Prologue
Part Two
Earth Year 2211 A.D.
Near Endo Village, Chiba Prefecture
Planet Sol-Three (Local Designation: Earth)
The drive from her home of Tattoin, in the Shizuoka Prefecture, out to her mother's home in the village of Endo, in the Chiba Prefecture, took three hours on a perfect day, and with the amount of traffic Yokohama saw on a good day, she knew that there was no such thing as a perfect day.
Inko had seen enough trauma injuries to know just how dangerous late-night driving could be, so she preferred to take her time, which almost always guaranteed a fourth hour, but she felt that the trade of slower for safer was worth it.
Her car was nothing special, simply a red, older model sedan that she'd bought as a student and never had the heart to trade in for something newer. It had four doors, one engine and it ran, which was more than enough for her needs.
She'd meant to leave earlier in the day, arriving at her mother's home late enough to share dinner, but she'd agreed to cover Mila's shift at the hospital, which had then ran late thanks to a building accidents, and now, instead of being late at night, it was early in the morning, having not long turned one o'clock, and she was still twenty minutes away from her mother's home, the same house that she'd grown up in.
Her hands were clenched around the steering wheel, tight enough that her knuckles had turned white back at the hospital and remained that colour ever since. Had she been calmer, she would've worried about bruising the palms of her hands.
Senna…
Almost two years they'd been together. All of that, just casually thrown away at the end of what was easily the worst week of her life. First thing on Monday morning, she found out that she'd lost out on the position of Senior Student Nurse at her hospital, responsible for creating and overseeing the schedules for all of her peers. Chiyo was a lovely girl, and Inko knew that she'd do a great job, they were friends after all, but she wouldn't lie and say that she hadn't wanted the job for herself.
On Thursday, she'd finally heard back from her gynaecologist and received her test results.
Primary Ovarian Insufficiency.
She was, for all intents and purposes, infertile, and it was likely that she would never be able to conceive, let alone carry a child of her own.
And then, earlier today, she'd been surprised when Chiyo had told had that she'd just seen her girlfriend arrive. She'd been even more surprised when she'd found her and one of the new interns sharing an on-call room, with the lights out and their clothes off.
She'd turned on her heel and walked away, ignoring the calls for her to, "come back", and told Chiyo that she was leaving for the day. Chiyo hadn't protested when she'd seen them trailing her, and simply told her that she was overdue to take some of her vacation time, and that she didn't want to see her in the hospital for the rest of the week.
She hadn't bothered with the radio, simply driving in silence, through the forest and farmland that made up the Chiba Prefecture.
She took a breath to steady herself and tried to force her body to relax.
If she gripped the steering wheel any tighter, she'd tear it off of her dashboard.
Away from the bright lights of the city, the only source of illumination was the meagre amount provided to her by the headlights of her car, and what came from the crescent moon of the night sky.
If it had been any other night, or during the day, Inko knew that she wouldn't have noticed it. Had the night been cloudier, she would've assumed that it was simply a trick of the night sky, or perhaps even a shooting star.
But as it was, all Inko could see was a giant ball of fire.
And then, there she blinked, and there was a lot more than just the one to be seen.
The pitch black of the countryside's night sky lit up, and for a moment, Inko found herself frozen, her car simply rolling down the road as she took her foot off of the accelerator, and simply watched as the largest ball of fire she'd ever seem passed almost directly overhead, so close that even in the safety of her car, she could feel the heat from it, and she continued to watch as it crashed, tearing up the field behind her, continuing to blaze.
This was a bad idea, her mind told her.
Things just didn't fall out of the sky, her mind told her.
And when they did, you definitely didn't get up close with them, her mind told her.
She turned her car towards it.
Her car hadn't been designed for off-roading, and the drive was bumpy, if thankfully short. She didn't know what she expected to find when she drew closer, but a big hunk of metal wasn't it.
Still dressed in a pair of white sneakers and the pale blue scrubs she'd been wearing for her hospital shift, Inko trudged her way across the field, through wet mud and destroyed pieces of trees, as her clothes grew blacker, browner and just plain dirtier with every step she took.
It was cold and dark, and a part of her just wanted to get back in the warmth of her car and continue driving, but it wasn't often that you got to see a fallen star up close, so she was curious.
And that was before she heard the crying.
Crying that was coming from the inside of the fallen star.
Only the star wasn't a star.
It was a ship - an alien spaceship!
Aliens were a hotly debated topic nowadays, with quite a few people believing that they had to be real. Some people even thought that they walked among humans, blending in with the populace, or at least, they had done so in the past, and that the changes made to the human DNA of their potentially hybrid children, were what might've given the rest of the human race their Quirks to begin with.
But Inko paid no mind to any of that.
The moment she heard crying, she went into what she affectionately dubbed, "Nurse Mode". Moving swiftly around the ship, paying it no more mind than she would a damaged car, she located the front, where a glass bubble, (or what she at least assumed was glass), was located. As if sensing her presence, the bubble split open, sending a mass of liquid splashing down around her, as the crying grew louder.
It was a baby.
