Midoriya Izuku is quirkless.
But he isn't.
Both him and Inko prefer that he be known as quirkless. It's safer for him.
But they can never avoid the truth of what really happened that day.
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"Shitty Deku." Bakugou cursed under his breath, his hands popping with explosions as the heat seared his back. His quirk was powerful alright, but because of his sweat, he never really did well under all the heat. Not being able to use his quirk in lessons, all the sweat was just accumulating on his palms until they were dismissed, where Bakugou would run to the roof to blow it all up.
Midoriya was his friend.
Or not really.
He was quirkless. Bakugou didn't need a friend that was useless and powerless. And Midoriya was weird. He spaced out sometimes, staring into space during lessons, while eating, all the time. He looked uncomfortable in his own body.
Bakugou couldn't blame him for that. He would be uncomfortable in a quirkless body too.
But that wasn't the problem. Midoriya always acted like the body wasn't his own. And that kinda freaked Bakugou out. Just a little. Just because it was weird and abnormal.
Everyone knew that Midoriya Izuku was quirkless.
And Midoriya was glad.
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Midoriya just stared into space again, and the teacher sighed. He couldn't do much, it was written on his medical records, and Inko had specifically said that this happened sometimes. As long as he was passing in school, the teacher didn't care.
He didn't want to, anyway.
Midoriya just stared at the board blankly, as the two beings in his head argued.
"Algebra doesn't work like that, Miku."
"Shut it, Tani. Just cause you're smarter doesn't mean you can lecture me."
"You need to know. It's basic stuff."
Akatani howled, "Algebra is not basic!"
Mikumo snorted, "Wait until you get the differentiation and integration."
The teacher started handing out the worksheets, and Mikumo stared at the worksheet, before picking up the pen. "Watch and learn. This is how you do it."
Akatani just watched on as Mikumo made legible scrawls on the paper, with a's and b's and c's and square roots and finding the roots of the equation and everything Mikumo saying making no sense at all to the other.
"You're still confused." Mikumo laughed, shoving Akatani, who just hissed and shoved back.
The teacher didn't say a word as Midoriya put his head on the desk.
As long as he did his work, he didn't care.
-----------------
"Any potential interesting examinees?" Aizawa asked, sifting through a couple of papers.
"Well... do you count the recommendation students?" Kayama asked.
"No. Just examinees."
"Well... I saw a kid with a brainwashing quirk. Won't do well against robots but maybe he'll get a few rescue points?"
"Here. A quirkless one." Kan turned a piece of paper around, showing a boy with green eyes and green fluffy hair, smiling at the camera. "Midoriya Izuku."
Aizawa sighed. "Let's just hope he knows what he's doing."
He didn't mind that a quirkless kid was applying for the hero course. Just that he would have a much harder time destroying robots.
"Someone's curious." Everyone turned to look at the quirked animal, who had a gleam in his eyes. "How are his scores?"
"Full marks for the application test."
Nezu nodded, "Excellent. I hope he'll do well on the preliminary tests and the actual entrance exams later on."
He saw the weird way Aizawa was eyeing him, and he grinned.
"Why don't you scout him then. Go to his school, take a look. You expelled your entire homeroom class, and you don't teach anything else. Plus, Bakugou is there too."
Aizawa agreed, for two reasons. He was too tired to argue with the principal, and he was sure he would lose the argument anyways.
"Yeah. Sure. Save me some lunch."
-----------------
Aizawa just watched from outside the classroom.
The boy called Bakugou was listening, swearing a but, but other than that, everything seemed okay.
Midoriya was a whole knew problem.
Aizawa could tell he wasn't really there. He wasn't listening, for sure. It was almost as if his mind was somewhere else.
The teacher called on him, and Midoriya suddenly blinked, looking at the question written on the board before answering the question promptly.
At least he seemed to know what he was doing. Maybe he was just thinking about the subject at hand.
He lingered around a bit more, and turned to leave at the bell that signalled the start of lunch rang out. He was about to walk away when he heard some yells.
"Stupid Deku! You're quirkless!"
"So? It doesn't bother me, why does it bother you?"
Aizawa blinked.
The quirkless at this age were few and far between. There was no way he should be so nonchalant about it. Surely he had been bullied before? Or maybe he had someone to protect him. Aizawa peeked into the classroom out of curiosity.
"Can it! You can't apply to UA. You can't be a hero without a quirk!" A boy with a wooden looking face laughed.
"Yeah! You'll just die!" Another boy grinned.
"Maybe that's just up to me. I can be a hero. I will be a hero. And my 'lack of a quirk' isn't going to stop me." Midoriya just stood up, and looked at them in the eye. The two boys flinched, and instinctively stood aside as Midoriya strode past them, before scrambling out the door.
Upon leaving the room, Midoriya saw Aizawa looking at him, and faced him.
"Well I wasn't expecting to see a pro hero here."
Aizawa raised an eyebrow.
"You sure seem confident."
"About what? Being quirkless? Why should what they say get into my head when I know they're wrong?" Midoriya gave a small, cheeky grin, before asking, "So, what's Eraserhead doing here?"
"My colleagues wanted me to check this place out."
"Oh. Okay. Sounds boring."
"Yep. I was just about to leave."
"Oh. Well. Nice to meet you. I would harass you with more questions, but then again you hate attention. So bye." Midoriya waved goodbye to the hero before running down the hallway.
Good to hear that he still believes he can be a hero. Aizawa told himself mentally, before leaving the building finally, not realising he had completely misunderstood what the boy truly meant.
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Turning the corner, Midoriya leaned against the wall, trying to calm his racing heart.
"Oh gods, why were you like that?" Akatani hissed. "He's the one we should be avoiding."
"It makes him less suspicious. He works in UA." Mikumo growled back.
"He could have killed us. You know that the best. You were the one that told us to avoid him the second you realised what Eraserhead's quirk was." Akatani groaned.
"I know that. I did what I had to in order to get away as quickly as possible." Mikumo grumbled. "I don't like it, but we're not dead yet. I probably did something right."
"Yeah.."
Both of them remained silent, before Mikumo asked, "Katsudon?"
"Nah. Soba."
"Come one. Please."
"... fine."