Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya sighed as he reached towards his thirty-second notebook labeled with the familiar words ‘Hero Analysis’. He waved his hand at the fish that were nibbling at the book. “That’s not food, idiots.” He said bitterly, grabbing the soaking book. He carefully held it so it didn’t fall apart in his hands.
He sighed as he began to head home taking care in holding his book. As he passed an overpass that he passed every day, he didn’t pay attention to the sound of the sewage drain rattling. He could only hear the cruel words of a boy who he once saw as a friend. They echoed in his head, forever repeating as the boy that was supposed to be a hero told him something he was certain a hero wouldn’t say…
Right? A hero wouldn’t say that. They couldn’t. Izuku realized too late that there was a villain, barely registering the end of their sentence before the villain was on him. Sludge filled Izuku’s mouth and nose, and his brain was quickly kicked into overdrive. Izuku choked and attempted to cough out the slime that was quickly invading his lungs.
Despite his vision beginning to swim, Izuku saw something through the slime. Something solid. He reached forward, feeling something squishy become enclosed in his hands. It was more solid than the slime. Izuku squeezed, hearing a noise as his vision went black.
When Izuku came to, he saw something that he expected was an illusion. “All Might?” He questioned, trying to recall something before. He remembered slowly, and also remembered hearing something before he woke up completely.
While All Might seemed quite eager to move on, Izuku desperately wanted a question that had plagued him from the very start of his life mission answered. He clung to All Might’s leg, which, he will admit, was not the smartest decision he had. As All Might demanded he let go Izuku couldn’t help but be disgusted at how stupid his childhood idol was.
“I’ll die!” He answered instead, glaring up at the man. He seemed to realize this, and it was a few minutes later that All Might touched down on a nearby roof.
There was a conversation, but afterward, all Izuku could think about was that All Might himself had admitted that no one without power could become a hero. And then All Might had turned into a man that was but a shadow of his heroic form!
Izuku felt something, and as he moved towards the edge of the building, staring down at the pavement far below him… He wondered whether it would be smart.
His mother had given up on him when he entered middle school and still had his delusion of one day being a hero. His childhood friend had turned on him from day one. He had… No one. He didn’t have a friend, didn’t have a dream, didn’t have a wish. He still couldn’t identify the emotion burning in him, fighting to claw its way out of his throat, screaming at him that he shouldn’t do this.
He didn’t have… What did he have? Did he have anything? Izuku felt himself tipping forward, despite the feeling screaming at him to turn around and walk down the stairs, leaving what All Might said before behind. Izuku turned towards the sky as he fell forward, wanting to see the sky instead of the society that had continually put him down.
He closed his eyes, unseeing what was about to happen all at once.
The dragon had been wandering for a while. She was looking for a place to stay. She knew she needed to stay hidden, she just didn’t know why. However, as she was climbing on top of a building she heard exclamations. She quickly moved to look at wherever they had come from, wanting to make sure no one had seen her.
What she saw was different. The humans were pointing at a small human that was falling towards the ground from a building. She stared at the human, wanting to stop herself. However, she couldn’t. Her body shot forward towards the weirdly familiar smelling human.
Humans exclaimed in fear and wonder as the powerful dragon flew across the street.
However, the people soon had more reason to exclaim, as their visions all went black and soon people began to panic. All for One flinched as he caught a glimpse of something before his vision went black again. However, this black didn’t feel like the previous black.
All for One hummed as he shifted, considering this as he waited for it to pass. It seems an interesting quirk had manifested. He could only hope that the wielder was just as interesting… But it would be fine if not. He was always happy to have interesting quirks.
All Might felt dread overcome him halfway down the stairs, his vision going black as he heard multiple exclamations from the people outside. All Might questioned whether he did the right thing, before reassuring himself that he did. The kid was delusional, it would be better for him to give up now than die trying.
Izuku Midoriya, meanwhile, was quite confused when instead of the hard pavement he was caught by something solid, but slightly cold and scaly. He shifted, sitting up and finding fur underneath his hand. He gripped onto the fur as he sat up, looking over everything. He was holding fur that had a nebulous look, greens, blues, purples, reds. Even glowing white spots that looked like stars. He noticed grey scales under his legs, and he slowly looked further up. The fur stretched up to the head of whatever he was on top of.