Sitting in the middle of the glass ball, with only a white blanket wrapped around its shoulders to protect it from the elements, was a baby, crying at the top of its lungs.
Inko looked at the tiny little thing, soaking wet, its few dark curls were plastered to its - his, she noticed, as the blanket shifted - head. Desperate to help, she reached inside and scooped him up, immediately rocking him in an attempt to calm him, and she was rewarded, not only with him quieting almost immediately, but with a look at his gorgeous green eyes, a shade of emerald much brighter than her own, that sat above a diamond-shaped cluster of freckles.
He was beautiful.
"Shh", she rocked him, "it's okay, it's okay… what are you doing out here all by yourself… and where are your parents?" She looked at the mass of metal in front of her, "And where are you from?"
Ima Midoriya was accustomed to being woken up at odd hours of the day and night.
A nurse of over forty years' experience, Ima had seen everything and done most of it. She'd outlived her husband, who'd been gone for nearly five years now, and the two of them had raised a brilliant daughter, who had followed in her footsteps and become a talented nurse in her own right.
A Paediatric Nurse, choosing to work with children instead of adults, but there was no accounting for taste.
She could only pass on so much.
Her husband had been a journalist, and he'd always been just that bit slightly disappointed that Inko had followed her into medicine rather than following him into reporting, believing that she would've made a talented investigator, but Inko had always been at her best when she was helping people directly, and her parents had both known that.
The point was, very few things in life could manage to surprise her.
Which was why the pounding on her door had her on full alert the second she heard it.
Sherubi immediately started barking in response, racing past her, out of the bedroom, and down the stairs towards the front door, and with the noise she was making, Ima was glad that she had no neighbours close enough to hear her.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!"
Her calls went ignored, as she wrapped her fluffy brown dressing gown around her, covering his nightdress and made her way downstairs after the dog, pausing only to slip her feet into her slippers. The pounding on the door continued, despite her calls for it to calm down, and after taking a moment to fish the right key off of her chain, she pulled open her front door, and allowed her frantic daughter to barge straight past her, as the dog ran in circles around her.
"Honestly", she grumbled, as she shivered from the cold air that was rushing into her house, "Inko, where's your key?"
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't find it and then he started crying and I couldn't get him to stop, and I wanted to get him out of the cold-"
"He? Who is", she blinked, as she took in the bright white bundle in her daughter's arms, "Inko Midoriya", that same tone had kept Inko in line as a teenager, and never once failed to convince her to tidy up the mess beneath her bed, "have you stolen a baby?"
Inko hadn't been pregnant. She saw her daughter at least once a month, and she might've been retired, but that didn't mean she'd gone and become simpleminded in her advancing age.
"What?! No! I mean, it's just, I was driving, and there was a fire, and then all the water, and just him and his blanket, and oh my gods, you wouldn't believe-"
"Inko Midoriya", she ground out, in a tone that often came before Inko found herself regretting everything she'd ever done, "did you steal a baby?"
"I, uh… maybe?"
"Maybe?"
She shrugged, biting her lip in worry when the baby in her hands startled, "I'm not sure".
Ima simply sighed, taking a seat on her sofa, "Start talking".
"So, you were driving here?"
"Yes, Mother".
"And you saw a falling star?"
"Yes, Mother".
"Only, it wasn't a falling star, it was apparently an alien spaceship?"
"Yes, Mother".
"And this baby", she pointed towards the baby, who was still wrapped in his blanket, tucked into Inko's arms, "was inside?"
"Yes, Mother".
"Then you took him out of the spaceship, realised that he was probably an alien, panicked, fled and then decided to bring him here?"
"Yes, Mother".
"Well then, why didn't you just say that", she scoffed, as she reached for her tea, "honestly girl, that was much less time consuming than your version of the story. Wouldn't you say so, dear?"
Inko sighed, "Yes, Mother".
"Well then, what are we waiting for", she finished the last of her tea, "give the boy here and go get your coat. Once you've done that, your father's old truck is inside the garage, you can drive", she wrinkled her nose, "I never liked the dratted thing".
"Wha- what? Mother, where are we going?"
"We can't just leave the boy's… spaceship… in the middle of nowhere now, can we? We'll pile it onto the back of your father's truck and bring it here", she waved off her daughter's rising concerns, "we can hide it in one of the fields out back".
"M- Mother?"
"Honestly dear, you really need to learn to be more articulate. You're a nurse and you should learn to speak more clearly", tired of waiting, Ima took the baby from her grip with a practiced ease, "now, hurry up. Izuku and I are waiting".
She blinked, "Izuku?"
It didn't take them long to retrace Inko's steps. She always took the same route into Endo from Musutafu, and she'd driven these streets with her father so often, that she often felt she could do so in her sleep, and she already knew that the particular turn off for Izuku's spaceship would forever be ingrained into her memory.
Not even a half hour had passed, and she had already changed his designation in her mind from, "The Baby", to "Izuku". The Midoriya Family, of which they were now the last, had often used similar names, and Inko also learned that had she been born a son, and not a daughter, her parents had planned on giving her the name Izuku, but now it was to go to the baby she'd picked up in the middle of the woods.
