Izuku has always had something building inside of him. It was a strange feeling that pushed out from within him as he was drawn to the pull of the water in the lake behind his home in Chiba and the tapping of the rain on the windowsill.
At one, it was a little tickle in the back of his throat as he gurgled while his mother floated him into her arms. At two, he felt like he was getting stretched as the pressure grew within him. At three, he felt as though he was being pulled as tight as a rubber band. At four he couldn't stop quivering with anticipation as he waited for the day he would get his Quirk.
Just three weeks after his fourth birthday, he was as taut as a wire when he belched a huge stream of water from his mouth while on his way to preschool. Choking on an endless amount of water with tears in his eyes, he felt ready to explode as the pressure became too much for him to bear. He then burst into droplets and collapsed into a puddle before his mother's eyes. After pulling himself back together and putting his clothes on, he soon learned that his new Quirk was more than just shooting water from his mouth and becoming it. He could control almost any source of water with his mind and even fly.
His Quirk is a unique mutation of both of his parents' Quirks. And it was awesome!
Armed with his super-strong Quirk, christened "Liquid Body", Izuku plans on becoming the greatest hero in the world with the help of his Childhood Friend Mina and many other companions he'll meet along the way.
Raindancer is a My Hero Academia Fanfic written by Terath on Archive of Our Own. In a world where he grew up in Chiba with Mina Ashido, Eijirou Kirishima, and Itsuka Kendou for best friends and an extremely powerful water Quirk to call his own, he carves his own path towards becoming the world's greatest hero.
The story can be read here.
Beware of unmarked spoilers.
Raindancer provides examples of:
- The Ace: Izuku is recognized as this by his peers, being kind-hearted, academically gifted, having an absurdly powerful Quirk, and earning the highest score on the U.A. Entrance Exam along with Inasa Yoarashi. He's the first to rush in to save people when they're in trouble and easily one of the best, if not the best, fighters in his class. He's also extremely fit and well-muscled for his age thanks to dancing and training with Mina.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In this story, Eijirou's father was brutally murdered for being Quirkless while visiting a friend in the Aichi Prefecture. Inko also mentions in the first chapter that Quirkless people tend to have high suicide rates, a low life expectancy, and tend to be the targets of scorn. Then there is the headline that a 14-year-old Quirkless girl attempted suicide at Orudera Middle School, which is the school Bakugou attends and a nod to the latter telling a Quirkless Izuku to take a swan dive off a roof if he wanted to get a Quirk in his next life.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Played with. Bakugou for the most part is exactly the same as he was in canon. However, chapter 15 not only has him completely unaffected after a Quirkless girl committed suicide because of what he told her but also mocked the deceased girl for it. While we never actually get to see how this would affect Bakugou in canon, the fact that he is impacted by less severe actions (like Midoriya trying to save him from the Sludge Villain) does hint that someone killing themselves because of his actions would affect him much more than here. However, the next chapter shows that he actually is still affected by the action and the girl survived her suicide attempt seemingly making this a subversion.
- Adaptation Personality Change:
- His powerful Quirk and close-knit group of friends have made Izuku far more confident in himself and his abilities and significantly more social, even showboating with his Quirk a little while hanging out after school even though it's illegal. On the other hand, he's embarrassed by how strong he is and wishes people would stop putting him on a pedestal. Because of this, he remains high-strung and shy around people he doesn't know.
- Due to the changes in events, Monoma is depicted as withdrawn and almost demure when compared to his loud, mocking canon counterpart. He expects Izuku, The Ace of his class, to be a jerk and is astonished when Izuku shakes his hand without hesitation despite the nature of Monoma's Quirk. He is also stunned when his costume design is praised by Izuku and Sero for being cool-looking before going into his usual lofty persona.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In this story, Mina, Eijirou, and Itsuka are Izuku's Childhood Friends long before they attend U.A., having all grown up in Chiba together. By contrast, Bakugou, who canon Izuku idolized his entire life, is a complete and utter stranger to this Izuku and the two are immediately at each other's throats when they meet because of Bakugou's treatment of Eijirou.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Izuku is heavily implied to be either gay or bisexual, given his flustered responses to seeing Eijirou's new look and after Sero flaunts his form-fitting costume. Similarly, Itsuka gets flustered when she mistakes a conversation she has with Mina to be a love confession. Eijirou is also blushing when he sees Izuku's surprised response to his Expository Hairstyle Change.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: Izuku isn't born Quirkless nor does he have One For All, instead boasting an incredibly powerful water Quirk. Similarly, Hisashi Midoriya can shoot streams of freshwater from his mouth rather than breathe fire.
