Chapter Text
“C’mon you stupid Deku! I dare you!”
“B-But Kacchan, nobody’s ‘sposed to be out after dark.”
“Does it look like I care? Nobody’s gonna think you’re cool otherwise!”
Izuku sniffled as he rubbed his eyes, small for a four year old as he wandered the street of his neighborhood with Kacchan. His quirk still hadn’t developed and because of that everyone had decided he was Quirkless. This also meant nobody wanted to be his friend, not even Kacchan. This was his only chance to have Kacchan back.
“O-Okay.” He sniffled and rubbed his eyes, trying to sound like a big kid to get Kacchan to listen to him. “You gotta promise though! That you’ll be my friend again.”
“Yeah, whatever. If you do this then everyone’ll be your friend.” Kacchan huffed and rolled his eyes, going home.
Izuku, on the other hand, ran off towards the middle of town. Recently, kids had started disappearing late at night, causing nightly hero patrols to increase, and the government to declare children have a curfew. Nobody took the second part seriously until their kids started showing back up, grossly mutated and very much dead.
Which was why Izuku was now running through Musutafu at eight at night, just having had dinner and hoping that this meant Kacchan would be his friend again. Ever since his quirk came in, he’d become mean to everyone around him and acting as if he was now the best thing in existence. And Izuku still worshiped the ground he walked on.
Turning a corner he stopped, nose scrunching up as he caught wind of a weird smell. He had only run two blocks away and had already turned to run back home but the smell had caught him so off guard. It kind of smelled like meat that went bad, like when momma forgot a chicken breast in the back of the fridge. Slowly he followed the smell, eyes full of confusion.
The smell led him to a dumpster behind a ramen shop, the sound of flies swarming reaching his ears. Whatever it was, it was on the other side of the dumpster. Well, he was within sight of the lights and there were adults walking on the street. It wasn’t like nobody could see him. He crept around the dumpster...and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Lying there was a kid around his age, purple orbs all over the kid’s body and...was that thing even considered a head anymore? It looked more like a fleshy pancake. The sight coupled with the smell caused Izuku to back up fast, tripping over his own feet as he felt his dinner making an appearance. He didn’t even try to force the vomit down, emptying his stomach contents on the ground under him.
“Oh my, you poor thing! What are you doing out!” The voice was sweet and belonged to a woman and Izuku didn’t even think about not running into the person, crying his little heart out.
He would regret that decision for years afterwards.
---
He didn’t know how he had fallen asleep, or even if he had actually fallen asleep. Maybe he was knocked out? He couldn’t remember. Actually, he couldn’t even remember why he wasn’t home in bed right now, his memories of the day foggy at best.
Moving a bit, he reached up to rub his eyes, before realizing he could only lift one arm. For a moment he thought his arm was gone and he was struck with terror before his vision cleared. No, it was there, just handcuffed to...a bed?
His eyes moved from his arm to the rest of the room, whitewashed walls and other beds greeting his sight. Adults moved back and forth between the other five beds, and all of the other bed occupants seemed to be restrained as well. One even had a muzzle of some kind over their mouth to keep them from speaking.
Did the nice lady take him to a hospital and he was just in the kids wing? He noticed one of the kids looked alot like one of the adults so he figured that was the case. He settled and watched everyone running back and forth, checking machines and clipboards before finishing on him. He felt the other kids’ eyes on him and...why did they look so scared?
He was uncuffed and an adult gently helped him to the floor. He watched with big eyes as they took his height and measured all over his body. He heard things like ‘clean slate’ and ‘Quirkless’. Was he actually quirkless? Were his classmates taunts true? His smile fell as an adult took his hand.
“Where’s momma?” He asked, tears starting to form.
“No idea kid. Come with us.”
He followed, now completely silent and confused. Where was momma? She would have known if he was taken to the hospital right? And why were there no TVs? Or toys? As he walked with an adult to a room with a chair that had a lot of straps he wondered just where he actually was.
“Sit.”
He didn’t hesitate to obey, after all his momma had always told him to respect the adults taking care of them and so far they had done just that, walking to the chair and sitting down. Straps were placed over his arms, legs, torso and head before he felt a small prick in his hand, causing him to squeak.
“Begin phase one.”
Izuku tried to respond but something was put in his mouth, forcing him to bite on it as he felt a burning something go into his skin and spread across his body.
He wanted to scream, to cry until he passed out and woke up at home. This had to be a nightmare right? He’d wake up at home and his mom would be holding him close with his All Might plush his dad bought him.
But he never even passed out, his eyes weren’t even allowed to shut, a light shining down on them as his breathing became erratic, tears rolling down his cheeks in rivers. None of the adults would even comfort him, just pulling him out of the chair as soon as the fire stopped. He...couldn’t feel anything. Shaking he stared at his hands before he was kicked harshly in the side, the kicks repeating until he didn’t even attempt to get up.
“Test complete. No Quirk manifested. Fire test results, null. Take him back.”
He was picked up by the back of his shirt, carried back to the room and dropped on the floor before the adults left him alone with the others. The sound of murmuring made its way to his ears. He didn’t dare move yet though, too terrified by what had happened to him.
He only looked up when he felt a small hand on his back, moving down to his arms and then gently helping him up. When he picked his head up he was face to face with a slightly older girl with long light blue hair, purple eyes, and mismatch color skin. She pointed to herself with no expression.
“Riko. Blood-related quirk.”
Her finger then moved to a girl with cropped short reddish-pink hair and blue eyes. “Kaida. White fire.”
Kaida looked up from rubbing her hands over her legs, her gaze distant and not entirely there. Riko’s finger moved onto a boy with grey hair and white eyes, staring at absolutely nothing and hands wrapped up in gauze.
“Souma. Steam.”
Souma turned to the sound of his name but didn’t respond, as if he refused to.
Then her finger moved onto the boy with the muzzle, purple hair a wreck and purple eyes glassy from what looked like a panic attack. “Hitoshi. Voice-related Mind Control.”
Then her finger landed on the last kid, a boy with yellow hair and an electric style black streak, his hands rubbing his cheeks as if he was crying. “Denki. Electricity. His mommy is bad.”
She then pointed to Izuku and tilted her head. He knew he had to respond.
“M-Midoriya I...Izuku. N-No quirk…” He sniffled and Riko immediately pulled him in for a hug, picking him up as best she could and putting him back in his bed.
He wanted to go home, he wanted momma. But he also wanted the other kids not to have to cry or be sad or hurt either. What would All Might do? At that moment, he put on his brightest smile, because All Might always said that smiling in a situation you couldn’t was the most powerful thing someone could do.
---
“In today’s news, a young boy, Izuku Midoriya, was declared missing after running off at night into the middle of town. Witnesses who last saw the boy say he ran to an unknown woman crying. Police later discovered the body of one Mineta Minoru. Local hero Driver has officially declared he would boost his patr-”
Bakugo hit the TV remote to shut the TV off, his heart racing and eyes wide. This was his fault. Auntie was crying and not eating and this was all his fault. All because stupid Deku cared more about him than his own common sense.
If only he had just protected him, none of this would have happened. Guilt gnawed at his stomach and he quickly ran to the bathroom, dry heaving into the bowl as tears pricked his eyes.
Maybe the actual useless person...was himself.