MHA: The Fictional Hero: All Fiction - Chapter 1

“People are not born equal.”

A bitter truth—onehat Izuku Midoriya had learned far too young.

As he lay sprawled across his bed, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling he’d memorized countless times before, a long sigh escaped his lips. Another day. Another round of mockery from classmates blessed with flashy, powerful Quirks. And him? The ‘Quirkless’ outlier. The joke everyone was in on.

Still, he supposed he should be thankful. None of them had ever gone beyond words—nounches thrown, no powers unleashed... not really.

Well, with one exception.

Kacchan.

His childhood friend. Or rather, his former friend.

Bakugou Katsuki had always been quick to anger, quick to lash out. And with a Quirk as destructive as his, things could've turned ugly—deadly,ven. But somehow… even at his worst, Kacchan had always held back.

Barely.

Izuku didn’t know whether that restraint came from lingering friendship, pride, or simply a desire to torment him slowly. But he was grateful for it—inhe quiet, hesitant way someone thanks the rain for not falling harder.

He was bullied.

Day in, day out—mocked,hoved, laughed at—byearly everyone around him. All because they thought he didn’t have a Quirk.

The tragedy?

They weren’t entirely wrong.

But they weren’t exactly right, either.

Izuku Midoriya did have a Quirk. At least, that’s what every doctor and specialist he’d visited as a child had said. The scans were clear. No extra toe joint. All the standard genetic markers were present. Everything lined up. By all medical accounts, he should have had a Quirk.

And yet… nothing ever happened. No power had surfaced. No spark, no glow, no sudden burst of strength or elemental control. Nothing.

Trying to defend himself against the accusations of being Quirkless was difficult when he didn’t even know what his Quirk was. It wasn’t just his classmates who were clueless—heas too. And so were the doctors.

But over the years, Izuku had come up with three possible explanations.

The first theory?

His quirk was invisible—subtle,assive, something he’d had since birth that blended into his biology so seamlessly it felt… ordinary.

Maybe his green hair wasn’t from his mom after all. Maybe the weirdly large amount of tears he could shed was his Quirk. It wasn’t impossible. Quirks like enhanced vision or resistance to disease were hard to measure without specific tests. Or at least a baseline of how his body was without it.

The second theory was less comforting:

Maybe his Quirk was too powerful—sotrong, in fact, that his body instinctively suppressed it to protect him until he was old enough to use it safely.

… Unfortunately, every specialist he’d asked had assured him that this was a very unlikely case. Rare and mostly theoretical. Still, Izuku hadn’t ruled it out.

Just in case, he trained his body regularly—nothingancy, just some daily routines, push-ups, cardio, and and light weights.

He didn’t have a six-pack or anything. Without professional support or equipment, he wasn’t expecting miracles. But at least he stayed fit. Just in case his Quirk ever needed a strong vessel to awaken.

And the third possibility?

His Quirk had a hyper-specific activation condition. Something so obscure that in seventeen years of life, he simply hadn’t triggered it yet.

Something like… eating fish bones grants him super strength. Or sneezing while holding his breath lets him fly.

It sounded absurd, but stranger Quirks existed.

And yes—thatine of thinking had led Izuku to try some very weird things over the years.

Fortunately, he never went too far or did anything dangerous. Curiosity and caution kept each other in check.

In truth, it could even be a combination of all three theories.

A hidden power. A sealed core. An activation condition that had yet to appear.

And with every passing day, time was slipping through his fingers.

He had less than a year left before university entrance exams.

And his dream? It had never changed.

He wanted to be a hero—someoneho saved people with a smile, someone who gave others hope just by existing.

His heart was set on U.A. University—Japan’sop Hero University.

He would take the entrance exam for the Hero Course, no matter what. But lately… he’d been thinking.

Plan B.

Apply for the General Studies Course. Train hard. Use the U.A. Sports Festival as his springboard into the Hero Course ifhe couldn’t make it in directly.