"Oh my", Ima murmured, as Inko pulled up alongside the crashed ship, "now that is impressive".
And it was.
The glass ball she had seen earlier, wasn't a ball, she realised. Now that her adrenaline had worn off, and she'd calmed down, she could clearly see that it was instead the top half of an egg-shaped pod. The pod was encased in a pentagonal shell of a silver-grey metal that wrapped around it, which Inko assumed was designed to protect it, but with her knowledge of spacefaring vessels, it could simply have been decorative.
Within the pod, which no longer held what Inko assumed was not, in fact, water, all that remained was a thick cushion layer of black, padded material.
"I wonder what it's made of".
"-Tt-", Ima made a clicking noise with her tongue, "most likely something we've never heard of. Else our old pre-Quirk space programmes would have used it", she shrugged, bobbing Izuku on the nose when he started, "I doubt it's made of stainless steel".
The two of them paused for a moment, looking over the craft in front of them, made of a material that was quite possibly unknown to their entire planet, and despite that, they both knew they could never tell anybody.
Not without putting Izuku at risk.
Inko didn't quite fully understand everything that was happening, but she already knew that she wasn't going to let anything happen to him. She liked to think that the people that made up her government were nice people. The kind of people that wouldn't harm a child, but at the same time, she watched the TV, and heard the horror stories that had happened when Quirks were first revealed.
If there was even a one percent chance of that happening to this, cute, innocent baby, then there was no way in hell that Inko was going to turn him in.
"Alright that's enough gawking", Ima moved to settle the baby - Izuku - Inko's mind corrected onto the front seat of their truck, securing him in place with a pair of crossed seatbelts, "let's get this thing loaded already. We take any longer and the main road's going to be loaded with every idiot salaryman on his way to work".
"Right", Inko agreed, "we'll need to use our Quirks though".
"-Tt-, like that matters. No one out here can see us. We'll be fine".
"Alright then", Inko gestured towards the main body, "after you".
Inko called her Quirk, Minikinesis. It was a slightly upgraded version of her mother's Quirk, which granted Inko the ability to summon objects into her hand, but only if they were small in size and relatively close. Ima's version helped her to move similar objects about, but she needed physical to make physical contact to do so. She called her Quirk, Tactile Attraction.
Neither of them were out of shape, but they lacked the physical strength required to lift the ship directly. If it weren't for the help that their Quirks provided, they wouldn't have been able to load it, but as it was, it took them over fifteen minutes simply to lift it and secure in their truck, which was parked less than five metres away.
Izuku was a little saint throughout it all, she decided, barely making a peep beyond the occasional stir, settling into Ima's lap without a fuss as they drove him home.
Ima made fresh tea when they returned home, the sun was still not ready to rise, but they both knew that neither one of them would be able to sleep.
Izuku had awoken once they'd parked up, and insisted on Inko rocking him, while she paced up and down her mother's sitting room.
"What do we do now?"
Ima chuckled, idly scratching behind Sherubi's ears, "What do you want to do? Take him to an orphanage?"
Outraged, Inko pulled Izuku closer to her, "What?! No!"
"Why not?"
"Because he's…"
Ima smirked, "Yes?"
She looked down at his smiling face, as he played with the collar of her scrubs, "Because he's mine".
"I've still got a lot of friends in medical; I can arrange for a birth certificate for the boy easily enough. We'll just register him as a home birth. No one out here knows that whether or not you're pregnant, so no one will notice. The only issue for you is back home".
Senna's face flashed in front of her eyes, and it left a bad taste in her mouth, "I was thinking about moving", she looked down to Izuku, who had now found the shoulder strap of her bra and seemed to be fascinated by his own attempts to grasp at the fabric, "a fresh start might be nice".
"You'll need things: clothes, formula, diapers, a stroller and a car seat, and that's just to start with", Ima told her, ticking them off her fingers, "there's toys and vitamins and bibs and a million other things that normal people would have bought months ago".
"We don't even know if he can eat our food", Inko despaired, "what if he starves?"
"Oh, I know for a fact that you've got a brain in that head of yours, girl, do try using it", Ima pinched the bridge of her nose, "he can obviously eat our food and drink our water. He'll be fine".
"How do you know that?"
Ima sighed the sigh of those forced to suffer the presence of fools, "Think on it. Any race capable of space travel would never send a baby out there alone, without knowing if they could survive the planet they landed on. He looks like one of us, and that's not an accident. Nor is the fact that he can breathe our air. Whoever sent him here, did so knowing that he would blend in and survive", she tilted her head as she regarded her new grandson, "I wouldn't be surprised if sending him here was some sort of act of desperation".
"So… you don't think that he might be the sign of an invasion?"
"-Tt-", she clicked tongue, "invaders send soldiers, girl. They send warriors and weapons, and when they're advanced enough for space travel, I'm guessing they've got some pretty impressive weapons to match. Let me tell you what invaders don't send - babies".
"Right, right", Inko nodded to herself, "that makes a lot of sense".
"Yes, I usually do".
"Okay then", Inko nodded to herself, "can you make some calls now, please?"
