Chapter Text
In the days of the gods - of their forebears, the titans - there were none who cherished humanity more than he who personified forethought: Prometheus. He crafted them by hand, each one unique but all beautiful, made to resemble the gods on high, and he stole away a piece of the eternal hearth to give his beloved creations the blessing of fire. And though he was strung up to live a torturous meager existence for the rest of eternity, never had a curse slipped from his lips towards his children.
And so, from his mountaintop agony, he watched as his children reached far and wide, daring the tempestuous wrath of Poseidon and challenging the will of the great king of the gods. He watched as they raged and pillaged, killed and died. He watched as they loved and restored, healed and cried. He watched the steady separation of his children by trivial identifiers - skin colors, powers, and invisible lines drawn on the ground, and the destruction of brothers and sisters by their siblings.
He watched - and he cried.
Because he could do nothing else.
"Grow," his hoarse voice willed from the mountaintop, "know that you are the same, but that you choose to see otherwise. Do not let your eyes fool you!"
But gods and titans, too, can grow old. His words were carried away by his jailers - the wind and storms, the wrath of the gods - but they reached one person's ears.
Who had once rampaged and slew the same fragile beings for sport and in ignorance, Atlas the Sky-Bearer shuddered, and the world trembled as he shifted. In his own invisible shackles, he, too, could do little more than watch the children borne of forethought entrap themselves in cycles of growth and destruction, rising and falling at the whims of deep-set hatred and fast-burning passion. He watched... and he saw it, that which Prometheus had imbued in them: the potential to become great.
And so he whispered, "Watch me. Follow my example, and you will be remembered."
He bore the weight of the sky wholeheartedly - for, although it was his prison, it also served as his duty, to himself and to the world and everyone who lived in it. And he taught exactly that.
His teachings, though nigh on impossible to achieve and maintain, singled out the individuals who would indeed become great, but for different reasons. Some committed heinous crimes, and were forever remembered in fear. Some were immortalized as heroes, heralded for their successes. But all were recognized as a disciple of the Sky-Bearer's teachings.
And each was once called, "Young Atlas."
Life is so simple when you're little.
“Tetsu! Slow down!” a little girl dug her nails into her best friend's shoulder, almost shrieking at the speed they were hurtling down the hill on the kiddie bike.
He laughed, loving the wind ruffling his silvery hair. “Aw, a little speed never hurt anyone, Asa! Besides, I just got my training wheels off! Gotta test 'em!”
“Do you even know how to stop?!”
“I'll figure it out as we go!” he grinned back at her, to which she shrieked again: “WATCH THE ROAD!”
He matched her shrieks with fearless laughter.
And wasn't that the perfect word to describe him: fearless .
Chiasa had seen a lot of things in her five short years of life, and there were a few facts of life of which she was absolutely certain:
- Her mother was the bravest person she knew,
- Her father was the strongest person she knew, and…
- Her best friend, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, was destined to be an awesome hero.
From the moment he'd appeared on her doorstep with that beaming grin and a day care uniform that matched her own, dragging her off to start what would turn out to be one of the best days of her life, she had to admit it: she was absolutely certain that there was nothing he couldn't do. And when he told her he was going to be a hero, she could see it. She could see him right up there next to All Might, saving everyone and waving to the crowds cheering back.
She always told him as such.
“As long as I have you as my partner, I'm sure I can get there one day!” he always said right back, followed by their secret handshake ending with the biggest hug they could muster.
Everyone said it was destiny that they'd found each other - called them soulmates, even.
It's simple, they said, and it made sense.
The world has a funny way of making things like Quirks even become simple.
For example, Tetsu was born to be a hero, so of course his quirk would be heroic. At least, that's what five-year-old Chiasa kept telling him every time he worried about getting something like his uncle's quirk, one that made him have liquid steel in his blood; even though it sounded cool, his uncle was in the hospital a lot because his body couldn't handle the amount of toxins (something like manga-neese and fozfurus?) it was exposed to.
"You saved that snake from fallin' into the river, 'member?" she looped her arm through his to pull him back to the sidewalk from where he was half-heartedly balancing on the curb of the road, itching at whatever uncovered skin was within reach. "I was too scared to even touch the snake-!" She paused, seeing him scratching more fervently. "D'you... wanna go back to my house? I think we have stuff for bug bites somewhere..."
