Prelude 2/6

[Your memories are a farce of your amnesia.] -Antlike

-*-

The story I'm going to tell you is not a very happy one.

In fact, the story is rather cold.

It is a very old one, you don't have to believe it.

In the end, there's a kid crying.

Let's begin, shall we?

Year 20XX, after the incident.

Two small legs could be seen coming out of the debris of the fallen house.

"Here! I see someone! A kid!" Someone shouted.

Around them, the fire was raging and threatening to reduce to ashes anything near it.

Fortunately, the fire was being subdued by the men dressed in red, the firefighters.

After a few minutes of decreasing the fire around where the legs were spotted, the men hurried to move aside the charred pieces of wood on the kid.

"That's the last one guys! Let's do it!"

They seemed to shout something. The kid did not really pay attention to what they were saying. He couldn't.

Once the wood was lifted, the firefighters were all scared shitless to what they were saying.

The whole upper body of the child was missing, it was as if it just disappeared. Strangely enough, there was not any sign of blood.

"The fuck is that?! Who could have done that to a kid?!" One of the firefighters exclaimed, saying the half body.

"No, look at that white smoke." One of them pointed to the weird smoke which was gathering where the upper body should be.

A few seconds ago, their questions were answered as they saw the body, or more like the kid whole, without any sign of being crushed by the fallen pillar.

"Stop looking so amazed at him guys." One of the firefighters moved toward him and once he checked that he did not have any sign of injury on him, took him in his arm.

The kid seemed to have approximately 4 to 5 years.

A few moments later, once the man with the kid in his arms was far enough from the incident area, he made the kid sit in a chair nearby.

As he looked more carefully at the kid, he saw that small tears were flowing from his eyes.

Eyes which were from a blinding silver, almost shining in the night.

"How are you kid? Are you hurt somewhere?" He asked.

Maybe the kid had some internal injuries which could not be seen from the outside.

The kid did not immediately reply.

He sneezed and said, after wiping his tears...

-*-*-

'...I'm cold.'

The morning breeze awoke me.

It is weird but not unusual.

My quirk gives me a fairly high thermal resistance against cold temperatures. I don't know how and why this particular breeze awoke me...

Well, thinking about it longer than needed is useless.

"Today is the day we chose our highschool huh?" I said aloud, looking at my bag near my room's door.

Half an hour later, I was done with my daily human needs.

I took my bag and looked at the time on my watch.

"7 am, just like usual." I went down the stairs and put my bag in front of the door.

I took my usual breakfast, some scrambled eggs with fig bread and a glass of fresh apple juice.

God, I love apple juice.

Once my breakfast was over, I went to my living room and switched on the TV.

Some reportage about heroes again. How heroes were the good side and how villains were monsters... How boring.

I mean, they want to make the world believe that people are born as villains and some as heroes.

People don't just jump out of the womb and immediately become heroes or villains.

This is a slow process where society has a big part of responsibility in it.

As I said earlier, people are pushed to become villains, as much as they are pushed to become heroes.

Does this guy have a quirk that allows him to look into the thoughts of others? That's a villainous quirk! Let's discriminate against this guy even though he wants to be a hero!

Quirk discrimination.

The plague of our society, and certainly of the whole human race.

How many people have been pushed toward the villain path thanks to our great judgments biased by the heroes?

The number must be way too high to be quantified by humans.

"Disgusting." That was all I could say, as I switched off the TV and walked toward the door.

Once again, heroes were praised for stopping a villain from being 'villainous'. If they just saved the people like they always promise, I doubt the number of villains would be so high right now.

But I know, that my wishes are only plain phantasies. Such a society can't exist, otherwise, it would be a utopia.

Swinging my bag on my shoulder and taking my shoes, I looked at my watch.

"7:45 am"

I opened my door and was welcomed by the rising sun, and a blonde girl looking at me with her usual pissed off eyes.

It's going to be a really long day, I can feel it.

I simply walked toward her, not forgetting to close the door behind me.

Once I was close enough for her to see precisely my expression, my usual smile emerged on my face, replying to the scowl of the blonde beauty now in front of me.

"Mornin' Katsu~!"

"Stop wasting my time air-head." Was her reply, as she started to walk toward our school.

-*-*-

"What's your name kid?" A man whose face could not be seen, as it was hidden behind his helmet's visor.

"Eizen Kumo." The kid replied.

He had a blanket on him. He surely was cold. It was a winter night after all.

"Do you know where are your parents?" The man asked another question to the kid hoping to find more about the circumstance of the incident.

