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Chapter 16
Shouta Aizawa was an experienced professional. Though he may be young, his career in heroics started far sooner than most, taking to vigilantism in his youth, out of a desire to do good with what was seen as a villainous quirk. During his time working underground, he got exceptionally well at reading people. Most people had their tells for their true emotions. Stutters, subtle shakes, a curl of the lip. It helped him know more about people and situations than most could tell at a glance.
Izuku Joestar was bizarre.
He could tell from the moment he stumbled into the boy on patrol that there was something up with him. His time observing the boy in his class, while brief, painted a dark picture. He watched as the glancing eyes of the greenette immediately looked for escape routes in every room they entered. While he stared in amazement at his classmate’s quirks, he would flinch every time they activated. Door slams, a pencil breaking, the bell at the end of a lesson. Small, meaningless sounds would send the boy into a millisecond of panic.
Shouta had seen countless abuse cases in his life. He knew the signs all too well. Spotlight heroes rarely saw the dark trenches of society. It was the underground heroes who had to comfort a mother after they had lost their family. It was the underground heroes who watched as children flinched at a hand reaching out to help them. It broke his heart seeing these tendencies reflected in Hitoshi when he had rescued him from a foster center. But now- a boy like Izuku, a small, cute child whose smile could light a room, showed those tendencies all the same. Shouta shuddered at what could happen to someone like Izuku.
But, he had seen his father. The boy spoke highly of him, not a single stutter in his praises of the man who adopted him. No, he flinched towards his classmates, and his teachers. Shouta despised the thought that Izuku had been harmed by a teacher, but hearing the boy’s mumbles during his quirk examination confirmed his suspicions.
The boy was discriminated against for living without a quirk. Shouta knew the statistics for quirkless people. It was a truly grim page to take in. Izuku had already outlived the average life expectancy for a quirkless person. The self-harm statistics were gut wrenching. The suicide rates were inexcusable by society. 76% of all quirkless people born the same year as Izuku did not live to their 12th birthday. 99% of quirkless individuals were depressed. Shouta knew why. He’d seen it himself. Too many funerals he attended. Too many funerals where he was the only person in attendance. Families threw them out. Fosters refused them. Shelters provided none. Izuku, without a second of thought, admitted to jumping himself.
Like it was normal.
Like it was expected.
The boy was a miracle for surviving.
And then he watched the battle trial today. And he saw something in Izuku’s eyes that startled him. The moment Himiko dropped, the moment that she was incapacitated, Aizawa watched as Izuku’s eyes saw death.
He’d seen it all too many times.
In a grey haired boy who ran from him in the streets.
In the eyes of a grieving mother, a child lost to their own flames.
Telling Hizashi and Nemuri that Oboro was gone.
He watched as Izuku, without hearing any announcement, without any alarm raised, took the girl in his arms, and teleported across the testing grounds.
From puddle, to mirror, to glass, to street lamp. He bounced without a thought, as if his only instinct was to help this girl in need.
Shouta knew without a doubt, Izuku knew something more than he did. Something was horribly wrong. He grabbed Himiko’s clothes and shoes from her locker, and called Ectoplasm to watch over the remaining battle trials and to provide feedback. He would provide his own the next day after reviewing the footage. For now, he needed to head to Recovery Girl’s office.
As he carried the distinct, uncharacteristically ugly red shoes of Himiko idly in his hand, he found Izuku in the hallway, waiting outside for Himiko. He watched as Izuku’s eyes saw those red shoes in his hand and then saw death once more.
Izuku slumped against the wall, hitting his head against the cold concrete behind him as a strained laugh escaped through his cries.
Before he could reach out to comfort the boy- Shouta’s eyes trailed to the boy’s own costume. The same exact shoes. The same brand all quirkless people wore- the only ones that fit.
Shouta now knew why Izuku saw death when he saw Himiko.
Both of them were one in the same-
Both of them had lived quirkless.
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Chapter 17
In a few short moments, Aizawa found himself cradling the sobbing boy on the floor. He stroked the boy’s hair softly, humming softly to let him know everything was okay. He had only been raising Hitoshi for a short time now, but he knew how to handle a panic attack. He learned early on that his capture weapon was a useful grounding device, it’s soft weight being gentle enough to calm the crying boy. So here he was, the hardass, “demon sensei” cradling a boy like the child he truly was. The hero trainee cried and clutched onto his sensei’s capture scarf.
“It’s okay. You’re okay, I promise.”
The boy shook his head no. He wasn’t okay. He knew he wasn’t.
