6I don't own Boku no Hero Academia.
Izuku Midoriya is an odd boy.
He is Quirkless. And while that's something which is considered extremely rare in this day and age, where most people have a Quirk to call their own it isn't what makes him odd by itself. Instead it's the fact that he still holds on to hope by obsessively studying Quirks, ignoring his classmates and his childhood friend's ridicule in the hope of making into U.A.'s hero course and of becoming a real hero, like his idol All Might.
But his odd existence comes to a sudden and tragic end after a meeting with a villain that nearly chokes him to death. He is saved by his idol, All Might, pukes on his shoes before grabbing onto his pants as he is leaping away. He is left feeling heart-broken when the hero he admires above all else, tells him to his face that his dream is impossible to achieve.
He will always remember that moment.
He leaves the roof demoralized but what happens next is what proceeds to break him out of his shell of innocence. He finds the sludge villain suffocating another kid who turns out to be his childhood friend and he's frozen in shock on seeing it free. The gathered heroes are unable to help and by the time All Might enters the scene, Kacchan has lost consciousness.
Kacchan goes into a coma and Izuku is left in depression for nearly a month, numb to the world after the initial shock and despair at his friend's fate wears off. Because he knows it is his fault that Kacchan is in his current state. To think he ever dreamt of becoming a hero, when he is little better than a villain, he thinks the day after Kacchan is admitted to the hospital as he burns all of his Hero Notes.
If only he had tried to do something when he'd seen the sludge villain, if he hadn't grabbed All Might's pants when he jumped away, if he hadn't taken that specific route on that day, if he hadn't foolishly kept believing he could be a hero despite being Quirkless… there are too many ifs that crowd his mind, as he listlessly lives out his days. After some time he even stops going to school, and it takes the combined might of his and Kacchan's mother as well as a grief counsellor for him to even consider visiting him at the hospital.
It's been nearly half a year since the incident when he finally steps inside the hospital where Kacchan is residing. The guilt and grief come surging back once he sees his face after so long, his gaunt and peaceful face something akin to an alien to him. After all, the Kacchan he knows would NEVER look like that.
Izuku flees after that, and it takes a dozen more meetings with his grief counsellor before he comes back. He slowly starts visiting Kacchan more and more, and it is during one of these irregular visits when he talks to Kacchan's doctor. He is polite and friendly but it is his obvious concern for his patient that draws Izuku's notice and then his respect. They talk whenever he's visiting Kacchan, about anything and everything, and suddenly one day Izuku realizes he has started to yearn for a new dream.
Izuku starts going back to school and while it's late and his attendance record is abysmal, with enough support from his and Kacchan's parents, as well as his counsellor, the school agrees to let him sit for the final exam. He is behind, of course he is, but he has always had brains and a month of sleepless nights lets him pass comfortably from middle school.
High school, is more or less the same as middle school, he's bullied a little more for his lack of Quirk by some of the students while ignored by the rest. It doesn't really matter to Izuku, he has a goal he's working towards again and one that isn't nearly as impossible to achieve as his last one. And if he could keep on working towards achieving the impossible for nearly a decade without quitting, does anyone really believe that he would give up on his new dream because of a few petty insults and shoves.
High school doesn't stand a chance.
Izuku Midoriya passes it with flying colors, before sitting for one of the most prestigious non-heroic universities in Japan and passing it too.
A lot of things happen in between - a large number of new villain groups are formed, U.A. is attacked, more than once and finally All Might retires after a titanic clash with a villain that flattens a small part of his city and all of this just within his first year of high school. His three years are extraordinary to say the least.
Katsuki Bakugou never does regain consciousness for the rest of his life, even as Izuku starts to visit him on a regular basis, bringing with him magazines, comics and stories of his life first as a high school student and then as a medical undergraduate.
Surprisingly, he meets quite a few heroes during the later part, with the most memorable being Sub-Zero, the son of the current premier Hero, Endeavor.
He is polite and easy to talk to, but a single meeting with him is enough for Izuku to realize he has some major issues regarding his father. Still, life goes on even with these bizarre meetings with heroes and he loses himself in his studies in order to remain in the top percent of his year.
