Chapter Text

People had been stealing things from one another for a long time. Before quirks, things were different. Everyone had their skills. They used guns or terror as a means to get what they wanted, or cunning tactics. Maybe kidnapping or human trafficking, illegal gambling.

Such of the like.

In the world now, quirks were a main tool for devastation and self-proclaimed righteousness as much as they were used for destruction. But before that, things had been opposing to what the world looked like. Two hundred years, technically more, was a long time to change. Enough time to be renewed or adapted.

When quirks were still new and unpopular, people had been disgusted. Things had been different in the early days. Meta Abilities had been frowned upon, labeled inhumane—things that made no sense in the long run. People had always been cruel, had always targeted a specific group. What was deemed the lesser kinds of people. Back then, the only difference was that the quirkless were the majority, and the quirked were the minority.

In today’s world, people were still changing. Things always changed. It was the opposite. The majority of Japan’s population had a quirk, and most of the world carried the same expectation.

Japan had less than five percent remaining, and so those without any abilities were cast aside—some killed, some chased down. Suicides were common. That was the statistic, the code, the numbers on screens and on papers. Spoken of, at least, when tongues tripped up inside someone’s mouth and they watched their youngest child die in front of them. Return to find their bodies, blood in the bathtub, empty pill bottles or a rope from the ceiling fan. People returned from work and school to find death in their homes, and others came home and decided life was not worth continuing.

The quirkless had once been the majority. They used to be the normal, the ‘correct’ and proclaimed self-righteous bunch. It had been a good idea to separate people based on traits that were past their control, but that was how things always started. The massive things, the ones that grew and poisoned everyone involved. Aggressors and the victims, the prosecuted and the prosecutors. The hunted and the hunters.

People called them cattle, pests—animals to be dealt with. Problems, things only good for the benefit of the quirked. Power was where one’s respect and life lay, where they got their value. If you did not have a quirk you were taught to be worse than the actual animals in pastures and farms.

So the quirkless laughed once their aggressors left, and it became a thing. So many small things turned real, turned into culture, a preference amongst the social norm for the powerless.

They pierced one of their ears, either or, and let a tag hang down. Any message they wanted, any number or kanji, or nothing at all. If you had two tags you were a late bloomer, a double lace as you would probably be called—and if you had only one, you were the cattle the people so desperately wished would be killed.

You were cattle, and you would be eaten by society in some way or another. You would die.

Until then, welcome home, welcome home.

Communities became a thing. There was safety in numbers, in familiarities. People grouped together, hid amongst the public. They slipped into alleys and traded their hair for hats and their eyes for thick glasses, coats and school bags swapped out for new identities. Names forgotten, replaced by aliases that were thrumming in the depths of their minds.

Safe Havens. The quirkless started to isolate themselves, the older generations setting up pathways for the next batch of unlucky children to have a way out of the society they were born into. Communities bloomed like hidden gardens, and through the grapevine, the next generation of children learned which roads to take and which subway system to get lost in.

No one went looking for them, so running was easy—it had always been easy, as long as no one was chasing you down. You could hide and run and trade your life for a new one.

People discovered the abandoned railroads and old train tracks. They walked through cities and streets decimated by villains that were never repaired. No funding meant no rebuilding, and so the quirkless flocked to the outer rings, began creating things to signal safety and home. It was why people would say welcome home when they met you, when they saw your shoes and your pierced ear and knew you were one of them. Another freak, another bystander, another child with the same guidance put into your mind.

So the quirkless made communities, built them up with lies and laughs and cunning eyes. Red shoes covering socks, and pierced ears for an ironic display of uselessness. The older generations started the codes, and the younger ones began developing the culture even further.

A language between those with no powers, with a bad outlook on society. Home was where safety lay, and if you walked fast enough at night, someone might just notice you and help you along your way. Some of the quirkless never left their communities once they entered, gained their keep and made a world within the palms of the people who were just like them.

The old systems were resolved by new ones, and soon things were painted into every quirkless person’s mind. If you were in the right area at the right time, you would find someone willing to lead you to a site. An entrance.

You were taught these things. You would not find the culture written on paper and you would not find it posted online. You would learn it solely from another one of you, another from the group you were so often shoved into.

Any life you lived would only ever be of value to the people who cared, or the people who thought they were entitled to your very existence just because of a genetic design.

When the first few communities were created, they were sectioned off through words and groups meeting in silence. A lot of the history was lost to most people’s minds, old with age, centuries of time—at least three hundred years of development. Some of the original havens were in the middle of cities, in large and prospering districts. Others were in mountains, in old towns that had lower than a thousand people within. Communities popped up with marks and tallies, with older people walking around and working in broad daylight. One pierced ear and red sneakers, white soles and whit laces. Wide eyes that watched for you, and maybe even a place set aside that you would know to go to.

The difference was that now, while most people had quirks, those without any were closely knit into the communities and sanctuaries that they created so long ago. The difference was that now, codes were used to determine exactly which unit and which part of every community you were in.

Downtown communities were the safest.

It was a play on words, perhaps, but it was true. They were hard to enter, even harder to find.

When people said shit like he lives downtown, you won’t ever find him they meant it. They would smile and laugh, a weird glint in their eyes. Living downtown was more than just the wrongness of rundown areas. It was being in a whole new world, one that was further than just being in a secluded part of the country.

Downtown communities were secret, were the kinds that people created for themselves. It was almost like an entire organization, an entire section of maybe a thousand people spread out in what could quite literally be called an underworld. Downtown safe havens were underground. Truly.

It was a different world, one that only a small number of people would ever know about.

—

When you become quirkless—when you are quirkless, everything you could and should have had gets stolen. When you are called a pest, they steal your life and steal your chances. Burglaries that no one would ever try and give you justice for.

