Chapter Text
“I deem you worthy of my power.” The words were spoken confidently, with a gravitas that he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before. “My quirk is yours to inherit.”
All Might stood there, arms spread wide open, the warm afternoon light basking him in gold. Skinny and malnourished as he look, he still struck an imposing figure, tall and present, his eyes glimmering from beyond the shadows cast by his harsh features. A smile started spreading over the hero’s face, an open sort of smile, looking down at Izuku with admiration, even if the kid was still on the floor, prostrated by his feet.
It was shocking, to be on the receiving end of it, that glimmer, that golden sun that seemed to bloom not inside All Might, that light that had illuminated such a dark world, that had chased away Izuku’s shadows more often than he could recall. Shocking enough he didn’t quite process what had been said.
“I-inherit… what?” Hesitantly, Izuku sniffled, the snot that now clung to his face making a horribly disgusting noise that would certainly embarrass him were it not for the absolute confusion bouncing around his skull.
All Might laughed. It was odd for Izuku, arguably the person in the world most well-versed in the hero’s laugh, that it was so different from his usual laugh. All Might’s voice didn’t echo across the street, they didn’t thunder and shake the ground, assuring the world a titan had come. No, instead, he laughed like an old man, raspy and finding things far more funny than they had any right to be.
It was odd. But not bad.
“Oh, you should see your face!” He slapped a skeletal-looking hand on his knee, keeling over with laughter, before grinning down at Izuku again, this time with far more bite than before. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna force this thing on you!” The hero pointed up towards the sky, the pose looking far too iconic for it to not have been practiced (Izuku could list at least a few dozen ways that pose had been used within the last 20 years of All Might’s career, it was one of the classics), eyes shining wildly. “Listen well, young man! This is your choice! Do you want to inherit my awesome power or not?”
Izuku stared up at him, befuddled. His eyes still stung from crying, and with the amount of snot currently jammed up his nose, perhaps his ears were clogged as well because he must be not hearing things right.
He looked up at the hero, still mid-pose, and mentally nodded to himself. Yep, still staring at him, still grinning, still waiting.
It was at these times that Izuku truly felt like his anxiety was a hellish thing to deal with. Because on one hand, he had so many questions to ask, including but not limited to ‘What the fuck?’, but his mother had always told him that was an impolite thing to say to adults, and this wasn’t just any adult, this was All Might , and that itself ruled that option out. Staring gormlessly at the number one hero was also not a great option, but with Izuku’s brain going at speeds that would rival most movement quirks, there was little else he could do. He could always just do what he did in the end.
“Uh?”
“There are few things you should know about my quirk,” his smile dropped a little, but his tone remained with that unwavering confidence, “Journalists always guess my Quirk is super strength or some kind of invulnerability.”
“But it’s not though…” Izuku mumbled to himself, words spilling out of his mouth even as his brain raced for answers, to try and understand.
“When people ask, I tend to dodge the question, make a joke and move on. Because…” All Might hesitates for a moment, something in his voice becoming almost bitter, his eyes darting to the floor, as he steadied himself. “Because people need to believe that their symbol is a natural-born hero. That All Might is like any other hero, but better, the standard to which others must live up to.”
The wind picked up, golden hair waving like wheat on a field as blue eyes pierced into Izuku’s soul. It was a look that the kid would be grappling with for years to come, the moment where he saw so much exhaustion on his hero’s face, an understanding that he would never be able to articulate. There was something sad in those fierce eyes, something that reminded Izuku of looking in a mirror that wasn’t quite his own.
“But I’m not.”
Izuku’s head snapped up, and had to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from arguing. He had to fight down the urge to tell All Might that he was the standard, that he was-
“There is nothing natural about my ability. I wasn’t born with this power.” All Might spread his arms out, gazing up into the fading sky, his silhouette backlit by the sun, as the words surged into the world. An admission, a confession that Izuku didn’t understand. “It is a sacred torch that was passed down to me from someone else!”
What.
“S-someone gave you your quirk?” Izuku almost squeaked it out, fingers digging into the ground he was still kneeling on in shock, in anticipation, in an overwhelming surge of emotions, like the wind that rattled and howled through the street.
All Might didn’t meet his eye, gaze still on the horizon.
(Izuku didn’t know it yet, but he was looking towards the memory of a woman, flying through the sky, a grin on her face. He missed her, more than words could ever say.)
The hero’s scar, that horrible wound that he’d shown the scrawny little kid hours earlier, was visible now, oversized shirt fluttering in the wind. It was a reminder, to both of them, of the legacy of heroism, the danger of this world that All Might had always faced with a smile.
“And you are next! I can give you my ability!
“Hold on! B-but that doesn’t make any sense!” Izuku was definitely squeaking now, scrambling to his feet in a frantic burst. “It’s true that people have theorized for years about what your quirk could possibly be, but it’s not like there has ever been any conclusive answers; and yes, online there have been discussions that it can’t simply be a strength quirk, and invulnerability doesn’t explain exactly most of your feats, I’ve always been quite particular that it must be some sort of energy pool or Conceptual Quirk, like the one of Severance, but a quirk that can be passed on goes against the theory that quirks require natural genetic mutations within the brain to handle the triggering of any meta effects, and would also mean that it would fundamentally shift how your DNA is structured and-”
“Wow, you are really overthinking this inheriting thing.” The hero arched an eyebrow, confused at this reaction.