- Affectionate Nickname: The Chiba kids have these for each other, most of them through Mina.
- Izuku gets called "Zuzu" and sometimes "Izu".
- Eijirou gets called "Kiri", "Kiri-chan", and "Ei".
- Itsuka has "Itsu" and "Ken-chan".
- Ascended Extra: As Izuku's closest friends, Itsuka and Mina get far more screentime than they do in the original My Hero Academia. Hisashi also appears in quite a number of scenes and seems to commute rather than work overseas, making him much more present in Izuku's life.
- Apologetic Attacker: Izuku apologizes to a female Villain after he freezes her hands to the floor and breaks her nose.Izuku: Sorry, lady, but it's better than caving in your whole face!
- Awesome by Analysis: Izuku is still a Hero nerd who loves studying people and their Quirks, recommending that Itsuka take up martial arts and inspiring Eijirou to become a Hero with his hardening Quirk. He can quickly come up with new applications for his own Quirk once he gets an idea in his head and can easily work with others because of his extensive knowledge of their capabilities.
- Badass Teacher: U.A.'s faculty is this, given that they're almost entirely comprised of Pro Heroes. Sekijiro Kan, better known as Vlad King, gets far more time to shine in this story because Izuku is placed into 1-B instead of 1-A.
- Barrier Warrior: Izuku can shape water into a barrier to deflect and repel attacks and dissipate fireballs.
- Big Damn Heroes: All Might, as usual, comes just in time to save the day. This also gets lampshaded by a beaten and exhausted Kan.All Might: [bursts through the roof] You can rest easy now Young Midoriya, Young Tetsutetsu, Vlad King. I am here.
Kan: I gotta ask, All Might. Do you plan your entrances, or do they all just kind of work out that you arrive at the perfect moment?
All Might: Honestly, at this point, it’s just kind of like this. You eventually get used to it! - Bizarre Human Biology: Pony Tsunotori, the American transfer student in Class 1-B, has dextrocardia, meaning that her heart leans to the right instead of the left. This ends up saving her life when she's shot through the chest by a Villain.
- Breaking the Fellowship: The Chiba kids are dismayed to learn that they've been placed into different classes at U.A. Eijirou and Mina ended up in 1-A, while Izuku and Itsuka are in 1-B. This is especially notable for Mina and Izuku, who have been together since preschool.
- Busman's Holiday: Class 1-B encounters this when a trip to Datomiru Museum quickly becomes a fight for their lives as a group of Villains attack the day they visit.
- Childhood Friend: Izuku and Mina have known each other since they were toddlers and they spent all of middle school with Eijirou and Itsuka.
- Combination Attack: Izuku works with Inasa Yoarashi to take down the zero-point robot during the U.A. Entrance Exam. Izuku fills the sky with vapor and heats it up to generate storm clouds before Inasa stirs the clouds with wind to generate an electric charge that fries the robot with a massive lightning bolt.
- Dance Battler: Izuku grew up dancing with Mina and they both end up picking up capoeira while studying to get into U.A., making them both nimble and agile fighters who kick their foes in the face.
