Fanfic #145 The Curse of the Manga Protagonist by All_five_pieces_of_Exodia(MyHeroAcademia)

This fanfic is an au following a more genre savvy Izuku in My Hero Academia. I really like this fic because it has a lot of fun with Izuku reflecting on Manga cliches. I also like the interesting character dynamics that are developing due to this different Izuku.

Synopsis: Question: What was Izuku going to do when he found himself in a manga?

Answer: Fuck it up. Probably.

Rated: M

words: 42k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29182359/chapters/71646984

Here's the first chapter:

Izuku fell asleep reading manga. It was shounen type- of course it was- because that kind always managed to have the most interesting plots. Now, there wererepeated tropes across the board- Izuku would know with how much manga he'd read- but somehow the genre had never ceased to excite him. This wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep with the newest volume beside his head either, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Naturally, that was what he thought, until he woke up the next morning.

He was not woken up by the sound of his phone's alarm- an annoying beeping that he really ought to change. He didn't blink awake, his arm unconsciously curling around his precious manga volume, and curse the few hours of sleep he got because he stayed up late reading again. No, that was not how Izuku woke up.

"Morning is here! Morning is here! Morning is here!-"

There was an obnoxious voice blaring in his ears. Izuku clumsily reached out from under his blanket and grabbed his phone off his nightstand. He unlocked it and simultaneously blinded himself, but the noise wasn't coming from his phone.

Although, something just as strange was.

What is this?!

There was a picture of a man as the background on his phone. Izuku had never seen this man before in his life. He was dressed in spandex too, like some sort of cosplayer. What the hell was going on?! Wasn't his background-

"Morning is here! Morning is here! Morning-"

Izuku groaned in irritation and decided he couldn't think with that thing making so much noise. He sat up in bed, thoroughly awake, and looked around his room.

And promptly fell out of bed.

The same spandex-clad man from his phone screen was everywhere. Izuku stared in horror at all the posters, action figures, and bedspread that covered every inch of his room.

I'm dreaming. This must be a dream. Izuku thought.

"Morning is here! Morning is-"

...And I really need to shut that off.

Izuku stood up and located the source of the noise easily enough. It was an alarm clock, colored in the same color scheme that invaded the rest of his room from the random man. A button rested on its top and Izuku slammed it with enough force to drive a nail.

He felt a little satisfied at the quiet he created, but that left him quickly.

His hand rose to rub at his face and a sigh escaped him. Eventually he peeked through his fingers again but no, everything was still covered by that man. What was with that? Was he some sort of celebrity? Izuku thought he'd have seen him before if he was.

Was this a prank? But his parents wouldn't invade his privacy like this and it wasn't like he had many friends- no close ones at least. Who would bother?

Izuku spent a length of time staring at his "room". He forgot that he should be getting ready for middle school, or that his parents in the room down the hall may know more than he did. He was too stunned by all the changes and, and-

Where's all my manga?!

All the volumes of One P*ece he had painstakingly collected! And the newest volume of D*mon Sl*yer he was reading last night! Not to mention all the others he poured his allowance into! Where did it all go?!

Now, in the bookshelves he harbored the bulk of his collection, there were notebooks. Izuku almost didn't want to touch them, because if he touched them, that meant he admitted that they were real. And if they were real, Izuku would then have to admit that all his manga was actually gone and he didn't want to do that. He wasn't ready to mourn yet.

But, Izuku needed answers. Before he could think about it further, his hand reached towards the first notebook on the shelf and pulled it out.

He suppressed the disappointment that rose when the notebook was, in fact, tangible, and therefore not a figment of his imagination. Izuku glanced at the cover.

It was rather unhelpfully titled: Hero Analysis for the Future #1.

Izuku had no idea what that meant.

He flipped the book open and was met with the barely-legible scrawl of a child. His handwriting, he noted, when he was young- perhaps four years old.

The pages were covered in notes and poorly drawn pictures of what must be these "heroes" the cover was talking about. Though in his handwriting, Izuku didn't recognize any of it. He wouldn't do something like this. Not when heroes weren't even real.

He pulled the other notebooks out, each with a number, some even splitting into .1 through .9. (The notebooks numbered this way all covered the same things, but they were an improved version every time.) They were quite detailed and Izuku wondered if whoever wrote them (He was in denial it was him) was planning a book. These ideas could definitely make up a good manga series…

"Izuku! Honey, are you up? School's going to start soon." The familiar voice of his mother called, and Izuku's bewilderment settled a little since that was his mother's voice and that meant not everything was different. He carefully placed the notebooks back on the shelves (because whoever wrote them obviously put effort into them) and left the room to find his mother.