When you are stolen from as a quirkless individual, you learn to get yourself your own justice, because you would have already known that no one would ever be on your side.

You were robbed. You were always going to be robbed.

—

Izuku had been four years old when he had been diagnosed quirkless. He had been five and a half when the bullying started, when the actual mocking and disgust became directed at him. When he was picked on for liking heroes and wanting to be one, when he was called weak and useless.

He was seven when he was first called livestock—another number in a spreadsheet. Cattle. The kid who called him such had been laughing, poking fun at his freckles and small arms and curly hair. “You’re the odd one out, Deku, just run. Go back to a pasture with all the other freaks.”

With those words, Izuku learned fast, and was broken in faster. He was not dumb. Children like him had lower chances of making it past the age of eighteen. It was even less likely for him to make it to twenty-one, let alone live a full life. He had been faced with that awful reality when he was seven, and had been introduced to an opening of safety three days later.

A college kid was looking at him, a matching pair of green eyes meeting his own.

He was hiding in an offshoot of a park, bruises over his face and arms, blisters across his wrists from where Kacchan had blown him up with small pops and sparks.

“Kid?” They asked, tipping their head to the side. Long blue-green hair swayed, tied into many locs. They had a piercing in their left ear, a tag that looked distinctively like a farm animal’s own, and then a piercing through their septum. There was a small pattern of an upside down umbrella under their left eye, possibly a tattoo. It was painted white, a contrast to the darker complexion they had.

Izuku wanted to cry. Tears were still streaming down his cheeks, and he huddled closer to the wall he was pressed against.

He was in an alley, only a few streets down from one of the public parks near his neighborhood. School had released probably thirty minutes ago, but his classmates had followed him through the park and Kacchan had teased him mercilessly—starting off friendly, almost, as if things were fine before he grabbed Izuku and just seemed to lose it. Fiery hate, fiery violence, the smoldering of ash and cackling of explosions.

He had ran so fast, had kicked the boy in the shin and bolted. An impulse made of luck, of fear, of something sharp and ugly. Cattle can buck.

The college kid frowned, eyes softening, as of in understanding. They wore an exact pair of red shoes, too. There were sharp scars along their jaw and neck, like electrical burns that had healed but never fully. The child stared, eyes wide and wet, and he connected the invisible dots.You’re like me.

After a moment, they smiled softly, their frown thrown aside. “You shouldn’t be out alone, kiddo. It’s going to get late.”

They kneeled on the concrete, holding out a hand. He looked at their shoes and then his own, at their scars and earring, and then to the ring in their nose. He swallowed thickly, knees weak, and extended his own hand—blistered and red with inflamed skin—to accept the offering before him.

“You’re like—like me,” He whispered, weakly, and the older one blinked.

It was trusting, a weak thing. He never met people like him. He never saw others wearing his shoes, or being so willing to help him even after they identified him to be quirkless.

(Worthless.)

A second hand stretched out, and they hissed lowly when they saw the damage on the child’s hands. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. What happened to you? Who did this?”

Careful hands, almost as careful as his own mother’s. They watched Izuku, now, eyes wide. Green and atrociously bright, a sea-monster in the waking, a thunderous storm made of spring water and life. Izuku hadn’t ever met another quirkless person before, but he knew they all wore his kind of shoes—the extra toe joint made other shoes too difficult to wear. They were identical, with white soles and black laces and a red material.

“My friend,” Izuku said.

It hurt, it ached, but this was it. He could handle it! They called him all sorts of mean things, told him he was never going to get far without a quirk, but one day he might get his and things would be different. Kacchan was still learning, really, so it didn’t even matter.

“Friends don’t do this, kiddo.” The stranger shook theor head. They glanced at his hands again, still carefully holding them by the sides of his palms. They winced again, but their voice was soft. “Can I see, for a second?”

The boy, quirkless and young, merely nodded. His mother would be wondering where he was, soon, but he was just so tired and he wanted to hide forever. Kids like him always hid. Always ran. It was easiest, the internet told him, if the quirkless kept to themselves and ran—blended in quicker than anyone else. You were safer if you hid together with those you could trust, but Izuku had no one like that. Not the teachers, not the older kids, not the kids below him. Certainly not the ones in his classes.

They turned his hands over a few times, staring intently, taking in every popped blister and ragged mark. Rubbed raw, scratched and wiped at. There was cracking blood along the kid’s palms, bleeding into his wrists, drying a dark brown. There were stains on Izuku’s pants, too, his knees now smudged with dirt and grime.

“Do you have anyone who can bandage this, kiddo?” They asked, and it was a sad kind of question. Careful. Made careful, made cautious, tossed up in oils and sharp vinegars. Lemon juice squeezed directly into one’s eye, the hissing of a snake before it reached out with its fangs and decided to strike its first victim.

“Yeah,” The quirkless kid nodded, blinking wetly. He licked his lips, at the chapped skin. “My mom. She can—she will. She always does.”

His hands trembled, still being held so carefully. His mother would fret over him, and he would say Kacchan’s quirk was just so cool and very hard to control, that the quirk counseling he was in was helping and today had just been an accident. And his mother would nod, would shake her head then. Tell him to be careful, that he should keep a little distance and admire the boy from afar, that even though Kacchan was still learning it didn’t mean he had any excuse to accidentally blow up around Izuku.

“Alright,” They said, nodding. But they paused, watching him. For a second they looked away, down to the mouth of the alleyway, and then back at him with the same small smile from before. A genuine one, sincere and sorrowful. “I don’t want to pry, kiddo, but these look really awful. Does your mom know how to patch this kind of thing up? It’s pretty serious.”

