Know the Difference: A My Hero Academia Fanfiction

CHAPTER THREE: FEAR/INSTINCT

CHAPTER THREE: FEAR/INSTINCT

WELL, it looked like Izuku had his answer. Even All Might had basically told him that a person couldn't become a hero without a quirk and Izuku did not have that. Which meant that even if he wanted to become a hero, even if his family was different, was normal—

It would not be possible. Heroism was impossible for quirkless individuals.

So it was villainy for him after all then. There had to be a way. He knew he could figure out how to convince his parents that he was perfectly capable of helping out with the Family Business, despite his quirklessness, with enough time. He wasn't weak and he wasn't stupid.

That's all he wanted to do. To help them, in whatever way he could. He wanted to make himself useful to them, but the only way he could do that was if they actually let him be useful.

He hated his powerlessness. He wished he could do more, somehow, in some way. That's all he wanted, to prove Tomura-nii wrong when he called him useless.

Well, he wanted to stand beside Kacchan as his equal, too... but that was impossible. Everything in him was meant to be a villain, so that was all he ever would be. This was who he was.

Right?

[***]

The air around Izuku sung like a fiddle on a string, vibrating and ready for the next beat to fall. There was someone screaming in the distance. There was always someone screaming. He heard explosions, uneasy chatter—a plea for the right heroes to help, to arrive on the scene, to save the person trapped. It smelled like tar and sewer, an all too familiar smell.

Izuku coughed and inched through the crowds, elbowing his way closer. Did I somehow distract All Might when we were talking? I don't understand how he'd escape from him otherwise...

There was someone struggling in the voluminous slime, with no small amount of desperation in their jerky movements. Izuku glanced at the heroes watching from the sidelines, doing nothing to help the victim.

Heroes were meant to accomplish the impossible. They weren't even trying to save that poor person.

"Why aren't the heroes saving that boy?" a little boy asked beside Izuku, looking up at his mother. The woman held her child close to her, not taking her eyes off the commotion.

"I don't know... they're afraid they'll make the situation worse with their quirks."

No wonder Tomura-nii hates heroes so much, Izuku couldn't help but think as he watched with wide eyes, completely rooted to the spot. They fight for profit and they don't even try to rescue because their quirks aren't made for this type of work. If they got creative, there would have been a way to rescue that person.

The person screamed, setting off powerful explosions from their body, and Izuku stopped thinking as he stared because that couldn't... could it? Was it possible that Kacchan had gotten entangled with the slime villain as well?

Like the moment before lightning struck during a thunderstorm, the air sizzled and crackled with tension, hot at a wire and dangerous. Crimson red eyes opened and somehow, through the energy, his eyes met Izuku, wide and desperate and frightened as he gasped.

Izuku's legs moved.

He swerved under Kamui Wood's arms, branching out and pushing civilians back just like the trees his quirk copied. He ran—not away from the villain, like most rational people apparently, but toward the villain, toward Kacchan, toward his friend—