This is my first real attempt at writing fanfiction, so I apologize for any issues or for it just plain sucking. I intend for this to be a rather long, detailed story. At first it will be very similar to the original (with small, somewhat subtle changes), but as time goes on I'm hoping that it will branch out and eventually become something original and spectacular. One thing I especially hope to do correctly in this story is relationships (romantic or otherwise). Just like in real life, just because some people in this story flirt or gain feelings for another character doesn't mean that they will end up falling in love and getting it right on the first try. Not to say it won't happen, because it may, but at the very least the majority of such relationships won't be quite so straightforward. I welcome any and all constructive criticism, and I am open to suggestions. Feel free to leave reviews.

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia or any of the characters.

"Did you see that!? He has already saved 100 people! It didn't even take 10 minutes! Really, what a monster!" a man's voice cried, the sound echoing throughout the room as a video played on a computer screen, showing footage of a scene that looked as if it came straight from hell. "He's laughing!" the voice called out again, and laughter could indeed be heard. A loud, wonderful laugh that should normally never be heard at such a horrible scene.

Suddenly, a muscular man in a costume could be seen stepping upon an overturned bus, multiple civilians held in his arms and across his shoulders. The video zooms in on the man's face, a huge smile on his face despite the destruction around him.

"It's fine now!" the man called out in a booming voice, "Why? Because I am here!"

The video stopped there, the man still smiling on the computer screen. The smile that the green-haired young boy sitting in front of the screen had seen a thousand times before. The smile that had always inspired him to be a Hero.

A smile that Izuku Midoriya was trying to wear on his own face. However, instead of that strong smile that he had always seen on the man on the screen, the one worn by the man called All Might, instead of the smile worn by the Number One Hero…..there was only a broken imitation, his face marred by tears and redness from hours of crying.

He had always dreamed of being a Hero, of being someone who could help others while wearing a smile on his face, just as All Might does in the video. He had dreamed of the day he would awaken his quirk, hoping that when that day came he would have a Quirk like All Might's, a Quirk that would let him be the Hero he wanted to be.

That day, however, would never come. His dream would never become reality.

He was Quirkless.

The very thought caused his tears to flow even more fiercely than they had for the last few hours, just as they had when his mother had been in there earlier and had started apologizing over and over again to her 4 year old son when he had asked her if he could be an amazing Hero someday, trying to hold onto his dream.

Izuku didn't want her to say that. Didn't want her to apologize. He…he wanted her to tell him that he could become a Hero.

With a trembling hand, Izuku moved the computer mouse and pressed play on the video for what was probably the hundredth time in the last few hours, and just like every other time he had done it, more tears burst forth and poured down his face.

Izuku Midoriya, now 14 years old, did his best to push through the crowd of people around him, all of them watching on as a large monster tried to swipe at a man who looked to be covered in wood but only managing to damage the train station it was standing on. As Izuku was pushing through the dense crowd, he heard bits and pieces of conversation.

"….impressive Quirk to be able to transform into a monster…"

"….just a handbag thief who is lashing out now that he's been cornered."

"…yes, I don't know when I'll arrive at the office…"

Finally reaching the front of the crowd, Izuku quickly brought out a rather thick notebook labeled "Quirk Analysis #53" and opened it up to the section he used for the Quirks of Villains. He quickly jotted down a description of the Villain, making note of the large increase to his size and physical strength, not realizing that he was letting out all of his thoughts in an extremely fast mumble. He was brought out of his thoughts when a man standing to his left called out to him.

"Hey kid, you alright over there? You're kind of scaring me, ya know? Besides, you keep that up and you're gonna miss the fight! The woodsman there looks like he's about to show us some big moves!" the man said, grinning at the green haired boy.

Izuku gave the man a brilliant smile, looking like it might split his face if it grew any wider. "That's Kamui Woods, a young talent who's been experiencing an enormous amount of popularity lately! He can use his Quirk, Arbor, to generate and control wood from his body!"