He did not know what to say to that, as no one ever asked if he had someone who could help him at home. No one looked twice at him, really, because quirks going off at this age normally were an accident of some kind so it just—it made sense not to worry, really. It was just that the seven year old was too trusting. He was trusting and scared and quiet, but this person was so calm and simple, so accepting and understanding, and it was different than when Izuku talked to his mother about how isolated he felt.

After another moment, he swayed on his knees and nodded again. He blinked up at them, their smile so soft and patient even though their eyes were burning. He tried to sound brave, to sound strong, “My mom is a nurse, she can help me. She’s okay. She can bandage me up and I’ll be good to go!”

“Yeah? I’m glad,” They said, confidently, and grinned a bit more. They gently tipped his hands back down, releasing him and holding their own hands up like a kind of peace offering. “Do you know how to get home from here?”

Izuku blinked again. “Yeah, uhm. Yeah.”

They nodded, accepting, but still seemed hesitant. He wondered, if only for a moment, if they were worried.

If they weren’t leaving quickly, even though they knew he was okay, because they were worried about him. It came as a shock, really, because most kids and adults left him alone if not for the bullying and nagging.

“Kiddo, could I walk you home?” The stranger asked, carefully. They were standing, now, and Izuku was already leaning closer. A few inches more, and then he would be tucked against their arm—but that would be rude. He didn’t like it when the kids in his class grabbed him and blew air into his face. It would be rude of him to bother this person. They looked him up and down,frowning again for a brief second. “It’s going to get dark, and you look way too young to roaming out here alone.”

“Oh,” The boy said, pausing, looking at their earring and eyes and the lightning that danced across their skin in the form of pale pinkish lines. Then he smiled, weak but shining, and nodded. His hands burned and throbbed. Words spilled out of his mouth, though, raw and hopeful. “Yeah. My mom can make you tea! She knows I don’t have—uhm, friends. I don’t have them.”

Friends came and went. His mother was always so sad when he told her that they didn’t want to come over, that he wouldn’t want to bother them. He was certain she knew that he was lying,that any friends he had came in the form of imaginary whispers and the paper thin characters in books and comics. Sometimes he hoped she would one day stop asking him about his peers, about Kacchan, because he had no effort left to make up faux stories.

“I’m a bit old to be your friend, kiddo,” They said after a moment. A sad moment, maybe. Laced and threaded with the same strings that were tied across both of their pairs of feet. “But that’s not your fault. I think you’re pretty cool.”

“You do?” He asked quietly, in his own denial, his own assurance.

The stranger nodded firmly. They looked him over, grinning, as if to offer a friendly moment of connection—a successful attempt on their part, because Izuku felt like he was flying. Like he was floating, just a little. “I like your backpack, kid, and your hundred million freckles. We have matching shoes.”

“I like your tag,” Izuku said, after a long moment, his cheeks burning. No stranger was ever this nice, ever this kind. Maybe he was near the wrong people. Maybe the people were just wrong. “It—it means something, to people like us—right? I like it. I never… I never saw it before today. People just talk and talk and talk and I’m always like what do you mean?”

“You’re a chattering little guy, aren’t you?” They laughed, before shaking their head. Some of their locs had little rings on them, silver like the metal that connected the tag to their ear. “Thank you. It does mean something, yeah. It’s part of our culture.”

“Ours?” Izuku blinked. He scuffed his foot on the ground, walking quickly to keep up. He was too short to walk as fast as the college student.

“Us quirkless people, kiddo. We got the shoes, the language, and the symbols. We use the silly little earrings to show who we are,” The college student said off handedly, and gently steered him out of the alley and down to the sidewalk. Stepped over each crack in the pavement and avoided treading over the hopscotch and chalk drawing on the concrete. They looked at him, then. “Did—did no one ever teach you that?”

Izuku shook his head, following their lead carefully. His shoes scuffed over the rock and not the sketches made of too-bright and too-flimsy colors. “No. My mom isn’t quirkless. Not like me. She can move small objects! It’s really cool!”

“Ah, I see,” They etched, as if to claim something but they did not know how. Too many words, too many hours, maybe. They swallowed, their green eyes flickering from the darkening sky to the roads that weren’t quite busy yet, and then back to him. They squeezed his shoulder softly, a movement of comfort. “Kiddo, I know things aren’t the best for people like us—I know you might not understand, but keep your eyes open, okay?”

“Okay,” The boy said.

This was advice he had yet to ever hear, yet to ever be offered. He took it in stride, licked the salt from the wound and tasted it across his lips and tongue.

“I don’t know you, and you don’t know me—and that’s okay—but I want you to know that anyone with a tag means they are safe, alright?” They continued, only after he nodded again. Their eyes flickered, and their earrings swayed. They were wearing a thick sweatshirt and long pants, their red shoes standing out as a strange color. Their words were so soft, “If you need help, find someone who has a tag in one ear or a tag in two. They’re just like you, and we all stick together.”

Streetlights flickered up above. The conversation twisted and turned, shaking itself off, trembling. It was not cold out yet. It was another day, another moment of his life. A fraction of existing when all he wanted to do was curl up in his bedroom and hide. His brows furrowed, cheeks still stained red. “We all, uhm, all stick together? I—I never knew. I never knew that.”

“It’s culture, it’s a secret made for us. If you see me, I’ll see you, yeah?” They tried to explain. For the most part, Izuku understood. “Any of us can teach you.”

He looked at their cheek, at the upside down umbrella—pale blue, like the sky or robin eggs—and then the scars all over their neck and lower jaw. They paid his staring no mind, only walking a bit slower so he could keep up.

“Can my mom?” Izuku asked, hopefully.

They smiled sadly again, shaking their head at him. Not in malice, just in a no. “I don’t think so, kiddo.”