His head whipped back up at her, silvery hair slapping his forehead. "No, no, no! I'm okay! Mama says that this is supposed to be a sign that my Quirk's gonna come in!" As a sudden horrifying thought occurred to him, he stopped itching entirely, "What if putting itch spray cancels out my Quirk or something?!"
With furrowed eyebrows, she gave Tetsu a weird look. "I... don't think that's how it works. Even 'ndeavor has to have ice-packs or somethin' on him because he's always on fire, but that never ends up stoppin' the fire beard!" She hesitated, "Or is it a fire mustache?"
"But what if it's not? What if Endeavor's, like... magical and doesn't feel how hot it is?" he shook out his hands - why were they feeling so sweaty?
"Like... some kind of fire elf? But I thought elves were supposed to be small? Or was that dwarves?" she blinked back to attention. "Well, 'ndeavor's tall an' stuff, so I don't know if he's got magic..."
They both kept walking - and itching - in silence for a moment, before she broke the silence again. "Wait, what were we talkin' about?" she tried to backtrack her thoughts, counting on her fingers. "Uhhh... 'ndeavor, fire elves, itchin', snakes... OH! Your Quirk!" Back on track, she continued to tug him toward her house faster. "Let's go see if Mama has any ideas on how to get it to work!"
"Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!" He dug the heels of his light-up Skechers into the sidewalk, cueing the flashing green-and-blue lights in the soles. Grabbing her hand, he finally got her to stop, and looked at her seriously. "No itching stuff."
She narrowed her eyes before turning back around and dragging him off, quickly changing the subject. "C'mon, we need to go ask Mama to help us get your bike."
Said bike had been sacrificed to the temper of cranky Mrs. (Yumiko) Wada, whose vegetable garden they mayyy have destroyed in trying to get the brakes to work.
Poor Tetsutetsu hadn't even realized she never promised not to make him use itch cream until, stepping past the threshold of her front door, she had very loudly called out, "MAMA! TETSU NEEDS ITCH STUFF AND LOTION!"
"CHIASA!" he whined, fighting more aggressively against her grip on his sleeve. "It's gonna make my Quirk go away!"
"Well, then it's gonna have to come back later. What if you got bit by somethin'?" she tugged up on his sleeve to see where he was itching - weirdly enough, there was a slightly gray-ish tint to Tetsu's skin, shinier in certain tiny spots, too - kinda like freckles.
The fight slowly drained out of him as he, too, closely observed his arm: "... bit by something or poisoned 'cause my skin isn't s'posed to look like that."
She raised a condescending eyebrow - dumber and dumber, her sharp eyes scolded - and tugged him deeper into the house, towards the kitchen. "MAMAAAA!"
"Chiasa, I need to take this call! What is it?" her mother's voice boomed from upstairs, but she continued in her endeavor to the pantry.
"WHERE'S THE ITCH STUFF, FOR BUG BITES AND RASHES?" she shrieked back, and, although Tetsu had known her for years now, he was still simultaneously impressed by her lung capacity and pained by the volume with which their family operated on the daily.
A different voice echoed from the basement, muffled even when considering the distance. "Side compartment in the pantry! Second shelf!"
"THANKS, DADDY!" she craned her head back, as if that would help deliver the sound even better. Tetsu resisted the urge to flinch away.
Making quick use of Tetsu's inability to deny her anything, including a lift, she pulled open the sliding door to see an array of brightly colored tubes and bottles. While trying to decode them, she almost slipped when the boy shifted his weight, but they laughed it off. She let him take a short break - a whole thirty seconds, because she wasn't a tyrant - before asking him to vault her back up.
"Which one..." she hummed, before frowning. "You know what? I'm just gonna take all of 'em!"
Grabbing all of the containers from the second shelf, she pat Tetsu's head to let him know she's done, to which he dutifully lowered her. His bright eyes grew wide at the sight of all the items in her arms, and he tried to push away the sense of doom that seemed to leak off of her.
"'Asa...? Why do you have all of that? I don't think they're all itch stuff..."
Her eyes lit up as if he had unlocked the answers to the mysteries of the universe.
He hated to admit it, but he began backing away from his best friend - that look in her eyes never meant good things. And he was willing to bet...
"So let's mix them together!"
That this would be the one to kill him.
...
Believe it or not, it got worse.