The man crossed his arms, grinning at the boy's enthusiasm. "You sure seem to know a lot about him, eh? You must be quite the fan!"

"Ah, well actually…"Izuku began, only to trail off from his response when he saw Kamui Woods getting ready to make his move. "Here it is! Lacquered Chain Prison!" the boy cried out as he saw a multitude of tendrils shoot out from Kamui Woods and start to wrap around the Villain. Before they could finish, a large foot suddenly planted itself in the Villains face and sent him falling backwards and crushing more of the station. Standing over the now unconscious (and slowly shrinking) Villain was a woman nearly twice the size of the already monstrous villain.

"Hi!" the giant woman called out. "I just started today! I am called Mount Lady! Pleased to make your acquaintance!" She then began to deactivate her Quirk, shrinking just as the villain did.

Before she had even finished shrinking, Izuku already had his notebook out and was making a new entry in the Hero section for this Mt. Lady, mumbling about her Quirk. The man who had spoken to Izuku earlier merely shook his head and told him to work hard and give everything he had in his attempt to be a Hero, figuring that the boy wanted to be one with how enthusiastic he was about them. As he turned away, the man didn't see Izuku gain a pained look on his face and falter for a moment in his writing. Even after all these years, it still pained Izuku to know that no matter how much he wanted to, he could never be a Hero. Shaking his head as if to clear it of such thoughts, Izuku closed his notebook and turned away from the scene in front of him where Mt. Lady was being interviewed while the Villain was taken into the custody of the police. Checking the time on his phone, Izuku saw that he would need to hurry or he would be late for school.

Izuku kept his head down and focused on his notebook, going over the entries he had made in it earlier for Mt. Lady and that Villain. He was doing his best to ignore the yelling of several of his classmates, having been riled up by their teacher talking about how nearly all of them had good quirks and were aiming to become Heroes. The loudest being a boy with ash blond, spiky hair known as Katsuki Bakugou, or 'Kacchan' as Izuku had always called him ever since the time they had been friends as kids.

That was before Izuku was labeled as Quirkless.

Ever since then….well, Kacchan really didn't consider him a friend anymore, to put it nicely. Nobody else considered him a friend either, whether it be because he was Quirkless or because they were afraid that befriending him would upset Kacchan. In fact, most of the other kids barely even considered him to be a classmate. Speaking of classmates…

Everyone was quiet now, staring right at him. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, most of them started laughing and pointing at him.

"D-did I d-do something?" Izuku stammered, face turning red in embarrassment from their laughter.

"Seriously, Midoriya? You? That's just impossible!" yelled one laughing boy, his neck elongated thanks to his Quirk.

"As if some Quirkless nerd could be a Hero!" yelled another student, a slightly pudgy girl with horns on her head.

"Do you really think someone as worthless as you could ever make it into U.A.?" yelled another boy, causing another round of laughter.

Before Izuku could do more than stammer out some incoherent explanation, small popping sounds echoed throughout the room, silencing everyone as they turned to look at who they knew to be the source. Sure enough, when Izuku slowly turned his head towards the sound his green eyes met the sharp red eyes of Kacchan. The boy looked angry, even more so than usual, and had small explosions going off around his hands as he glared at Izuku.

"K-Kacchan, I-" Izuku stammered, but before he could even finish his sentence Kacchan was in front of him and the next thing Izuku knew, he was slumped up against the wall with the smoking remains of his desk scattered around him while Kacchan stood over him.

"You don't even have a weak Quirk," Kacchan yelled in anger, a slightly crazed grin on his face, "you're Quirkless! Are you really stupid enough to try and enter the same arena as me, huh?!

