Hello all!

School and AP tests are over and I'm back! Somehow the line breaks keep disappearing, which is very annoying. Trying yet another one.

Sorry for making you wait so long, here's another chapter!

-Wishy

|ooo|

"...and then he just turned around and walked away," Izuku finished, exasperated. "What the hell, man? He didn't tell me anything about what his Quirk actually did, why he looked the way he did-it's ridiculous! I'm not even entirely sure it was actually him!"

Inko leaned back in her chair and smiled. Leave it to her son to bump into All Might again after his very first day of his job/training. Death Arms had warned them about it though, so perhaps it wasn't just good luck.

"Well, I think you should accept," Inko said bluntly. "Izuku, this is a one-in-a-million opportunity, and if you really want to become the number one hero, you can't pass it up."

The aspiring number one not-yet hero frowned. Truthfully, he was leaning towards accepting, but a little part of him was still upset with All Might for what he said back at the tunnel, even if he apologized and rescinded his statement. Additionally, the hero had said he was at the scene when Izuku was fighting the sludge villain and… was rooted to the spot? That didn't sound like All Might.

Izuku's frown deepened into a scowl. He was missing too much information, too many unknown variables.

"I don't want to quit on Mr. Suzuki," Izuku said firmly. He liked the man, and, well, he liked the idea of working for some extra pocket money. "I'll meet with All Might this weekend and get a better idea of what's going on."

Inko shook her head, wondering how she could blink and her son would get himself wrapped up in something new. How had she managed to turn a blind eye to this before?

Smiling to herself, Inko watched her son clear his dishes and walk back to his room, clearly still mulling over the topic.

She would never let him down again.

|ooo|

"Thank you, Mr. Suzuki!" Izuku called as he walked off the front porch. Taking a quick glance at his watch, he noted that he had plenty of time to make it down to the beach All Might wanted to meet him at.

Speaking with All Might-or texting with him, rather-was an incredibly bizarre experience. While the money Izuku made from his newspaper job wasn't anything special, he had made enough to buy a cheap smartphone (despite his mother insisting she should pay for it) so he could text and call people. Izuku had never expressed interest in having a smartphone before, so he was fairly new to texting and mobile conversation as a whole… However, that didn't stop him from realizing that there was something very odd about the way All Might texted.

Izuku's eye twitched. Was that monkey gif sent on purpose? Or was it an accident? He couldn't be sure.

Sighing, he slipped his phone back in his pocket and headed towards the beach. Izuku had never heard of the place before despite it being close by, so maybe he could get there early and scope it out.

Heading towards the address All Might had sent him, Izuku began to frown, the expression only deepening as he grew closer to his destination. He now had a pretty good idea about where this meeting spot was-it wasn't a beach, it was a dump.

'What exactly is this guy planning? I feel like I can't ever get a read on him. And I'm still not sure if he's the real deal.'

Arriving at the dump, Izuku realized that it was in fact a beach… or rather, it used to be. From a distance, it looked like a scrapheap, but upon further inspection, sand lay scattered here and there from underneath the trash while the water glittered in the distance.

"Ah, you're early!" A voice said enthusiastically from behind him. Spinning around, Izuku faced the string bean of a man from before.

"Glad to see such strong motivation in a boy! Ahahah-" The shriveled All Might's laughing cut off abruptly as he began to cough.

Izuku reached out to pat him on the back, but thought better of it and brought his hand back. As the man recovered, Izuku crossed his arms and looked at him expectantly.

"Prove to me that you're All Might."

Still hunched over, Toshinori blinked slowly.

"Straight to the point, huh? That's fine; it's understandable for you to be so suspicious."

Standing up straight and inhaling deeply, the man… expanded. Steam rolled off of him in droves, his muscles thickening and posture straightening. Even his hair shifted from a frizzy, clumped mess to his signature, blown back style with two strands like bunny ears.

"Enough proof for you?" All Might grinned, his teeth flashing in the midday sun.

