Disclaimer: Boku no Hero Academia characters and plot events belongs to Horikoshi Kohei.


To Be a Hero

aisaka shiragiku: origin

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The little girl knew that the building was burning down, but she couldn't find a way out. All she remembered was that there was a loud explosion and a villain crashed into the building to wreck havoc with his fire Quirk and scattered everyone inside. The smoke was burning her throat, making it hard for her to breathe.

"Nii-san..."

She jumped at the loud creak above her head. When she looked up, the villain was perched above a large wooden supporting bar and was looking at her with a dangerous grin. "You lost, little girl?" She tried to run but her feet got caught under some fallen debris and she tripped.

CRACK!

The bar had collapsed under the villain's added weight, and they were plummeting straight towards her. Make it disappear make it disappear make it disappear—! Absolute fear consumed her as she felt her eyes burn, but this time it wasn't because of the smoke and tears. She drew her hands up in fear in an attempt to block it, and suddenly the wooden bar and the villain disappeared at just the slightest touch of her fingertips.

Then, a large figure crashed in just seconds later. "It's fine now...!" Through the smoke, she saw a muscular man with a hero suit on. His blonde bangs stood as majestically as his own form. "Because I am here!"

The little girl's terrified eyes stayed unblinking as the hero picked her up.

"What is your name, young child?" his voice boomed.

"Shiragiku..." she rasped. "H-Help me find nii-san..."

He grinned with a quick nod, making the girl smile a little at the reassurance. "I will go find him! Then I will go catch the villain responsible for this!"

"U-Um..." He felt her tug at his suit. "I made the villain d-disappear... Do you need him back?"

The hero gave her a questioning stare, and that's when he saw the different colored dials in her terribly strained ruby eyes spin again. Then, the girl passed out...

Static-like waves ripped through the air and the hero dodged just in time as the villain and the bar appeared and continued its course in crashing down to the ground where the girl had originally fallen. Upon landing, the villain looked around in absolute confusion before he was faced with the hero.

"A-All Might!?"

"It is me!" the hero grinned before he knocked the daylights out of the man. Now, the young child said there's another— However, the building was quickly crumbling. Shit! Securing the girl in his arms before grabbing the villain, he brought them both to safety before the building collapsed. Making sure the villain was apprehended and the unconscious girl was passed to a doctor, All Might immediately went back to search for anyone who may be still trapped inside and left no stone unturned.

However, he did not find a single person...

[]

The little girl woke up in the hospital several days later. The lack of oxygen sent to her brain during the fire along with the aftershock from using a newly developed Quirk far beyond her current capabilities had short-circuited her brain and wiped out most of her memory, so she was beyond confused about why she was in a hospital or even who she was.

Although All Might never got the chance to visit the little girl personally because he was so busy with hero work, he did put in a favor. The building she was found in was an orphanage, and with no available documents, he couldn't find the brother she mentioned or any living kin, so the least he could do was have her taken cared of.

It was also because he saw potential in the girl. When the villain was questioned, he had expressed that he had no idea what happened, only that he felt like he really just disappeared out of existence for a few minutes. Tests revealed that her Quirk was to manipulate probability, but at its full potential, she can even warp reality. All Might understood immediately that back there, it was because she wanted the danger to disappear, so the reality of the danger was rewrote to cease its existence when a part of her body made contact.

It was a rare as well as a dangerous Quirk, and she had to be set on a proper path so that the Quirk can be controlled and used for good.

And thus, a confused, four-year-old Shiragiku met a grumpy, 26-year-old Aizawa Shota.


"I'm going to rewrite their existence...!"

Todoroki was immediately at Shiro's side, gripping her arm with a condemnatory expression. "Are you out of your mind?" he said seriously. "You know they are not on the same level as those thugs. Do you honestly think your body can take that?"

"...It takes even more energy to rewrite on something large or someone extremely powerful though... Best case is I pass out, but worst case, I'll overstimulate my eyes and cause serious damage to myself."