Taking a deep breath, Izuku held a hand up towards Kacchan and tried to explain himself. "I-I don't intend to compete with you, Kacchan! Really! I just…" Izuku trailed off, not knowing quite what to say. He wasn't even entirely sure why he had signed up for the U.A. entrance exam. It was considered to be the top Hero Academy in Japan, perhaps even the best in the world. Izuku himself idolized the place, it was even where All Might went to school. Someone like him, who didn't even have a Quirk, would never be able to get in. He knew that, and yet…he felt like he had to at least try. To not do so would be to truly give up on his dream of being a Hero.

Realizing that he had gotten lost in thought, Izuku looked up and saw that everyone was still looking down on him, while Kacchan looked like he was ready to let off a few more explosions. Before anything more could be said, the school's bell began to ring, letting everyone know that they could go home for the day. Izuku gave a sigh of relief when he saw that everyone decided to just grab their stuff and start to leave, even Kacchan (though Izuku could have sworn he heard Kacchan call him "Quirkless, shitty Deku" as he turned away). Standing up, Izuku dusted off his clothes and looked around at the remains of his desk. Sighing at the fact that yet another desk was destroyed (the third this semester), he picked up his school bag that had, thankfully, come out unscathed. Looking around, he also saw his notebook lying on the ground and picked it up as well.

"Hey, Deku!"

Spinning around, Izuku saw Kacchan standing at the door with a smirk on his face. Standing behind him just outside of the classroom were two of his friends, both boys looking at Izuku as if he was a piece of garbage.

"Give up on U.A., you dirty nerd!" Kacchan continued. "Though I forgot to mention something earlier. There actually is a method for you to become a Hero. I hear that if you pray really hard and jump from the roof, you'll have a Quirk in your next life!" he finished, laughing along with his friends as he slid the door shut, leaving Izuku alone.

Biting his cheek, Izuku clenched the notebook in his hands and tried to calm himself from the mixture of anger and sadness that welled up within him. After a few moments, he was able to calm down enough to realize that he was starting to crush his notebook. Quickly loosening his grip, Izuku smoothed out the notebook and stared at the "#53" written on the cover.

#53, huh… maybe I've given up, after all. Maybe signing up for U.A. was just meant to be the final nail in the coffin.

Izuku strapped on his school bag and made his way out of the school, still staring at the notebook in his hands as he began to make the walk home, barely paying heed to his surroundings. As he walked, he thought back to when he first started with his Quirk Analysis notebooks. It had begun only a couple of months after he had found out that he was Quirkless, starting off as something to help keep his mind off of the fact that he could never be a Hero. At first he would only look at the Quirks of Heroes, making notes about what they did, how they worked, how the each Hero used them…stuff like that. Eventually, though, Izuku started to go more and more in depth with his notes, eventually writing everything about the Quirks and the people using them, all the way down to the tiniest detail. By that point, he had decided that even if he couldn't be a Hero who would go out and help people, that didn't mean he couldn't use his knowledge to help the actual Heroes so that they could help people in his stead. For this reason, he spent years researching all the information he could about every Hero and Villain he could find. For the Villains, he would fill up the pages with weaknesses, possible countermeasures, and even listed which particular Heroes and Quirks would be ideal for putting a stop to them. For the Heroes, he would sit around for hours and come up with new ways that they could use their Quirks, how they could be helpful in different situations, and countless other little details. The result of his efforts were 53 thick notebooks full of information on Heroes, Villains, and their Quirks. Izuku was rather proud of the fact that he had most of the information committed to memory, thanks to him always reading through them and making sure the notes for each one stayed up to date.

He was proud of his efforts, but…he couldn't deny that they were also a symbol of him giving up on being a Hero. The notebooks were written in the hopes that one day he could help people by helping the Heroes, rather than him being a Hero himself. His signing up for the U.A. entrance exam was merely one final, desperate attempt at fulfilling the dream he'd had since he was young.

