Early Years

I don't want to overly rehash what's been stated in the anime and manga, so the first two chapters may feel rushed. Season 4 (unaired until October) spoilers ahead, so quit reading if you want to be surprised. If you have not read the manga yet and still want to proceed, I believe I've provided more than enough background for a comfortable reading experience.

Trigger warning. Some parts are gonna be cheesy, but I'm including them anyway.

In elementary school, Hotaru Inasaka had watched as Mirio Togata failed to walk through a small barrier of stone. He'd proclaimed that his permeation quirk was far trickier than his classmates thought, but nobody believed him. They decided he lacked talent from the very start. Hotaru had been the last to do the exercise. When it came to be her turn, she strained, but eventually the touch of a finger caused the obstacle to pressurize and collapse into a heap of rubble.

"Whoa! That's so cool!" Where Mirio had been mocked, Hotaru was built up, even though neither of them could fully control their quirks. Nobody in middle school had been surprised when Hotaru said she managed to get into UA. As for Mirio, they all thought he was making stuff up. Hotaru had never made fun of him, but she had never stood up for him, either. She was always short, only capping out at 160 centimeters (5'3 feet) when in eighth grade. Hotaru never felt as if she were big enough to take on class's bullies, despite her powerful quirk. It was only when Mirio mooned the nation at his first UA Sports Festival that the kids from elementary school believed he had really been accepted.

Every year at UA she learned a new use for her power. She learned that not only could she pressurize the entirety of something, but she began to concentrate on smaller parts and pieces. If she pressurized the air around her and released quickly, she could make small breezes or even a gust of wind strong enough to toss terribly aimed projectiles

When the names for the Big Three students was released, Hotaru didn't mind that she wasn't on the list. In fact, she was ecstatic that her best friend, Nejire Hado, made the cut. "That's good that we didn't swim all those laps for nothing," Hotaru said when they got the news. Nejire had insisted that to work work on their endurance training would be the most sure-fire way to help both of them. At first, Hotaru figured there was no harm in saying yes.

Until five am the next morning. And the morning after. And after. For the rest of their school days, Nejire and Hotaru swam laps. For three years, they rarely missed a day. Hotaru learned that almost nothing could dampen her best friend's infallible spirit. One day, on the rarest of occasions, Nejire arrived at the pool with a thoughtful expression. "You okay?" Hotaru asked.

"Can you still be a hero without a quirk?" The question seemed important, though completely out of place for their usual chatter.

Hotaru wasn't sure how to answer. "I guess not?" Her response was an inquiry in turn. "Why? Did you misplace yours?"

Nejire blinked and shook her head. "Oh, no. Not me. Mirio lost his. He's on a break from UA for a little bit. Tamaki and I aren't sure what's going to happen to him."

There was a moment of silence where neither of them knew what to say. Though Mirio had always been a part of Hotaru's school life, she took him for granted. Hotaru had been a steadfastly advanced student, whereas Mirio only recently charged ahead to take the head spot as the strongest student at UA. In the end, Hotaru and Nejire completed their routine without a word. By the time they wrapped up the workout, Hotaru had pushed the situation to the back of her mind.

They went to class and carried on like everything was alright. Nejire, who wasn't one to stay quiet for long, chattered amiably with anyone who made eye contact, and even some who didn't. With Mirio gone, Amajiki looked particularly alone in the corner. Without ever agreeing to anything aloud, Nejire and Hotaru made sure to include him. In that way, Hotaru got to know Tamaki Amajiki.

She learned he was single minded in his efforts to get Mirio back on track. Though phones weren't allowed in school, he peeked at his beneath his desk and chased after any article that followed quirk power ups or even doing the impossible - bestowing quirks. Nejire noticed and leaned over to mutter with him, only for Miss Midnight to grin. The teacher smacked her whip against her palm and stalked forward. "Do we have rulebreakers over here?" She asked with a sensual lick of her lips.

Hotaru sat just in front of the problem children in question, which enabled her to intercept what may have become statutory rape. "No, we were just discussing your hair. It looks particularly bouncy today," Hotaru lied. After years of having to make uses for Nejire, Hotaru had developed infinite distraction methods.

Miss Midnight whipped the air approvingly and carried on her lecture.

After class, Nejire reprimanded Hotaru for her fib. "Miss Midnight's hair did look different today, but you know that's not what we were talking about, right?"

Tamaki looked a second away from either face palming or trying to melt into the wall. "Who knows what she would have done to us," he muttered. A moment later, he was overtaken by an unpleasant looking full body shudder.

