Months passed and before she knew it, it was already October, her birthday to be more precise. That day, she got up early to grab ingredients to make cupcakes and homemade ramen. She didn't mention anything to All Might or anyone else that it was a special day. The only unusual thing about her day was setting up incense in her room as she placed two cupcakes and 2 steaming bowls of ramen in front of it. It was late at night, All Might having been called out for work again, missing having dinner together with her, but she didn't mind.
She placed her hands together to pray, she didn't notice the sound of someone entering the house, or calling her name, focused on the good memories of her brother. She placed a candle in one of the cupcakes and lit it. "Happy Birthday Naruto." she whispered and blew out the flame.
"Miwako?" A voice called from the doorway.
She turned to see All Might there who just got back home, soot and dirt still covered his suit. "Welcome home Toshinori. There is food in the fridge for you if you're hungry."
He took a second to really look at the view in front of him. To his knowledge Miwako normally doesn't light incense for the deceased when they are eating so it must be special. He read the name on the paper she set up behind the burning incense and it had the name of her brother written clearly on it and included the names of what he assumed were her parents. "What's going on?"
"It's our birthday." She lifted the cupcake she was holding so he could see the blown out candle.
"Birthday?" All Might was shocked. "Why didn't you say anything, we could have gone out to do something and celebrated."
"I'm not used to celebrating without him yet." Tears welled up in her eyes. It's only been around 3 years now that she was separated from the one of the most important person in her life. She still sometimes found herself reaching out trying to grab the hand that was supposed to always be next to her, but only found air. She sometimes still found something funny or thought of a cool prank and found herself almost calling his name to tell him, before remembering she was alone.
While the absence of her parents was nothing new, the absence of her twin still hit deep. All Might said nothing as he entered her room, before kneeling next to her and pulling her into a long strong hug and she softly cried. He spoke softly as he stroked her hair to try and comfort her somehow. "I understand, but I think he would want you to enjoy this day and spend it with people that care for you and not alone in your room. You don't have to celebrate if you don't want to, but don't hide."
He pulled away slightly to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "If it is alright with you, I would love to have dinner up here and wish you both a happy birthday."
She nodded, feeling less alone than she had in several years. While she loved Kurama, it was still lonely having only 1 other family member in her life. She would have spiraled into a dark hole without him.
All Might slowly got up to not startle her and quickly gathered the other bowl of ramen waiting for him and a cupcake for himself before meeting her back in her room. He put his hands together to give his own prayers. "Happy Birthday Naruto. Happy Birthday Miwako."
It was strange hearing her brother's name come out of someone else's mouth other than either her own or Kuramas but it made a smile pull at her lips. She found herself wanting to tell someone else about him. "We are identical ya know. We both have verbal tics that we got from our mom."
All Might was listening attentively with an encouraging look on his face. "Tell me more about him."
"He was a prankster, always getting in trouble one way or another. A ray of absolute sunshine, there was almost always a bright smile on his face. All he wanted was to be acknowledged and he was so kind. Always reaching out a helping hand."
"A great trait to have." All Might said.
"He was the best. He taught me how to let people in, that it was alright to forgive. I was always the more violent of the two. He's actually older than me, but I still protected him as much as I could. I helped him learn, he was dumber than a box of rocks when it came to anything academic, but he was an absolute prodigy when it came to fighting. He was so unorthodox he could take anyone off guard." She laughed slightly remembering the fond memories of the past.
She turned to All Might with a look of adoration on her face as she spoke about him. "You remind me of Naruto a lot. His motto was to never give up. Everytime he was knocked down, he stood stronger than before."
"I wish I could have met him. Sounds like a remarkable young man." He was touched that she would say that they were alike considering just how much she loved her brother. She nodded as she picked up her bowl of ramen, ready to eat it. "You guys would have gotten along so well."
"Are those the names of your parents?" He asked, while he had a good suspicion it was he still wanted to clarify.
"Yeah, it's their death anniversary too."
All Might tried not to show too much emotion at that bit of news. He honestly didn't know what else to say besides an apology but it seemed to be too inadequate. He struggled to find the words and instead stayed quiet incase he said something wrong. Being a silent support was better than saying something possibly offending or accidentally make the situation worse in his opinion.