"No! It's barely three AM! Office hours don't start for another six hours yet, honestly, do use your head will you".
Izuku Midoriya was born on the Fifteenth of July 2211, according to his birth certificate, with his mother listed as Inko Midoriya, and without a father, his file simply contained a note listing his father as a man known only as, 'Hisashi'. She'd known a boy in town called Hisashi when she was younger, and she'd had quite the crush on him as a pre-teen, but when she was still in high school, he'd moved away for university and she hadn't seen him since.
As far as names went, she supposed it would do.
A notification was sent to the local registration office, along with copies of Inko's documents and updated copies of her insurance forms, which now listed her son.
He was added to the Midoriya Family Registry, and after a visit to Ima's home from a member of the local office, which had Inko needlessly terrified. The young man that had been sent to see them spent his entire visit visibly unnerved by Ima's forceful nature, and after a shorter visit than was strictly considered appropriate, wherein he was given only the barest amount of information and brow beaten into submission, he hurried out the door, glad to be gone.
And just like that, Inko had a son.
Izuku Midoriya.
"They're through here".
She looked up from where she and Izuku were sat on the floor.
They'd used the day Izuku had landed as his actual birthday, but they had to assume that Izuku was a few days, if not a few weeks or months older than that. He was already capable of sitting up under his own power, whereas a newborn would still be struggling to lift his own head and learning to roll over.
Her mother had chosen a pair of grey trousers and matched it with a bright yellow cardigan, while Inko had chosen a pale pink cardigan and blue skirt, in an attempt to look more normal and homely. Her mother's guest, dressed in a pale-yellow polo shirt and a pair of tan trousers, was Taro Henkao, an old friend from her days as a nurse, and one of the most impressive surgeons of his time.
His Quirk, Iridescence, had aided his career as a plastic surgeon, as he could minorly adjust the colour tones of any object he was holding, and his Quirk worked for materials that were both, organic and synthetic. He'd often used it to adjust skin tones, shades of eye colours and on rare occasions, hair colours all the way to the root, at the request of his patients.
When Ima had called him, Taro had been confused to say the least. It wasn't uncommon for people to want to change the way they looked, or to make slight alterations to their children's colouring. He'd made a lot of money privately adjusting eye colours and skin tones for children whose parents could afford it. His Quirk couldn't change a colour completely, only adjust it, adding slight highlights or making slight shifts, adding bits of contrast or softening out a stronger colour. It also helped his vanity, he was almost eighty years old, but he'd constantly been adjusting his hair for decades, so that it kept its glossy black sheen, despite the fact that he probably should've been greyer than grey by now.
Still, "No-Nonsense Ima", was the last woman he ever expected to contact him in his retirement, asking him if he could adjust the colouring on a newborn baby boy.
"Inko", Ima said, as they stepped fully into the room, "this is Doctor Henkao. Taro, this is my daughter Inko", Inko merely waved, while Henkao bowed in greeting, a soft smile on his face, as he registered the room's fourth occupant, "and this little man, is Izuku, my grandson".
"Hello there, little one, ma'am".
"Doctor", Inko smiled, while Izuku's head switched back and forth between his mother and the newcomer, before he reached out, wanting her attention back, and she picked him up, tickling his tummy.
As Izuku erupted into laughter, Inko rose to shake the doctor's hand, letting him get a closer look at his patient.
"Thank you for coming, Doctor".
"Of course, it's my pleasure", he leant in for a closer examination, "and you little man, look very healthy".
"Perfect health", Ima told him brusquely, half-bragging, half-matter of fact, "I've honestly never seen a healthier child", she shrugged, "what do you think?"
"Visually I'd agree. I'd usually like a patient chart, but I trust your judgement, Ima. If you're both ready and have somewhere we can lie him down, we can get started", he half-shrugged, "I do apologise for the rush, but my wife and I are on our way to visit our sons, and we need to get going".
Ima waved him off, "Don't apologise, you're the one doing us a favour".
"I need to ask", Inko said, "this doesn't hurt, right? I mean, Izuku will be okay, won't he?"
"With most of these adjustments", Taro began, speaking clinically, in the way doctors were known to do, "even my younger patients were also undergoing other procedures and were sedated the entire time, and wouldn't have felt a thing. A few of them were done on waken patients, and they reported an itching sensation, but otherwise, they were unharmed. It was worse on their eyeballs, but I'm told that won't be an issue here".
Inko swallowed, "Oh, okay then", she nodded her head, "I think my mom set up a space in the kitchen?"
"I did", Ima agreed, leading Henkao by the arm, "come, it's just through here". She'd spent a few minutes earlier that morning clearing her dining table of its usual clutter and laid out a baby mat for them to rest Izuku on.
"This should do nicely", after taking a moment to check that the table was sturdy, Taro turned to address the three of them, "now this won't take long, but it is draining on the body. Little Izuku will likely fuss as well, so Inko, I'll need you to try and distract him, while Ima helps hold him down, so that I can keep in contact with his hair", he glanced at the mother-daughter duo, noting the identical shades of green in their hair and in their eyes, while Izuku's eyes were a few shades brighter than theirs, his hair was completely black, without a trace of green present. "It is just his hair, you want doing, correct? A series of dark green highlights, the same shade of your own".
