Home. A word that conjures different images for everyone. For some it's a place of warmth and safety, filled with familiar scents and sounds. For others it is a distant memory of a place that they disappeared from and left behind long ago. But for Kairo Yoshimura, his home was lost long ago. It just disappeared.
It was a feeling, a deep ache that he couldn't get rid of, It was the sound of his mother's voice the alluring smell of her cooking the warmth that her hands had when they graced his skin. Everything he ever loved and lost was all filtered in a single word. Home.
From the young age of 11 years old Kairo had lost that feeling.
(Flashback)
"[Breaking news. A large scale villain attack was abruptly stopped and quickly dealt with by the nation's number 1 hero Stars and Stripes.]"
A younger 7 year old Kairo was watching the tv, and again there was news about a hero, the number one hero.
His mum was so fascinated by them. Obsessed with them. Something he didn't understand. He liked heroes too, but not on the same level as his mum.
"Don't they just wow you Kai? Everything they do is for us. It's amazing." a taller young woman said. She had smooth and beautiful pale skin which was in contrast to her son's darker caramel skin tone that obviously didn't come from her.
She also had jet black straight hair and an alluring smile on her face that anyone who seen could feel attracted to.
The boy didn't answer and just turned back to the tv to continue watching.
"With your quirk Kai you could be a wonderful hero." she said. Kairo's quirk was nothing like his mother's.
His was to do with dragons while her's was to do with healing, on a small scale though. When they went to the quirk doctor and they revealed what his quirk was, she seemed slightly disappointed but kept the same smile on her face.
"You'll be the opposite of what your father was. You'll be my little hero." she said the last part much louder than the first while she grabbed her son and brought him into a warm and comforting hug.
Every moment she got she would proceed to show Kairo how amazing heroes were, it didn't matter what nation they were in, she showed him everything that she found fascinating and thrilling. Which was almost everything about them.
Akemi. That was Kairo's mother's name. Meaning bright and beautiful. And towards the public that is 100 percent how she acted. Even to Kairo.
That was until she started planning out every moment of his life for him.
She wanted him to be a hero. So from young she would have him do home workouts and join clubs like Karate, Mixed martial arts or anything to improve his fitness.
This was when his perception started to change. He hated it. But he was a child so that should have been a normal reaction. He believed his mother would understand.
She put up the facade that she was and let him drop out of the numerous clubs and only stick to working out at home and let him find his own hobbies and interests.
And one he really liked was drawing.
Kairo believed that he could maybe become an artist and brought it up with his mother.
The disappointed, hard and displeased look that she sported was one he had never seen before, and it shook him.
She quickly had on her 'normal' face. Then she laughed and ruffled the young 11 year old boy's hair.
"You're going to be a hero."
That's all that she let out to him.
"I don't wanna." Kairo's reply just came out of his mouth without much thought.
At the time he didn't even know he said it.
And truth be told that was one of the last moments he even remembers with his mother in their little apartment in Florida.
After that she didn't move with the same enthusiasm as before. She didn't treat him like she did before, no warm hugs, no ruffling of his hair, barely any interaction at all.
And he hated it. And his little mind hated heroes even more for making this a reality for him.
With that, his mother went out one day, she claimed to the supermarket, and she never came back.
Soon after authorities were called and Kairo moved to Japan with the only relatives that would take him in.
His grandparents and two uncles. All people he had never met before, he didn't even want to meet them. He wanted his mum.
The dementia riddled old man had to be reminded of him every few days and always had a stern attitude.
His grandma was feeble but kind and loving. He warmed up to her after hearing some stories about his mum when he was younger. She left him, but he just didn't have the heart to hate her.
His uncles. Hiroshi and Shinji were a good few years apart. Shinji was always out of the house though and spent time with his girlfriend and studying, he was trying to get his masters.
He thought that everything could be fine this way, that he could start a new life here and eventually his mum would come find him soon.
But that was also wrong. Hiroshi hated the boy. He was abusive and would fake his smiles and positivity in front of the other family for him but give him cold glares when he thought no one was there.
He remembers a night where he was sat in the sitting room and he was about to turn off the tv and a flickering of light was heard. He turned to see his uncle Hiroshi with a lighter to the end of his cigarette.
"What you also scared of a little cancer stick?" he taunted in a low voice.
He remembers Grandma reprimanding him of smoking in the house, especially when there wasn't a window close by.
He took the cigarette out of his mouth and got closer to Kairo. "Here take it." it was forced into his hand, making him hold it the same way that he had done just prior.
He then forced his hand to his mouth.
"Now just inhale slowly before releasing it out."
He was eleven. But the smirk didn't leave his uncles face. He lit up the cigarette once more and watched his nephew smoke it but didn't release his hand forcing him to take and even bigger drag.
