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Izuku Midoriya wasn’t quirkless, but sometimes he wishes that he was. Sometimes he thought that he might as well be.
The green-haired boy stared at his reflection in his middle school’s boy’s bathroom. Carefully, he reached up to hold the shell of his green, plush velvet ear between his fingers.
Once, he tried to get rid of them when he was probably six or seven. His mom had come home from work, only to be met by crying from the bathroom. She had rushed inside, only to find her son, her only baby boy, trying to cut off one of his long hare ears off with a pair of dull scissors. Blood and tears streamed down his face.
Currently, his fingers found the small bump of scar tissue from that incident. It didn’t hurt now, physically, however the fur never grew back, leaving a small horizontal scar at the base of his left ear.
His quirk? Hare. He shared some physical characteristics with a common wild Hare, such as his long ears (green, like his hair and tipped with black) in lieu of human ones, a puffy green and black tail, and wide hips. That was about it, which leads into his current torment.
For as long as he’s remembered, Izuku has always wanted to be a hero, like his idol, All Might. His mother always looked on encouragingly, but something seemed to hold her back, which in turn held him back. Not only did he have an essentially useless quirk, but he was also an omega. There were no omega pro-heroes in the top ten that he knew of; he didn’t even think there were any omega pro-heroes in the top 25.
He had always been a bit flighty, even more so when he started getting bullied when the other children in his classes realized he was different. They would tug on his tail and ears and call him names, but he never gave up on his dream to be like the No. 1 hero All Might.
Izuku left the bathroom and made his way back to his classroom. Earlier that morning, a villain capture by beta Mt. Lady had him feeling optimistic in the face of statistics stacked against him. The title of a pro wasn’t just held by alphas; while over 50 percent of registered pro-heroes were registered alphas, around 45 percent were beta. That left a dismal five percent of all registered heroes as omegas. The only omega pro he knew of was Recovery Girl at UA.
When his teacher had asked, Izuku had said that yes, of course he wanted to apply for UA, hero track! Who wouldn’t? But the class full of alphas and betas had laughed in his face, and Kacchan had been pissed. Izuku had chosen that moment to excuse himself to the bathroom, politeness be damned. It was one thing to cry in front of Kacchan and his lackeys, but he really didn’t want to bawl in front of his class.
He quietly entered the classroom and took a seat, ears drooping slightly near the top, and began taking notes. When he simply could not pay attention any longer, he opened one of his hero notebooks and began writing notes in that instead.
Currently, he was adding notes about his new favorite hero, rabbit hero Miruko. She wasn’t currently very active but still occupied the No. 5 spot. She was an alpha that wasn’t afraid to use brute force. Izuku couldn’t help but admire her, due to their similar quirks. He wanted to use her as inspiration to become a hero but had no idea how to get started. The UA entrance exam was only a few months away! He didn’t notice he had been muttering all this out loud, either, or that class was over, until a growl caught his attention.
“God, don’t you ever shut up?” Katsuki growled, swiping the composition notebook from out of his hands, his lackeys laughing.
“Hey! K-Kacchan, give it back,” Izuku fought the urge to whine. Katsuki bullied him from time to time, and Izuku would still consider them friends to an extent, but recently it had gotten a lot worse.
The alpha scowled. “You need to get going to UA out of your head, Deku,” he snarled. A few loud pops and the smell of burning paper later, Izuku’s notebook was literal toast. Katsuki’s next words were lost to Izuku as the blonde threw his notebook out the window into the pond outside. Izuku could only hear the blood pounding in his ears.
He waited a moment to allow the trio a chance to leave and get ahead before running out of the classroom to go save his poor notebook from the small koi pond. “It’s not fish food,” he mumbled gloomily. Deciding he’d had enough of this terrible day, the hare made off to lick his metaphorical wounds by going to his favorite shop that had the literal best carrots in Musutafu. It was a little ways off from his normal path home, but he didn’t really care, especially now that his mind was made up.