"Even if I can't... What kind of hero would I be if I just let them continue to hurt everyone I care about?!" Shiro yelled, twisting her arm out of the male's grip and charged at Shigaraki. He was the one ordering around the monster, so she needed to get rid of him first. I need to get close enough to him...!

"Heroes... They're the trash of society..." Shigaraki muttered as his fingers started scratching the side of his neck obsessively. "Nomu," he ordered, and the monster immediately turned to the girl. "I want her dead."

A large fist slammed down at Shiro, but she managed to dodge it with just a scrape as she continued her path towards Shigaraki. Nomu followed behind and with inhuman speed, reached out to grab her. His inky hands squeezed down on her arm and she could feel the skin tear and bone crack beneath the strong mass of muscle. Gritting her teeth in pain, she focused to rewrite the cellular structure of her entire arm into billions of individual cells in order to scatter it to escape Nomu's grasp, and the sensation was akin to her skin being ripped apart little by little. Once released, she quickly restored the structural integrity of her arm before the cells die off and her arm no longer felt crushing pain.

Shigaraki cursed at Nomu for failing to keep her back. He was angry, so angry at just looking at her and everything she's become. "You... I despise you... So..." his arm shot out, "Die... Shiragiku!"

Shiro faltered for a second when her name left the villain's lips. How does he know my— But that second of distraction allowed his five fingers to make contact with the safety glasses on her face. The impenetrable glass cracked and immediately started to disintegrate to dust and she knew the next thing would be her skin, so she leaned back and swung her leg at him. She just needed to make contact.

"Cease to exist, villain...!"

Nomu's arm immediately shot out to grab her again as Shigaraki recoiled several feet back with his eyes round with shock. The effects of Shiro's existence rewrite was immediately effective on Nomu; since the monster was the one who made contact with her, one side of his body was starting to disappear, albeit slowly because of his tremendous power reserve. The Nomu cried out a shrill roar as it slammed Shiro at a boulder, ultimately breaking her rewrite command, and swung at her.

In a last effort to lessen the damage that was about to happen to her, her left eye subconsciously activated by itself and lowered the harm by 99%. Nomu's fist hit the boulder instead as Shiro slid down to the ground. The boulder started to crumble.

"Shiro-san!" Midoriya cried as he felt his legs move on his own. Flicking a finger on the ground for a boost from his One for All, he instantly grabbed the girl just as Todoroki sent a blast of ice to Nomu before he could get near the badly injured girl again.

"M-Mido..." Nomu was only halfway destroyed, and to Shiro's horror, the monster was regenerating. It didn't work... she tried to get up, only to feel a jolting pain when moving her body.

"Please don't move, Shiro-san! You're hurt badly!" Midoriya could see that the nerves and muscles around the injured girl's left eye was damaged because she couldn't keep it open all the way. She was hurt all over her body from the impact of being slammed, too.

"She's at her limit," Todoroki said when he managed to reach them. He looked at her critically before turning to the curly haired male. "Midoriya, have Asui and Mineta help you take Aizawa-sensei to safety. I'll get her out of here."

H-Her limit...? Midoriya thought shakily. Shiro-san just jumped in without a care for herself...

She almost... She almost... Shigaraki was also shaking, both from fear and anger, as his bloodshot eyes narrowed at the people surrounding Shiro."Nomu!" he was deranged now, "Kill all of them! It's game over!"

At the order, Nomu charged. Tsuyu and Mineta were the first in the monster's line of sight.

"Tsuyu-chan, Mineta-kun!" Midoriya braced himself and threw his fist back. I have to protect my classmates! The monster was somehow able to take blows without damage and he knew this time it would be the same, but if he can even just divert its attention... "Sma—!"

"It's fine now...!"

The door at the entrance of USJ suddenly smashed open, the blow sending a powerful gust of wind across the entire vicinity. Everyone froze and turned their heads towards the newcomer's presence, and relief immediately washed over the faces of class 1-A.