“Oh,” The boy echoed, blinking a few times. Then he nodded, shrugging, a weak lift of his shoulders. “Okay. Uhm. I’ll—I’ll look, like you said. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“Yeah. You’re not alone, I promise. There are people who know, and they’ll be your friends—better than I can be,” The stranger said, and even though their words were light and warm, there was a heavy burden to them. They carefully guided him closer to the sidewalk, away from the streets. “Now, let’s get you home. I don’t like it when you little ones are out late.”

Kids like me, kids like all my classmates. Little ones, as on children. Izuku did not mind being found by this stranger. Safety comes in many forms. Stolen by them—stolen by me.

—

He was seven and a half and in the middle of an abandoned shelter.

It was under a bridge, cars passing so far off in the distance. He was three hours away from home. He would take the train with one of these people, would return home at five am. His mother would never know where he went or how long he had been missing, because she was probably still asleep. Izuku was good about sneaking out, about running and tumbling and hiding in the alleys no one ever looked down. The quirkless learned from trial and error, and he had been alive seven years to take note.

There was smoke up in the sky, a bonfire carpeted by a young woman who had two tags in her ears and sharp red eyes. She was grinning at him from afar, singing along to a tune that the other teenagers were mumbling. Teeth and tongue, spilt liquids, a knife dangling from someone’s belt. A chain connecting it to the metal, to the leather.

He was surrounded by strangers. Two of the kids, only a few years older than him, were laughing and cackling. One of them tipped their cup, and the liquid—probably alcohol—sloshed down the plastic and their bruised fingers.

The kids were talking, mentioning life offhandedly like it was anything but what they were living.

They were smiling, a kid who looked to be nine holding a red plastic cup—the reflection of the nearby bonfire glittering in his golden eyes. Who would have guessed quirkless people were more likely to commit arson? Not Izuku.

It was the dead of night. Izuku had snuck out just to come here. He had followed the blue umbrellas, had tethered himself to a reality that a stranger shared with him on a late afternoon after he kicked his childhood best friend in the shin. Now he was here, now he was with people who looked at him and saw a child. Not a problem, not a curse, not a pathetic creature. Just a kid with red shoes and freckles and a never ending hope that burned brightly in his eyes.

He was seven and a half and high up in the clouds, fumbling with the storms, coughing when the smoke wafted close. The kids were talking, and the teenagers who were chucking shit into the fire were smiling—humming mindlessly. A tune that had to be from a long time ago, a song shared from generations.

Blood was on the ground, but so was what looked to be gasoline. Izuku was scuffling along, nodding with wide eyes. A stranger was guiding him, asking him things, brushing his hair from his face.

Quirkless people stick together, you hear me? Teeth and tongue, sharp smiles passing by. He recalled staying in the park and knowing that the elderly couple with red sneakers were exactly like him, old and soft and fallen like the snow. He recalled feeling safe when they looked his way, when they smiled at his shoes and waved with their frail hands and arthritis-ridden knuckles.

No one his age was quirkless, none at his school and none in his neighborhood, but out here it seemed the world was full of them. Red shoes and hateful eyes, curbing lips and snarling teeth. Ears with one or two piercings, tags dangling. Either with numbers and kanji and stupid pictures, symbols that had no meaning beyond the quirkless’s own knowledge, or nothing at all.

Here were two kids around his age, and college students. Three had dirt streaked on their faces, had mud on the white soles of their shoes.

It was the dead of night, and the seven year old boy had snuck out through his bedroom window. He had climbed out and carefully positioned himself so he could reach the fire ladder right by his windowsill, had grabbed the metal and slipped down so quickly. A seven year old like him, who would have guessed—no kids in this generation were ever quirkless, it seemed, let alone out so late at night. But here they all were.

“Do you want one?” They asked him, so quiet and so warm. Welcoming, almost, as if they were a family member and not a total rando who saw him wandering in circles—finding every blue umbrella in one area and not knowing where to go. They smiled, gently. “One of ours?”

Izuku felt like he was new. Like this was new, like this was a secret he would accidentally break and share.

“Aren’t I too young?” He asked weakly, wetly, because the smoke burned his eyes and reminded him of Kacchan. Kacchan, the glamorous kid he once called his best friend, the one with explosions in his palms, the one who grinned sharply and now burned him for fun.

But the stranger only looked at him, glancing at the other quirkless people under the bridge. The bonfire roared when someone threw another shirt into it, doused in gasoline. One of the older boys, with wild black hair, shouted something in what could age been clipped English—and the woman with two tags looked up from the school year book she was tearing apart.

The children with cups were laughing,calling and smiling and nudging one another. Both had tags in their ears, too, plain and plasticky. They didn’t look much older than Izuku, and it felt like his life was a lie.

A lie.

A ruined and soaked book, its pages peeling and sticking together.

Izuku was nodding, then, was letting a stranger cup his face and tilt his head to the side. They had one tag in their ear. Izuku had none—about to have one. The quirkless were not cattle, were not useless, but they acted like it.

(It was easy to lie to the masses if they never knew what to expect.)

People were laughing. There were seven of them total under this bridge, collapsed from a villain fight decades ago. They danced to fire and made jokes about death, made jokes about their broken bones and split lips. This stranger was careful with him, a child, red shoes streaked with ash and dirt. Their face was blurry, the haze of nearby smoke being enough to warrant an endless facade of disconnection.

There was a piercing snap in the kid’s left ear, a burning pierce. He got a tag, an earring. The piercing gun was old, outdated, but it was clean and Izuku felt attached. A burdensome ache, something sharp and hungry.

These people were strangers, but they wore his shoes and saw his wounds and called him sweet. They called him young. They called him stupid and naive and previous, and they were willing to walk him home and teach him the gestures made by frivolous people hundreds of years ago. One of the kids, the one with alcohol down their hands, whistled loudly in Izuku’s direction and grinned. Golden eyes burned into atrocious green.