Eagerly, Izuku made his way to the shop, one-track mind at work. When he finally made it, the shop was fairly empty. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another large-eared humanoid (Izuku wasn’t going to assume they were a rabbit like most people did with him, thank you very much). He located his preferred carrots — organic, home-grown, with the leaves still attached, five in a bundle — and paid his 500 yen. He finished folding over his paper sack as he walked out of the store, only to be suddenly yanked by the collar of his gakuran and thrown down into the ground of the alley around the corner, his sack tumbling to the ground as well.
Eyes blown wide and heart thundering, Izuku whipped his head up at his attacker — no, attackers. Three high school-aged boys surrounded him, smirking, though Izuku couldn’t recognize which high school they were from. One had sharp, gleaming nails protruding from his scalp instead of hair, but the other two didn’t have any visible quirks. At least two of them were alphas, but he couldn’t tell who was what since their scents were so intermingled.
“Wh-what do y-you want?” Izuku chattered out. His body had him petrified. Fight or flight, his body screamed at him, but he only heeded his anxiety which told him to freeze.
One of them smirked. He had short, dark hair and wasn’t huge, but still larger than Izuku. “It’s okay, bunny boy, we ain’t going to hurt ya,” he snickered while his friends laughed.
Izuku tried calming his breathing down so he could at least move. “Y-you guys can have my money, I d-don’t have a lot, but you can have it!” Izuku offered, hopeful since they haven’t started beating him up yet.
The other one, a tall, gangly blonde, grinned. “How sweet of you, omega! Though, we were thinking about taking something else.” The gangly one yanked Izuku’s sleeve until he was on his feet, but before he could get his bearings, the smaller dark-haired one shoved him against the alley wall.
“Watch, and observe,” he purred, and slid his bare hand under his gakuran and dress shirt. The older boy pressed his hand against Izuku’s bare skin.
Izuku couldn’t move. It took all of his effort to even breath. His unblinking eyes began to water, and a whine built up in his throat. It wasn’t just his instincts, though. His body absolutely refused to move, as if it were made of stone.
Bemused by his panic, the male slid his hand back out and wiggled his fingers in front of Izuku’s eyes. “Pretty neat quirk, huh? It’s called Touch Freeze! I touch…and you freeze.”
A whimper tried and failed to escape Izuku’s closed lips. He was so screwed.
“Uh, excuse me there, boys? Everything a-okay down there?” a strong female voice asked. At least able to move his eyes, Izuku could see a figure down at the entrance of the alleyway. Izuku prayed she had a good nose; he was sure that he absolutely reeked of distress.
“We’re okay, lady!” the wielder of Freeze Touch waved off, his friends agreeing.
“All’s good down here!” the gangly one agreed.
The figure paused, adjusting a bag of groceries in her arms. “Hmm, is that so?” she bemusedly asked herself. And then she was gone.
And standing right next to Izuku.
“I’d like to hear his opinion, at least!” she boomed, startling the would-be attackers back. “Weird, he can’t seem to move! Do any of you have something to do with that, ehh?!” As the high schoolers shared a quick glance among each other before deciding to split. Izuku couldn’t help but to think that the woman looked oddly familiar — but, he didn’t know exactly how.
His savior was a tall alpha woman with long, beautiful silvery-blonde hair, and ears similar to his. The alpha had thick, muscular thighs hidden underneath skin-tight jeans and was dressed casually in a long-sleeved shirt and heeled ankle boots. She tsk’d as dropped her groceries and patted Izuku over. “You alright, toots? Damn shits.”
Izuku felt his body gradually become free of his attacker’s quirk. Affected by distance or proximity, or did it have a time limit, he couldn’t help but to ponder to himself. “Y-yeah,” he finally supplied, bending down to retrieve his bag.
The alpha smiled gently, picking up her bag again. “What’s your name, kiddo?”
“A-ah, Midoriya. Midoriya, Izuku.”
“Mmh. Walk with me, Midoriya-kun.”
Normally, Izuku would politely decline. Given the circumstances, though, he didn’t want to be alone quite yet, and made to follow.
“O-of course, um, what’s your name, ma’am?”
The rabbit woman grinned, red eyes flashing. “You can call me Miruko.”