Mizu: Soooo...I'm back? Don't have too much to say so I'm just going to get on with the disclaimer and start the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own My Hero Academia. All rights to the characters belong to Kohei Horikoshi.

I do have severe anxiety and depression and a lot of that went into this story. This is your warning that there will be mentions of the previously mentioned disorders as well as self harm and suicidal thoughts.


Chapter 1


Help.

Even after all this time, he still needed help. It felt like a betrayal to ask for it now though. He had finally been given a chance to stand equal with all those he had admired for so long; given a Quirk of his own from the one who stood above them all; had friends for the first time since he was four. Most of all, he was still alive despite everything the world threw at him. He knew that he shouldn't have asked for anything more.

And yet...

**** **********, age 16, was found dead outside of their high school by several students early this afternoon. They are thought to have committed suicide by jumping off the roof of their school. According to some of their classmates, ********* was often the target of bullying due to them being Quirkless-

Izuku's hand tightened around the towel on his neck. He had gone out for an evening run and when he had arrived back at the dorms, all his fellow students were enraptured by the newscast blaring across the tv screen. Several had looks of horror. Others looked visibly uncomfortable with the subject matter. One pointedly avoided looking at the tv, his own fists clenched as he tried to ignore the happenings around him. The freckled face boy stared at his classmates in horror but for different reasons, his mind racing with sudden questions he was not prepared for:

Had any of them ever treated someone without a quirk like Kacchan had?

What did his friends think of the Quirkless?

What would his friends think of him?

Would his death have affected them the same?

That last thought startled Izuku out of his thoughts. His throat clenched even as his breaths quickened to a frantic pace. He could feel his heart pound, trying to burst through his chest. His vision blurred as the first tears slid down his cheeks. No, he couldn't break down here. Someone would surely take notice and draw the others' attention. Then what would he do? They would all turn on him the moment they learned he used to be Quirkless, right? Even if they didn't, the inevitable change in how they would view him would destroy him. So, without a second thought, he fled to his room, unconsciously activating his Full Cowl. He flung his door shut behind him, not caring when instead of shutting it blew through the frame and whipped around on its hinge to put a dent on the hall wall. The thought that someone might walk in to see him in this state never crossed his mind. He was far too frantic to care as he ripped the drawer of his desk open. Pencils and papers alike flew out, scattering around the typically tidy room as he searched for a very specific bottle. Tucked away far in the back, he found it as his chest started to tighten, much like his throat.

Both his hands quaked as he inspected the label on the small orange translucent bottle in his gasp. 'Good, not expired'. He hadn't needed these for so long that he was honestly worried that they might have. His eyes darted around the room looking for his water bottle. A curse was heard only by air when he realized that he must have dropped it in his mad dash to his room. Taking a deep breath to try and hold himself together, Izuku bolted out his door and down the hall. He never noticed the startled pair of sky blue eyes as he dove into the closest bathroom.

Shaky hands fought with the childproof lid as he tried to take deep breathes. He could hear the voices swirling around and around his head. Echoes of his past and his own doubts dug deep into his psyche, twisting the knife even deeper into his heart. Finally, the lid popped loose, spilling small white pills out onto the bland, tiled floor. He'd worry about the mess later. One pill held tightly between his fingers, Izuku stuck his head under the sink facet and turned on the water.

"Young Midoriya?" The voice of his hero and mentor called out.

"!?" Izuku nearly choked on water before he could whip his head free from the flow, "...A-A-A-All M-M-Might?!"

Toshinori Yagi took in the scene before him with deep confusion. The pills that were splayed about the room. The panicked Izuku whose chest heaved and down in a way that he hadn't seen since the day he raced forward to rescue Bakugo. What caught his attention the most, however, was the pleading look in his young student's eyes. They screamed out to him...for him to leave. To forget what he saw. To understand. But most importantly, the screamed for help.

For a moment, the two just stood there staring at one another.

"I-I-I c-can e-e-explain!" Izuku wanted to. God above, he wanted to explain away why it felt like his whole body was shaking. Why his felt like he was going to break into a million pieces. The pills scattered across the floor could have spoken for him, but they most likely would tell the wrong story. He didn't know if his heart was going to stop or explode from how fast it was beating.

Toshinori held up his hand before pointing at the pill between his successor's fingers, "You were about to take that, right?"

"A-A-Ah, y-y-y-yeah," Izuku nodded, though he wasn't sure if the motion could be differentiated from his shaking.

"Is it safe for you to take?" inquired Toshinori. The boy immediately nodded, a moment of calm clarity that had been absent since the beginning of the conversation. "...Take it, then we can talk," muttered the teacher, stepping back into the hallway.

"Y-Y-Y-Yes!" And just like that, Izuku shrank into himself once more.