Izuku, awed by the transformation, nodded slowly.

"I still have questions. Were you always able to transform like this? And why didn't you help with that sludge villain if you were right there?" Izuku asked, eyebrows knitting together.

"Ah," All Might muttered softly. "I should have figured you would ask."

Slowly deflating into his old form, All Might lifted his baggy white shirt revealing a horrific scar.

"Around five years ago, an enemy did this to me. It was a hard fought battle, and despite walking away alive, I lost my stomach, several other organs, and my body… changed. I became unable to properly contain the power of my Quirk. I cannot remain at full power consistently any longer-If I stay in my other form for too long, my body simply cannot handle it and forcibly reverts back to..."

All Might dropped his shirt and waved a hand weakly at his skinny body.

"This."

Izuku's mind reeled, thinking back to the day in the city.

"Your timer was up. That's why you had to get away from me in the first place-your body couldn't handle shifting."

All Might nodded. Faintly, the waves lapped at the piles of trash.

"What changed? Why bother finding me, and showing yourself like this? I mean, meeting you has been an incredible honor and I'm very grateful that you're offering to train me, but why go this far? You could have walked away and no one would be any wiser," Izuku wondered, looking into All Might's face.

"Besides owing you an apology and an explanation?" All Might stroked his chin pensively. "While I was freaking out over how to help in the city, I noticed you. I saw you assess the situation, and when nothing else was working and someone's life in danger, you acted."

The hero smiled, clearly recalling the moment.

"None of the heroes there, myself included, thought they could do anything. I do admit, it terrified me at first seeing you rush in there, but you were calm and clearly had a plan."

Izuku nodded impatiently.

All Might leaned down towards Izuku, looking him in the eye.

"I think you have the potential to be a hero. A damn good one. But before I say anything else, I have a question for you: Why did you ask me that question if you had a Quirk? I saw how you pulled that boy away from the villain, that was a telekinetic Quirk of some kind."

Izuku brushed a hand through his hair. He couldn't think of any downsides to telling All Might his Quirk, especially if he would be training him, so why not?

"I do have a telekinetic Quirk, you're right. But my Quirk manifested late-very late. I spent a lot of my childhood being bullied for being Quirkless, treated like I was less than everyone else. I wasn't asking you if I could be a hero without a Quirk, but if people need a Quirk to stand out, to be somebody."

Izuku paused, glancing up at All Might who was watching him rather intensely.

"After my Quirk manifested, I spent a long time thinking about how I felt different as a person. If I told all the kids at school that I actually did have a Quirk, would they stop? Maybe. But what about all the Quirkless kids around the world that never do develop one? How do they feel, being told every day that they're worthless because of something out of their control?"

Clasping his hands together to prevent them from shaking, Izuku blinked away tears. He didn't want to cry in front of All Might, aside from being his idol, but he also didn't want to bawl in front of a virtual stanger.

"It just… It makes me so angry. And I don't know why this led me to being a hero, it just felt right, like the pathways connected in some way."

Done with his rant, Izuku reddened slightly. He hadn't meant to spill his guts like that, but it was too little too late.

All Might smiled softly, turning away from Izuku.

"Quite admirable of you, young man. You know, you remind me a lot of myself way back in the day."

Izuku blinked.

'I'm quite sure what to make of that. Weird.'

Waving his hands around dramatically, All Might spun back around with a flourish.

"Well? Shall we get started?" All Might grinned, expanding back into his true form. "You want to achieve your dreams, so we haven't a second to waste!"

"Started? Huh?" Izuku looked around frantically. He wasn't sure if it was just because All Might transformed, but the energy in the air had just picked up.

"You want my Quirk, don't you boy?"

Izuku nodded slowly. It had taken him a sleepless night of thinking and planning, but it was too foolish to pass down.

"Too bad! Your shrimpy little body can't handle One for All as you are now!" All Might cackled, whirling around Izuku and taking his measurements.