“-of course, it also implies that theoretically speaking, one could remove the Quirk factor from the DNA, which has been proven more than once leads to a severe genetic collapse or even mutations, cancer, and other such things, but perhaps with a Quirk that takes all that into account it could be possible, but for such to have happened, it would require such a delicate process of evolution and-”
“Oi, stop nerding out!”
Izuku’s mouth slammed shut with a click, his body instinctively curling in on itself, horror etched on his face as he realized what he had done. He had just rambled at All Might. He had just told All Might his quirk was impossible and didn’t make any sense. But worst of all, he had just shown All Might that he was a stupid nerd who couldn’t keep his mouth shut at such an important moment.
The kid felt like he could cry, again, eyes burning, throat clogging up, but was snapped out of it as the hero smiled down at him.
Sweeping his arms in a grand gesture, All Might continued on his explanation. “You’ll have to accept this reality for now! Even if it doesn’t make sense, that’s my quirk, though that isn’t all that it can do.” The tall man grinned that same manic grin from before, and held his hand out. It was close enough to Izuku that he could see it. The power writhing underneath All Might’s skin, a faint warmth emanating from him, something ancient and real and true thrashing to be let out, to live. It was mesmerizing. “The true name of my quirk is [One For All]!”
There was weight to his words. There was an undeniable shift in the air, as if saying the name of this power made it more real somehow, sinking into the world like a storm, or perhaps more appropriately, a star. [One For All] felt like a star, gleaming from within All Might. Perhaps that was the sun that Izuku always saw behind the smile, the weight of such a powerful thing, born into a man who would always smile, no matter the danger.
“Yes. A power born when a hero hands it down to another, growing the power within themselves, to pass it on to the next generation, stronger than before!” All Might’s smile seemed to stretch even further, as Izuku, mesmerized, stepped closer to the hero. “It is this power that lets me save those that need a hero. It is this power that lets me do good. The truth behind my strength!”
Izuku’s eyes locked onto All Might, and something began shifting within him. He could feel it, the same as he felt when he had raced in to save Kacchan earlier. He could feel it, when the heroes who had been there told him it was irresponsible to run into the damn exploding slime instead of telling the heroes to aim for the eyes. He felt it, as surely as the sun rose on the horizon, as surely as he knew he loved his mom, and the sky was blue, that feeling swelling in his heart.
“I’ve been looking for a successor for a long time, kid,” smiling still, the hero placed on hand on Izuku’s shoulder, squeezing softly with his bony fingers. “And then, I watched you jump into action while the rest of us stood by. We stood by, while you, a quirkless fanboy, raced in to save that kid with nary a plan. You acted like a hero.” All Might stopped, and shook his head, “No, you were a hero!”
The tears that had been welling up before came back strong, rolling down the kid’s cheeks as his hero flashed him a proud smile.
“Oh, you gotta stop crying so much if you are going to inherit my Quirk!” The blonde joked, running a hand through his mane, pretending more than anything else to not feel as affected by this as the child in front of him.
All Might looked at the kid, and saw the resolve solidify in his heart. He saw it, right there, in the kid’s bright watery eyes, how the feeling coalesced into something bigger than himself, bigger than any one person could be. Izuku clenched at his chest, tugging at the fabric of his singed uniform, as if trying to pull out his heart, to show it to All Might so he would understand how much he meant it, how large his feelings were.
“So, Young Midoriya, will you inherit [One For All]?”
Izuku saw reflected in All Might’s eyes what it meant to be a hero, and felt it deep in his bones, the same dream that had walked this path with him since he was a child, and spoke.
“All Might, all I’ve wanted in my life was to become a hero,” Izuku spoke softly, hand still clenched over his heart, his eyes still misty, smile trembling even as his voice was steady. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. And today… Today I saved a life.”
The sentence hung in the air, heavy and true. All Might understood, Izuku could see he understood, how much that had meant to him, the weight of it all.
“And you, you told me I c-could be a hero. That I a-already was one.” Izuku looked up to his hero, to the titan that had so confidently told him what he had never heard said before. “And for the first time in my life, I understood who I was, who I am meant to be.”
The kid took a step back, light shining against him, light gilding his hair with laurels, the warmth of the sun outmatched by his own, as he stood in front of a symbol, unbowed, with a smile.
"All my life, I've wanted to be a hero. And all my life, the only one I had to look up to was you. But I never really knew if you meant it, when you said anyone could become a hero." He took a deep breath and looked up at All Might. "Today, you said I was. You called me a hero. I could accept your power. I could, and I would give my best to be your successor, the next Symbol of Peace.” Awe crept into Izuku’s voice as he spoke, but just as quickly as it came, it petered out. “But what about the next quirkless kid who wants to be a hero? They’ll have the same doubts, they’ll grow up not knowing if they can be a hero.” Izuku shook his head. "I will be a hero, All Might. But I have to become one under my own power. Not anyone else's. So no, I will not inherit your quirk."