Chapter Text
“K-Kacchan, this i-i-isn’t right,” Izuku brought his guard up and tried to steady his shaky legs. “Y-y-y-ou can’t just h-hurt people.
“So what? Why should I care what a useless Deku like you says anyway?” sneered Katsuki Bakugo. He set off a few small crackles out of his palm, courtesy of his quirk.
Izuku flinched back at the sight of the familiar tool of torture. He knew what was going to happen now it was always the same.
It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that the kid Kacchan was targeting got away. It didn’t matter what was going to happen now.
It was all familiar, ever since his quirk diagnosis a year ago, he’s been the target of scorn by his former best friend. To be honest he’s just making it worse for himself by doing this, by getting in the way of the explosive blond’s campaign of “Showing the Extras their place,” he was just asking for extra beatings. It didn’t matter, if he was the only one getting hurt then it didn’t matter what Bakugo did. As long as no one else was suffering then it didn’t matter how bad the bruises and burns got.
He could do this all day.
Bakugo took a menacing step forward. Izuku flinched, but held his ground. The blonde ran forward and landed a right haymaker into Izuku’s gut. The five-year-old bent over from the pain, but he was sent back up by an explosion to the face.
It was weak, but it was disorienting, just as planned. Bakugo took advantage of the young boy’s reaction and landed two more explosions to his gut, launching the boy backwards onto his back.
Tears streamed down Izuku’s face as his body recoiled from the quick assault. The burns hurt a lot more today.
“You know, this is why you’ll never be a hero, even if you did have a quirk, you’d still be too weak to use it.” The blonde bent down to inspect his handiwork. “Oh, that’s even more pathetic, you’re crying, again”.
Izuku couldn’t hear the blonde’s taunts, he was distracted by the pain. Which hurt so much, much more than usual. Particularly the burns, normally the pain would have numbed a little, but the burns just hurt more and more with each passing second. Like someone was holding a blow torch and turning the flame up higher and higher, sending his pain to higher and higher heights.
Bakugo backed up, his eyes wide and filled with fear.
Izuku’s body felt like it was being split apart by a searing hot knife. His tears burned like acid down his cheeks. His blood felt like molten lava was flowing through his veins, killing him slowly from the inside. He managed to crack an eye open and stand up, taking a look at his arms.
There were strange symbols resembling eyes connected by strands of a strange language. The symbols were sinking into his arms sinking deeper and deeper as blood started to well up from where the symbols were. It was hell, a stray thought suggested this could be his quirk, but he couldn’t acknowledge it. There was no way his quirk could do this, causing so much pain. It had to be a curse, it had to be.
He tried to scream, but no sound came out instead a golden light shone out of his mouth. His vision was blurred by the golden light, but then started to stabilize. Things looked different, like someone had thought up a bunch of new colors and sprinkled it all over everything.
If Izuku was in a clearer mindset, he would’ve thought it was beautiful. Instead it was clouded by the pain of this hellish experience and the expression on Kacchan’s face. It was filled with horror, like he was staring at everything wrong with the world condensed into a three foot tall presentation.
The blonde turned tail and ran away. The pain started to fade and Izuku’s vision returned to normal as he collapsed onto his knees.
The pain faded into a dull throb. He reached out to inspect his arms to find that the blood had disappeared and the glowing symbols had disappeared, leaving behind scars imitating their shape.
He felt horror grow within him to find similar scars all over his body. Izuku grit his teeth and started the trek home.
As he walked, he the thought of having to explain the scars to his mother came to mind. He panicked as he realized that he couldn’t hide this. The burns and bruises he received from Kacchan’s beatings were nothing compared to this. He couldn’t worry her like this, not after what happened with dad, it would break her.
Izuku had to find a place to hide, a place to think.
He felt something inside of him pulling his heart and mind towards somewhere. He followed the gut feeling and came face to face with a little church. A small, worn down, one-story building painted in faded-cream that peeling in places to reveal previous layers, topped with brown shingles and a strange weather vein; it was in a shape like those red crosses you see on doctor toys, except it was wooden brown and the bottom part was longer than the rest, making it look like an odd lowercase T. Despite it's aged state, you could feel something different about it. Not in a stand out way, but still not like others; where similar buildings would be down and depressed, this one felt... humble, whole. Like a gentle elder contently spending their days in a rocking chair waiting for the young-ins to come to them for wisdom and comfort when the days are hard, or just to see them. A sign out front had St Mary’s chapel written on it in open cursive. Figuring that this might be a good place to hide for a bit. He looked at the door and saw a sign on the door stating, “Unlocked for all who need salvation.”
He tested the doorknob and the door swung open. He walked into the church’s auditorium. Which had a few rows of long wooden benches with a tall ceiling and a podium up at the back of the church with a statue of a man nailed to a much bigger version of the weird weather vein from the roof. There were also stained glass windows depicting various scenes. Many of the windows had the same man as the focal point doing various things. From teaching atop a mountain to healing people. The man’s likenesses seemed to bring comfort to Izuku’s mind.
