Chapter Text
Emptiness
/ˈɛm(p)tinɪs/
Emptiness, the state, quality, or feeling of being empty
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If you were to sit Hitoshi down and ask him what the biggest mistake in his life would be, with full honesty— he's not just saying this to be quirky or different (he's enough of that already)— he would laugh. “Uh, everything?” is what he’d probably say in response.
The biggest mistake in Shinsou HItoshi’s life was being born.
That one, warm, summer morning on July 1st fifteen years ago is Hitoshi’s worst mistake.
Coming out the womb alive and warm, while his mothers body lay cold and his father crying hysterically while the doctors pulled him away from her body.
That was Hitoshi’s worst mistake ever.
Taking his mothers life before he'd even lived his.
The nurse that held him so dearly while the doctors tried to save his mother would be the last hands that would ever touch him with love for years to come.
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Even before his quirk came in he'd already been treated like an outsider in his own home,
His father was drunk every night, cursing at the body most fathers swore to love and protect, all while little Hitoshi sat unnamed, covered in beer from the bottles his own dear dad would smash over his head.
On Hitoshi’s 3rd week of being alive he was named.
Not by his father
Not by someone else in his family
But by the government.
Only after his father refused to name him and they did a mandatory house check where they found a small, hungry hitoshi in the same diaper he was in the day he went home from hospital.
On july 22nd Hitoshi Shinsou was officially named.
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He spent his first few years in and out of foster homes all around Japan, some in Osaka, some in Tokyo, one not-very successful one in Musutafu where he ended up getting beat so bad his social worker only knew it was him because of his hair after they cleaned the blood away. (We don't talk about that one..)
So yeah, Hitoshi’s toddler years weren't ideal, but it shaped him into the man he is today.
A weak,
Useless,
Villain of a man.
(But still a man atleast!!)
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On Hitoshi’s fourth birthday his quirk came in.
That was his second biggest mistake.
Surviving long enough to receive a quirk.
He woke up at the crumbling orphanage, (surprise, they still exist, just are going out of business) rubbing his eyes to remove the remaining sleep
“Happy Birthday to me!” he whisper-shouted as to not wake the other children, this would be the last time he’d be excited, and future him wishes he'd have savoured the last moments of childhood innocence.
holding onto his pajama pants so they don't fall off, he begins to creep out of bed and make his way downstairs.
“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear shiinnsouuuu, happy birthday to me!’ he half-sings-half-giggles as he walks into the dining hall
He's never been a very good sleeper, he doesn't like being alone.
Look, i know what your thinking, he isnt alone, he sleeps in a room jam packed with children so why should he ever feel alone?
That's because like a lamb born in Winter, he doesn't have a flock.
The kids here don't like him,
The caretakers don't remember him unless he speaks up,
He has to clean his own messes, make his own lunches and play his own games he made all by himself.
If anything he likes that.
“Im a big boy” is what he’d tell himself,
After cleaning up the juice he spilled over his clothes,
Playing his own games while all the other kids at the orphanage played tag,
What he’d tell himself through tears as he cleaned up his bloody knee after the older kids pushed him into the concrete for the third time that week after asking to join their game of tag
“Ill be really fast! I can even be IT if you want!” is what he'd tell them before feeling the familiar sensation of hands on his back pushing him to the ground.
He learnt to stop asking after that.
Carefully walking into the kitchen he grabs a glass of juice and a leftover brownie from desert the night prior
His pyjama pants almost slip down his legs, theyre way to big for him, the caretakers (when they remember him) tell him he’ll grow into them.
Oh how he can't wait to grow up and get his quirk
What if he gets his quirk today?
What if he becomes japans next All Might!
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He spends the next few hours of being awake imagining his adult-self saving the world from villains and bad people.
When the other kids wake up and make their way down the stairs to the dining hall, thats when hitoshi’s quirk comes in
He approaches one of the kids his age, Kenji.
“Can I play with you guys today?” he thought that maybe since it was his birthday they would let him.
That's when he feels the pull of something in his mind, it feels good so he keeps tugging on it until he has a mental grasp on it, that's when he notices kenji not answering so he just demands this time
“Let me play with you!” Kenji immediately moves with an absent looking expression and gives hitoshi space to sit.
Shinso smiles, maybe he’ll make friends today.
That's when Keira, an American woman whose quirk was to feel when other people activated their quirk approached them seriously
“Who here is using their quirk! That's not allowed, you boys should know it.” she says sternly, she's normally a very nice woman but she's a sucker for rules.
A few of kenji’s friends speak up, shinsou doesnt know their names, they just laugh at him anyways “No one is, we don't have quirks,” “it wasn't me” “its probably that freak hitoshi”
The freak comment hurt shinsou a bit, he really didn't like being called a freak.
“I don't have my quirk yet” shinsou defends himself by saying, that's when Kenji gasps and comes back into focus, he starts hitting shinsou while crying, screaming “VILLAIN! YOUR A MONSTER”
Shinsou just guards his head, he learnt to do that during his foster with that musutafu couple, the ones that beat him.
Keira removes Kenji’s hands and asks “what happened?”
“That freak used his quirk on me, he brainwashed me into agreeing with him! Ut happened after he asked me to play. Get him away!” he starts crying even worse, “HES A VILLAIN! GET HIM AWAY FROM ME!”
On July 1st, hitoshi’s fourth birthday was the day he got his quirk.
Hitoshi’s fourth birthday was also the day he got muzzled for the first time.
That would be something that would happen a lot during his time before UA.