I suck at updating ~Me

Warnings: basically a quirk splurge, fire bois, guilt, some angst, and a bit of family bonding.

Disclaimer: Huh Durr, I don' own My Hero Academia. Only my Original Character.

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Text Key:

Italics = Emphasized thoughts/text/dialogue

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So, right. Where were we?

Ah, yes. Screaming.

There I was, laying down in my crib, forcibly breathing fire out of my mouth. As you can probably guess, screaming did not help my situation; if anything, the fire only grew in intensity.

On the bright side, it did attract the attention of others.

Otou-san burst into the room in a frenzy, Oka-san following in hot pursuit, and, with a mere glance into the room, dashed towards the closet in the hallway. Oka-san tried to get me to breathe, but my lungs were incompetent as fuck and refused to cheese their teats. It was at that point that Oka-san went into damage-control mode and just tried to prevent the spreading of fire to the very much flammable crib and carpet while also ducking me to keep from starting a building fire. It was, as one could guess, quite enjoyable.

In the meantime, Otou-san had managed to scrounge up the fire extinguisher that he kept in his closet, which was fair enough for having a fire-breathing Quirk as an adult, and proceeded to assault me with a cloud of good 'ol carbon dioxide.

The fire was successfully smothered, yes, but the next hurdle made itself evident quite quickly: I was covered in fire extinguisher contents. Otou-san let out a girly shriek as he slapped a puff of carbon dioxide off of my face, allowing me to breathe. A collective sigh escaped everyone's throat at that moment, and I blinked owlishly at the coat of cloud-like stuff I was covered in.

I registered the deathly glare that Oka-san was sporting towards Otou-san, and the man responded immediately in fear of his own safety, "I'll take her out to the beach park and you can call my fire-proofing guy. Okay?"

Oka-san was effectively soothed and she swiped Otou-san's phone from his suit pant's pocket before dialing a number in and walking into the next room with a slanted expression plastered onto her face.

Otou-san, with some level of hesitation, shook off the rest of the carbon dioxide and clamped his hands around my jaw with a little more force than necessary. His eyes glinted with pity, but he remained firm with his grasp.

"I won't let up until we reach the beach, Ichido," the turned around and headed towards the front door with some speed, "So just bear with me for now, okay?"

I nodded with understanding, and I wondered just how I could figure this whole thing out.

・・・・

Dagobah Municipal Park Beach was, to say the least, an absolute heap of trash.

Of course, this didn't quite strike me as familiar until Otou-san and I arrived at the actual place.

And, of course, it had to be the very same spot that Izuku would train it, didn't it?

The man had let up on his jaw death-grip, he apologized profusely afterward as well, but I could still feel the smoke billowing out of the sides of my mouth. At the very least, I wasn't Quirkless.

Still, with a Quirk like this? It seemed like a massive bother, and I didn't necessarily know what to do with myself.

Otou-san guided me past the worn gate into the park and past the heaps of trash, scowling indiscriminately at the piles of steel and junk that littered the to-be-beautiful beach. The stacks of industrial garbage lessened as we neared the shoreline and Otou-san stopped dead in his tracks once we were met with ocean water.

"Take a deep, deep breath," Otou-san bent down to my level and put a reassuring hand on my back. My uneasiness wasn't quelled, but he kept trying to appease my Quirk, "Now point straight towards the ocean and just let it out."

I did as he said and sucked in a heavy breath, trying to hold it until I had my face directed towards the ocean where nothing could burn. I looked back at him and saw his awkward smile stretched across his face, and it was hard for me to feel upset about the situation.

Regardless, he kept rubbing my back softly and singing praises with his soft, low tone.

The sun softly glared in the corners of my eyes as the ocean's waves grew louder and louder in my mind, the noise rattling my brain. I held my breath in with dread, and I could feel the smoke building up in my throat.

"Come on, Ichido," Otou-san sighed and continued rubbing my back as if to let out a burp or something. He looked at me in concern and tapped his nose twice, "If you don't let all that fire out, you're gonna blow smoke out of your nose. Your Ojii-san used to tell me that if I didn't let myself breathe, I would turn into a dragon."

He opened his mouth wide in a mock scream, holding up his palms and wriggling them about, and he let a little, tiny flame escape his throat.

"Rawwr," he grinned, with that same awkward smile back on his face. He was ridiculous.

