Prologue

Inko

I saw Izuku tying up his shoes at the foyer, and couldn’t help but smile fondly at his busy figure. At 18, he towered over me, which would have been a pipe dream a few years ago. He cut a lithe figure, deceptively strong but not overtly muscled, and as he looked up at me, I could see the slightly strained smile which didn’t reach his haunted eyes.

“I am leaving Ma, wish me luck?”

I couldn’t stop the famous Inko tears spilling from my eyes as I launched myself at my son.

“Now and ever Izuku, I will always wish the best for you”. How I wish I had followed upon these words from his childhood instead of turning a blind eye to his ambition. However, I still had time, and just as he had changed in the last three years, so had I.

Holding me firmly, Izuku patted my back and whispered, “I know Ma. Don’t worry, you will see me in a week in a UA shirt.”

“I am sure I will need to make your tie again,” I retorted, as he released me with a quick laugh and then bounded outside.

He gave me a final smile as he reached for the door, and this time his eyes sparkled. “I promise Ma, I will find what happened to Dad.”

I fully believed him.

I could never have imagined the upheaval the discovery would cause in the coming years.

Izuku

I burrowed myself into a seat on the train and settled myself for the 3-hour journey to Shikentoshi. The bustling of a full train unsurprisingly couldn’t put a dent on my anxiety.

After all, this was the most important week in my life.

My embroiling thoughts turned towards the years of preparation building up to my current path. I had never wanted to be a hero; the years of examination, the insane expectations, the mortality rate, none of them stood out as appealing to me. Instead, I had the grand ambition of returning humanity to space, and building a rocket to travel to the moon, a feat which hadn’t been repeated since 2060, nearly three centuries ago. The years of studying high level physics, maths and engineering never phased me. I took to it like a fish to water which often led to Dad bragging that I had inherited his genius intellect.

All that had come to a screeching crash three years ago with Dad disappearing off the face of the Earth.

We tried the police, social media, missing posters, pleading with famous detective heroes, all to receive a single answer.

No man called Hisashi Midoriya ever existed on Earth.

Not a trace of his belongings was left. Photos became blurred or were outright deleted, social records were absent, bank accounts never existed, it’s as if the entire world forgot that he ever existed. Everyone except us, that is. Ma and I still remember him, his sparkling smile, his enthusiasm when teaching me high level calculus, his warm hugs, I remember all of it.

I blinked to clear out the sudden tears and frowned. No more crying Izuku, you’ve cried enough. Strengthening my resolve, I recounted the reactions of my peers when the resident genius nerd suddenly switched to the preparatory Hero stream after middle school. Katsuki’s furious eyes on first seeing me in his class in high school. The embarrassing fitness tests throughout the entirety of my first year. The jeers on having a “civilian quirk.”

Well, joke’s on them. Out of our high school, only Bakugo and I qualified for the Hero Assessment Trials, or the HATs as it is more affectionately called.

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My thoughts turned to the HAT. Started twenty years ago, it was an integral part of every society in the world. Each hero aspirant had to enter the Preparatory Hero stream in high school, which was standardized across the world, and had to pass a rigorous regime of physical and mental exercises, quirk training, psychological evaluations, rescue and first-aid training, to even have a chance at appearing for the HAT. You could only appear for it twice after high school, and with only 1000 new students divided up among hero schools all over the country, the selection rate was a measly 10%. Most HAT aspirants turned to the army or security services after failing the exam, as just qualifying for it was a sparkling achievement.

The buzzing of my phone jolted me out of my dwellings. Opening it up, I saw a typical Katsuki text.

“You better be on the train already, nerd. Meet me at the exit of Shikentoshi station.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Katsuki Bakugo was a man of contradictions: looking at his furious façade and angry demeanour, one could be forgiven for being surprised at him clearing the behavioural tests for the HAT in the first place. However, underneath that brash exterior was an unyielding determination to be the best, and an actual desire to help people, and though we had our differences in the past, I am glad that he had matured over the last three years.

My attention moved as the seat next to me shifted. I looked over, only to frown, as at first glance, it appeared that someone had dumped their clothes on the seat. However, on a closer look, it became clear that the clothes weren’t dumped, but were floating. A cheery and very feminine voice addressed me.

“Hey there! Sorry if I startled you.”

Hm, that looks like a refraction-based quirk. Seems to be uncontrollable considering the public space quirk usage laws. Is light being refracted completely around her? How is she able to see then? Perhaps it’s a selective field?

“Do you always stare vacantly and start muttering on hearing a girl, or am I a special case? enquired the bemused voice.

I floundered and returned to reality. I could feel my cheeks burning.

“S-Sorry, I tend to ramble when I see quirks in action. I like to think about the science behind them.”

“Haha, no issues greenie. It was kinda cute.”

Greenie?! Well, okay I could see her point, having green hair, green eyes and wearing a green hoodie and jeans…okay green’s my favourite colour, sue me. Still, it was nice that she wasn’t offended, and I found myself slipping into easy conversation.

“Believe me, it was not cute when I was young. Before speech therapy, my stutter was very bad. I have heard my rambling being described as the buzzing of mosquitoes on caffeine.”

“Wow, that sounds like an unpleasant person,” said the girl, waving her hands frantically. Well, she wasn’t wrong, I don’t think anyone would describe Katsuki as pleasant, especially not back then.

“It’s fine, he wasn’t very far off. Nice to meet you, I am Izuku Midoriya.”

“Same! Tooru Hagakure here, nice to see a fellow Hatter,” cheered Tooru and enthusiastically shook my hand.

Wow, she is all energy. We spent the next few minutes making small talk and then settled into a comfortable silence.

I spent some time looking out the window, and as we neared the Okazaki ruins, I could feel Tooru leaning to get a look over my shoulder. In a couple of minutes, the ruins appeared in all their derelict glory.

The city of Okazaki had been devastated during the Second Quirk Wars. All that remained of a once proud city were lonely high-rises and pockmarked streets. Though it had been fifty years since the Quirk Wars ended, the government had made no effort to reestablish the city, something about bad memories and what not. Instead, they had constructed a new railway line going around the city, and had marketed the ruins as a tourist spot, with hotels and resorts dotting the landscape.

Okazaki was not a unique case either. Countless cities across the world had suffered during the last century. The crater at New York was still off-limits to civilians due to persistent radioactivity. Half of the Indonesian islands were underwater. The list of atrocities went on and on, and if not for the era of peace ushered in by All Might, humanity as a species had been dangerously close to exterminating itself.

Speaking of All Might, the news of him finally returning to Japan after 10 years had made waves throughout the country. Being the most influential hero in the world, and arguably the strongest too despite his advancing age, he was a larger-than-life figure. I had idolised him after dad even when I hadn’t wanted to become a hero. Now though, the idolisation was mixed with desperation.

If my hunch was right, then All Might could help me find what happened to Dad. I needed to be able to approach him. I needed to acquire enough connections and authority to investigate classified documents.

I needed to become a famous hero.

And as we reached Shikentoshi station and I said my goodbyes to Tooru who had spied some of her classmates and joined them, my gaze got drawn to the imposingly large white building just outside the exit, loudly proclaiming itself to be the HAT Centre.

I could feel my quirk sparking under my skin with anticipation.

This was the site of the first obstacle in my path.

Looking back on it, this was the start of my bloody journey.