'All men are not created equal.'
This is the statement Izuku has lived with for his whole life ever since he was four years old. It was a harsh lesson to learn when you had no human to turn to, when it was just yourself against the world.
The brand of 'quirkless' burned like a hot iron, destroying the lives of any person it touched. Quirkless people were treated like scum, as freaks in this super-human society that values heroes over everything else. Being labelled as such, without a doubt, would destroy every human whoever comes into contact with it. Every single human...
Izuku finds himself lucky that he couldn't exactly be considered human.
Izuku Midoriya died when he was eight years old, face down in the stream near the park as blood oozes from the gash in his head, hidden from the world behind the trees.
He was alone, having been abandoned by Kacchan and his friends, and he was bored. With no one willing to approach him out of fear of Kacchan or disgust, Izuku had retreated to this place whenever he wanted to hide from everyone and be alone. Short legs dangled from the low-hanging branch he had managed to pull himself up after a fair amount of effort and he leaned back against the trunk of the tree, eyes drifting shut.
Izuku swayed with the breeze, green hair being caressed by the wind as a small, rare small bloomed on his face.
It was quiet, like the world was still. No noise except the water in the stream and the faint calls of birds deeper in the trees. It was... peaceful. Like the world was granting him a break from all the hell it shoves onto his shoulders, even for just a moment.
And then he felt a push and-
everything goes black.
He doesn't exactly wake up, more like slowly becoming aware of what's around him. One moment he's surrounded by darkness and dead to the world and the next he's just, there. His surroundings are pitch black, but it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like the darkness of a late night or a dark room, what surrounds him is nothing. Izuku feels as if he is floating in the middle of nothingness.
Izuku startles into awareness as he feels a gentle poke to his cheek and that sets off whoever had done it, the high pitched giggling echoing around the void. Green eyes flicker open and he stares.
In front of him is a girl around his age, long black hair flows past her shoulders and gets lost in the void around them and silvery grey eyes shift into a rainbow of colours while she laughs. Wiping a tear from her eye, the laughter dies down. Her eyes lock onto him and she lunges forward, a smile stretching across her face.
"IZUKU!" His name echoes around the room and he stumbles backward in surprise, which ends with the other kid careening past him and into the darkness. Oh no...!
He falls into a panic, worried for the other, so he rushes forward and cries out. Seeing a flash of pale skin, Izuku's arms flung out in an attempt to grab onto her. His fingers catch and he yanks back with all his might and he comes back with... nothing.
"No..."
"Izuku? What's wrong?"
His head whips around and he flinches a bit, sharp pain burning through the side of his neck, but he ignores it to instead gape at the girl. The very same girl who just went flying into the void around them.
"Y-you- the void- gone!" Izuku's hands flail frantically around his face, distressed. "Are you okay? How did you-?"
"Oh! That!" She laughs, her eyes now a bright, acidic green. "This is my place! Everything I do here, everything that happens, I can control!" She flexes the fingers of her right hand and a golden ball of light forms in her palm. With a flick, she flings them up into the sky and the void is no longer the empty nothingness he saw when he first woke up.
Instead, it's the very place he was just before. Standing underneath the tree he was climbing, the familiar stream flows just a few meters from him. Izuku's eyes go wide in wonder, gears in his mind turning as he tries to figure out what was happening. "So it's a quirk?" He mumbles, "But then why would I be here? Was I pulled in? How does that work? Is there a trigger or a certain condition to be met or is she able to choose whoever she wants to pull into here? If there's a trigger, then... wait... Did she push me from the tree? Why didn't I see her? I... No..."
Muffled snickering breaks him out of his ongoing tangent. Realising what he was doing, his face burned red with embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry, it's a really bad habit I know..."
"No! No! It's fine, it's adorable! It's cute! You're cute! I'm so happy you finally came here!" She rushed forward, grabbing his wrists as she bounced on the spot. "And I'm really sorry for pushing you, I just couldn't wait any longer for you to come. I-" She froze for a moment, eyes dark before she brightened once again. "Don't worry about that, my name's Shizu, but you can call me Shi! I like that better, sounds cute, doesn't it?"
Shi's grin stretches wide, almost unnaturally so across her face. Her expression is happy, warm, but he feels cold. Ice in his veins and it seeps into his bones, spreading and eating away at him as he stares at her. His voice comes out in a whisper. "You... you pushed me?" Tears burn in his eyes and his vision goes blurry. He can't cry, he can't. It only gets worse when he does. But... It hurts. This girl he never met, even with her boundless energy and big smile, was just like the rest. Just like the kids who left him bruised and aching at school. He tries so hard to keep it down, but he can't stop and tears start to fall.
There's a single moment of stunned silence before the world around them goes to chaos. Their surroundings warp and bend into unnatural, twisted creatures. Trees loom over the two children, one covered in tears and the other frozen, motionless. The ground cracks and plants shrivel into dust as the stream sluggishly flows as the water turns a deep, dark black. Shi's hands shake and her eyes flare a bloody red. "Why are you crying?" She sounds distressed and she desperately grasps at his face and holds his cheeks. "You were fine before, what happened?" Like the world around them, she also begins to change.