Too bad, I just love ridiculous.

I snorted loudly, flinching a bit at the volume of black smoke that escaped my nose, and tried to suck in another breath. Another thought struck me in the meantime:

Did this mean that I was immune to smoke? Could I run into a fire and not have to worry about smoke inhalation? If I was, this sounded like a massive boon for what it was worth.

Regardless of that line of thought, I slowly let out a breath, still panicking as the fire escaped my mouth in a surprisingly cool stream. So, my throat must have been heat-proof to not feel the raw heat. Another perk, sweet.

The flames drifted forward for a short bit before flickering into nothingness, and I realized that my lung capacity wasn't doing the fire any favors. Was that how it worked, then? Oxygen is flammable, thank my chemistry class, so the flames must have been feeding off of my lung supply.

I felt a little dizzy as I grew short of breath. Yep, so I couldn't overdo it, especially with the threat of fainting hanging over my head.

Yet. I would have to work on my lung capacity in the future, but that's not the focus right now.

Right, breathing control.

I pulled in another breath and repeated the process again, breathing out until my lungs were sputtering for air. Otou-san looked on with caution, and he observed my current state with a thoughtful expression.

He spoke after a few sets of the exercise, stopping me mid-way between another attempt at mitigating my hysterical breathing, "I think that's enough. I want you to try to turn it off completely."

"How?" was the first word that shot out of my face, garnished by a wonderful spurt of fire from my mouth. I covered it instantly with my hands, equipping a blanched face.

"It-It's hard to explain that, honey," He said thoughtfully, and his freckles were squished inwards as his face scrunched in thought. He looked to the side and sighed a bit, "I really can't do better than your Ojii-san's explanations, so you'll have to deal with them. He used to say that it was like an on and off switch in your brain. Like this, if I want to breathe fire, I flick the light on–"

He made a clicking noise, flicking his index finger up, for dramatic effect and breathed out a little puff of smoke. He made another click, which was just as ridiculous as before, flicked his finger down, and breathed out again, this time without the hazy, ashy air.

"–and I flick the light off to stop. I'm not good at analogies, but it's the best I can think of right now."

It briefly struck me that I had never met my grandfather, none of my grandparents either, but I didn't let it faze me that much. If someone wasn't involved in your life, they probably didn't care enough to be in it. That was settled in my mind within a brief few seconds.

And then, it really struck me how weird that "full glass" and "microwaved pastry" analogy was now that I thought about it. The Light Bulb explanation had nothing on those two.

Again, I drew another breath and closed my eyes this time around. The world around me went dark with the action, and I imagined two things in my mind: a light bulb attached to a switch. It was flicked up, and the light bulb lazily gleamed with the occasional flicker. The image was, to my surprise, extremely accurate given the level of skill I had at the moment. I could only imagine how bright it could be with some work.

I let out the breath slowly, mentally imagining the bulb glowing brighter as I felt the cool stream of fire flow through my lips. Otou-san hummed lightly in the background as my face scrunched up a bit as my breath grew short again.

When I stopped and inhaled again, the light bulb went dim again, and the switch remained flicked up. Okay, the image was ingrained into my head, but how could I make the switch flip?

My brows furrowed as I thought about it, and I concentrated on making the image of the switch flip downwards. Could I just flip it without effort? Can it even be second nature? I huffed as I imagined a hand into the scenario, my own tiny one to boot, and tentatively flicked the mirage of a switch downwards. I attempted this for almost ten minutes, exchanging breaths before my concentration was enough to finally make it flick down. The change was instantaneous, the itching in my throat suddenly ceased.

I let out a breath, opening my eyes, and nothing came out. My eyes darted to the side, towards Otou-san, who was beaming with pride, and then back in front of me.

No fire.

"Victory!" I screeched, arms going into the air. Otou-san clapped exaggeratedly in the background.

"Bravo, bravo!" he jested around, smiling his awkward grin as his clapping slowed. He bent down to my level, a shameful two feet, and faced me. He encouraged me, pumping his fist up, "You think you can try that a few more times? Show me that you can conquer it!"

I nodded ardently and tightened my focus again. Though, this time, I tried to do it with my eyes open. If I was gonna be a hero, then I would need to tighten my ability to enable and disable my Quirk, even in less than a second. I focused on the sounds of the ocean and the mental image of the light bulb attached to a switch again, willing it to flick upwards. With some tentative nudging from my metaphysical finger and some gratuitous squinting, the switch went back up with a satisfying click and the itchy feeling in my throat resumed again.