- Darker and Edgier: Quirkless people are even worse off than they are in canon, being targeted for hate crimes in a manner akin to racism in real life, having high suicide rates (with one such suicide attempt happening at the school Bakugou attends), and low life expectancies. Eijirou gets hit with a dose of Adaptational Angst Upgrade due to his father being murdered as a hate crime. Compare this to the original series, where the Quirkless are more-or-less normal members of society and find employment despite not having any superpowers. Pony Tsunotori and Hiryu Rin also get severely injured during a group of Villains attack on the museum they were visiting, prompting the U.S. and Chinese embassies to pull them out of U.A. and demand concessions.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Izuku's Quirk is this. It renders him Nigh-Invulnerable to physical attacks, grants him a wide variety of attacking and defending options, great mobility, and plenty of utility for helping others. But at the same time, he has to pace himself to make sure that he doesn't suffer from Quirk exhaustion too soon and needs to carefully moderate his temperature while in liquid form, lest he kill himself by returning to flesh and blood at a temperature no human can withstand. There's also his Power Incontinence that makes him vomit up water whenever he's too worked up, potentially flooding any building he's standing in.
- Elemental Baggage: Discussed. Izuku is able to produce an endless amount of water and even suck up the contents of entire rain cloudsnote with complete disregard for the First Law of Thermodynamics. He then says that many Quirks violate the laws of physics, so it isn't exactly surprising.Eijirou: [frowning in thought] Dude, doesn't your Quirk, break physics?
Izuku: [shrugging] Doesn’t everything these days? Physics have been kinda loose for years I think. - Elemental Shapeshifter: The core of Izuku's Quirk, "Liquid Body", is his ability to produce and become water at will. He later learns how to turn himself into ice.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: As per canon, Eijirou tries to ditch his timid, unconfident past by styling his black, droopy hair into spikes and dying it bright red to emulate his idol, Crimson Riot.
- Feed It with Fire: Normally, Kan's blood-based Quirk is useful for restraining Villains. Unfortunately, he ends up running into a Villain who can eat blood to empower himself while visiting a museum with 1-B.
- First-Name Basis: The Chiba kids are on this by the time they attend U.A., but the thought of it initially startles Itsuka.
- Funny Foreigner: Pony Tsunotori is an American transfer student who speaks in imperfect Japanese, frequently getting Tetsutetsu's name wrong by calling him "Tetsutetsutetsu-san".
- Happily Married: Inko and Hisashi are clearly this, engaging in playful banter over which of them contributed more to their son's amazing Quirk and they are never seen fighting or arguing.
- Harmless Freezing: Downplayed. Izuku frequently freezes his foes in place to incapacitate them but has to take care when thawing them lest he cause permanent damage or send them into shock. The screams of his opponents make it clear that this experience is anything but comfortable. He can also inflict Literally Shattered Lives, but has only done so against enemy weapons.
- Heroic RRoD: The first time Izuku decides to use his pressure slicer ability, he holds it in by clenching his mouth shut while he churns the water in his chest. This was physically painful for him as his bones and organs stretched to accommodate the buildup of water until he finally released it when he couldn't take it anymore. The resulting stream of water was so powerful that it bored a hole straight through steel and impacted a rock a hundred meters away, but it also broke Izuku's jaw.
- Horn Attack: Pony's Quirk, Horn Cannon, allows her to blast away anyone who gets pricked by one of her horns.
- Humble Hero: While Izuku enjoys showing off, he does not like being placed on a pedestal and tries to leave out details about his performance and Quirk to avoid seeming too powerful until he's pressed on them. Even then he's visibly uncomfortable when he sees that his classmates in 1-B are envious or even fearful of his abilities.
- Kill It with Water: Izuku is apprehensive about his pressure slicer ability at first, which can bore through a small mountain of garbage, because of how easily it could be used to kill someone by accident. Later on, he learns how to use it on demand and is happy to be able to cut loose against robots.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Izuku can blurt sermons on how amazing All Might is off the top of his head and learning that All Might is a teacher at U.A. made him instantly vomit water as he suppressed a strangled scream of excitement.
- Literally Shattered Lives: Izuku demonstrates how dangerous his ability to manipulate the temperature of water can be when he flash freezes a bat that was about to strike him and causes it to shatter, filling the air with hardened pieces of jagged wood.
- Lonely at the Top: Izuku is implied to be afraid of this, which is why he leaves out parts of his abilities and performance at the U.A. Entrance Exam while introducing himself to Class 1-B. He reluctantly provides the full story when Honenuki presses him on it. But he feels ready to cry and vomit water from distress as he watches the envious and fearful reactions he gets from some of his classmates.
