Here's the sad truth, All men are not created equal. Some children are born with inherent gifts of magic, like spirit vision or the gift of prophecy, and in recent years others were born with strange quirks. Like pyrokinesis or a cactus-shaped head. Those enviable powers gave rise to the great heroes of the modern day, like All Might or that John Pluto Smith, alongside a variety of villains.

Little 5 year old Midoriya Izuku had neither. So when he said tried to stop his best-friend turned bully from beating up a crying child? Well, he was met with rather predictable results.

Results that included bruises, and a mouth-full of dirt served fresh.

Those bruises, though painful and a betrayal of his trust would teach two valued lessons. "All men are not created equal" and "A quirkless person stands no chance against most quirks up close".

On his sixth birthday, Izuku saw his first pre-quirk superhero movie (his mother gave it to him), and spent a week browsing the internet for information on exosuits before realising that he wasn't a billionaire.

At age six and two weeks, Izuku watched the red-and-gold armoured superhero fight alongside gods, and watched a man with a bow take down aliens on outdated CGI jet skis. Lighting a bright spark of inspiration inside of him. And Izuku begged his mother to let him join an archery club.

Seeing the excited, hopeful look in his eyes, Inko Midoriya couldn't have said no if she wanted to.

Eight year old Izuku designed his first trick arrow. Crafted from two halves of an old tennis ball filled with flour, a cheap bandage holding the halves together and a rough meter of fishing wire. It's was meant to work as a simple smokescreen. The tennis ball turned tip would be filled with the flour, the Band-Aid would seal it and the wire connecting bandage to quiver would rip the package open, spreading the insides into the air.

It didn't work. The wire went taut, the bandage stayed in place and his quiver hit him on the back of his head.

It was a learning experience, the first of many.

At age ten, Our green little hero got in second place in his first local archery competition. His childhood friend cheering from the side-lines as Izuku received the silver medal from the judge, though playfully teasing about how if Izuku wanted to become a hero with his archery, he'd at least need to get gold first.

Next year he did, and even managed to come third in the regional, and used his winnings to buy himself a brand-new recurve bow.

At age twelve, Midoriya Izuku started practicing at Dagobah beach, it had plenty of targets that no-one would mind if it got damaged, and the trash-covered beach was a great place to train for when his dream of heroics. The trash was a perfect substitute to substitute the rubble of a ravaged city, its uneven surface a great challenge for his mobility in a rescue operation.

And of course its resources were a great boon to his arrow-craftsmanship.

At age thirteen, Izuku finally perfected his flour arrow. Slightly ashamed it had taken him so long, but feeling rather glad that when he'd get into U.A. He could outsource the craft to support department. The design process had been hard and trying and he'd modified the design a lot over the years.

His new arrows had tiny microchip's and circuit boards inside them connected to an opening mechanism and a simple accelerometer, which would register both when the arrows where fired as well as when they came to a sudden stop and would open themselves as a result.

It had been four years of design work, and he still didn't have more than a single original design, While the flour-based smokescreen was useful at blinding opponents (and messing with Kachan's quirk, as it turned out that a simple binding-agent like flour turned his sweat a bit too stable to easily detonate) it wasn't going to actually allow him to fight a villain now was it?

He really needed to get his act together. Maybe if he modified his circuit boards he could work with what he had? Didn't his chemistry teacher show him how you could make an explosion with just flour, air and a spark? It couldn't go any worse than that time he tried making explosive arrows from Bakugo's sweat, Turns out you probably shouldn't run with 12 test-tubes of nitro-glycerine strapped on your back. (He still wasn't allowed to bring his bow and arrows to school to prevent another incident).

Izuku nodded to himself, and set back to work. He still had a lot of road ahead of him.

fourteen year-old Midoriya Izuku sat in class, waiting for the bell to ring and set them all free. He had only a year or so until the UA entrance exam, and if he wanted to have any chance at a passing grade he'd need to double up on training.

"As soon as the bell rings, I'll run straight home to get my bow. If I take a shortcut through the forest I can probably buy myself an extra five minutes of training? That might not be a lot but I need every edge I can get if I want to get in. But I also need to go by the sporting goods store if I want to stock up on arrows and that'll be at least a fifteen minute detour. Maybe if I order them online and have them delivered? I wouldn't be able to work my designs today, but I could always schedule that in tomorrow and use the extra time to get in some more training at the beach but then…"

As Izuku's mind ran a mile a minute, it was sadly interrupted as the teacher mentioned the heroics course and accidentally set of the volcano known as "Mount Katsuki".

"Don't lump me in with this bunch of losers." The walking stick of dynamite known as Bakugo said, confidently. Before going on a large rant about how he was going to become more popular then All Might. "And it all starts with UA High!" walking bomb ended his rant at explosive volume

The teacher, having zoned out for the familiar rant he'd heard at least a hundred times before chose this moment to attempt a segue away from his student's ego-trip.