Both paths were long shots. Especially without a Quirk.

There was a gap between him and the rest of the world—aeep, empty space he didn’t know how to cross.

But Izuku Midoriya was nothing if not stubborn.

Althoughh could he really make it? Was it actually possible?

Izuku let out another self-deprecating sigh, the kind that rattled in his chest and sank into the room like a heavy fog.

Thinking about it wouldn’t help.

Every time he started reflecting too deeply on his Quirk—orack thereof—itlways left him feeling worse. Frustrated. Powerless.

No good ever came from stewing in those thoughts.

He needed a distraction.

Flipping over on his bed, Izuku pulled out his phone and opened up the daily Hero News feed, hoping for something, anything,, to take his mind off it.

… But there was nothing.

No new incidents, no flashy arrests, not even a public appearance from All Might.

Weird—butot unheard of. Quiet days did happen.

It just meant he had a few extra hours to kill before dinner. His workout was already done, his notebooks were already organized, and his brain was too fried for mock entrance exam problems.

With a shrug, Izuku tossed his phone aside.

If he couldn’t indulge in his usual, extremely normal,, and totally cool hobby of obsessing over Pro Heroes and Quirk analysis… then it was time for Plan B.

Fiction.

Be it manga, comics, or novels—heoved them all.

It wasn’t just about the heroes. Though of course, as someone obsessed with real-world heroics, it made sense that comic book capes and manga protagonists had captured his heart too.

But that wasn’t all. It had been just the beginningthat opened a much larger world to him.

For Izuku, it was about the stories.

The worlds. The powers. The systems.

He devoured anything with a clever power mechanic or deep, thought-out lore. It didn’t even have to be hero-related. As long as the worldbuilding was good, he was in.

Sliding off his bed, he reached beneath it and pulled out a worn cardboard box.

Inside were old manga volumes—hisreasures.

He opened the lid with the reverence of a priest unveiling a holy relic. His eyes lit up as he spotted the spine of a familiar volume.

Hunter x Hunter.

A legendary series from over two centuries ago. Dark, intricate, and utterly captivating. Its power system—Nen—wasen regarded as one of the most well-designed in all of fiction.

Sadly, it had never been completed. The author’s health had cut the story short before its final arc. But what had been published?

Izuku loved it. Every page.

He’d recently gotten lucky—managed to snag an affordable box set online. He had to read them through the Net until now, but finally he had gotten his hands on actual physical copies of them. Today, he was revisiting one of his favorite arcs:

Heavens Arena.

Smiling softly, he pulled out the volume he was currently on and settled back into bed.

But just as he opened it—

“Gh—!”

A sharp sting flared across his shoulder.

The burn Kacchan had left earlier that day had acted up again, sending a ripple of pain through his body. His hand jerked, and the manga slipped from his fingers, landing on the floor with a dull thump.

“Damn it, Kacchan…” he muttered, leaning over the side of the bed.

As his fingers brushed the open page, something… changed.

The air grew heavier—warmer. Like a blanket of static wrapped around him.

A strange sensation welled up from deep within, like heat rising through his bones.

Suddenly, it felt as if something was leaking from him—energy pouring out through his skin, through every pore, uncontrollable and wild.

But instead of panic, there was clarity.

He just… knew.

What to do. How to move. As if the knowledge had been waiting for this very moment.

He looked down at his hands.

There was an aura—faint, but real. A glow clinging to his skin like mist. Power pulsed through his fingertips. Then it stopped leaking out and wrapped around him like a shroud.

“Wait… Is that… Nen?” he breathed.

His heart thudded in disbelief.

But there was more. It wasn’t just the energy. It was the understanding.

In an instant, he knew exactly what to do. Not just the basics—advanced techniques, aura control, and even personalities associated with specific skills.

“It can’t be…”

His eyes darted across the room until they landed on an All Might figure on the shelf.