"Nejire, if you want to be chained in a soundproof room and whipped for talking in class, be my guest, but don't take anyone else down with you," Hotaru laughed. It was easier to keep things light around Nejire.

Nejire seemed to seriously consider the possibility. "You don't think she'd really do that, do you?"

Tamaki went out of his way to look anywhere else. Clearly, he wouldn't answer the question. Hotaru sighed and pushed her dark brown hair from her face. No matter how hard she tried to style it, she always wound up with shoulder-length waves that belonged on a surfer-boy, not a hero in training. Seemingly infinite hidden cowlicks kept her from ever managing to flatten the mess down. Nejire said it looked like ocean waves, but Hotaru had heard others whisper that it was a permanent bedhead. "I think Miss Midnight would spank any one of her students if given half a chance."

Of course, Nejire was already onto another topic.

Over the next week, Mirio became a curiosity. His lost quirk became public knowledge at UA, as did the death of his mentor. Tamaki, as Mirio's closest friend, took the brunt of his classmates' inquiries. They bombarded him left and right until, at last, Nejire insisted she and Hotaru tail him. For the most part, Nejire's questions and no-filter comments kept people at bay. The one time Hotaru had to become involved, she pressurized wind, created a gust of air, and gave Tamaki time to escape.

After another week, Mirio returned. Hotaru had expected some change in him, as he was now the first official quirkless student to ever grace UA's halls. Somehow, he managed to make everything seem alright. Even though he had lost his mentor, his powers, and witnessed evil firsthand. On the outside, Nejire seemed unchanged as well, but Hotaru could feel a change in her best friend's behavior. Their morning swims stretched out longer than before, to the point where Hotaru had to strain at the end.

It wasn't until a decade into knowing him that Hotaru and Mirio had their first one on one conversation. Hotaru couldn't sleep. Her head had been filled with strange, muddled thoughts for no reason. Instead of tossing and turning in her room, she headed to the common area and decided to get a drink of water.

Before she could even flick on a light, Hotaru was aware of a screen shining in the darkness. She narrowed her eyes and allowed them to adjust. "Togata?" As far as she knew, he wasn't a night owl. She halted in her tracks, temporarily suspending her gait.

Mirio glanced over his shoulder and waved. "Good morning, Inasaka. How are you?" Not only did he sound alert, he was peppy. As one who went to bed at nine and rose just fifteen minutes before five, she found his cheerful attitude draining.

"It's two am," she responded, dumbfounded. "What are you doing awake?" Out of curiosity, she peeked at his screen. As far as she knew, Mirio was a teenage boy in a public area with a bit of a voyeur fetish. If anyone would be spanking the eel in the common room, she suspected it would be him - all the while sincerely hoping her assumption was incorrect.

Mirio saw her glance and lifted his phone. "I'm downloading videos for Eri-chan." Through Nejire, Hotaru had heard of the girl with a stolen childhood. Rumor had it that she had her cells torn apart and infused in a quirk-removal serum. After being saved from gangsters, she had to live at a hospital under constant surveillance. "What about you? Why are you out of bed?"

Hotaru and Nejire were nearly as inseparable as Tamaki and Mirio. It wasn't until Nejire had been announced as a 'big three' that she began to to address Mirio and Tamaki by their first names. As for Hotaru, she had never been treated poorly by either one. Mirio had come far from his awkward shouting days - he evolved to yelling with finesse while darting around naked. She wondered if the late-night conversation was a mutual attempt to, at last, break the ice between them. "I'm caught deciding on which hero to sidekick under when I graduate," she admitted, feeling insensitive as she spoke. Even if Mirio graduated, she didn't believe he'd be able to carry on with his ambitions.

"Go with your gut," Mirio said, not having to hear her options. He didn't question her lack of experience or push her towards his favorites. The simple advice helped her more than she cared to admit.

"You might want to take books to read to Eri, too." Since he'd helped her, she made sure to help him on his path.

With nothing else to say, Hotaru got herself a glass of water and planned on looking through her options. She was rather surprised when Mirio decided to speak again. "Have you ever used your quirk to fly?"

Hotaru paused, glass in hand, and looked at her classmate as if he were crazy. "I think you might have me confused with someone else. I pressurize things," she explained.

"I know." Judging by the look on his face, he was being sincere. "You could put pressure on the ground for a really cool takeoff, or maybe you could somehow change the density of air and make some sort of step."

It was so crazy, Hotaru thought it just might work.

