This one is a little long.


When Izuku cried out in alarm at the door and called for her to get the first aid box from the washroom, Inko knew something was wrong.

But she never expected to find Kimura Akemi, the cheerful, chocolate-loving and funny girl, always cracking jokes and online references half crumbled to the ground, sobbing and hiccuping with a few tears forcing their way out of her eyes, as if she was still trying to hold it all in.

She still couldn't hold back her sharp gasp of horror as she saw the large, angry bruises on her neck, and her twisted swelling ankle, which is rapidly inflating like a balloon. Her stomach did a summersault and bile rose in her throat, she gently took the girl's arms and guided her to the couch, Izuku closed the door and followed hurriedly behind.

The girl had partially crumbled into the sofa as they arrived, trembling like a leaf as Inko quietly watched her with worried eyes and opened the medical supplies to ease her bruises, the girl met her eyes, molten gold orbs were filled with tears, pain and relief, and the dam just broke.

If she was crying back at the door, then right now, Akemi must be wailing. Her voice was broken and scratchy, cracking with every sob. Tears rolled down her face, seemingly non-stop as she buried her face into her shoulder. Next to her Izuku looked pained, worried for his friend and training partner.

She wasn't sure how long she held Akemi, but in her cracked voice and cries it almost felt like an eternity. And finally, the girl calms down and Inko continues wrapping up her ankle.

"Akemi-chan?" She asked, softly, "do you mind telling me what happened?"

Akemi looked up, golden eyes watery and bloodshot. And for once she is hyper-awear of the dark circles that are always under her eyes but she never noticed due to the girl's bright smiles and cheerful energy.

She opens her mouth, and in a cracked, raspy voice, she told her one of the saddest stories she've ever heard.


Akemi was very young, when it started. She barely remembers anything at all but her sister wasn't in those memories so she was probably somewhere around two.

In her earliest memories, her father was nice. He was strict but caring. He loved her. Truly did. In her earliest memories she'd go around the neighbourhood playing with Kai-chan, her childhood friend. They'd run down the streets and climb that big cherry tree in her garden, and pick apples from the tree down the road. It was simple times. Happy times.

Those quickly faded away though, into whisps of a broken dream, after her third birthday came and gone.

Her family had a history of manifesting quirks early. Father got his at two, mother a little later and almost every one of the family had gotten their quirks by their third birthday and Akemi stayed quirkless and powerless.

Pressure came from their grandparents, and whispers started in the creative industry, mother began to travel around a lot for work, and her life went downhill from then on.

It started when Kōki was born.

It was merely neglecting her, at first. Forgetting about her portion of the meal, accidentally leaving her in locked spaces. She once spent three hours locked in one of the smaller closets in the house, and she was scared out of her mind.

She never blamed Kōki though. Kōki was young. It's not her fault.

At first her mother still came how frequently, so it wasn't that bad. But soon as the Hōseki corporation grew in size and fortune she became busier and slowly, weekly visits turned into once a fortnight, and those slowly turned into once a month and finally once every few or even once or twice a year.

It's alright though. She calls often, so it's alright.

It happened when she was five.

Her quirk still hadn't came in and father took her to a doctor for a small check up, and once they found the toe joint they decided it's not worth the trouble to do an energy levels scan or a DNA check and it happened.

Mom was home, then.

Father was furious, he yelled at her, pushed her and kicked her, used his quirk on her and threw her to the walls and at the furniture before kicking her down into the dark, cold basement.

It was early into the year and it was cold. The floor's icy and her breath condensed with every exhale.

It was so cold. So dark and with a crack rib and a broken ankle Akemi wept. She wept as her mother and father fought, mother demanding him of her location and father saying it's better off if she's dead.

She wept when her mother threw open the doors and found her, the following morning, bleeding and limp on the cold basement door. She wept when she held her and comforted her and said she wouldn't leave her until she's sure the house is safe for her.

The following year is quiet. It's peaceful and dares she say, happy, until that day.

She was in the backyard. Just sitting there and enjoying the mountains' view and the birds singing and all that. Her sixth birthday had come and passed, she supposes she really is quirkless and her father hates her for it. But Akemi is fine. She has mother, she has Kōki, who has developed a useful and funny quirk. Father wasn't pleased with it but they are fine now.

Too bad it won't last.

That day, her quirk came out of its hibernation and with a massive intake and explosion of power Akemi killed every last plant in the yard and blew the entire clearing apart, into smithereens.