"Yes, thank you".
"Don't you dare touch those beautiful emerald orbs, Doctor Henkao", Ima warned him, "you mess with those, and my little girl might just pull your eyeballs out of your sockets".
"I'll consider myself warned then", he chuckled dryly, before letting them settle the boy on the table, and pressing his fingertips to the boy's hairline, preparing to brush them slowly through his locks, "and here we go".
Part One: Secret Origin
Chapter One: Inko Midoriya - Origin
If I remember my history books, then the first incident happened in Qing-Qing City, deep in the heart of mainland China.
And it changed everything.
One a random day, apropos of seemingly nothing, and with no external factors that could be identified, the world's most extraordinary child was simply born in an ordinary hospital, yet they were no ordinary child. Instead, they were born a child whose very skin radiated an astonishingly bright light.
At first, no one knew what was happening, local experts panicked, scientists around the world were baffled, but then, it turned out that the baby wasn't the only one. New reports started coming in from around the world, and before the year was out, every country in the world was seeing people born with astonishing abilities.
No one knew where these superpowers were coming from, but these quirks of humanity kept growing, and before long, the supernatural became the totally normal. Around us, our world had changed at its core, becoming a superhuman society, one in which people's dreams seemed to have become reality.
But as these children grew, like in any other time period, some sought to use their gifts selfishly, and with the rise of superpowers came a rise in the levels of criminal activity seen around the world. While the governments of the world were stuck, trying to figure out how to reform their laws with superpowers in mind, how to adapt with the times, they saw groups of courageous people stand up and do what they felt was right. They started fighting back, performing heroic acts to defend their cities against the criminals who used their powers to do harm unto others.
It became an age of heroes.
And in the end, and with overwhelming public support, these heroes who had stood up to do the right thing, found that they had an official place in our society, as a new wave of peacekeepers overseen by the government.
The heroes became Pro Heroes, recognised as celebrities and as their powers grew, and more of them rose up, so too did they grow in fame and popularity. Over time, they did more than help keep society feeling safe, they began forming their own teams, organising themselves into ranks and over time, they even gained their own departments in the world's systems of government.
Those who perform the best are paid the most, and they also gain all of the fame and glory. The careers of a Pro Hero depend on their ability to stay in the spotlight, to keep the people's thoughts on them, and gain the most attention. As long as they reside in people's hearts and minds, they can grow in popularity, and as their popularity grew, so too did the desire to see their likenesses on products and merchandise, and before long, the age of heroes became synonymous with the age of celebrity.
And honestly? I wouldn't say that this was necessarily a good thing.
"Inko Midoriya to the Nurses' Station. Inko Midoriya to the Nurses' Station".
With a hum of curiosity, Inko took a few moments to finish her updates to Little Saiken's record, for his most recent visit, before she bustled herself away in search of whoever was at the Nurse's Station, calling for her. It clearly wasn't an emergency, or else they would've used her hospital-issued phone to call her directly, so she felt she was more than justified in not rushing about the hospital.
She'd been a nurse at the Shizuoka Medical Centre for Children for over a year now and felt as though she were finally beginning to have fully settled into her new life.
Leaving the Tattoin Care Centre behind had been a relatively easy decision. Chiyo had been equal parts apologetic and apoplectic, asking her to stay, while telling her that Darla, the nurse who she'd found Senna in bed with, would be on their nastiest cases for the next few months, clearing bowels and whatever associated messes came with them, but she hadn't raised much of a fuss when Inko had told her that she couldn't.
She'd simply written Inko the nicest recommendation letter she'd ever seen, and then wished her well.
A few days later, after a phone call to the Shizuoka Medical Centre, she'd had an interview with their Human Resources Department, as well as their Chief Nurse, and after confirming her payment package, benefits and that yes, she would require use of their in-house day care facilities, she was told that she could start with their team, first thing on Monday morning.
She'd been there ever since.
She and Izuku had moved into her new apartment, a much nicer one within a nice school district, with two bedrooms and there were plenty of other kids in the area, who he could hopefully learn to play with when he was older. It only had a communal bathroom, which she supposed wouldn't be a problem for a few years yet, as she'd grown used to the sight of the various rubber sea creatures that now lived in her bathtub, but the apartment did include its own washer-dryer machine, which she was grateful for.
When she turned the last corner, stepping towards the nurses' station, she was surprised to see Ren waiting for her, with a red lotus blossom tucked into her bright green hair, which was a much lighter shade than Inko's own.
"Inko", she visibly sighed with relief, "thank goodness-"
"Is it Izuku? Is everything alright?" Her eyes took a quick scan, not finding her son anywhere and fear seized her in a way that it hadn't since the early days, when she'd first brought him home, "Where's my baby?!"
"Inko- INKO", Ren reached over, placing her hands on her shoulders, as the blossom in her hair stretched open further, "calm down, Little Izuku's fine, I promise", she smiled, which did nothing to reassure her, "I just need you to come with me".