The night was young and violent, and the ash in the air made the boy’s lungs groan. But he was surrounded by people who looked at him with hope and affection, an aimless kind of acceptance. His mother never looked at him like that, never introduced him to these things. The woman who set the bonfire was the same one he met four days after the stranger with the electrical scars came and walked him home. The quirkless folk stuck together. They played games at night, ran about, blood splattered over red and white sneakers and held their heads up high despite how they would be treated.

“There you go,” They said, and they grinned at him. Their eyes were pitch black, and they had a single tag.

Izuku wondered why they let kids get earrings so young, why the culture surrounding the quirkless was so gruesome. But he said nothing, said nothing, and only smiled wobbly. Earrings. Tags are ours. This is ours—this is mine. This will always be mine.

Someone shouted a curse off to the side, and the girl who had been laughing earlier threw her drink onto the fire. It went up, a sharp burst of heat, and two others cheered. Only one person among them had two tags. A late bloomer. Again, for a moment, he wondered if he would ever have a quirk and be like that person.

A bottle of water was in the older person’s hands, and they were uncapping it and pouring it into a red cup.

“Do we always—party?” The boy whispered. Naive, really, a naive boy for all of his life was spent by the quirked society that was as cruel as to beat on him until he cracked and splintered.

He had scars over his shoulders and hands and wrists, had burn marks and bruises. He had scraped knees that never healed before they were scraped again. But these people, they laughed like there was no tomorrow, they were still laughing now—and their gazes glimmered like the chaos that appeared in every criminal’s eye in the movies, the glint of anarchy that formed unstable and risky bonds. ‘Til death do us part, unless we decide to stay together even past the graves.

“Some of us,” They said, confidently, and that was the kicker. They reached out and tasseled his messy hair, green and dark with muck, with smoke. Their words were kind, but not without a hazy edge. “Hillside kids are always like this. We burn our shit before we die.”

Burn the belongings, leave nothing behind. This was a method used by many civilizations, by many communities and households—to leave no trace of existence was a way to wipe yourself clean on your own terms. You burned it all. That was what these kids were doing, teenagers throwing school books and clothes and uniforms into a bonfire. Cups of alcohol, of whiskey and whatever cheap booze had been purchased.

“Hillside?” The boy echoed wetly, because it was all that came into his mind.

The stranger ousted a cup of water into his hands. It sloshed and moved, raw and icy. He was surprised to see star-shaped ice cubes floating about in the plastic, and they grinned at him again.

“The Hills,” They told him. Their eyes burned like obsidian, glimmered like stones deep in the earth. “It’s our home, you know. Maybe it’ll be yours one day.”

And it was funny, then, because Izuku was no mastermind but he felt like it was a name for something big. Japan was known for their powerful heroes and their wide variety of ‘underground saviors’ so it only made sense that there was something more—a community, a location, a safe haven.

The night trekked on, and Izuku tasted vomit in his mouth. His ear throbbed, and the people whistled and sang and made noise like this was the first time they had ever gotten a chance to live in years. Maybe it was.

—

“Izuku, who did this to you?” His mother asked him again, and he had no real answer to give her. So he said what he thought, said what was in his mind.

“No one, mom, seriously.” Izuku shook his head,tears welling up in his eyes. She tugged, eyes wide and wet, and tipped his head to the side to look at the inflamed skin of his earlobe.

“But, Izuku, no—no, baby boy, this isn’t a no one did this to me situation!” She said, and she sounded angry, almost. She was worried, he knew, but he came home. He came home smelling like the earth and the streets and the night, like smoke and remnants of alcohol that burned his wounds and made the blisters on his palms and wrists feel like they weren’t there.

But it was. The quirkless people of Japan, of the world, were just a bunch of nobodies. His mother would never understand, would never know, and he was not about to try and explain it. There was no one to do this to him because no one even knew that this community existed—there was no one to have done this to him.

“No one,” He repeated, tiredly, but his voice was tearful and apologetic and dipped into this naive kind of pride. The one that was his and his alone.

Cattle, lambs to the slaughter. He had red shoes and a single earring in his left ear, a tag, a terribly blank and plain look alike to the identifiers used on cows and sheep. Animals. Livestock. Izuku was a quirkless kid, and he had things that had been stolen from him the moment he was diagnosed. All of them had.

—

The lights did not exist underground. It came as a plight, at first, because Izuku was a sick child with a sick and fallen mind. He had grown up with light and everything, his mother making sure his home was safe. Down here, it was different.

But The Hills was a haven, and the abandoned railroad tracks introduced Izuku to a world that was wide open and hidden by death and dirt. A graveyard made of ash, of rusted metal and collapsed subway systems. It was huge, a widespread system underground. No sky to be seen, no real heating or electricity. It was colder down there than up above, but the people who were walking ahead of him—with him, deep down into the grips of the darkness—were laughing and grinning.

The quirkless lived under the earth, with the roots and broken pipes. They traveled through sewage systems and entered the underground world.

They made gates and safe havens with teeth and violence with crowbars and angry snares. There was violence up above, in the uptowns. Kids like him, like Izuku, who had no other outside influence were left to discover his own community through late night adventures when he should be asleep.

Blood to blood, teeth on teeth. He learned that most quirkless kids were taught to fight at a young age if they were in the right community. The underground world, the biggest haven of them all, was called The Hills.

You were safest down there, most people told him. Those who were like him, at least, would see his shoes and see his tag and know that he was more than the unlucky child of an upsider. He had knowledge, and that meant he was one of the hillside kids, even if only through the grapevine. Not currently, but soon. That was how it worked.

Glass was on the ground—being washed into the thin film of water on the tracks themselves—and there were paintings all along the subway’s walls. Glow in the dark paint, specifically, and footprints stood out amongst the moss and dirt that was racked and piled up over the splintered concrete. An underground system, abandoned by the society it was created for—now taken over by the hated and discredited.

