Of Flames And Quirks And Harmony

CHAPTER 5: Trying For Hero School

Izuku is here. Here, right in front of the gates of UA. Of UA High, the most outstanding school for aspiring heroes. He's just one step away from his long-forgotten dream. He's feeling too giddy and too doubtful at the same time, his heart is about to explode. Once, he had believed in heroes. Once, they had been his world. Could he pretend, even for a moment, that he might one day feel the same once again? Can he make it? Can he endure it? Can he pass it? Can he successfully hide who he really is? Fuck it, he's one step away from becoming a hero! Him, who is a hitman! A murdurer! HIs former job was to kill people! Did he really have a choice? How did it come this?

Life had never been easy for Izuku Midoriya. It had never been easy for him to... do any of the things anyone else had done, really. Simply, life had ever been easy for him.

He'd always been bullied. For as long as he could remember, people always had their opinions about him. About his quirk. Or rather, his lack of a quirk.

Which turned out to be false - as false as it can get, because Dying Will Flames weren't actually anything like a Quirk, all things considered. But still. It just made sense that the very thing, the very reason he had suffered so much during his childhood, turned out to be just another lie. A false truth. Like his whole life was a fucking lie. Nothing in his life had ever been guaranteed, let alone the one truth, the one fact he'd always known since he was 5 years old and he'd sat at that doctor's office.

Additional joint in his pinky toe. What a fucking joke it was. Of course it was. Something like that was hardly a good indicator of quirklessness to begin with.

Of course, he hadn't found out about that until he was in his early teens. Or as early as a shitty 13-year-older can get, anyway. When he'd already left his past behind him.

After he'd sold his soul to the devil.

The Estraneo Famiglia and their honeyed words were too much to resist, for someone like him. For a youngster like him, who had never known love beyond what his mother had given him. For a youngster like him, who had never been allowed to enjoy the companionship of another human being.

Midoriya Inko had done her best. She'd tried to raise him to be a good person. She'd done her best; but sometimes, doing your best wasn't enough. No, not when everyone else was insistent on vandalizing your work.

Izuku fell... and he fell hard.

Vaguely, he could remember. Once upon a time (oh God, please help him, but what fucking time is it?), he had wanted to become a hero.

If he could, he would laugh at the mere thought. Him, a hero?

No. He was anything but a hero. Already at birth, it had been decided. He, of all people, had never stood a chance of becoming a hero. He'd always been the very opposite of a hero. The antichrist to the holiness of heroics.

And he plunged head first into being the devil that sent havoc to the hero's world.

*FLASHBACK
10-year-old Izuku Midoriya was panting as he slid himself behind the garbage bin. He felt the adrenaline push through his excitement at seeing a hero getting killed.

A hero getting killed!

He shouldn't be happy about that, considering how ripe at the age 10 he was. But nobody can blame him. All of the meager 9years of his life, he dreamed of being a hero.

What happened in a year to totally obliterate his dream when he's already 10, you ask?

He was killed. Four times. First death, At the age of 5 he was diagnosed Quirkless. It was fine, he kept on telling hmself. The doctor must've just misdiagnosed him. He's just a late bloomer. He'd definitely get one when the time is ripe. Second death, when he was 9 he was told by his childhood best friend, who he dreamed of being a hero with, whose resolve of being a hero was just as strong as his, told him to 'take a swan dive from the roof and pray that you'll have a quirk in the next life'. Basically he was told to commit suicide by a 9y/o. Third death, same day as the swan dive suicide, he was left by his hero idol (he doesn't want to remember the name anymore) - by the roof, as if to taunt him with the swan dive - shattered the last embers of hope he has of becoming a hero. Fourth death, still the same day, at night time, when he came home to en empty apartment building. His mom wasn't home yet. Then the phone rang to a bad news. His mother is dead. The only family member he has - and loves the most - is dead. The heroes present failed to save his mother.