Without explaining further, Ren turned on her heel and marched off in the direction of the day care centre, expecting (and knowing) that Inko would be less than two steps behind her. She ignored Inko's attempts to question her with an easy smile, borne of working with the children of overprotective doctors and nurses, and led her through the few corridors that separated the children from the rest of the hospital.
Inko blinked in confusion, as she walked past the hole in the wall, before Ren led her into the room fully, where she found Izuku sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by building blocks, as he cried.
"Oh, Miss Midoriya", Sakura, an elderly lady, who was one of the day care minders smiled at her, but Inko could see the tension behind it, "thanks goodness".
"Oh, Sweetie", Inko scooped her baby up without a second thought, letting him rest against her, as he quieted at her touch, nestling in, "what's all that noise for?"
"Well", Sora, a member of the hospital's maintenance staff, who she just realised was also there, vaguely recognising him from their rounds, "as you can see, there was quite a bit of damage to the wall", he gestured with a nod of his head, "both to this one, and the one in the corridor", he ran his hands through his hair, "and we thought it was best we spoke with you as quickly as possible".
"Oh, did the noise upset you", she settled Izuku on her hip, now that he seemed to have quieted completely, she gave the rest of them her full attention, "will you need to pause day care for a few days then? Do you need help contacting other parents? I'm on shift, but I'm sure I can make some time to help, if you need it".
"Ah", Sora cleared his throat, "I'm sorry, but what we needed to ask you about was the damages".
"Oh", she blinked, "well, I don't know much about walls, but if I can help, I will".
"Oh, well that's not… I mean…"
Ren chuckled, "I told you she didn't know".
Sakura nodded, "We both said it", she pointed out.
Inko blinked, confused, "I'm sorry, but know what?"
"Miss Midoriya", he dipped his head in a pseudo-apology, "your son is the one who caused the damage".
"What?" She spluttered, shifting Izuku into a firmer grip, "Don't be ridiculous. He's just a baby. He won't even turn three for another few months".
"Yes, well, it appears then, that his Quirk came has come in early", he shrugged, eyeing up Sakura and Ren, "I'm told that it's not unheard of".
Sakura shrugged, "It's not common, but I wouldn't say it was extremely rare either".
"My Izuku did that?"
"Threw a building block clean through one wall and halfway through the other", Sora confirmed with a nod, trying his best to not look too impressed by that fact, "and it's still there", once again, he ran one of his hands through his hair, "I've called for a hammer and a chisel, see if I can't pry it lose… it's, well… it's pretty much stuck in there at the moment".
"Oh".
Shizuoka Medical Centre was, Inko was relieved to find out, fully insured against minor accidental damages resulting from Quirk use within the building's boundaries, with a special circumstances clause included for the use of Quirks within their day care facilities, where their patients were even younger than the usual faire that temporarily resided within their walls. The only snag they encountered, was that they apparently weren't covered for damages caused by unregistered Quirks, which Izuku technically was.
It was a nasty loophole in their insurance documentation, and Inko feared that she was going to have to pay for both walls to be repaired and repainted, (not to mention all of the commotion it would have caused), but their argument against the hospital apparently lasted until the centre's chairman called their broker, reminded him that they were a paediatric centre, and threatened to cancel all of their existing contracts and recommend that others do the same, if the situation was not properly resolved. Less than a half hour later, he received a return call, which ended without Inko having a hefty bill to pay.
She did, however, donate several new sets of toy blocks to the centre, made of either rubber or foam, which Ren and Sakura received in good humour.
It also made for a funny anecdote for them to share around the coffee carts.
A few days later, when Inko brought Izuku back in for his Quirk registration, the walls had been freshly plastered and painted, without seemingly any traces at all, had it not been for the faintest scent of fresh paint.
Inko had been allowed to take the weekend off to look after Izuku, as had most of the staff who were left unable to use the day care facilities, and she'd spent most of that in a blind panic.
She'd been left no choice but to set up Izuku with a Quirk Determination Exam, which she set up with Doctor Tsubasa.
Doctor Tsubasa was an older gentleman, not much older than her mother, but still a far cry from the generally younger women who ran the day care centre under Sakura's guidance, but Inko had been around long enough to know the difference between a doctor who was too old to practice, (and refusing to retire), and a doctor who remained at his post simply because he enjoyed his work.
They were led through to his office, which had walls lined with posters of Pro Heroes striking various poses, and Izuku was clearly fascinated by them, shaking his body, as his hands and feet did their best to help him mimic the poses.
Doctor Tsubasa chuckled, his bushy moustache twitching as he did, which caused Inko to smile at the sight it made, when paired with his overly large spectacles.
"Right then", he flipped open her son's file, his finger tracing the words as he read them, "let's see what we have here then", he took a quick glance at the information, nodding to himself as he went, "ah, here we are, one Izuku Midoriya, here to see little old me for a Quirk Determination Exam and the subsequent registration paperwork. Male, aged… oh, wow, just two years and ten months", he looked up at her, his eye wide behind the large circles that were his glasses, "an early activator, hmm", as if response Izuku looked up at him, waving his favourite stuffed toy in acknowledgement, "it also lists your occupation here and says that you're a paediatric nurse. Do you work at this hospital?"