Shiro saw a large figure walk through the smoke. She vaguely felt that this scene was in some way familiar...

"...Because I am here!"

All Might's fists curled tightly as his mouth was set to a wrathful sneer. The hero was not smiling this time.


Tsuyu and Mineta took care of taking the unconscious Aizawa towards where Uraraka and the others were. Thirteen was also gravely wounded by his own Quirk when Kurogiri warped the black hole towards the hero, but with All Might here, it was over for the villains.

Shiro felt herself being lifted up in someone's arms. Her body was banged up with deep scrapes and bruises. A rib was pressing uncomfortably at her left lung, making each breath a slight challenge. "Did I mess up...?" she whispered as she looked up to see who was carrying her.

"You messed up your body," Todoroki deprecated. "But you managed to buy us some time before All Might showed up."

The hero was currently in a fist-to-fist combat with Nomu, yet Nomu was not showing signs of being even remotely damaged by the powerful blows. That just shows how strong the monster was. One punch from it and they would've been as good as dead. It was even a miracle that the girl in his arms attempted to face the villain... But had she been successful with rewriting Nomu's existence, her body would've completely shut down from forcing out all of her stamina.

"Well..." Shiro gave the frowning male a half-smile. It was what she could manage at the moment with the nerves on parts of her face losing feeling. "At least I can feel a little better about myself now. You know, for injuring you earlier."

"...You're ridiculous," he said just as she felt darkness slowly consume her. Closing her ruby eyes with exhaustion, she missed the expression she managed to etch on Todoroki's face.

It was the first time since his childhood that he'd smiled again.


The entire USJ rumbled like a small earthquake as All Might sent the final punch to the monster the League of Villains brought in. Everyone looked in awe as the inky body blasted through the dome and ascended high above the sky with such intense velocity.

It was at this time that Iida also returned with their principal, Nezu, and every available Pro Hero working in U.A.

The heroes worked quickly to dispose of any lingering threat as well as gather those who were injured in the process to the main entrance. The more fatally injuried will be sent to the hospital immediatly while the others will be tended to by Recovery Girl. Todoroki was just about to pass Shiro to one of the heroes when Bakugou and the rest, after being sent away from All Might and Midoriya by Cementoss, gathered around.

"Oi," he stalked over with a disbelieving glare. "What the hell happened to Pigtails?"

"Shiro-chan!" Kirishima also exclaimed, running up to the unmoving girl with a worry-stricken face. "I-Is she...?"

"She's just unconscious," Todoroki said. "But she needs to be treated. She sustained a lot of damage from that villain."

"What? Why the fuck would you let her go against that gorilla bird-brain?!" the blonde questioned incredulously. Even he couldn't react fast enough when the monster came at him. If it wasn't for All Might, he would've been smashed to a pulp! "Look what it did to her! Weaklings should just stay in the sideline until help comes! Is she stupid—"

"She's not weak," Todoroki cut in, surprising not only the blonde but the rest of his classmates. "That villain was made to fight All Might, but she held up long enough to not let it defeat her. If you don't understand something, just keep your mouth shut next time."

Bakugou's eyes twitched at the male's statement and he curled up his fists provokingly, "Don't fucking lecture me, you half and half bastard!"

"B-Bakugou-kun, this not the time to argue with Todoroki-kun!" Uraraka shouted courageously at the blonde, despite being scared of him normally. "We need to get Shiro-chan and the others treated!"

"Yeah, and we just ended a fight! Stop messing around!" Mina scolded with her hands on her hips.

"That's right, listeners!" Present Mic came up behind them. The hero took the unconscious girl carefully into his arms before clicking his tongue. "You guys head out and leave the rest to the Pros, yeah!"

At all of their chiding, Bakugou backed off with a scoff. He honestly didn't mean his words to be as harsh as it was, but it just came out that way because he was pissed. If he were to be honest, aside from the annoying Deku and Kirishima, Shiro was the only other person he had regular interactions with and he has this conflicting tolerance for her. She always challenged him, but in a way that kept things entertaining.

