Chapter Text
Izuku shuffled into his apartment, closing the door and kicking off his shoes.
It was almost dinner time. He hoped Mom wouldn’t be mad he was late! Izuku rubbed his right shoulder, feeling the sting of Kacchan’s explosions. He was getting meaner, always calling him a deku. He would get a good quirk soon, he just knew it! Then he and Kacchan could play Hero like they did a few years ago.
“Izuku? Is that you, honey?” He walked through their hallway, fully stepping into the apartment. Mom was in the kitchen, looking through all the cabinets. She turned, giving him a warm smile. “Go clean up, Izuku. We’re having a guest over for dinner! You remember your Uncle Takeru?”
Uncle Takeru was coming!
He ran to his room, shedding his school uniform and slipping into shorts and a t-shirt. That was dad’s cousin. He stopped by once or twice a year randomly. He was the nicest person he had ever met, maybe even nicer than mom! But he was weird, wearing super old clothes and always carrying a guitar case. Izuku ran back into the kitchen.
“Oh no! I can’t believe I forgot it! Izuku,” she called, “We’re going to run to the store real fast. I forgot to pick up the tea. Hurry now!” They both threw on their shoes before stepping outside. Izuku shivered. Winter was right around the corner. The sun was already starting to set, faster and faster each day.
They walked to the nearest corner store, a few blocks away from their apartment. Mom was so smart, she knew exactly where the tea was! He wandered over to the posters, seeing the newest edition of All Might’s costume. He was so cool! He was strong and fast and always saved people with a smile! Izuku wanted to do the same thing. Once he got a quirk, he and Kacchan could be just like All Might!
When mom went to the counter, he pulled on her sleeve. “Mom! Mom, can I have the All Might poster? Please?” He gave his saddest look, even sticking his lip out. Mom giggled, ruffling his hair.
“Not this time, sweetie.” He grumbled as they checked out.
Despite being in the store for twenty minutes, it was dark outside. Now Izuku was trembling from the cold. “Oh dear, you must be cold, let’s get home quickly then.” They started walking home, twisting through the streets of Musutafu. As they were passing a dark alley, Izuku could smell…something.
He stopped, peering into the darkness.
A shiver went down his spine.
That…smelled bad. Something smelled really bad and Izuku felt really nervous all of a sudden. Mom walked back to him, grabbing his hand. “Izuku, honey? Are you alright?” He couldn’t take his eyes off the alley, something felt really really wrong.
Mom crouched in front of him, blocking his view. “Come on, we need to—Agghhhh!”
“MOM!” He yelled out.
She was pulled into the darkness! His legs trembled. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t have a phone and no one else was around. What was he supposed to—?
“Aaahhhh—!” Mom cried out. Before he could think, he ran into the alley.
It was so dark, he could barely see. He called out to his mom, stopping when he heard…crunching. And wet, rasping breathing. A smell hit his nose, bloody and rotten. “Izuku, run! Run baby run!” his mom choked out. She screamed again. He ran on shaky legs, going deeper and deeper. He tripped on something, finding his hands suddenly wet. He started crawling, “Mom, mom, where are you? Mom, where are you?” he kept crawling, feeling the wetness become chunky and thick.
More crunching filled the alley.
“Mom?” His eyes finally adjusted enough to see the different shapes in the dark. “Ahhh! Mom!” He screamed, falling back. A–a–a—person was—that was his—mom was—pieces—
“Mom! No! Wh-what a-a-are you d-doing to mom?” He ran at the person only for white hot pain to swallow his body. He was against the wall now, pain and hurt everywhere.
“Wait your turn, brat,” the person hissed, biting and eating andoh god mom—
“Mom…no…” Get up get up get up, you have to save her—mom was—
Izuku slid down the wall, the black of the alley mixing with the black spots in his eyes. The last thing he remembered was a metallic scrape and the smell of blood.
The next thing he knew, Izuku was drowning in blankets in a white room.
He hurt, more than any of Kacchan’s explosions.
The room was loud, beeping and sounds and whispers and talking he couldn’t make out. His head hurt, his chest hurt, everything was… mom. Mom was—no. She couldn’t, a Hero must have saved them, he was in the hospital. Mom surely was…but she was in parts, and so wet with blood, and…
“Izuku? Izuku!” He turned, seeing his dad. He was suddenly being squashed in a hug, making him hiss. “Oh, I’m so sorry son, you’re hurt.” His dad was patting his head, red eyes redder.
“Dad? Where’s mom? The Heroes came right? She’s all better? Dad? Please?” He started crying and dad started crying, too.
