Thank you for all the views guys! Here's a new chapter for everyone!
Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia and any of its characters, these belong solely to Kohei Horikoshi.
Izuku found himself in the Dagoba Municipal Beach Park 2 days after the villain incident. All Might had wanted him to train his body before the hero passed on his quirk to him. Izuku still couldn't believe his luck. The greatest hero in history was personally training him! Though the hero's conditions for training seemed impossible at first glance, Izuku was ready to accomplish them. He had to, for the sake of his dream and for fulfilling his sister's wish. He knew his twin would give him the extra strength and courage when he needed it. Even cleaning one of the dirtiest beaches was feasible. He just knew it!
Izuku realised that All Might was serious about this. He had taken Izuku's dream of studying in U.A. into account and had prepared a diet and training plan for him. The hero was even concerned for him and had asked him if he was okay with the plan as it was super-hard but he gladly accepted the challenge. He knew he had to work harder than anybody else since he had to compensate for the years that other kids had spent training their quirks.
Thus began Izuku's ten months of hellish training. He would wake up before sunrise to train with All Might on the beach, then attend school and go home (where he had specially asked his mom to follow the diet plan). He had even secretly improvised All Might's schedule to train certain muscles that he felt weren't being used enough (like his fingers). The training was extremely gruelling and he found it increasingly hard to concentrate in class. His classmates would laugh at him and dismiss it as him slightly losing his mind due to the villain incident.
Kacchan, Izuku noted never joined the others. He would seriously glare at nothing in particular when the others laughed at him and wouldn't say a word. He had also stopped bullying the green-eyed teen in particular. Izuku wondered if this was Kacchan's way of saying thanks but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless. It brought him back to the days when his sister was with them and the blonde wouldn't dare to touch him, either out of love, admiration, respect or fear of his sister. His sister was terrifying when she wanted to scare the other party. Unlike him who didn't like beating up other people, his sister had no qualms about it. She would repeatedly inform him about how she didn't want to be a hero because she wasn't kind enough to spare villains. Though she would ironically always exclaim about how she knew Kacchan (who never even spared the innocents) would become an amazing hero, second to no one but him.
Whenever Izuku recalled Emiko, he would always wonder how he had never really noticed the blatant love and affection she had for the blond. She would always light up whenever the blonde's name came up in a conversation, she liked to terrorise the bullies just like him, her smile would impossibly widen at his presence and she always hung around him. It had gotten to a point where she would hang around him rather than her twin, which had initially hurt the latter. "Don't worry 'Zuku. I'm just making sure that he'll protect you if I'm not present or am late", she'd assured him when she had sensed his discontent. Izuku had not liked that reason one bit, it had meant his sister wasn't going to stay with him.
He wondered if Emiko knew about… No, that was just stupid. Nobody could predict their death unless they had a quirk that could predict the future and Emiko didn't have one. He wondered if his sister would've been quirkless like him and if she wasn't, then would she have inherited one of their parent's quirks or a strange combination of the two. He would never find out now. Thinking about Emiko always made him feel strangely happy and incredibly sad. He could never not feel sad… when he'd initially learnt of her demise, he hadn't stopped crying for a week. It had taken him years to finally accept the fact that she was really completely gone and be slightly okay with it. A part of him still wasn't over her death and he knew that he would never be fully okay with it. She, after all, had an entire future ahead of her.
He wondered if he would've thought so much about her if she were still alive. They would've probably eventually moved on and drifted apart. Since Emiko was extremely beautiful as a kid, he was sure she would've grown up to become a huge heartthrob. She would've most probably forgotten about Kacchan and might've dated some other boys… and/or maybe even girls. He wondered if she would've started liking girls. He had certainly grown to like guys, even if none of the guys he had seen so far were his type or respectful enough to not make fun of his quirklessness. The girls weren't exactly nice either. In fact, he had never even properly spoken to a girl.
Emiko would've definitely become friends with all of her classmates. She had quickly settled down and had even made a few friends within the first week of her departure. He'd remembered their conversations about her friends and their quirks. They hadn't laughed at her quirklessness. Izuku remembered feeling extremely jealous when he heard about it. Kacchan had stopped saving him from the bullies but didn't bully him either. But that changed when Emiko died.