"How much do you weigh, kid? 120? Jesus, I can wrap my hand around your whole bicep!"

"Hey!" Izuku shouted, yanking his arm back. "Your hand is the size of a basketball, and you can't talk smack when your other form looks like a big twig! My biceps are nice and defined for my age, anyway."

All Might had clearly not heard him, and was furiously scribbling in his notepad.

"Hmm, yes. 125 pounds, 168cm, a little definition but too skinny… Young man, how much do you eat in a day? How many calories?"

Izuku blinked again.

"I have no idea. Why is that important?"

All Might sighed.

"You have a lot to learn about nutrition, boy. If you're burning more calories than you're eating every day, you lose weight. If you eat more calories, you gain weight. If you want to build muscle, you need to eat a lot. So, since we need to ramp up your muscle growth fast, we're going to increase your calorie intake by 30%, or about one more meal a day."

Izuku's jaw dropped. An entire extra meal a day? When would he be eating, midnight?

"I know what you're thinking, and no, you'll just eat more each meal," All Might laughed. "And lastly-you just finished junior high, correct?"

Izuku nodded.

"You are applying to U.A." All Might stated with finality. "I will not have my protegé go anywhere but the best."

Izuku nodded more fiercely. "I have already filled out my forms, sir. I've been planning to apply since I knew what it was."

"Good. With that over," All Might looked at his watch. "Training is officially in session."

Silence hung in the air.

Izuku gulped, praying that he would still be able to walk home without critical injury tonight. He had no idea what the hero had in store for him, but with the imposing aura he was suddenly giving off, it was sure to be hellish.

Suddenly, All Might deflated like a balloon.

"...You still do want to be trained by me, right?"

Izuku sweatdropped. "Yes, I still want to be trained by you."

|ooo|

Inko bit her lip nervously. It was getting late, and Izuku had been out all day. He had sent her a quick text after he had met with All Might to assure her that he was in fact, not a fake, and that he would begin training immediately. Then, he had gone dead silent.

She was about to begin preparing for dinner, and she wanted Izuku to be there again so she could give him more tips about using his Quirk. As Inko reached for her phone, she heard the front door swing open.

"Izuku, is that you?" she called.

"Euuuaaaaaahhhh."

"Izuku?" She called again. Standing from her spot at the table and turning the corner, she spotted the pale, drained form of her son hanging onto the doorway.

He looked up at her weakly.

"Eughhh. Tired," he moaned, dragging his feet as he trudged to the dinner table.

Inko breathed a sigh of relief, before laughing her way back to the kitchen. "Oh, Izuku, I thought it was something serious! Don't scare me like that, I've grown too old and my heart is weak!"

Izuku twitched.

'I cannot bend my knees and my arms feel like they might fall off any second. My head is spinning from using my Quirk so long and my abs feel like they're eating themselves.'

"Moooom."

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I don't… *wheeze* think I can eat."

"Nonsense! Go shower and then come sit down; you need a nice big meal if you had a workout that harsh."

"Euuuuhghfhh."

|ooo|

All Might had explained his reasoning for the location immediately-clean up duty. All the massive pieces of scrap, hunks of trash, and even abandoned cars were to be picked up, dragged, organized, packaged, and sent to a facility.

While Izuku was quite determined to impress and train as hard as he could, All Might was a cruel taskmaster. Not only would he sit on many objects Izuku was moving, he demanded that Izuku use his Quirk at the same time in order to move multiple things at once.

As torturous as it was, Izuku had to admit it was a good training concept. He was training his brain to multitask more efficiently while also training his body and Quirk.

All Might also set him up with a sleeping schedule, a dietary plan, and workouts he could do on his own in addition to the daily training. With his help, along with working for Mr. Suzuki, the weeks flew by. Izuku's previous summers consisted mostly of research, and training on the side. However, with his new activities filling up his day to day, he had far less time to research the newfound skills he found himself developing.

