A small boy named Hitoshi Shinso walked through a park by himself, the sunlight filtering through gaps in the trees to hit his lavender hair. His mother had let him out of the house to explore by himself as long as he returned by dinner. He eagerly accepted the terms, his head bobbing up and down as he slipped on his shoes and ran out the door to the park. He stopped after running for about ten minutes, and looked at the ground. A clump of ants scurried around their nest. He picked up a twig and poked at the crest of their sand mound.

"I don't know what's wrong with him…" his pediatrician's words from earlier that week echoed in his ears. "He doesn't have an extra pinkie toe joint, but he is five years old and has not demonstrated any signs of having a quirk." She talked to his mother and father like the boy did not exist. He looked up to see how a sharp crease formed between his father's eyebrows, the corners of his mouth tense and unmoving. His mother had a cold look on her face, but silently reassured him when she placed her hand over her son's. He was too young to understand the weight behind the argument his mother and father had later that night.

"What the fuck do you think he'll be good for then, Harumi? It doesn't matter how smart he his in his studies. If he doesn't have a quirk, he may as well be fucking deaf, dumb, and blind too." His father continued to take his frustration out on his wife while she bit her tongue, knowing that the boy could hear them through the wall.

Shinso stared at his ceiling for a long time that night, not falling asleep until the early hours of the morning. His eyes were red and inflamed the next day. He didn't know why he cried. Was it his fault that he didn't have a quirk? Did he mess up? His body felt heavy the next day. He was tired. There were dark circles beginning to grow under his eyes, but he couldn't do anything about it. He trudged onwards, his feet dragging on the concrete when he walked to school.

He stopped poking at the ants when he felt a blast of heat hit his back. Looking over his shoulder, he saw two other boys his age. One had red eyes and a baggy t-shirt, the other had green hair and freckles. He noticed immediately that green-hair was crying, looking up at red-eyes, who punched his fist, smoke curling around his knuckles. He pushed green-hair to the ground, and he cried out. Shinso stared for a second at the two, not sure of what he was watching. Were they friends? Red-eyes was smiling, but the other was on the ground and unhappy. He snapped to attention when the smaller of the two was kicked. He gasped in pain.

"Kacchan, stop!" Green-hair shouted. Shinso froze when the other boy kicked him again. He couldn't think straight, and was lost in fighting his fight-or-flight instincts. Suddenly, his body moved before his mind was aware, and he flew on the balls of his feet, running as fast as his legs would carry him. He needed to help. He needed to help. He needed to help.

"You didn't get your quirk yet?"

"That's weird."

"Isn't it? I got mine over a year ago!" One of his friends boasted, sticking out his chest while putting his hand on his hips.

The boy rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous smile flicking onto his face. "I don't know why. I'm gonna see a doctor soon."

His friend stared at him silently for a few seconds. "You don't think your quirkless, do you?" He asked.

"..." The boy's smile stuck to his face like glue, but his eyes flew around the crowd of classmates surrounding him, gauging each reaction. "N-no! There's no way! Just you wait. I'll get my quirk soon and it will be the best one ever." The words tumbled out of his mouth, and he waited to see how his peers would react.

His friend eyed him for a few more seconds before looking away. "Yeah, right!"

The boy sagged back in his seat after the crowd dissipated and class started. His heart thumped heavily against his ribcage, and he shoved down the restless feeling he had. He would get a quirk no matter what. It was going to happen.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Shinso shouted to the other two kids. The one called Kacchan stopped moving entirely for a moment, then his eyes slid over to take in the sight of his challenger.

"What do you want, extra?" Kacchan snarled, moving forward. The other boy started to take a step backwards in response, but he swallowed and planted his feet.

"You're hurting him." He pointed to green-hair. "No one likes it when they get hit. Don't." He averted his gaze for a moment, thinking back to the few rare instances where his father punished him for disobeying his word. He felt ashamed every time he was hit, and could only guess that no one else would want to suffer from that humiliation.

Laughter gurgled out of Kacchan's throat. "You can't tell me what to do. This is between me and this quirkless bum. Isn't that right, Deku?" He kicked Deku with his foot once more. Deku started to stutter, trying to stand up to his oppressor, but no words would come out. Kacchan kicked him a few more times before he was knocked off balance, for Shinso had launched himself onto the boy, latching onto his shirt and forcing him to the ground. The two grappled for a short while before Kacchan came out on top, pushing Shinso's wrists into the gravel. It burrowed into his skin, and he felt blood well up at the point of contact. "Stop…" He sputtered.

Kacchan used his foot to hold down the other boy's arm while his hand tried to pry open Shinso's mouth. He gritted his teeth. "You're just like him." He mumbled under his breath, his scarlet eyes blazing with hatred. His breathing picked up. "You think you're so good just because you can try and stop a fight? Even though you don't have any powers? You think you're better than me? I'm the best, and I always will be. I'm not going to let pebbles like you get in the way of me being top hero!" He tried to wrench open Shinso's jaw again, this time opening it a few inches. He coughed, and gathered up phlegm from the back of his throat. "I'll show you why you don't mess with strangers." He leaned over his prey. "You have to swallow it, or I'm gonna do it again." He spit into the other boy's mouth. Shinso gagged and tried to spit it out on the ground, but was forced to swallow when two fingers pushed at his throat.

"Kacchan, leave him alone!" He heard Deku shout, and he started to crawl over.

"Get away from me!" He replied, and sent a wave of flames towards Deku to push him back. He turned his attention back to Shinso.

