Chapter Text
Even though he refused to let it show on his face, Shouta was excited! He had fought his way to the top of the Sports Fest, beating out everyone in the Hero Course, even that overpowered loudmouth Yamada, and now he’s been officially transferred to class 1-A! He couldn’t help the smirk that graced his face, but he did manage to hide just how proud of himself he was.
Currently, his mentor, Nedzu, was showing him various weapons he could use for mid- to long-range fighting. Shouta was quite adept at hand-to-hand combat but had agreed that the addition of a knife or two wouldn’t hurt, but he had no idea what he wanted for a ranged weapon.
After looking at a gun and putting back down, he turned to Nedzu. “I don’t know, do I really need a ranged weapon? With my quirk, I can make sure every fight is close combat.”
“True, and you will be most effective as an ambush fighter, but no hero is a one trick pony, Shouta-kun,” Nedzu replied. “The same could be said of many villains. What if one of them had a long-range weapon? I would feel better if you had another weapon for distance fighting.”
Shouta couldn’t argue with that logic, and was about to say something about how he agreed, but none of these weapons looked like what he wanted when there was a sudden pain in his upper left arm. Pulling up his sleeve he saw the outline of a Soulmark appear. His breath caught as he looked at it.
He smiled softly at his new mark – it was a bunny wearing an absurdly long scarf. The bunny was sleeping, with its ears back, and looked very content wrapped up in the long scarf. Or was the bunny tangled? Either way, the bunny didn’t seem upset about it, if the way it was happily napping was any indication.
Shouta traced the bunny and the scarf with his finger and couldn’t keep the smile off his face. All his life, he’d been told no one would ever want him, that the universe itself was showing him that he was unlovable by not giving him a soulmate, he was markless, and a villain at that. A markless villain, no one would ever want him, no one would ever love him. But here it was, the proof that there was someone out there who could love him, would love him. He wasn’t markless after all.
Shouta was just barely aware of the fact that he had tears streaming down his face as he traced his new Soulmark. Even if the 15-year age gap meant they were going to be his soul kid and not a romantic partner, Shouta would still have the love of one person. He would have preferred a romantic bond, but so long as he was able to find his soulmate, the type of bond was not important.
Nedzu had been watching as Shouta-kun discovered his mark with a small smile, and as Shouta-kun was studying his Soulmark, so was Nedzu. There was no way Shouta-kun was the bunny in that mark, so he must be the scarf. Nedzu let ideas swirl in his mind, and came up with one – maybe the scarf could be some sort of capture weapon? It seemed the bunny may be tangled in the scarf already, so if Shouta-kun could come up with a way to use a scarf as a weapon… Nedzu was already trying to come up with ideas on how to approach Shouta-kun with this idea when he wiped his tears away and spoke up.
“That scarf looks too long to be a normal scarf,” he muttered. Looking to Nedzu, he said, “Do you think it’d be possible to make a scarf into a weapon? Maybe this mark is pointing me to my weapon?”
Nedzu leveled a feral grin at him. “I was thinking the same thing, Shouta-kun!”
~#~#~#~
Shouta shot out a length of his new capture scarf and while it did hit the target, when he tried to bring it back to him, he smacked himself in the face with it.
Shouta had been in the hero course for about six months now, and his new scarf had only been finalized last week. There was a lot more involved in this scarf than simple cloth, and since the idea came from his Soulmark, Shouta had wanted to be the one to create the weapon. Nedzu helped him, of course, but most of this was all Shouta’s hard work. The scarf was primarily a metal alloy spun into the fabric, but there was also some of his DNA worked into the fabric so it would be able to benefit from his secondary telekinesis quirk.
The overpowered loudmouth Yamada had decided that they were going to be friends, and from the first week, he had demanded that Shouta call him Hizashi, and he was Shouta’s constant shadow, so when Shouta decided he had to practice with his new scarf, Hizashi followed him.
And now, Hizashi doubled over in a fit of giggles, with Shouta glaring at him. “Are you done yet?” he asked annoyed, only to be met with Hizashi’s giggles turning into full blown laughter.
Shouta rolled his eyes and shot his scarf at his friend and succeeded in wrapping the scarf around him, then tugged it, toppling Hizashi to the ground, cutting off his laughter in the process.
“Hmm, maybe I needed a human target,” Shouta mused as he untangled Hizashi from the scarf.
“Why are you even using this demon scarf, anyways?” Hizashi asked. “You can just use, like, a whip like Nem does, or a gun like Snipe, or I don’t know, something that already existed? Why’d you go and create a whole new weapon?”
Shouta wrapped his scarf around his shoulders and grinned at his friend, showing entirely too many teeth. “It doesn’t look like a weapon, so who would actually expect the scarf to be one?”
Hizashi took his turn rolling his eyes. “Seriously, Shouta, why?”
Shouta let his manic grin fall into something more natural. “Why not? None of the other weapons I looked at or tried felt right. I talked with Nedzu about it, and we both decided I should make my own weapon.”
~#~#~#~
Izuku was always a happy child, and he liked to hop around, pretending he was the bunny in his Soulmark. Sometimes, he’d even tie a few of his mother’s scarves together and wrap them around himself, truly acting out the Soulmark, much to her amusement.
All that changed the day Izuku’s quirk came in, though. Shadow Binding.
When Izuku’s quirk turned out to be so different from both of his parents, his father had been heartbroken. Hisashi and Inko were soulmates, so he never thought she’d ever cheat on him, but she must have. How else would Izuku’s quirk be so completely different from either of theirs?
But even worse than it being so different, it was villainous! Izuku could control shadows, and he could control people with his shadows. He could manipulate his shadow, and incorporate other shadows into his, and use that shadow to prevent a person from moving or forcing them to move in a way that Izuku wanted them to. He could make the shadows solid to act as a blade or a shield as well. There was nothing about this quirk that looked like either Inko’s or Hisashi’s quirks.
So, Hisashi left, and a few days later, Inko’s Soulmark turned black. He was dead.
Inko blamed her son for her husband’s death, even though there was nothing the small 4-year-old child could have done. Inko constantly blamed him for his father death, so much so that she started calling him a villain to his face. Soon after, some of the other adults started calling him a villain, and then the children did as well. Izuku started keeping to himself during those times, he would hide away in the shadows, using them as a cloak to keep himself safe. Even while at school, so long as there were shadows, he’d be safe.
He was less safe at home.
Izuku hated being at home, since his mother would lock him in his room and aim a bright lamp at his door so his shadows couldn’t escape and let him out. As soon as he got home, he would be shoved into his room, and only let out in the morning for school. His mother would occasionally have food waiting for him in his room when he got home, but not always.
If Izuku ever resisted being sent to his room, his mother would use her quirk to throw things at him, scream and shout at him, accuse him of killing his father. It was so much easier for him to just obey her and go to his room.
So really, was it any wonder that Izuku, at 10 years old, started staying out late, and not returning home until well past dark?