Stolen Chances

Chapter 2 - you react better than most people

One may say that training was hard. Izuku thought that that was an understatement. Rough didn’t quite fit either. Hellish. Yeah, that was it, hellish because he felt like he was somewhere between circles six and seven of suffering and he had no idea if it would or could for that matter get better. The only reason he didn’t say the ninth circle of hell is that he knew from experience that it could get worse. So much worse.

                Don’t get him wrong, he wasn’t ungrateful nor unused to physical effort. He had done martial arts for a few years when he was younger and admired All Might for years... but said training didn’t really focus on building muscle mass per se and no matter how hard he analysed his heroes movements, he couldn’t quite translate written information in muscle memory.

                But he tried, and he was still trying. All Might was everything he aspired to be in a hero. He knew other heroes weren’t like that. Most of them did it for fame or money and didn’t really try to hide it. But he was determined to become a hero, the next Symbol of Peace. He had always wanted that, had always dreamed of being a hero, but knew he never could with that Quirk. Becoming a hero with his Quirk would mean stealing someone else’s, depriving someone of their own chance at greatness. But now was the first time he had the chance of doing it the right way. He had the chance to be a hero with a Quirk willingly given and Kacchan would swallow his pride and apologise before he gave up on it.

                But, even with his determination and positive attitude, the training was still killing him.

                The biggest, yet, easiest to accomplish change had been his sleeping hours. He never understood how much eight hours of sleep actually meant and, how foolish he had been to take them for granted. His normal program had been to go to sleep pretty late (heroes and such news tended to wait until late hours to appear) and wake up in the morning to go to school. But, now, with half the night gone, he stole a few hours at noon, right after school, woke up, study, then go to his night training. And, though he didn’t like to admit it, it did have its perks.

                The diet had helped him gain muscle, a feat he had thought impossible a few months ago. He was so exhausted, he fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. He also had a shitload of stamina and speed to run away for hours, even though that wasn’t that much of an accomplishment. He had always been good at running away (he was very bitter about it). But he couldn’t really help it. Even though Kacchan hadn’t touched him, that never stopped the other bullies.

                He had told his parents about the training, but never the specifics of it. His mother still thought he did some type of martial arts. She perked up at the thought and more or less had taken his food programme hostage to try new things. Izuku didn’t know how she had time to do it with her full time job, but people always said moms were magic. His father had tried once again (and failed once again) to convince him to try something else.

                That was something his father always did, starting with the moment he first said he wanted to be a hero. He never discouraged him from trying, at least not openly. He never said he couldn’t.

                He shouldn’t, yes, it would be difficult, definitely, you’d be great at literally anything else, of fucking course! But he never said his Quirk was evil.

                No Quirk is truly evil.

                He never looked down on him for being functionally Quirkless most of the time (hell, every time if we take it this way). He was the one who helped him realise it was the same for most heroes. There were a lot of cases when some heroes Quirk wasn’t suited for a certain situation and said heroes had to rely on physical abilities and wit alone to save people. Even with his parents was like this. Just because Hisashi could breathe fire, that never meant he did it all the time. From this perspective, Izuku never understood why people made such a big deal out of it.