"Oh Midoriya, didn't you want to try for UA too?"

Much like Mount Katsuki, the class entire class erupted, though rather then a stream of death and destruction they erupted in laughter instead.

An exploding palm struck his desk as the force of the shockwave sent Izuku flying into the back wall of the classroom, as the class bully decided that clearly Izuku needed to hear his opinion on the matter.

Listen up Deku, you're even worse than the rest of these rejects you wannabe. Do you really think they'd let someone like you in when they could have me?"

This had pretty much been the reality of life for the powerless teen, his childhood friend turned bully constantly doing all in his power to reinforce his own worthlessness. All the while the world looked on indifferent to his suffering, the only mercy available to him the fact that if Bakugo were to truly injure him in the middle of the classroom the teachers would be obligated to report it.

And Bakugo was too obsessed with his future image as the "next number one hero" to allow that to happen. So Izuku just got up back to his table and started packing his bags in advance, knowing that the moment the bell rung it'd be hunting season once more. If Izuku wanted to get his hero-practice in today he couldn't afford to let Bakugo hold him up.

As Izuku put his pencil's in his special All Might branded pencilcase he spared a glance at the clock at the teacher's back.

Just fifteen more minutes, and he'd be home free.

Izuku's run back home happened without further incident, coming in through the door to the smell of a nice lunch he realised that. In his hurry to optimise his schedule he'd kind of forgotten to take his bodily needs into account and decided to rectify that issue immediately.

So he made himself some lunch in the kitchen quietly, hoping not to interrupt his mother's soap-opera. Now Izuku didn't follow it himself, but he was fairly certain it was the story of a rich businessman and his complicated love for his secretaries sister, who had an affair with a stable boy at the ranch her disabled daughter goes to during the weekends, and the less was said about HIS father the better. (seriously, who had expected his father to meet the secretary during a blind date? And for them to end up in bed together!). "Hi Mom, did Ayame and Ko-chan get their act together yet?" he asked, knowing full well that these kind of shows went on forever purely because no-one ever got their acts together at all, but just hoping to spark a conversation.

"Izuku, did you see that American hero is on the TV right now."

Hastily our favourite fanboy grabbed his hero-analasys notebook, and turned on the TV, taking notes as he ate his lunch. The image showing a masked figure with a revolver shooting a crowned archer riding a strange seamonster as the anchor related the happenings of the day. The banner beneath the screen reading: "JPS embroiled in battle over Hokkaido."

Ever since the existence of magic had become widely known around the first appearance of quirks, The TV stations had made it a standard policy to cancel all shows to keep the populace up to date in case of such emergency situations. Which kind of sucked because Izuku really wanted to know how Ayame was going to deal with the fact that her sister was dating her future father-in-law.

"In other news, This morning an unknown Heretic god on horseback has started to plague the Hokkaido area with a strain of viral outbreaks following their arrival, all the while Japans resident Godslayer remains indisposed in Greece.

Due to outstanding orders from resident Godslayer Kusanagi Godou, the History compilation committee has sought contact with the American hero John Pluto Smith, who promptly arrived on the scene in the form of a Jaguar. Reports indicate that the initial engagement ended with the Heretic god striking Mr. Smith with a strange illness, forcing them to discard their feline guise after their authority "The Freeshooter" to destroy the God's mount. To the shock of many, the Heretic god then seemingly used an as of yet unidentified power to claim the Jaguar for itself, forcing Smith to use one of his Artemis arrow's to defeat it around 10 in the morning.

Further reports indicate that over the ensuing hours, their incarnations as the Archmage, Flames and Bird have met similar fates. Each having been defeated by the rider before mysteriously re-emerging as their newest mount.

Our reporting indicates that the battle has steadily been moving south, And the History Compilation Committee urges people to prepare to evacuate should the order come.

As of now, we can only hope that either Smith defeats this strange rider, or that Kusanagi manages his return home soon."

The reporter continued on as Izuku finished his meal and headed out. He had a beach to comb,

So let me just get started in advance with putting out some of the reasoning behind this fic, so that readers can know in advance what to expect. Seeing as BNHA is a series with, let's call it a wide gambit of directions in which its fanfic's go.

There were a couple of things this fic needed, most importantly: Midoriya killing a god.

needed to remain Quirkless (no offense, but giving him both a quirk AND a divine authority would just be annoying).

2a. Midoriya needed to kill a god (obviously)

2b. Corollary to 2a: Midoriya first needs to obtain the skills with which he can kill a god, and corollary to 1, this needs to be pure skill and not "All might gives him One for All"

3a. Midoriya's Divine authority has to be significantly different from One for All. That is not to say it can't mirror it somehow, but it can't be "let's give Izuku raw strength from Heracles", why bother writing a transformative work when you're not going to change anything.

