Kita's Legacy (My Hero Academia Fanfic)

Chapter 24: That's No Excuse

The air itself seemed to still around us as those words left Akiba's mouth. His hand still shook as he led me to the foldable table placed in the center of the room. He used his Quirk to pull out two chairs. We sat facing each other, his hand still clasped in mine.

"I--" Akiba began to say, but stopped.

I don't think I can say it out loud yet. He gazed down at our hands, which rested on his knee.

You don't have to say it out loud.

Akiba didn't look up at my words. Instead, he began his story.

I was a little over four when my Quirk manifested. I was a late bloomer. My Quirk was nothing like either of my parents'. You could imagine their surprise when their son's voice suddenly appeared in their head, asking for apple juice.

Akiba laughed quietly to himself, but it was a hollow sound.

As the months went by Quirk started showing its other aspects. I made a lot of messes with my Quirk, on accident, knocking over cups and bowls of food, knocking vases off the coffee table. I didn't-- I didn't mean to.

It sounded as if Akiba was talking more to himself than he was to me. I pressed my lips together, waiting for him to continue.

My dad got particularly frustrated with my Quirk, the messes, my voice popping in his head without warning or permission. He and mom started arguing pretty frequently. Then when I was five, I remember asking who that lady was he was always thinking about- the one he went out to dinner with all the time.

At the time, I didn't understand what I had exposed. I remember my mom started crying and yelling, and then my dad got upset and started yelling back saying it was all my fault. He said he couldn't handle having a kid with a Quirk like mine, that it was too much stress. It was "breaking him."

I felt my stomach coil at the thought of Akiba's own father saying that about him. He was just a little kid. He didn't have any control over his Quirk.

I ran to my room and hid under the blankets while they argued. The next week, my mom said she was taking me to see a special doctor that was going to "help me with my Quirk." I was there for hours, doing various tests and answering questions from a bunch of different people. They drew blood samples, did CT scans, the whole shebang.

A couple of weeks after that my mom packed up a suitcase for me and said I was going to a special camp for kids with special Quirks like me. She used that word a lot- special. It was a long drive to get to the facility. My dad didn't go with us.

I hadn't noticed my fingers had tightened around Akiba's reflexively until now. I made an effort to loosen my grip, but Akiba didn't seem to mind it as he squeezed my hand.

I can't remember how long I stayed at that facility. I wasn't even allowed to keep most of the stuff my mom sent with me. I do remember they kept us on a very strict schedule.

We were woken up at six, then had breakfast- the only rotated between a few different foods for each meal. There weren't many of us at the facility, just a handful maybe. We weren't allowed to talk to each other much. But we would always sit together when we ate.

After breakfast is when they started the tests. Every so often, maybe once every few weeks, they'd give me some sort of shot. Then they'd hook me up to this weird machine and make me use my Quirk to move things and read people's minds.

The nurses and doctors would always tell me that I had a wonderful Quirk, that I could be a hero with a Quirk like mine. They just needed to make it stronger first.