Horns stretched from either side of the fur, long and thin, stretched upwards, a glowing ball hanging between them. A glowing line went all the way down the creature’s side. Starting at the cheeks, curling and running along its sides. It seemed to end at… What looked like a hind leg? Curling up just like on the cheek. The creature’s back legs didn’t look like legs, but more like knives… Or maybe swords? He wasn’t sure. There was another set of legs between the back and the front set that also looked like a second set of knives. The scales were a dark grey color, contrasting sharply against the color of everything else.
Then, at the front, the legs were short, and it had four claws, one of them looking like a thumb. He couldn’t quite see the creature’s face, and their tail was mostly more of the fur. It was… a beautiful creature. He had his suspicions about what it was, but he had never heard of a dragon like this before.
The dragon landed on a roof, jumping a few times, effectively knocking Izuku off. Izuku stared as he realized how large the dragon was. It was graceful and beautiful… But deadly. But it was also extremely fluffy, and getting closer to him.
It nudged him with its snout, and Izuku stared into ten different eyes as it investigated him. Its eyes glowed softly, looking very similar to its fur and its stripe. Izuku gently at the side of its snout “You’re very pretty” He said softly, smiling at it. It let out a huff, a hot puff of air pressing against Izuku’s chest as it pressed its nose against him. After a minute, the dragon pulled away, jumping around as it became a bit smaller. It was a long dragon, resembling the dragons he was familiar with but different.
Izuku hummed, before turning away from the dragon, expecting it to go do whatever it would do. He looked at his hand, thinking about that feeling. Something had happened as he was falling. He knew, he had felt it. He thought about it carefully and soon noticed that what happened was playing in front of him. He watched his body fall from a third-person perspective, and then saw something happen, though the projection glitched.
He frowned at the glitch, wondering what that was for. He took a second, thinking about something. He decided to test his theory. He imagined a small fox that was colored similar to the dragon next to him. He quietly imagined how it would jump and run through the air as if it was running on the ground.
He silently watched in amazement as the exact thing he was imagining appeared in front of him, running around and jumping through the air. He stopped imagining and focusing on it, but it stayed in the air. He slowly experimented and figured out how to make it disappear. He looked at the dragon, wondering when he could’ve imagined it in his fall down to the bottom of the building.
The dragon gazed back at him, its tail swaying and gently thumping against the ground every so often when it flicked too hard. He walked towards it and gently pet its side. He smiled at it, and it stared. For a second it seemed like nothing would happen, and then it shrunk down to something that could probably wrap around his arm like a snake.
Izuku would take two weeks to figure out a lot about his quirk, though he continued to be oblivious as to how to make Nebula, what he had named the dragon, return. However, he found he didn’t want Nebula to return. She was a very friendly dragon, though he had to spend time working on making sheaths for her knife legs so she could walk around. Izuku had to keep figuring out her fitting.
It would still be a few weeks until the sheaths were ready, so he had to keep her from walking around. Instead, she flew by his side.
Izuku debated what to do, but he already knew. For inside him burned an ember. A spark of rage, injustice at the world and those who wronged him. And Izuku would feed it.
It started with small things. Using his quirk to inconvenience his bullies. Making them think they had certain things, but it only looked like they had them. The illusions would disappear when Izuku wanted. He enjoyed being able to see it, but just knowing it happened was just as good.
During this time he had his first run-in with the renowned flame hero, Endeavor. He had information on him in almost all his books, always updating it. The most recent one to gain information about Endeavor, however, was villain analysis book number one.
Izuku silently made the first villain analysis appear in front of him, sitting on a roof to watch. Izuku made a large creature appear, swiping at Endeavor and ‘missing’. As the flame hero attacked Izuku watched, silently observing. However, Izuku sadly didn’t account for Endeavor’s kid to look over and notice him.
Izuku looked at the kid who seemed to be staring at him. The kid had red and white hair and was his age. Izuku watched silently as the kid looked back at the creature. The kid couldn’t see his features, because of the illusion disguise Izuku had cooked up. Unless Izuku wanted it, Izuku’s face appeared featureless with a crown of stars and planets surrounding his head. He also had hair that matched Nebula’s fur. It was also long. This was a somewhat new development.
Izuku had always liked having his hair long, it was something that had gotten him teased when they were young. But Izuku had grown his hair out since he was small, and now it reached quite far down. When he was doing illegal stuff he made his hair straight but kept it the same length.