Black hair flows longer and longer, consuming all the light around it like a black hole and her skin begins to turn grey. Her body flickers and he feels energy buzzing under her skin as she rubs at his cheeks and under his eyes over and over again. "Stop it!" She snaps and he flinches, terror making more tears leak out. "No! No no no no no! You're not supposed to do that!" Her voice trembles. "Why are you sad? This wasn't supposed to be sad! w̶e̵ ̷w̴e̶r̵e̸ ̶s̷u̴p̴p̴o̶s̴e̶d̷ ̸t̸o̶ ̷b̵e̴ F̶̼͉̝̹̠̿ R̶̠͓̒̚͝ Į̴͓̜̠͋ E̷̟̿̓͐͂ Ņ̴̢̹̋̑͐̀͝ D̵̳̟͕́̒ͅ S̷̢̨̗̹̙̓͛̓͌͠ !"
Energy pours from her body and the darkness surrounds them and he can't breathe. The power presses down on him, choking him and he feels his sight going hazy. He's flung back and just as his vision gives out, he sees a blurry vision of Shi clutching at her head, screaming as their little world falls apart around them.
Izuku wakes up in a room that reminds him of his bedroom. It's familiar, but everything is wrong. Everything is there, all his posters and figurines, his notebooks and everything is the same, but this isn't his room where is he-.
He feels the weight on the edge of the bed as it dips more than he hears the creek and his head whips around. It's Shi, but... she looks... flat. Drained.
Her hair, previously long and shiny, is now short. The cuts are choppy and end at her shoulders, the hair itself looks like it hasn't been taken care of well for a long time. Her skin is a sickly pale grey, turning darker at the ends of her fingers and under her eyes. He looks at her, confused. So many questions to ask, but he doesn't know if he can. Shi looks at him, previously bright eyes now dark and bloodshot. She looks tired.
Was it because of me...?
There's an abrupt movement, then all of sudden he finds himself with a faceful of black hair and a weight against his body. The lights flicker as she mumbles into his chest.
"I am sorry... for whatever I did." She glances up at him. "I- I'm not good with humans, I haven't been around them for... a very long time. I was- I was just so happy to finally have someone with me. I forgot... that we were a lot different." She looks scared, ashamed. "I'll tell you anything you want so please... promise to come back. I don't want to wait for another to come."
His chest hurts. He wants... he wants to know why. Why is he here? Why is this happening? Why is he the one she wants to come back? And... Why should he? But... she looks so small and he hates it that he is the one to make her feel like this. His hands move and stroke her hair, the same way his mother would to him when he was upset. "It's okay..." He murmurs. "How about we start with something easy?" She looks at him, waiting for him to go on.
"My name is Midoriya Izuku. I'm eight years old and I live with my mum. I'm... quirkless, but... it's okay. I'm used to it." He smiles, prompting her to do the same. She clears her throat. "My name is Shizu! But don't call me that, call me Shi. I don't know how old I am and I live by myself. And..." Shi's eyes light up and a mischievous smirk appeared on her face. "You're not quirkless! That's why I'm here, Izu!"
A confused laugh bubbles from his lips and his hands stop their movements. "It's not nice to joke about that, Shizu." She pouts and puffs out her cheeks. "But I'm not! I promise! Well... kinda..." She looks confused as she thinks out loud. "I mean... it's kinda not a quirk, but you do get powers from it... it's technically a bunch of em... So I guess it is one and it isn't? Like that kitty cat! Do you know that cat Izu?"
As he goes to answer her, he's cut off by a gust of wind. He looks around, startled and wondering where it came from in the closed room they were in. Shizu's face falls. Letting out an unhappy whine, she clutches tighter onto him. "No fair! He still doesn't even believe me yet!" She complains, seemingly to nothing.
"Shizu?" He asked, maybe growing just a little bit concerned about the situation. Said girl pushes away from his chest and crawls over to sit on the edge of the bed. She looks deep in thought for a moment, before she jolts like she's been struck by a live wire. "I got it!" She yells happily, before flinging herself back at Izuku. A hand presses against his chest, right above his heart and he flinches in pain. A squeak escapes him before he can stop it. "H-hey! That hurts, Shizu-" She backs up, but his chest still burns.
He tries to get up, to get closer to her, but his body feels so heavy. Izuku feels like he has been covered in the heaviest blanket ever, one so big and thick it stops him from moving any of his limbs. His breathing starts to pick up and he begins to panic. Seeing his distress, Shizu looks at him guiltily."
"Ok, ok sorry! But you need to go now or else bad things will happen, but I can talk to you this way! You better believe me later, you will believe me, I know you will."
He blinks -
and his vision goes dark. He feels like he's floating again, but this time he's all alone. He still can't see. Izuku's breath catches and he screws his eyes shut, hoping to wake up from whatever had happened to him.
Ice cold water laps at his body, biting at the exposed skin. Surprised, he opens his eyes and wildly looks around. He's sitting in the stream, clothes torn and sticking to his body, freezing him as the cold seeps into his bones. Shivers racked his body and tears welled up in his eyes, from the cold or the confusion he couldn't tell. He picked himself up, trying his best to shake off the water and dirt he picked up along the way and began his trek back home.
He wanted to know just what was going on, but right now he just wanted to see his mum and have a nice, warm bath. And maybe some katsudon, if he was lucky.
So caught up in his thoughts, he never noticed the black crow discreetly following him home, silver eyes glinting as they followed his every move.