A/N- Usually authors place notes here. I have nothing to say right now.

Oh, wait, disclaimer. I do not own My Hero Academia (a.k.a Boku No Hero Academia (also called My Hero Acca by some for short (also called Macadamia if you're one of those people))).

Monochromatic Ideals

Arc 1- Synchronous dissonance

Episode 1- Brothers

There came a point in someone's life when important decisions had to be made. The ability to make complex decisions defined what it meant to be human, after all. The loss of the ability to decide was the loss of free will. And the loss of free will was the loss of meaning to one's own personal existence. But decisions could be dangerous, as well. One wrong decision could lead to great success, or damning failure. Sometimes a simple choice was all that stood between life and death.

But Kyomu was only four, so thankfully any decisions he made right now wouldn't be that heavy.

He wrung his hands nervously as he walked down the crowded streets, weaving through the masses of people walking past him. It wasn't them that made him nervous; he was used to being around so many people at this point. No, he was anxious for an entirely different reason altogether. And he didn't know what to do in order to ease it.

"You're going to tear the bill in half if you keep gripping it like that," a voice cautioned behind him. Kyomu turned his head to the white-haired boy behind him, who was glaring at his hands. "You know what, I don't trust you. Gimme that."

"But Hikari..." Kyomu protested, though he didn't fight back when the one-thousand yen bill was torn from his hands.

Hikari regarded the money he now held with a disgusted look, his face cringing back at the mere touch. "Aw man, what the- it's all sweaty!" He shook the bill frantically, drops of perspiration flying off and landing on the sidewalk. "It wasn't enough you had to wrinkle it so much, but you had to make it so wet it'll probably disintegrate before we even get to the shop!?"

"I can't help it, Hikari!" Kyomu complained. "It's just, well, my throat's really dry and it's really hot and since I didn't get to drink anything all day-" he pointed away from the two of them, towards where they had walked from, "-and when I saw that guy restocking the vending machine with Grapetastic Fizz, I got really thirsty and-"

"Hold it right there." The boy's red eyes bored straight into Kyomu's blue ones. "You are not suggesting we spend this money on a nasty-tasting soda so you're not thirsty."

Kyomu looked down in shame. "I mean, it's not that bad..." he mumbled. "And I was going to get you one, too."

"Kyomu, we pooled our allowance together so we could buy the manga we've been waiting weeks for the day it came out. You're not throwing away all of that on some sodas. Besides, did you see the guy who was putting the cans into the machine?" Hikari almost shivered as the image of that man returned to him. "His Quirk made him have tongues for fingers. He may as well have been licking every can he touched."

"But you only put your lips on the top part, and he wasn't touching that," Kyomu reminded. "So it doesn't count."

"It's the principle," Hikari sighed. "Plus I don't want to take that risk. Come on." He walked in front of the black-haired child, shoving the yen bill into his pocket in the process.

Kyomu, not wishing to pursue the argument, could only nod as he dragged his feet towards the white-haired youth and shuffled right besides him. Besides, despite his protests Kyomu really did want that manga. Hikari wanted it too, and he'd be really upset if he didn't get it. And the only thing worse to Kyomu than crippling thirst was when his twin brother wasn't happy.

Decisions were hard to make. At least Kyomu always had his brother Hikari around to help him make them.

The door to the shop opened, the musk aroma of paper instantly assaulting the noses of the two boys. Hikari lead the way inside, Kyomu trailing behind him as the two looked around.

Amon's manga shop wasn't the best shop around. Wasn't even average, if they were being honest. Sub-par, really, but it was the only one that their parents would let them go to. Something they had said about the other shops having more "seedier" pieces of literature. Hikari and Kyomu hadn't know why a manga about plants would be so dangerous to them, but their parents had always vehemently shot down any attempts they had made to go to any other shop. Amon's was decent enough, though, so it mattered little in the end.

Even if the shop didn't have a single popular mainstream manga for sale.

And there was the owner of the shop himself, reclining on a chair behind the counter of the shop while watching a wall mounted TV. He'd idly tilted his head towards the door when he heard it opened, but he fell out of his chair the second he saw the faces of the two boys. He righted himself in an instant, straightening his shirt with a forced smile.

"Ah, there they are! My favorite regulars!" The lanky man leaned over the counter, the sunlight bleeding in from the windows glinting off of his dark sunglasses as he stared down at the two. "You here for the you-know-what?"

Hikari opened his mouth to answer, but Kyomu beat him to the punch by leaning over his shoulder and nodding his head rapidly. "Uh-huh! The newest volume of Bright Night!"

