Neko

Fire Burns

Izuku was a normal kid. He followed all the rules and played fair. He was happy.

"I'm sorry, your son is quirkless." the doctor said in an apathetic tone. "You should just give up on being a hero."

Izuku smiled, tears flowing from his eyes. His All Might action figure slipping out of his hand. The tears never stopped. No, they kept going. By the rate he was going he could probably fill a pool with them. This was supposed to be the best day of his life! The day when he finally found out what his quirk was. He instead got diagnosed quirkless. Go figures, the one best suited for the title of hero would be the one born without a quirk.

Izuku just wanted this nightmare to be over. He tried pinching himself. Ow! That didn't work. He muttered. Still with fresh tears in his eyes, he went to the computer to watch his favorite video. The All Might debut. Over and over again, he watched it.

Of course All Might would tell him he could be a hero... Right?

"Mum can I be a hero?" Izuku asked as his mother walked in.

"I'm sorry Izuku." Was all she could say, tears flowing from her eyes as she scooped Izuku up in a hug.

Going ahead in the future, it is his first day of school. His childhood friend Kacchan was in his class. While everyone was looking at Kacchan showing off his explosions, he slipped into the chair at the back of the classroom. He hoped no one noticed him. His experience at day care was bad enough.

Although all good things come to an end.

"Oi extras look over there! That freak at the back is Deku. He's quirkless so you better stay away from him." Kacchan stated.

Everyone took a step away from him. They didn't want to be anywhere near the quirkless student. They where too afraid to catch the Izuku's quirkless disease.

Eventually the bulling started. It was true, kids where cruel. It started with mean words then escalated to beatings. They never stopped. The teachers didn't care. They would always say that he was in trouble. That he started it. He was always at blame. They also held him over the smallest mistakes. If he gets into the classroom the moment the bell rings he was be classed as late.

Teachers were to blame as much as his classmates. Or should he say class-enemies.

It all went downhill from there. All at the age of 12.

He didn't know what possessed him to go to Dagobah beach that day, but he did. He admired the pieces of scrap metal that he found, promising to come back to tinker with them. But he couldn't shake the feeling in his gut that something was wrong. Despite the feeling he started to make his way toward the apartment.

He was welcomed by his mother when he got inside. She held a nervous smile on her face. Thinking nothing of it he went to his room to study. Despite knowing a lot, he liked to work on the collage textbooks that his mother had given him.

Five minutes past. His gut feeling got stronger and stronger. His nose twitched when he smelt something. It smelt like burnt popcorn at first. Then he saw smoke coming out from under his closed door. He heard shouting, screaming and laughter. Adrenaline filled his veins.

It all started with a spark, a tiny slither of light. That spark caused a flame but even the smallest of flames can start an inferno. And an inferno it caused. Flames licked at the carpets of Izuku's room, begging to get to the walls of his old, rickety apartment that he called home.

Smoke filled the boy's senses, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. The fire was spreading. The walls- now covered in the sickening orange flames -threatened to collapse, the wood shaking with every slight movement.

And yet Izuku couldn't move. His fight or flight instincts telling him to freeze, his mind going over all the what-ifs. But even something as beautiful as the flickering of a flame can cause a great destruction. Screams made their way to his ears, louder than ever and it became very clear in his mind.

Izuku had always been told about his father... About how horrible he was. Hisashi Midoriya. He had a fire breathing quirk.

The sudden burning startled Izuku from his thoughts.

Almost as suddenly as the screams started, they stopped, the sound of the door slamming followed by complete silence and the flickering of the flames. The smoke was getting thicker. Before he left the room, he grabbed the essentials. Something told him he wasn't coming back. Sticking to the floor, he crawled out to the living room. That's when he saw her. His very own mother lying on the floor, half dead.

"Mum!" He called out in shock, eyes watering.

"Zuku, honey." Her creaking voice said, barely over a whisper. "Please, you need to leave. It isn't safe here. Please. Be the hero that you always wanted to be."

Izuku couldn't take it. His eyes became glassy as tears started to drip from his eyes. Quite the opposite to the flames that surrounded them.

"Take this sweetie." She said, pulling out a hand made kitsune mask. It was white, turning grey from the ash of the apartment. It had three green circles of varying sizes on the top of the mask. Green stripes painted like triangles on the cheeks. Green circles around the eyes.

It was beautiful. He reached for the mask with shaky hands.

"I love you. Never forget that." With those final words his mother closed her eyes, a small smile on her face as the flames overtook her.

Her smile was something he would never forget.

Edited on the 18th of December 2020

Well that's the end of this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it. This fic is cross-posted on ao3.

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https://discord.gg/VW4zSE

Also I have been told that this chapter is kinda like the song cradles and I love that song so here's the link for it :))

Have a good day! ヾ(•ω•')o