Chapter Text
“Hey, Kacchan, stop!” Izuku says, stepping in front of the small child that his best friend was ruthlessly teasing. “Leave him alone! He didn’t do anything to you!”
Katsuki stares at Izuku for a second longer than usual. The kid Izuku was protecting is long gone by then, presumably running for his life. So the two best friends turned one-sided enemies stare at each other for a beat, the silence pressing heavy. “Bold to think you could protect anyone. A useless freak like you?” He clicks his tongue, chuckling and grinning with an emotion Izuku was too unknowledgeable to decipher. “I would bet all of my allowance on the world exploding before that. Because here’s a reality check for you.”
Suddenly, the young freckled boy is on the ground. Kacchan giggles again, his friends cackling at the pathetic image before them like goons. Izuku chokes back tears, but soon enough he can’t stop them from flowing. Distantly, the boy wishes he could tear the jungle gym behind him apart limb from limb, using one of the metal bits to smack them upside the head. “Y-You…” Izuku cries weakly.
Bakugou presses closer, bending down close to the floor to whisper in the other’s ear. “Quirkless people don’t get anywhere. You’ll never be anything like me. I’ll blow you out of the sky before you even have time to fight back.” And just like that, he was gone.
Izuku scurries to his feet and goes back to class. He’s sure his teacher notices something is wrong; her gaze is cautious when she looks at the boy, still Quirkless even as the manifestation period has already passed. Unable to figure out the source, though, she returns to life as usual.
Izuku was comfortable with this pattern now. Kacchan would do something hurtful, Izuku would get caught up in the mess, Kacchan wouldn’t be punished because his Quirk was so strong, repeat. He knew the blond’s explosions were impressive, and so did everyone else. He assumed that’s why he was always complimented, never once told something he was doing was bad or wrong in any capacity. He was never reprimanded because his sheer strength, at this young, was prodigious. Strong enough to rival All Might, the greatest hero Japan had ever seen.
Something of an Earth-shattering revelation occurred that day. Quirkless people will never be All Might.
Izuku will never be All Might.
Midoriya remembers the day he got the sketchbook. His mother came into his room one day when he was about nine years old, crying buckets yet somehow still smiling. She said that the doctor had told her that drawing was a great way to express feelings and that Izuku could draw in the sketchbook whenever he felt emotions he didn’t like.
The boy, having so many emotions pent up in him, took to it quickly. Whenever he got home from school, he would spend hours doodling. What started out as aimless squiggles took form in shining artistic depictions of his friends, his favorite heroes, or whatever else had been stuck in his mind at the time.
“These drawings are… you’re a prodigy, Izuku!” his mother cried out one afternoon after seeing his work.
Prodigy. That’s what they called Kacchan. He was like Kacchan?
An artist was born that fateful summer. As the years went on, he only grew more talented. Those with Quirks were still given the majority of everyone’s attention, but Izuku was deemed slightly more noteworthy than other Quirkless folks. At least, his mother gave him more praise than usual, but it didn’t take long to realize that he was in the same place as before: the useless, Quirkless freak that would never accomplish anything. Except he could draw.
The bullying didn’t stop as soon as he picked up a pencil. The sketching didn’t mean anything to Kacchan, and in the back of his mind, Izuku knew it never would. Heroes trump the Quirkless, no matter how prodigious the latter might be.
Not one to be discouraged, Deku kept honing his craft in the hopes that one day he would be special. He couldn’t be a hero, but surely he could help in some other way. That was his philosophy: if he worked hard, he could be just like a hero.
Over time, he grew attached to a particular individual he found himself drawing again and again. The figure was like Bakugou, but disconnected; for one, this individual was smiling with genuine care, something completely unrealistic of the explosive boy. He was wearing a crown and cape, standing tall in the face of whatever came at him. He had jet black hair that was curly, as his creator’s was. Izuku cherished his creation in that way; he could project some of his own features onto this nameless human, give him a story all his own that no one was there to limit. There, Akira was born.
Akira had all the details ironed out for him, a full backstory, a full body, a face, a name (which was only half a name in actuality, but it sufficed). He was a boy born without a Quirk that stumbled upon his childhood idol; said childhood idol passed his power down to Akira after deeming him worthy of it, and now he was a fledgling hero, soon to join the ranks. This was the one thing Izuku could hold onto, the one thing he had that didn’t feel in danger of crumbling in on him at any moment. He had a purpose: to make sure this story saw the light of day. To make sure that Akira saw the light of day.
And, to his credit, he did that, although it was not in the way he imagined.
“Kacchan, do you ever think you’re being unfair?!” he cries in their classroom one day, putting a hand down to steady himself on one of the desks.
Kacchan laughs raucously, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the room in a way that makes chills send down Midoriya’s spine. “Unfair? Nah, I’m just giving you the treatment you deserve!” he says. His eyes dart to an item on Midoriya’s desk, and his lips curl into a devilish smirk. “Starting with this dumb fucking notebook!” he says, snatching it up and holding it above his victim’s head like a prize.
The tears came easily. “Kacchan, NO!” he yells, trying to grab at it to no avail. When he fails, he simply keeps pushing harder, and even after several reaches, he cannot win.
“Aw, the baby thinks he’s special just because he has a bit of talent, huh~?” the blond says, explosions popping off in his hands. “Isn’t that so unfortunate? He still hasn’t learned the truth, no matter how much I drill it into his thick little skull! Let’s see if this lesson finally makes it through…”
Kacchan advances rather quickly, moving to throw the book out the window. Just as he pulls his arm back, Midoriya is able to scramble in front of him and grab the book.
“HUH?!” He closes his fists and opens them again, confused by where the sketchbook had gone. “Oh, you’re really in for it now!”
“Wait!” Izuku yells, gripping the book where Akira’s page lies open. In an instant, everything goes black. Izuku becomes dizzy, staggering backwards into the desks nearby. His hearing is muffled, but he can hear chairs and desks clattering.
“I’ll protect you,” a new voice says. “Midoriya!”
With the last of his strength, Izuku lets out one shell-shocked word. “Akira…?”