Inko nodded, "I do, yes".
"Well, normally I'd say it's a little early for you to come in for a QDE, but chances are you'd know that. Would this, by chance, have anything to do with the recent damage done to the fourth floor?"
Inko's wince was all the response he needed.
"I see… could you tell me what happened?"
"Well, I wasn't there at the time, but according to his day care teachers, he was using the blocks to spell out the word, 'DOGS'-"
"Dogs!" Izuku chimed in, waving his favourite plush toy, Mister Doggo - a bright white plush dog that he'd fallen in love with when Inko had taken him to his first winter festival, and refused to part ways with ever since.
Doctor Tsubasa chuckled, ruffling his green locks, which were identical in colour to hers, and Inko found herself able to relax, "-but another child wanted to use the block that had the letter 'S' on it. He tried taking it. Izuku tried taking it back. They snatched at it, and when he got upset with the other boy, he threw the block away", she sighed, "it went clean through the day care's wall and got stuck in the corridor. Do you know Sora, the maintenance worker?"
Doctor Tsubasa shook his head, "I know the name, but other than that, no".
"Well, he had to call for a hammer and chisel to help him get the block out, it was that well embedded", she ran her hands down her face, "and then day care got rid of all of the blocks. I donated some plush ones though, so…"
"Well, based on your description, we can safely say that your son has a superstrength Quirk of some note - and an uncommonly strong on at that too. Your own Quirk would be?"
"Minikinesis", Inko told him, "I can attract small objects", she moved to grab his pen, reaching out and pulling back, and after a few moments, the pen in his breast pocket began to float over to her open hand in a jerking motion, "it's nothing special, but useful enough on its own, I suppose".
"And the boy's father?"
"I only remember that he could breathe fire", Inko told him, repeating the lie that she'd and her mother had come up with, months ago. Elemental Quirks were a dime a dozen, and while the really powerful ones, like Endeavor's, were rare, there were almost a one hundred percent guarantee that you could walk into a crowded room and find at least a half dozen people who could manipulate the earth, wind, fire or water.
"That's quite the mutation then", he murmured, leaning forwards as he examined the boy, who looked up at him with equal interest, "well, before we start, I just need to check - he's had his shots?"
"All up to date", Inko confirmed, having faked the results herself.
"Right, so, we'll start with his x-rays, and we'll get full body just to make sure that there's no physical mutations we're currently unaware of. We'll take his latest measurements, height, weight and so on, check that he's growing normally, before we run some auditory and visual tests. Everything else can be covered during his general check-ups", he tapped his pen against the file, "and if you like, we could take a blood sample. See how that checks out".
She shook her head nervously, almost frantically, "Oh, no that won't be necessary. No blood please, thank you".
"Are you sure? Other than a small prick, I can assure you that it's quite painless".
"I'm sure".
"Ah… well then, assuming that all comes back as standard then, we can register Izuku's Quirk as superstrength today and that'll be all there is to it. Would you like to get started?"
Inko smiled, relieved, "Yes, thank you".
"Okay then, the last x-rays are in. His height and weight are close to optimal for a baby of his age. So are his eyes, ears, mouth and nose", he punctuated each organ by tapping Izuku's, which made her son giggle, as he sat on the examination table, "he hasn't said much, but we know he can speak, even if he isn't fluent just yet", he chuckled, "is he a loud crier?"
"Oh, no, not really", Inko said, thinking on it for a moment, "I mean, he cries loudly enough to be heard, but even then, once he got what he was looking for, usually my attention, he would always quiet back down quickly enough".
"A naturally quiet baby then", he shook his head, "lucky you".
Inko giggled, tickling Izuku's foot, "I know".
"No issues sleeping or eating?"
"When he was younger, he sounded like he had trouble breathing when he was sleeping".
"When was that?"
"When he was first here- I mean, just after he was born", she swallowed, "for the first few months, he always sounded like he was struggling to breathe properly, but it was a lot worse when he was sleeping", she blinked away a few stray tears that threatened to fall, "I used to stay awake for hours, just listening to him breathe, because if I didn't-"
"You were afraid he'd stop", the doctor finished for her, looking at her with nothing but sympathy, "but there have been no issues recently".
"Nothing after the first, oh I'd say, six months or so, maybe as long as nine".
"I see… well his scans show us nothing to be worried about, but just to be safe", he removed his stethoscope from around his neck, placing the buds into his ears, "Izuku, can you lift your shirt up for me, please?"
"Yes", he confirmed with a deliberate nod, lifting his bright green t-shirt straight up over his head.
"Good man", the doctor replied, before pressing the flat part of it against his back, "and now, can you take a deep breath and hold it for me?"
Izuku took as much air in as he could, "And now, slowly breath out", before he exhaled in one lung gust.
They repeated the exercise, this time with the stethoscope on the other side of his back, before Doctor Tsubasa sat back down, and told Izuku he could pull his shirt back down.
"Okay!"
