The room was silent except for the soft rustle of papers and the distant hum of the city outside.
"Inko, I—I don't have a quirk," Izuku whispered, his voice barely audible. His hands fidgeted in his lap, clutching the corner of his tiny jacket.
Inko's eyes glimmered with sympathy, but she couldn't make the words disappear. "Honey… it's… okay. You're still you."
Still him. The words felt hollow. He'd dreamed of being a hero since he could walk, since he could talk, since he could imagine saving people like All Might. And now… nothing.
The next day, the truth hit school. Katsuki Bakugou didn't even bother pretending to be subtle.
"Wait—wait, what did you just say?" Bakugou's voice cut across the playground like a knife. "You… don't have a quirk? Hahahaha! No wonder you're always so pathetic!"
Izuku's cheeks burned. He opened his mouth to respond, but words failed him. Bakugou's laughter echoed in his ears, a sharp reminder that the world saw him as… nothing.
A year passed.
By age five, the sting of being quirkless had dulled but never gone. Izuku still trained himself in secret, following imaginary hero routines, watching the sky, and imagining he could fly like the heroes in his books. He spent hours running in circles, practicing punches in the yard, and drawing spirals in the dirt, trying to understand… something he didn't yet have a name for.
And then it happened.
The park near his home had been washed by a spring rain. Puddles shimmered under a sleepy sun, leaves sticking to mud. Izuku wandered off the path, chasing a strange, electric hum he hadn't noticed before.
Beneath the roots of an old oak, half-buried in the mud, was a shard. Small. Metallic. Etched with swirling patterns that seemed to move if you stared too long. It pulsed faintly, like it had a heartbeat of its own.
Izuku reached out. His fingers brushed the surface.
Lightning — bright, crackling, green-gold — surged along his arm, then wrapped around him in a spiral. The air hummed, leaves lifted, and for a moment, the little boy who had nothing, the boy everyone called quirkless, felt power.
He fell backward, breathless, staring at his hand. Faint sparks danced between his fingers. "I… I can feel it," he whispered. "The storm…"
And somewhere deep inside, he knew: this was only the beginning.
💚✨ End of Chapter One