“Have you ever been down here?” One of them asked him—turning their head to look at him. And he smiled weakly, shivering a little as he trudged alongside them.

“Never,” He admitted. He was eight years old. “First time.”

She blinked at him. There was mud and paint over her face, and a single tag in her right ear. A sloppy smiley face was drawn on the textured surface, smudged and worn out. Her voice echoed again, “No one ever showed you this place? But you have our tags and shoes?”

Izuku shrugged again, limp and quiet—hopeful in a way he thought had gotten beat out of him months ago. Apparently not, though, for his tongue moved and his eyes were bright as he absorbed the darkness and watched shadows dance over the glowing paint. One of the kids flicked on a flashlight a few seconds later. “My mom has a quirk, and my dad isn’t in the picture—a stranger taught me. A bunch of strangers taught me.”

He was taught by strangers, for the people he actually knew all had quirks and lives. The quirkless called Japan’s streets uptowns, or the upside of things. People who lived or actively stayed in the other spots, in the sanctuaries that were hidden from most prying eyes, called it the downtowns. He saw the appeal, now, though the earth was cold and the deeper in they went the more he wished he packed an extra coat or something. His teeth chattered, and the smell of mud and water came to haunt him. It was nothing like the pollution near his home, but it did not smell like nature or trees either. It reminded him of a garden, or a forest, but without any heat or real light.

Another person flicked on a flashlight. An old woman, in pair with a man Izuku swore he recognized from the night he got his own piercing, were holding lanterns out with frail hands. They were guides, maybe, but their age led him to believe otherwise.

Maybe they were just waiting, too, visiting. They both looked no older than fifty.

“I got taught by my grandmother! She’s down here, too, with all her friends,” The girl rambled, and it made his heart hurt. She smiled at him with all her teeth. She looked about twelve, only a little older than him. She waved one hand, boots squelching in the thin layer of water they were walking through. “We can stay down here forever.”

You can, His mind whispered, a solid presence. Something hungry to latch onto, but not stay with. I can’t stay down here with you—with anyone.

“Do we need money to get in?” The boy asked, after a moment. His footsteps echoed. If he strained his ears, he could almost hear people singing further along the tunnel.

“No,” An older person, who looked about fifty-three, shook his head. He glanced backwards, long brown hair tied onto many braids. He had no name to spare, no alias to share, but he smiled in the children’s direction and nodded towards the next turn of the tunnel. “Kiddo. This is a haven for us. What would we be if we did not let each other in when we need to hide and live freely?”

Maybe it would be something real. Izuku was a little sour, because he had never been given a chance to be safe. His house was only safe when his mother took a step away, when he was alone in his head and breathing the cold air from his bedroom fan. The underground world, the one that was truly and quite literally built under the earth, was a haven he had only heard of for a few months.

The internet did not talk about this place. The quirkless people he knew never gave him names, either, and so he didn’t give his in return.

No need for names of they will all die anyway, right?

“Uhm,” Izuku swallowed, daring to ask—just to cure his curiosity. “Are there any quirks, down here? Any at all?”

“A few of us have some, yeah. Late bloomers and all that,” The girl from before smiled, her diamond eyes flashing as light danced. She sounded breezy, a small puff of air. Someone hummed their agreement from further ahead.

The neon paint rumbled and rippled as shadows passed through. The subways were alive with color, with stained murals that no one would see unless you walked closely with lights. Portraits and words, splatters of things in different languages and bubble letters. Upside down umbrellas,all spray painted in what was probably a blue color.

“Oh,” The eight year old blinked, his hands coming up to tug at the straps of his backpack.

His eyes burned, and his tongue was caught behind his teeth. He felt sick, in a way. But it was not sickness so much as it was anxiety, the idea that even in a community like his, there were still quirks amongst those as unlucky and ruined as them—

“Late bloomers are still one of us. They lived the life, and have the knowledge,” She said, nodding to herself. Her eyes were pale like lilacs, but her irises were shaped into sharp diamonds. Her voice ricocheted off the walls of the subway, and the water sloshed around both her and the other kids’ rain boots as they trudged along. “We don’t talk to normal quirked people ‘cause they can’t keep their mouths shut. We don’t risk it, not for The Hills. Not for this place. For us.”

“Do two earrings mean they’re a late bloomer?” He blurted, grabbing onto what he wanted to know. He was curious. He was aching. He was alone so often, alone with his thoughts and mind and angry little wounds.

She nodded, the movement muted and muddled by the darkness that was consuming them all.

Izuku hurried closer, shuffling along, water splashing up and across his own boots. His shoes were paired with the rubber covers, things he bought in a store specifically for the quirkless. They covered his sneakers and acted as a cloak, of sorts, to keep the shoes mostly dry. The other people in the tunnel had similar shoes, or didn’t care at all—wearing their sneakers without anything to give but their own thoughts.

“I can show you around, if you want,” She said, blinking at him.

He paused, faltering in his steps. Her gaze was sincere, an offering he did not know how to react to. So he nodded, flimsily, and out on another smile that pulled at his cheeks. “Oh, uhm, thank you.”

“Of course. I’m Yu,” The girl, now dubbed as Yu, nodded. Names were not given so easily when it came to the quirkless, to the people in The Hills. That was what everyone had told him, at least, all his friends—strangers, really, but they lived in his mind and taught him how to hold his own and where to go to hide—so they were friends-enough, in his eyes.

Life was a ragtag mix of ups and downs. People lived and they died, they explored the deaths of the sea and studied the many layers of the sky. He was grateful to be given something that most would never be, so he beamed, hoping the warmth bled into his voice. “I’m Izuku.”

