Chapter Text
Transcendence (n): existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level
Izuku Midoriya slowly woke to pain, muffled shouting, and the familiar feeling of a hand running through his hair. What was going on? He opened his eyes but his vision was blurred, only showing him a pink blob against white walls. It was Mei, then.
He opened his mouth, but she pressed her finger against his lips.
“I… I’m going to do something, Zuzu, but first I need you to tell me: do you trust me with your life?”
He blinked. That was kind of a dumb question. “Of course.” It came out weak and raspy, as if he hadn’t spoken for a week. For all he knew, that was true.
She lifted his head and slipped something over it. Some sort of helmet? It wasn’t very comfortable. Her hand rested on his cheek for a moment.
“Be strong.”
And then his mind was torn apart.
[INITIALIZING...]
> full systems check . . . . . . . all systems nominal
> establishing connection . . . . . . connection secure
> brain scan: complete
> initializing download
“Give it up, Deku.”
Izuku blinked confusedly. “Give what up, Kacchan?”
Kacchan rolled his eyes. “Your whole hero fantasy. You’re Quirkless. It’s not happening.”
“But… we’re gonna be heroes together-”
“As if! You’re just a shitty, useless Deku who’d probably get himself killed by the first villain you fight. Give it up.”
> downloading .
He stared at the small, pink-haired girl who just moved in next door.
“Hi! I’m Mei! You wanna be friends?”
He started to smile, but stopped. He couldn’t lie to her. “I, uh… I’m Quirkless.”
She blinked. “Oh. That’s okay. Tell you what, I’ll build you a Quirk!”
His head tilted curiously. “You can do that?”
She smiled. “Yeah! Come on, I’ll show you!”
> downloading . .
Mei stared at the contraptions strapped to her legs in betrayal. “My babies, how could you do this to me?”
He looked up from Hero Analysis Notebook #4. “Hmmm. You’re probably missing some sort of stabilizer - kind of like the hero Wake. His Quirk is shooting highly pressurised streams of water from his body, and in his earlier days he had to shoot from both his hands and feet to stay in the air.”
The pink-haired girl considered this. “So I just need to add rockets to my arms?”
“Probably, yeah.”
> downloading . . .
He sat cross-legged in a by-then familiar room, surrounded by half-built devices and blueprints.
“Ugh! I can’t believe they disqualified me just because my Zero-Point Energy Generator exploded! It only injured a third of the judges, and this is revolutionary technology we’re talking about!”
He shrugged. “I mean, their safety concerns were valid. They were standing eight yards away when it blew.”
She harrumphed. “Safety schmafety - they’re just wusses.”
> downloading . . . .
He stared as the charred remains of Hero Analysis Notebook #11 soared out the window.
The sugary scent of nitroglycerin filled his nostrils, bringing his attention back to Kacchan. The angry red eyes stared into his own.
“That wasn’t very nice, Kacchan.”
“Don’t call me that, you shitty Deku! When will you understand? You’re just a useless, Quirkless loser who’ll never amount to anything! Why do you even bother to keep trying?”
> downloading . . . . .
Mei’s head swung down from the top bunk, bronze eyes sparkling with mischief. “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout, Zuzu?”
He smiled wistfully. “How when we grow up, we’re gonna make the best hero agency ever.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, duh! With your brains and my babies, we’ll be unstoppable!”
He eyed her carefully. “You promise?”
She grinned. “Hatsume guarantee!”
> downloading . . . . . .
His hand speared through the sludge, grabbing his once-friend’s arm and pulling with all his strength. The villain retaliated, striking him hard enough to launch him across the street - but his grip never broke.
With Kacchan out of the way, the heroes were free to converge on the villain - but the red eyed boy turned angrily towards him. “I DIDN’T NEED YOUR HELP, YOU SHITTY DEKU!”
“Well, that’s a shame,” he muttered weakly. “Guess I’ll die for nothing.”
The red eyes freeze and flick down at him, at the piece of rebar sticking through Izuku’s chest. The rebar that would have pierced Kacchan himself, had he taken the brunt of the impact.
The red puddle that was rapidly growing under them.
“SON OF A BITCH, DEKU! SOMEONE CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!”
> download . . . . . . . complete
> initializing neural emulator . . .
Izuku Midoriya was very suddenly… aware.
That was all he could really say, since there wasn’t much to actually be aware of. He didn’t hear anything, nor did he feel anything. He went to open his eyes, before suddenly noticing that he didn’t actually have any anymore.
How peculiar.
He was actually rather sure that he should be panicking right then. If he were to be entirely honest with himself, he’d have to admit he was rather prone to panic in general.
> new device detected
Suddenly, he had sight. It was terribly low resolution, but it was. The vast majority of his field of view was taken up by the distressed face of his childhood friend Mei Hatsume.
“C’mon baby, please work! Zuzu, you in there?”
He would have blinked, had he had eyes. “Uh… yeah?”
His voice sounded synthetic and awful, but at least he still had it.
A massive grin split Mei’s face. “YES! They called me crazy, but who’s laughing now!”
“Mei, what did you do this time?”
“Zuzu, I saved you.”
“Uuuuuh, thanks?”
“No, I saved you. Your brain is running on my computer right now.”
"Well, that would do it, yeah.”