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The sound of multiple tiny feet running down a wooden staircase filled the otherwise tranquil house, announcing the start of a great adventure. Tenko jumped over numerous steps at once, making it hard for the Corgi’s short legs to follow. Once they reached the door, Mon-chan the II had finally caught up, licking Tenko’s face as he tried to put on his shoes.
“Ahahahaww staahp. I’m not going without you, I promise,” Tenko chuckled and patted the Corgi, whose whole body wiggled with excitement. The blatant resemblance to Mon-chan the I never failed to make his heart arche.
“And where do you think you’re going, young man?”
The familiar gravelly voice prevented Tenko from going down a rather dark train of thought. It took some time to make out its owner since the house’s living room was mostly shrouded in shadows. Once Tenko’s searching eyes accustomed to the darkness, they halted at the sight of a crouched figure in front of a tiny altar. It had been the very first thing Tenko’s grandpa had unpacked from the moving cartons after they had arrived here yesterday.
The old man’s face briefly lit up as he set fire to an incense stick, illuminating a bushy beard, deep wrinkles and tired eyes. In front of him, the framed photograph of a beautiful black-haired woman. The oddly familiar looking grandmother Tenko had never met.
“Mon-chan asked me to take him for a walk.” Tenko declared, facing his grandpa, the walking talking gremlin otherwise known as ‘Sorahiko’.
“Did he now?” Sorahiko said, the corner of his mouth creeping into a smile. It nearly reached his eyes as they met Tenko’s. Only nearly though. His gaze drifted back to the picture of his lost one: “Make sure to be home before lunch. As you know, I won’t hesitate to eat your Taiyaki.”
Tenko bowed quickly, put the fidgety Corgi on a leash and stepped into the warm morning sun. He faintly registered a mumbled “And don’t tear down the whole city while you’re at it…” as he went outside, but his attention was already fully occupied by the outside world. Or to be more exact: Musutafu.
He had only lived in the countryside for a year, but it felt like an eternity since he had last stepped onto those buzzing city streets. It certainly looked as if it had been an eternity. Skyscrapers were suddenly larger and shinier, like those straight out of futuristic hero comics and even the air smelled different. Well, in fact many years had passed between the time he lived here and now, he just didn’t remember any of it.
He guided Mon-chan to one particularly futuristic looking street while his mind reminisced of the past, of the day that had turned his whole life upside down: Tenko had woken up in a weird hospital bed with the atmosphere of a prison cell, surrounded by a grumpy old man he had never met declaring to be his grandfather and a very tired and homeless looking younger man, declaring to be done with existence. Those strangers had told him that his family had been attacked by a villain, that many years had passed since then, but that some unicorn girl with a rewind quirk had turned him back into a kid, to a point in his life before this ominous attack… only that his family was still… gone. They had never finished their explanation and he had never dared to ask, but his mother had never come to pick him up either… it was a thought he couldn’t finish. Whenever he attempted to do so, breathing became so difficult that he had to distract his mind with something else or else he would suffocate.
He and his new grandfather had moved into a secluded house in the countryside. It hadn’t been easy. Tenko didn’t want a weird new family member, he wanted his real ones back and Sorahiko sometimes looked at him with a gaze so loaded with conflicting emotions Tenko wanted to hide. It got a bit better after they got Mon-chan the II. Everything's better with a puppy around. He was always there to save him when his mind wandered to places it shouldn’t and if he got flashes of memories that weren’t his own.
Still, it had been a rough year.
But at least, now that school was about to start, they had finally moved back to the city.
Suddenly, Tenko got pulled forward by Mon-chan who had spotted a green bird in the sky between two towering skyscrapers. A very fast and luminous bird. Tenko squinted his eyes only to rip them wide open again once recognition dawned upon him.
Deku, the number one hero.
The number one hero, All Might’s assumed love child, was leaping from one skyscraper to another. He effortlessly jumped through the sky, a restrained villain dangled behind him as if he was nothing more than luggage.
Heroes are the coolest.
“Gaah! We’re going to lose him! We gotta speed up!” Tenko exclaimed after Deku disappeared into the urban jungle.