Yu smiled at him in return, all bright, diamonds glittering at midnight. The water sloshed about, and neither said anything about it.

—

“We aren’t cattle,” Yu told him the third time he came down to The Hills, and her eyes gleamed.

She had been born and technically raised in the upside, just like him. She was around his age, too. He was nine today. The girl was thirteen now, as fast as he was even though the two of them rarely spoke in full conversations. They saw each other, sometimes, in parks and grocery stores in Musutafu. Looked the other way, nodded quietly and breathed slowly. Tapped once with their right feet, smiled when the unspoken question was returned with a subtle tug on their earrings.

Do you see me? Went the question, the simple gesture, a knocking of soles on the tiles of a market. And the reply, the slightest twitch of one’s gaze meeting yours. Of course I do.

She wiped mud off her face, smudged it down her jaw and let it smear across her tag. She had a bruise blooming across her eye. Blood dropped from her nose, but she smiled like a hero, like a smart kid with a sharp tongue and even sharper mind. He wondered who she had gotten into a fight with this time.

He looked at her, slightly sour, slightly curious. Spoken sadly, “Aren’t we?”

In pens, in pastures. Sanctuaries made by the older and wiser, by the people who suffered the most. The ones who hid their children, now. The ones who curled close and dug their own graves, burned their legal documents and laughed at the faces of the blood-relations who once knew them to be unfortunate, but never unhinged, never like this. Moments stolen by people who had it all, even if only a shred of it was better than that of a quirkless person’s life. Things were stolen and memories were given away.

And she stared back at him, eyes open and gaping, an endless chasm made of shadows and hatred. Something like spite, like the same sadness that consumed Izuku’s mind on a daily basis. Something that bled raw, that bled red and vermillion like any other living person. Like any other citizen. Like any other person. Quirk or not.

But she smiled, sharp and violent, and pointed to the ceiling that was hundreds of feet above them. “Maybe in the eyes of the quirked—but down here? We’re just people.”

—

Izuku had been ten years old when someone from his class reached out and cut his ear with their quirk. They had been reaching for his tag, his earring, and they failed when Izuku was quick to reel away with wide eyes and a parted mouth. His earlobe got maimed as a result, an angry gash that was clipped—like a second piercing that went wrong.

School had been living hell, and that damn tag was odd for others to see, even odder because he had been so young when he got it, but most of the kids from when he was seven were in his classes now.

It should never have been a topic, a new thing to tease him about. He looked normal in society’s eyes in comparison to the kids with messy hair and delusional eyes and a snarky personality. He was normal, if not for his shoes and many freckles and atrociously green eyes. He was normal, if not for being deemed worthless.

He had gone home and dropped his bag off in his room, had scrambled to wash his ear out a second time. He had been so careful, so scared, terrified that his tag would be tugged out. Terrified that his trait, his own thing, his little gift—whatever it was, it was his, and it was given to him by a young college kid with bright blue eyes and a single tag in his own left ear—would be taken away from him. A firm voice and nails that were painted a midnight blue. “You’re one of us, kiddo. You don’t have to be anything but one of us. Just run around for now, do what you want. Welcome home.”

The thing was none of it mattered. He would still be the quirkless kid the next day, and the day after it. He had been ten years old when he got hurt, when something he was proud about was then turned into another burden he felt shunned for even bothering on keeping.

But that had been hours ago.

Hours ago, above ground, above The Hills, back at Aldera. In the uptown, in the upside city. Izuku was down in the earth, down in the abdomen rails and tracks and old housing units made of cobble and earth and broken glass.

Now he was down in his home, in a place made for people like him. Those with tags and red shoes and bound feet, shoes made by their own hands, sandals for walking among the underground lakes’s beaches and boots for hiking around the old construction mines that were buried with time.

He sat on a storage container’s roof, knees to his chest, and listened to the echoes so far away. A girl sat next to him, flicking open a lighter and humming under her breath. From what he knew, it was a pop song from a long time ago. Something about ruling the world—though he was sure the only reason he knew the translated lyrics was because he heard the song before, too.

Shadows danced among the walls, and the fireflies buzzed about so far away.

It was home, almost right out of a fairytale. No running water, no heat, no electricity, and no law. No President. No cops. No one but the quirkless and their mismatched eyes and mismatched guts.

The stranger—he would not ask her name, and she would not ask his—lit the stick after a moment of peaceful humming. It felt right, to sit by someone just like him. Her red shoes were worn out and covered in dust. She was no older than fourteen, a lot older than him. She was probably in her last year of middle school, if she was an upsider like him.

The girl looked at him, sharp with teeth that did not belong in her mouth. She held out the cigarette, a peace offering. “Want some, lace?”

No malice, His mind hummed, and it sounded like a sob. To be called a lace was another hello, another friendly nickname that spread out like wildfire among the weak and useless like them all. Lace. That’s me.

“No,” Izuku shook his head.

His eyes were still watering, but it was not from fear. Not now. He felt fine, physically, just a little achy. Being a kid in the earth had its perks—being hidden by rails and kilometers of soil and concrete. There was protection down in The Hills, and the quirkless folk he met did not look at him odd for being so lost.

The kid next to him reminded him of someone from a while ago, a girl who introduced him to this place so warmly. He had not seen her since the third time he came here. Yu had been smart and small, but her words had been sharp, and she had been confident that the next time she went to the upside, she would die. The system kills us all, Izuku repeated to himself, a learned phrase, So it’s easier to die long before they try to make us. He wondered if she had gone off and done so, if—if she chose that path, rather than staying down here, where survival was mostly guaranteed.

“That’s okay,” She nodded, smiling. Her teeth were like a dog’s, he realized distantly. And yet she had one tag, and red sneakers. “I’m glad you don’t wanna walk down my path, you know? You’re like, really young—but I just thought I’d offer. Not every kid your age has gotten away without trying some of it.”