"Haaaah~" I groaned a bit, trying to see how my voice affected the flame that poured out. It flickered a bit as it left my lips, but it otherwise remained pretty similar to the flames from just plain breathing. My jaw shut with a muted clonk and I could feel the wild dancing of the embers in my throat.

Switch down, and the itching went away instantaneously. It took less than 10 seconds this time.

I kept flicking the metaphorical switch back and forth just to really understand the mechanics behind my Quirk. It seemed really simple, and it could pretty much be explained as a carbon copy of my father's Quirk so far. Of course, I hadn't discovered every aspect of my abilities, but it was clear that I had something decent to work with out of the starting gate.

It could probably become powerful with some work.

・・・・

"Ichido, I think that's enough for today," Otou-san had finally cut into my Quirk training.

We had spent about an hour straight honing my ability to turn my flames on and off, and I had it mastered to the point where I could take about two seconds to do so. It wasn't enough to deal with fast or unexpected attacks in the hero field, but I was convinced that I could make that time even shorter with practice.

Despite that, I agreed with Otou-san immediately. My throat was kind of sore, possibly another side-effect of my Quirk, and I wanted some water. Not ocean water, but drinkable water.

I wordlessly latched onto his arm with my chubby toddler hand and he began to lead me through the winding piles of trash. Soon we were met with the front gate of the beach, and I halted in my gait.

Otou-san looked at me confusedly and squeezed my hand lightly. His eyes darted forward and back to me, and the sun dipped below the piles of trash behind us.

"Can we come here every weekend?" I squeezed his hand back tightly, and I looked up at him with pleading eyes. I was gonna go the manipulative route if I had to.

He looked to the side, his hand raising towards the back of his head, and he sucked in some air through his mouth. A conflicted yet awkward smile adorned itself onto my father's face.

"Every two weeks?" his smile cracked even further as his hand began viciously scratching his scalp. He was sporting an especially nervous look, and I felt bad about thinking of pushing further.

"Hmm," I pondered out loud. I mean, two weeks wasn't bad. It wasn't that great either. I could imagine the progress made by me going and practicing every week being a lot better than every two weeks, but I had to keep his schedule in mind as well. I had time to spare, so it wasn't like I was losing that much either. I scowled a bit as I got ready to concede.

I raised a pinky.

"Pinky promise?" I was playing on my adorableness as much as I could. This was something that I knew could buy me a lot until I got older, so I was gonna milk it to the very end.

"Uh-huh," Otou-san's pinky linked with mine, and he grasped my hand in his. He moved forward, jerking me a bit in his direction, and said, "Now it's time we get home, your mother should have had the house fireproofed."

Fireproofed.

Huh.

・・・・

It was jovial; a scene brimming with some sort of unknown, incomprehensible joy that I took part in without much thought. I was sure a stranger could walk in on the event and instantly understand everything.

I bristled lightly as Otou-san leaned over me to light the candles. The scene was small and comfortable, just the family. The perfect idea of a fourth birthday party.

The years had passed by in a snap, and nothing much had changed regardless of the change.

Everything was perfect.

The cake, an All Might one per Izuku's request, sat idly in front of the both of us. Oka-san had the camera ready right behind Otou-san while he sharp-shot a small ember at the large, four-shaped candle that All Might was boisterously holding in his 2D caricature.

Everything was perfect.

My smile faltered a bit. Well, not quite. The guilt and fear that had sweltered and ballooned in me sat like a rock in the bottom of my stomach, pinching at my nerves as this day had approached. When it arrived, I still wasn't ready. Despite that, I still went into this smiling.

I was going to be four again, but what did that mean for Izuku?

The guilt swarmed a bit more as I swallowed to keep my grimace from showing. I had thought about myself so much that Izuku never really came into my mind until the last month or so. I was fine; I had a Quirk, Otou-san was teaching me every other weekend, I had everything registered, I didn't need a backup.

Everything was good.

For me.

Then I remembered that Izuku's life wasn't going to sail as well as mine, and the inability to do anything about it wore like shackles on my feet. I had dragged them for so long without noticing them until now, and it was only now that these chains felt so heavy.

