Uh, hi.

So, I decided that putting every part of this series up individually was going to get unwieldy, so I'm not doing that anymore. At least, not on FFN. AO3 will maintain the original structure, just because the formatting actually functions over there. Everything for the initial portion of the series will be placed here from now on, and the originals will be deleted in the next week or so to clear up space and give everyone time to move over and get things sorted.

Hopefully this works better than my first attempt,

NoS

Midoriya Izuku has always been fated for nothing, at least as far as society is concerned. A quirkless kid trying to be a hero? That was never going to end well. But then he met All Might, and things changed. And then the moon blew up, and things changed again.

Bag bouncing at his side and breathing heavy, Izuku bolted out of the forest and made a sharp turn to try and avoid as much of the main campus as possible. He couldn't afford to get caught by Daisuke-kun and his friends. Not again. Not now that he was in E Class. If he could make it off campus before they found him… if he could just keep ahead of them long enough, then he would be safe.

A yelp slipped from his lips, choked off as the collar of his shirt bit into his neck and he was yanked backwards and around a secluded corner of the school. Izuku's eyes closed and his arms came up to block any blows to his face (not that it would help, they never hit his face). When his back slammed against the wall and the hand moved to hold him by the front of his shirt, Izuku let out a small whimper.

"Tch," his attacker snorted. "You really are that pathetic."

Izuku cracked open his eyes to find a familiar shock of blond hair and angry red eyes. "Oh, h-hi, K-kacchan," he said quietly, his arms lowering. Maybe Kacchan hadn't been the nicest person to Izuku, but at least he had left Izuku alone once they entered junior high. Mostly. Kacchan was still willing to hurl insults, but he never touched Izuku. All in all, Izuku wasn't sure what to make of the situation right now. He was probably in for a tongue lashing, but compared to having his notes destroyed, it would be fine.

"Don't call me that, Deku," Kacchan growled. "It makes it sound like we're friends." Kacchan looked him over for a moment, taking in the smaller boy's form before turning his attention to Izuku's hands, still slightly raised. He reached forwards and pulled the notebook Izuku was carrying out of his grip.

"Hey, that's mine!"

"Shut up, Deku," Kacchan said, looking closer at the book Izuku had forgotten he'd been holding in his mad dash to get off campus. Daisuke-kun destroyed Izuku's school notes, but not his hero notes. There was never enough time for that. "Tch, you still think you can be a hero, huh, Deku?"

"Th-there's no harm in trying, Kacchan," Izuku muttered, turning his face to the side.

Kacchan laughed. "Please, a quirkless piece of shit like you is only going to get in the way of the real heroes. You can't even fight off school yard thugs, much less actual villains." He tossed the notebook to the side.

"Please, Kacchan, can we just skip all this? We can both go home and, and you can go back to pretending I don't exist."

Kacchan's face twisted into a snarl, small pops bursting from his hands. Izuku flinched away. "With the way you are, you're just going to bring down our school's reputation. It might be a piece of shit, too, but at least people think highly of it. If you keep running around with impossible dreams, you'll just drag Aldera's reputation through the mud with you, so drop it!" Kacchan tossed the notebook away.

Izuku shrunk back into the wall. This isn't how he expected his day to go. Kacchan let go of Izuku. "People know greatness when they see it. The best heroes all have stories from their childhood, people just looked at them and knew. But you? You were never destined for anything," he said. "Tch. Fucking Deku." Finally, he turned and began walking away.

Izuku hesitated for a moment before scrambling off the wall to pick up his Hero Analysis notebook. "Hey, Deku," Kacchan called over his shoulder. "If you wanna be a hero that bad, there is another way." Izuku felt his heart sink as Kacchan's sneer grew wider. "All you have to do is pray you'll get a quirk in your next life and take a dive off the roof!"