“I-I’m so, so sorry, Izuku.” He started wailing.
“No! No, no, no! Mom is fine! She has to be! A hero came and saved her, I know it!” He started banging on his dad, but his eyes were too wet to see, just like in that—
No mom couldn’t be—
Another hand patted his head. He turned to see Uncle Takeru in the bed next to Izuku, bandages wrapping around his—
“U-Uncle, w-what hap-happened to y-your a-arm?” He gasped in between hiccups.
“Don’t worry about it, Izuku. I’m so sorry about your mother. She was an impossibly kind soul. You need to rest now, Izuku. Just rest, everything will be okay.”
He cried and cried and cried, calling out for mom who still wouldn’t come.
Izuku doesn’t really remember the week after that.
Dad was home and Uncle Takeru was home and mom wasn’t.
Slowly his stuff started disappearing. Dad said they were moving somewhere, but Izuku didn’t really remember. He barely left his bed, holding onto his mom’s shirt. It still smells like her. Uncle Takeru was with them, but he didn’t have an arm anymore. He didn’t talk about it.
At some point he was being stuffed into a suit and Dad was in his suit and Uncle was in his old clothes and they were at an old, smelly, dusty office and Mom was in a jar now. Mom’s hugs and smile and cooking and warmth was in a purple painted jar now. He cried again. This is his fault. He couldn’t save his mom. He was so weak and slow and he couldn’t save mom. If he was strong like Kacchan, mom would be with him and he could feel her hugs instead of a cold purple jar.
Suddenly he was in a car, mom clutched in his lap. Dad and Uncle were there and the car was stuffed with suitcases. Right, they were moving. Izuku thought he should ask, but he didn’t care. Mom was here but she wasn’t and she wasn’t going to be there and he was so weak and now his mom was gone.
His face was wet again, and he wondered if it would ever be dry.
Their car kept climbing higher.
They drove into the mountains and Izuku thought they would stop, but they kept going higher and higher and higher. The trees started turning purple, the same shade as mom. There was nothing for kilometers and kilometers and kilometers up the mountain, just dirt then trees then purple trees and then suddenly—
A village burst from nowhere.
It was so so so old. No trains and no concrete roads. All the men wore the same clothes as Uncle and the women wore the same mom did in the wedding photos with dad. The streets had electric poles decorated with bright red lanterns and all the houses and buildings look just like Izuku’s history textbook. The car still went deeper, driving past all the people further up into the mountain. Mom would find it so pretty.
They stopped at the biggest house Izuku had ever seen. It was two floors and old, with paper doors and tatami floors. Izuku was tired from the drive, but he clutched mom tight when he got out. Dad was holding him and Izuku saw a bunch of people leave the house. Teenagers to toddlers and a woman too. They were hugging and crying over Uncle, looking at his not-arm. Izuku was in his dad’s arms, Mom in between them. He remembered being carried, but he was so tired.
He fell asleep for the first time in days.
They live with Uncle now.
Uncle had five kids, two to fifteen. He learned their names, but he kind of forgot them already. He never talked to them. It was all too much. Last week he was watching TV with mom and now he was in a strange old old old house with other kids. He had to wear the old clothing too, and it was breezy but took forever to wear.
This house was so weird, filled with old things and old swords and nobody had quirks. Nobody talked about Heroes, they didn’t even have TV. Izuku was holding mom, sitting on the floor. He couldn’t even watch TV with mom! He didn’t know what to do now, so he was just holding her.
Two of his cousins were in front of him. Haru and Sachi, both with black hair and red hair like Dad. “Do you wanna play cards with us?” Sachi asked. She was older, eleven Izuku thought. Haru was eight.
“I’m sitting with mom,” he said. He can’t leave her alone again, ever.
“Your mom is in there?” Haru asked, getting in Izuku’s face and pointing at mom.
“Don’t point at my mom! That’s rude!”
“A person can’t be in there, stupid!”
“My mom is in here! That weird man said so! Now leave us alone. I’m not leaving mom!” He yelled back, curling around her.
“Fine, then bring her with. Now come on, we need another person for cards.” Sachi grabbed him and he was sitting in a circle now with Haru, Sachi, and Kenji, the oldest. He was looking at Izuku funny.
Izuku spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the hanafuda cards with his cousins.
Two weeks after he got there, his dad told him he had to go back to school.
It was before bed, and he and dad and mom all shared a room now. Since he got there, Izuku either spent time with his cousins or did chores for Auntie Ai. Dad made him keep mom in their room, and he didn’t like it at all. But dad promised that she was okay there, he promised.mean, it was…nice.