"Stop…" Shinso whispered when Kacchan spit again. Shinso jerked his face away with enough power for the tendril of saliva to miss the corner of his mouth. His face was flushed, and he knew he wasn't strong enough to win in a fight. Frustrated tears pricked the corners of his eyes, threatening to trickle down his face.

"Shut up!" Kacchan yelled. His entire body was shaking.

"Stop…" He said through his clenched teeth. He breathed faster and faster, his thoughts spinning in a whirlwind around his head. He couldn't think of anything to get out of the situation other than sit and wait until the other boy was satisfied that he terrorized him enough. He wanted to throw up at the thought of being held down for so long.

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Kacchan screamed again. He pushed the boy's wrists into the ground. The hands on Shinso's wrist began to burn, and he screamed out in pain, knowing it would leave an angry burn across his skin.

He squeezed his eyes shut, not able to make sense of anything going on in his head. Suddenly, everything stilled, and he was able to see something through the fog in his mind. A switch. Without knowing why, he started to move towards it, as if in a hazy trance. He reached for it, and touched the switch, activating it. He knew that it did something, but he didn't know what. He flinched when the grip on his wrists slackened. He cracked one eye open, then the other, and stared up at Kacchan, who was stock-still with a blank look on his face. Shinso gasped, and stared at the boy who didn't move at all, save for the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

"...Did you do that?" Shinso heard a voice behind him, and he craned his head. Deku sat on the ground behind him, nursing his badly scraped knee and burn marks across his arms. His eyes were wide with awe.

"I-I don't know." He looked at Kacchan again. "Hello?" He asked, waving his hand in front of his eyes. He tapped him on the hand, but there was no response. "He's not moving." He nudged him harder. yet after that, too, was unsuccessful, he decided to push him onto his back. He wriggled his hands out from under Kacchan's, and placed them on the boy's chest. He heaved, and Kacchan toppled to the ground, hard. And, just as soon as it happened, the spell was broken, and he was sprawled out on the ground, dazed and adjusting his eyes to the sunlight.

After a few moments, he rolled onto his feet and walked immediately up to Shinso, only stopping when their noses were a few inches apart. He glared and snarled at him before stalking off, not bothering to look at Deku. His hands sparked.

Deku stared after Kacchan for a moment before he turned to look back at Shinso. He stood and bowed. "Thank you very much." He stood upright, and grinned. "This is normal for me, but he is never that bad with strangers. And you have an amazing quirk, by the way." He muttered to himself quietly.

"I… you're welcome…" Shinso stammered, slowly processing what Deku had said. Amazing quirk? That… that was my quirk? He thought to himself. Before he could say anything else, the boy bounded off in a different direction. Shinso looked after him with his mouth slightly ajar before he rubbed the back of his neck, and went home, his head swimming. How was he going to tell his mom?

He walked through his front door. "I'm home!" He shouted, and took off his shoes.

"Welcome back!" His mother replied. He walked to the living room. She was looking over the daily newspaper that she had not had the chance to read yet. "How was your walk?" She asked, glancing up at him, but stopped short once she saw how filthy he son's clothes were. "Hitoshi, you're a mess! Go and take a bath right this instance!" She scolded him. He shuffled away, thankful that she didn't notice the streaks of spit trailing down one cheek, and the burn on his wrist that he hid behind his back. He ran the bath and sighed when he sank into the water. His thoughts flew as he tried to think of new ideas for how to tell his mother, but decided to tell the truth.

"Mom?" Shinso asked while toweling off his hair.

"Yes?" She had moved to the kitchen and was now cooking dicing onions.

"I… today I went to the park and…" he paused, not prepared at all to tell his mother. He had thought of showing her by controlling her, but there was no clear switch this time, so he tripped over his words instead. He took a deep breath. "I know what my quirk is."

His mother paused, and looked at him blankly, her mouth an "o". She set down the knife and knelt down by him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "What do you think it is?"

"There was a kid who yelled at me today, and when he was about to do something to me, I made him stop."

Something settled into his mother's eyes, though she tried her best to hide it. "What do you mean made him stop?" She asked slowly.

"I didn't touch him, but he stopped when I told him to, and didn't move until I pushed him over." He looked at his mom carefully. The corners of her mouth had perked up a bit into a smile, a triumphant look passing over her features. But her eyes didn't say that she was proud at all. Her gaze flitted around her son's face, looking to make sure if he was really telling the truth.

She was quiet for a bit longer. "Well," she spoke up, "you go and finish drying yourself off, and we can tell dad later, okay?" She ruffled his hair, and he giggled before skipping off to his room, relieved that she didn't get angry at him. After he turned the corner her mouth turned into a hard line. Her husband's quirk was a weaker form of telekinesis, yet still something powerful that she hoped her son would inherit. However, she was able to persuade the mindsets of others for short period of time when she made physical contact with them, but only for very small decisions. She was never able to make someone stop moving, only make them decide that they want to watch a movie that afternoon instead of play a boardgame. A cold sweat washed over her, and she looked in the direction of her son's room. A dangerous quirk for a boy who was too perceptive and intelligent for his own good. If by chance his pure thoughts turned dark, he would be a deadly enemy for any hero on the planet.

I'm just trying this out - I was interested in Shinso's character from the first time he showed up, and really wanted to see more of him in the anime and manga. I'm planning on focusing on his childhood for a few chapters until the tournament arc, then things will change after that. I think this will be a long one and I am excited to write it! Just a note though - the romance between Shinso and Deku will come later on in the fiction, mainly because I think it would be OOC for him to fall in love at first sight, especially when he is so cold to people at times, but we'll see!