Walking past the Voice Hero with his hands stuffed angrily in his pockets, he stopped to give the unconscious girl a brief stare. "You better wake up soon, Pigtails, 'cause you promised you'll fight me," he muttered before leaving.

"Eh...?" Present Mic crooned. He really didn't understand what goes through kids' minds these days. Leaving it alone, his focused his attention back on the girl cradled in his arms and sighed. He was glad that she wasn't in any critical condition, but to see her like this still made him uneasy.

"Like mentor, like student, huh? What a reckless kiddo..."


"Because of the situation this time, I can't really scold you..." Recovery Girl sighed as she looked at the hero who laid on the bed with his eyes staring at the ceiling.

"I'm not sure, but I think I might've shortened the time limit of my hero form again. I hope I still have at least an hour..."

"Excuse me."

The old woman turned towards the detective standing just outside the nurse's office door as he took off his hat in greeting. She nodded and offered him a welcoming smile. All Might, in his emaciated form, looked surprised to see the detective as he lifted himself up from the bed.

"Tsukauchi-kun! You're here, too?"

"It's been a while, All Might."

Midoriya looked between the two with wide eyes. "All Might! Is it alright to show that form...?"

"Yeah," the hero reassured. "It's fine. He's Tsukauchi Naomasa, my best friend in the force."

Tsukauchi chuckled lightly at the introduction as he walked up towards them. He noticed that on the other side of the two, there was another girl occupying one of the two beds, but she was still unconscious. He had a head count of the students earlier, and it seemed that Midoriya and the girl were the only ones with deeper injuries. Midoriya's was from jumping in and using his One For All at the last moment to buy the hero a few seconds of time, and the girl's, he heard, was from before the hero even arrived at the scene. "Is she doing alright?" he asked Recovery Girl.

"Thankfully," the old woman nodded. "She has a cracked rib and a fissure fracture on her right forearm, along with some damaged nerves around the left side of her face, but I managed to heal most of it. The rest of the scrapes and bruises will have wait until she's recovered enough stamina. Overall, she's just exhausted."

Midoriya looked over at the sleeping girl with eyes gleaming with sadness. Like him, she had acted on impulse when she saw Aizawa in that defeated state. His green eyes shot up suddenly at the detective, "H-How's Aizawa-sensei?! And Thirteen-sensei?!"

"And the rest of the students?" All Might mirrored the boy's worried look. Tsukauchi gave them both a reassured smile.

"Don't worry, the rest of the students only had light injuries and have returned to the classroom. From the hospital report, Eraserhead has comminuted fractures in both arms and a facial fracture. Fortunately, he doesn't appear to have any serious brain damage, but his eyes may suffer some aftereffects from his shattered orbital floor. As for Thirteen, the laceration from the back to upper arm was bad, but he will survive. They're both in stable condition for now."

At that, they both let out a relieved sigh.

"If you three heroes had not risked your lives, then the students would not have survived."

"You're wrong about one thing, Tsukauchi-kun," All Might's blue eyes were deep and serious. "The students also fought and risked their lives. Have there even been any first-years who experienced a real fight so soon, survived, and learned of fear and the world of adults? The villains did something dumb. We heroes may be strong, but this class is strong as well," he made it a point to look at Midoriya and the sleeping girl across the room and smiled. "They will become strong heroes. I am certain of that."


Returning to the city in an unnamed bar, Kurogiri set the injured Shigaraki down on the floor before morphing back to his normal form. The skinny man writhed in pain; he had been shot in both arms and legs, and his wounds were still bleeding.

"Ouch... We lost completely..." he gritted with frustration. "Even Nomu was defeated...! Those useless underlings were defeated in an instant by the kids... They're strong... And she almost made me disappear... Ha... The Symbol of Peace was also healthy...! You were wrong, Master!"

The small television screen displayed nothing but a dull background and a "sound only" signal, but a voice came through the device. "No, I wasn't. We were just not prepared enough."