Izuku flinched and reared back. He could hardly believe Kacchan would be willing to say something like that. Not necessarily because Kacchan wasn't capable of it, but because it put his precious perfect record at risk. It would be easy for Izuku to ruin him now, but he would have to ruin himself in the process.

Pushing those thoughts out of his head, Izuku turned, tucked his head down, and started his walk home again. Maybe he should take the long route today? It was pretty isolated and would give him plenty of time to sort out his feelings and put on a brave face before he got home. The last thing he wanted was to worry his mother again.

Izuku hadn't been able to stop grinning since he had agreed to All Might's offer. Even now, hours later, laying in bed and trying to fall asleep, he felt giddy. He felt like he was walking on cloud nine and everything was going to be alright. But there was the slight problem of turning his grades around. He wasn't going to make it into UA if his academic career was in shambles and he couldn't pass the written exam. He was going to have to recommit himself to his studies as well as his new training regimen. He couldn't afford to disappoint All Might.

Which was probably why he had neglected to mention that small fact to his hero. If All Might realized what a failure Izuku was, he'd probably rescind his offer and give his quirk to someone with a better chance of actually making it into a heroics course.

Thinking it over, Izuku was probably going to need some help with the getting back on track thing. He'd fallen far enough behind that it was going to take a lot of effort to simply catch up, much less master the material well enough to pass his exams. He should probably talk to Yukimura-sensei about it tomorrow after class. Maybe even apologize for being so disconnected from the class earlier.

Yeah, that would help. It was a start at least.

He just hoped he would be ready in time.

Of course, nothing was ever that easy. Three weeks into the school year, and already things were falling apart. At least Izuku could definitively say it wasn't his fault. At two weeks, the moon exploded, and Yukimura-sensei disappeared. The next day, All Might left, too. He at least gave Izuku a quick text saying he wasn't going to be able to attend their training for a while, but that if Izuku followed the training guide, everything would be fine.

For the week following Yukimura-sensei's disappearance, which no one actually seemed all that concerned about (Why wasn't anyone saying anything? Why was she gone? What happened?), class 3-E had a rotating set of substitutes until a replacement could be found. A new student joined them as well, making quick friends with Nagisa-kun. For the week following Yukimura-sensei's disappearance, Izuku felt listless and abandoned. His teachers were gone, and All Might didn't respond to any of Izuku's texts. They would only ever be read every few days, and even then, All Might never said a single thing in response. (What if he found someone else? Was he leaving? Should Izuku even bother with cleaning up the beach?)

Then things got… weird.

A man with some kind of mutation quirk that made him look like a large yellow octopus was standing in front of the class with government officials introducing him as their new teacher. And explaining that this man destroyed the moon, and apparently his appearance wasn't his quirk. (Izuku was still struggling to get his head around that one.) Oh, and they were supposed to kill him.

But it wasn't going to be easy. Not with someone that smart and that fast. (Mach 20!? Really!? How were they supposed to hit someone that fast!? And all they were given were some rubber knives and bb-guns!?) But, hey, the ten billion yen reward money would sure be nice. Not that a quirkless failure like him stood a chance. Especially not when All Might couldn't even land a blow. (At least that explained where All Might went and why he was so busy.)

"And remember," Karasuma-san said from the front as the government agents behind him began filing out, "this is a state secret. You can't go telling your friends and family about this. If you do, you, and whoever you told, will be subject to a memory quirk and removed from the program." There was a slight pause. "Try your best, the world is counting on you."

Well, this was going to get complicated.

Hello! So, welcome to the latest series that I decided it was a wonderful idea to start... I have so much work to do on this thing.

Plan is to run through the year at Aldera with series of one shots, then launch into a longer fic to cover the events of BNHA. There's probably going to be a hiatus in there somewhere, all things considered, but hopefully it won't be too long.

If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask. There are some things I can't answer, but somethings that I absolutely will because it's confusing and probably won't come up directly in any of the stories.

Hope I've got your interest,

NoS