Chapter Text
Yagi Toshinori was quirkless.
That much was known by the neighbourhood surrounding their small, studio apartment, with rot that seemingly ate its way through the walls and around the dust coloured windows.
Yagi Toshinori was a tall boy for his age, being only six. He was lean, with bright hair that was somehow always slightly dirty- wether it be from grease or filth- and had the dullest yet fullest sky blue eyes. He was slightly tan, though if asked he’d struggle to tell you when he’d last seen the summer suns rays, and he was quiet. Unbearably so at times. Like a ghost; never truly present in the room until someone else made his presence known.
That someone was quite often his father. His father was very tall, around 6’9, with a million mile stare and bleak, grey, eyes. His hair was a muddy brown, and his body was worn and old. Not old in that it was wrinkled with years- but old in the sense that it was used- beaten. Left barren. His father was a retired war soldier, PTSD ridden memories always somehow present on his motionless face, with bags like crescent moons that framed his features.
His father was strict, just as you’d expect soldiers would be. And his father was harsh. His father was mean. And his father was careless.
Empty bottles and buds of cigarettes, still glowing, littered each corner of the torn carpets floor, and more often than most Toshi would find himself curled in a nest of odd smelling blankets, hoping that his father wouldn’t absentmindedly wander in with sailors breath and rage engulfing his pupils.
For Toshi had done something horrendous.
Toshi had killed his mother- his fathers only love. His fathers only light.
At least that’s how Mr. Yagi made it out to be. That the small boy had murdered his mother in cold blood- that he wanted to cause his father pain. That it was somehow intentional that his mother passed only minutes after giving birth to Toshi.
You did this.
You did this to us, Toshi.
It’s your fucking fault.
You’re a monster.
You’re a fucking monster Toshinori.
And Toshi believed him, too. What else was he supposed to do? He’d been told- no, no he’d been shown- by countless people how much of a ‘hero’ his father had been, had been read stories about how his father had saved lives. How his father was a good person.
That meant Toshi was the bad guy. He’d been the one to cause such a good persons pain, to make him wallow in guilt on the daily. He deserved the punishments his father would give. The starving. The slaps that would often progress to punching. The stares of disgust. He deserved it all, so he’d been told, and so he believed.
His mother was beautiful.
Toshi had found a picture or two once before, hidden away in the very bottom draw, in the furthest away corner, slightly browned with age yet crisp and full of life. She had bright sun like hair- and eyes the colour of diamonds, with a smile of pearls and the presence of jade.
Toshi looked so much like his mother, though he lacked her smile. Her happiness. Toshi didn’t have happiness, in fact- he didn’t have much of anything. His father refused to let him to go to school, wether it be of fear of teachers seeing the blue bruises that made up the boys arms or the hollowness to his cheeks, or the simple fact that Mr. Yagi didn’t quite care enough to enrol his son into a school and pay for both food thatd sustain him through the day or properly fitting clothes to fit him during class, whatever reason it was- the small apartment and the stains on his mattress was all that Toshi had.
He didn’t even have a quirk.
Maybe if you were more useful I wouldn’t treat you this way- maybe if you could be fucking better then you’d get a father. But no. No Toshi you can’t even do that- can you?
You’re a quirkless freak.
Not having a quirk was quite uncommon. It was around one in every hundred thousand that didn’t have a quirk. And so when Toshis father had taken him to a doctor to see wether his quirk would be soon to develop, only to discover he’d never actually develop one- his father was enraged. His mother had apparently a strong quirk- one that allowed her to manipulate time- and his father had a quirk that allowed him to possess the strength of a hundred troops. Toshi should be strong.
He should be a hero.
He should’ve been powerful.
But Toshi didn’t seem to be a lucky boy.
Toshi was not strong.
And Toshi was not powerful.
And Toshinori Yagi was definitely not a hero.
Toshinori Yagi was quirkless.