Kairo burst into a coughing fit and the cigarette fell out of his mouth.
He was breathing heavily as he couldn't before. A hand reached down to grab the cigarette and pulled him up at the same time. "Now for dropping it this is what happens." the end of the cigarette was lit again and before he could even move it landed in his left arm.
He tried to scream from the pain but a sweaty and warm hand had clamped itself on his mouth making his screams sound more like whimpers as tears fell out of his eyes.
"Also, the longer you scream the longer I'll leave it." his uncle said in a completely uncaring fashion. "So close your mouth."
That night always stuck in Kairo's mind along with the few words he would leave him with. "Make sure to dress properly."
The amount of times that it had happened. It was terrible but soon became bearable. The smoking and the burns.
It got worse when his grandparents died.
But that also meant that his uncle Hiroshi would slip up because of the new found freedom he believed he had.
"What the hell are you doing Hiroshi!?" his other uncle Shinji had walked into 12 year old Kairo's room one night when he was staying over and seen what was happening.
Kairo scarcely remembers what had happened that night. But he does remember the flashing lights of the police cars and the bloody hands and the feeling of tears flowing down his face.
He had then only started living with his uncle Shinji who didn't seem to be spending his time with the girlfriend that Kairo believed he had. He was now spending most of his time with his nephew.
Kairo had more of a solemn look on his face but he was somewhat content with his uncle. But it seems like misery and misfortune was always supposed to follow him.
Dangling from a rope connected to a projector that they had set up in their new apartment was his uncle Shinji.
Dead. Right after Kairo came home from school. There was nothing he could do, he already knew he was dead.
Weeks, no months prior he had lost the spark in his eyes that he had when he had first met him and the rest of the family. Maybe it was always going to come to this.
--
After uncle Shinji died, strange people would always come to visit me. They were men in black suits. At first I was initially scared of them but he could truly do nothing and they never hurt him, or spoke down on him like his uncle had.
They told me that they were a part of the Hero Public Safety Commission. They told me that my power is special.
Become a symbol of hope for the people. Become a hero.
Not of that stood out to me back then, I hated heroes.
But I would have been placed in an orphanage, put in foster care and may have to live with another family. I didn't want that. What I wanted wasn't here, she wasn't coming back, she was never going to come back.
Take their opportunity and I'll be able to live a comfortable live financially, they'll even let me have my own home. But I would have to use my quirk. Train up to their standards. Results will buy me what I want.
(Flashback end)
Well younger me believed they would be that much more evil, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe because of my young mind instantly demonized most older authority figures back then.
It was actually a lucrative deal to my life at the time.
The deal consisted of me being sponsored by the commission as a hero and I would even get a scholarship to go to another school by the time high school came around.
If I wanted to become a hero they would get me recommendations to whatever school I wished to go to and after graduating I would still have the independence to act as a normal hero only that if I were called on by them to do a special mission then I would have to do it.
It seemed fair and still does feel fair.
With the commision there were a lot of classes and training I had to go through. The combat training was hard and when I started fighting I was restricted from using my quirk which made everything harder. I had to learn multiple disciplines that would be used in combat scenarios. Quirk training was easy, all I had to do was keep using my quirk to its limits and see what else it could do while learning to fight with it and it's practical uses.
And they still had to teach me normal or conventional stuff like law and morality which was taught young to help people try and learn more about the mind as well as why people do the things they do. It also tried to help people stray away from the path of folding under the pressure of their quirks.
I found classes like that somewhat interesting since it also helped people learn why people turn against society with past famous villains like Seraphina Darkwood. She went on to become a villain because of her only parent, her dad, was killed during a big fight with a villain and hero and her dad's death had come from the rubble crushing him.
She thought heroes were at fault as well as the villains involved and set out on a mission to make it known to everyone on their faulty society and how people use their powers for destruction.
That lead to more topics to be learned like how and when to use our quirks and to keep damage to surroundings as limited as possible.
Some parts of that sounded stupid but the classes that I just didn't like were things like strategy class. This was only taught in hero school's which made sense since they would mainly be the one's using it apart from the police.
But the class was too boring and hard to come up with strategies when nothing was going on. So that is when the commission found out that I was more of a practical learner.
I was sat in my own apartment that was funded for me by the commission thinking about my future.
Akira Enshiro who had been my advisor in the commission had been the one to look after me since I was sponsored by the commission. He had told me that I can be what I want, whether that be an engineer, artist or a hero. The hero part had always been mentioned.
When I was younger I would hate to hear about it and think that proclaiming my hate for heroes to him and how pointless I thought of it being a career I believed it was would do something like make them stop talking about it or maybe even get me reprimanded.