Izuku noticed Bakugo walking down the streets, trying to avoid joining the fight and hurrying towards somewhere, before deciding he wanted to end the fight. He had his creature charge at Bakugo, watching as the creature slammed its bug-like scythe through Bakugo’s head. It was only an illusion and faded, but he enjoyed the panicked and stunned look Bakugo had for a second.
Izuku smiled, satisfied with what he did. He walked over to the edge of the building and imagined a hoverboard, humming as he stepped onto it, making it solid just as he stepped onto it. He stood on top silently as he summoned his notebooks. Twenty-five of thirty-three. He silently opened a few and began editing and compiling information, moving it around so it was more organized. He debated doing journals on specific heroes now that he had this ability.
It was also really cool because instead of writing about a fight he just had to imagine the fight like a video and put the video inside the journal with a way to view it! Izuku was able to do whatever he wanted with his quirk as long as he could think about it. It wasn’t real as long as he wasn’t touching it, but that was also an on and off ability. He could choose whether what he was holding was illusion or real. It was a really interesting quirk.
He sighed, realizing he’d have to fake a quirk as he stuck his hands in his pockets, leaning back and waiting to arrive at his destination. When he arrived he jumped off, making the board disappear and keeping his notebook surrounding him. They slowly spun around him, flipping through themselves and cleaning up their information.
Izuku went into his home and sat down on the couch, making his notebooks disappear as he did. Nebula moved, flying in circles and jumping around in the air. Izuku smiled a bit as he watched her.
Izuku was quite happy to have Nebula. She was his only friend and ally currently, and she was very loyal from what he could tell. He escalated what he did to his bullies. Creatures that disappeared when they looked at them directly, things that crept at the edge of their visions, things that breathed in the middle of the night in their room. The creaking of a board only they could hear.
Izuku couldn’t see the effect this was having, but he was more than happy to do it. This didn’t even half pay back the years of hell they’d put him through. Izuku would gladly ruin their future. And Izuku got to watch Bakugo be scared. For once people seemed to notice his presence. For once he was able to do something.
So Izuku did. Izuku began planning and plotting. He began to think about what he wanted in the future, Nebula right beside him the whole time. Izuku signed up for his online classes, relaxing as he scrolled some hero forums. He went on a walk, having Nebula follow him. He’d have his quirk registered today.
He ran into someone, with red spiky hair. He smiled at them politely, but nothing was there and he moved on.
The boy with red spiky hair watched the boy who seemed sad and alone pass them in silence, watching a small creature following behind them. The boy with red spiky hair wondered why the boy seemed so sad and lonely, and silently wondered whether he’d see the boy again.
The boy with red spiky hair moved on.
Izuku hummed as he walked into the library, filling out everything he had to and registering his quirk as ‘Draconic Friend’, which allowed him to constantly have Nebula by his side.
He quietly walked to an alleyway, taking a nice, long walk with Nebula by his side and his illusion notebooks dancing beside him, continuing to sort themselves out. He quietly thought about all the flaws he was suddenly seeing in hero society now that he had his rose-tinted glasses off.
He thought about the morals of everything, about whether UA was a safe school. About what could be improved. What could be changed? Little did he know he had a silent observer. An observer, who knew exactly who would want the information he just got. The observer, trying to see whether it was what he thought it was, threw a pebble at one of the notebooks.
Nebula was quick to grow to a decent size, smacking the pebble before it hit Izuku and wrapping around the man, being careful of her legs. Izuku looked up from where he had been staring at one of his books, his muttering being replaced with imagining words into the books around halfway through the first week, a few days after he had burned the physical books so no one could find them and link them to him.
He looked around but didn’t think anything of the man walking away. He silently pets Nebula, “It’s okay, girl.” He comforted her, even as he continued moving. He relaxed as his notebooks disappeared, unaware of the powerful people that now knew that a new king piece was on the chessboard, and no one knew what side that piece was on yet.
Izuku stopped as he passed the beach, noticing people moving on it. Two people… One of them… All Might. Izuku felt his anger flare as he looked at the two people he hated the most while they interacted. Izuku shifted, leaning against the rail and watching All Might and Bakugo interact. Nebula shifted, growing bigger as she jumped around on the sidewalk, entertaining herself as her human stared at people he hated.
