Chapter Text
Once upon a time, two babies were born in separate parts of the Shizuoka Prefecture of Japan.
One child was born on December 2nd in a jail cell with a head of dark brown hair, purple eyes, and pinkish skin to a junkie from America.
Her name?
Shigaraki Chansu.
The other?
A child born December 21st of the same year with fair skin, black hair, and steely-grey eyes. This child was born in a house in Musutafu, Japan. Her name was Shigaraki Saihan.
And the two would not know of each other's existence or their connection for years to come…
If there was one thing Shigaraki Chansu knew for certain, it was that she was a very unlucky child.
One might even say that she was a cursed child.
And well…
She wouldn't exactly argue against that notion. Because she was cursed in several ways.
She was born out of wedlock in a jail cell and grew up without a father to a mother who didn't really love her.
All because she wasn't overly girly and because she wasn't 'normal' like her mother wanted.
Chansu was basically forced to take care of herself while her mother got drunk and got high.
Having to find food and ways to entertain herself.
Always worrying that her mother wouldn't come back or that one of the many people she brought home at night would kill them in their sleep.
Chansu was a cursed child.
She couldn't sit still.
She talked too loud.
She squinted at the board and didn't always hear people.
She was ungodly hyper and liked weird things.
She acted more like a boy than a girl and hated meeting people's eyes.
She hated shoes.
She didn't sleep at night and knew things she shouldn't.
Her hair slowly turned white and black in little areas over time.
But worst of all, she didn't seem to have a quirk.
Oh, she wasn't diagnosed as quirkless (because her mother couldn't bear the shame of that added onto her possibly being neurodivergent). But everyone was sure she didn't have one.
And they hated her for it.
Called her useless and a mistake for it.
She didn't know why. She didn't know what she had done wrong and why no one would tell her.
And she hated it.
It wasn't her fault that she was weird.
It wasn't her fault that she was quirklsss.
It wasn't her fault that her hair was a mess and that she smelled like cigarettes all the time.
It wasn't her fault that she was always hungry and that her clothes were always dirty.
It wasn't her fault.
And she didn't understand why everyone thought it was.
She didn't understand why she was bullied by her peers and even some adults around her.
She didn't know why she seemed to do nothing but annoy everyone around her.
All she wanted was someone—anyone— to care about her. But she knew that no one would ever do so.
Because who could ever love her?
Shigaraki Saihan knew she was an odd child. She always had been. Kids and adults alike pointed out her oddness.
Her hair slowly whitening as she aged.
Her odd pointy ears.
Her creepy obsession with quirks.
The strange fascination with quirk history over the past two hundred and some years.
Her quirk was the oddest thing about her. Her quirk was why she wasn’t allowed to touch her mother, or classmates, or teachers. Not even on accident.
She could copy and nullify quirks through skin-to-skin contact.
She always told people it wasn’t permanent and that she didn’t even take quirks, only copied them.
Saihan didn’t understand why those around her were so scared or called her a villain. She’d never actually done anything to them. She only nullified quirks when they posed a threat to her or someone else's safety.
She had no friends or people in her corner.
She had nobody.
All she had was her history books and the little books her quirk made for every quirk she copied.
Saihan didn’t think she was a villain, no matter how much her mother called her a curse, a demonspawn, or a monster.
Saihan wished she had someone to talk to about quirks or history, or really anything.
Maybe she was cursed, only her curse was to never have someone actually pay attention long enough to realize Saihan had done nothing wrong.
Maybe they’d realize Saihan always followed the rules
Maybe she’d finally have a friend.