Kazuki Yoru's earliest memory was the click of his mother's heels against asphalt as she walked back to the car, leaving him standing in the shadow of the Rising Sun Orphanage. She hadn't hugged him. Hadn't even looked at him. Her tailored suit gleamed under the sun, and her voice, colder than the winter wind, had sliced through the silence: "If you can't be a hero, be invisible." The driver tossed a frayed backpack at his feet. Inside, a single envelope—"Don't come back."—and a stale rice ball. He ate it sitting on the orphanage steps, crumbs sticking to his trembling fingers.
The orphanage was a graveyard of forgotten children. Kazuki's bed was a thin mat in a room shared with seven others. Hiro, a boy with pink hair and shark-like teeth, became his personal tormentor. "Quirkless?" he'd sneer, poking Kazuki's ribs. "Even my quirk's better! Watch this!" Hiro would press a finger to someone's arm, and they'd scratch until their skin bled. The others laughed. Kazuki didn't. He'd retreat to the bathroom at night, scratching stick figures into the walls with a stolen nail. Faceless heroes. Faceless villains. All the same.
Mrs. Aoki, the caretaker, had the patience of a wilted flower. "Stop wasting time with scribbles," she'd scold, scrubbing his ink-stained hands raw. "You'll end up a beggar." But Kazuki kept drawing. On napkins, on old newspapers, on the soles of his shoes. Art was the only thing that didn't demand a quirk.
By 12, the taunts had teeth. "Your parents paid us to take you!" Hiro spat one day, dangling Kazuki's sketchbook over a trash fire. The pages curled to ash—heroes dissolving into smoke. That night, Kazuki climbed the orphanage gate and didn't look back.
The streets of Musutafu were unforgiving. He slept in cardboard boxes behind ramen shops, stole onigiri from konbini trash bins, and painted murals on dumpsters. His masterpiece? A grinning All Might on the side of a public toilet, the hero's smile cracked and peeling. "Even symbols rust," he muttered, tossing the spray can into a river.
Weeks later, he found shelter in an abandoned warehouse near the rail yard. Its walls were canvas: a green dragon coiled around shattered windows, its eyes glowing with stolen neon. Here, Kazuki hoarded scraps—a moth-eaten blanket, a chipped mug, a knife with a broken tip. He named the place "The Dragon's Den" and pretended it was a hero agency.
One evening, as he added scales to the dragon, voices pierced the silence.
"S-Stop! Eu não fiz nada!"
Outside, a blond boy with spiky hair and a temper hotter than a villain's quirk had a green-haired kid pinned to the ground. "Think you're hero material, Deku?" the blond snarled, sparks popping in his palms. "You're nothing! A NPC!"
Kazuki's body moved before his mind caught up. A rotten plank—leftover from the warehouse door—was in his hands. He swung.
FENDA.
The blond crumpled. The green-haired boy stared, tears mixing with freckles. "Wh-Why…?"
Kazuki dropped the plank. Blood speckled his shoes. "Broccoli… guess this is goodbye," he mumbled, already sprinting away. His lungs burned. Did I kill him? The thought chased him back to the warehouse, where he slammed the door and slid to the floor, hands shaking. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."
Days passed. No police. No news vans. The blond was alive—Kazuki overheard two salarymen gossiping about a "UA hopeful with an explosion quirk" getting knocked out in an alley. Relief tasted bitter. "Heroic debut: assaulting children," he muttered, carving a tally into the wall. Mark 14: days since he'd spoken to another human.
Hunger eventually drove him out. Night had draped Musutafu in neon—billboards flashed ads for Endeavor's agency and a rising star named "Ground Zero." Kazuki trudged past them, hands stuffed in his threadbare hoodie. The 24-hour konbini was his oasis; the old shopkeeper sometimes traded expired snacks for doodles of cats.
Tonight, the store was empty save for the clerk, a hunched man with a caterpillar quirk (tiny legs wriggling along his neck). Kazuki grabbed an onigiri—salmon, maybe—and nodded at the old man.
The door chimed.
"Money. Now."
A man filled the doorway, skin jagged and gray like quarry stone. His quirk, probably. A pistol wavered in his hand.
The clerk froze. "P-Please…"
Kazuki sighed. Of course. A two-bit villain robbing a konbini in the age of All Might. He raised his hands, voice flat. "Don't shoot. I've got a date with a dumpster tomorrow."
The robber's eyes narrowed. "Shut up, brat!"
"Seriously, though," Kazuki edged toward the snack aisle, "you know Endeavor patrols this block, right? Guy's got a temper worse than yours."
"I said SHUT—"
Kazuki hurled a bag of rice chips at the man's face. The robber stumbled, cursing, as Kazuki dove behind the counter. "Call the heroes!" he barked at the clerk, who was now a quivering cocoon on the floor.
"Y-You're a kid—"
"And you're a caterpillar! Move!"
The robber recovered, stone fists smashing the register. Yen coins rained down. Kazuki grabbed the fire extinguisher beneath the counter—"Hero 101," he'd read in a discarded manual—and yanked the pin.
White foam engulfed the room.
"YOU LITTLE SHT!"* The robber flailed blindly. Kazuki scrambled past him, snatching the onigiri and a handful of cash. "For the damages," he called, bolting into the alley.
The city roared around him—sirens, shouts, the distant hum of a helicopter spotlight. Kazuki ran until his legs gave out, collapsing behind a dumpster. His hands reeked of metal and soy sauce. "Heroic act #2: theft," he wheezed, biting into the onigiri.
Above, a billboard flickered. All Might's grin beamed down, pixelated and eternal.
"...Loser," Kazuki whispered, tossing a rock at the screen. It missed, clattering into the dark.
Somewhere in that darkness, something glinted. A fleck of green, buried in trash.
He almost didn't see it.
Almost.
To Be Continued…