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Chapter Text

The next two years passed and the boys grew up, but never grew apart. If anything, they grew closer. Hisashi smiled out his front door as his son ran to jump into the car in their driveway. Since they started elementary school a few months ago, Inko and Mitsuki had alternated taking the boys to and from their school each day. The boys, now six, were basically inseparable.

Hisashi took a sip of his coffee and looked out at the sun shining on the waves lapping at the sands. He smiled to himself, feeling honestly glad that Katsuki was his son's best friend. Most kids treated him differently when they found out he was the son of the number eight hero, but Katsuki didn't.

He reminded Izuku to keep his eyes forward, to focus on their goal of getting into UA and becoming the best heroes in the world. Everything the two boys did together was towards that end. Sure, the blonde was a little gruff sometimes, but even he was worn down by the relentless tide of happiness that was Izuku. They gradually pushed each other closer to a happy medium, Izuku becoming more confident, while Katsuki mellowed out.

Later that day, Katsuki was sitting on that same beach behind the Midoriya household. He was also happy he was friends with Izuku, although he didn't say it often. He was never good at that sort of thing, preferring to speak with his actions, rather than his words. They would usually see each other at least six days a week, barring when Izuku would go on trips with his father, and he couldn't have been happier about it.

Katsuki knew that to be the best, you had to have a rival. Anybody who had ever watched a show or read a book knew that. There were lots of stories where the characters had to search long and hard for their rival, but Katsuki was lucky. He didn't even have to look for his rival, he was basically born into having one. It was an added bonus that his perfect rival was also his best friend.

However, it wasn't always like that. There was a time when the boys were playing at a park that it almost all came crashing down. A couple days after Izuku's fourth birthday, the two boys were playing together with a couple other kids in the woods, when they had tried crossing a log that was suspended over a small stream.

Katsuki had lost his footing and had fallen into the water below. The other kids looked over the log, waiting for him to come back up, but Izuku did something else. So quickly that he had no idea how he did it, Izuku was down in the water with him, hand outstretched to help pull him up with a look of genuine concern in his eyes.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Izuku asked, concern in his voice as well. "I was afraid you might've hit your head or something."

Katsuki's vision went red. He didn't need help, he didn't ask for help, so that meant that Izuku was looking down on him by assuming he needed or wanted his help. With a roar of anger, he tried to push the offending child back into the water himself for daring to patronize him. Halfway through the motion, he caught a change in Izuku's eyes. His eyes flashed a bright green for a moment and were filled with a look of anger. Instead of falling backwards, Izuku had caught his hand by the wrist. Izuku stared at the boy with fury in his face.

"What was that?" Izuku asked, glaring at him.

Katsuki was stunned. After a few seconds, he half-heartedly tried to wrest his hand free, but his attention was still on Izuku. "Let me go! You don't get to look down on me." He growled in response.

"Look down?" Izuku's voice seethed with anger, much deeper than normal; Katsuki noticed that some dark green scales had appeared on his neck. "I wanted to make sure that my friend was okay. How is that looking down on you?"

"I want to be the strongest hero! Being the strongest means never needing help," Katsuki spat back at him.

"Are you stupid?" If he wasn't so furious, Izuku might have started laughing. "I thought you were smart... My mom says you're smart, is she lying to me?"

"I am smart-" Katsuki tried to continue but was cut off.

"I thought you were strong!"

"I am-" Katsuki was cut off again.

"Then why did you do that?"

"I told you that I don't want anyone's help!" Izuku's grip on his arm was only tightening, scales slowly spreading over his hand. It was starting to get a little painful.

"Is that what you think strength is!? I thought you told me that you were smart! Do you think heroes don't need help sometimes!?" Izuku didn't give him a chance to respond as he continued to yell. "Heroes need help all the time! You watch the hero news as much as I do; I can't believe you think that! My dad needs help all the time! Even All Might has a sidekick!"

Katsuki tried to speak, but words didn't come out of his mouth. Instead, it just hung open slightly. The anger in his eyes was fading into something more akin to shock.