"And the compensation for me holding a copy under the counter for you two...?" Amon leered at Hikari, causing the boy to roll his eyes. He removed two things from his pocket: a crumpled and slightly soaked one-thousand yen bill, and a delicately folded picture. Both were handed to Amon, who hastily threw the bill into an already-opened cash register only to slowly unfold the picture. He let a small giggle out, carefully placing the picture under the counter. "Man, you two are the best! Autographed self-portraits of heroes go for a mint, and Gact is a really popular hero around these parts!"

"Hey, brother?" Kyomu tugged on Hikari's shoulder, causing him to immediately turn around. "I know mom said she didn't mind signing the pictures we keep taking of her, but don't you think she'd be mad if she found out we're using them for this?"

Hikari shrugged. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her." And if she actually agreed to just drop them off at the store they wouldn't have to go as far as to pull these kinds of shenanigans. Hikari knew her job as a professional hero was a very trying one that took away a lot of her time, but he felt it wouldn't have been that difficult to drop them off a few blocks closer than the usual drop-off spot.

"Well, a deal's a deal!" Amon reached under the counter yet again, though this time he pulled something out instead: a book with a highly detailed and colored cover on it. Both of the boys' eyes grew wide at the sight of the book, with Hikari being the first to grab the book from the storekeeper's hands.

"Alright!" he laughed, waving to book in the air. "We finally got it!" A sense of triumph filled Hikari as he held the book as far up as he could, with Kyomu joining the revelry by laughing along with him.

"Boy, you kids really like that one, huh?" Amon chuckled at the two's antics, rubbing the back of his head as he stared at the two.

"What's not to like about it!?" Hikari questioned. "It's an amazing story about a super-cool guy fighting the forces of darkness with his super-cool buddies and their super-cool bus! What's cooler than that!?" Kyomu silently nodded, smiling at the amusement his brother's antics brought him.

"Most of the other manga I have here..." Amon airily replied, gesturing to the hundreds of books lining the shelves that covered all the walls of the shop. "Besides, that particular manga is full plot holes and contrivances. All of the main characters have cliche personalities, and all of their Quirks are so overpowered that any fights that happen begin and end on the same page."

"Hey. Chapter fifteen had a two-pager," Kyomu defended.

"And boring fight scenes don't make it bad," Hikari added.

Amon just waved the children off. "It's not about the boredom, kid. The point of fight scenes is to establish a character's strengths and weaknesses, to help develop the characters' personalities through hardship and struggles. And yeah, excitement to drum up the enjoyment. It's hard to do all of that when the weakest buddy of the main character can blast away entire streets of goons with eye-beams." He flopped back down in his seat, interlacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back. "That manga won't make it past twenty chapters. You two would be better off if you just dumped it and found a better one."

"We have our reasons for liking it," Hikari said. And those reasons belonged to the two of them alone. They'd never abandon this manga for as long as it was still alive.

The owner of the store just scoffed. "Whatever. It's your money." With a yawn, he looked over to the TV mounted near him. His eyes widened when he saw what was on the screen. "Hey, kids," he called, "check this out."

The two brothers walked close enough to view the screen on the TV. The volume was muted, but it wasn't too difficult to make out what was happening. It was a news channel that was covering a small riot of villains were rampaging in a different part of town. There were multiple heroes visible on the screen already there to deter the threat, but one stood out to the two boys among all others: a masked woman in a skintight purple suit, with the english letters "GACT" emblazoned in gold across her chest.

Both of the brothers' shoulders slumped, with Kyomu being the first one to speak. "Mom's gonna be late in picking us up, isn't she?"

With a shake of his head, Hikari responded with a long, drawn-out sigh. "Yep..."

He couldn't take it anymore. It was too much for a single person to bear. Willpower had a limit to how much punishment it could endure, and Kyomu was reaching his own limits. Limits that had been stretched long ago. "I can't... I can't go on..." he had murmured, his eyes growing heavier and heavier with each passing second. His body, sprawled along the bench he laid on, grew weaker and weaker the longer his suffering continued.

This was surely the end. He couldn't picture a bleaker, crueler end for the world to deal him. An end so black that he may as well have been cast into the void itself. An end so-

"For the last time," Hikari grumbled, flicking Kyomu on the forehead, "you're not going to die of dehydration. I saw you go to that water fountain thirty minutes ago."

"It's not that, Hikari!" Kyomu raised the hand that gripped Bright Night to his face, his fingers holding it open to the last page. "It left off on such a cliff hanger, bro! What kind of cruel author leaves something like this to be open to speculation until the next chapter comes out!?"

"Yeah, tell me about it." Hikari gave out a huff, crossing his arms. "Guess we'll just have to wait for the next chapter. Whenever that is."