All Akira had told me that it's not about me being a hero. They just wanted to keep me out of trouble and give me a better opportunity than what I was left with.
It's been four years since I've seen my mum. There was no information they got that could have pointed to her being alive. She disappeared in America as an American citizen. Even with all the resources they had they can't encroach too much on private information, especially if it's from a person that's been missing for the last four years.
Time flew by in between all the misery and now I had to make a really important decision. And important decision in nearly every teenager's life.
Get a real job or play hero.
And my hate for heroes was more ambivalence, just something that I hated my mother clinging to but I respected the positive impact they have on society. Right now I don't have a hate towards them but I don't think they're the best thing to ever exist.
It just might be the most feasible thing for me to do in my position right now. If I did go to university then I'd probably do something like art since that's the only thing I'd be interested in. And then try become a mangaka.
But that's so hard to even do now in this day and age since most manga that's truly big are ones that are about heroes. And they all follow the same plot which I just fall out of interest for.
Honestly I think that I'm taking my situation a bit for granted. Most people in my position would jump at the chance to become a hero. I can literally get a recommendation to go to any hero school I want with the commission.
And my quirk, 'Dragon manifestation'. I knew it was powerful and that in that department I am considered blessed so just on that alone I'm sure that some schools would accept me and try to make sure I reach my potential.
It simply allowed me to conjure dragons and use them to fight. Other additional stuff was there too but that didn't matter for now. Well that's what the commission said I should say.
Other dumb thoughts would float through my head about what would happen if I become a hero and lived that lifestyle. I'd have to work hard, and making a living out of it wasn't as easy as I first thought it to be.
First becoming a hero meant you would be paid a base salary. If you meet a quota for villains captured you would meet that base and be paid out by the commission from tax that is collected. If you were to go above that quota then you would obviously get a bonus that would weigh out appropriately to the criminals captured.
If you wanted any more then you would have to work on merchandise or even other jobs which isn't uncommon, for example there's recovery girl who is a hero but only became one when she was in her late 20's since she wanted to pursue being a nurse.
So for me, art could always be an option for more of a side hustle.
But, deep down I thought that if I became a hero that my mum would crawl out of wherever she is. Something stupid for sure since she is the one who left.
"Ah screw it."
My phone rang and looking at the caller ID I seen a name that was easily recognizable to me. Haruka Kurogane.
I answered it. "Yo."
"Hi Kai. I just called cause I had a feeling you were choosing what you wanna do with your lazy self." she said that in a sarcastic tone that I was used to.
I'm not even that lazy.
"Yeah I just thought of it." I said in a slower and tired tone which didn't help me internally fight off the claims of me being lazy. "I think I'll just take a recommendation exam at a hero school."
The other end of the line went quiet for a second and I felt a wave of anxiety. It's not that I was scared if she would see it as something I couldn't do. If that were the case then I wouldn't have told her to begin with.
Haruka was someone I had known since the beginning of being taken in by the commission. She was a empathetic and caring person. One of those people that some people described as a gentle ray of light that lifts you out of darkness.
"That's great." her cheery tone from the other end of the line seemed to spin time in motion again.
Nothing bad is supposed to happen to people like her. "I'm sure you'll get into whatever school you shoot for. I think you should just go for the number one"
"UA?" I asked.
"Yeah. It'll be easy for you." she answered back.
"I appreciate the confidence you have in me." and shooting for UA was what I was planning for. It was the number one hero school that had many alumni in the top ten in our hero society.
"Of course. There's no doubt in my mind that you can do it."
"What about you?" I asked.
"Me, well I'm still planning on becoming financially free and doing my philanthropy work before I'm 25."
Yeah, that's what Haruka had always said she wanted to do. Help people.
Saying those two words in today's world led everyone to believing that you wanted to be a hero or that being a hero was the only way you could truly help people.
But no she was genuine in saying what she was aiming for. Helping people with the wealth that she would make for herself.
She was a real hero.
--
I sat in my room and thought on the decision that I was making. Going to the most prestigious hero academy.
Nervousness as well as excitement were starting to well up within me, I never thought that I would even feel something like this.
Maybe it was the encouraging words of Haruka that had brought this on.
Whatever it was. It was now time to look forward and take my chances in UA's recommendation exams.
--
Chapter 1 complete.
I've decided to finally come back to this story and try to complete it.
It will follow canon loosely and it will be a story focusing a lot on my oc Kairo. His quirk is inspired from Zeno Zoldycks from Hunter x Hunter.
Characters in MHA like Mineta won't be in this and there will be character death.
By the way I'm new to writing on this app and am crossposting through here and Webnovel.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy.