Chapter Text
Hitoshi Shinsou was a normal kid. He liked to play in the dirt, go bug hunting, play with his cat, and he liked to laugh with his parents and his friends. Every weekday, Hitoshi would wake up, happily eat breakfast with his parents, spend the day around the neighbourhood with his mom and see his friends, and then come home for more adventures.
His parents might not have been as well off as the families of some of his friends from the neighbourhood, but his mom would hear all about his day and colour with him while his dad would bake him cookies while he made his own versions from play-doh. Sometimes, he’d just watch the two of them while he rolled a ball of yarn around for Neko.
It wasn’t the most creative of cat names, but as long as he brought her food, it certainly didn’t matter to her.
Like most of the world, his quirk manifested a little bit after he turned 4.
He was so excited for his quirk to come in. He wondered if he'd have something physical like super strength or if he'd have something like the ability to breathe fire (his parents had read him a lot of bedtime stories). Everyday after he turned 4, he'd wake up and jump out of bed. He had a routine. He'd first try to lift the bed, then he'd take a power stance and hold out his arm in front of him, willing himself to do something.
Neko would yawn and stretch as she just stared at him striking different poses.
For a while, he thought that maybe he needed to eat certain foods for his quirk. So, he ate only spicy food for a week. He hated that. Then, he tried going for only dessert but his parents wouldn’t let him, which was a real shame because his dad’s cookies were the best.
Hewatched his friends develop quirks like being able to spurt water out of their nose (gross but funny), or being able to call a coin toss correctly every time (cool but annoying), or being able to guess every ingredient in their meals (the grown ups said that could be useful but who wants to know if your mom snuck in spinach into your meal).
After a few months of trying everything he could, he thought that maybe he was actually quirkless. He knew that it was possible to develop a quirk even when you were 5, but he'd tried absolutely everything!
He'd started sulking around, thinking he wouldn't have fun, or useful, or cool powers, and he cried when he took being a hero off the table. It was fine. Neko lived her whole life without a quirk and she seemed happy, balled up most nights beside him.
He'd made up his mind and was well on his way to accepting his future when his family was gathered for dinner.
“Da, more rice please!” He’d grinned and even though he was just learning about how to form questions, his tone was a mix of his usual excitement and a new lilt, awaiting a response.
Encouraging conversational growth, his dad opened his mouth to answer him, but as soon as a noise left his throat, he went stiff as a board and robotically handed him the rice.
“Ma?” Hitoshi felt a growing headache and frowned at his dad's blank stare, trying to ask his mom if something was wrong.
His mom said something in reply when she turned to her husband, but Hitoshi's vision started to blur as his mom's arms dropped to the side.
Hitoshi's hands flew to his head and before he passed out, he saw the empty looks his parents gave him and he thought about why they didn't move to reach out for him.
----
Everything felt so blurry and dull to him. Noises were muffled and he felt like his tongue was a block of lead.
"I don't know!"
"Well we gotta figure it out! One sec I was there and the next I wasn't!"
"I was... There, but I couldn't do anything." His mother yelled in a low voice.
He blinked and started to move, finding himself in his bed and the voices of his parents coming from just outside the room.
"Is that his quirk?"
"What? Putting people under? What does that even mean?"
"I dunno! That's the thing, we don't fucking know!" His dad sighed deeply. “Ok, ok, shit . We don’t know if it’ll happen again. We just stick together.”
Tears started to form around the edges of Hitoshi's eyes. His parents had fought before, but he'd never really been in the center of it like this. He could hear his dad’s voice grow heavier and his mom was shuffling something around, probably trying to distract herself like she always did when they fought.
Still, he’d never heard his dad quite this upset.
He sniffed and got out of bed. The world spun for a moment and his knees buckled, throwing him back in bed.
He groaned and heard his parents stop talking abruptly.
"Was… I was bad?" He sputtered out to a pair of concerned eyes.
His mom shook her head. "No! No, honey. It's probably your quirk!" She forced a smile.
Hitoshi's eyes slid to meet his father's gaze, who looked at him more critically but with no less concern.
"We'll go to the doc tomorrow." His father gruffed. “We’ll figure this out, kiddo.”
"How're you feeling? Do you want anything?" His mother patted his head.
He wiped off some of the tears that escaped and opened his mouth, feeling a familiar tug behind his eyes. "Water?"
"Of - " His mothers face went blank before she could finish her statement.
