My Hero Academia: Master Planner

Izuku Midoriya was a genius.

Not a mere prodigy, not the top of his class. A genius—one whose intellect set him apart like a star alone in the void.

By age four, he was solving problems that made high schoolers sweat. By ten, he was consulting college textbooks for fun. At fifteen, there were whispers among government labs and support gear R&D departments. They called him the second-coming of Nikola Tesla.

And yet, all they ever saw was the lack of a quirk.

That damning, final stamp. Quirkless.

It didn't matter that his neural processing speeds rivaled most A.I. algorithms. It didn't matter that he built a working prosthetic limb out of junkyard parts at age nine. Because in this world, brilliance was nothing without power. And Izuku Midoriya had none.

The one thing he did have was a garage full of discarded hopes—and a project that whispered to him in his dreams.

Tonight, he finished it.

A sharp hiss of pneumatic release echoed through the room as four mechanical limbs—sleek, steel-gray, spiderlike—flexed in perfect sync behind him. They extended from a rig fused to the synthetic plate along his spine, blinking softly with the green pulse of neural connectivity.

He exhaled. Goggles fogged. Sweat trickled into the corners of his mouth.

And he smiled.

"Finally," he whispered, the syllables hanging in the charged air like prophecy.

⸻

The next morning, Izuku stepped into the classroom like a man reborn. The dull fluorescent lights didn't bother him. The low murmur of students didn't touch him. He walked with purpose. With silence. With satisfaction.

His classmates noticed.

The muttering started almost instantly.

"Is that Deku?"

"What's with him?"

"He's... smiling?"

Normally, he dragged himself in like a corpse—sleep-deprived, twitchy, barely acknowledging the world. But today his eyes were wide. Focused. Awake.

Even Bakugo—King of Explosions, self-proclaimed heir to All Might's throne—looked up with suspicion. His chair screeched across the floor as he stood.

"The hell are you so happy about, Deku?"

Izuku looked at him. Not flinched. Not winced. Looked.

He tilted his head, the way a scientist might examine a lab rat that had learned a new trick.

"Good morning, Kacchan."

Bakugo froze mid-snarl.

The hell was that tone?

Not fear. Not sarcasm. Something worse.

Detachment.

⸻

Class moved on as usual, but unease clung to the walls like smoke.

The final period began with the teacher holding up a stack of future career forms.

"Since you're all third-years, it's time to seriously consider your next steps. Of course, most of you are aiming for the hero track..."

The class roared to life in excited chatter.

The teacher smiled awkwardly. "All right, all right, calm down. Though Bakugo, if I remember correctly, you're applying to UA?"

Bakugo stood like it was expected of him. "Damn right I am. I'm not wasting time at some third-rate school with third-rate losers."