My twin sister, Izumi, and I are watching one of our favorite videos online. It’s the video of the number one hero’s debut! The one where All Might saved a hundred people in ten minutes! It ends with his signature smile and catchphrase, and the two of us shout it out with him!

“I am here!”

The two of us beam at each other, and Izumi easily uses her quirk to levitate our All Might action figures to us. We raise them as far as we can, and shout our goals to the roof! “We will be the twin heroes of justice! Our power will make all the villains quake in fear!” We shout our names for all to hear!

“Midokineshsu!” (Green Telekinesis)

“Midomito!” (Green Might)

Our voices overlap as we voice our team name. ““Midoyume!”” (Green Dream)

We laugh together, talking about what my quirk might be. It’s got to be something impressive if it’s taking longer to manifest than Izumi’s! We’re twins after all!

As we’re laughing together, mom comes in, smiling at the two of us. She beams at the two of us as she claps to get our attention. “Ok you two, we need to go to the doctor to get your quirks appraised!”

“”Yeah!””

We leave the room in front of mom, unaware of the worry in her gaze as she looks at her son. Once we’re all in the car, I ask mom where dad is.

“Oh, he got caught up with work again, so he’ll be coming home late again.” She sighs. She knows how important her husband is, being the number one hero and all, but it would be nice to have him home more often.

After all, she’s the number twelve hero and she still has time for her family! But that’s the price they pay for a safer Japan. She understands, and she makes sure her children don’t hold it against him. It helps that when he’s home, he showers the three of them in as much love as he can.

The entire ride to the doctor, the car was filled with the two children geeking out over heroes and quirks. Whenever Inko Yagi hears her kids praising All Might, their father, as the best hero, she can’t help but feel a surge of pride in her chest. Even without knowing that their parents are both heroes, the two admire them! But she did wish that they talked about her Hero identity, Cufflink,  more often…

She shakes her head free of those thoughts by the time they all arrive at the doctor. The person seeing them is a bald man with big green goggles with a yellow rim. But what hair he lacks on his head, he more than makes up for with his bushy mustache!

I watch him as he uses a small device and wraps it around my sister’s wrist. As he does, he explains. “This device will analyze a person’s quirk, telling us how strong it might be. Of course it is only a rough estimate, given that quirks can be trained the same as any kind of muscle.”

After he’s done with his explanation, the device beeps. Taking it off, he looks at the scream and exclaims in shock.  “Unbelievable! Without training it, your quirk will be on the level of the top pros! Do you have any idea what your quirk will develop into?”

Suddenly shy, but proud at the praise, Izumi gives a confident nod. Raising  hand, she uses her telekinesis to lift the device out of the doctor’s hand, surprising him. She brings it to herself as she beams at the man.

“Impressive for one at such a young age! You’ll go places girl!” He turns his attention to me, and I eagerly hold out my wrist for him. He chuckles at my enthusiasm before wrapping another device around my wrist.

After a few minutes of nothing happening, he frowns. Taking it off, he fiddles with it a bit before putting it back on. We wait, but still, nothing. My mother is looking worried now, but me and Izumi are just confused.

He takes it off of me again before looking at mom. “If it’s alright with you, I’d like to do a few more tests.” She nods, hoping to find out what’s wrong with her child. She knew something was off when he didn’t show any signs of his quirk a month ago like his sister when they turned four.

The doctor took some blood, and I held back my tears at the pain. A hero is supposed to make sure other people don’t have to worry, not the other way around! Still though, I appreciate Izumi holding my hand while it’s getting done.

After taking my blood, the doctor has me do a few different movements, which I do with no problem. As we go through them all, he asks me about what I want to do. So I tell him about how awesome All Might is!

By the time he x-rays my foot, I finally get to his question. “So what I want to do is become a hero like All Might, someone who helps everyone!” My mom and sister smile at my words.

Looking up from the x-ray the doctor's words erase all the smiles in the room.

“Sorry kid. It’s not gonna happen.”