- Making a Splash: Izuku's Quirk is an extremely potent and versatile version of this. He can freely manipulate any water (liquid, solid, or gaseous) in his vicinity to the point of being able to levitate entire lakes on a whim, turn himself into water to avoid attacks and fly through his environment as water or vapor, pressurize the water he creates to become a high-pressure water slicer, manipulate the temperature of water to make it scalding hot or freeze it into ice, and even change the weather by creating storm clouds with water vapor. Even if he suffers injuries, all he has to do is turn into a puddle and reform to make them all go away. As the icing on the cake, all of the water he creates is drinkable and he can create an endless supply of it without worrying about dehydrating himself (and he can quickly absorb water when he is feeling thirsty and remove impurities from other sources of water). It's explicitly noted that the potency and versatility of this Quirk is unusual due to it being a mutation and Izuku's parents report back to his doctor whenever he develops a new power.
- Mundane Utility: Izuku frequently fills water bottles with the water he creates, pulls the sweat off of himself and his friends, and instantly dries people's clothes. His ability to manipulate the temperature of water also means that he never has to wait for the shower to warm up and the water is never too hot or too cold.
- My Suit Is Also Super: Izuku's Hero Costume is made from skin and hair cells taken from his own body so that it will turn to water along with him, preventing him from suffering from Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing.
- Nerd Action Hero: Izuku is still a huge nerd who fanboys over every Pro Hero he meets, but he's also gifted and skilled with the use of his powerful and versatile Quirk that lets him single-handedly take on multiple Villains at once.
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Averted. Bakugou has absolutely no problem mocking a girl who died of suicide because of his bullying.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Izuku has the "Made of Liquid" variety. It's nearly impossible for him to get hurt by physical attacks thanks to his ability to quickly turn into water or steam, allowing the attack to harmlessly pass right through him or squash him into droplets that can quickly reform. However, he still needs to see the attack coming and he can be struck from behind if caught unawares in his flesh and blood body.
- Painful Transformation: When Izuku's Quirk first manifested, so much pressure was building up inside of him that he felt like he was going to explode and he couldn't stop vomiting water. His limbs then quivered and gave out beneath him as he turned into water and collapsed onto the pavement. Luckily, all of his subsequent transformations are smooth and painless, but it's a pretty terrifying thing for a four-year-old to experience.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Izuku is able to control vast quantities of water, allowing him to wreak havoc should there be a sufficiently large source of it nearby (which can be as simple as a plumbing system or a rain shower). Case in point, he utterly destroys Datomiru museum he is visiting after he makes all the plumbing burst to defend Kan from the last of the Villains. When 1-B starts combat training, he's reminded to avoid causing property damage while indoors.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: At 5'5''1/4, Izuku isn't especially tall and one Villain derides him as a "shortstack" trying to play Hero during the battle at the museum. Then he demolishes an entire wave of Villains on his own, freezing the Villain in place for good measure.
- Point of Divergence:
- The premise of the story can be summed as, "What if Izuku had a super powerful water Quirk and grew up in Chiba with Eijirou, Mina, and Itsuka instead of being Quirkless in Musutafu with Katsuki Bakugou for company?"
- Because Izuku lives in Chiba and has a Quirk, he never goes down the alleyway where he gets attacked by the Sludge Villain and meets All Might, preventing him from learning All Might's secret.
- Kyouka, Hanta, and Izuku end up in 1-B instead of 1-A.
- Inasa Yoarashi ends up attending U.A. anyway despite his hatred for Todoroki, taking the normal exam rather than the exam for those with recommendations and being admitted into Class 1-A.
- Instead of attacking 1-A at USJ, 1-B gets attacked at a museum for heroics because of the valuable Hero Costume improvement lab hidden inside.
- Power High: A side effect of having a body that can completely turn into water is that Izuku is literally in his element when in the rain, forgoing an umbrella because of the euphoria he feels with the rain against his skin. The effect is even stronger when he basks in moonlight, which he compares to being on an adrenaline high or being drunk, particularly when the full moon is out. This is especially dangerous because his destructive powers also grow in potency during this time, warning his friends to yank him out of it if he starts acting weird.