We were four today, and tomorrow would be the appointment with the Quirk specialist to see what was really going on with Izuku. The fallout, I had seen the scenario over and over again in my damned head, would be irreversible.

How would I, the lucky child born with both a Quirk and unspeakable knowledge, even begin to understand the tragedy of being powerless? Without a Quirk, I had been fine, but that was because I lived in a different time.

Without a Quirk, Izuku will suffer. Especially here, and especially now.

Otou-san finally stopped leaning in front of me and dove right behind us once more. They started singing.

My eyes subtly slit towards Izuku who was awkwardly curled in on himself while wearing a genuine, yet shy, smile. All that would be decimated, and for what? Why did his Quirklessness mean the end of this Izuku?

A part of me wanted to sob at the unfairness of the situation, to hold him tight and just pity him into nothingness. Another part simply accepted the futility of the situation; life wasn't fair, it never was, but the innocent always suffered the most.

My dull, gray eyes went out of focus as I stared blankly into the open flame. A crooked smile wove itself into my face, and I let myself be consumed by the atmosphere in one fell gulp.

"–happy birthday to you!"

Izuku sputtered all over the cake, getting spittle everywhere except the candle, and finally extinguished it with an incredibly large wheeze.

Like it or not, tomorrow was the turning point in both of our lives.

Otou-san and Oka-san started clapping exaggeratedly.

I knew I couldn't let Izuku fall, not when I could lend a shoulder to lean on in the following years.

My eyes hardened as I clapped aimlessly.

・・・・

I fidgeted with my fingers listlessly in the small office of the Quirk specialist. This wasn't like the pediatrician's office; there were fully grown adults in the room waiting to be seen for who knows what.

The three of us inconspicuously occupied three consecutive seats in the cramped room, and Izuku restlessly bounced in his seat as he awaited the results of the X-ray he had taken not five minutes ago. Despite the uncertainty of the situation, Izuku was giddy as he rocked his head back and forth in anticipated excitement.

It physically hurt to watch. I knew, I just knew, I would witness him break today.

I could only hope to pick up the pieces. My morale sat at my feet, not even daring to rise.

I huffed.

"Ichan, be patient," Oka-san chided lightly, slinging an arm around my shoulder. She looked pointedly at me, "These things just… take a while. We need to give the doctor time to make sure that Izuku is o-o-okay!"

She pumped her arm excessively to distract me a bit, and it almost worked. I sighed.

"Okay."

"Yes!" she squeezed me tight. She stuck her arm out with a thumbs up, "Okay!"

My nose wrinkled a bit at the cheesiness, but I let her have her fun. Izuku just seemed to get even more hyper. He couldn't even properly verbalize his excitement; his mouth was just muttering a stream of words I couldn't decipher save the words "Quirk" and "All Might".

I resumed staring at the floor, truly examining the carpet. It was dinky and smelled a bit moldy. I kept boring into it until I didn't care anymore, and even then I kept on.

It felt like ages until a sharp voice cut into the room.

"Midoriya Izuku?"

A man with a bald scalp, green tinted goggles, and a brown clipboard leaned into the room from the open door to the examinations room. His maple-brown mustache twinged a little bit as his eyes drifted from the clipboard to the inhabitants in the room.

"Ah, that's us," Oka-san said offhandedly. She grabbed the two of us by the hand and looked down at Izuku, "Are you excited?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh!" he was practically twirling around in delight.

I kept a straight face on as we were led into the room, and my expectations for any positive outcome immediately plummeted once I met the slanted expression of the specialist. He wore the news on his face, and my stomach churned.

He took a seat in his armchair, leaning back a bit with crossed arms and let Izuku take a seat on the stool in front of him. The man quickly put up the X-ray on the board next to him and pulled up Izuku's records on the computer.

With a sigh, he delivered it:

"You should probably just give up."

The words were cold, harsh, and unfiltered.

This time, however, there was no laughter, no comedy in it. All Might's plastic figurine met the floor in a heartbeat, and Izuku was stricken with wide eyes. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, and I felt as though I just watched a puppy get kicked.

His fingers paled as he squeezed his knees tightly.

The conversation proceeded nearly identically to what I could remember from my memory, but, before presenting the solid "joint" evidence, the man brought up me.

