Dads for Deku: Confide and Comfort
Izuku fell to the mat again. Once again, he got back up. Iwao grinned and threw another punch at him. He dodged and made a move to sweep out Iwao’s legs. As Iwao moved to counter it, but to his surprise the kid instead went for a punch to the throat. The punch was only a few millimeters from being a devastating blow. They’d work on that. Iwao grabbed Izuku’s arm and lifted him off the ground, but Izuku kicked him in the stomach then headbutted him in the nose. Both hits sent pain searing through his body, and while he’d been through much worse in the past, Iwao was not ready for it this time and dropped Izuku. Izuku immediately rolled away and stood up again. Iwao rose up and took on a more relaxed posture, indicating the spar was over.
“Not bad kid. Nice feint, good reaction to me grabbing you. Though it’s better if they don’t get their hands on you in the first place. If I had Koichi and Pop joining me, you’d have been beaten to a pulp,” Iwao said.
“Yes sensei! I’ll keep that in mind,” Izuku said. He patted his forehead “Maybe I should also have some form of head protection for headbutts too, but...” He glanced down, suddenly looking glum.
“What’s eating you this time?” Iwao said.
“Do you really think I can do this? Fight fully quirked villains? Even without a quirk of my own?” he said.
“This again? We’ve already been over this. Of course you can! I did it even after I lost my quirk.”
“But that’s just it! You were a pro-hero! You’d had experience! You were trained!”
“And? You’re being trained now. And as for my experience, most of that was done with my quirk. Now, you’re a smart kid. Tell me, what do you think happens when someone whose fights usually involved using his quirk to be faster than his opponents suddenly loses it?”
“You slowed down?”
“Yes, and tell me, how do you think that would affect my fight performance?”
“It would impede it right?”
“Oh, that’s an understatement. First fight I had after I lost my Quirk, I got my ass kicked. My opponent was moving so fast, and I was moving so slow… I only barely came out ahead because he was drunk, I was stronger and I was desperate. But still, I only won with raw strength and desperation. And a metal hipflask. At the level I was at, I couldn’t take on a decent mugger, let alone someone like Eraserhead-“
“You fought Eraserhead?! “But he’s a Pro-Hero?! Wait. YOU FOUGHT A PRO-HERO?!”
“Yeah, but that’s a story for another time, now let me boost your self-confidence so we can get back to learning how to fight villains!”
Izuku clamped his mouth shut, cutting off the torrent of questions he had obviously been about to unleash. Instead he just said, “Yes sir.”
“Good, now anyway where was I? Oh right I sucked. It took weeks of training, getting used to being Quirkless, and several drunken brawls until I was even decent again. It took months for me to really get good. And I was already an adult who’d spent years fighting with my Quirk, so this involved me unlearning and relearning so much about how to fight. You don’t have to do any of that.”
“But, weren’t you trained in Quirkless fighting before?”
“Trained? Yes. But there’s a difference between occasionally training for it, and it suddenly being your only way of fighting. Especially against real villains. Most heroes who use their quirks to fight are only ok fighters without them. You on the other hand? You’ll be a master.”
Izuku’s eyes began to reignite.
“You’re Quirkless. You have always been Quirkless. You’ll probably always be Quirkless. This means you don’t have to waste time learning how to fight with your Quirk, then learning how to fight without it like did. Instead you can focus on fighting without it and defeating even opponents with powerful Quirks using only your strength, wits, and brass knuckles!”
Izuku looked at him with cautious optimism, the spark in his eyes a small flame, and said “You really think I can be as good as you?”
“Kid, you already have a more heroic heart than me. And if you keep it up and don’t get too banged up out there, you’ll be ten times the hero I ever was. License or no license.”
Izuku’s eyes shone like the sun, in spite of the tears that began to form (because this is Izuku) as he gave Iwao a determined smile. “Yes sir! Thank you sensei! For the training, and…for believing in me.
“Your welcome. Now let’s get back to training so you can learn how to beat villains to a pulp!”
“And save people right?”
“Yeah sure, that too.”