- Power Incontinence: Izuku can easily flood rooms by accident if he gets worked up, necessitating that all of his clothes be specially tailored to be waterproof and that all of his classrooms have drainage systems to avoid drowning them. His father, Hisashi, suffers from similar issues.
- Power-Strain Blackout: The primary weakness of Izuku's Quirk is that it takes an intense amount of focus and energy to use. Using it extensively throughout a protracted fight can exhaust him and he faints from exertion after stalling for a rescue by making every pipe in the museum burst and cascading water on the League of Villains.
- Put on a Bus to Hell: Mineta's constant instances of sexual harassment eventually get him thrown out of U.A. in this story.
- Running Gag: Izuku starts vomiting water when he's worked up or surprised, which usually freaks people out or gets them laughing as he floods whatever room he's in. His favorite joke is to suddenly burst into droplets all over people he meets before coming back together again.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Izuku ends up rushing back into the fight after only being given permission to defend himself when a group of Villains attacks the museum 1-B is visiting. Kan appreciates the assistance, but it's made clear that a repeat incident will not be treated so lightly.
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Izuku's Quirk does not transform his clothes under normal circumstances, leaving him naked after he manages to pull himself back together when it first manifested. By his teenage years, he learned how to rematerialize inside of his clothes to prevent further embarrassment, and his Hero Costume is explicitly made to transform along with him to save him valuable time in combat.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: Izuku shapes his arms into ice blades during the U.A. Entrance Exam. They're sharp enough to easily slice through the three-point robots.
- Superpower Lottery: Izuku's Quirk is absurdly powerful and useful to the point of being called outright "broken" by the time he attends U.A. He's embarrassed and dismayed at this and generally tries to downplay his feats to avoid sticking out. This is also lampshaded in the story tags, which include "OP!Izuku"
- Superpowerful Genetics: Izuku's Quirk is explicitly stated to be a unique mutation of both of his parent's Quirks, making it Type 3.
- Super Spit: Izuku produces water by emitting it through his mouth, which is his father's Quirk. He can shoot this at considerable distances at a number of different pressures, but higher pressures tend to strain him and risk injuring or killing other people.
- Swiss-Army Superpower: Izuku's Quirk is "just" the ability to produce, manipulate, and become water. But there are so many applications for it that he doesn't need anything else.
- True Companions: Izuku, Eijirou, Mina, and Itsuka are inseparable and always have each other's backs through thick and thin.
- Underestimating Badassery: A justified example in Chapter 17. Todoroki knows Midoriya's Quirk is hydrokinesis. What he doesn't know is that it's hydrokinesis taken up to eleven so he believes that he can just freeze all of Midoriya's attacks. Cue Midoriya freezing the entire building with his Quirk and negating Todoroki's attempts to unfreeze it.
- Unfriendly Fire: Izuku soon finds that the Villains he's fighting at the museum he was visiting don't care much for friendly fire and are fully willing to blast each other if it means getting the U.A. students.Izuku: They were your friends, you idiot!
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Izuku gives this speech to Eijirou when the latter is feeling down over being frozen with terror in the face of a Villain.Eijirou: I can't go with you all just to hold you back, Izu. I won't do that to you. You all deserve so much better than a loser like me who can't even save his own friend. You all deserve to be heroes. Hell, Mina’s already a hero.
Izuku: [puts an arm around Eijirou's shoulder] You know, for someone who thinks he's a loser, you've always been the best friend any of us could have asked you to be. Do you really think that if you weren't worth it, weren't one of the nicest people we’ve ever met, weren’t absolutely and completely you, we’d have stuck around? Kiri, I need you to understand something. [puts both hands on Eijirou's shoulders and kneels down in front of him] You will always be good enough for us. For me. You've been nothing but kind, and loving, and strong from the moment I met you. You took your father's death in stride and made a promise to become a hero, you made a promise to stand beside us and make it to U.A., and no matter what, you've always believed in us, and we’ve always believed in you right back. And that, that will never change, no matter how weak you feel.
