"What's his Quirk?"

First there was usually curiosity. That was normal in a world where everyone could do something special.

"He can paralyse people? That's creepy..."

Then there was fear. No one wanted to lose control of their bodies.

"How does it work?"

Because curiosity was still there, even if it was laced with doubts. But fear and doubts weren't the worst. The worst always was the disgust they showed after getting the answer.

"He needs to lick the victim's blood?!"

'Victim' was always the word used to talk about those who were on the receiving end of his Quirk. As a kid, adults forbid him to use it. It was dangerous, they said. He couldn't take other's freedom, they said. It wasn't right, they said.

This is a Villain's Quirk, they said when they thought he wasn't listening.

"Of course you can become a Hero!" they said when he told them he wanted to be just like the pros as he watched them save people and arrest Villains on the TV. They hesitated for just a little bit too long. They answered with a fake smile. He was seven years old, and he knew already that they didn't believe he could do good.

At fifteen, he was attacked by a Villain. Instinctively, he used his Quirk to protect himself. Heroes arrived soon after. They accused him of using a dangerous Quirk in the street. They took him to the police station with the Villain.

They didn't care that that he was a kid and that he almost died.

He was not the one they talked about when they used the word 'victim'.

When they came to get him, his parents didn't look surprised at what had happened. He was grounded until he turned eighteen.

At eighteen, he lived in the street. He'd gotten out of this hellhole he'd had to call 'home' until then. He was used to closed spaces. He wasn't used to see how far ahead the horizon was or how high the stars were shining. He was used to fearful looks. He wasn't used to indifference.

It was refreshing. It was kind of frightening too.

At twenty, he was tired of seeing fake heroes. They saved people with fake smiles. They arrested Villains and innocents alike when they needed a scapegoat.

All Might's smile was the most fake of all. But he was the only one who didn't smile for himself. Where others wanted to be seen an approachable and worth trusting, where they smiled to get the civilians to accept them and like them, All Might smiled to reassure people. He smiled to show that everything would be okay. All Might was the only one who didn't arrest innocents, who always stayed until the very end to reassure civilians and help clean the scenes.

But he was only one person, out of hundreds. Civilians loved him, other heroes looked up to him. Chizome was impatiently waiting for the day when they would follow his example.

But the seasons passed and nothing changed. Chizome stopped counting the years.

When he smelled the odor of charred meat and decided to investigate it, Chizome expected to find some burnt meal thrown away.

What he didn't expect to find, however, was a kid.

He seemed to be around twelve years old, was unconscious in a back alley and had horrible burns all over his body. Chizome knew that he should call an ambulance. He knew they wouldn't be any help anyway. The kid wasn't dead yet, but he wouldn't survive those wounds. He probably wouldn't even survive until the ambulance arrived.

Chizome couldn't stay if he called for an ambulance. He couldn't be found in a situation like this one, they would find a way to accuse him of hurting the kid.

But if he left him there to wait for help that would arrive too late anyway, the kid would just die alone in a dark alley. No one deserved that. So he didn't call anyone and stayed.

Against all odds, the kid survived. Chizome waited one hour, then two, and he didn't die.

He was a fighter. Chizome decided that if he wanted to stay alive that much, then he would help him as much as he could. He had disinfectants and bandages with him thanks to his Quirk, so he did his best to disinfect and dress the kid's wounds.

In the end, he looked like a mummy. Except for one very big difference: he was alive.

Days passed and he slowly got better. He fever receded. His burns hadn't gotten infected, which was a miracle considering where Chizome found him. When he finally woke up, he was confused at first. Then came the surprise of being still alive – he'd clearly expected death. He didn't cry. He didn't thank Chizome.

Weeks passed and it became evident that Touya's burns wouldn't heal more than that. Darkened, dead patches were eating at his healthy skin on his face, torso and back. His arms didn't have any healthy skin left. They tried their best to hold it together with bandages but it was hard for the kid to move with bandages everywhere like that. It was hard to see when the skin under his eyes needed to be held together too. His fever came and went, and Chizome quickly understood that this would never stop. His Quirk was burning him alive. These burns weren't the first ones, and they wouldn't be the last ones. Touya wasn't glad to be alive, and Chizome could understand why. But he was glad that he found him anyway.

One day they found a newspaper talking about the death of Endeavor's oldest son. They said he tragically died from a Quirk malfunction.

Touya didn't comment.

Chizome didn't ask.

Seasons passed and Touya was still with him. He'd grown up quite a bit and looked more like a sixteen years old kid. He acted more like one too. Instead of always following Chizome everywhere like the shadow he'd visibly tried to impersonate in the beginning, he often disappeared for hours, sometimes for days, never saying where he went. But he always came back. Sometimes with money, sometimes with meds and new bandages, sometimes a little tipsy and Chizome scolded him everytime. Once, he came back high with drugs. That one time, Chizome told him to not come back the next time he decided to trash himself.

It didn't happen again.

One day he faced Chizome and timidly, fearfully, asked his help with learning how to control his Quirk. He hadn't tried to use it even once since Chizome found him

Building resistance to his fire was impossible. His body just wasn't made for it. But control was possible.

Control would have been possible if Touya hadn't been terrified of his own flames, if he'd had at least a little bit of self-confidence.

That's why before trying to teach him how to control his Quirk, Chizome began to teach him how to trust his ability to control it. It took time, it took patience. It was a whole set of learning habits to break and remake.

Take your time, don't panic, that will only make things worse.

Stay down if it's too hard to get up, just breathe and calm down.

Cry if you need to, then you can get your emotions under control again.

Take a break, give yourself a chance to rest and think about how you can succeed next time.

You're smart, you can do it, trust yourself.

You're so strong. Whoever told you anything else was a liar.

But a lifetime of lies was hard to undo.

That's when Stain appeared for the first time.

This couldn't go on like this. These heroes were all liars. They shouldn't be allowed to go on like this.

Everytime the name was read on a newspaper, Touya would look at him with a question in his eye. Chizome was afraid to hear it, because he didn't want this life for Touya.

So he didn't comment.

Touya didn't ask.

As time passed, Touya's fever never stopped going up, then down, then up again. More and more. This was becoming seriously worrying. The bandages holding his burnt skin in place prevented his body to cool down.

This was a real problem. Medicine wasn't something they could get easily.

So when Touya went out one day and didn't come back, Chizome knew he'd make a mistake.

When he finally found him again a few months later, still alive but higher than the sky, he almost left him alone.

Almost.

A few days later, when Touya was able to function like a mostly normal human being again, he asked where he'd been all this time, why he didn't come back. Of course he knew the answer already, but he needed to hear it from the kid.

Touya refused to look at him and answered so quietly that Chizome almost didn't hear him.

Almost.

"You told me not to..."

After that, Touya always came back and Chizome didn't comment when he was not completely sober. He was there and alive, that was good enough.

Then a few weeks later, he disappeared again.

Chizome looked everywhere he thought he could be and found nothing.

The newspapers still talked about Stain.

One season passed and Touya came back again, on his own this time.

He didn't have any bandages anymore. Instead he had staples and piercings.

His hair was black.

Touya didn't explain.

Chizome didn't ask.

The League of Villains were beginning to make a name for themselves.

The newspaper talked about them as much as it talked about Stain.

They were a strange group with unclear goals. Chizome didn't like them. He kept his opinion to himself.

Chizome always thought Touya would abandon him. He never imagined it would be the other way around.

But All Might wasn't the only one. This green haired kid had what was needed to be a hero, a real one.

As did – ironically – Endeavor's youngest son.

Chizome found hope again.