Hotaru took Mirio's advice and submitted her paperwork to work with Edgeshot. Once she started to think with emotion rather than logic, the choice was the only one that made sense. She was one of the last students to fill out her forums and only barely made it before the deadline. Just as she finished handing her information to Miss Midnight, an eager voice boomed behind her.

"Oh please, please let's enter together," Nejire begged. Preparations for the cultural festival were in full swing. "If there's two of us, then Zaki Bibimi has a smaller chance of winning Miss Con."

Hotaru had heard the request before, but her stance was firm. "Aside from stuffing myself into a revealing outfit and enlisting in a beauty pageant, I'll help you in any way I can," Hotaru chuckled.

"You wear a swimsuit everyday! It's practically the same thing!" Nejire insisted.

The more Nejire tried, the more firm Hotaru became on her stance. "That's training." They were like stubborn dogs pulling at the same bone.

"Oh come on, this could be training, too!"

Over the next several weeks, it became a game. "It's not like you're shy like Tamaki," Nejire insisted over lunch. The boy in question sat just across from Nejire. His chopsticks hovered over his mismatched tray. Though Hotaru understood the need for him to eat diverse foods for his quirk, she knew she'd never got used to seeing fried chicken and ginger clams side by side. "Come on, come on! Your costume is form fitting." Nejire had already used that argument, so Hotaru didn't feel as if she needed to answer.

"So Amajiki, where's Togata?" She decided to change topics. As always, the tactic worked.

"He's showing Eri around school," Tamaki explained.

"Whaaat?" Nejire gasped. "Is she going to go to school here? She'd be, like, the youngest high schooler ever."

Tamaki and Nejire carried on to Nejire's practice room. As for Hotaru, she went to a quiet portion of campus to practice. Ever since Mirio mentioned flight or air stepping, at the very least, she had decided to test the theory. If it was plausible, it would be a good means of transportation. Since Hotaru had generally utilized her quirk through her hands, her first task was to channel it through her feet. Hotaru made sure to take off her shoes and socks and stuff them near a rock, as to avoid accidental explosions. She held her training in a fairly open patch of grass bordering an on-campus grove.

Hotaru found the quirk-usage as comfortable as puking. It felt alien and strange, as if her pressurization was being utilized in a completely unnatural way. Though her body found it odd, she found that Mirio's theory was entirely plausible. A point blank takeoff was certain to tear up the ground. Since property damage wasn't particularly heroic, Hotaru decided to save the more dramatic approach for a day on the beach. For the moment, she concentrated on pressurizing the air below her feet. Lift, compress, step. She hadn't gotten five minutes into training when a distraction found her.

"No way, you can already do it?" Mirio shouted, Eri half-hidden behind him.

Thankfully Hotaru was only a few centimeters off the ground, or else her break in concentration could have meant a much more disastrous fall. As it was, she dropped harmlessly to the grass. "Hardly," she admitted, her dark grey eyes glancing at the child. "Did you have too much fun on spring break, Mirio?"

Mirio grinned, catching the implication. "The business class already made that joke. Normally you have better material than them." Thankfully, Eri appeared oblivious to the insinuation. "We finished looking around campus and were going to head home."

Hotaru assumed Mirio meant Eri's home, since he lived on campus. "It's nice to meet you, Eri. You can call me Hochan." She guessed that the child had been introduced to dozens of different students during the day. Judging by the look on Eri's face, she was overwhelmed and ready for a break. They parted ways shortly after, leaving Hotaru to her practice.

Come the day of the cultural festival, Hotaru relished the chance to wear her civilian gear. She slipped on a long sleeved grey sweater dress that fell to her mid-thigh and had a repetitive cream arrowhead design just a centimeter above the skirt's end. To stave off winter's chill, she tugged on a pair of mustard yellow leggings paired with black boots that reached the bottom of her knees. She wasn't the only one to express a level of individuality. Clothes far different than the typical UA uniforms brazenly dotted the sidewalks and clad familiar faces in atypical attire. While some students kept to the school dress-code, no teachers were punishing those that dared to stray from tradition, as was typical for all their festivals.

Nejire was, as always, a bit more out there. Her dark dress looked almost like a form-fitting cloud. "I can't stay and talk! Wish me luck!" She said as she dashed by.

"Good luck," Hotaru called, hoping that this year Nejire could finally win the crown. She walked at a far less hectic pace out to the crowds of milling students. Out of luck, she found a lone Tamaki, who looked lost when not trailing by Nejire or Mirio. "Amajiki," she called, unsurprised to see he still wore the school's uniform. Even if his tie wasn't perfect or his coat buttons were undone, the outfit seemed to be what he was comfortable in.