"They-"

-*-*-

"Kumo stop sleeping in class!" The teacher's voice was heard by the blindfolded student, shaking him from his dreams.

"Huh? Ah. Sorry, Sensei." I replied shortly, wiping the drool from my mouth.

So embarrassing~ thankfully I am at the front and not a lot saw it.

"I got a bad sleep this night."

"Well, I hope that what's coming will hype you enough then! I'll be handing out printouts on your desired life-course!" She announced, making the students go absolutely wild.

They were each using their quirk as if it was impressing or something.

To be honest I could simply take piety in their act.

The majority of them would end going to an average school, being average all their lives, and do nothing with their more than average quirks.

If only they knew that their dreams would be crushed before they can even begin to fully initiate actions for their fulfillment.

"You all want to be heroes, don't you? Haha! But let's calm down, using your quirk during school is against the rules!"

"Sensei don't lump me in with everybody else!" My favorite explosive blonde shouted from the back.

"You can't compare me with these losers' weak-ass quirks! Mine's a whole other ballgame!"

Well, she is not wrong at all. I could even say that we agree.

"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten... Bakugou's shooting for UA High." The professor said.

Not a big surprise but these mobs were all surprised as if it was unexpected or something.

"You mean that national-level academy?!" "Isn't it highly difficult to get in?" "Yeah, and it's hyper-competitive!"

"Y'all are done running your mouths, peons?! I got an A on the mock-test! Eizen and I are the only ones at this school who's got a chance!

I'm gonna be the number one hero and beat that 'All Might' bastard!"

She seemed pretty fired up today, not unusual if you want my opinion.

"Now that you mention it, Kumo and Midoriya want to go to UA as well right?"

Oh~! She doomed that poor fellow in the back. Katsura's gonna blow his ass up.

A short silence of 5 seconds took place in the classroom, as everyone turned to look at the green-haired gobl- boy.

Oopsie~ almost summoned Orcbolg right there.

Well after the 5 seconds, you can imagine that everyone burst into laughter as they were mocking Izuku.

The poor guy was quirkless and still tried to be a hero. Good for him, but to be honest the probability of it happening is too low.

But who knows? Maybe he would meet a mysterious old who will give him an overpowered quirk? Just joking, there's no way it can happen.

I was lost in my thoughts for too long, I woke up by the explosion the famous blonde girl did when she slammed her hand on Izuku's desk.

The guy literally crawled until he could not crawl anymore when his back touched a wall. Man, grow some backbone won't you? Perceiving such a thing is really hurting my brain.

"You don't even have a fucking quirk! So where the fuck do you get off putting yourself on the same level as me?!"

She asked, she seemed pretty pissed at this point.

'What is the teacher doing?' Was the question in my head.

Well as I focused on her, I noticed how she was simply observing the scene.

That's how society is conditioning us to act. One student with a powerful quirk and a bright future can do whatever he wants to a quirkless kid who is so shy that I surprised him stuttering in front of his own mother.

I tried limiting the bullying he receives, but I can't always act like his guardian or whatever.

This guy simply let everything and everyone walk on him.

I can feel the heat of the situation in the back of the class heating up.

Let's put an end to it.

"The exam's hopeless for you! What can a dwe-"

Katsura's voice was interrupted by the cloud which completely wrapped her up.

"Let's not be impolite y'all." I said as I walked toward the scene. The students were splitting up, offering me a clear path toward the two main characters.

For a moment I felt like Moïse splitting the Red Sea. Only I was splitting a crowd of immature kids.

Katsura was still trying to break free from my cloud, but each part she was blowing simply reformed itself not even a second after.

"All good Izuku?" I asked him, holding out my hand to him.

"A-ah! Thanks, Eizen!"

I saw that the students were slowly exiting the classroom as the bell sounded a while ago.

At the side, Katsura stopped struggling and I released the cloud holding her.

Turning to her I spoke to her hear.

"Comfortable right? My arms are even m-" Dodging a swing of her hand, I moved quickly toward the door still dodging her swings.

I could see that her whole face was red. Was it shame or anger?

"I have to go somewhere else, I can't go home with you today Katsu~"

"If I catch you I will fucking blow your fucking ass up!"

"A lot of 'fucking', are you implying something?" I could hear her answer as I dematerialized to dodge her explosions.

It was as if the anger fuelled her quirk. Quite interesting.

I rematerialized on a roof nearby and thought about the next thing I should do.

"What to do now..."