"Ugh!" He flopped back down on the bench, both in disappointment and in exhaustion. When they had been dropped off here by their mother, they were instructed to return to this exact bench and wait for her the instant they purchased their manga. And, with a lack of anything better to do, the two twins had decided they may as well of read the manga they waited so long for.

They had finished it about three hours ago.

Kyomu didn't blame her, though. The life of a hero was an enduring one... at least according to the twins' mother. Fighting villains took a long time. And apparently there was a paperwork aspect to it afterwards...? Kyomu didn't really know, nor did Hikari. They really only had their mother's words to go off of, as the two never actually put any research into the life of a hero, nor did their mom ever speak to them the fine intricacies about her profession. That, what they saw on TV, and the very, very few quips their mother said about hero work here and there.

"Why do you think mom's a hero, Hikari?" Kyomu suddenly asked, his head hanging off of the edge of the bench.

"Hm?" Hikari looked down at his brother. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm bored. And I know you are, too." Kyomu sat up to look his brother in the eyes. "What do you think?"

Hikari leaned his head back in thought, rubbing the side of his head in thought. "I dunno," he said. "I mean, she has a really cool Quirk. Maybe she just wanted to use it for good?"

"But dad has an even cooler Quirk than her," Kyomu argued, "and he's an accountant."

Hikari hummed. "True. The money?" he wondered.

"Dad makes more than her."

The result of that statement was a frustrated growl from the white-haired boy's throat. "Look, I don't know her life story. And right now, I really don't care."

"You're just mad because she's late."

Hikari said nothing in response, and instead just quietly grumbled to himself. Kyomu laughed, hiding a smile with his hand. Hikari looked as if he was going to retaliate in response to Kyomu's mirth, but the sound of squealing tires made both of them freeze. They looked towards the sound, both of their eyes widening as a black car screeched to a halt in front of them. Not a second passed before the driver's door was violently opened, a human-shaped blur climbing out and whizzing towards them.

"Oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh boys I'm so sorry!" The two brothers were quickly enveloped by a hug before the two could react, both being pressed into the chest of a blonde woman dressed in a purple skin-tight suit. They both would have protested this action, but the hug the two brothers found themselves in happened to be so tight they found it difficult to breath.

"M-mom..." Kyomu ground out, though it seemed him speaking only encouraged the woman to squeeze the both of them harder.

"I just- I tried really hard but there was a villain attack and I had to fill out a million reports back at the agency and I got really caught up with the paperwork-"

Hikari let out a weak cough. "Mother..."

"I just can't bear the thought of leaving my two babies alone like this in the middle of nowhere and I'm a irresponsible mother I don't know how the two of you will ever forgive-"

"Mom... the- the car door..."

"Hm?" The woman let the two boys go, which led to them taking great gulps of air in as they heavily gasped on the bench. She looked behind at the car she had exited, her purple eyes wincing when she saw that the door to the driver's seat was nearly torn off its hinges. "Ah, sh-shoot. I forgot to turn my Quirk off, didn't I?"

"It's fine..." Kyomu groaned, nursing his sore ribs.

"It's not fine," the woman huffed, picking the two boys up with a single hand. She used the other to open the door to the backseat, and gingerly placed the two boys down and buckled them up in seatbelts. She then climbed into the driver seat and started the car, pulling it out of the parking space and driving away. The broken door was stuck in place, and she had no choice but to grit her teeth at the sound of the bottom of the door grinding against the street as she drove away.

She looked back at the two boys, a wavering smile on her face. The both looked dazed and tired, but otherwise looked find. "Sooo... how was your day?" she asked nervously, a bead of sweat going down her face.

Kyomu looked at his brother, who did the same in turn. They had a lot to complain about, having been left on that bench for so long. They had even more to complain about seeing as their own mother almost crushed the life out of them. The two of them locked eyes, and equal understanding coming between them.

"Oh, you know. Nothing out of the ordinary," Kyomu said. She was still their mother at the end of the day, after all, and Kyomu knew she tried her best. He couldn't fault her for that.

Hikari laughed and nodded. "Yeah, what brother said."

A look of relief came over the mother's face. "Oh, thank goodness," she breathed, focusing her eyes on the road. "Now hang on, boys! We're gonna get home as fast as possible so I can make you the best dinner I can to make up for this!"

That caused the two boys to freeze in alarm. "Dad's not cooking tonight?" Kyomu asked, a slight whimper in his tone. Besides him, Hikari let out an audible gulp.

"He's working late, so I'm going to have to take over," she explained. "But don't worry! I've been brushing up on my cooking skills, so I'm sure I won't burn all of the food this time!"

Kyomu's face grew green. "Hey, bro?"

"Yeah?"

"Do me a favor. Kill me now and spare me the torment."

"Only if you do me first."