Izuku watched Bakugo carrying garbage from the beach to a dumpster. Izuku frowned from behind his hand, which he was leaning on. He listened to the sound of Nebula’s blade legs hitting the pavement, a soft clinking noise. Izuku shifted, putting his hand down to stare. He quietly remembered everything.
All Might was supposed to be a hero who brought hope to everyone but had shot down his dream mercilessly. All Might was supposed to be a hero but was so stupid that he had told him to let go at a height that he could die or be seriously injured from.
Bakugo was supposed to be a future hero but had told him to jump. Bakugo had encouraged him to die. And he had tried. If Nebula hadn’t been there… This wasn’t even counting every other time Bakugo had hurt him and abused him when he was younger.
Izuku silently thought about everyone who had hurt him, thinking about everyone who said he couldn’t be a hero. And he guessed… They were right. Currently, he couldn’t be a hero. So, he’d be the villain to make it possible for him to be a hero in the future.
Izuku walked away silently, vowing to return and figure out the schedule of All Might and Bakugo. He wanted to know what was going on. He also needed to start planning the downfall of All Might. It needed to be public, and he wanted to wait until Bakugo had made a name for himself as a hero so he could tear Bakugo down as well… Sweet karma was coming for the two and Izuku would crush them under his heel.
He heard the gentle clinking noise of Nebula following him and smiled, turning around and watching the dragon following him. Nebula looked at him, before jumping up and down in place. He laughed, before walking over and climbing onto her back.
“Let’s go home, Nebula, I think I need to make some preparations,” Izuku said with a cruel smile.
And he did. He asked his mother about moving out so he could learn independence and she easily agreed, telling him he’d need to make money to buy his apartment, but she’d pay for the first 6 months of rent.
Izuku smiled, nodding along and playing the part. He also mentioned that he had finally developed a quirk and his mother had cried in joy. All Izuku could feel was cold anger at her tears. She meant nothing to him right now. She had stopped talking to him when he had started middle school.
She had seemed so annoyed at his continued hero analysis and hopes. And Izuku couldn’t help but think that she didn’t matter in the end. He would stand on top of the world, quirk or no quirk. He vowed this silently to himself. It didn’t matter if this was some screwed-up dream, he would find his way to the top.
And Izuku turned, silently stalking into his room with Nebula following him, jumping through the air as she stayed about the size of a cat. Izuku silently pets her head as he began to gather his things. He silently shredded most of his All Might stuff but kept one poster.
He took the poster quietly to his desk, sweeping everything off with one powerful move of his arm. He took out a paintbrush. He had been interested in the arts from a kind of young age because it was useful when drawing the heroes he idolized. He silently set to work, painting over the words that displayed All Might’s signature phrase proudly under his posing form.
He set it aside after it was covered, as it would need time to dry. He looked at Nebula, who had curled up under his desk at about the size of a dog. She was sleeping right now, and Izuku noticed that he should probably sleep soon. It was 11:30 and he had more packing to do tomorrow. He hummed, before gently picking up Nebula. She was heavier now than she was earlier because she wasn’t using whatever ability it was that made her able to fly.
He hauled her over to the bed, silently going to get the sheaths he had designed. These weren’t quite ones she could wear all the time, since the ones he wanted to work on needed to be removed quickly in case of emergencies. But these were fine for when she was sleeping.
He slipped them onto her blade legs, silently strapping them in the appropriate areas as she let out a grumble at being disturbed. She shifted, before changing her size to be bigger. Izuku was a bit relieved he used some of her fur and shed scales to make it since it allowed the sheaths to shift size with her. He pets her gently, before climbing into bed.
She nudged her way under his head before it hit the pillow, and Izuku was laying his head behind hers as she slept. Izuku smiled softly, gently petting the fur on her head as he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
When Izuku woke up he checked on his All Might poster. After finding it dry he added a layer of spray to preserve that layer of color, waiting for a few minutes for that to dry before beginning to paint again. He didn’t want to forget what All Might had said. And it would be entertaining to fuck with All Might using it before he either killed him or ditched him to face social backlash.
Izuku hummed, thinking about that. If he killed All Might, he would be labeled a villain. If he left All Might to face the social backlash… He might not even get any social backlash. How annoying.