They are re-did the check-up and they named and determined her quirk. Doctors congratulated her. Mother hugged her and Kōki cheered as she drew in the air with light. But Father was watching her, with the hungry eyes of a starved wolf.

Within a month's time father convinced mother to leave, with his sweet words and fake smiles. Akemi was thrown back into hell and the monster's grasp and forced into multiple courses to stretch and train her quirk and body and that Christmas, after a bronze medal in a small acrobatic competition, Akemi spent it weeping again, tending to cuts and bruises in her room all alone.

It was always the same. Be the best. He expected the best from her. A child with a quirk so powerful it had hibernated to protect her, how impressive! A child who promised wealth and fame and power. He is all of that but he wanted more.

He wanted more and that responsibility fell upon Akemi. But she is no puppet. She is not a marionette, not something for him to milk fame and fortune from and she will never listen to him. She respects her father's abilities and success, but she will never be able to respect him as a person.

He is violent, a monster. A man who abuses his child to get what he wanted and Akemi could never respect that. But year's worth of taunting words and being kicked down the stairs and thrown across rooms are bound to get to you and by the time Akemi turned nine, her wrists were littered with thin, bloodied scars under bandages and band-aids, ones she did to herself. Ones she made on her own.

Mother never found out.

The child service came and gone, and nothing was done nor found.

Some teacher found out, saw the bruises and what little evidence he couldn't erase, they did nothing. They did nothing and Akemi was left alone and unnoticed with a back full of scars and a knife at her throat, not Akemi's but Kōki's throat, constantly reminding her of the consequences if she even uttered a word about what was done.

And that was when it started.

Lies.

Little lies, bigger lies, the knife at Koki's throat was killing her and she knows it, and she let it.

Then at fifth grade, Hibiki came barreling into her life.

Sunshine and smiles and a cheerful additude, so much like how she was. She tried to get away but the girl is like a koala, clingy and never lets go. She soon came to know Hiroi too, and Tenya, and it wasn't long before they became friends.

And it wasn't long before Hibiki grasped her hand and screamed at her to not let go as she dangled, just a couple of stories away from her death.

They became inseparable after that, Hibiki had somehow managed to save her, she bought her back and Akemi was alive again.

But it wasn't over.

The knife is still at her throat, he'd still throw her into walls and though she though with Hibiki by her side is nice, it's better, but though two broken souls with one another is better than one, it wasn't enough.

And so, first year of middle school, the trio found her bleeding out on the floor of the girl's bathroom, bloodstained and razor in hand.

She hadn't meant to cut that deep. She never expected to. She was crying. Her back and bones hurt and before she knew it two deep cuts has slashed across her wrist and across the artery, and everything went black.

That day Hibiki risked her life and took one of the two. That day Akemi woke up to three crying faces surrounding her in the nurse's office and that day was the first time she broke and told someone what happened to her, and the very same day she found that her best friend bore the same back full of scars and burns.

Now she has Hibiki. So it's fine. No matter how many times her father threw her at a wall or kicked her down the stairs she had shoulders to cry on and hands to pulls her up. And whoever Hibiki was locked out in the cold or nearly drowned she will always have her to count on and two other homes that will welcome her with open arms.

So it's fine. Akemi can make it. All she'll have to do is to play the long game. Once she grows up people will listen to her. Once she became a hero people will take her words as truth and they'll trust her. And her father will pay for what he've done. She'll leave him with nothing and leave him broken like he did that day, ten years ago.

In that damned basement.


Izuku was silent.

It's just... Hard to take in. Akemi. Kimura Akemi, his training partner and the person aiding him on his way to UA and the first person who didn't judge him for being quirkless, always cheerful and joking around, so broken, so silent.

Next to him his mom is shaking. In tears of fury, he didn't know. But Izuku himself...

He is angry. He is so angry that someone did that to Akemi. Akemi who tried her best at helping him and joked with him, who taught him how to properly talk and socialise and trained with him. She didn't deserve this. And to think there's someone else— the Ueno Hibiki she spoke so much about, her best friend who is as cheerful and happy as she is even through text and phone calls and face time...

It made him mad. But in the same time, he's sad. And before he knew it he was crying and he've leapt across the table and pulled Akemi into a large, tight embrace.

She seems startled, but after a few moments, a sob wreaked her body, and another, and she hugged him back with all she could and cried.


Please RnR for Geikyō's arrest, again.