"Ma?" He sniffed and reached out.
"Honey?" His dad rushed up to his mom and gently touched her head, his urgent and thick voice cutting through all his thoughts. "What happened? What did you do?" His dad turned to him and urgently gripped his shoulders.
The panic in his dad’s eyes were evident as he divided his attention between Hitoshi and his wife. “Son, you gotta let her go. Whatever you’re doin’.”
"Wa-water." Tears started flowing again and he wailed. His mother slowly stood up and walked out of the room. His head was pounding and his dad had rushed out the bedroom behind his mother.
“Hitoshi, please, you gotta drop your quirk!” He heard his father yell out to him through the walls.
Like a puppet, his mother filled a cup of water and brought it to him, but she stubbed her toe on the way back into the room. His dad was right there to catch her, one hand on her arm and the other on her back.
She blinked and looked down at her hand, now holding the cup.
“Honey, hey, look at me.” His dad pleaded, trying to get his mother to focus on him.
Instead, her eyes went wide and her lips started quivering. She stared at Hitoshi as her free hand came up to cup her face. Sobs escaped her and she shoved the cup into his dad's hand and ran out the door.
His father stared at him for a moment before inhaling sharply and shakily before giving him the cup of water. He ran his large hand through Hitoshi's messy hair and quickly ran out of the room.
Hitoshi cried himself to sleep that night.
----
"Brainwashing." The quirk specialist said after holding Hitoshi's hand.
Most quirks were pretty easy to identify just from how they affected the world, but some quirks had conditions that needed to be met for activation or they had a more subtle influence on the external world. To identify those quirks for the accuracy of the Japanese Quirk Registry, a few people with different types of quirk identifying quirks were stationed around the country. Since Hitoshi and his parents lived in Saitama, they could easily visit the quirk clinic in Tokyo.
This clinician could tell the general rules of someone's quirk when they held their hand. Some quirks were simple of course, but others were more detailed and a bit more cumbersome.
"When the listener answers a question, the quirk takes effect. The listener then follows his commands." The clinician explained to Hitoshi's parents.
Both of his parents turned to look at him then. The look on their faces was something he'd never forget. No matter how much he wanted to.
A mixture of fear, disdain, confusion, and revulsion.
A lot to handle when you're a little over 4.
"His commands? He's a kid! You can’t give him that much responsibility!" His father started to raise his voice and his mother put her hand up to her face and sniffled.
The clinician took a deep breath to regroup and nodded. "It's a powerful quirk, that's for sure. And in the wrong hands... Well..." They sighed and gave Hitoshi a weak smile. "Listen," they continued to his parents, "I've seen a lot of quirks, and I'd be the last person to tell you that quirks themselves are bad or good. I can't read that when I touch someone. I just know that I don't always get all the details. With quirks like these - ones that can alter minds or actions - you need to be very careful about the next steps. Kids don't have control over their quirks." Their eyes softened and their shoulders slumped.
"What can we do?" His mother choked out. "Are there quirk nullification drugs or something?" She glanced at him shakily. "I don't wanna never talk to my son again." Her tears started pouring out of the corner of her eyes.
The clinician pursed their lips. "There are, but there's a reason they're limited to high security Tartarus inmates." They said sternly. “I need to also let you know about the special high-risk quirk registry, where I’ll need to report his quirk. We don’t know the extent of his abilities or how they could evolve with training. Training that you should consider, by the way.”
“High… risk…” His mother stuttered, taken aback.
"Training? What the fuck kind of training could there be?" His father slammed a fist down onto the counter in the corner of the room. “How did he even get a quirk like this? Mine is accurately guessing weights of things I touch and hers helps her care for plants!” His father points at his mother, his voice raising even more.
“There are quirk programs. I’ll provide you with some brochures. Mutations exist everywhere in quirk genetics. It’s still a growing field of research.” The clinician quickly interjected, knowing the insinuation that was about to come next. They’d been in these rooms for long enough to see multiple accusations, and sometimes admittances, of infidelity.
“Mutations… of this level?” Hitoshi’s father mumbled to himself, taking in the new information.
“What else could it be?” His mother’s fists were clenched and she was visibly starting to get angry.
"Ma? Da?" Hitoshi frowned, lips trembling. He could feel the anger and hurt radiating off both of his parents, and couldn’t help but think that he was the source of it all. After all, they’d brought him to this new place, to meet a whole new person. They used words he didn’t know and spoke too quickly for him to understand, but he wasn’t stupid. He could see the way his parents would glance at him and then yell at the new person.
