Chapter Text
The exact origin of Quirks was shrouded in myths and mystery:
The people with Quirks believed that they were a gift from some God; a divine power bestowed upon a select few and passed down through the generations.
The Quirkless had a starkly different idea of where they originated. They believed that a demon made the first people with quirks as a punishment to mankind for becoming too prideful; a way to knock everyone down a peg.
Regardless of the origin of Quirks, they very much did exist and created a sort-of divide between those who had them and those who didn't. The 15% of the world’s population who possessed Quirks (referred to as the Blessed) were at an advantage; they had power that everyone else didn't. So therefore, they rose through the ranks to the point where the majority were either royalty or worked for royalty. The world became a place where you could only get so far without a Quirk; you could only achieve so much. Some of the Blessed took advantage of their power.
Toshinori Yagi was not one of those people. He was a king, yes, but he ruled fairly, and kept all the occupants of the kingdom happy. He viewed the Quirkless and the Blessed all the same, and treated everyone as equally as possible. Over half of the castle staff was Quirkless, which was particularly notable.
Yagi was also in possession of a great power. His Quirk was not the normal possession of one superhuman power (like Duke Tensei’s speed Quirk or the neighboring King Enji’s fire Quirk), but several. Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, defense, intellect, and a slew of other general powers made up his Quirk, called One For All. His token ability was the power to create high-speed winds, which is what he showed the public. The rest was kept a secret, where only blood family members (and the king's right-hand man, Shigaraki Tomura, who had overheard a conversation about it and had been sworn to secrecy by Yagi) knew. Another part of the secret was that the power was not passed down normally. It skipped generations, seemingly randomly. This was why Yagi’s daughter, Inko, only had a normal Quirk, the singular ability of telekinesis.
As the years passed, the kingdom thrived. Yagi got older, but never lost the favor of the Quirkless public. Once Inko was older, she married a young noble from King Enji’s castle, a man named Midoriya Hisashi. Since Yagi was old, he allowed Hisashi to become king after their son, Midoriya Izuku, was born. Hisashi ruled the kingdom with an iron fist, and quickly undid all the good favor Yagi had built up over his years of ruling. He thoroughly believed that the Blessed were inherently better than the Quirkless, and that they should know their place. When Izuku was 6 years old, he fired every Quirkless worker in the castle, including Shigaraki Tomura. This action set into motion what would eventually lead to the downfall of the so-called Blessed.
Since Hisashi and Inko were frequently busy, Yagi ended up almost single-handedly raising Izuku. This actually proved to be ideal when Izuku discovered that he had inherited Yagi’s Quirk. He taught him how to control it (and how to keep the family secret), and he had amassed a great deal of control over it in little over a year. With the combination of training and raising, Toshinori Yagi became more of a father to Izuku than Hisashi ever was.
-
It was celebration of Izuku’s 8th birthday when all hell broke loose. Hisashi threw a grand party at the castle, where only the Blessed were invited; any Quirkless person caught attending would suffer a severe punishment. Everything was going according to schedule until a cloaked figure burst through the doors to the ballroom. The large room was immediately shrouded in darkness and overcome with an eerie atmosphere. The figure stepped forward, started scratching at his neck, and laughed.
“Apologies for crashing your birthday party, Izuku, but I have some business with the king that needs attending to.” He stepped closer to the throne, where Hisashi was now standing.
“State your name and your Quirk! If you do not have one, you will be tried for treason.”
“Oh, do you not recognize me, King Hisashi? I see that Yagi over there knows exactly who I am.” He pointed a hand at the space beside the throne where Toshinori was standing with Izuku.
“Shigaraki Tomura,” Yagi’s voice, weakening with age, called out, “what is your business here?”
“Hmm, I suppose that since you trusted me with your secret, I can let you in on mine. I've been very busy these past three years, Yagi. I've been in contact with a very powerful entity, you could call him a friend of mine. Why don't I give you a little show of the gifts he's given me?” Shigaraki plucked the tiara off a terrified woman and turned it to dust in his hand. Several gasps were heard from the crowd. “And that's just the beginning. I can get any power I want, anytime I want it, thanks to my friend here,” he said, pulling a glowing, cylindrical object out of his pocket, “can you believe I only had to give my soul away for this? A pretty good deal, I'd say.” Yagi put his hand on Izuku’s trembling shoulder.
