. As he stared at Bakugo, Izuku could even predict the angle of the kick based on how his leg muscles were flexing.
Where did that knowledge come from? So the right eye lets me see everything in about a 60-meter radius and my left eye gives me hyper-visual awareness while letting me…copy? Yes, copy or pick up the information I've looked at with that eye, Izuku thought. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like the eyes worked together, he couldn't combine the left eye's hyper-visual awareness with the right eye's all-seeing prowess, a drawback but that was fine.
Time to show Bakugo I'm not as weak as he thinks! Izuku thought as he grinned, before immediately discovering another drawback to his new quirk. While his eye could see what was going on, it didn't matter when his body wasn't quick enough to react. Yes, everything was slowed down to a fraction of a second. Yes, he could tell that Bakugo was aiming a strong kick towards his gut. However, Izuku was, at his core, a six-year-old who had never done anything to increase his body's reaction speed. To sum it up, his body was untrained and just couldn't keep up with the information flow of his eyes.
It was therefore no surprise when Izuku arrived home, bruised and bloody but with a big grin on his face. He had a quirk, of course, he could handle a beating from Bakugo if it meant he would finally develop his quirk.
Inko Midoriya, upon seeing the disheveled state of her son, rushed over to him quickly, looking him over with a worried look on her face.
"Oh, Izuku what happened? Did Katsuki do this again?" Inko asked, fetching some ointment to put over her son's burns and bruises. She was stunned upon seeing the red burns on her son's back, and the bloody lip from what seemed to be a blow to the face. Even his stomach was sporting some large black bruises. She couldn't believe just how much Bakugo had changed since developing his quirk. While his mother, Mitsuki Bakugo, could be quite abrasive and explosive, she had never been violent toward any of her friends. And wait - what was wrong with Izuku's eye? As a matter of fact, why wasn't he in tears? Izuku…Izuku looked happy.
"Oh, Izuku! Your right eye? Did you injure it?" she asked, surprised by the milky color of the eye. She wiped the hair from the right side of Izuku's eye to get a better look at it. The eye lacked any semblance of a pupil, or maybe the pupil had changed color and now had taken up a larger portion. On closer inspection, the pupil was a very light, almost white, lavender.
"Huh? What do you mean, Mom?" Izuku asked, confused. Since awakening his quirk, Izuku hadn't had the chance to look in the mirror, so while he knew his quirk was ocular based on the strain of his eyes, he hadn't realized that one of his eyes had changed colors. All Izuku had felt was the strain in his left eye and the bulging veins of his right eye.
"I-Izuku, your right eye, it's all pale and white," Inko managed to force out, still surprised by the shocking condition of her son.
"Huh? Oh, maybe it's a part of my quirk?" Izuku wondered to himself. A pale right eye? His mom was very specific about it being only his right eye. Why had his left eye also not changed with his quirk awakening? Perhaps it was because they both did two different things. While his right eye supplied the three hundred-and-sixty-degree vision, his left eye seemed to allow Izuku to perceive things more slowly and even…predict what was going to happen based on what he'd noticed from how he'd been able to easily guess the trajectory and action Kaachan was going to pull off. That was very strange for Izuku. Ocular quirks were very rare and the only hero who jumped to the top of his mind that was big nowadays with an ocular quirk was Sir Nighteye. Not to mention that it was rather strange that his mother and father didn't have ocular quirks that even slightly would have suggested the development of an ocular quirk for Izuku. Then again there were plenty of documented examples of late bloomers like Izuku who had developed new or radically different quirks based on the quirks of their parents. Izuku might have been one such-
"Honey, you are mumbling again…" Inko said softly, her torrent of tears and worry having dispersed to be replaced with a swell of happiness. Izuku was glowing in a way he hadn't before. Where once her boy had arrived home despondent and depressed, more often since the passing of his father, Izuku looked so happy again. Inko was reminded of when they had first received the diagnosis that her son had been a late bloomer. It may as well have a confirmation to the rest of the kids his age and even to Inko, that he was basically quirkless. Especially when his fifth birthday passed. Izuku had been inconsolable after being called quirkless by his classmates, and when he'd asked her for reassurance about whether he could still be a hero without a quirk - Inko hadn't been able to give her son those assurances.
It was a shame she'd had to live with. Of course, a part of her understood how foolhardy it was to be a hero without a quirk. There hadn't been any quirkless hero in almost thirty years now. Most hero schools didn't accept the quirkless so many who wanted to stop crime and be heroes, took up self-destructive lifestyles as vigilantes. Eventually leading to their deaths. Inko should know, she'd done the research after discovering that Izuku was quirkless. Sure, there were plenty of heroes with quirks that weren't ideal for catching Villains or saving people. A new mountain rescue hero group had taken to the scene - the Wild, Wild, Pussycats - and two of their members often fought villains and rescued those in danger with just their pure fighting skill. Their quirks weren't very flashy at all. Even heroes with Erasure-type quirks were often only evening out the playing field to a fight with no quirk involvement. Pro Hero Silent Touch in Korea was well known for his touch-based Erasure quirk, which only had practical uses in calming down civilians who were inexperienced with using their quirks or fighting Villains. Despite the handicap, he still managed to…
"Mom, you're mumbling," Izuku said with a smile on his face. watching as his mother blushed bright red at her son's comment. Well, he had to get that nervous and analytical mind from somewhere.
After getting over her embarrassment, Inko Midoriya began to tear up again. This time the fountain of tears came not from the fact her son was injured, but because of her own shame. She immediately took her son into a hug, the tears cascading down even harder.
"Oh, Izuku! My baby! I'm sorry! When you wanted to be a hero even without a quirk, I should have supported you. I know that there are heroes out there who get by on martial arts and skill more than their quirks, but a part of me was scared. It was going to be a hard road. People would discriminate against you for your status of being quirkless. Without a quirk, the odds of you getting hurt were going to be even worse," Inko snuffled out through sobs," but even with a quirk, people are hurting you. I've seen the burns. This is Katsuki's doing, isn't it? He's hurting you, and even now that you have a quirk…you're still hurt. I know things are tough right now Izuku, but I promise with all my heart that I will support you in every endeavor you ask like I should have from the start. Honey, I believe you can be an amazing hero!"
Izuku stood stunned in his mother's grip. Tears flowed freely from his face as he hugged his mother back. The words he'd waited for all his life to hear. Someone believed that they could be a hero. His mom thought that he could be a hero.
It had been a long day for Izuku. His arms and gut were bruised and burnt. His clothes were ruined. He had a black eye. Izuku Midoriya was not doing so well physically, but damn it, he had a quirk. A cool quirk that had to do with his eyes. Someone believed that Izuku could be a great hero. That someone was his mom, the same one that had crushed his dreams only two years prior.
Shakily, his hands curled around his mother as Izuku hugged her back. The torrent of tears the two expelled cascaded onto the carpet of the Midoriya household. Only this time, for the first time in weeks, those tears were born of joy and happiness and held a powerful promise within them.
Izuku Midoriya was going to be a hero.