Collateral Damage| bnha

chapter eleven| name

"Walking away was never an option, was it?"

"What kind of story would that be if it were?"

[!]

Izuku Midoriya was a strange guy. I call it strange because truly I did not know how else to describe him. I thought I've met all kinds of people, all kinds of strange and weird. But none were like him.

A superhuman society has a very specific set of people. I normally divide it in three categories for the sake of simplicity. The ones at ease with themselves, the ones that blame themselves, and the ones forced to be themselves. Of course there is a lot more nuisance to it, no one can truly be just one thing. But in recent years I've noticed that most people fall under those three categories. Police officers, doctors, heroes and even regular day office workers, are normally at ease with themselves. They enjoy the world that they live in, the quirk that they have been gifted, and the society that raised them. Teachers, reporters, artists, and people who hate their job, are the ones that I consider to be constantly blaming themselves. They always could do more, be more, but there is also always gonna be something that prevents them from reaching their full potential. And no matter what they do the reality is that they are never going to feel enough. Criminals, outcasts, villains and kids who make mistakes... they are the ones forced into a role, forced to be "themselves". Whatever society deems them to be. The reality is that the world was not meant for them, it will not adjust to them, and no matter how much they try they will never be a part of it. They will never belong.

It isn't enough to have a quirk and call it a day, it isn't enough to just follow the rules and hope for the best. These are the people that somehow will always end up taking the road less traveled by, that will always fallback, the ones that when society doesn't know what to do with them they call them crazy and hide them away, or they label them villains and put them away.

I assumed all the heroes in training were supposed to be the type of people that are at ease with themselves, that want a better place and are willing to make it so. The type of people that know who they are and are aiming to be admired.

Izuku, however, seemed different. It was almost like he was never too sure of what step to take, like if there was always something missing. As if his actions would never be good enough for the role he was meant to play. As if he was used to being pitied and undermined, and got used to being less than. But that was not hero like, was it?

I think Izuku Midoriya didn't fit in the superhuman world, but he didn't hope to fit in either. He craved to change it.

"Battle Training" All Might informed us more enthusiastically than I could ever describe, "But the key to being a hero is... looking good!" He instructed us to suit up and meet him at Ground B.

Everyone's faces suddenly lit up with excitement at the mention of costumes. The thing about heroes, or heroes in training perse, is that this is their dream, this is something they have been working toward, therefore their hero costume is something that they had already thought about long before being a hero could become their job. Takeo had finalized 4 different designs for his costume during our second year in Junior High (and that is without counting the dozens of drafts). He knew what colors he wanted, what improvements he needed, and even how much each piece of his suit was meant to weigh. Although that might seem like an overkill for someone who hasn't even been accepted into a hero course, I promise you that half of my classmates, if not more, had probably been dreaming about their hero costume for years.

But one of the first things that one needs to do in order to design a hero costume is know their quirk. Their strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between. I was never allowed to use my quirk, and the few times I did it was against my will.