Acting on instinct, Izuku pointed a glowing finger toward it.

The aura extended—stretching out like a thread, flickering, shifting—and then it latched onto the figure.

Bungee Gum.

With a mental tug, the aura snapped back—and the figure flew straight into his palm.

He stared at it in stunned silence.

“…That was Bungee Gum,” he whispered. “Why…?”

A beat passed.

And then:

“MOM! MOM!!”

Bursting from his room, Izuku dashed down the hall toward the kitchen. The scent of food filled the air as his mother hummed softly, preparing dinner.

Inko turned at the sound of rushing footsteps. “Izuku? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! I mean—everything! I—I found my Quirk!”

She blinked, spatula in hand. “Oh, that’s wonderful, sweetie. I’m gla—wait. You got your what?!”

“I got my Quirk, Mom!” Izuku beamed.

He pointed at a nearby onion on the counter. Once again, the aura sparked to life. It stretched out, latched onto the onion, and then pulled it into his hand.

“See?!”

Inko blinked.

The onion sat in his palm. The aura, only visible to him, faded from it.

She fainted.

———

It took quite a while for Izuku to wake up his unconscious mother.

“Izuku? Why am I on the sofa? What happened?” Inko asked, her eyes fluttering open in confusion.

“Oh, you passed out, Mom,” Izuku explained, relieved that she hadn’t hit her head on anything hard. That would’ve been the last thing he wanted to happen—especially because of his Quirk awakening.

“Really?” she asked, still confused and trying to recall. “I had the strangest dream. You told me you found out what your Quirk does and used my Quirk—‘Attraction of Small Objects’—to get an onion from my cutting board.”

“Please stay calm, Mom. But that wasn’t a dream! I really found my quirk!” "Izuku," she said excitedly, holding her hand.

“That wasn’t a dream? So you got a version of my quirk? Why did it never activate before?” she wondered, looking at him with wide eyes.

“Ah, no, it’s not like that,” Izuku admitted awkwardly, realizing he actually had no idea what his Quirk really was. “I used Nen to get the onion. Specifically, Bungee Gum—a Nen ability.”

“So your Quirk is this... Nen?”

“Uhh, no? It’s an ability from a manga, not a Quirk itself. I think I have the abilities of a specific character called Hisoka,” Izuku guessed, uncertain. “At least, that’s what I think happened. Since I’d finished all my homework today, I decided to read some manga, and that’s when my Quirk activated for the first time. And tadaa—I can use Nen.”

Izuku moved his hand again toward the TV remote, wanting to use Bungee Gum to pull it into his hand and demonstrate his Quirk again. But nothing happened. His aura remained firmly flowing around his body.

His mom awkwardly stared at him as he struck a “cool” pose, even though nothing happened.

“Everything okay, dear?”

His aura still lingered like a Nen shroud around his body, but Izuku realized he no longer knew how to use Bungee Gum or Texture Surprise. Sure, he still knew what they were supposed to do—but he didn’t know how to use them with his Nen anymore.

In fact, he had no idea how to use Nen at all. He barely knew how to maintain the ten shrouds around himself so his aura wouldn’t leak—but all the applications he instinctively understood earlier were gone.

“I think my Quirk has a time limit?” Izuku stated uncertainly, staring at the aura around his body.

“You think? Why did that sound like a question? I—Is something wrong?” His mother asked, already slipping into her worrywart mode again.

“No, no. Everything’s alright. It’s just... earlier I somehow knew how to use different abilities and techniques belonging to Hisoka. Even his fighting style. But now I’ve forgotten most of it. Well, how to use it, to be precise. I still know what abilities he had like before from the manga. Just... the knowledge I gained from my Quirk is gone,” Izuku explained.

“Sounds to me like your Quirk has some kind of time limit,” his mother agreed nervously, still not quite understanding what he was trying to say. “You just discovered your Quirk. There should be many things you don’t know yet.”

