Chapter Text
When Izuku Midoriya was 12 years old, he lost his other half.
He was born a twin to his sister, Naki, who protected him. She played with him, laughed with him... protected him.
When they were both 'diagnosed' as quirkless, Izuku had broken, and when he thought back on it, these years later, he thinks about how she must have broken too. He had asked their mother If he could still be a hero, even without a quirk. She said no.
He had sobbed into their mothers chest that day, but Naki was the one who comforted him. Not his mother. Her. His mother had simply offered apologies, like that made it hurt any less. Naki had smiled at him, told him that his lack of a quirk didn't make him lacking as a person. That he would just have to work harder than anyone else in order to achieve his dream.
Naki was everything, which was rather funny considering that her name literally meant 'nothing'. And they were both so alike that their mother joked sometimes that she was actually nothing and that she was just an Izuku clone.
Izuku could tell that this bothered Naki. She wasn't planned, their parents had only planned to have one kid, and Naki had hidden so well on the ultrasounds that they hadn't even known she was pregnant with twins until she went into labor early.
Inko joked all the time that the reason Naki's name meant 'nothing' was because she panicked because 'she had nothing to name her'. She and her friend Mitsuki would laugh, and so would their friend Kacchan. Izuku and Naki laughed along because, it was funny.
And then it wasn't.
Because Kacchan got his. And they didn't. Izuku and Bakugo wanted to become the greatest hero duo the world had ever seen. Naki wanted to be a rescue hero. She wanted to bandage people, take care of them, then pull them out of the rubble when their lives were falling apart.
When they were four years old, she received a mini first-aid kit for their birthday. She took it everywhere with her, patching up kids at the park, and playing doctor with Izuku at home. They both loved it.
They would always play heroes first. She would pretend to need saving, then he would swoop in shouting that 'I am here!' and fight the villain. Then they would switch and she would patch him up, saying how brave and awesome he was for stopping the villain, but he must be more careful, because otherwise, who would save them if he was hurt?
Then, when they were told they were quirkless, everything changed. And so did everyone.
Kacchan began calling Izuku 'Deku' Which meant useless, and when Naki yelled at him, he shoved her to the ground hand said she didn't even need a nickname, because her name already meant that she was nothing.
They both went home crying that day.
When they got older, the bullying got worse. Their belongings were destroyed, their desks trashed, and they were frequently beaten for the crime of still dreaming to one day become heroes.
Naki often to the brunt of it. The bullies didn't hate her any more than Izuku, but she often stepped between them. And when the bullies finally stopped, they would drag themselves home and patch themselves up before their mother got home.
Izuku liked to joke that they were getting tons of first aid training, and that this would totally make them better heroes. Naki would smile, but as the years went by, she grew quieter, and as the bullying got worse, so did Izuku.
Soon, they sat quietly in the back of the classroom, not really speaking. They had learned that raising their hands to answer questions only resulted in mockery and later cruelty, so they stayed quiet. Izuku never really could get rid of his mumbling habit, but Naki always took the fall, and the detentions, for him.
Naki was his best friend, and she promised, on nights when their bruises and burns and black eyes kept them awake, that she would make sure that they both became heroes. She made that promise dozens of times. While making sure they studied enough to know the material but both got enough wrong answers the teacher wouldn't fail them for cheating, while dabbing at his split lip he got from a beating he never started but still got punished for, and on nights when their wounds kept them awake lying in her bed across the room from him she stretched out her arm and touched her fingertips to his. It was something they made up as little kids. It meant ' I'm here, I love you, we've got this, don't give up'.
Sometimes, when he had time to think, when he was alone, either in detention without Naki, or in the shower, or even in the moments between sleeping an dreaming, that maybe she worked so hard to convince him he could be a hero, because it was proof to her that she could also make it.
She was the one that made the exercise schedule, getting him up early so they could go for runs before school. She and Izuku did the shopping for their mother, who was rarely home, so she planned meals so they would stay healthy and get stronger. She looked over his 'Hero for the future' analysis notebooks and helped him see new angles, or add in details he had missed. They were always right next to each other, lifting each other up, supporting one another, running side by side towards their dream.
