Work Text:
Characters:
Kashikoi Branwen - Raven's mother
Aerin Branwen - Raven's father
Vivianna (Vivi) Branwen - Raven's Twin Sister
Raven Branwen (Her reference Sheet: https://toyhou.se/5805599.1-raven-branwen-bnha-/gallery#21075337)
Raven and Vivianna were born on September 30th a sunny, beautiful day in Saint Paul, Minnesota, America. Their Parents, Kashikoi, a Japanese woman with a passion for quirk science, and Aerin, a loving father who works as a security guard at the local mall, were overjoyed with the new additions to the family.
The girls grew up together happily and were very close. The only difference in their appearance was their eye color, Red for Vivianna and Purple for Raven, and the fact that Vivianna's hair was a bit more flowy.
Raven was always a bit shyer but Vivi knew how to get her to be more comfortable. They were extremely close and would finish each other’s sentences all the time.
Kashikoi, their mother, was extremely hard working and would leave early and come home late most days, completely indulging in her work. This led to their father mostly raising them mostly himself the first few years.
They both showed very promising signs relating to their own quirks quite early. Vivianna could make small winds with her hands and feet, while Raven was able to manipulate water.
As any child in this day and age, they wanted to become heroes.
On their 5th birthday Aerin bought the sisters matching necklaces, a beautiful gem on a string, matching their eye colors, respectively. They loved the necklaces dearly and never took them off.
The girls’ parents relationship became strained over time, due to Kashikoi never being able to spend time with her husband so they agreed to book a big Vacation a few months later, back to her home town in Japan and planned to bring the girls along, as they’ve never been to Japan before.
Three weeks before the planned vacation, there was a Villain attack in Saint Paul. Aerin, on his way to work, got caught in the crossfire between the Hero and the Villain and tragically lost his life.
The sisters were devastated about the news and their mother completely shot down. Filled with grief and rage, she started resenting heroes. She made the necessary arrangements and still flew to japan with her daughters, but she decided to stay there. Kashikoi bought a house on the outskirts of Hosu City, where she was from and completely drowned herself in her experiments and research. She started going down a dark path, using animals for the experiments and contacting a group called “the league of villains”, a group of miscreants offering her any supplies she’d need in exchange for information and results from her tests.
Vivianna and Raven mostly kept to themselves in their new home, not making friends since they lived a few acres away from other people and couldn’t leave without their mother, who mostly stayed in her study room. The sisters took care of themselves and each other, helping one another grief and get through everyday life during this time.
Then it happened. Kashikoi had a breakthrough; she successfully transferred quirk traces she was able to get from her villainous associates. Though the test subject died mere minutes after her success, Kashikoi decided it was time to test it on humans. Make one perfect superhuman, avenge her late husband and right all the wrongs in her life.
Her daughters were the perfect candidates in her eyes, thanks to their unique quirks.
She started developing a testing chart she called the Q.U.I.R.K test (Quirk Understanding, Internal Research and Knowledge). The test would make the girls perform certain physical activities as well as practice quirk control. At this point, Kashikoi was so disconnected from the world, she felt no empathy for the pain and emotional damage she enforced on her own daughters. She just wanted results and pushed them way past their limits each and every day. She needed to know who was better, stronger and more talented. In general, as well as with their quirks. The one that performed worse was punished each day. Raven, being shyer and getting more and more reclusive, started falling behind and got punished almost every day. Vivianna noticed and after a few weeks of this torture approached her sister.
“Hey Raven?”
“Yes?”, Raven replied with a weak voice
“I’m sorry mom keeps being so mean to you. Tomorrow I will start holding back, maybe then she can be nicer to you too.”, Vivianna offered with an empathetic smile.
Raven nodded: “Thank you. I hope this is all over soon.”
And so Vivianna started holding back. There were still punishments, but they were distributed much more equally. Over time the girl started being exhausted and just sad all the time, and only had each other and the necklace they got from their father as reminders of their old life, which they desperately wanted back.
It was now two weeks until their eighth birthday and they both got a lot stronger as a consequence of the Q.U.I.R.K. test. Their mother called them to the living room; they came and sat quietly.
“Tomorrow will be the final test. Do your best, you will regret it if you don’t.”
The girls eyes widened.
“So this will be over”, Vivianna blurted out.
Kashikoi glared at the girls, then composed herself: “Sort of. Back to your room.”
Raven and Vivianna went to their room smiling and hugged each other, being happy this will finally be over.
The next day Kashikoi called her daughters to her study for the first time. There was a machine in the room with two silverish containers that had a glass window each. They were connected by many wires and reminded the girls of spaceships from television shows they used to watch.
Kashikoi double checked her notes. Then pressed a button which opened the two containers.
“Raven go into the right one. Vivianna, into the left one.”
The girls obeyed without question. They shared one last look and a smile before the container closed.
“I’m sorry. There is no other way.”, their mother mumbled and activated the machine.
Raven felt extreme pain in her chest out of nowhere. It felt like she was getting ripped apart. Like someone was pumping air into her chest and her ribcage was about to burst. She screamed in pain, Vivianna was screaming too, feeling like her life was being sucked out in an extremely painful way. They wanted it to stop, screaming and begging their mother to help them. She did nothing; she just watched as her daughters were in extreme agony, until a few minutes later when the machine was done. Raven was passed out, Vivianna looked lifeless. Kashikoi measured their vital signs. Raven’s heartbeat was accelerated and exhausted, but she was fine overall. Then she checked Vivianna. No pulse. Nothing. She had died. “Shame. But it was to be expected.” Kashikoi mumbled, carrying her daughter’s corpse away.
Raven woke up in her bed two days after this. Her entire body hurt, she had a headache and couldn’t speak. She felt extremely worn out. She moved her head over to where Vivianna’s bed was, only to find it empty. Raven forced herself up, despite the pain and stumbled into the living room, where she found her mother reading and comparing notes.
“Mom?”, Raven started weakly: “Where is Vivi?”
Her mother didn’t look up.
“She was weak. I had no further use for her anyways”.
Raven, clearly confused, asked what she meant.
Kashikoi looked up with a stern look and said: “She died. She should’ve trained harder. I told you both you’d regret not being strong enough.”
Raven fell to her knees. The memories of the machine rushing back to her, as well as the memories of her sisters screams of pain.
“What... did you do? What were those for? Why is she dead? WHY DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT US?”
Kashikoi slowly stood up and walked to Raven, slapped her across the face, then said: “I attempted to transfer her quirk to you. I wanted to make the most powerful human I could. And I succeeded. I checked your test score and you performed slightly better. That is why I made sure you’d survive. Now. Don’t you dare raise your voice at me again or you will regret it. To your room, at once.”
Raven, in tears, ran into her room and fell into her bed, crying uncontrollably, until she passed out of exhaustion.
When she woke up she heard her mother’s footsteps in the hall. She waited until she thought she was asleep and snuck into her study room. Both the containers were opened. Raven looked over Vivianna’s container. On the bottom of the inside she saw shards. It was her Necklace. It must’ve dropped and shattered during the experiment. Raven started crying again, as she held the crystal of her own necklace which was still around her own neck. She left the study and went back to her room where she continued to cry for the remainder of the night. She never felt this lonely before. Then it dawned on her. Vivianna held back. She had the better test results. She was better at the quirk tests than Raven. She should’ve been the one to survive. All because Raven was weak.