001 - The Day I Should Have Met All Might

Training log updated.

Take a breath. The next test is already starting.

✦

I woke three minutes before the alarm and reached for a phone that was not mine.
My hand found a stack of notebooks instead.

For one half-awake second, that was the strangest part. Not the ceiling. Not the unfamiliar blanket twisted around my legs. The notebooks. My fingers slid over worn paper like they had done it a thousand times.

Then I saw All Might smiling from the wall.
The poster had one corner peeling loose. Around it, rescue clippings, costume sketches, and hero rankings covered the room in crooked layers. Someone had underlined the same interview quote until the paper nearly tore.
The room smelled faintly of pencil lead, laundry soap, and a kind of nervous hope I had no business recognizing.

I sat up too fast.

The nausea came first. The memories came right behind it.
A doctor's office. A mother trying not to break in front of her son. A small boy staring at his own toe joint like the shape of one bone had ended his future. Bakugo's palm cracking with sparks in a schoolyard. All Might laughing from a television while that same boy whispered a question too big for his chest.
Can I be a hero too?

My throat closed.

I had watched this life from the outside. That had been safe. Stupid, maybe, but safe. Inside it, the ache did not wait for permission. Izuku Midoriya's grief sat under my ribs like it had always lived there.
I stumbled out of bed and grabbed the nearest notebook because standing still felt worse. Hero Analysis for the Future, Volume Thirteen. The cover had gone soft at the edges. Inside, neat sketches crowded every page: rescue angles, weak points, movement habits, questions stacked beneath more questions.
The name on the first page was mine now.

Izuku Midoriya.

Eighteen.
Quirkless.
Still applying to U.A.
The adult part of me, the part that remembered rent and deadlines and coffee gone cold in paper cups, called that impossible.

The part of me that remembered laughing classmates did not care.

I looked at the calendar by the closet.
My stomach dropped.
Not the entrance exam. Not the Sports Festival. Not any of the later disasters, the ones that proved hero society had cracks under the paint.

Today.

The sludge villain. The underpass. All Might. The roof. One For All.
I stared at the square on the calendar until the ink blurred.
I could stay home. That would probably keep me alive.

I could take another street. I could call the police and sound like a lunatic. I could do anything except walk into the scene that started everything.

And if I dodged it, All Might might never see Izuku move.
My fingers tightened around the notebook hard enough to bend the cover.
Pressure gathered behind my eyes.

[Hero Analysis Log]

Event Anchor: Sludge Villain Incident
Known Outcome: All Might intervention likely
Priority: preserve route without allowing civilian death
I stopped breathing.

The words sat over the page, thin and pale, visible only to me. No shop. No stat window. No cheerful reward for doing the correct thing.

Just a note. Cold, useful, and not nearly enough.
A knock came at the door.
"Izuku? Breakfast is ready."

I almost apologized before I knew what I had done wrong.

That scared me more than the glowing text.
"Coming, Mom."
Warmth moved through the word before I could stop it. Habit. Love. A son's reflex.

I sat there with both hands on the notebook and made myself breathe. These people were real now. If I treated them like checkpoints, I would deserve every bad ending I remembered.

By the time I reached the kitchen, I had washed my face and found an expression that only shook a little.
It did not fool Inko.
She looked up from the stove. "Are you sick?"

"Nervous," I said. It was not a lie. It just had a lot of missing pieces. "Career review today."

Aldera Professional Prep held one for U.A. applicants and for everyone still pretending a Quirk decided the size of a person's future.
In this version of the world, U.A. was a professional hero academy. Applicants had to be adults by enrollment. Ten months until the exam. Ten months to turn a Quirkless body into something that could survive the first punch.
If I survived this afternoon.
Inko set breakfast in front of me. She did not sit down right away.

"You were talking in your sleep."

My spoon stopped halfway to the bowl.
"Was I?"
"U.A. All Might. Timing." She tried to smile. It slipped before it held. "You always think too much before school meetings."

The old response rose up: smile, nod, make it easy for her.