Izuku laid down on one of the benches. The scars still stung a bit, but the pain was manageable now. He tried to brainstorm how to explain the scars to his mom once he got home, but nothing he could think of seemed even the slightest bit believable. He was thrown out of his thought process by the sounds of footsteps approaching him.
He tried to hide underneath the bench, but the feet stopped right in front of the one he was hiding under. The person bent down with an eyebrow up in a quizzical matter and a slight smirk on his face.
“Hello there, little dude, what you doing under there? It's alright, I don't bite,” the man said.
Izuku felt a sense of comfort overtake his initial panic after hearing the man’s words. His tone had an obviously comforting quality to it, with an undertone of concern. As Izuku got out from under the bench he got a better look at the man. He looked to be in his late forties or early fifties. He was of an average height and build. With thick pink hair on the sides of his head and a patch of white hair covering the top. He was wearing a red plaid button up shirt and black pants with brown shoes.
“So now that you’re out, would you mind telling me why you were hiding underneath the bench?” the man said with a similar tone, but the concern was more tangible once the man saw Izuku’s scars.
Izuku shifted his gaze down to the carpeted floors.
“It’s ok if you don’t tell me.” The man looked thoughtful for a moment. “I bet it’s cause your mommy told you not to talk to strangers.”
Izuku looked back up at the man and gave him a slight nod.
“Well, sounds like you have a good mommy then.”
The man sat down on the bench and patted the seat next to him. He put his hand on his chin with a thoughtful expression. “Oh, I know, how about we introduce ourselves and then we won’t be strangers anymore?"
Izuku thought for a second and gave a hesitant nod.
“I’ll go first, you can call me Pastor Sakimoto,” he introduced. “Now what's your name, little dude?” Sakimoto gestured his hand towards the young boy.
“M-My name is I-Izuku M-M-idoriya,” the boy shakily stated.
“Well, Izuku Midoriya, what brings you to this humble little place of worship?”
Izuku's hands clenched and he looked away from the pastor.
“Ah, still a bit uncomfortable, huh? Well if you need comfort you found the right place.”
Izuku looked back with a quirked eyebrow, finally his curiosity overpowering his timidity. “W-what is t-this place?”
Sakimoto looked up towards the ceiling and stood up spreading his arms gesturing to the building. “This is a sanctuary, a place for the hurt and the broken, but I just like to call it a church.”
“H-huh, but isn’t a h-hospital where you’re supposed to go when you're hurt?”
“For physical injuries like a broken arm or a cut, but people come here for when they hurt on the inside, when they're sad or worried.” The pastor looked down to check his watch. “Speaking of worried, you should probably head home. It’s gotten a bit late, and if your mommy’s a good mommy then she’s probably worried about you, little dude.”
The pink and white-haired man put his hands on his knees and stood up from the bench. “Would you like some help getting back home?” he offered.
Izuku shook his head and hopped off the bench and headed back out of the church. The golden afternoon light greeted him, signifying it to be late-afternoon. He continued to walk back home. It wasn’t a long walk, only a few minutes if he walked slowly and less if he went faster.
As he walked, something concerning made its way to the forefront of his mind. How was he going to explain the scars?! The talk with the pastor had distracted him from the whole reason he took shelter in the church.
He tried to think of other explanations for the scars, but only one conclusion came to mind. It was the same one that came when the scars appeared, that they had something to do with his quirk. It was the only explanation that made a lick of sense. But it wasn’t the one he wanted, this couldn’t be his quirk. If it was, then why did it hurt so much?
When he used to imagine getting his quirk, he imagined it as a triumphant emergence that illuminated what kind of hero he would be. Instead he found himself disappointed with the painful truth. A feeling he would become quite accustomed to in the following years.
Izuku found himself broken out of his musings as he approached the apartment complex he and his mother lived in. He braced himself for his mother’s concern. Once he knocked on the door, he heard footsteps approaching.
The door opened revealing his mother. Inko was a caring woman, perhaps a bit too caring. It was what many people found most admirable about the green-haired woman. Perhaps she cared a bit too much because it just made her heart break seeing the scars covering her baby boy.
“Izuku, honey what happened!” Inko started before Izuku charged forward and hugged her like he would fade away if he let go. Inko had suspicions that someone was bullying him, he would come home with bruises or burns. She never did act on her suspicions due to Izuku clearly not being comfortable with talking about it, and she had a feeling she knew who was the culprit and it didn’t matter if she might lose her closest friend, this was the last straw.
“Izuku, did Katsuki do this to yo-”
She was cut off by a sniffle that pierced her heart.
“N-n-no, it wasn’t k-kacchan. It was m-m-my… m-my quirk.”
Inko felt her heart sink at the news. She thought the worse quirk-related news she would get in her life was his son’s initial diagnosis of an invisible quirk, but somehow this was worse. So much worse.
“U-um, why don’t you lay down for now?” Inko said, fighting back tears that threatened to break through. “I need to make some phone calls.”
Izuku headed over to the couch and laid down. He felt exhausted from the day. He was confused and the scars still stung a bit. However there was one thing he knew for sure. He hated his quirk.