Izuku could look to the future, and see a future, even though everyone told him and Naki it was hopeless, impossible, that they should give up and stay down in the dirt where they belonged. But they didn't. They were going to go to UA and become heroes.
To do that though, they needed good grades and records. But when they got grades higher than Bakugou, he exploded (literally) and called them cheaters, saying there was no way some nulls got better grades than him. The teachers always took his side and failed them, then gave them detention for cheating. It took both of them years to learn how to score in each subject, scoring lower than Bakugou, but still high enough to pass. That took care of their grades.
Their records might as well have been a joke. They were blamed for everything. Every beat down was turned into a fight they instigated that the brave students fought back from. The death threats written and carved into their desks was ' attention seeking behavior'. When they cred, they were 'Hoping to emotionally manipulate the teacher into punishing students who had done nothing wrong'
So, they did nothing. They didn't fight back against their beatings, they cleaned their desks before the teacher could see, and stopped crying when somebody other than them was around. They had stopped telling their mom about the bullying ages ago, but they learned saying they had detention just made things worse. So they made up clubs, and hang outs with friends and having 'just so much fun we lost track of time'.
But the worst thing started during their 1st year of middle school. When the spider Lillies showed up on their desks, first sporadically, then daily. Everyone in class would turn to them when they came in, anticipation on their faces, wondering how they would react this time.
At first they cried. Not the messy, ugly crying they did in private, but the silent kind of crying you do when you want to stop but can't. Then, they learned to stop. That the teachers didn't care and that they would be blamed. So they stopped crying and reacting to the flowers and the death threats on their desks and the tacks in their shoes.
And Naki would take the flowers home and place them in mason jars with water. She would put them on their windowsill and tell Izuku that they were a reminder. A reminder of what they were fighting and working towards.
Then one day, a day like any other, Naki got between Izuku and Kacchan. He had slammed his hands on Naki's desk, explosions popping on his hands, and screamed his usual death threats at them. But his eyes had flickered to Izuku, and he snarled something that only Naki could hear with a sneer on his face. She had turned back to look at him, and he remembers that look. It was full of something he couldn't place until much later.
It was fear. Fear and something else that even to this day he couldn't quite place. But he remembers it because it was the last time he saw her face. And then she'd turned back to Kacchan and nodded. She didn't say anything to him, but she nodded. And to this day, when he can't fall asleep sometimes all he can think about was what Kacchan had said to her. And why she had agreed.
And when the teacher came in, everyone went back to their seats, the show of the morning was over. It was normal, routine. And the teacher gave her detention and the school day ended and Izuku went home to wait for Naki to come back so they could get groceries.
They were running low on eggs and rice and a couple of other things that for the life of him, Izuku just can't remember. But he can remember those two. Because he can remember walking to the school with their small wagon because they always got the really big bags of rice to save money. And he remembers thinking that they had to get there soon because they got their eggs from old lady Makino who had a stall of fresh produce and eggs that they always tried to visit because she had a grandson who was also quirkless and she gave them discounts.
He remembers thinking all of that, and then smelling the blood. And then he heard the laughter. And then he had left the wagon in the middle of the sidewalk and he's running as fast as he can because someones hurt and Naki always patches up people who are hurt but they're right by the school and there's laughter so what if Naki's the one who's hurt. Then, he saw them. The two kids who always hung around Kacchan in middle school. He remembers their laughter and their pointing to the alleyway between the school and another building that is used for the service entrance.
Then he sees it. The pool of blood.
It's big.
Too big.
Too big for a person to have survived.
Tsubasa, who has bright red wings, spots him first. He nudges the kid next to him, Yubito, who can stretch out his fingers, turned to Izuku and when he saw what her was looking at he smirked.
"You thinking of joining your sister Deku?" He had said, and Izuku could remember clearly that was the moment it felt that his heart stopped.
Tsubasa had grinned then, seeing his face pale, "Yeah, your null of a sister finally kicked the bucket, when are you going to?"
Izuku couldn't remember if the had said anything after that. all he knew was that when he was aware of himself again, he had been kneeling next to the pool of blood his eyes not tracking much, until they landed on something bright red. A shoe. He recognized it because it was the only brand of shoe made for quirkless people because of their weird foot structure. He had a pair on now. and the only other person who he knew of that worse shoes like him was...