I covered her hand instead.
"I'll come home."
Her face changed.

I heard the promise after I made it. So did she.

"Izuku," she said softly.
I looked down at the rice before the look in her eyes could undo me. "I know. I just... I know."
Not a clean answer. Better than the old lie.

I ate everything. I packed the notebooks. I left before either of us asked the kind of question that would make me stay.

Musutafu smelled like wet concrete, exhaust, and fried food from a stand opening too early. Heroes moved through the morning like celebrities with licenses. People glanced up, filmed a few seconds, and kept walking.
My feet knew the way to Aldera.
That bothered me more than needing a map would have.
The school was full of students trying to look casual about their futures. Quirks flashed in the halls despite the warning signs. A spark near the lockers. A pencil floating above someone's desk. Tiny reminders that rules often arrived late when the person getting hurt had no power.

Heat popped behind me.

"Move, Deku."
My shoulders tried to obey.
I hated that they knew how.

I turned before they could finish folding in on themselves.

Bakugo was taller than the memory expected and harder around the eyes. Eighteen made his anger look less like a tantrum and more like something he had practiced until it fit. Two classmates hovered behind him, already smiling because they knew the shape of the scene.
So did I.
Knowing the shape made it harder.

"Morning, Kacchan."

His eye twitched.
Small. Fast. Dangerous.
"Don't call me that like we're friends."

"Right." My mouth was dry. "Bakugo, then."

That landed worse. His palm crackled.
The hallway thinned around us without anyone admitting they had stepped back.
"You get hit in the head, Deku?"

Probably, in a cosmic sense.

"Big day," I said.
"For people with Quirks."
There it was. The old cut. The body remembered where it was supposed to bleed.
Shame rose hot in my face. I let it. Fighting it would have looked like a performance.

Then I looked at him.

"For people applying to be heroes."
One of the extras made a noise like he wanted to laugh and had forgotten how. Bakugo did not laugh at all.
His silence was worse.

He knew me too well in the ways that hurt. He knew how far I usually lowered my head, how quickly I filled silence with apology. Today the gap was small. Half an inch of spine. One sentence too steady.

Enough for him to notice.
"Say that again."
Sparks crawled over his fingers.

I could not beat him. Not here. Not Quirkless. Not in a hallway where teachers only cared after property damage.

Winning had to mean something smaller.
I shifted half a step aside, clearing the path without bowing out of it.
"Good luck at the review."

I walked away before my knees could tell on me.

Every nerve in my back waited for heat.
None came.
Not safety. Interest.
The career meeting was cruelty with a clipboard.

The instructor read my U.A. application out loud, because a classroom laughed harder when an adult gave permission. Someone behind me muttered that bravery and stupidity shared handwriting. Someone else said U.A. needed janitors too.

I kept my hands flat on the desk.
Bakugo laughed once, but not at the loudest part.
Mostly, he watched.

That followed me all the way to the final bell.

Outside, the sky had gone gray enough to make the buildings look tired. I stopped at the school gate.
Home was left.
The underpass was right.

Somewhere that way, unless I had already changed the day by breathing wrong, a bottle waited in the dark.

I could still go home. Hug my mother. Lock the door. Wait for the news to tell me a stranger had paid for my caution.
My hand found the backpack strap.
No.

The boy whose memories I carried had run forward with no map and no guarantee. Knowing more did not give me the right to do less.

I turned right.
The streets thinned near the underpass. Water ticked down the concrete in slow drops. The air smelled sour, like trash left too long in summer rain.
My steps slowed anyway.
The Ledger stayed silent.

Of course it did. I already knew what came next.

A plastic bottle rolled out of the gloom and bumped my shoe.
Small. Sealed. Swollen with pressure.
For one stupid second, my brain supplied the scene the way a screen had taught it. Hero catches villain. Bottle drops. Bakugo gets caught later. Plot resumes.

Then the bottle twitched against my foot.

I moved.
Not fast enough.
Black-green sludge burst upward and hit me like rotten surf. The smell got into my mouth before the mass slammed me into the wall. White spots flashed across my vision.

