I do not own My Hero Academia. I'm writing this fic to practice writing and for fun (pls do not tear me apart). I hope you enjoy! The chapters should get longer over time. I'm just going to write and see what happens; there's no clear plan here. If you have ideas, drop them in the reviews.
Warning for...violence probably, villains being villains, amnesia, editing mistakes, me fucking up present tense, and future warnings.
I will try to update every week!
The earliest memory Sora has is when she's 11 years old. She wakes up in a white hospital bed, strapped at the wrists and waist. She remembers everything being so bright, and her head feeling arid, as if it could float off her neck and out the window at any moment. She gets the sense that her body is too clean. Her nails are pristinely cut, too short. Her muscles are loose and new. She is a stranger and this is the first time she meets herself.
Then her eyes focus and a man is leering down at her from the end of the hospital bed. His eyes are almost entirely obscured by a pair of yellow goggles. He has scraggly black hair that runs down his shoulders. He continues to stare at her as her attention shifts to a man in a white coat bustles past him.. A doctor, she concludes. The doctor asks her a list of questions:
"How are you feeling?"
"What do you remember?"
"Do you remember your name?"
At first, she just stares at him blankly, not processing that words have meaning and aren't just strings of complicated sound. Speaking, the concept languidly swirls in her head. He is speaking and expects me to speak too.
The man with yellow goggles is still standing in the back, leering at her intensely. She stares back and slowly tries to connect her thoughts to words. But her tongue feels thick and clumsy in her mouth, and she doesn't speak, just stares.
The doctor clicks his tongue and scribbles on his clipboard.
"You had a bad accident." The doctor explains, "You were near death's door. Had Aizawa found you any later, you would have been dead. You have severe retrograde amnesia. I expect you won't remember most things about your life before or who you are. You'll have trouble retaining information, but with time this may improve. Doctor Hoshi has a rehabilitation quirk, with continuous sessions from him your short term memory will improve."
She latches on to a word, Hoshi. She lets it float around in her head. Hoshi, she can see stars dancing across the sky. She wants to fly away, to dance with them. The doctor is calling her, but its muted noise doesn't reach her.
Doctor Tamaki and Aizawa watch the girl. Her glassy eyes look through them now, and although her body is in front of them, her mind is clearly in a realm beyond. Tamaki eyes her morosely. She is such a thin, wispy child. Blow on her and she'd float away like a dandelion seed. Tamaki sighs,
"When she comes back, give her this. I expect she'll be in and out like this for awhile." Tamaki hands Aizawa an orange bottle of pills recommended by Doctor Hoshi. "Do you know of any family or friends we can contact to take care of her?" Aizawa continues to look at the girl.
"No. Her mother was found dead on the scene." He grunts. Tamaki rakes a hand through his hair.
"You'll have to find someone. She needs special care to recover. After she's discharged, she can't go to an orphanage in the state she's in."
The girl has at least 2 months until she's discharged. Aizawa balances his teaching and hero work, all the while thinking about what to do with the girl. The doctor is right. Even as she physically recovers, her skin flushing with color, her weight starting to increase, mentally she remains empty. The child is a blank canvas, a shell of everything she might have once been.
Aizawa feels an uncommon emotion: guilt. He had expelled handfuls of kids, watched their faces crushed with disappointment and despair, but he had never felt bad about it. He had used his weapon to snare and crush the bones, take the lives of countless villains. It didn't keep him up at night, at least not because he felt bad. If he had been minutes earlier, seconds, he might have been able to save her from this.
He's driven back to her hospital room more and more. Usually she just stares through him, lying motionless in her white bed under white sheets. She is like a ghost with her pastel blue hair and pale sea glass eyes. She haunts him, and he finds himself seeing her in his dreams. The guilt she makes him feel is reminiscent of another boy, one with a shameless smile, that he could not save.
He finds himself in Principal Nezu's office. The principal sits idly across from him, legs crossed and sipping from a glass of earl grey.
"You should take her, Aizawa." He prompts. Aizawa is unimpressed by this idea, he prefers to work alone.
"My lifestyle isn't suited for raising a kid."
"And anyone else in the hero agency is?" Neri takes a sip of his tea. "From what I understand the girl has an unknown and potentially dangerous quirk, which could be the reason for her targeting. I have concluded that she would be safest with you, or Midnight, as you both possess quirks that can be used to protect and subdue her. Midnight's lifestyle is suited even less for such a delicate child." Nezu is amused and light. "You're a great teacher Aizawa-san. I have full confidence you will take good care of her, at least until we find more permanent housing."
He visits her hospital room after his meeting with Principal Nezu. The girl is in the same position he saw her last in, but this time her eyes flicker to his, she is aware of him. The doctor walks in behind him.
"She should be ready to be discharged next week. Have you found a caretaker?"
"I'll be looking after her." Aizawa says. Temporarily, he adds in his head. The doctor raises an eyebrow.
"Not what I was expecting, but alright. I'm going to need you to fill out some papers."
Aizawa follows the doctor, filling out documents, cementing his decision to print.
Next thing he knows the kid is in the back of a car as he rides in the passenger seat. He looks at her in the mirror. Her hospital gown has been replaced by an oversized, white shirt and baggy sweatpants. Her light blue hair is a bit neater, but still falls over her eyes and face. Those eyes of hers, still pale and unfocused, are trained on the outside world through the window beside her. She's watching the sky, the city, the people. Aizawa wonders what goes on in her head.
When they get to his apartment, he opens the door for her and has to take her hand to guide her out of the car. She follows him easily, as if she's given herself over to the current of a river. Aizawa lives in a one room apartment, so he gives her his room, because he doesn't use it much anyway. The girl doesn't have any possessions, so there is no unpacking.
"You'll sleep here." He grunts. "The kitchen's here, this is the bathroom, living room, couch." What did kids like to do anyway? He was a teacher, but had never bothered to learn what kids did alone in their free time. "TV. The remotes on the counter." The girl glides passed the TV to the glass door of the balcony.
She looks up at the sky, fingertips lightly spread against the glass. Aizawa slides the door open. The girl walks out and just stares above, mesmerized. A V of black birds soars across the sky, and her head moves with them, tracking them until they've flown out of sight.
He leans against the wall and let's her birdwatch for an hour. In that time, he figures he can install a safety rail along the edge of the balcony, so she can come out here by herself. He also analyzes the future of this girl, and wonders when and if her quirk will start to manifest again. The girl likely has a powerful quirk, but she herself has been erased. This left her young and impressionable in the eyes of many villains. He contemplates if there's any way he can help recover her quirk, but more importantly, herself. He ponders over this question long after they leave the balcony, and the sun sets.
They fall into routine easily. The girl is quiet and seems to only want to spend her days on the balcony. Aizawa works nights, but stays within a 3 mile radius of his apartment. On nights he's called to other parts of the city, he has Midnight or Present Mike cover his sector. On the third night since her arrival, he is sent across the city to fight a gang of villains. The leader had a quirk called Life Drain, which allowed him to live longer and grow stronger the more people he absorbed. The fight in brutal, and Aizawa comes home drained mentally and physically, feeling as if he had seen the worst in people and the world. He feels a cool breeze, and finds the balcony door open, not all the way, but enough for a child to slip through. That's where he finds her, on the balcony floor, sitting with her neck craned up. There is a single star, just bright enough to see through the light polluted city, and she is honed on it, enamored by this one bright speck, when there should have been millions.
There is something so innocent and hopeful in her eyes that Aizawas mood shifts and something inside him gives. If one star was enough for her then he supposes it could also be enough for him.