Tearing himself out of his thoughts, Izuku looked around to see how close he was to being home, having not paid much attention thus far. Noting that he wasn't too far away from his home, Izuku stepped into a small tunnel that he always passed through on his way home. About halfway through, however, he heard an odd plopping sound behind him. Turning around, Izuku barely had time to see the giant eyes and teeth of some sort of sludge monster before it wrapped its body around him, causing him to sink into the sludge and choke as it began to force its way into his mouth and nose.

A Villain?! Izuku wanted to scream out, unable to do so due to the Villain trying to drown him with the sludge. Through his panic, Izuku could barely hear the Villain talk about how the pain would disappear after 45 seconds and how 'he' was in this town. Izuku thought the Villain might have said more, but his vision was beginning to blur and his awareness was wavering due to lack of oxygen.

I can't breathe! I'll…I'll die at this rate…help me, please! Someone…I don't…want…to die…

"Do not worry, kid!" a strong voice yelled, cutting through the haze that had fallen upon Izuku's mind. "I am here!"

Izuku couldn't quite see what was happening thanks to his vision being so blurry, but even in a situation such as this he would always recognize that voice. "Texas…Smash!" the voice yelled, the iconic phrase confirming the man's identity. Suddenly, Izuku felt a large burst of wind and was dropped to his knees as the Villain was forced to release him from its hold. Izuku's body greedily took in the air it craved so desperately, and just as he felt his eyelids begin to close while his body fell to the side, only one thought went through Izuku's mind.

All Might! Gotta get…his autograph…

"Kid!" the massive form of All Might stood above Izuku as the boy slowly opened his eyes. Realizing who was in front of him, Izuku shot up from his position on the ground and stood on unsteady legs. "Thank God! You seem to be doing well! That is what's important here!" All Might continued, the huge smile he was so well known for plastered on his face. "I'm really sorry for all of this! I don't usually make such mistakes, but this time it seems that you got involved with my removal of the Villain!" he said, striking a slightly embarrassed pose and letting out a laugh that lifted Izuku's spirits. The boy could see two soda bottles in All Might's pockets (only now realizing that the man was in a casual outfit of shorts and a white T-shirt, rather than in his costume), looking like they had been filled with the sludge of the Villain. Coming to his senses, though still in awe of the man before him, his idol, Izuku began looking around for the notebook he'd been holding before the Villain had attacked him. Finding it and beginning to open it up to a blank page, Izuku began speaking rapidly.

"C-can I have your autograph…? Please!" he all but yelled, only to open his notebook up to a page that already had his Hero's autograph. "Already signed?! Wow! Thank you very much! This will be made an heirloom of my family! A treasure!" Izuku then began bowing so low that his head was nearly touching the ground. Looking up, he saw All Might saying goodbye and preparing to leap away. Panicking at the sight of the No.1 Hero already leaving, Izuku ran forward.

"Wait! I have to ask you something…!" the boy yelled, trying to reach the Hero before he could leave.

"I am counting on your support!" All Might yelled, releasing the power he had built up in his legs and launching himself into the air. Feeling an odd tug on his left leg, All Might looked down and was shocked to see the green-haired boy there, hanging onto his leg for dear life.

"Huh? No! Let me go! Are you out of your mind?!" the Hero called out, shaking his leg a bit. My fans can be really scary, he thought.

"If I let go now…I'll fall…I'll die! I'll seriously die!" Izuku called out, panic on his face. He hadn't even really meant to grab onto All Might, his body had just moved on its own when he realized the man was going to leave before Izuku was able to ask him an extremely important question.

"Indeed! I understand, so hold on tight!" All Might called out, turning his face away from the boy and giving a slight cough into his hand. Shit, my time limit…

"That was…so scary…"said Izuku muttered, kneeling on the roof of the building All Might had landed on.

"I really have no time to lose, so I'll leave you here!" called out the Hero, walking towards the edge of the roof.

"Wait!" Izuku called out, scrambling to his feet. "I, uh…"

"No! I can't wait!"

"Can I become a Hero…can I become a Hero who helps people, even without a Quirk?"