When he said as much to his mother, she began to brainstorm alongside him.

"You can't run your tests and do research once you get home?" She asked, curious.

Izuku shook his head, frowning. "I usually go to sleep an hour after dinner, and I need that time to wind down and make sure I don't sit awake in bed. Running tests make me all excited and I won't sleep a wink."

Tapping a finger to her chin, Inko realized she knew very little about what kinds of tests her son would be running in her own home.

"What tests do you want to run, exactly?" Inko questioned.

"I need to see how much I can lift with my Quirk and for how long, the range of my Quirk, how many objects I can lift, and so forth. Being knowledgeable about this kind of thing makes it easier to be in combat without worrying if I can do something or not," Izuku responded, thinking furiously.

"Hmm… Well, I was going to suggest you try and measure that during your workouts with All Might, when you're lifting objects around, but what you're doing sounds a little too complicated to give you a solid result. Maybe ask for a day off so you can do research? Or at least an easy day where you can come home early?" Inko tried, but faltered when her son shook his head.

"I already asked him, and he said no. The schedule he has me on is super specific, and should fully prepare me literally right before the U.A. hero test and still not kill me. No days off, no slacking. But testing out new things during workouts is a good idea, I just can't do testing like I used to." Izuku nodded slowly, slowly drifting off into his imagination.

'New things to try out, huh? I have a couple good ideas…'

| Weeks Later |

Izuku, bright red in the face, kicked the large sheet of scrap metal.

"Ow, ow, shit! Why did I do that!"

Hopping around on one foot, Izuku glared at the 2 by 2 foot 3 inch thick sheet of rusted metal. It was too big to throw into his bag, but wouldn't fit anywhere else.

All Might, who would occasionally assist him with things like this, was nowhere in sight; probably signing someone's autograph.

Izuku groaned, looking around for something else he could put in the pile instead. Turning around to search for something new, he stopped. Spinning back towards the sheet of metal, he propped it up on his pile and glared at it.

'I know it doesn't fit. I know I can't move it anywhere. But can I…'

Bracing himself, he raised his hands with a flourish and began to slowly levitate the heavy plate up into the air.

'Goddamn, this is heavy.'

While Izuku couldn't do any research at the moment, it didn't stop him from thinking about it. Half the summer was gone, and he had yet to really figure anything else out about himself. Something he had been trying to figure out for a while now was how exactly he lifted objects into the air. Was it a pulling or pushing motion? Was it one massive intangible hand? Now was the perfect time to test.

Izuku smirked. It wasn't quite slacking if All Might wasn't there to see him do it.

Feeling out the area around the sheet with his Quirk, he closed his eyes. It didn't feel like a hand, it didn't feel like he was pushing or pulling it up in the air, it felt like… a mist, almost. A big cloud covering the sheet all around and freezing it in place.

Izuku's eyes shot open.

'So, if I…'

Concentrating, he targeted the corner of the sheet and only the corner, leaving it dangling.

"Aha!" he shouted in victory. Suddenly, sweat began to pour from Izuku's face, and he struggled to hold the metal in the air. With a wheeze, he dropped it and collapsed onto the floor.

"Weight not distributed evenly... *gasp* bad idea…."

Finishing up the autograph he had been signing, All Might marched over to his fallen pupil.

Hearing the pro hero's thundering footsteps, Izuku cringed.

"Izuku."

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you know what this is?" All Might asked, hesitantly.

Izuku, who had been laying face down in some of the sand, glanced up.

All Might stood in front of him, holding the plate of metal in one hand, grimacing.

"No, I don't sir," he responded honestly, peering closer at the metal for something he might have missed.

"I don't know why this was lying around here, but this is steel, and around 250 pounds."

Izuku blinked. 250? He knew it was heavy, but he hadn't quite expected that much.

"I can't even lift that much with my bare hands," Izuku murmured to himself, slightly amazed at his rapid progress.

All Might nodded.