That night, All Might didn't go right to sleep, instead he called Aizawa.
"Why the hell are you calling me so late?" A groggy voice spoke through the other end.
"Aizawa!" He whisper yelled. "Did you know it was Miwako's birthday today?"
"No, don't tell me you didn't know either?" Aizawa sounded a little more awake. "Didn't you go with her to get her documents filled out?"
"I didn't want to pry so I let her fill in the blanks on her own unless she asked about something. I didn't want to overwhelm her." He said sheepishly, now fully regretting it.
Aizawa sighed. "Well we can just celebrate tomorrow with her or something, take her out to dinner and invite the other teachers."
"We can't do that, she said that she hasn't really celebrated her birthday since her twin died."
"If she doesn't celebrate, how did you find out?"
"I came home and called her name to see if she was still awake and didn't hear a response. When I walked past her room I smelled incense, I knocked on the door but didn't hear a reply. I was just going to peek my head in to check on her like I do some nights and saw her kneeling in front of a makeshift shrine with the names of her brother and parents. I questioned her and that's when she told me and that's not even the worst part, her parents died today too, both of them." There was silence on the other line.
All Might tried to prompt him to speak again. "Aizawa, what do we do?"
"How the hell is she functioning?" Aizawa questioned. Miwako was just 11 now, how could she be all smiles and happiness and yet she had every reason to be upset and wallow in sadness.
All Might's heart broke as she thought of the scene he stumbled upon. "She doesn't even have a single picture of them." He whispered.
"Let's just try and sleep on it and we can all have a meeting with the others tomorrow to see how we can deal with this. Hound Dog would probably have an idea of how to tread the situation due to his experience in grief counseling."
A heavy blanket of pity and concern blanketed the room "So… does anyone even know how they died?" Midnight asked, breaking the silence.
All Might opened his mouth to answer only to close it again, thinking hard he shook his head. "No, she never said how."
Hound Dog spoke as clearly as he could manage, but his agitated state left his voice gruffer than normal. "Grr, how we go about approaching the subject would be completely dependent on her answer."
"She seemed to be fairing pretty well with her losses. I don't think I've really seen her truly upset this entire time I've known her." Present Mic was quiet and unanimated which was an unusual sight, showing just how serious the situation was.
Aizawa shook his head. "That doesn't mean anything, none of us knew her before she lost her family. For all we know her sunny disposition could be a mask that none of us could point out because we never knew her before the incident."
They were all stumped on what to do. It was then that Aizawa remembered a concerning conversation that happened several months prior. "Oh shit."
"What?" They all questioned him.
"Do you remember when she brought up why we don't kill people?" All of them but All Might had a look of dawning horror on their face. He was looking around questioning them, not understanding what was going on.
Aizawa explained the situation to him. "Miwako asked why we don't kill people. She said it would be better to do so because keeping someone in prison gives them a chance of escape. She talked so blase about taking a life, how likely do you all think it is that they were murdered?"
A wave of despair swept through the room. "How the hell are we supposed to help her?" All Might whispered.
They all left the room without knowing how to fix the situation. Miwako could tell the adults around her were unhappy, but didn't want to pry unless it got too bad. Days passed and after another meeting together they decided to just rip the bandage off and called her to meet them in the lounge.
When Miwako opened the door she immediately wrinkled her nose. "So, are you guys going to tell me what got you in such a bad mood?"
"You knew?" Present Mic asked. Her brows furrowed and she answered. "Well, yeah. I thought you all knew I could smell emotions. Didn't Hound Dog say anything?"
They all turned to said person in unison, a glare set on their features. "Must have slipped my mind." Hound Dog mumbled which was a weird sight to see from someone so large.
All Might sigh slowly before beckoning her closer, gesturing for her to sit down next to him. "We wanted to talk to you about some Miwako."
"ok?" She was hesitant to know exactly what they wanted to talk about to make them all smell so miserable.
Hound Dog started the conversation first. "We don't want to pry, but we are worried about your mental health."
"Mental health?" She was still confused at where this conversation was going.
