Boku No Hero Academia

“Izukuuuuu!”

The squad looked at the schoolgirl with the glinting teeth and the glinting blades.

“Oh,” muttered Tsu-chan. “It’s vampire girl.”

“I’m going to kick her arse!” declared Uraraka-san.

“Uraraka-san! It is unseemly of hero students to engage in needless violen-”

“She’s a literal villain,” pointed out Todoroki-san.

“-we shall neutralise her in cooperation and in compliance with the law,” Tenya concluded.

“Sure.”

Tenya felt reassured by this response. It was always a pleasure to see his companions agree with reasonable arguments.

“Izukuuuuu, you’ll look so cute drenched in blood-!”

“Why me?!” Izuku sighed… and powered up One for All.

Yaomomo brought down an armful of photocards and rolled-up posters. The Dekusquad took them, and started feeding them into the fire one by one.

“S’mores!” Sure thing, Kaminari was already roasting a marshmallow.

Bakugou dropped in an action figure; the fire gave a little nitroglycerine-fuelled whump.

“Kacchan?!”

“Tch,” Bakugou replied, and from him that was an enthusiastic endorsement of the merch-burning.

Kyouka shrugged and offered an older t-shirt.

“Why would you do this?!” despaired Iida. “Endeavour deserves our respect!”

Kyouka sneered. “I don’t know anything, except that Todoroki-kun’s standing there happy watching his Dad burn in effigy.”

Iida froze. “Oh.”

Endeavour.

The Flame Hero.

Red-flamed. Red-based. Red-merched. Red.

Since he could remember, Touya wished to be nothing like his Father.

Once he was school-aged, he figured out why he wanted to be nothing like his Mother either.

At fourteen (he died) his hair rapidly turned white, and it had come as paltry relief. His first independent act was to buy a stock of black hair-dye. When he was a black-haired mass of scars, no one recognised him.

And no one wanted to.

So, one day, when Touya turned up to fuck up Endeavour’s everything, it would be a total surprise.

“Like a bush!” Uraraka-chan laughed.

“Hey!” Izuku had tolerated the ‘broccoli’ thing, but this was just mean.

“She’s right, though,” Shouto said, putting a second dandelion into Izuku’s hair. It stuck in the curls, too.

“Shoutooo…” Izuku tried to protest.

Shouto unsympathetically arranged another dandelion behind Izuku’s ear.

“Midobro!” exclaimed Kirishima-kun, “the way you’re showing your flowery side is so manly!”

“See, Izuku-chan?” Tsu-chan weaved a buttercup into Izuku’s fringe. “No one minds. Don’t be scared. It’s really very cute.”

“Like a bush,” maintained Uraraka-chan.

Izuku pouted. “When I become a villain, I want you to remember this and rue.”

Take a swan-dive off the roof and hope for a quirk in the next life.

Katsuki clenched his teeth. Stuffed his fists deeper into his pockets. Kicked at a can, and listened to it clatter.

The two extras following him wouldn’t fucking stop yammering.

Take a swan-dive.

Deku was a useless waste of oxygen that needed to be put into his place over and over because he was stupid and never fucking learnt, but… saying that was going too far. Katsuki hadn’t… meant to.

He kicked at a plastic bottle.
.
.
.
Katsuki always felt like he had deserved what happened next.

Nejire-chan hadn’t stopped the cycle of bursting into giggles and then trying to suppress them for the past twenty minutes.

Tamaki-kun’s face had been the colour of a ripe strawberry before he had pressed it to his knees. He was shaking, too – not with hilarity, though. With second-hand embarrassment.

The rest of the class was just openly laughing.

Aizawa-sensei looked like he wished he were dead. “Toogata.”

Mirio cringed. “Yes, sensei?”

“Problem child.”

Mirio nodded. “That’s fair, sensei.”

After all, not everyone earned instant international fame by phasing through his clothes in the middle of a Festival on live TV.

Nezu rescued himself from the laboratory. He was a tangle of trauma held together with instinct, given the choice between death and another cage.

He refused.

Finding the right people, getting just enough support to squeak his bid for personal rights past the judge, and escaping those who wished to silence him to prevent him from exposing their crimes was only the beginning.

Administrating the best Hero School in the country while opposing the Commission, the League, and the worst villain in two hundred years was the path.

One day he would build a world where he finally felt safe.

“You mean… I’ll be a Hero?” Keigo breathed, amazed.

The lady in the dark suit smiled, tapping something into her phone. “Of course you will. A great Hero!”

“Wow.”

“You will save a lot of people!”

Keigo followed along long, boring halls, through tall, boring doors. Into a boring bedroom.

“This is yours,” she said. “You can decorate as you like!”

Keigo put the duffle bag with all his things down. As soon as he was left alone, he stuck an Endeavour poster onto the wall right above the bed.

One day, he would be a Hero.

Just like Endeavour.

“Anywhere you didn’t fall asleep, I guess?” suggested Uraraka-chan.

Naïve.

“At home, whenever your brother’s friends are visiting,” countered Iida-kun, shuddering. “They drink. A lot. And they get loud.”

Sheltered.

“In the centre of the pond, in the middle of the night, kero,” Asui-chan said knowingly. “Tasting flies.”

Weird. But valid.

“Training room tatami,” said Shouto.

Izuku swallowed dry. “Hospital,” he concluded, to a general amused agreement.

But, really, hospital was good. It wasn’t the bottom of the stairs at your middle school, or the ditch, or the rooftop.

And, as Kacchan could attest, it wasn’t chained up and muzzled.

“Not that I mind,” Tsu muttered, handing over the box of contraband, “but why did you have me collect all these critters?”

“Because you are best suited for it,” Todoroki-kun replied reasonably.

Tsu thought that made sense.

* * *

Two days later, Tsu noted that Todoroki-kun was watching the evening news with uncharacteristic eagerness.

“…is that Kamui Woods?”

“Hiatus?! Now?!”

“His rank’s been rising!”

“Oh dear, that’s disgusting…”

Infestation happened to the best of them, but Tsu suspected that Todoroki-kun’s self-satisfaction was warranted in this case.

Izuku-chan deserved to see those who harmed him punished.

And quirkist bigots needed to be taught.