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“And then that quirkless kid ran in and almost died getting the victim out and had to be saved by All Might. I don’t understand why the kid would do that. All he accomplished is giving us bad press because a second victim got involved while we were waiting for someone with a better quirk to show up. And then with All Might showing up, we didn’t get any chance to shine. I think the kid is suicidal or something.” Mt. Lady complains.
Ryukyu has honestly been tuning her out, because she has no right to whine this much over a civilian stepping in to help when she was sitting on her thumbs instead of helping, but the word quirkless catches her attention. “So you’re telling me some quirkless kid rescued the victim?”
“What? No. I mean, he gave it a good try and got him out briefly, but they were too close to dodge the villain’s next attack if All Might hadn’t stepped in and changed the freaking weather. He almost got both of them killed.”
She raises her brows, then huffs in amusement. “So, did you get the kid’s name?”
“Which kid?”
“The quirkless one.”
“No. All I remember is the wild green hair and the diamond of freckles on both cheeks. He didn’t have much to say for himself. Didn’t even apologize for making our job harder.”
Ryukyu laughs a little. She’ll have to ask the police if they got the kid’s name, but if they didn’t it can’t be that hard to find a green haired quirkless boy in the quirk database. “Sounds like you should’ve tried doing your job, to me.”
“I couldn’t get close! The buildings were too close together to get onto the street.”
“And it didn’t occur to you to, I don’t know, shrink and get through that way?”
Mt. Lady freezes, eyes widening, then flushes in embarrassment. “No?”
“Yeah, well, try that next time.”
Because here’s the thing. Dragon quirks have the ability to pass themselves on. Not like giving it away, of course, but like contagion. But said contagion only works if a. it’s deliberate and b. the candidate is quirkless. Of course, they can be gotten the normal way, by one’s parents having a dragon quirk, too, but that’s besides the point. Japan has such a small population of dragon quirks that those with one have the right to seek out successors or mates and widen the genetic pool. No two dragon quirks are identical and that holds true even more so for the passed on quirks too, since they adapt to the individual’s genetics. Of course, there’s also a lot of pressure on the small community of dragon quirked to go into law enforcement of some flavor or heroics. But that’s also besides the point.
The point is that she doesn’t like any of the single dragons within a fifteen year age span to either side enough to date them, much less mate them and she has enough pride in her heritage (plus a ‘type’) that she wants to marry a dragon. The only problem with this is that the number of quirkless people has drastically reduced in the last two generations and the ones she’s met have been way too complacent with the status quo and/or beaten down enough in life that they literally can’t let themselves think of anything better.
And no, she’s not a cradle robber, thank you very much, but she’s also not ageist. She can wait for a kid to grow up, as long as the kid is on board with it. This kid might actually have enough guts to be worth the wait. Well, she’ll see.
~
Agatha Ito listens to Ryukyu and rubs her temples. “Yes, we do know who the kid is. But why should I tell you? If you just want to berate him for doing a noble thing, I’m not going to tell you.”
She’s not going to judge a kid for acting when someone he knows is in danger, particularly with how useless the actual heroes on scene were.
“Dragon mate protocol #54z. I want to see if he’s a worthwhile candidate.”
“Ryukyu, he’s a kid. A fourteen year old kid.”
“I’m not ageist. I can wait four years.”
Okay, she doesn’t even want to touch that with a pitchfork. Dragons are weird. And she’s pretty sure that the boy who risked his life attacking a villain has enough guts to tell Ryukyu to fuck off if he’s not interested. “Fine. But no harassing him or I’ll get your license suspended for stalking.”
“That’s fine. I’m glad someone’s looking out for him. I promise, I’ll just offer it to him and if he says no, I’ll back off and he’ll never hear from me again.”
~
Izuku is starting to get a little nervous about the blonde woman who’s been watching him clean the beach. Maybe it’s just that he’s the only entertainment around, but why is she at Dagobah in the first place?
Then he turns around and almost smacks her with the tire he’s carrying, because she’s somehow approached without him noticing. He starts to apologize, then pauses. “You’re Ryukyu.”
She raises a brow. “I am. And you’re Izuku Midoriya.”
“Uh.” Yes he is, but how does she know?
“I have an offer for you. How would you like a quirk?”
“What?” His eyes widen so far that he feels like they might fall out. “Um. That is. I’m already getting one?”