He walked into the kitchen, his eyes noticing the pajamas on him for the first time. Izuku cringed. The strange man again? Was he a hero too? It would explain the spandex.

"Mom? Do you know what's up with my roooooooooooo…"

He stared at his mother and couldn't form words. She turned to him in confusion and that face definitely belonged to her, but-

"You have green hair!" Izuku shouted, perhaps a little louder than the situation called for.

His mother frowned. "Izuku, why are you still in your pajamas?"

She's not even questioning it?! She has green hair! GREEN HAIR!

"Why do you have green hair?" He asked incredulously, feeling like he'd stepped into an alternate dimension. Did she dye it? That didn't seem like something his mom would do…

His mother gave him an unimpressed look- and wasn't that familiar? "You're going to be late." She said flatly.

Izuku opened his mouth. Then closed it. He opened it again. Then closed it again. He opened it-

"Who's that man on my walls?"

His mother sighed and set down the wooden spoon she was using to make eggs.

"Izuku, is this something to get out of going to school?" She questioned and she looked worried now. Her eyes were the same green as her hair, Izuku found, but it suited her.

He didn't know what to say to that. School was the last thing on his mind right now.

"Honey, is this about those injuries you're always hiding? I know you say it's nothing but I think-"

"Hold up." Izuku interrupted, raising his hand. He tried to turn the words over in his head again and again but they didn't make any more sense. "What are you talking about?"

His mother sighed again. "If you don't want to talk about it, then we won't. But I need to know if I need to take off work today to stay home with you."

She stared at him then, concerned and patient, though it did little to calm Izuku's internal panic.

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to ask his mom about those "injuries" she mentioned because that definitely sounded like something they needed to talk about. He wanted to know why her hair was green and why his manga was gone and why there was a weird looking man in a skin tight suit spanning every wall of his room. But when he opened his mouth-

"You don't need to." He assured her, his own sigh accompanying his words. "I think I just...had a bad dream."

It was a pretty pathetic lie- Izuku had never been good with those- but his mother sagged in relief. She walked forward and pressed a hand to his forehead "just to be sure".

"I can drive you." She told him. "You'd be late otherwise."

Izuku nodded, and with an uncharacteristic numbness, walked back to his room.

He may not have a temperature but he was starting to feel a little sick. The smiling hero man didn't help either.

Mechanically, Izuku donned his uniform (was it burnt?)and walked into the bathroom.

And screamed.

His mother ran to him, asking a rush of questions he couldn't hope to understand. He only stared at the whitened face of his reflection with-

"I have green hair." He whispered. It should be black. His mother's should be black. No one naturally had green hair. And Izuku sure as hell didn't dye it.

It was like he was a character right out of one of his mangas.

A strangled laugh forced itself from his throat. He couldn't take his eyes off his reflection. This can't be real.

"Izuku, are you sure you're not sick?"

She pulled him away from the mirror and walked him to their living room where she sat him down. Izuku didn't protest.

She stared at him in concern and examined his temperature once again. "No fever, but your skin is a little clammy and your complexion doesn't look good. Is your stomach bothering you?"

Izuku did feel like he was about to throw up. He nodded.

A frown pulled at his mother's lips. "I'll get you some medicine."

Then her hand glowed.

Izuku's eyes almost popped out of his head. He flicked his eyes between the GLOWING HAND and his mother's face.

Why is she not surprised by this?! Her hand is G L O W I N G!

His vision was fading, darkening at the edges and Izuku had never lost consciousness before, but he'd read that it was sorta like this. He just needed to take deep breaths, right?

But then the Pepto-bismal came floating into view, and Izuku really did faint.

When he opened his eyes again, he observed the living room ceiling far above him. He squinted at it, trying to determine if it was a normal ceiling or if it would suddenly come alive and start talking to him. Predictably, the ceiling did not become sentient and Izuku ran a hand over his face in relief.

That was a weird dream.

It almost seemed real too. He couldn't imagine his manga being gone, or him and his mother having green hair, or the glowing hands. It was interesting if he thought about it, but Izuku was just glad that it was over.

"Izuku, are you okay dear?" His mother leaned over him, her face blocking his riveting view of the ceiling. She looked anxious.

And she had green hair.

Izuku groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten.

When he opened them, his mother still had green hair. He groaned again.

"I'll take that as a no?" She said with a bit of humor, although her face was pinched tight in worry.

"This doesn't make sense." He told his mom as she placed a cool cloth on his forehead. "I'm not a manga character."

His mother gave him a confused look. "Manga character? What's that?"

Izuku sat up so fast he launched the cloth on his head across the room so that it slapped wetly against the wall.