"Look, since his twin is fraternal, they're essentially normal siblings. That's about 50 percent shared DNA. What's her Quirk?" the man asked flippantly.

"Oh," Oka-san looked unprepared for this, but her frown deepened as the conversation dragged on, "She can breathe fire, like her father, but she can control the direction of where it goes somewhat. A combination of mine and my husband's Quirk–"

Ah, I figured that other aspect of my Quirk by accident. I had fallen over a few months ago while practicing at the beach and as my body tilted downward, so did my flame. At least I got a glass figure out of the burnt sand. I didn't have control over it yet, but I didn't really care for that right now.

"–but how does that affect him?"

"If they share about 50 percent of their genetic makeup, then they ought to share traits, wouldn't they? If your other child has received her Quirk already, then it would make sense for Izuku here to have already shown signs of his own," the man reasoned. With a sigh, he finally pointed at the chart with some finality, "The last thing I can do to show you that Izuku is Quirkless is to show you the toe joints."

He got up from the armchair slowly and laxly pointed a finger at the two joins that stood in Izuku's X-ray.

"It's unusual to have two toe-joints nowadays," he squinted a bit as goggles made him look nearly emotionless, "If he had a Quirk, he would have only one joint. I'm sorry, but it's hopeless to think that he'll develop one."

He didn't look sorry, and I wanted to scream, but I knew better than to let my emotions take the reins. What would it accomplish? No, my time was better spent trying to put Izuku back together.

But, was there anything left to salvage?

・・・・

It was depressing the number of times I had heard that video play today. The old video, the one of All Might's debut, had been blasting from our shared room for the last three or so hours, and I grew increasingly paranoid for his future.

Otou-san hadn't come home yet and Oka-san had helplessly tried to apologize to Izuku. Regardless of what either of them could do, I knew my approach had to be optimistic. I was the only person who actually believed in Izuku; however, I couldn't truthfully say that he could be a hero without a Quirk. Maybe it was hindsight speaking, but Izuku shouldn't be misled like that.

No, I had to encourage him to go on despite not having a Quirk, but I can't tell him to outright shoot his shot without a power altogether.

I got up from my sunken position in the couch and tip-toed towards our room while Oka-san observed silently, soundlessly from the corner of the kitchen. Even she couldn't stand to do anything while my brother was suffering. I ignored the sounds of sobbing and just peeked through the door tentatively. Fingers curled around the hem of the door, I saw Izuku curled in on himself while choking on tears to the debut video.

This just wasn't healthy.

I walked in slowly through the door, letting it click shut behind me, and I approached a bit loudly to let him know I came in. It didn't feel right to say anything, not now.

He sniffed violently before meekly rubbing his arm against his nose in a futile attempt to pull himself together. He shifted the chair a bit to face me, all kinds of fluids running down his cheeks freely.

"K–Kaa-san said she's s–s–sorry," he wiped again at his face, successfully smearing more tears and mucus onto his shirt. He coughed a bit and wiped a few tears away before they could fall, "Ichan… do–do you t–think, " he choked again, "that I could be a hero?"

He gazed at me with expectant, watery eyes. I fumbled with my fingers as I tried to ignore the stones of guilt that weighed heavily in my stomach.

"I–" I stumbled before catching myself. No, if I was going to tell him how I felt about this, I would need to take it seriously. I forced myself to make eye contact with him as my hands fell into fists at my sides, "I know you can become a hero, Izuku."

He stopped mid-sob, and I knew that got to him. His pupils, almost dots in the vast sea of white, were trained onto mine with such scrutiny that it was nearly impossible to not fidget under it. Despite this, I kept myself steady. I was his rock now, and I needed to stay steady.

Then, he started crying again, but this time with a wonky, bright smile written on his face. He–

He trusted me. It felt good, validating. Like something I had done had finally helped him in some meaningful way. A surge of confidence went through me like lightning. It seemed that I wasn't done.

"But," I held my arm out, getting more upbeat with each second, "We'll do this together."

My arm remained outstretched for a few moments, perhaps even a few minutes, but eventually–

He trusted me enough to grab on.

From now on, it would be the both of us as a team. I squeezed his hand tightly.

・・・・

Yeah, I know. A short-ass chapter on the last day of August, yeesh.

Await my return next month dearest readers. I use my tumblr to tell you all about my update schedule, so check that out on my profile page if you're interested.