Izuku hummed, wondering whether when Bakugo inevitably got hero merch he should buy any. It might be fun. He could do something similar to what he was doing with All Might’s poster. He wondered what Bakugo would say about either his actual or his fake quirk now.
He glanced at Nebula, who was still sleeping. Nebula was very similar to a cat, which Izuku found entertaining. He hummed as he looked back at his poster. He added a flourish at the end, adding little bunny ears to all the O’s so they looked a bit like All Might’s hair.
Izuku considered what his villain outfit should be. He wanted it to match Nebula’s look. He hummed, recalling a certain skirt he had seen once and thought looked nice. But he already got teased enough at school, and he was certain a skirt would cause more problems.
Izuku looked up as he noticed something, pausing as he saw the skirt. It was a dark purple color with a galaxy print on the inside of it. It had two layers, but four different parts. He shifted, grabbing the skirt and standing. He walked to the center of his room and laid it out. The back part of the bottom layer was long and would reach almost to his ankles when he put it on, and the front would not reach nearly as far, only about halfway down his thighs.
Izuku hummed as he considered this, the second part was a sheer dark purple fabric that reached to about his knees. There were two pieces, both starting a quarter of the way from the halfway point on both the front and back. It gave an interesting effect to the skirt.
Izuku hummed, thinking of a belt that would look good with it, one that was dark with a grey buckle, so the colors would pop. He hummed as the belt appeared and he put it down on top of the skirt. He debated what to do about the shirt and shoes. He should also have gloves to hide his fingerprints since he couldn’t use illusions to stop people from identifying his fingerprints.
Izuku turned to Nebula, who was waking up and was looking at what he had laid out on the floor curiously. Izuku hummed, smiling at her. He was a bit nervous about using something feminine for his villain outfit, but he wasn’t gonna let what other people might say control him anymore. He had tried to jump off a building because someone had said it. And everyone said he wouldn’t amount to anything.
But they were wrong. And he would prove them wrong. Izuku nodded to himself as he stood and thought of what to do next. He thought of a shirt. It would be skin tight, and black. And if he was gonna go feminine he would lean into it. The back would be open… He could use that to have his quirk manifest wings, and if he practiced he could probably use that in a fight. He hummed as he thought it over, the inside would be soft because he wasn’t gonna wear something uncomfortable.
He hummed, thinking closely about it. He knew that he would probably have to make these a reality at some point, but for now, using his quirk both kept suspicion off of him and let him have an idea of what he wanted. He chose to go with long gloves, they’d also be soft on the inside, but not look like it on the outside. The gloves would reach to almost his elbow, and that would be fine for him. They’d probably be black.
Now it was onto shoes. He frowned as he tried to come up with something. Heels might be nice. He could probably find a way to design them to be more comfortable… And he wasn’t necessarily supposed to constantly be fighting, so it being slightly impractical wouldn’t matter that much.
Izuku thought for a while, before deciding. The color would be dark grey with a hint of purple. Izuku smiled as he looked at the outfit he had assembled.
He smiled in satisfaction, before making it disappear for now. Back to the All Might poster. He hummed as he set it aside. The words now in a shaky red, resembling something someone had finger painted on purpose read ‘Without power, you can never be a hero.’
Over All Might’s face is a white stripe with the word ‘Fake’ painted on it. Izuku let it all dry, looking at Nebula “Should we go see whether Bakugo and All Might are at the beach?” he asked with a small smile. He walked over to her and removed her sheaths gently, “Let’s go, girl.” He said, walking out of his room.
He hummed as he saw his mother making breakfast. He’d pick up something from a cafe. “I’ll move out next week, Mom,” Izuku said. His mother easily agreed, even if he didn’t care. He walked to the beach, picking up a coffee and a cinnamon roll from a cafe that he passed. He stood at the rail, watching the two people he hated the most go about their day.
After Izuku was satisfied he left, unknowing of the man watching him from a crowd. Unaware of the man who knew that whatever the dragon was, it wasn’t Izuku’s quirk. Unaware of the man who was questioning why a teen would spend the whole day watching someone clean the beach, only staying long enough to watch the sunset as what was supposedly their quirk played, soaring through the air and doing loops. Anyone who questioned it was told that it was part of a quirk and they would leave him alone.
The man silently stared after the kid, unable to shake the uneasy feeling as his eyes glowed.