"What?!"

His reaction startled his mother, but Izuku didn't pay it any mind. He loved manga. One could even argue that he was an otaku (which he wasn't), but his mom should know that. She'd bought him manga for his birthday and Christmas every year.

"You know, my manga. The books with the pictures and all the 'funny muscle guys' as you called them?" He reminded her. There was no way she could forget what manga was.

His mother gazed at him apprehensively, as if he was spouting nonsense. She bit her lip.

"You mean a comic? Like in the newspaper?" She asked after a moment.

Izuku gaped at her. He would show her, if his manga hadn't vanished from his room. He couldn't comprehend this. Any of it. In what kind of world did manga not exist?

He took multiple deep breaths. He needed to calm down and assess what he knew.

His mother didn't know what manga was. After a search on his phone, the term "manga" yielded no results. He had notebooks in his room that talked about heroes. His room was decorated with a hero(?). His hair was green. His mother could make her hands glow.

Now what did it all mean?

The first thought that popped into his head- that Izuku immediately threw out because of how ridiculous it was- was that he somehow was in a manga. He could laugh, that's how utterly impossible it was.

But he didn't laugh. And the more he thought about it, the more it made a terrible sort of sense.

"Mom." Izuku started solemnly. "What did you do earlier?"

His mother frowned at his change in tone. "What do you mean?"

"The bottle," Izuku gestured at the pink medicine as if it might float once again. "You uh…called it? To you?"

He expected his mother to call him crazy. Maybe she'd tell him he was hallucinating and take him to the hospital to treat his green hair. But she didn't.

"...did you not want me to use my quirk?"

Was what she said, and Izuku latched onto that word, quirk, and filed it away. So she could do it. His mother had a superpower. A quirk, as she put it.

"Can you do it again?" He asked, because he had to be sure that he wasn't being punked, even if it was by his own mother.

She looked confused again, and wary- likely forming some horrid conclusion that he had amnesia. Izuku couldn't exactly dispute that, but it didn't feel like he was forgetting things, although he supposed he wouldn't be able to tell.

But, she did do it again. His mother picked up her hand and a soft blue glow encased it. The light concentrated into a string that floated away and attached to the nearest object- the tv remote- and the blue spread over it to lift it into the air. Izuku watched it, mesmerized, because he honestly had no words, no explanation for what could possibly be happening.

He could feel his mother's gaze on him. Obviously she thought his ignorance was strange, and Izuku wasn't sure what to do. Should he go along with everything? Or should he tell her that he didn't know what was going on?

Izuku decided, rather stupidly if he looked back on it, that he didn't want to deal with all the hassle that came with amnesia or whatever he had. If he wanted answers, he'd discover them with time. He had green hair. His mom could make things float. See? He was already getting used to it.

"Sorry mom." Izuku apologized, thinking up a suitable reason to explain why he'd want to see something he was supposed to have seen countless times before. "I just thought you're, uh, quirk, looked...bluer than usual."

His mother relaxed a bit. "Did it? I think it looks the same as normal."

Izuku slumped, glad she didn't see through his lie. "Yeah," He agreed, "I think I just imagined it."

An awkward pause passed between them. Izuku wondered if he'd still have to go to school or if his mother would let him stay home. If he could have a day to organize his thoughts, (and mourn the loss of his manga) that would aid him greatly in sorting out...whatever this situation was.

"Um, mom." Izuku finally said. " Can I stay home today? I promise I'll go to school tomorrow."

Izuku actually had no idea if school would be the same as he remembered it, but he'd always had good marks and been a fairly quick study, so it shouldn't matter.

His mother sighed, but a smile came to her face. "Oh, alright. Just one day. I'll let Mitsuki know to have Katsuki bring you the homework."

He smiled back and nodded, filing away their names for later. He didn't know who either of those people were, but he couldn't make himself suspicious again by mentioning it.

He told his mom that he was going back to sleep in order to buy himself some alone time. As soon as the door closed to his room, Izuku pulled the notebooks back off the shelves and sat down on his bed, spreading the extensive collection out. He was sure he saw the word "quirk" written in those notebooks and now he thought he knew why.

Superpowers. Heroes. Maybe it wasn't a concept for a book after all.

Izuku looked over each entry in the notebooks in a new light. The things written there were about the hero on the page, analyzing different aspects of their "quirks" and fighting styles that seemed obvious to Izuku. Well...he supposed he did write them, or some version of himself did. Did he really have amnesia? But that wouldn't explain why he had completely different memories instead of missing ones. Hmmmmm.

He must really be in a manga after all. Although that begged the question…

Which type?