“Some people get addicted ‘cause of second hand smoke,” He offered weakly. Wetly. His mother did not smoke, though, and he did not know his father.

There was a tether deep in his soul, a heavy burden that was pressing across his shoulders and spine. Kids like him tested out new waters and got involved in shady shit because they had no other options.

The Hills had all sorts of things, all behind in modern acts, but all so fun. It felt free. No real laws, no cops or villains or heroes—nothing needing vigilantes or any source of government. A community made of a little less than two thousand people. Sure, a decent amount of quirkless people lived on the upside, but Izuku never saw them. They did not live in Musutafu. They would be further along, more likely to be located in a gated haven in Yokohama’s ports or maybe even the shadier bits and pieces of Tokyo and Osaka. Hosu had a few places, too.

In the underground, deep in the dark where abandoned tunnels led children into growing communities with lamps and fallen beams of concrete and metal, shit was different. No laws, no restrictions, no discrimination. It was roughly a quirk-free zone, really. The Hills was a place made with time and effort, scraped together and barely stable. There were jobs and shit down here, but any real money came from the uptowns. The places above, low-paying jobs that rarely gave enough to the quirkless workers that might get hired. Most of them just did gigs, or got involved in the darker parts of things.

The girl sitting next to Izuku could have killed someone yesterday. She could have killed herself and her friends, if they all agreed to that kind of demise. Murder and suicide were common for the quirkless, just as abuse rates and overdose rates were. Medical malpractice and battery. Assault.

You name it.

(Name it and say it and look all of them in the eye. All of it was real. All of it was terribly accurate.)

“Yeah, I guess,” The girl shrugged again, inhaling the smoke that pushed into the earthy air. The Hills smelled of soil and copper, and on rare occasions, burning gas. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated. She cracked another smile in his direction. “But it’s hard to get that when we live down here. You know. Lack of walls and all.”

Lack of everything, maybe.

There were underground rivers and even some lakes somewhere along the fault lines by Yokohama’s gated haven, the gateway having long since been shut down. The Hills were really only accessible through Musutafu and Tokyo. Everywhere else had the paths and maps, the culture and direction wired into their brains, but no real entryways into the abandoned and forgotten subways.

The Hills kept them safe, but it lacked a lot. No law and no existence in the eyes of the public meant there was no funding. It had no heating and no real source of electricity—not unless you counted the old generators that were out of commission half the time.

There were no shops or stores, no arcades and no public schools. There were houses and open parts of the underground.

Train stations with desks and ticket booths wiped clean—replaced and torn down with crowbars and desperate palms—all in order to host chalkboards and whiteboards and gasping students that were too young to know a difference from right or wrong. He had been in those places before, listening to the lectures, dragging his books from above down here to share with the other quirkless kids. There had been seven total in one station, running about and laughing; ear tags glittering and wide eyes so curious and carefree.

Some of those kids never left. Some of them loved it here, only breaching the surface to get sunlight and see the world every once in a while. Some of these kids ran from the foster system. Some of them were high, were abused and lost and knew that no one would come looking for them if they disappeared one day.

The thing was that Izuku could leave through the smaller and vein-like tunnels any time he wanted, could go home to his worried mother and be fine. Not everyone had that, had a home in one of the many uptowns.

This place was home, though, in a way the part meant could never be.

He wanted to stay down here forever, walking in circles, passing the old street lights and dangling lanterns. He wanted to smell smoke and dirt. He wanted to hear children’s voices echo from across the caverns, wanted to see his shadow dance across the large cave walls; see the graffiti and paint smeared together with glowing materials. He wanted to hear songs echo, hear the screeching of metal. He wanted to walk down the shobby sidewalks, made of stone and wood and plaster and plastic lined deep in the soil, just to visit strangers and hear them share stories of the upside like it wasn’t right above them.

“Do you smoke a lot?” He asked, after a few minutes. His lungs ached at the notion, sympathetically. The lamp off to the left of them flickered pitifully, connected to one of the many new generators the city had taken and repaired.

The girl looked at him, blinking owlishly before nodding. Smoke brushed against her lips, which were red-bitten and scraped raw by her teeth. And yet, her grin did not fade. “Yeah. I guess I got it from my pops.”

It reminded the boy of a hero, almost, always smiling and putting on a confident facade for those they spoke to.

Izuku smiled back, tears staining his cheeks. Second hand. Second hand. His ear throbbed, the torn edge begging him to reach up and scratch at the barely formed scab. Even though he had gotten his ear pierced three years ago—back when he was seven and only just beginning to realize how much he had been missing out on—he still had the strongest urge to reach up and rip the damn thing out.

It was heavy. It was isolating, up above.

It would always be isolating, even with his mother, even with the new addition of seeing strangers every now and then with identical red shoes and identical piercings. Even with them looking at him and jutting one shoulder upwards in the middle of town square. Even with them smiling, a single nod, or perhaps a friendly brush of their arm against his if he was away from his mother because he just got so curious, so desperate, just hoping for some kind of connection.

Down here, connections would form without names or quirks—without money or light. You existed, and apparently, to the quirkless, that was enough. That would always be enough. The connections you made down here would be littered with mud and tension, but with unity and harmonious understanding. You were alive, and that was enough for them, for the people. Your life and words did not need to be meaningful, because your existence would be enough to grant you access to water and food and shelter. You were worthy of that bond, of that friendship.

Downtown, down here, the quirkless were one with one another for the sole purpose of survival. Few left their lives, few stayed up above outside of visiting old friends and family members. Maybe keeping a real job, maybe maintaining guardianship to an entryway of The Hills, but you were here or you were there.

Izuku already knew where he wanted to be, and how much he wanted to stay.