4. On the other hand I don't want to "over-transform" in this transformative quirk, the original setting should remain recognisable. Certain flaws and problems canonically encountered should be conserved. (The prominence of power-Stockpile, copying, stealing and nullifying abilities for example, he'd need at least one Authority that matches such)

5. The League of Villains should remain a threat, that is not to say they should be as strong as a god. But they'll compensate through cunning and pragmatism.
Quirks and magic are different, and should be treated as such.

5a. The average quirk-user is stronger than the average magician, but there outliers.

5b. The average magician is more versatile then most quirks.

5c. Campione's resistance to magic doesn't apply to quirks. Meaning Izuku is still vulnerable to Kurogiri's smoke portals as a tool of forced kidnapping, but his reinforced physiology makes it unlikely for him to be susceptible to a "portal-cut", and even Dabi's fire isn't going to leave more than a mild sunburn.

Points 2 and 4 were the most troublesome, they meant he needed a skill that he didn't canonically have that would allow him to somehow do it. While still fitting into the "superhero" theming I want his authorities to have.

This skill could easily be gained in a training montage, in which Izuku preps to become a hero despite quirklessnes, so I went looking into that "subgenre" of BNHA fanfic, but I found both common ways don't fit my desires. It's either "Become Ironman" or "Become a skilled martial artist", I deemed Ironman a bit too "comic-booky" for lack of a better word. And close-combat martial arts just meant becoming a close-ranged powerhouse with a strength-authority.

So I thought back at what kind of real-world comic book-hero Izuku COULD become, slightly realistically.

Hawkeye and the green arrow answered. They don't fight up close against superior fighters, and as such seemed like my best answer. And their most basic trick arrows (taser, blunt, grappling hook) are all stuff that could be made by a relative layperson.

So that's the type of character Izuku's authorities are going to follow. If you don't like the idea of a long-ranged Izuku, and prefer him as a close-ranged smasher or one with a completely esoteric powerset "then I recommend you don't subscribe.

That leaves two issues unaddressed. And they both take the form of the other godslayers.

Firstly: Who survives the next hundred years, it's rare for a Godslayer to make it a century so at least one of the younger generation should PROBABLY bite it to keep the setting right.

Second: What becomes of godou, can we have two godslayers in one country.

My solution: Kill Alec, he's a prick and the one most likely who fits into BNHA the least, he's also frail and constantly going out of his way to make enemies by stealing from everyone. And have the canonical "passing of the torch" themes go from All might to Godou, who was always reluctant to get into the whole "blood sport and barbarism" scene anyway but took it up out of necessity to protect the civilian populace.

And for anyone looking for a power-wank fic, Izuku isn't going to always rely on divine authorities.

Just think about it, Let's say his first authority is similar to JPS arrows, would Izuku really use those against Bakugo during the Heroes VS Villains exercise? Remember the trouble Bakugo got into for wrecking one hall? Imagine the trouble he'd get into for wrecking the entire city block.

So, for this fic to exist, I needed to have a way for Izuku to deal with street-level shit as well.

Which is probably why this chapter is just weird in general, I needed it to establish the path Izuku took to becoming the guy with JUST the right skills to, under ideal circumstances be able to take down a single heretic god without a quirk or magic of any kind.

It feels like I'm writing the prologue to an ENTIRELY different fanfic.

Like, so many of the story-arcs in canon so far are just school training exercises, in which Izuku shouldn't be ALLOWED to use his authorities because that'd just kill people.

He'll still use authorities in situations like the Noumu, but his dream-job is to fight to capture villains and save the civilians. Needless property damage should probably be avoided.

Moving on: I know it's misleading to say that JPS is "a hero of magic", as magic doesn't come NEAR to a divine authority, but most of their fights aren't against gods and don't require them to use divine powers, they don't summon artemis arrows against a mere cultist for example.

Also I didn't feel like inventing a Magic-focussed hero from scrap in the first chapter. I'd like to limit my use of OC's (an overabundance of which plague a lot of BNHA fiction) to "as few as absolutely necessary" and making my very first in chapter one would just be a bad start.

Also: I'm not saying that Avengers CGI is outdated, this series takes place a fucking AGE in the future and there's no way that current CGI will stand up to future CGI.

All might is still an ICON in this universe, and is more popular then Godou for a variety of reasons, including presentation, enthusiasm and lower collateral damages, so he's still number 1 hero for those of you wondering.

It's shocking how little the setting needs to change to accommodate magic, like I only need to remove the word "quirkless" from a few sentences and the dialogue can remain exactly the same.

I made an executive decision to give Inko a hobby, the kind of thing that they'd both be able to bond over. Hence the soap-opera. Seeing as I don't watch those, please correct me if my impression of the genre fails to properly represent the medium.

If anyone wants to take a guess as to who the Heretic God on TV is then you're welcome. Virtual cookies to whomever can guess. (shouldn't be THAT hard, I feel that with the description you should PROBABLY have all you need)