"Asking for help isn't weakness. It takes someone who is strong -not simply physically strong, but someone truly strong- to ask for help. We're only human, and it's the weak and foolish ones who can't admit that." Izuku threw Katsuki's arm back, knocking the blonde down into the water again. "My dad told me that. Are you calling both my mom and my dad liars?"

Katsuki could only stare up at him in shock and a little fear. The deeper voice coming out of Izuku's throat was causing his fight-or-flight instincts to start flaring in the back of his mind.

"People need people; it's others that make us stronger. He said that too." Izuku threw his arm forward once again, extending his open hand to help the boy up. "So, let's try this again. Let me help you up, so we can keep going. I pull you up, you'll pull me up some other time: we'll both become strong that way."

Izuku's voice raised back up to his normal, high pitched tone during the last few sentences. His eyes lost that strange glow and his furious expression had vanished, replaced by his normal wide smile. Katsuki could only stare for a few moments, as he tried to deal with what had just happened. He eventually raised his arm shakily and grasped the outstretched hand. Izuku seemed to have almost forgotten the interaction had even happened, simply pulling the blonde up and running off with a smile, but Katsuki couldn't stop thinking about what he had said.

That was the day that Katsuki understood that Izuku was something else. There was something instinctually unsettling with the way he talked and the way his eyes moved during that conversation, and what he had said didn't sound like it came out of the mind of a four-year-old.

Katsuki knew that he had found his rival; it was right in front of his face the entire time. The other kids kept telling him how great his quirk was and how he was going to be the greatest hero, but Izuku didn't talk like that. He called him out when he did something dumb, and he wasn't afraid to let his displeasure be known. Katsuki was always pushing, be it himself or others, and he had found the right person to push back.

He never thanked Izuku for pulling him up; he wasn't great at talking about his feelings. So he expressed his gratitude in the best way he knew: pushing Izuku harder. In response, Izuku returned the favor. The two of them would train nearly every day. They weren't old enough to lift real weights or anything, but they did what they could. Izuku was nearly as competitive as him, and every playground game of tag or hide-and-seek would cause both boys to give it their all, much to the dismay of many of the other kids.

That wasn't to say their relationship was suddenly perfect, or that they always got along. Izuku was almost too friendly for his own good, in his opinion. He was friends with almost every single kid in their grade, not just their own class. It annoyed him a little, but he knew that getting angry about it was dumb. He used to get frustrated when his friend would get distracted, but that didn't help. He learned to just smirk and let it happen; there was no use in trying to stop Izuku when he had his mind set on something, and he was determined to be friends with everyone.

That wasn't what really got to him, no, it was the unsettling way he went about it. It seemed like it was a game to him. Just about every day, he would go up to someone he didn't really know or wasn't really friends with and just start talking to them. He would start asking them questions or talking to them about seemingly random stuff, but as Katsuki listened, he quickly realized that Izuku's words were anything but random.

Every topic he talked to them about was carefully selected to make them the most comfortable and open. With some kids he talked about heroes, others he asked them about their families, others he talked about homework or their hobbies. With one kid he had just talked about flowers. This convinced Katsuki; this absolutely was a game for Izuku. One he was very invested in winning, as the prize was friends.

By the end of the second month of their first year of elementary, everyone in their class was his 'friend'. They weren't really friends, in the sense that Katsuki was his friend, but they were people who seemed to be open to talking with him and maybe playing games on the playground with him. Katsuki kept it to himself that he thought most of these kids only liked him because of his dad. Which to be fair, while Izuku was great at talking to people about what they liked, it was basically impossible to get him to talk about himself. So, for the other kids in the class, there was nothing else to like him for, because they didn't really know him. Tough luck for those kids, since Izuku was a fantastic person to have as your friend.

Katsuki knew he irritated his friend, too. "Kacchan, be nice!" was uttered at least once a day. He said it a lot less than he used to, so that was progress. He couldn't help it, he just wasn't as outgoing as Izuku. He spoke to a few people in class, but he couldn't keep up with his friend when it came to talking. That was another part of their friendship that worked so well. When they hung out to train or talk heroes, Izuku loved to talk, and would do so nearly the entire time and Katsuki would speak when he had something to say. He wasn't introverted per se, but he was more than willing to keep his thoughts to himself. Nearly everyone except Izuku wasn't really worth his time.