"Hello, Inasaka," he responded, looking at a point over her shoulder the entire time.

"Where were you headed? I've got some time to kill until the beauty pageant." There were distractions in abundance all around them, but she didn't feel right leaving a friend of her friend to fend for himself.

Her guess that he wanted company appeared to be right, because his shoulders dropped, as if he'd released a silent sigh of relief. "I'm going to the first year's concert. Mirio said he'd be there with Eri."

Hotaru noted the swarms of people and nodded understandingly. "It's too bad you didn't get a wind quirk," she said, distracting them as she began to walk through. The conversation was meant to distract him. While it somewhat worked, she could still feel his anxiousness as he followed along. "Then you could just break wind and everyone would run away."

Tamaki nearly choked on his startled laugh. "My coveted quirk is farting?"

"You need more beans in your diet," she answered gravely, though she grinned as she said it.

The two of them managed to find the venue, but Tamaki blatantly refused to join Mirio and Eri, who were at the front of the crowd. He never said a word, but his legs began to tremble. Taking her cue, Hotaru made up an excuse. "These things get pretty loud. Are you alright if we stay back here, away from the speakers?"

His nod was swift and full of gratitude.

Blaring music tumbled over their eardrums for minutes afterwards. Class 1-A put on a better show than Hotaru would have thought possible. She glanced at the front to see Eri's reaction. The girl, held high to get the best vantage possible, had her mouth open and a smile on her face. Just beneath her, Mirio looked so relieved and happy that he had tears running down his eyes.

For an instant, everything fell away from Hotaru. To see her classmate's unbridled joy for the gleeful child was enough to make her smile. What a great guy. Though he'd proved himself to be humorous, dedicated, brave, and persistent, only in that moment did Hotaru realize how Mirio had already achieved what many heroes would never see in their lifetimes - the thrill of a successful rescue. Not only that, he basked in it. She imagined that if she asked Mirio, he'd lose his quirk another thousand times to make Eri as happy as she was now for the rest of her life.

Eri and Mirio lingered to talk to one of the kids from class 1-A. Once they finished, Tamaki and Hotaru rejoined them. "Hi, Floating Girl! I'm sorry, I forgot your name," Eri admitted, her energy infinitely higher than their last meeting.

"This is Hochan, Eri," Mirio reminded her.

Though Hotaru wasn't one to get phased easily, thanks in no small part to Nejire, she did feel strangely warm at Mirio calling her such an informal nickname. "I'm not floating girl yet," she said with a grin. "I'll probably be Falling Girl for a little while more."

"You'll get it," Mirio said at once, utterly confident in her abilities.

Why is it so hot in winter? Hotaru was aware of her face subtly shifting color and how her stomach felt like it was trying to do a backflip.

Tamaki took his turn to read the situation and come to Hotaru's rescue. "Did we want to get some food?"

Eri happily agreed and became the undisputed leader of their ventures. Wherever she said she wanted to go, Tamaki, Mirio, and Hotaru obliged the sheltered tyke. She ate an astounding amount of food and never once complained. Whenever she got tired, Mirio scooped her up in his arms and let her ride on his shoulders.

They arrived at the beauty pageant early so they could stand in the front rows. Tamaki looked uncomfortable during their wait, no matter how Mirio or Hotaru tried to distract him. As soon as it was Nejire's turn, the crowd's eyes focused on the stage. Nejire floated above the stage and danced in midair with an unearthly, fairylike grace. With her peripheral vision, Hotaru could feel Tamaki's unblinking stare as he smiled up at the young woman he clearly loved.

Later that night, when Nejire finally got her tiara, she was greeted with an astounding roar of applause from the crowd. As soon as she rejoined Hotaru, Tamaki, Mirio, and Eri, Nejire plopped the headpiece on Eri's head. Even though she'd tried for so long to win it, she was willing to give it away to the sad girl who'd been raised by gangsters. "Will you keep this safe for me?"

Eri lifted her eyes, as if to see how she looked, and nodded so enthusiastically that the tiara nearly dropped to the ground. Mirio and Hotaru bent at the same time to catch it, which resulted in them bonking heads. Luckily, they both managed to get their fingers around each end. "You got it?" Hotaru checked. Not only would it be a buzzkill to have the moment ruined, but she didn't want to ruin Eri's perfect day.

Mirio grinned and nodded. "Me and my butterfingers," he said, acting as if it was his fault the tiara had plummeted to the ground in the first place. With the utmost care, Mirio set the ornament back on Eri's head.