“Yes, I’m thinking the same. Some kind of time limit seems obvious. But there’s only one problem—why do I still have my aura?” Izuku pointed out.

“An aura? What’s that? Dear, I think I need a bit more context. You’re not making any sense to me,” his mother sighed.

Right. She had no idea about Hunter x Hunter.

“Well, ‘aura’ is another word for ‘Nen.’ As far as I understand it, my Quirk copied the abilities of Hisoka, a character in Hunter x Hunter. The power system they use in that universe is called Nen. Ours would be Quirks, for example. Nen is basically controlling your own life energy in the form of an aura around your body to gain supernatural abilities—like how Quirks give us powers. While Hisoka’s abilities are gone, I somehow still have the aura around me. That’s the almost invisible form of energy surrounding my body,” Izuku admitted thoughtfully, still guessing at what had actually happened.

“An aura around you? I can’t see anything. But... isn’t that dangerous? Using your own life energy to fight?” She asked again, worried, watching him closely for any sign of something wrong. Anything that looked like it had aged.

“Huh? You can’t see it? Right—Nen is invisible to the unawakened. I forgot. And no, actually, having control over Nen is beneficial. Everyone leaks a small amount of life energy naturally. By learning how to use Nen, I can wrap it around me and prevent that leakage. It slows aging. At least, that’s what the manga says,” Izuku replied, though he had no idea if that part applied to him too.

“That’s good to hear. So nothing’s wrong with you?” Inko asked.

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure what’s going on with my aura, but my best guess is that when I got Hisoka’s Nen abilities through my Quirk, it also awakened my own aura. And once the time limit ran out, I lost Hisoka’s abilities—but the changes to my body remained? Although I have no idea why. Either an aura is a real thing in our world that nobody knows about, or my Quirk changed my body to be able to use these abilities. Like how Endeavor is more resistant to his fire. That’s my guess,” Izuku shrugged. “I’m not even sure how my Quirk activated.”

“What were you doing before your Quirk activated?”

“I read a manga and accidentally dropped it on the floor and picked it up,” Izuku explained thoughtfully, leaving out why he had dropped it. “But I’ve been reading manga all week, and nothing happened.”

“Are they the ones you ordered last week? You said they were the first physical copies you ever owned,” his mother pointed out. “You probably did something different than before. Maybe you have to drop a manga for your Quirk to activate?”

Izuku didn’t think that was it—but she had a point. He hadn’t had physical manga for very long, so there weren’t many differences in how he handled them. Usually, he held the book by the cover and flipped through the pages with his fingers.

That’s it!

“When I picked it up, my hand touched the inside of the book! I don’t remember ever doing that before. I usually hold it at the edges and never actually touch the panels inside. Maybe that’s the activation requirement!” Izuku said excitedly, rushing toward his room, where Volume 6 of Hunter x Hunter still lay on his bed—open to the page he had touched.

Izuku grabbed it and turned it over to see which page it was.

“Uhh, Izuku. Is that man eating his arm?” His mother’s worried voice came from over his shoulder.

The page his hand had touched was during the fight between Kastro and Hisoka—right when Hisoka was biting off a piece of his own arm that had been previously torn off by Kastro. Hisoka was playing with his opponent’s psyche.

Of course, for someone without any context, it wouldn’t look nice.

Just great. Why did it always have to be the most awkward scene parents walked in on? Well... it was still better than when his mom entered his room while he was watching Game of Thrones and Khal Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen were—well, yeah. That explanation had been worse. It took a while to convince his mother that he wasn’t watching porn.

“It’s a bit of a darker manga, Mom. Sorry,” Izuku replied awkwardly, quickly adding, “Losing your arm or eating human flesh is not necessary for using Nen!”

“I see,” she replied dryly.

“Well, I must have touched Hisoka on this page for my Quirk to activate,” Izuku muttered as his finger moved toward Hisoka’s image and touched it again.

He felt nothing.