He tried to catch himself whenever a thought like that crossed his mind. Thinking like that was arrogant, and Uncle Hisashi said that arrogance wasn't an attribute a hero should have. Katsuki always listened to him, especially when he talked about being a hero. He would have had to truly been an idiot to ignore hero advice from someone in the top ten. Uncle Hisashi was a great hero, and his second favorite, after All Might, of course, but he was also just a good guy. He was smart enough to know that some heroes put on a friendly charade when dealing with the press or fans, but Stormclaw was the real thing. It made sense, Izuku had to have learned that smile from someone.

Auntie Inko was no slouch, either. She was shrewd and perceptive and a lot brighter than most adults he knew. His father often told him that Izuku had gotten his brains from his mother. She also had a natural talent for empathy and a drive to help people that rivalled any hero. She was the one who got him to finally stop crying when Izuku had accidentally broken his finger when they got a little too into their training.

He didn't cry much, but he felt like his first broken bone was a good excuse. He was panicking, not only from the pain, but from the way his finger was bending in a way it shouldn't. Izuku did his best to help him, of course, but the dragon boy was almost freaking out more than he was. She had swept him up in her arms as soon as she could reach them and managed to calm him down nearly instantly with her kind words and reassuring hug.

Auntie Inko's ability to tell what people were feeling and how to help them was something he didn't think he would ever understand, but he was even more grateful because of that. Maybe if she was born with a more powerful quirk or a more adventurous personality, both of Izuku's parents would have been pro heroes.

He smirked to himself. He was really glad that he had all three of the Midoriyas looking out for him. Who knows what kind of person he would be if Auntie and Uncle weren't there to help him, and Izuku wasn't there to keep him honest.

"Kacchan?" Izuku's voice pulled him out of his reverie. "It's not like you to be caught up in your thoughts like that. Am I rubbing off on you?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." His response to the teasing was half-hearted at best. His competitive smirk grew across his face. "You ready to show your dad how far we've come?"

"You better be!" Hisashi was walking down the path behind his house towards the two six-year-olds on the beach. Hisashi knew how to nurture their competitive nature without inflating their egos, something that could have been quite dangerous if left unchecked. About once a month he got the boys together on a Sunday afternoon to benchmark their progress. The boys loved it: it meant they got to hang out and see how much they improved all at once. "Which one of you is going first this time?"

Katsuki threw his hand up. "Izuku went first last month. It's my turn."

"Alright. Let's see here…" Hisashi was flipping through the notebook in his hand. "You've both done your warm-ups, right?" Seeing both boys nod, he continued. "Let's start with the basics then. Katsuki, let off the biggest one-handed explosion you can do safely. You know the drill; no hurting yourself. A hero who hurts himself has no place on the battlefield." He pulled out a small device as he lectured.

"Yes, Uncle," Katsuki droned before jogging several meters away from his friend. He planted his feet and let out a long breath, centering himself. He raised his hand up to the sky and let his quirk go. With a grunt, an explosion ripped from his palm, kicking up the sand around him and scaring the gulls further down the beach.

The device beeped a couple times in Hisashi's hand. "That was an 8% improvement in raw force produced, and a 5% increase in explosion size. Good results." He wrote down the data from the device. "Alright Izuku, same thing. Remember how I taught you to use your diaphragm."

"Yes, sir!" Izuku traded places with his friend, both exchanging playful jabs at each other as they passed. He planted his feet like Katsuki had and took a deep breath. He focused on pulling out his power like he had learned to on this very beach two years prior, centering it in the center of his chest. He leaned forward into his breath as he opened his mouth and let his attack flow forward. Green smoke poured from the boy's mouth, shooting forward several meters before billowing outward and dispersing in the air.

Hisashi smiled proudly, recalling with a chuckle the first time they had found out exactly what Izuku's breath was. It was only a few weeks after the first time he had shown him how to create his claw that he had taught his son how to use the signature attack of the dragon quirk.