"Your Quirk is progressing very quickly, and has potential to cover many aspects of a hero's duty. But! No student of mine shall be slacking on the physical side; back to work!" The hero cackled.

"Or…"

"Or, sir?"

"If you can lift something as heavy as this with your Quirk, making you multitask with this should be perfect!"

The blood drained from Izuku's face.

"To start, let's see how long you can carry this little plate, shall we?" All Might turned away, humming slightly. Having a protegé was quite fun, he decided.

Izuku, on the other hand, was beginning to regret his decision.

'Fucking All Might.' Silently cursing his idea to test himself, he willed the metal plate in the air, straining with the effort.

'Pinnacle of justice my ass.'

|ooo|

The rest of summer seemed to pass by in a flash. All Might understood that Izuku needed some time to understand his capabilities, so he managed to squeeze some moments here and there for that into their already tight schedule. Despite the limited time they had, Izuku discovered countless new things about his Quirk, the most important of which being:

He could fly-almost. More like floating, hovering himself slightly above the air. The basics of it were simple; he was an object, and well below the weight he was used to lifting, but there was still a major mental block he needed to push through. The human body was not meant to fly, and as it was, it took all of his concentration to just hover a foot above the ground.

But, still. Flying. Something about it just made Izuku smile every time he thought about it. Oh, the irony of being once Quirkless, then attaining the most iconic superpower ever.

He sighed, and closed his eyes. Izuku lay on his bed, just trying to calm his frantic nerves. There were two weeks left in summer. His written exam at U.A. a week before had been difficult, but he was confident that he passed and impressed at least a little.

However, the practical exam he would be taking tomorrow was seriously freaking him out. It wasn't that he wasn't prepared. It wasn't that he didn't think he was ready, or strong enough-he knew he had grown by leaps and bounds under All Might's admittedly effective tutelege-it was simply that Izuku knew nothing about what he was getting into. There were no hints, no suggestions of how to prepare, or anything that might give away the subject of the test or how to pass.

'I just have to trust in myself, I suppose. Trust in myself and in All Might, 'cause he saw something important in me, right?'

Groaning, the young boy opened his eyes and glanced at his clock.

2 AM.

Closing his eyes again, Izuku let out a shaky breath.

'Any obstacle too tough, I'll fly over. Too big, I'll push through. Too powerful, I'll exploit and take down methodically. '

Slowly, his breathing evened out, and Izuku sank into a deep sleep.

Meanwhile, Toshinori was having doubts about the same topic.

All Might sat at his large oak desk, staring at the strand of hair in his hand. Twisting it back and forth, he sunk his head in frustration.

'Mentally, he is not yet ready, but that is to be expected. One For All must grow with him as he becomes his own person and develops his creed.'

One For All or not, he was sure that the young boy would make a fantastic hero on his determination alone, regardless of which Quirk he had been born with. But while Izuku had made clear where his determination came from, he had yet to define a specific path for himself and how he would achieve his next goals beyond becoming a hero.

Clenching his hand into a fist, the hero rose from his chair and paced around his large office.

'Physically and Quirk-wise, he has surpassed all expectations. I was unsure if he would be up for the task, despite his energy at the start, but I was clearly underestimating his drive. The risk of self injury is of course present, but I trust his judgement well enough-if only that was the sole factor.'

All Might smiled. Every moment, every single second of his training was spent with complete focus. Perhaps without realizing it, his young student began to eat, drink, sleep, breathe, live for the purpose of becoming a hero.

Slowly though, the smile slipped off his face, replaced by a grimace.

'Perhaps, if things were different, this would have been an easy decision. I wish I knew more, I wish I listened to you more, Master. I am afraid that my knowledge of how One For All reacts with other Quirks is too limited, and that I will hurt my most driven and devoted student.'

Frowning, All Might rubbed his eyes and began to clamber into his bed.

'I don't know, Izuku. I do not know if this will help you, or hurt you.'

|ooo|