Surprise flits through her expression, followed by realization. “You mean All Might’s quirk? You can still get that too, as long as you get this one first.”
Sue him, he’s curious. He lowers his voice and looks around nervously. “How do you know that? And what quirk are you talking about?”
“Dragon quirks can be passed on to quirkless folks. Of course we know about the other quirk out there that can be passed on. And the Quirk Thief.”
He wants to ask who the Quirk Thief is, but figures he can ask All Might later. “Dragon quirks can be passed on like One for All?”
“Ah. Not quite. Dragon quirks can also only be passed on by will, but unlike All Might’s quirk, the person passing on the quirk retains their quirk.”
“Oh. Okay.” This makes no sense. “But why would you offer it to me? What’s the catch?”
She smiles slightly. “I suppose I should tell you the catch first. I want you to marry me when you come of age. If that grosses you out, I’ll go away and we’ll never speak of this again.”
Izuku stares at her for a long time. Ryukyu wants him!? She’s older than him, sure, but she’s super pretty and a hero and he’s more used to girls sneering at him or making fun of him. “I guess I’m okay with that, if you’re serious. But why me?”
“Tell me, why did you try to save that kid?”
“Kid? You mean Kacchan?” His gaze slides away in embarrassment. “My feet just moved. Kacchan looked so scared. And, uh, that guy attacked me earlier, so I knew how bad it was to be trapped like that.”
“That, right there, is why you.” She says simply.
None of this is simple. How is he, the quirkless deku, being offered two different quirks? And why is it for the very thing that got him scolded in front of reporters?
“Can I tell All Might?”
“Of course. I’m not asking you to keep secrets.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “I’m going to be a hero.”
For the first time, she smiles fully. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“M’boy, I’m sorry I’m late. I got caught up in traffic.”
Well, here’s to seeing if she was being honest about not keeping secrets.
~
All Might takes news of the offer pretty well, all told, though he looks like someone kicked him in his nonexistent stomach when he finds out that OFA is common knowledge among dragons and has been for three generations now. He also insists that Izuku be allowed to change his mind about marrying her without backlash, should he become uncomfortable with the idea later on.
Ryukyu gives All Might a very pointed stare for a long minute before nodding and agreeing that it is a reasonable condition. Then she pulls out a tiny but sharp knife, makes a small cut on the pad of one finger and holds it out to Izuku. “Lick.”
“Uh.” Izuku says intelligently.
“Oh, I see. It’s like One for All in that it needs genetic information to be ingested. Why not give him a hair?”
She gives him a grossed out look.
Izuku decides that a big drop of blood is the lesser evil and steps forward and awkwardly licks it off her finger and swallows. The after taste makes him run for his water bottle. It’s not strong it’s just odd, like the flavor of iron and copper.
He comes back and asks, “Does that mean I’m going to have to swallow your hair when you give me One for All?”
“Well, that’s how I was given it.” All Might makes a face. “But I suppose if you prefer blood, we can do it that way when the time comes.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course, m’boy!”
“Oh.” Ryukyu says suddenly. “I should tell you that your quirk won’t be exactly like mine. It will adapt its characteristics to your genetics and to All Might’s quirk when you get it. Some people end up with secondary quirks because they had a dormant quirk that the quirk awakened.”
“So it’s more like a symbiotic existence? That would mean that thesentientquirkstheorywrittenbyJohnEsserbyis-”
All Might shakes his shoulder. “You’re muttering again, my prince of nonsense.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He shoots Ryukyu a guilty look. “Sorry, I do that sometimes. I’m trying to get out of the habit.”
She chuckles. “I don’t mind, though I’d probably understand it better if you slowed it down a little.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She says, swiping the cut with an alcohol pad and then wrapping a small bandaid around her finger. “I’ll give you my number in case you want to talk quirk theories later. My civilian name is Ryuko Tatsuma, so you can save it under that.”
“O-Oh. Thank you.”
~
The first sign of the quirk transferal being successful is when his freckles get itchy. It’s terrible. Lotion only soothes the itch for a short time. After a few days where he valiantly resists scratching off his own face, the freckles start to peel like a peculiar sunburn or a half loosened scab. A couple days after that, the skin finishes drying up and peels all the way off to show he now has tiny dark green scales in place of his freckles.
His mom tells him they’re cute.