His dad opened his mouth but stopped short of voicing a response.
If Hitoshi couldn't control his quirk, every single conversation would be laced with the uncertainty of a loss in autonomy.
It would be a great risk for anyone to take.
His mother hurriedly took out her phone and typed something out before showing it to the clinician.
What's the time limit for answering the question?
The clinician frowned, shrugged and shook their head. That was a detail their own quirk couldn't see.
Tears pricked the corner of Hitoshi's eyes now, not fully understanding why his parents wouldn't answer him.
His mother grabbed him and wrapped him into a tight hug, her head resting on his with his seated position.
All he could do was grab on tight to her shirt and let his tears stain it. He kept calling out for his parents, but neither responded until they were safely back in their own apartment.
His mother finally broke and tried to comfort him. She'd said it was ok, and she started to tell him they'd figure it out, but his quirk took over before she could finish.
He didn't get to see his friends that week, spending it instead in silent solitude. Sometimes, Neko would come and curl up around him. At least his quirk didn’t work on cats.
He'd hear his parents talking to each other in hushed tones.
“Do we have the money for the training? You’re already working so hard.”
“Do we really have a choice?”
"What about when he starts going to school? What about the other kids?"
"We can't baby him forever! He has to learn to control it!"
“What about his future? Can he force people to love him?”
There was a deafening silence as Hitoshi forced his eyes shut under the blankets.
“We’ll take it one day at a time.”
Age 7
“Class, we have a new student starting today. His name is Hitoshi Shinsou, and he’s from Saitama!” The young man teaching the class turns to Hitoshi with a small smile that crinkles in his eyes.
Hitoshi purses his lips and bows slightly, facing the class.
“I’ve been told that his favourite animal is a cat! We’re going to learn about some big cats and where they live next week!” The teacher enthusiastically continues. “Shinsou-kun, there’s an empty spot behind Uraraka-san that you can sit in.”
A small hand shoots up and Hitoshi sees that it belongs to a girl with short brown hair and a gigantic smile. He notices that her fingers seem to be a slightly different colour at the tips. Hitoshi scrunches up his face before moving toward the seat.
He wouldn’t mind having different coloured fingers for his quirk instead of Brainwashing.
“Why don’t he talk?”
“But, it’s September.”
“He looks funny.”
The chatter starts right as Hitoshi moves away from the teacher’s side.
Talking, talking talking.
That’s all everyone ever did. It would be fine if they ever actually said anything.
“Everyone has their reasons, class, remember what we learned about respect last month?” The teacher tries to pacify everyone.
Hitoshi sinks lower into his seat.
The teacher’s heart might be in the right place, but Hitoshi knows what he is now.
His old friends abandoned him after a while, and nobody here would want to be friends with the weird new kid who showed up halfway through the year and doesn’t talk.
If he hadn’t already had years of this, Hitoshi might’ve cried. But now, he just takes out his notebook and sits silently, waiting for the teacher to start.
“Hi! I’m Ochako Uraraka!” Four funny coloured fingertips extend toward him as the brown haired girl turns around.
Hitoshi blinks in confusion and stares at her hand, noticing that the funny colours at the end are really more like separate little segments. He leans in slightly to get a better look.
A bit like toe-beans for cats.
His eyes water as he remembers Neko and he wonders for a moment whether the hands in front of him feel like toe-beans too.
“Sorry, my quirk activates with all five fingies, so you just get these four!” She blushes and her shoulders slump a little, but she doesn’t pull her hand away.
As much as he wants to smile at her use of the word ‘fingies’ instead of fingers, he still doesn’t know why she was talking to him.
Couldn’t she see that everyone else thought he was weird?
He watches her brows crease and her lips pull into a pout.
“Ma says you gotta shake hands when you meet someone.” She insists.
Hitoshi sighs and reluctantly holds out his hand, but doesn't move it close enough to meet hers. She giggles and touches her four fingers to his palm. It’s actually more like she slaps his hand and just presses it to his rather than a hand shake. After all, she can’t secure her hand around his without using her thumb and letting her quirk activate. For Hitoshi, it means that he can feel her fingertips press into his palm.
His eyes go wide and his lips subconsciously curl up.
They feel like a cat’s toe-beans.
A little piece of home.