"Yeah, we underestimated them. It's good that we did it under that cheap 'League of Villains' name. By the way, what about Master and my joint creation, Nomu?" Another man's voice asked. "Was he not retrieved?"

"He was blown away," Kurogiri walked up to the screen apologetically as the man let out a shout of frustration. "More precisely, without coordinates to his precise location, I could not find him even with my warp. We were forced to retreat."

"After all we did to make him as powerful as All Might!"

"Well, I suppose it cannot be helped. That's unfortunate," the first voice said, calming the other one down. "What was it you said about someone making you disappear?"

"..." Shigaraki looked away with a look of pure resentment, which was noticed by Kurogiri. Since the skinny man was too deep in his rage, he decided to report what he saw.

"It was a young girl, Master. I saw from my position at the time that she was going after Shigaraki with her Quirk. Nomu intercepted it and she somehow made parts of its body dematerialize, but Nomu was able to restore himself at the end."

"Oh? Did Nomu dispose of the girl then?"

"No..." Shigaraki muttered, finally speaking up. His ruby eyes were bloodshot and he had the urge to scratch at the already-irritated skin on his neck. "She got saved... Those heroes..." he said with absolute venom lacing the word. "That other kid, too... He was as fast as All Might. If he hadn't gotten in the way, we might have been able to kill All Might... Damn it... Those brats...!"

"Ah. Of course you have regrets, but this was not a futile exercise."

The Master seemed to understand, and he did not sound as surprised as one would expect him to. The pieces have been set in motion and everything was going according to his plan, despite this little drawback.

"Gather the elite. Take all the time you need. We cannot move freely, which is why we need a symbol like you, Shigaraki Tomura. You know better than anyone why heroes are the trash of society... Next time, show the world that you are to be feared."


Midoriya picked up his yellow backpack and pulled the straps over his shoulders. The sun outside had set long ago and it was getting late; he was sure his mom was worried at home waiting for him. Before leaving the nurse's office, he glanced over at Shiro and his feet automatically took him towards her bed.

The girl was still deeply asleep, but it looked like she was no longer in pain like before. He was glad; usually he was the one getting himself hurt and sent to Recovery Girl, and while this time was no exception, he was so worried for Shiro as a classmate and as a friend.

"You're always so brave, Shiro-san..." he stared with an admiring expression.

It had come as a shock when she revealed that Aizawa was a sort of an adoptive father for her, but at the same, he should've expected something along the lines from the way she was so fearless and cool all the time. She wasn't the most outgoing person in class, but she always spoke up for what she felt was right. It was much evident with the way she always challenged Bakugou, and sometimes it was to stand up for him. Because of that, she was the first person he wrote about in his newest hero notebook for U.A.

He suddenly blushed at the thought. It would be pretty embarrassing if she found out that was the reason...

"You're still here, Midoriya?"

The male jumped at Recovery Girl's sudden appearance, covering his red face with even more embarrassment. He had been caught red-handed staring down at Shiro like some weirdo! "A-Ah! I-I was just..."

"She will have to stay here overnight since she's sleeping anyway," the old woman seemed uninterested in his previous action. But then she chuckled, "It's okay, you can see her when class starts again."

Midoriya squeaked and nodded furiously. "O-Of course! Well then, I'll be on my way! Thank you very much!" he said quickly before leaving the nurse's office. The Recovery Hero shook her head with a small chuckle. She went over to give Shiro a quick check-up again, making sure that the girl will be fine by herself, and then she flicked the lights off in the room and shut the door gently.

Shiro was smiling slightly in her sleep; she must be having a good dream...


"And what makes you think I'll agree to this?"

The little girl could hear someone speaking to one of the tall men in black outside her door. For a couple of days now, those people have been coming by to the hospital she found herself waking up in and checking up on her. Today it seemed that they brought another man, and he doesn't sound very happy.

"I'm sorry, but this is government orders. A special request from above have been put in for you. With you being out of the news, it's much easier as well..."