"Focus your power in the center of your chest, as the base of your lungs. You should feel it pooling, coalescing." He shot a glance at his son, "Uh, do you know what that word means?" Izuku nodded quickly, prompting him to continue with a small chuckle. "Of course you do."

"Where was I? Right, feel the sensation in your chest, but don't pull it out like you do for your scales. Instead, breathe deep and fill your lungs. You should be able to breathe much deeper than normal." He demonstrated by taking a great breath of air himself. "Once you are ready, release it. Remember what I said, don't try to pull it out; let your breath push it out." He showed by letting a great storm of lighting erupt from his throat and into the sky, crackling with power.

Izuku's eyes sparkled in awe at the display before he caught himself staring. He widened his feet slightly, ready to try. Hisashi saw his son begin to strain, attempting to pool his quirk in his chest. The boy took a deep breath after a few seconds, gulping down air. "Okay, here I go!" He opened his mouth and pushed with all his might.

What came out wasn't what Hisashi had expected. He truthfully didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this. A pathetic puff of dark green gas escaped from the boy's mouth, dissipating quickly in the sea breeze. Hisashi stared, marveling at what he had seen. He had seen lightning, fire, frost and even acid breath, but never...gas? What exactly was it?

"How was that, dad?" Izuku asked hopefully, panting slightly.

Hisashi smelled a faint acrid scent on the breeze, crinkling his nose slightly. "Good, son. That wasn't much, but that's to be expected of your first time. Let's continue other training for now, we can come back to the breath weapon later." His son nodded, ready to keep pushing himself.

A few weeks later Hisashi had organized a doctor's appointment for his son to find out exactly what his breath was. After several tests, it became clear that Izuku breath was a poisonous one. Functionally useless against non-living targets, but potentially deadly against living ones. That wasn't a damning statement, all the breath attacks of the dragon quirk were deadly when used recklessly.

Izuku was worried about the results. "Poison doesn't sound very heroic," he had lamented on the ride home. "It's just good for hurting people."

"Izuku, I don't know what kind of humanitarian applications for fire or acid that you're thinking about, but I assure you that those situations don't come up very often." Hisashi had laughed a little at his boy's whining. "Part of being a hero is stopping bad people. Do you want to know what I think? I think you're pretty lucky."

His son has looked up at him when he said that, silently asking him to elaborate. "Well you see, there are a lot of quirks out there that make their owner tougher, and a lot of people who are just plain tough. Some bigger villains don't go down even after a blast of my lightning. There's not a whole lot of gas-based quirks out there in my experience, being able to assault people's breathing can be very useful." He put his finger up emphasize his point. "No matter how tough someone's skin is or how dense their musculature, they still have to breathe."

Hisashi knew the look on his son's face well. He had placed his hand on his chin and was staring intently at the ground. The muttering that soon began only confirmed that Izuku had entered deep thought. It broke quicker than he expected it to and Izuku looked straight at him again. "Dad, you can control the output of your breath, right?"

"Well sure, not every attack is my strongest." He was pleased that his son had figured out where he was trying to lead him. "Once you get a handle on it, you'll be able to adjust the potency to what you need." This led to Izuku resuming his muttering with an intensity usually only reserved for when he was analyzing heroes. Hisashi chuckled a bit to himself. He supposed that's what he was doing.

"-ad! Dad!" Izuku was raising his voice slightly to get his attention, pulling his father out of his memories. "First Kacchan and now you, what is going on today? Why is everybody spacing out?"

"Oh, uh, sorry boys, I was just reminiscing." Hisashi said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. He looked at the device in his hand, never losing his proud smile. "Great job, son. That was about 9% more volume than last month. Let's keep going with the other tests."

At the end of the day, the boys were exhausted, but proud. They were moving forward, like always. To them, their futures were bright and there was nothing that could stop them.

Notes:

I've been absolutely floored by the reaction this has gotten. So many of you have been leaving comments and kudos, and I'm grateful for each one of you. Unfortunately, I can't respond to many of the comments for risk of spoilers, but I hope you'll all enjoy what I have in store.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to the next one. Leave a comment below if you want to make me feel special