They ran so fast, he almost felt as if he was flying himself, about to take off every second. Though since gravity didn’t allow them to do so, they nearly collided with numerous passengers who had also stopped to gawk at the hero. When he skittered around the next corner, he almost thought that he had lost him for good. That was until he spotted that trademark curly green hair in the middle of a crowd.
The square where Deku had landed wasn’t nearly large enough for all the civilians who came running after him. While Tenko got scared of Mon-chan being trampled and therefore fled to a dark and calm corner on the side, Deku mastered everything seemingly effortlessly. Handing the villain to the police, giving autographs, calming the crowd and never losing his smile that stretched from one side of his face to the other.
Tenko gulped and latched onto the leash. After the disappearance of his family and living in a secluded cottage somewhere in nowhere, he was nearly led to believe that heroes only existed on TV. But this one was real. It was not only that he could see him in flesh and blood, the whole atmosphere of the square in front of him was brimming with the warmth radiating from the number one hero.
“Let’s be a brother-sister hero team!”
Right, he hadn’t thought of that pipe dream of his for a long time now… it had been a stupid dream to begin with… he was quirkless after all, aka useless, and probably the weakest person in this whole country. If a villain ever decided to target their house, the one with the best odds at doing something remotely useful was probably Mon-chan. But now that he was so close to a real hero, to THE one, all those bubbly emotions he had buried together with his hopes were coming back to the surface.
Tenko paced back and forth, trying to come up with something to say, while Mon-chan the II watched him with a tilted head and confused look on his face. He only realized how much time had passed once the crowd dissipated due to the arrival of a rather explosive individual.
“Oi nerd! Are you only giving autographs these days, or do you actually have to work your ass off like the rest of us?!” growled the…hero?..., causing the few remaining civilians to scatter even faster.
“You could definitely learn some things from him, oh Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight. After all, what is a hero good for if the one in need can’t differentiate him from the villain,” an angel-like hero with huge wings remarked as he landed between the other two.
“Eeeehhh??!! Did you say something spoonbill???!”
Tenko’s shoulders sagged. No way he could talk to Deku now. Mon-chan tried to cheer him up by nudging his leg with his snoot, but that only made his eyes water. No, he wouldn’t cry. Not here in public. Not in front of all those heroes.
Tenko rubbed his eyes and turned around to walk back… home.
“Hah, looks like you even fail your weird ass fans. You forgot that tiny shrimp over there!”
“Huh, I didn’t see him before…”
Tenko flinched and let out an embarrassing squeak. They couldn’t mean him, right?
But as he looked over his shoulder, he found all three heroes staring back at him. Tenko’s eyes grew comically large. He wished for the floor beneath him to crumble and swallow him as a whole.
Deku, THE Deku, came closer and crouched down before him: “Ahh I’m so sorry! Did you want an autograph too?”
Tenko managed to nod and fully turned around, facing All Might’s successor. He hastily tried to fix his hair, but the unruly black strands kept falling back into his face.
Deku pulled out a pen, swirled it around with a carefree smile on his lips and asked: “So, where do you want me to write on and whom do I have the pleasure to meet here?”
Omg this is actually happening. Gramps won’t believe me.
For a second, Tenko forgot how to breathe, fully engulfed by the other’s presence. Only the frantic beating of his heart somehow managed to bring him back to the realm of mortals. Right, words… he could do that: “I I-I’m T-tenko. Shimura Tenko. A-and this is Mon-chan, Mon-chan the II! P-please write on his collar, sir hero.”
Tenko hugged Mon-chan around his torso and tried to lift him up as best as he could. Which, to be frank, wasn’t a whole lot, but maybe it would bring the Corgi a bit closer to the hero’s pen.
Out of seemingly nowhere, the air around him shifted. A cloud of something Tenko couldn’t decipher had laid itself over Deku’s otherwise sunny persona. The pen slipped through his fingers and landed in mud and something akin to green lightning flickered beneath the hero’s skin.