With what she seemed to think was some kind of magic ingredients in her hands, Chiasa began to mix things together, mumbling all the while. As he fearfully watched from the other side of the kitchen counter, he swore he heard something along the lines of: "dip-hen-hydra... sounds about right! ... ooh, the pink would make it wayyy better..." throwing in what looked like pink allergy medicine?
Soon enough, she had a light pink - was it supposed to be pink?? - paste in her least-favorite cereal bowl, with the occasional small white piece peeking out of the top and marring the pasty texture. It kind of looked like a pink crunchy peanut butter, which made him nervous because he was also allergic to peanuts.
So he felt pretty justified backing away when she turned on her heel with the bowl in one hand and a plastic glove on the other, in addition to a manic grin.
"Don't worry, Tetsu! This is gonna be a piece of cake! The itch is gonna be gone like- nyoom!" With her sound effect, she had rushed up to him faster than he could react more to than with a flinch.
Scooping her gloved hand into the mixture, her hand quickly neared his arm. He could hear the horror movie sounds getting louder in his head, trying to decide whether to run or face the music.
Out of the corner of their eyes, a flicker of silver reflected the overhead kitchen lights, to which she paused her descent upon his arm. "Did your skin get five times shinier?"
His fear of the situation had not lessened, but he couldn't help the snort that escaped his mouth. "Did you get that from the TV commercials?"
"No! Your skin was like... like tinfoil! Like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz!" she scrambled closer to his arm to hold it up to her face before frowning. "But it's gone now..."
"Chiasa... what is on your hands?" The expectant and unamused query caused them to slowly turn their heads towards where the basement stairs were situated; in the doorway stood a tall man who was tucking a pen into his button-down breast pocket and rolling up his sleeves.
His eyes roved over the two of them who were not seated in the most innocuous position - his daughter's best friend was situated on a chair next to the countertop but with his back fully pressed into the back of the chair (which he never did), while she held her most mischief-prone cereal bowl in one hand and a gloved hand covered in... pink goop... gripped his bare arm, the counter next to them almost entirely stained pink.
Without receiving a word from either child, nor saying anything further himself, he walked over to a cabinet, pulled out medical-grade latex gloves and took brisk but careful steps towards the children, eyeing the ground for more mystery pink.
Taking a hesitant distanced glance into the bowl in her hands, he withheld any emotion at their (her)... concoction... and went back to the same cabinet, only to turn back around; this time, wearing lab-grade goggles and a clinical K-95 mask. With his hands outstretched, he motioned to the bowl: "Give it here."
Pouting, she passed over the bowl, about to turn back to her best friend, before he clicked his tongue. "Nuh-uh. Give me your gloves, and have Tetsutetsu come here."
He paid no heed to her grumbling, holding the bowl and the gloves as far away from his body as his arms could and going towards a cabinet with, to the kids, what looked like a white and red sticker with weird cutout circles in a triangle. He threw the bowl, then the gloves into a bright red bin stuck inside, then hastily took off his own gloves and, with a grimace, threw them into the bin, too. He tied it shut quickly and was about to set it aside, when he glanced back at the kids, saw Tetsutetsu's arm with pink goop still on it, and consecutively:
- Cried inside,
- Threw up internally,
- Didn't bother trying to hide his disgust, even through the mask, and
- Sighed with a pinched expression.
Under his breath, very quiet mutters of disgust and, "How is this child my spawn?" sounded, as well as the occasional, "This is why I cannot stand children."
But as he was (very thoroughly) cleaning the boy's arm, his daughter - having washed her hands, now adorned in her own mask and placing one over her best friend's face - looped her arms around his neck from the back and mumbled, "Thank you, Daddy. I'm sorry I made a mess... I just wanted to help Tetsu and you and Mama are always busy, so I thought that I could help with his itches."
As if he hadn't heard her, he checked the boy's arm for any reactions, until she finally said the magic words: "I'll help clean up... and I won't experiment with itch stuff by m'self anymore..."
Like father, like daughter, they say...
His eyes lit up as if she had unlocked the answers to the mysteries of the universe.
"Well," he hummed, begrudging amusement now tinging his voice as he tried to hold back his excitement, "I'm not quite sure I can trust you not to do more experimenting until... you convince Mama to buy more Lysol..."
Her face twisted, "But doesn't Mama like Clorox better-?" But seeing his disapproval, she quickly amended her answer: "Lysol from the store!"
