CHAPTER SEVEN: THE ENTRANCE EXAM/STARTING LINE
EARLY in the morning on the day of the UA entrance exam, before the sun had even risen, Izuku turned his alarm clock off and sat up in bed, blindly grappling for his gym uniform and bright red shoes. Tomura-nii groaned, and Izuku froze.
"Why the fuck are you awake?" Tomura-nii grumbled, sitting up and squinting at his alarm clock. "It's... three thirty, Izuku? It's too early for this."
"Then go back to sleep, nii-san." Izuku grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulders. He should eat, but it felt like anything he managed to choke down would just come right back up, if he ate now. "I want to surprise him with clearing everything up."
"Don't know why you even bother with All Might... he's a worthless hero, just pandering to the public..." Tomura-nii pulled the covers back over his head and turned so that his back was facing Izuku. Izuku frowned.
Even before he got to know Yagi, there had been something magnetic in All Might's smile that made it hard for him to retain the same amount of animosity Tomura-nii felt toward All Might. Tomura-nii's hatred of heroes was so much more personal than his own.
But then, it wasn't like he had lived in the streets when he had been a toddler, had people and heroes turn a blind eye, like Tomura-nii had as a child, before father and mom adopted him. He didn't think he could understand his brother that intimately; didn't really want to.
(... Izuku wasn't even sure if he hated heroes like Tomura-nii. He hated what they stood for, hated that they oppressed quirkless people, or people who had quirks but weren't allowed to use them in public, and those who had powerful quirks. But he didn't think he could hate Yagi, who was All Might, the strongest hero of their generation. And that was the problem, because he should hate him. But he couldn't.)
He grabbed his phone on the way out of the house and jogged down the darkened streets in the pre-dawn light of morning. When he arrived at the beach, he pulled on a pair of heavy-duty gloves and turned his attention to the last of the debris: the rusted truck and the other large, clunky items.
Nine months ago, looking at them made him feel like obtaining All Might's quirk would be impossible. That satisfying his father's wish, obeying his command, to get into UA and attend would be impossible. Now, it only felt like he was a little over his head.
He could do this. He knew he could. The number of hours he poured into studying for the written portion of the entrance exam was nothing to scoff at, let alone how long he had been working to whittle away the garbage that had accumulated on the beach. His muscles burned and his thighs ached all the time, but not as badly as the first month. It got easier as he became stronger.
Clearing the rubbish away now, while it was still physically draining, wasn't difficult anymore. And wasn't that strange? He'd been so skinny, so weak, there had been no strength in him; Kacchan had to protect him from bullies, threaten them away, and now...
He hoped he could stand on the same level as him, at least for a little while. Before their differences would inevitably drive them apart, onto their separate paths.
Kacchan would be the strongest hero one day. This he knew very well, it was as undeniable as the setting sun that Kacchan was meant to outshine everyone else. But he would not understand when it will come out in the future, about Izuku's own path with his family, and how they had to reveal the true colors of hero society.
It was the Family Business, and it was all he had for him. There was no other potential road he could walk.
He made headway on the final pieces of the rubbish, straining the muscles in his body, but taking care to stop every thirty minutes to rehydrate and catch his breath. And then he went back at it, again and again and again, until the horizon was clear and the beach was spotless and the sun was rising.
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Know the Difference: A My Hero Academia Fanfiction
FanfictionIron Will was an infamous villain, known by heroes to be as deadly and vicious as her husband, All for One. The underworld crime thrived when she was his right hand, despite the peace-ushering presence of All Might. But then her son was born and she...