“Fuck, is that HIM?” the explosive blonde exclaimed and darted forward. Sparks emitting from him underlined his nature. Tenko instinctively shrunk in on himself and hid behind Mon-chan. Even the bubbly angel hero had spread his wings menacingly, sharpened his feathers and looked at him in a way that made Tenko feel like a squirrel being preyed upon by a hawk.
He didn’t know what was going on, but he felt the urge to run and hide somewhere. A voice deep inside him screamed at him to lash out, to make them crumble.
As he was about to bolt, the smile reappeared on Deku’s face, although it had lost its earlier warmth and looked strained if nothing else. He scratched the back of his head, then folded his hands in front of his chest and said: “Ahh! I’m so sorry! We were just taken aback a little, but don’t worry, Kacchan here is all bark and no bite.” His voice had a nervous ring to it.
Mon-chan chose that moment to growl, empathizing that he was all too willing to bite anyone who dared touching his friend. Deku’s facial expression softened as his eyes wandered over Tenko’s appearance and said apologetically: “I’m sorry if we scared you, it’s just… complicated…” Picking up the pen, he added: “Now then, let me make it up to you with the coolest signature ever. That is, if you still want one?”
Tenko’s gaze flickered over the heroes behind Deku. They had regained their composure, but the wariness in their eyes hadn’t faded. Whereas Deku’s looked more melancholic than hostile.
Don’t be stupid, those are heroes. There is absolutely no reason for fear, you scaredy cat.
He hadn’t done anything wrong after all. Not that he remembered… The fanboy inside him decided to ignore his instincts, nodded eagerly and tried to lift the Corgi an inch higher.
After receiving the autograph, Tenko mumbled “Thank you…” and stroked over the letters with four of his fingers, fully entranced by the number one hero’s scrawly handwriting.
On the periphery of his perception, he registered a faint: “Holy chicken nugget. He’s way too cute to be… him .” And another person saying: ”Maybe you should step back from him a little, nerd. We can’t know for sure whether or not Eri’s quirk worked all the way.”
When Tenko eventually tore his gaze away from his treasure and looked back up to Deku with starry eyes, he was met with glassy ones. “It’s nice to meet you, Tenko,” Deku said, voice slightly trembling: “So, you like heroes?”
He gasped: “Yes, of course, they are the coolest! Oh, but don’t tell my dad. He says heroes are monsters who hurt their family to save strangers. But I know that isn’t true, cause All Might saves everyone!”
He didn’t save your family, now did he?
Deku grimaced as if he were in pain, but before Tenko could think too deeply about it, he spluttered: “W-would it be ok if I asked you something, sir hero?”
“Of course.”
He would get an answer? After all this time? And from a real hero? Then this would mean… this time the answer would be absolute. This would cement, whether or not his father was right.
Not able to look him in the eyes any longer, Tenko dropped his gaze down onto his red shoes once more, the testament of his powerlessness. The only brand that left enough space for his extra joint had always marked him as the odd one out.
“Hey, is everything alrig-“
“Could someone like me… s-someone without a q-quirk…”
Erratic breathing and a deeply ingrained fear prevented him from finishing the question. Tenko bit his lips and closed his eyes while trying to suppress his stupid trembling. Tried his best to speak without letting his voice break away: “My sister and I, we promised to become a sibling hero team together. But my sister is gone and she won’t come back… I’m on my own now. I’m alone... and I don’t have a- a power, or anything,… but I still… can even someone without a quirk…”
While he had been speaking, tears had started running down his face, leaving a salty taste behind. That moment, a gist of warm wind pressed against his back and ruffled his hair. It felt like a hand pushing him forward: “Can I be a hero too?”
Deku let out a wet laugh and rubbed his eye sockets. He bowed forward and looked at him with the shiniest eyes Tenko had ever seen: “Let me tell you the story of how I became the greatest hero…”
・｡*∘˚✽ ˚∘*・
“FUCK MY LIFE! Not this crying shit again. Archenemies my ass, you should have competed in ‘who can cry me a larger river’, you lame ass m-mpf!”
This day should become known as the day Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight nearly suffocated to death by feathers, but in reality, an event of far greater relevancy occurred: The discovery of One For All’s tenth successor.