It comes to pass during his second year at the university; a group of villains take the medical department, specifically his year, hostage. He, along with the rest of his class are brought to the auditorium and left kneeling while the villains make demands to the cops outside. He isn't scared, much, he knows the heroes must have experience for dealing with these sorts of situations and he is inclined to let them do their jobs without trying to play hero, especially since he has left that part of his life behind.
All of it goes to hell, however, when one of the villains grab one his classmates by their hair and start to drag them away from the room. His vision goes red, and in the next moment he's throwing a punch that hits the villain on his nose. It hurts like hell, but the man lets go of his prisoner to grab at his face in pain.
He doesn't remember the girl's name, has barely talked to her over the last two years and he most certainly doesn't have a crush on her. So why did he move to protect her, pulling the villains' collective attention towards him and putting himself in danger?
He wonders about that when the same villain, he broke his nose, punches him in his gut and across the room.
It doesn't feel as if anything's broken, but he finds himself suddenly too tired to move as finds himself lying on the floor on his back. Must be an effect of his Quirk, his once hero-geek self whispers in his mind. He ignores it as he thinks on the reason for his moment of boldness instead.
The only thing he can think of is that he still hasn't made peace with what happened to Kacchan and seeing another acquaintance in danger must have triggered that memory along with the feeling of self loathing he had experienced afterwards for not even trying to do anything during that time.
He wonders if he's about to die, and when one look at the villain advancing towards him confirms it, he feels oddly cheated when his life doesn't flash before his eyes. The villain comes to a stop above him, cocks his gun and asks him if he has any last words, giving laugh at the last part. Izuku, at this moment though, is busy wondering how weird it is that he isn't afraid of death and is politely ignoring the crook when something catches his attention in the corner of his eyes.
It's a gloved hand, which is sticking out of the floor as if it had grown there, with its middle finger straining against its thumb, with the rest of the fingers standing at attention. The oddity of the sight is able to pierce the veil of apathy that seems to be hanging over him and he moves his head to get a clear look at it.
The villain is suitably shocked too, and Izuku hears him shout something, but before he can do anything else, the finger snaps free and a miniature storm comes into existence inside the auditorium. By the time it subsides and Izuku is able to get up again, half the villains are on the ground, or buried into the walls, courtesy of the owner of the hand he had seen.
It's Avalanche, the hero who most people have started to consider being the next heir to All Might's crown as the greatest hero, because of his personality and powers. Even Izuku knows about him and he's long since lost interest in the affairs of heroes, and as he watches him disarm three villains with a single move, he thinks they just might be spot on with their estimation.
He, similar to his namesake, is unstoppable and as the villains falling against him one by one can attest to, likewise inescapable.
It is when Izuku takes his eyes off the hero, to start looking around to make sure everyone else is alright, when he sees another villain aiming a gun at his unprotected back.
In hindsight, he will consider it stupid. He has just seen the man shrugging off any and all physical attacks by the few villains who were left standing after his entrance and he clearly has an ability that lets him bypass objects like bullets as he sees them pass cleanly trough him.
But the way that villain slowly centers their aim at his back, unhurried, even as he sees the rest of his group fall, sends alarm bells ringing through Izuku's head, and before he can think of anything else, again, he is running, towards the hero. He jumps the moment the villain fires, twice, and feels two pinpricks, one on his arm and the other on his shoulder.
He has an instant to experience the right side of his body exploding before he blacks out from the shock. He dies within seconds.
And just like that Izuku Midoriya's strange life comes to an end, for the first time.
…
And then he finds himself opening his eyes, which are full of tears for some reason, standing on a familiar roof as his favourite hero tells him to his face that his dream is impossible to achieve.
Yes, Izuku Midoriya is indeed an odd boy.
A.N. - Before anyone complains about yet another Peggy Sue fic, I would like to say that I put all the blame solely on Kenshi Yonezu's Peace Sign. I got this idea after reading the lyrics and it just wouldn't leave me alone! So I finally gave in and wrote almost all of it while listening to the song over and over and over. Talk about meta!
Now that that's out of the way, I would like to say this is my first piece of fanfiction that I've ever felt confident enough in posting here soooo... I hope any of you readers that have come across this piece would leave a review sharing your thoughts on it.
Or not! I mean, after all, I hardly leave reviews for every piece of fanfiction that I read, so it's not really something I can hold against others... Ciao!