Kacchan on the other hand gets up in his face and stares at him in silence for a minute before saying, “Your face looks weird.” And backing off.
No one really seems to know what to do with that reaction.
Eventually the teacher clears his throat. “Midoriya, is there something wrong with your face that you need to go to the nurse?”
“No, sensei. It’s just that my freckles turned into scales?”
“Ah, it seems like you’ve gained a quirk finally. Better late than never, I guess. Make an appointment with the school’s quirk counselor and get it registered within the month. Now class, turn in your math book to pages-”
Yeah, so that happened.
~
The second sign is when he absently picks up a fridge with All Might on it and lugs it to the truck used to take things to a proper dump without noticing any strain. In fact, he doesn’t notice at all until All Might gets over his surprise, sputters, coughs blood and then asks him about it.
So, apparently he’s gotten a lot stronger.
Which should mean his muscles are a lot denser than they were before, but when he tests it by paying for an hour at a public pool, he can still float! So that’s a weird thing.
The third thing he notices only when he bites his tongue and draws blood. While looking in the mirror to see how bad it is, he notices that all his teeth look just the smallest bit larger and sharper. Particularly his incisors.
It’s a pain in the ass, or rather, in the tongue, because he has to relearn how to eat without biting himself.
The fourth sign he only notices when his mother points out he’s had thirds already and there’s no food left. Both of them hope the increase in appetite is temporary or it’s going to get hard to pay their grocery bill.
Fifthly, he wakes up in pre-dawn for no apparent reason, starts to get out of bed and promptly falls to the floor like a noodle. After some klutzy scrabbling, he gets to his feet, all four of them, and makes his way into the bathroom to look in the mirror.
Instead of a largish but compact, humanoid western type dragon, he’s a small, noodly Asian type dragon, with no human characteristics. A complete transformation it seems, whiskers and all. His coloration is all green and black, which he personally thinks is pretty spiffy.
Now. If only he can figure out how to change back.
It takes him most of the day, while his mom ‘helps’ by cooing at him and petting him, which has the effect of turning him into a happy puddle. Which isn’t very conducive to changing back. At least he can still talk in dragon form. It would be really awkward if he couldn’t.
When he finally manages to turn back, he finds he has large, extremely sharp claws on his fingertips and toes. He completely ruins his nighties taking them off and the first shirt he tries to put on, which makes him cry because it’s one of his All Might shirts and makes his mom sympathy cry. It’s a total accident that he finds out three hours later that he can shift the claws away.
“Mom! Mom! Look!” He holds up his claw free hands.
She sighs, looking relieved. “Oh, that’s good. I was worried about how you were going to be able to do common tasks.”
Yeah, so was he.
~
He doesn’t have complete control over his shift. Sometimes it just…happens.
School becomes a lot more awkward when he accidentally shifts in the middle of history class. Fortunately, the clothes come back when he shifts back to human. Some sort of dimensional storage pocket effect, if he’s right.
The history teacher scolds him for quirk use and tells him to make another quirk counseling appointment.
The quirk counselor tells him that she’s not equipped to deal with dragon quirks and recommends a couple professionals that specialize in dealing with unusual quirks.
Kacchan corners him by the lockers and yells at him to not think he’s better than him just because he’s got a decent quirk now, because his is better.
Izuku honestly does not know why he needed to point this out.
His mom immediately makes an appointment with one of them for two weeks out when he tells her and hands over the information.
One day before the appointment, Izuku finds out what Ryuko meant about ‘adapting to his genetics’ when he sneezes fire and simultaneously all the dishes on the table go flying away from him. Apparently he can breathe fire like his dad and push things away telekinetically, which is like the inverse of his mom’s quirk.
~
The new quirk counselor, or rather, quirk doctor has the most deadpan expression Izuku has ever seen. He asks lots of questions, makes notes, does a few tests and says, “Congratulations, it seems you’ve got a good handle on it for how new it is.” He hands Inko a card. “I’ll write you a recommendation to this quirk gym. They give private quirk training lessons, but you have to have a doctor’s note to be accepted as a student. Other than that, I’ll register your quirk under the name Green Dragon, unless you have some objection to that.”
“Er, no? I guess that’s fine.” Izuku answers uncertainly.
“Good, good. We’re done for today, but come back to update your quirk description if you experience new facets of your quirk. Since it came in so late, it might have come in all at once, but I doubt it.”