Their voices were low and she couldn't hear much from them anymore. When she woke up with no memory, she had been scared, but everyone was so nice to her that she was slowly getting over it. The only thing they told her was that she was a victim of a disaster at an orphanage and that they were going to find her a home to stay, so that must be what they're discussing about...

"I wonder if I'll go to a nice family...?" she mumbled to herself as she looked out the window. It was such a nice day out; she just wanted to get out of this hospital room!

She quickly got her answer when the door to her room opened. The familiar men in black walked in first, and she had to peer around them to see the person they had been talking to.

It was a man with average build, wearing all black and had white bandages wrapped loosely around his neck. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets and a frown on his face. Just looking at him seemed to make the room gloomy.

"Hello, Shiragiku," one of the men greeted. "This is Aizawa Shota. He's a Pro Hero, so if you want to call him by his hero name Eraserhead, that's fine too."

Pro... Hero? she thought curiously.

"From today forward, he will be your caretaker. Let's get you ready so you can leave with him today. That sound good?"

"Um..." the girl gripped the white bedsheets nervously. She was now wondering if she really wanted to leave this hospital room after all.

"We don't got all day, kid," Aizawa grunted before turning to head out the door. "Come on."

[]

"I came to visit, yeah!"

She blinked up at the person who suddenly barged into her new house. It was a man in sunset glasses with a head of crazy upturned blonde hair, and he was unnecessarily loud. He was also looking at her with great surprise.

"Who is this?! Eraserhead, I didn't know you had a kid! How can you not tell me, your best friend?!"

"Mic," Aizawa greeted the man boredly. "I'm her guardian and mentor. It's that government assignment I mentioned the other week."

"Woah," the blonde man posed and pointed at her with excitement. "Hello, kiddo! You're not gonna have a lot of fun with this dude, but I'll be here to entertain you! You can call me 'Uncle Mic'! What's your name?"

"Shiragiku," she replied before pointing to Aizawa innocently. "But Eraserhead only calls me 'kid'..."

"What? Man, he really is terrible at coming up with names," the man sighed loudly before bending down and peering into her ruby eyes, his thumb jutting towards the droopy eyed man in the background. "This guys gonna train you to be a hero, right? Come to your Uncle Mic for hero name suggestions! I was the one who gave him 'Eraserhead'!"

She blanched slightly. Did she want really to be named along the lines of "Eraserhead"? She thinks not.

"By the way, what's your Quirk kiddo?"

Instead of telling him, she let the white dial in her right eye spin. There was a hint of excitement in her eyes. It took a few days to get used to her Quirk, but she found it extremely fun to play with. "I increased your good luck," she told him with a small tap on his shoulder.

Present Mic raised his blonde brows and a few seconds passed with him wondering what was going to happen. Then, his phone beeped and he took it out to look at the notification. "Oh my!" he pointed to the screen excitedly, "Did you do this? My radio show rating just went up by 1%! Try the other eye now!"

She allowed her left eye to do the same with the black dial. Immediately, a cockroach flew out and landed on the man's shoe, causing him to jump up and scream in terror.

"WHAT IN THE! ERASERHEAD! H-HELP!"

Aizawa watched with slight amusement as the cockroach crawled up higher and the man desperately tried to shake it off his leg. He set his hand on top of the girl's head, causing her to look up at him.

"Don't use your Quirk so irrationally," he reprimanded, but a small grin made its way to his usually frowning face for the first time. "Though Mic brought this upon himself. I'll let it slide this time, ki—" he paused for a moment. He supposed it was weird to call her just kid all the time. She had a name, after all.

"Shiragiku's a mouthful. I'll just call you Shiro."

The girl thought it over with a tilt of her little head. Shiro... It sounded rather nice, in her opinion.

"...Okay!"


Sorry for the late update! I've been busy with exams and other miscellaneous things in college. Thank you those who always leave a review - it makes me really happy when I read them and I get motivated to write more. I really love this story and would love it if I can get some feedback. Thanks :)