"Yes, we are worried about how you are faring. We realized that we never really asked, since you were always so happy and adamant about taking care of yourself. As adults we should have done a better job."
Aizawa took over this time. He was sitting right across from her and she turned her attention onto him. "We would like to know.." Aizawa for once fidgeted slightly, not able to ask his question all at once. Her attention faltered a bit when she felt All Might place his hand in hers and squeezed.
Aizawa cleared his throat before beginning again. "How did you lose your family?" That snapped her attention right back to him, not expecting that question.
It clicked in her head. "Oh.." Her voice trailed off. "Is this about my birthday?"
All Might squeezed her hand again. "A part of it, yes. We barely know anything about you Miwako, and we would like you to tell us more."
"You do know things about me though."
All Might shook his head. "All superficial stuff like your favorite food, your quirk, tiny stories of where you traveled, what you trained in. Nothing really about you, before you lost your family. The most you've ever said was on your birthday and it was all about Naruto."
Aizawa spoke up when All Might was done. "We don't want to force you to tell us things, we understand that when you first agreed to let us take care of you it would be more of a hands off approach, but we are worried. We want you to know that your mental health is just as important as your physical health. You keep us all at a distance, even though you act friendly, it's not healthy. You need someone you can talk to even if it's not us."
Miwako gazed around the room, she knew they were telling the truth, but it was hard. They slowly started to become important to her through the months and she didn't want to lie, but how could she even tell the whole truth? She decided that she would say a little, but left it at that. "My parents were murdered, but I don't know how Naruto died."
The teachers all sucked in a breath when she confessed what they were all suspecting. All Might squeezed her hand tighter and Aizawa continued. "Do you know who killed them? And how can you tell Naruto is dead, he could just be missing."
"I know who killed my parents, they're not around anymore so you don't have to worry about calling the police or anything. Naruto and I have a twin bond. I can tell he's not here."
Aizawa raised a skeptical eyebrow. There were studies that tested the strength of the bonds between twins. Each of them were different, some saying that they were just so alike they think alike, others just show an average sibling bond, the status of twins didn't change much. However none of them ever talked about a bond strong enough that she was speaking of. "That's the only way you know?" He kept his voice even, not wanting to accuse her of just giving up. It was a sensitive topic.
Her eyes narrowed in anger. "I don't need any other way. I know he's gone. I've tried looking for him despite that and nothing has worked. Don't you ever try to insinuate that I gave up on him."
He sat back in his seat. "That's not what I was trying to do, there has just never been a record of a bond between twins as strong as you're saying. I just wanted to make sure."
"Well now that you know, does that even change anything?" She asked as she looked around the room. No one said anything so she just stood up from her position on the couch and left the room. What was the point of bringing up bad memories for her, just for their own curiosity?
For the first time since she came to live with him, she didn't come home for days. All Might was completely distraught, the only thing that kept him from going out searching for her was her updates that she was alright through text.
Over a week has passed when one day All Might came through the door and there she was sitting in her usual seat at the dining room table, hot food plated for them to each as she fidgeted. She got up to greet him as he stood still as a statue. "Hi, Toshi-" before she could continue he swept her up in a tight embrace.
"I'm so happy you're home." He whispered
Her eyes widened as tears pricked her eyes, her hands lifted to shakily return the hug. "I'm sorry." Her voice was quiet. "I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I worried you. I'm sorry I'm so distant. Thank you for caring about me. Thank you for taking me in."
He set her back down but kept his hands on her arms as he kneeled down to her height. "You don't have to be sorry for anything. Us adults should've handled the situation better. You never have to thank me for caring about how you're doing or if you're eating enough. I will always care about you."
She sniffled and tried to fight back the tears as she spoke. "I'll talk to someone about my problems. Naruto would be pretty upset with me for running away and not getting help."
All Might nodded. "Alright, talk to whoever you're most comfortable with, although I suggest Hound Dog since he actually specializes in counseling, but let's not think about this now." He steered them toward the table. "Tell me what you've been up to."
She started rapidly talking about where she was and the sights that she was able to see. How she found a huge waterfall that had the clearest water. He listened to the whole thing with a smile on his face.