“Thank you, doctor.” His mom says and waits for the doctor to finish writing her the note and hand it over before they leave.
Yeah, so. The only new things he knows about his quirk is that he can breathe fire three feet in human form and six feet in dragon form, and that his claws can cut through a steel ball with about the same resistance as a butter knife cutting cheese. Significant resistance, but ultimately useless. He has been advised to not use his claws on humans. Which, duh.
~
In the end, he decides to go with the hair and immediately regrets it because gack! On the other hand, All Might has enough health issues that it’s probably better to be safe than sorry because something was wrong with his blood. So it’s not like he’d change his choice.
It is a little concerning that he’s being given the quirk the day of the exam and at best it will take a few hours to transfer to his system. On the other hand, he’s gotten rather good with his dragon quirk and partial shift fighting courtesy of the quirk gym training sessions his mom had paid for. Not as good as someone who has had their quirk for years, of course, but passable. With his enhanced strength and his claws, he’s got a half decent chance at whatever the hero test physical is, he reckons, and that’s all that really matters right now.
Speaking of which, he probably should have been paying attention to where he’s going, because his nose is about to make contact with the concrete. Yikes.
A moment later, he realizes he’s suspended mid-fall and looks around in confusion, even as he gets his feet back under him.
“Sorry about using my quirk on you, but I figured falling right before the exam would be a bad omen.” A girl with a round face, pink cheeks and bobbed brown hair says. She presses the pads of her fingers together. “Release.”
“O-Oh. Th-Thank you.”
She beams at him. “Not a problem. Good luck!”
“Y-You too.” He manages.
With that, she hurries off, leaving him standing there dumbly.
Kacchan bumps him roughly with his shoulder as he passes. “Get out of my way, Lizard Face, and quit standing there like an idiot.”
“Y-Yes, Kacchan.” He answers, even though Kacchan’s already moved on, following him obediently. It’s not like he’s wrong, after all.
~
His brain is mush. Soupy, lumpy, overcooked, scorched mush. UA’s written test isn’t for pussies. He mutters the information to himself as he reads the pamphlet provided about the physical test, not even really listening to Present Mic as he explains it, because his concentration is just that shot.
The loud mouth standing up and scolding Present Mic is annoying but Izuku is entirely unprepared when the boy turns to accusing him of being disruptive. He shifts without meaning to.
“Now look what you did, Four Eyes! You scared him into losing control of his quirk!” Kacchan yells at the loud mouth, which is…oddly endearing? Is he standing up for Izuku? Maybe Izuku has lost consciousness and this is all a dream.
“I-” The loud mouth looks taken aback.
“Kacchan!” He moans, burying his muzzle in his paws.
“Tch!”
Before the loud mouth can come up with a reply, Present Mic chooses to step in and answer his question, explaining that the last foe is the 0 pointer and worth no points.
Izuku notes that absently, but most of his concentration is focused on shifting back. It takes a couple minutes, but he manages before they have to go out to the buses. Thankfully.
~
The bus ride isn’t bad. Somehow the nice girl sits beside him and he thanks her quietly. He learns her name is Uraraka. While they’re waiting for the thing to start, they chitchat quietly until the loud mouth comes over and accuses them of not taking it seriously again.
Izuku grits his teeth, then looks him in the eye and says with forced calm. “Did you know that in the forest, loud prey attracts more predators?”
The look on the loud mouth’s face is more than worth sounding like a total weirdo.
“Is-?”
“START!”
There’s a few seconds pause where everyone freezes.
“Come on, there’s no hesitation in hero work. Go, go, go!”
The loud mouth forgoes his question in favor of zooming off, others hot on his heels.
Uraraka and he split off in opposite directions, so they don’t get in each other’s way.
Izuku isn’t the fastest, but he isn’t the slowest either. The bots really aren’t that hard to take down. He literally can smack the 1 pointers’ heads off, which is easier said than done considering that he’s barely tall enough to reach said heads. 2 and 3 pointers are easy enough to gut with a couple swipes of his claws, and the 3 pointers actually have visible OFF buttons, although he mostly goes the swiping route because it’s easier than trying to get behind them. He’s even used his fire breath to take down a couple that came around corners unexpectedly, hot on the heels of some unfortunate examinee. The real problem is getting to them before other examinees do.
Fortunately, there are a lot of bots.