Toshinori ran a hand over his face as he listened to the water turn on behind him. He had not been expecting such a sensitive discussion when he arrived. Stepping off the elevator moments earlier, he had been planning on checking on his successor after his evening training (because he knew that the kid had the habit of overdoing it like eighty times over) when he had heard the door crash into the wall. Hurrying over to the source, he gasped as he watched Izuku practically fly from his wrecked dorm, down the hall, and into the bathroom. The look in the boy's eyes were too similar to when he had mistakenly told the boy that he couldn't be a hero. They were too dull. Too...broken.

That was something his eyes should never look like.

He heard the water turn off and looked back into the room. Izuku was leaning heavily on the sink, his body visibly shaking. A few of the of the pills caught his eye again. The voice of a teacher yelled in his head that he should have questioned what the pills were before allowing him to take one. Yes, the boy showed none of his usual hesitation when questioned, but what if they were something harmful? He shook the thought from his head. His young Midoriya taking drugs? No, based on what he saw before them, the pills were most likely for his student's anxiety attacks. He did find it strange that despite seeing the boy have numerous attacks that he had never seen him take them before.

Stepping up to the trembling boy, he placed one of his skeletal hands on his shoulder, "Young Midoriya, come."

"B-B-B-B-But-"

"Don't worry about the pills," the retired hero gave him a reassuring smile as he quickly texted Aizawa about the situation. The other teacher had come with him to check on the students and was still down in the commons. He would be able to distract the others long enough to come and help hide the evidence of the boy's break down.

Izuku stiffened under his gentle hold, but gave up without another word. He took a shaky step to turn, but stumbled over his own feet. Toshi was fast enough to brace him before he fell. Sighing slightly, he wrapped one of his lanky arms around the boy to help guide him back out of the bathroom. Their trip didn't take long. Once they were safely back into Midoriya's dorm room, he took a moment to try and unwedge the door from the wall. He grunted as he did his best to work it loose, failing miserably. He contemplated trying to shift into his muscled form for the split second he would need when a familiar cloth wrapped around the handle and yanked it free.

"Problem child being bothersome again?" Aizawa sighed as he helped Toshinori reposition the door.

The blond immediately bristled, not appreciating the usual banter about his protégé after what he had seen; he quashed it down, knowing Aizawa meant no malice. Toshinori glanced at Izuku once more. The kid had not moved from where he had left him in the middle of the room, arms curled tightly around himself. The light glinted through the doorway, catching on the fat tears rolling down his freckled cheeks. His shoulders were hunched up and his whole body shook. The sight made the teacher's heart clench.

"I'll handle it," Toshinori said firmly to his teacher, nodding to the bathroom.

"Right," Aizawa ran a hand through his hair, turning toward the scene of the crime. He looked over his shoulder, debating on something for a moment, "...I don't know if this means anything, but the kids were watching the news report on the suicide victim from yesterday."

Toshinori's sunken eyes widened before he hurriedly propped the door back in the broken frame. Turning quickly, he watched as Izuku finally crumbled into soul-shaking sobs. The boy curled further and further into himself, trying to become as small as possible. Feeling his own heart shattering, Toshinori plopped down next to his successor. Gently gathering him up in his arms, he held him tightly as his boy cried, fighting his demons that the hero was sure he had fought for years and would fight for years to come.

Why hadn't he questioned it more? When he had heard from the boy that he was quirkless, he remembered his own days of being teased and taunted by others. But at least back then, he wasn't the only one growing up quirkless. The population was a little more evenly split. Kids that did have quirks still probably had at least one relative that didn't. The quirkless knew that they were a dwindling breed but they weren't alone. But in the span of his life, the world had changed drastically. It was a terrifying thought. It had taken less than fifty years from being a world where everyone knew someone without a quirk to them being so rare that they were targeted, looked down upon, and driven to suicide. The world that they were building was supposed to be one for the better. But how can that be better when children like the one shaking in his arms were killing themselves to escape it?

"S-S-S-S-s-s-s-sorry," Izuku struggled to get out between his sobs.

"Hey, this old man ain't worth much anymore, but I can still give a warm hug," Toshinori lightly laughed, petting the boy's curls.

"Not old," he felt the boy mumble more than heard, "you're only 4 years older than mom."

Toshi blinked before gaping at the boy, "How'd you figure that out?! My age is the second most well-kept secret next to One for All!"

"En-Endevour is 45 years old but h-h-has been trying to s-surpass All M-M-Might his whole career," Midoriya muttered, sobs starting to fade into hiccupping breaths. Looked like the meds were starting to take effect ('must be pretty strong stuff to take effect so soon,' the man mused), "Since h-he has been active for a-about twenty-five years, that means A-All Might has to be close to his age. B-But h-he p-probably started being a hero straight out of school, so th-the earliest he could have started would have been would b-be seventeen or eighteen because th-there were n-no such things as pr-provisional licenses until tw-twenty years ago. A-A high school degree or an international equivalent was re-required for a h-hero license back then. S-So A-All Might had to at least be 45 b-but E-Endevour's graduating class from U.A. only had two hero's that are still active. H-Him and Snatch. T-The two classes prior h-have n-no active h-hero's and the th-three after all joined up with agencies a-as soon as they graduated. S-So All Might has to b-be 48 b-because th-that's the only a-age that makes sense..."

'Thank god he was never corrupted...' Toshinori found himself thinking, 'His intellect combined with his observation skills and fanboy tendencies would have made him a terrifying and calculating villain...what the hell am I thinking?! Midoriya would never have walked down that path unless someone forcibly dragged him. Even then, he would break every bone he has fighting against each step.'

Izuku sniffled, pushing himself further into his arms, "S-s-sorry..."

"What are you apologizing for?" huffed Toshinori, squeezing him slightly, "Your overanalytical mind is one of the things that makes you who you are. Never apologize for that."

The teen nodded before trying to move away. Toshinori allowed it but just enough so that the boy was not in his lap anymore.

"...want to talk about it?" he asked quietly.

The freckle faced teen shook his head, paused, then slowly nodded.

"We don't have to," Toshinori patted his leg, offering a choice for the boy just in case.

"I-I-I...I-I n-n-need to let it a-all out," Izuku said, once more curling into himself, "Th-That's wh-what m-my therapist said..."

"Therapist?"

The teen nodded, "Th-Those pills...th-they're for wh-when I have...a-attacks."

"...how often?"

Izuku shrugged, "Th-They don't happen often an-anymore. I-I think this is the first o-one that I've had s-since th-the entrance exams."

"Since you gained One for All," Toshinori whispered.

Izuku's mouth drew into a tight line before he spoke again, "...y-yeah. B-But m-my daily meds h-help too."

"You take more?" Toshinori felt his eyebrows furrow on his brow.

Another slight nod, "B-B-But m-m-my dosage h-has been pr-pr-progressively been going down!"

"Midoriya, my boy-"

"Pl-please don't b-be mad!" Izuku pleaded, hands shooting for his teacher's shirt, "I-I-I've b-been trying s-so hard to get off th-them! T-T-To prove th-that I don't need them!"

"Why do you have to prove that?" Toshinori was confused. There was nothing for Izuku to be ashamed about. Fighting against your own mind on a daily basis was one of the most difficult things in the world in his opinion. Not everyone could do it, which is what led those like that poor child to-

Toshinori's eyes nearly popped out as both his jaw and heart dropped, "M-Midoriya...Y-You didn't-"

"N-No!" Izuku shouted, hands rushing to his head, clutching at his green curls, "I-I-I n-n-n-n-never...t-t-tried..."

Fear gripped him as he gripped the teen's shoulders, "Did you ever think it?!"

"..." Silence answered him.

Toshinori had never heard anything louder in his entire life.

"Izuku!" he gasped, unconsciously shifting his form in his shock.

The boy flinched, trying to pull away from him. Tears once again poured down his cheeks, following the same tracks as before.

"Oh my goodness..." Toshinori breathed, body snapping back. His hands never left his successor's trembling shoulders. He felt himself start to shake as tears pricked at his eyes. The idea that his poor student had been suffering for so long wounded the retired hero deeply. What if he had become another statistic? Just another child forced to fight through a world that refused them, breaking their backs and their souls simultaneously. He couldn't imagine it. Wouldn't.

"I'm so sorry!" wailed Izuku, body instinctively trying to make him as small as possible.

Toshinori yanked the boy back into his arms, holding him close as he cried. Rocking back and forth, he held him tight, willing away all the pain. He couldn't imagine what it was like. He had his own insecurities and his own anxieties but he had never had to face the villain that was suicide. Anger bubbled under his skin. Who was it that made this child face such a darkness? Why hadn't he seen the signs? Izuku was a happy ray of sunshine in the right setting but he was a bundle of tangled nerves in anything outside of what he had determined was safe. Flinching away from surprises. Obsessive with the few things that he cares about, probably terrified that someone would try and take that happiness from him.

"Shhh," Toshinori soothed. He could think about all of that once he calmed his successor once again, "I am here, my boy."

The cries continued on as strong, small, scarred hands grasped at his shirt. He was here, but what in the world could he do?


Mizu: Been a long time since I've posted anything and for a story like this where it is so personal for me, I can't really think of anything else to put down here. I will be updating this story again on Friday and there should be about 4 or so chapters long. I only have one scene left to finish so hopefully this story will be completed soon. Ciao for now!