Midoriya Izuku. Four years old. Kacchan's nickname for him is Deku. It means puppet.
Somehow… It feels right.
Sometimes, he forgets that he's able to speak. Sometimes, he forgets that he is allowed to think. Sometimes, he forgets that he is human.
Midoriya Inko is worried. Her son spaces out a lot. He stares at the clouds, as if searching for something among them. He glares directly at the sun, without even squinting, like it's grievously offended him. He shuts himself up in his pitch-black closet, doing absolutely nothing. Just staying completely still, not making a single noise. She gets the feeling that he is most comfortable in the blinding darkness.
(He's actually remembering memories that aren't his, and they're horrible. He's glad he doesn't have siblings. He's watched enough of them die)
Occasionally, he won't move unless she tells him to do something. Like a robot with voice command, he completes whatever task she assigns him, then completely stops. For example, she once asked him to grab her phone from another room and bring it to her. He did so, then froze, arm still outstretched in the same position as when he held the device out to her, nevermind that she had taken it at least a minute ago. His vibrant emerald eyes dim to a cold, blank jade. She calls his name, shakes his shoulder, waves her hand in front of his face- nothing.
"Izuku, say something!" she pleads, moments away from calling the hospital.
"Something," he intones flatly, arm still raised, palm up. Like he's offering something to an invisible figure. She tells him to go sit on the couch. He does it without hesitation, and remains there until he's back to normal (but what is normal for him?). It makes her sick, to order him around like that, but it's either she either tells him to go relax, or he'll remain still as a statue for the rest of the day, and probably through the night. She's never let it go on long enough to find his limit. She's scared that there might not be a limit to how long he'll wait for an order.
She asks him why he does that- asks him if he even knows. He looks at her like the answer is obvious.
"I am Deku."
She pulls him out of school. She's afraid that one day, it'll happen outside of their apartment, and somebody will take advantage of his incapacitated state. Either spirit him away, never to be seen again, or order him to do something horrible.
Guilt consumes her every time she thinks about it, but she can't help blaming Bakugou Katsuki. If he hadn't gone parading around such a cruel nickname for her son, then maybe he wouldn't have moments where he was Deku instead of Izuku. Where he was a puppet instead of a human.
(She knows it would happen anyway. Katsuki-kun has merely given the phenomenon a name, but she needs someone to blame. Her wavering sanity demands it)
She discovers his extreme prejudice against moths when he's seven. It's summer, it's hot and muggy outside, they're sitting in the living room enjoying the air conditioning. Then, Izuku spots something fluttering near the lamp in the corner.
He goes berserk. Throwing everything in arm's reach; the TV remote, Inko's phone, his All Might figurine. He even lunges at the bug, missing completely and tackling the lamp. The bulb shatters when it hits the floor (luckily, the plug got pulled out, so the carpet didn't catch on fire), but Izuku is already on his feet again, chasing the moth around the room. Until finally, he catches it. With his bare hands.
He squeezes his pudgy hand into a white-knuckled fist, yet even when moth guts are oozing out between his fingers, he does not seem satisfied. He flings the mangled carcass at the ground with a snarl, then begins stomping on it wildly.
Inko, who was watching in stupefied silence, finally moves. She scoops up the feral boy, holding him close, but he struggles for all he is worth, kicking and scratching, biting and hissing. Until finally-
"Izuku, stop!"
He stops everything. Including breathing. It takes nearly a minute to notice, and she only does because his face is changing colors, but she orders him to breathe, and he gulps in air like he can't enough.
She pulls him into a tight hug, sobbing into his green curls. He simply stands there, intestines smeared on his hands and feet.
(If only it had been that easy last time)
He's fascinated by white flowers. Inko brought a bouquet of them to place in a vase, liven the place up a bit, and frequently catches Izuku staring at them, enraptured. Sometimes, he reaches for them, but pauses before he can so much as brush up against the petals. He seems scared, for some reason, but it doesn't much get in the way of his boundless interest.
Inko buys different colored flowers, to see what his reaction is. He doesn't give them a second glance.
(Red roses and yellow tulips didn't devour his very essence, after all)
His Quirk- or, what Inko calls his Quirk in public but suspects is something much, much different- manifests at eight. She's tired of him always breaking whatever he uses as a weapon in his mad scramble to kill all moths on sight, so she buys him his very own fly swatter.
He accepts the tool with two hands, gazing at it reverently. He takes a few practice swings, then slings it over his back like a katana in a sheath.
It falls to the ground.
Izuku stares at the fly swatter, brows furrowed in confusion. Inko can't help but giggle at his frustrated expression. He tries again, and again. On the fifth attempt, though, it somehow stays. Inko's eyebrows shoot into her hairline. She circles around Izuku, to see how he managed it- he didn't stick it down his shirt- and finds a black tendril poking through his shirt, wrapped around the handle, holding it in place.
The appendage emits black motes of… Something, that makes an unnatural chill envelop the room, even colder than the air conditioning. She can feel it creeping up her spine, into her skull, worming its way deep into her brain.
It's gone quickly, though, and Inko tells herself that she imagined it.
(She's never been very good at lying. Especially to herself)
It only progresses from there. Where before, Izuku used to sit in the darkness, now, he creates it. Or, at least… promotes it? Lightbulbs flicker and dim in the rooms he's in. Even the sunbeams streaming in through the windows are no exception, diminishing in intensity long before they can reach the floor. The shadows thicken, stretching and waving in the corners of her eyes (but remaining still when she looks directly at them), reaching for her son.
She's terrified of what will happen if he reaches back.
Sometimes, when the room gets dark enough, Inko thinks she can see Izuku's face change. His human features are covered in shadows, and the only thing that remains are eight eerily-glowing, slanted ovals. Eyes. They're solid white, and much larger than a human's eyes, taking up the entirety of Izuku's face. She turns her head away whenever it happens, because when she looks into them, she can feel something digging through her head, observing her memories, finding out what makes her tick.
It doesn't seem malicious. Merely curious. But there's no denying that it's powerful, because even its gentle ministrations leave her with mild migraines.
(Inko thinks she's afraid of her son)
They finally register his Quirk when Izuku is ten. Without even a moment's deliberation, he names it Void Given Focus. Fitting, Inko supposes. The inky blackness he manifests is even darker than the vacuum of space, sucking in light and heat like a black hole.
His control is… Shoddy. Mostly because Izuku doesn't really seem to control these supernatural abilities. He usually just lets them do whatever. Inko has long since gotten used to the sight of Void tendrils slithering out of the shadows in their apartment, picking something up, examining it, then putting it back down and receding into the darkness. Sometimes, they even bring the item with them, and Inko will find it somewhere else in the apartment later.
The frequency of his episodes has, thankfully, decreased over the years. If they're unlucky, it'll happen once every two weeks, though Izuku can usually go a month without sinking into his Deku persona.
His emerald eyes have long since darkened to a deep malachite color, a few shades away from being completely black. His mouth barely moves when he speaks, his voice an ethereal whisper that brushes against Inko's ears like the wind. Despite how soft his tone is, she can still somehow hear him with perfect clarity.
Something like horns are sprouting from his scalp. Bone-white, slightly curved, with two rounded points at their tips. He's changing more and more as he gets older. It's worrying. Inko wonders if one day, she'll wake up to find her son is no longer human.
(She wonders if he was even human in the first place)
Incomplete, but this has been sitting here for a while, and this seems like a pretty good stopping point.