The only sound anyone can hear is the clatter my All Might action figure makes as it falls to the floor.

We all stare at the doctor in shock, the silence seeming to permeate our entire beings. It’s mom that manages to break free of it first. “Oh dear, so there is something wrong with him? Most of the other kids in his kindergarten class have already shown signs of their quirks. Including his sister.” She shoots a reassuring smile at Izumi, who looks mad at the doctor’s words.

But it quickly turns to shock, and then pity, as he speaks. “I’m afraid that your son is quirkless. You see…” He goes on to explain about how people have evolved, and that the bones in a person’s foot is a sure way to tell whether or not they have a quirk. But I stopped listening after his first sentence.

Instead, his words echo in my mind. Your son is quirkless. Son is quirkless. Quirkless. Quirkless. Quirkless. Quirkless…

I think about all the plans me and Izumi have made, all relying on us becoming heroes together. We even told Ka-chan that he could join us at our agency! That made him really happy, but then he got mad when we told him that Izumi and I would be a two person team, and that we would only team up with him when we want to hang out.

He didn’t talk to us for a whole week! It was only when he excitedly told us about his quirk starting to manifest that he started talking to us again. It was a good day, and Izumi and I were super excited for when we would develop our own quirks!

But I guess that’s never going to happen for me…

The drive home is in silence, one that goes unbroken all the way home. Once there, I go to my mom’s room and turn on the computer. I watch my favorite video, over and over and over. I watch as All Might flashes his reassuring smile. As he says his iconic words. Then I do it again. Over and over and over again.

I can tell that my mom is behind me, looking at me with worry in her eyes. Slowly, I turn to her, tears pooling in my eyes. “All Might is always smiling, no matter how bad things get.” I raise a trembling finger to show her, as if it would somehow erase the time I spent at the doctor’s.

“Do you think… that I can be a hero too?” My voice is weak, and my entire body is trembling.

She grabs onto me. She apologizes. She says that she wishes things could be different. She doesn’t answer, not directly. But I know. I know the meaning in her words.

You can’t become a hero.

𝌡𝌡𝌡

“Aww, they’re so cute together!” Uraraka gushes.

“Totally!” Toga agrees.

“It kind of makes me wish I had another child…” Inko mutters, looking at alternate her’s kids.

The only ones with different thoughts are Tomura, who scowls at the hero worshiping brats, Aizawa who shrugs it off, and Nezu, who’s busy going through how having a twin sister would change young Izuku’s fate.

When they hear the blunt way the doctor bluntly tells the young boy that his dreams are unattainable, the crowd breaks out in outrage!

“That’s so unmanly!”

“Yeah! Even if he didn’t think he could do it, he didn’t have to be so mean about it!”

“I don’t like him, but I wonder if I can make him better if I let his blood gush out…?”

Inko slowly inches away from the muttering serial killer as she watches the same scene she experienced play out on the screen. The only difference is how happy the other her is about her daughter’s potential.

Nezu sips his tea while All Might winces at the familiar words. “That device would be quite useful. A shame we don’t have something similar in our timeline.”

Bakugou smirks at the screen, knowing that he had the right idea growing up. And he was right since Deku only got into UA thanks to finally developing his quirk!

“Hmm. He kind of looks like The Doctor…” Tomura mutters while scratching his neck.

When the screen shows Inko hugging her child, they all look at her. She lowers her head in shame, not meeting any of their gazes. 

Bakugou snorts. “It’s not like you can be a hero without a quirk. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But aren’t your parents supposed to encourage you, even just to show their support? It’s unmanly otherwise!”

“That’s news to me~.” They shoot Toga a glance, who’s just playing with her fingers.

Uraraka looks away. “W-well I’m sure his dad will do something!”

“... We haven’t seen Hiashi since he found out Izuku was quirkless.” Inko mutters, causing an awkward silence to fill the room.

Soahc chuckles. “Well, good thing it doesn’t seem like you married Hiashi in this timeline.”