And with school he had to wear those bad shoes that always pinched his feet. In the house he could always be barefoot and Auntie Ai wasn’t mad when he was barefoot outside. He was so proud when he beat Haru at tag the other day. Auntie must have been proud too because she didn’t say anything, even when he brought mud inside. Izuku told dad that he wasn’t going to school because he didn’t want to wear the shoes, and then dad told him—
And now he was with Dad and Auntie at the shoemaker in town the next day.
He made the sandals for Izuku, the kind that go in the front and wrap around in the back. He got the socks too, traditional and matching the blue and green and red yukatas that Auntie gave him. The shoemaker was nice, he didn’t say anything about Izuku’s extra toe joint!
With his new red sandals, they took him around the village and showed him everything. There were restaurants and the library and the post station and lots of clothing shops and many sword shops too. Dad said that a lot of people here practice sword fighting. Izuku thought that sounded cool, but quirks and Heroes like All Might were cooler.
All Might didn’t need a sword to fight villains.
Izuku was in school, now. It was his first day and he was nervous.
Haru and Sachi were here too, in different grades. He didn’t see Kenji anywhere, though. The teacher made him stand up in the front of the class and he introduced himself. She didn’t ask about his quirk and he was grateful. All his classmates introduced themselves too, and no one said a quirk. They all used notebooks and pencils, no computers or phones. Teacher said that they had computers in the public library, if they needed them.
During his first break, a girl walked him. She was Sagiri, a big smile with brown hair and brown eyes. “I’m Sagiri! My family practices fire breathing and we run the ramen shop in town. What about you?”
“Umm…I live with Uncle Takeru. Is fire breathing your quirk?”
“Takeru? Oh wow, you’re a Kamado then! That’s awesome. No I don’t have a quirk, the only one with a quirk in here is Mei—” she pointed to another girl, “and she can change her eye color.”
“Wait, so no one else has a quirk?”
“Nah, that’s pretty rare here. Do you wanna play outside? We can use the bokkens!” She dragged him outside and introduced him to other kids. No one here has a quirk? But at school with Kacchan and the others, everyone had a quirk except him. Now nobody does. Does that mean they wouldn’t hate him here?
The bokkens were wooden swords. He and Sagiri and four others all had one, and they spent the next hour hitting each other with them in the afternoon sun.
And then a few months passed by and it was fully winter.
The whole town was shut down early as everyone got ready for the Festival. Kenji said it was a yearly festival with food and games and prayers and it ended with a sword tournament. Izuku was dressed in his best yukata with his cousins, a pretty ocean blue with black hakama pants and his red sandals. Yui was on his back and Haru held Akito. Sachi and Kenji were doing the tournament so it was just the four of them.
Haru took him to all the food vendors and they ate as many sweets as possible without throwing up. There were a ton of games like with the hanafuda cards or dice or ring toss. He played with all of his classmates whenever he saw them and he even played with the bigger kids. No one cared that he was quirkless, no one was ever mean to him or burned him or hit him or called him names.
He and Haru won some prizes, too. He got some new earrings for Auntie Ai and flowers for Sachi. Haru got a really cool knife and a little sewn bear for Akito on his back. Then he took Izuku to all the shrines in town and his legs were sore from walking so much.
Finally, it was the tournament. The town square was decorated with paper lanterns and flowers and sprigs of the purple trees that covered the mountain. He and Haru and Akito and Yui got to sit toward the center, outside of the big chalk circle. Izuku had seen Sachi and Kenji practice with the bokken all the time, but he couldn’t really tell what they were doing except jabbing at the air. They practiced Sun Breathing, but Izuku didn’t know what it was except it wasn’t a quirk.
A lot of the older kids at school stepped up to the circle in pairs, dueling and fighting each other. Some of the fights were a few seconds and some were a few minutes. Kenji was in the oldest group, so Izuku was yawning by the time he came. He was going against a big, big, big guy, an eighteen year old, the oldest in the competition. Kenji was tall and he was even taller. Haru gripped his hand as the bell rang.
Izuku watched.
It was a dance.
Kenji twisted and twirled and moved and even flipped around the other boy, tapping him so many times Izuku lost count. It was a dance and Kenji’s red hair and red eyes reflected the fire in the lanterns. He was agile and fast and after he knocked the boy out, no one else even came close to Kenji. He was so, so strong, even though he was quirkless and he only had a sword.
Izuku wondered if he could be strong, just like Kenji.
Quirkless, but strong.