"A body!" a wet voice gurgled. "Finally!"

It forced itself toward my mouth.
Everything clever vanished.
Cold slime covered my nose, my eyes, my throat. My lungs jerked around nothing. My hands clawed at something with no single place to grab.

Izuku's terror rose with mine, raw and young and furious at being right.

[Hero Analysis Log]
Threat: Sludge-type possession villain
Weakness: requires airway control
Priority: deny full seal

Backpack strap.

The thought came jagged, not neat.
I hooked two fingers under the strap and yanked until the bag jammed between my chest and the sludge. Then I twisted my chin down and bit fabric.
It did not give me air.

It gave me a sliver.

Enough to keep fighting badly.
"Stop fighting!" the villain hissed against my ear. "Quirkless trash like you should be grateful!"
Something in me went quiet.

Not brave. Angry.

That word belonged to too many mouths.
My hand found the notebook in the side pocket. I shoved it up between us, not as a weapon, just shape. Something his body had to bend around.
Half a breath slipped through.

It tasted like mold and blood.

I used it to slam my heel into the ground twice.
Not an attack.
A signal.
The villain laughed and tightened.

My vision narrowed.

Maybe the story did not care about me. Maybe the hero was thirty seconds away. Maybe I had already made one wrong choice too many and this was the price.
Then the air changed.
"Fear not!"

The shout rolled through the underpass, huge and impossible to mistake.

"For I am here!"
The sludge recoiled.
A massive hand tore it away from my face. I fell forward, coughing so hard my chest cramped. Wind crashed over me, and the villain folded under a force my eyes could barely follow.

When I could see again, All Might stood between me and the dark.

Too bright. Too large. Exactly right.
And painfully human, now that I knew what hid under the smile.
The captured villain writhed inside a bottle in his hand.

"Young man!" he boomed. "That was a close call!"

I stared up from my hands and knees. Awe hit first. Grief came right after.
I knew about the wound. I knew about the clock in his body. I knew this man would spend himself until the world mistook sacrifice for fuel.
"Can you stand?"
I nodded too fast and almost tipped sideways.

He caught my shoulder.

The smile stayed in place. His eyes sharpened.
He felt me shaking.
He also felt me stay up.

"You kept him from sealing your airway," he said, quieter now.

Too much. He noticed too much.
"Lucky," I rasped.
"Luck usually makes more noise."

A laugh tried to happen. It came out as a cough.

Sirens wailed somewhere beyond the underpass.
"You should receive medical attention."
No.

If he left, the day closed wrong.

My hand shot out and caught the torn edge of his costume.
All Might looked down.
Every line I had rehearsed died at once.
Can I become a hero without a Quirk? He expected that from a desperate fan.

It was also the question that could get me the wrong answer.

"All Might," I said.
His expression softened into something public and kind.
I tightened my grip before kindness could carry him away.

"Please don't leave yet."

For the first time, the smile hesitated.
The bottle in his other hand twitched.
My eyes flicked toward it.

So did his.

Not enough for him to drop it.
Enough for him to know I had noticed.
[Hero Analysis Log]

Inheritance Route: active

Deviation Risk: rising
Recommended Action: maintain contact
The hero straightened.
"Young man, this isn't safe."

"I know."

The answer came out too fast. Too honest.
His eyes narrowed by a fraction. His free hand started toward mine.
The bottle jerked hard enough to thump against his palm.

He moved before he finished deciding. One arm lifted the captured villain away from my face, his body turning toward open air on pure rescue reflex.

I felt his weight shift a heartbeat before he understood both my hands were locked in his costume.
"Young man--"
He launched upward.

The ground disappeared.

Wind punched the rest of the air from my lungs as Musutafu dropped beneath us. I locked both hands into his costume and held on with everything this borrowed body had.
He shouted something.
The wind swallowed it.

The rooftop was coming.

And I still had no idea what question would keep the future alive.

✦

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My Hero Academia: Izuku's Ninth Ledger

Summary

001 - The Day I Should Have Met All Might