“She’s okay too- you didn’t hurt her- it’s not your fault.”
The words were like honey, but Izuku could not handle any sweetness.
“I did cause it- I know who she is-I know what she is! I could have stopped it…”
“You’re a hero bud- you got her here without a second thought, I’m proud of you.”
Izuku’s mind went blank as the scarred fingers of the hero twisted the curls of his untamed hair. Joseph was a mentor, a good man, and a good father. He took care of Izuku. But he was not intimate. Izuku could not reach out to him for insecurities, he could not cry into his arms. Not like his mother did back when he was a child. Not even his mother was there for him to cry into.
Shouta Aizawa was the first man to hold Izuku like this since his birth father left. Izuku’s mind slowly became warm, imagining a world where he could be taken care of by both Joseph and his Sensei. Maybe he’d be okay then. The tears for what could have been. If he had been better. If he was a son worth caring for. If he had worth before now.
They sat there for several minutes as the boy slowly regained composure. Izuku let one final tear fall, not wanting to tell his teacher the truth- that in just a few days of knowing him, the man had acted like more of a parent than his own mother had been for a decade. Instead, he steeled himself, sitting upright against the wall, capture scarf wrapped around his neck, keeping him steady. His shaky and bloodshot eyes met Aizawa’s and before his hero could ask if he was okay, Izuku simply asked the man one question.
“Do you believe in gravity?”
…
“Do you believe in gravity?”
Aizawa’s face scrunched slightly in confusion. Before he could question the boy, he continued.
“Not like Ochaco’s quirk. Not like what grounds us… I mean… Cosmic gravity. The idea that every one of us are spiritually linked to one another. All of us connected as one in a massive web of orbits… And one day our orbits cause those we are destined to meet to collide with us. I guess I’m asking you… do you think that some people are just destined to meet eachother? That we’re naturally drawn to find those who are important to us? I always thought it was a weird hypothetical but… now I think I understand.”
“Kid… what do you mean by all this?”
Aizawa seemed not angry, not annoyed, not even confused, more just, genuinely concerned. Izuku looked down and fidgeted with the man’s capture weapon, still clutching him, as if Aizawa himself was still holding their shaking body. Aizawa sat beside him against the wall.
“Himiko Brando… that’s her name… I know the truth now… she’s a vampire. Not a quirk… a genuine actual vampire… and that name… gods…”
Izuku rest his face in his hands and shook slightly.
“That’s why she’s hurt sensei… I don’t have a quirk… neither does she. She’s a vampire and my blood is powered by the sun… I should’ve known… I should’ve told the truth…”
Aizawa reached his hand out to Izuku again, taking the boy’s hand in his own, squeezing it with reassurance.
“Brando. A vampire named Brando… do you know what that means sensei? It means her father is alive… her father… a demon my family fought for centuries… m-my ability is called Ripple - i-it’s a manifestation of the sun’s energy… it was used by ancient warriors to stop the vampires genociding them… a-and Ripple has sub abilities- t-they’re called Stands… they- they’re like the origin point of quirks… they have abilities but they’re tuned to Tarot… ”
Aizawa reached his hand up to Izuku’s head of green and tussled it gently.
“Hey- you don’t have to tell me everything right now- if it’s uncomfortable, you don’t have to say anything. Right now I’m just here for you okay? And here for her too. She’ll be okay. You’ll both be okay.”
Izuku looked down at his own hands. The staining scars of Blood Ties wrapped around his arms like snakes. A devil telling him to lie- to simply ignore the truths of his ability that could make him a target- to become a target again.
Then he thought of Himiko Brando. A girl starved of the one thing she needed. Forced to come to a school of heroes by her father. Forced to succumb to bloodlust from a denial of any meaningful source. Forced into the sun to make her “stronger”- a stronger tool for HIM .
His father told him of the man- Dio Brando. An immortal vampire who refused death time and time again. A man who despised the world, and overcame heaven itself to accomplish his goals.
A man who died with a cascade of vines wrapping him in the divine light of the sun on a beach in Florida, after leaving just one Joestar standing. Several generations of children and adults alike lay in an ocean tainted, rippling with their crimson blood. Holly, Jotaro, Josuke, Jolyne. All laid to waste by the False God and his Priest.
Only The Hermit remained to end The World.
Now The World has returned. And only The Star remains.
Izuku’s Star.
Izuku decided in that moment, he would save Himiko from her father, and the only way to do that, was to be honest, and to tell Aizawa from the beginning.
“Sensei- let me tell you the story of two brothers-”