Stopping in his attempt to leave, All Might turned to look back at the boy. He looked to be doing everything he could to hold back tears, even screwing his eyes shut.

After asking that question to All Might, to the man he looked up to more than anyone else in the world, Izuku found that he couldn't bring himself to look at the man. Years and years of shame and disappointment suddenly rose to the surface, threatening to overwhelm the boy. Deciding to finally just let it all out, words spilled forth like water breaking through a dam.

"For my entire life, all I've ever wanted was to be a Hero, to help people…to be like you. I just want to help people, but no matter what I do…no matter what I do, people just laugh at me. They've always told me that because I'm Quirkless, I'll never be able to be a Hero. I…I don't really know why, but ever since I was little, I've always thought that it would be…that it would be amazing, to just reach out and save people the way you do. To save people with a smile that knows no fear!"

After hearing no response from All Might for a few seconds after his declaration, Izuku finally opened his eyes and looked up.

…All Might was gone.

Where he had stood earlier, there was now a very skinny man in baggy clothes sitting on the ground. As the man stared at Izuku, the boy's thoughts slowed to a halt. This man…who was he? Why did he resemble All Might? He was even…wearing the same clothes…

"Are you…an All Might impostor?" Izuku asked weakly.

"I am All Might," the skinny man said. He then proceeded to spout a considerable amount of blood from his mouth.

"I don't believe you!" Izuku denied instantly, carefully ignoring the fact that this man just sprayed blood from his mouth. He should probably be more concerned, but he could only deal with so many problems at a time, and today had been a really long day.

"A smile that knows no fear, huh…?" All Might said with a sigh. "Sorry kid, but as you can see, things are a bit different in reality than they are on the internet." Raising his shirt, All Might revealed a sight that made Izuku a little nauseous. There, on the chest of the No.1 Hero, was a horrible scar. It covered the majority of the left side of All Might's chest, with a focal point that looked as if something had pierced his chest. "This wound…I got it five years ago when I was attacked by a Villain. The result was the semi-destruction of my respiratory system and the total removal of my stomach. My face is emaciated and haggard; even the shadowy quality of my eyes is a side effect of repeated surgeries. With these wounds…I can't actively work as a hero more than about three hours a day. In other words, this is my limit."

Trying to come to terms with everything All Might just told him, Izuku stood there in silence. Deciding to think about All Might's injuries later once he had more time to consider what he had been told, Izuku looked at the man he idolized above all others and decided to ask one more question.

"Who was the Villain? The most notable Villain you fought five years ago was Toxic Chainsaw, but…but your wound doesn't look like anything he could have done."

"You're right, it wasn't him. The one who did this to me…well, that doesn't matter anymore," All Might said evasively, standing up. "By the way, what I just told you was never made known to the public. I must ask that you not reveal any of what I told you to anyone, please." Turning his head to look out over the city, All Might gave a small sigh and clenched his fists. "The "Symbol of Peace" is one who saves people with a smile and a laugh…that's how the people see me. For the sake of all, that image must be maintained. However, if I laugh…it is just to distract me from the fear and pressure of being that Symbol of Peace." All Might didn't have to look at the young boy to know that he would be shocked to hear that even his idol felt fear. Knowing that he had to answer the boy's original question, and that he had to answer it in a way that would keep the boy from putting himself in danger, All Might braced himself for what he had to say to protect this boy, even if it crushed his spirit.

"Heroes must always be ready to put themselves at risk. I'm sorry, but I can't say that you can be a Hero without having the ability to protect yourself. If you want to help people, there are many ways to do that even without being a Hero. You could become a policeman, or perhaps a doctor." As he said these things, All Might began walking towards the door that lead inside the building. All the while, he couldn't bring himself to look at the boy whom he was certain he had crushed the spirit of.

Izuku watched his idol walk away and close the door behind him, leaving Izuku alone on the roof, the parting words of not only All Might swimming in his head, but Kacchan's as well.