It was one of the worst periods in his life. His mother had lost her mind when she'd received the news and blamed everybody she saw. Izuku was already miserable enough with the news and his mother's condition only made it worse. She had torn all the family photos they possessed and burnt them. She destroyed everything that reminded her of Emiko and pretended as if her daughter never existed in the first place. Izuku was sure that his dad would've probably divorced his mom if it weren't for him. He knew his dad felt extremely guilty about Emiko's death and his mom only made it worse by constantly accusing him of parental negligence and reminding him about it. He knew their parents fought a lot about it before his dad gave up trying to convince his mom and decided to send her to therapy by force.
The therapy had worked to some extent. Inko wouldn't throw a tantrum whenever anybody mentioned Emiko but she still refused to keep anything that belonged to his twin. He remembered detesting his mother about it. In the end, he somehow managed to obtain Emiko's photo from his dad and hid it in a secret drawer. His mother didn't usually check his stuff but he just wanted to be extra careful. He didn't know how she'd react to seeing the photo after so many years but he didn't want to find out her reaction. His mother had become extremely protective of him since then. It was borderline suffocating at times but he knew his mother loved him too much.
Though his mother had been strange the past ten months. He had noticed it when All Might had offered him his quirk and it had only become weirder after that. His mother would often space out and had become laxer. He considered it an improvement but wondered if something was seriously wrong with her work. He decided to buy a gift for her and surprise her with it by coming home early one day.
Izuku couldn't decide what to buy for his mother. He had already visited four stores and had walked out empty-handed from all of them (much to their owners' chagrin). He was so lost in his thoughts that he bumped into somebody and fell down. "I'm really sorry! I didn't look ahead of me and bumped into you", he hurriedly spoke up. "It's okay", the other person coldly brushed him. Izuku took in the other person's features. He had dual-coloured hair and eyes, with red hair and a blue eye on his left and white hair and a grey eye on his right. Moreover, there was a scar that covered his left eye that Izuku was sure must've been extremely painful. The other boy was around his age and was extremely handsome despite the scar. In Izuku's opinion, the scar added to his appeal. The other teen got up and made his way to the same shop that Izuku was about to visit.
As Izuku entered the store, he saw the teen look around at the items on display. After a few minutes, Izuku approached the other teen and offered, "Hey, what are you looking for... maybe I could help?" The other stared at him in silence. Izuku rambled, "Hahaha, that must've been really awkward, sorry. I'm looking for a gift for my mother because she's been having a hard time and I want to somehow help her." The other teen finally spoke, "Oh… that's a nice thing to do… I think it'd be nice if you got her a necklace or a ring with her birthstone… Is there a problem?", he asked when he saw his wince.
"Aaahhh, no! It's a really good idea. It's just that it's a little expensive for me… I don't know if I've got that kind of money with me right now…", Izuku answered. "Why don't you ask your father then? You can tell him it's for your mother, I'm sure he'll understand", the other replied. Izuku gave him a wry smile, "My dad and mom haven't been doing well ever since my older sister passed away." The other teen looked shocked and stared at him with a look Izuku identified as pain (which was a surprise, usually the other person always pitied him). Izuku wondered what the other had experienced but didn't pry. The other teen didn't speak and searched around the store. Izuku stood there awkwardly. The teen then gave him a beautiful painting of a Gladiolus and answered, "Gladiolus symbolises strength. Your mother must be strong since she's raised a son like you." Izuku gave the teen a bright smile (as he tried his best to not stutter and blush like a tomato) and thanked him before approaching the cashier. In doing so, he had missed out on the other's blush and the small flames decorating his left side.
Izuku didn't announce his presence as he arrived home. He wanted to surprise his mother by suddenly placing the painting in front of her eyes whilst standing behind her. Though he had to be extremely sneaky in order to accomplish this. As he silently crept towards her room, he couldn't help but overhear his mother angrily talking to somebody on the phone. He crept closer to the partially opened door to listen. "No, Hisashi! I won't allow her to enter this house. You can send her to somebody else's place if you want to but my house will not welcome her. I don't care what the DNA tests say, that young lady cannot be my daughter! It's been nearly ten months since this fiasco began and I've decided to put a stop to it! My Emiko died nearly nine years ago due to your incompetence and that had already devastated Izuku enough. He's still recovering from it. Do you want me to crush him by letting those two interact?! If even I as a mother can't feel my daughter, then he definitely cannot. I'm warning you, there won't be anybody to pick her up when she arrives in the morning on the 19th. If you call me again to discuss this matter, I won't hesitate to block your number. Goodbye."
Author's notes: Well, another cliff-hanger for y'all. Is Emiko really alive? Well, we'll see in the next chapter. Also, Izuku sees a really hot guy who's quite cool... okay that was terrible and not at all original. Anyways, do leave your comments and I hope to see y'all soon.