He had thrown up then right next to the pool of blood. And once he started he couldn't stop because the only thing on his mind was 'Naki's dead. I'm alone now'.
He came to a while later laying next to his vomit. He doesn't remember anything that happened between him throwing up and that moment, but he was covered in scratches that he must have done to himself.
Eventually he dragged himself to his feet and to the police station. He knew they probably wouldn't do anything, but they would call his mom to pick him up, and he didn't think he could at the moment.
When his mom had come rushing into the police station asking questions about how he was doing, and how he had gotten hurt and was he sure he was okay? He had to look at her and tell her that Naki was dead. That's what broke him, having to say out loud that his other half was gone. And that she wasn't coming back.
His memories start up again the next day, which makes sense, seeing as he must have passed out at the police station. His mother told him 2 days later over dinner that the police couldn't find her body and had given up.
He knew that the police don't care about quirkless people, nobody does, but his mom loved them both so much surely this wan't all the could do, right? He knew his sister was dead, he just wanted a body to bury. He remembered looking up at her and asking in a small voice if she could maybe ask them to just look for a little longer.
She had looked at him with tears in her eyes and asked if he thought she was such a horrible mother that she wouldn't have already done that. His heart had dropped as guilt swallowed him, how could he think she wouldn't have already pleaded with everybody to help find his sister?
His mother had always had problems with her self esteem, and took things the wrong way sometimes, so he spent time kneeling next to her reassuring her that he loved her and had just wanted to have his sister back. He ended up sleeping next to her that night.
A few days later they held a small service for Naki. Nothing fancy, his mom had said she wouldn't have wanted something lavish anyways. And a few days after the service he went back to school.
School was hell after Naki died. When he had walked into class that day, Nakis' desk had already been removed, like she had never existed in the first place. The teacher told the class that day that Naki had died, even though the school had received word of her death days ago, so the teacher had known for days, and just wanted to tell the class while Izuku was there.
And the class had erupted into cheering and laughter. They had thrown paper in the air like it was some sort of celebration, and jeered to Izuku that of course she had died, she was quirkless, weak, he should follow in her footsteps and stop being a drain on resources. They told him to stop dreaming, stop trying, stop hoping that he would amount to anything other than a grave right next to Naki's.
And the worst part of all of that? He believed them. Naki had been the strongest person he knew. She had always pushed against the injustices she saw. She had been the one to find Makinos produce stand and insist they go because she sent money to her daughter with the quirkless son. She had turned their childhood dreams of becoming heroes into actual work with results. They had gained muscle together, had counted calories and protein and fats together, and they had checked each day off their calendars, counting down the days until the UA entrance exam.
Doing things alone that he had used to do with her, and that she had dragged him along to do sometimes, hurt. So he stopped. It hurt to go to old woman Makinos' stand to buy food from her when he had so many memories of him and Naki going there together. So he stopped. He stopped planning healthy meals with just the right balance of everything. He stopped eating as much really, and without Naki there, he lunches always seemed to be stolen or knocked out of his hands. He stopped going for early morning runs, now he slept in. Sleeping allowed him to forget.
And so his muscles withered away and his cardio stamina dropped, and he was weak. Just like everyone said he was. And in moments when everyone laughed at him for being weak, quirkless, useless, he thought that at least now, he looked the part.
He stopped doing almost everything except writing in is analysis notebooks. She had done that with him sometimes, but it was tied to him, meaning that he could do something without it being connected to Naki, so he threw himself headfirst into it.
So when Kacchan threw number thirteen out the school window and it landed in the koi pond outside, and when he told him to 'pray you'll be born with a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive of the roof of the building' all he could do when he fished it out was cry.
And when All Might left him on the roof of that building and told him to 'be more realistic' for a second he considered it. He considered letting go. His sister had been stronger than him and she had ended it, couldn't he?
But he had shaken that thought away, he couldn't do that to his mother, she had bought him whatever All Might merch he wanted, and loved him twice as much now that there was only one of them him.
And after he had saved Kacchan and started to walk home and All Might himself said that he had the heart of a hero, he broke down, because all might was going to train him to be a hero, and give him his quirk.
And the thought that kept running through his head was that he was going to be twice the hero as everybody else. Because he was going to be a hero for both himself and Naki.