To Be a Hero | Boku no Hero Academia x OC

Heart of a Hero

Shiro, barely three, was giggling as she ran down the old dusty hallway and towards the creaky staircase. Silver-blue hair flowed behind her as she whipped her head back to make sure that her playmate was still behind her. "Come on!" she encouraged.

"I don't want to run..." the boy, older by a few years, grumbled. His voice was meek compared to the excited little girl's, but she only grinned and tugged at the approaching boy's long sleeves. They were both wearing old hand-me-down clothes, but the boy's shirt looked more tattered due to small fingerprint shaped holes littering across the sleeves. The girl didn't care and continued to tug.

"We'll get in trouble..."

"But I want to play with you," Shiro pouted with big ruby eyes looking up at him. It was curious, because it was in the middle of a hot summer and the boy still wore the hood on his shirt up, and along with his messy bangs covering most of his face, she couldn't see him clearly but she was obviously very familiar with the strange boy.

"..."

"How about we see who can get down the quietest... The fastest!" she continued in shushed tone, looking around to make sure that no one was near. She was quick to adapt and just wanted to have some fun; what little kid didn't?

Looking around as well, the boy finally agreed and the girl was smiling with glee.

"Okay! Ready? Set... Go!"

Quickly, the two children tip-toed down the stairs as fast as they could. Any harsh movement would cause the old wooden boards to creak and crack, so to prevent that, they were shuffling their feet. But it was hard to move so slow when the second objective was to get to the bottom of the stairs the fastest, so at a second of rushed movement Shiro tripped over her own feet and let out a panicked scream.

The boy panicked as well and shot out his hand to grab her shirt. Because of his frail body however, he was quickly losing balance as well so he quickly grab onto the old wooden rail with his other hand and held on as tight as he could.

"S-Safe," he sighed, but the two's relief was short-lived when a loud crack and crumbling was heard as the boy suddenly found himself falling forward with the girl again, his hand gripping to thin air. They tumbled down the rest of the stairs loudly and crashed onto the dirty floor with a loud bang and thump!

Footsteps immediately resonated down the hall and a heavy-set woman looked down from the top of the stairs at the commotion and damage with a scowl.

"My rail!" she screeched angrily when she saw that a piece was missing and stomped down the stairs. Shiro cowered behind the older boy, and his frail body trembled. "You again! I ought to throw you out of my orphanage for all the damage you cause!"

"I-I was just trying t-to—"

"Shut your mouth and go to your room! I swear if I have to replace another thing in the house because of you, there will be no dinner for a week!" the woman shouted as she started dragging the struggling boy away and down the hall and towards a small room before throwing him inside and locking the door from the outside. Shiro started to cry, one because she hit the ground hard, and two because she felt it was unfair that the woman only ever blamed and picked on the boy when there was trouble. She tried to run towards the door but was stopped by the woman.

"Leave him! From now on you stay away from him, got it?"

"B-But," Shiro's lips trembled while she tugged. "I—!"