‘All For One…’ he thought. “I will ask you one more time, Tomura. What is your business here?”
“Ah, I almost forgot! My business here is with King Hisashi. I have a request- well, more of a demand. We want you to treat the Quirkless as equals. And by ‘we’ I mean myself and the entire population of your kingdom. I've made a lot of friends during my time away from the castle, and they all share the same beliefs as I do. So, what do you say, Hisashi?” Shigaraki cracked a smile. Hisashi walked to stand in front of him and spat at his feet.
“That is what I have to say to your little demand, now beg-” he stopped mid-sentence as two hands wrapped around his neck. His screams were deafening.
“Ah, I was kinda hoping you'd say something like that! I did tell everyone to storm when they heard screaming, anyway.” There was a sudden pounding and yelling at the gates, and Hisashi could no longer scream. Shigaraki reduced him to a pile of dust as gates gave way and hundreds of yelling, torch-wielding townspeople flooded the castle. Inko scrambled to where Hisashi stood, screaming “No!” as Shigaraki dissolved her throat as well. Yagi grabbed Izuku and ran.
“Young Midoriya, I need you to keep up with me. I'm not going to lose you!” He said as they ran frantically down the hall. Smoke filled the air and almost nothing could be heard above the yelling and crashing noises. Izuku tripped on a wrinkle in the rug and twisted his ankle. Yagi stopped and tried to pick him up. Suddenly, there was a presence next to Izuku.
“Ah, I'm sorry Yagi, but to go through with our revolution it is imperative that I kill you. You see, I can't just have that powerful Quirk of yours keep getting passed down!” Shigaraki reached for Yagi, only to be punched from below by Izuku, crackling green energy jumping off his small frame. He recovered as Yagi picked him up and ran off. “Damn it, that brat already has One For All? I guess I'm going to have to kill him as well, though I won't like it.”
-
Yagi and Izuku dove into a room and barricaded the door. They noticed another boy only a bit older than Izuku in the room as well, with bright purple hair and bags under his eyes, wearing a baggy-looking uniform. The child of one of the castle’s servants, no doubt. He was shaking underneath a table. Yagi walked up to the boy.
“Is there any other way out of here that you know of?” He asked, gasping as the door started to shake. Either the angry townspeople or Shigaraki had found them. The boy crawled out from under the table and stood up meekly.
“Th-through the servant’s corridor, hurry!” He pointed to a door that looked like part of the wall. Yagi grabbed Izuku and ran through it as the barricaded door burst open. Shigaraki and some townspeople armed with shotguns came in.
“I know they were in here, where did they go?” Shigaraki walked up to the boy and asked him.
“Who?” The boy asked. Two of the armed men came over.
“You know exactly who! Ya-” one man froze mid-sentence, his eyes glazing over.
“The fuck?” The other man asked.
“He's using his Quirk, knock him out.” Shigaraki sounded annoyed, rolling his eyes. The man complied and hit the boy in the head with the butt of his shotgun. He dropped to the floor.
-
As Yagi and Izuku scrambled outside through the snow and across the frozen lake, a plume of black smoke revealed Shigaraki trailing after them. Since Izuku’s ankle was sprained, he trailed a little after Yagi and yelped when he felt a hand grabbing his upper arm. The skin started to flake off and he screamed.
“Let me go!! Get off me!!” He cried, trying to pry Shigaraki’s hand off him.
“Stop struggling, brat!” Suddenly, Izuku crouched down and punched the ice under Shigaraki’s feet, using his Quirk. He released his hold on Izuku’s arm as he fell in, trying to grab onto the edge of the ice. The ice just dissolved as he grabbed it and he started to thrash and sink as Izuku ran away with Yagi. “No! Sensei, help me!” He cried as he sank into the icy depths, his glowing trinket just out of reach above the ice.
They ran all the way to the train station, where a huge crowd of people were trying to escape. Yagi leapt onto the train’s steps as it was pushing off. His grip on Izuku’s hand faltered, though, and he fell onto the ground below. He hit his head on one of the railroad spikes and got knocked out cold.
“Young Midoriya!! Izuku!!!” Yagi yelled as the train picked up speed. He tried to jump off since Izuku wasn't getting up, but the other passengers of the train pulled him back. Soon, the train was going too fast for him to jump off without risking death, and his precious grandson Izuku was seemingly lost forever…