Izuku / ????? Point of view:
Cold.
It seeped into me slowly, like fog drifting in through cracked windows—quiet, unwelcome, and absolute. The kind of cold that wasn't just physical but existential, like waking from a nightmare and realizing the nightmare was real.
I didn't move at first. My limbs felt strange—small, uncoordinated. My fingers brushed against coarse fabric, the texture of an old blanket. That made no sense. The last thing I remembered was sirens. Screams. Gunfire.
And my brother—his terrified face as I pushed him down behind a counter inside a bank during the robbery. His lips were moving, begging me not to move, not to do anything stupid. But someone had to act. A robber had panicked, fired wildly. A cop, jittery and scared, pulled the trigger on someone unarmed.
That someone... was me.
The pain was quick. The silence after, endless.
And yet, here I was—alive? My body told me otherwise. This wasn't the one I'd died in. It was smaller. Lighter. Younger.
I blinked against the dim glow of a nightlight. The air was still, warm. Too normal. It wasn't heaven. It wasn't hell. It was... a bedroom.
My eyes wandered.
Posters lined the walls. Bright colors, bold letters. A grinning man posed in every one, muscles bulging, teeth flashing like the sun.
"All Might," the posters read. "The Symbol of Peace."
I stared for a long moment.
No. This had to be some kind of dream. A hallucination. My dying mind clinging to something hopeful.
But then I heard it—the low mechanical hum of a refrigerator in another room. The creak of wood as the house settled. Distant traffic beyond the window. Real things. Mundane things.
I forced myself to sit up.
Everything felt off-balance. My hands—too small. My legs—short, pudgy. I stumbled out of the bed and toward a mirror bolted to the side of a wooden shelf.
And that's when it hit me.
The boy in the reflection had wild, dark green curls and wide, freckled cheeks. His eyes were large, glassy, and impossibly green. He looked soft, innocent... powerless.
A name surfaced in my mind like a wave crashing over a ship.
Izuku Midoriya.
Then the memories followed. Not mine, but vivid, raw, and overflowing.
A hospital room. A doctor with an apologetic expression. Words like "double-jointed pinky toes" and "no quirk factor." A mother sobbing.
And then the weight of disappointment. The crushing realization that dreams don't care how hard you try—not when the world decides you're not good enough.
Four years old. Declared quirkless.
Even at that age, the world had already started writing him off.
And then there was Katsuki. A childhood friend turned tormentor. He hadn't started hitting yet, but the words stung just as deep. "Useless Deku." "You'll never be a hero." "Stay out of my way."
I gasped and fell back onto the floor, clutching my head. The duality of it all was overwhelming. My soul was still mine—my thoughts, my core, my values—but now wrapped in the memories of a child who had been told he would never matter.
And yet, I knew something neither the doctors nor Katsuki could imagine.
I had lived before. I had died a hero.
And I had seen this world. In that past life, My Hero Academia was just a fictional series. I remembered the plot, the characters, the arcs. The fall of heroes, the rise of villains. The dark truth behind hero society.
This wasn't a dream.
It was reincarnation.
And not just into anyone—but into the boy destined to change everything.
I sat on the floor for what felt like hours, absorbing the enormity of it all. I had no idea why it had happened, or who had allowed this second chance. But I wasn't going to waste it.
I was Midoriya Izuku now. But I was also the boy who died saving others. That truth hadn't changed.
Slowly, I picked myself up and made my way to the desk beneath the window. A half-filled notebook lay beside a broken crayon and a sticker sheet of All Might logos. I flipped it open to a blank page and stared at the paper in silence.
Then I grabbed the closest pen and wrote, in bold letters:
Avenger.
Not out of vengeance—but out of resolve.
I would become the kind of hero this world truly needed. Not the flashiest. Not the strongest. But the one who stood tall when everyone else crumbled. A symbol, not just of peace—but of hope.
And I wouldn't rely on luck or gifts to get there. Quirkless or not, I'd find a way.
The plan started forming in my head. I'd train. Every day. Calisthenics. Balance. Agility. Even at this age, I could start laying the foundation. And as I grew older, I'd dive into engineering—building tools, support gear, learning chemistry and physics. If I couldn't have a quirk, I'd use everything else.
Because I already knew the stakes. The threats that were coming.
And I knew something else, too:
Izuku Midoriya doesn't get saved.
He saves himself.
From behind the door, I heard the faintest sound.
Muffled sobs.
I crept over and pressed my ear to the wood. Down the hall, in a room lit only by the flicker of a television screen, I heard her.
Inko.
My new mother.
"Izuku... I'm so sorry," she whispered, barely audible through the door and my own shallow breathing. "I... I gave birth to you. It's my fault. I passed on my weak genes. I couldn't even give you a quirk..."
My heart clenched.
She sounded so broken. So convinced that it was her fault, as if she had done something wrong. As if being born without a quirk made me defective, and her a failure for bringing me into the world.
It wasn't fair. Not to her. Not to me.
She had loved her son so deeply, and this world had made her believe that love wasn't enough without power.
A bitter truth settled into my gut.
This society was wrong.
People were measured by quirks, not character. Worth was dictated by strength, not heart.
And if no one else was going to change that, then I would.
I turned away from the door.
I wouldn't go to her tonight. Not yet. She needed to cry. To release that pain. But I would be the one to pull her out of that pit—not with words, but with proof.
I sat back down at the desk and began scribbling in the notebook. It was crude, clumsy—just sketches of training routines, makeshift gadgets, timelines—but it was a start.
Everything would be different this time.
I wouldn't just survive.
I would thrive.
A quiet breeze wafted through the slightly open window, brushing against my skin. I looked outside.
The stars had faded, hidden behind a veil of city lights—but one or two still burned, stubborn and bright.
A second chance.
A new life.
And this time... I would shape the ending myself.
Not with quirks.
Not with fame.
But with will.
The world would try to break me. It would try to shove me into a box marked "useless" and leave me to rot.
But I had already been broken before.
And I had already learned how to rise.