And just like that, he amended his previous statement: "This is why I cannot stand children... barring my own."
...
Once he was satisfied with his care of his the children, Hinode Fujitoki ushered them back outside to make the most of the midday light, quietly murmuring his reminders to put their socks back on properly and the right shoe on the right foot. He glanced up from his phone - and the endless emails waiting in his inbox - as his daughter yanked the door open and the two children ran out to the sidewalk, bouncing about and chittering loudly about Tetsutetsu's Quirk, most likely.
A tingle of anxiety crept up on him as he hesitated to step past the threshold to watch them go - there was still work left to do, why waste time to watch when he should probably go back and finish...?
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Tetsutetsu, as if he had not been victim to his daughter's mad scientist schemes, ran circles around her, almost a silver blur.
They had each other; they would be fine.
They wouldn't care if he had to go back to work, anyways.
But as they raced back to the park, he blinked at the brightness of the overhead sun, only to suddenly see a different image before him: in the place of his little girl was an almost familiar woman with short hair. She glanced back at him, as if she knew he was watching, and smiled.
He blinked again.
Right where she was before, Chiasa had slowed to a stop a few houses down, and was staring at her father, smiling. "What's wrong, Daddy?"
Taking a second to rub his eyes, Fujitoki blinked again, but his daughter remained where she was - no, now she was closer.
"Daddy?"
Somehow, she had materialized next to him, and her gentle grasp on his hand startled him.
"Are you okay?"
He didn't know when he had knelt down next to her, but they were suddenly face-to-face, and he held her face in his hands - ones covered in blood that didn't wash away, hands that reeked of death - but she leaned into them, cheeks soft against roughened callouses. Her hands tightened around his as she searched his eyes, but what she was looking for, he didn't know.
Or maybe they did.
Sometimes, when she was younger, he would get this uncanny sense that she just... knew things, or had seen the world with an adult's eyes instead.
Or was he just so consumed in his work that, every time he looked up, he didn't recognize his own child, who seemed to age faster than he could comprehend?
Either way, he leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss on her forehead before scooping her up in his arms and sitting her on the porch to wave back Tetsutetsu while he put on his shoes.
He had wasted so much time already; files were something that would be there with every tomorrow, but her childhood would not.
He would not lose more time.
He turned around to face her once more, a familiar smile resting on his lips. "I'm just fine, darling. You ready to go?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" she cheered as the brightness returned to her face. "We gotta go so we can play before we have to go home and it gets dark!"
And as she rambled on, tugging him forward, he marked down the day in his mind.
Hinode Fujitoki was a man predisposed for disappointment - he knew intimately that life was hard, especially for those like him, and he fought every day to make the world a better place, for them. He has lost it all before, and they would lead better lives than him. Never again would he lose another child to the cruelty of the world - and his work was so vital to making that dream a reality.
But never again would he let his desire to make a change force him to lose those whom he held dear.
It was on this day that he resolved that things would get better.
They had to.
But, to be fair, he had also followed them to the park because, well, these children were more accident-prone than they cared to admit.
So even though he half-expected it, he still found his heart leaping into his throat when he found his daughter on the ground crying - or was she laughing?? - as Tetsutetsu hovered over her worriedly. It took him a second to even recognize his daughter's best friend - his skin was the same bright silver as-
"Tinfoil!" Chiasa laughed through her tears, holding his hand tightly. "You look like the Tin Man!"
Her laugh morphed into an expression of agony and her tears turned to ones of pain.
But still, she smiled.
...
See, Tetsu always made her smile.
Even when he got his Quirk, accidentally breaking her foot when it activated as he glomped her in a tackle-hug… then proceeded to apologize for literally everything he did until she got her cast off, which he did his absolute best to make as pretty as possible while it was on.
Even when she got her diagnosis as Quirkless two weeks later and came home wondering if he'd hate her because they can't be hero partners together anymore… and he told her she couldn't ever be anything less than his best friend and hero partner in his eyes, Quirk or Quirkless.
Even when she became “The Quirkless” and the other kids avoided her as if Quirklessness was contagious, and he glared at them and held her hand anyway, tugging her around if only just to show that she was still just as cool as before.
He was always ready with a smile and a good time.
Tetsu was just a good— no, great person.
That was what made him a hero.
It was just his destiny.
But Chiasa?
This is her story.