Then there’s an ominous rumbling and all the examinees start running away. Izuku finally spots the absolutely massive robot, which has to be the 0 pointer, and starts going the same way. But slower, because its trajectory wasn’t going to cross his before time was up unless he does something stupid.
A cry for help has his head jerking around and he spots Uraraka laying sprawled, trapped under concrete, several blocks in the wrong way down the street. The 0 pointer is going to catch her sooner than later. He starts running.
It’s a good thing his stamina is decent; he’s not even panting when he gets there. He wastes no time hauling the concrete slab up and shoving it over backwards. “Are you alright?”
“I think I sprained my ankle.”
He looks up at the 0 pointer. It’s too close to get away from at a walking pace. “Okay. Get as far away as you can. I’ll distract it.”
Uraraka looks like she’s going to protest, but fortunately she bites her lip and starts limping off the way he came from.
Izuku looks up at the 0 pointer. The last couple minutes, he’s felt power bubbling up inside. That has to be One for All, doesn’t it? He mentally grasps at the power, feeling it rush through his veins in response and jumps.
It doesn’t go according to plan.
Instead of the power going into a jump, he loses hold of his transformation and shifts and the jump turns into an awkward upright hop and he loses his balance and grabs on to the nearest thing to stop himself from falling. Wait. What did he grab? There was nothing in front of him except… He looks up. …the 0 pointer.
Apparently he saved himself by grabbing the 0 pointer’s waist!?
And also, he’s a lot bigger dragon than usual and crackling with green lightning too!?
The 0 pointer ignores his crisis and tries to keep walking, swinging an arm that narrowly misses his head.
Right, there’s bigger things to deal with right now. Literally.
Looking over his shoulder to check he didn’t accidentally flatten her with his tail, he spots her leaning against a building a half a block down, looking at him wide eyed. With that worry out of the way, he presses his tail hard against the ground to brace himself and pushes.
The 0 pointer creaks loudly and goes over backwards in a metallic crash.
Izuku drops to all fours.
The buzzer goes off, signaling the end of the exam.
He lets go of OFA and concentrates on shifting back to human. It goes a little easier than usual and then he’s on his hands and knees, feeling utterly exhausted. All he wants to do is go home and sleep for a day. After that he’ll bother worrying if he passed or not.
~
The second day of UA is noisy. Mostly because everyone showed up early in fear of their teacher deciding that being late deserved expulsion. He doesn’t mind, really. Uraraka is leaning on his desk talking to him, which is neat, because he’s very much not used to having friends his age.
There is the little thing where he’s trying to lean back away from her without being obvious about it, though. Uraraka is super nice, but there is such a thing as personal space.
“Hey, Midoriya. You got a girlfriend?” The blond with a black lightning bolt boy asks suddenly.
What?
Kacchan scoffs.
Right, Kacchan doesn’t know about Ryuko.
“Uh no, but I have a fiancée.” He replies, mostly because he doesn’t want to be drawn into speculation on girls, which is rude.
His head snaps around. “What? You do not. Since when?”
“Since a week or two before I got my quirk in?” His statement sounds more like a question than he’d like.
Kacchan narrows his eyes, hands starting to pop ominously. “I don’t believe you, Lizard Face. Who would want you?”
Izuku opens his mouth to tell him, then thinks better of it, huffs and crosses his arms instead. “It’s none of your business, Kacchan.”
“Yeah, right. You keep telling your lies.”
Lightning bolt boy, who he thinks is Kaminori or something like that, asks, “Do you really have a fiancée?”
“Y-Yeah, I do.” He says, caught off guard. “Why would I lie about that?”
“That’s really cool, Midoriya! Who is it? Or can’t you tell us?” The pink girl, Ashido, asks in a tone of avid curiosity.
“I can tell.” He admits. “I just don’t want to. She deserves her privacy.” And she does, she really, really does. Ryuko deserves the world.
“Aww, I wanted to know!”
“If you think you’re here to pry into the private lives of your classmates, you can go write a gossip column instead of wasting my time.” A gruff voice interrupts.
Ashido eeps.
“You need to work on your situational awareness. Only one of you noticed I was there and the rest of you would be dead by now if I were a villain.”
Izuku wonders who noticed, even as he’s grateful to his teacher for interrupting the conversation. Standing up to people who mean well is surprisingly hard.