Turning back to his compute, as the x-rays that they'd been waiting on arrived in his inbox, he took a moment to read the note from the radiographer, before turning back to face Inko once again, "Well, everything sounds perfectly okay, and there's nothing on his x-rays to be worried about, but there was one other thing of note".
"Is something wrong?!"
"No, no, there's nothing wrong, per se", he moved his mouse to double-click on one of the files, opening it fully on the screen, "but they've flagged a small mutation, see this here", he pointed towards the image of Izuku's foot.
"His foot?"
"Specifically his fifth toe", with a few more clicks, he printed off a copy of the image, and turned in his chair to face her and her son fully, "see here", he tapped it a few times with his finger, "this is the fifth toe, also called the outer toe or the little toe, as you can see, Izuku's toe is made up of three phalanx bones: the proximal, middle and distal".
"Three? Shouldn't it be-"
"Two? Yes, it should. You see, we still have no idea what caused the advent of Quirks. Popular theories suggest that we were infected by a mouse virus, while others speculate that we've simply reached the next stage of the human evolution. There are even some people who believe that Quirks came from aliens", he chuckled to himself, as he returned the x-rays to her folder, "simply ludicrous".
"Yes", she chuckled, wincing at how nervous she sounded, "ludicrous".
"Either way", he turned back to face her, "there were several changes to the baseline human body that came with Quirks. There used to be four additional teeth in the back of our mouths that often-caused complications, which were called, 'wisdom teeth'. We also used to have three additional organs: the spleen, the gallbladder and the appendix".
"I think I've heard of that last one".
"I'm surprised by that, not many people bother to study the pre-Quirk human body. Well, anyway, the spleen helped filter blood to aid the immune system, the gallbladder produced bile to aid digestion and the despite my studies of old texts, the appendix's function remains a mystery. The point is, they were all unnecessary, and disappeared in our more ah, streamlined bodies, for lack of a better term".
"And Izuku has them?"
"No, not at all, you see, there was only one additional change".
"The toe", Inko guessed.
"Indeed. The distal and middle phalanges fused together and became a single phalanx. I simply find it odd that Izuku has three phalanges, despite no other change. Were it not for that, I'd tell you that he had a perfectly baseline human body".
"Is that bad?"
"Bad? No, not at all", Doctor Tsubasa chuckled, as he ruffled Izuku's hair one last time, "but to a man such as myself, who has spent his life studying Quirks for a living, I must admit that I do find its presence simply fascinating".
"So, there's nothing wrong with him?"
"Not a single thing", he handed her a copy of his paperwork, "in fact, there are no issues whatsoever. I'd like you to come back and see me on his fourth birthday for a re-examination, or sooner, if you notice any changes, but until then, you can use what I've given you to register his Quirk as, 'Superstrength', and that should cover any issues you may have had with him being unregistered".
"Really? That's everything".
He nodded, "Initial registration usually is. Now, I'm sure that you're aware that most schools ask for you to have your child take an updated QDE before entry?"
"I am".
"Well, that's because Quirks are difficult to diagnose in children. They have difficulty realising what's considered baseline normal, so we ask them more questions and have them take longer tests when they're older. I expect that Izuku will need his overhauling when he's older".
She blinked several times, "What do you mean?"
"While I've listed his Quirk as 'Superstrength', I feel that it's most likely a mutation based on your own. It's most likely an advanced form of telekinesis, so congratulations, I suppose".
"Oh… I hadn't considered the similarity".
"Quite alright, after all, that's what I'm here for", he chuckled, "after that, there's only one question left".
"What's that?"
"Well, Izuku", he reached over to the glass jars he kept on his desk, "would you like a red Endeavor lollipop, or a blue All Might lollipop?"
Izuku bent his head down, as Mister Doggo whispered in his ear, and he nodded in response, "All Might!"
"He loves All Might", Inko said with a sigh, seemingly resigned to forever seeing the man's grinning face in her home.
"A fine choice", Doctor Tsubasa agreed, though, just for a moment, Inko could've sworn that there was a hint of distaste in his eyes, as though he were remembering something that smelled bad, but then, he looked back up at her, and it was gone.
She didn't blame him.
Between Izuku and the children's wards, she saw All Might almost everywhere she went. If she kept a jar with his face on, in her office, she'd be sick of seeing him too.
Of course, registering Izuku's Quirk wasn't the only hurdle they faced.
They'd taken a few days off, Inko from work and Izuku from day care, before returning on a Monday morning. Her shift went as normal, with no complications, but Izuku was noticeably subdued when she went to pick him up. Trudging over to meet her hug, with Mister Doggo trailing in his grip.
"Hi Sweetie", she said, as Izuku let himself be lifted up, settling into her arms, as Sakura made her way over, pausing to chat with another parent for a moment.
"Hi Momma", he replied, but his tone sounded so sad that she knew something had to be wrong.
"Did you have fun at day care?"
He shrugged and said nothing, but clutched Mister Doggo to his chest tightly, as Sakura finally reached them.
She smiled sadly, which bothered Inko more, as she lowered her voice, "I think he was feeling a bit left out".
Izuku shifted in her grasp, but otherwise did nothing, and Inko lowered hers to match, "What do you mean?"
"None of the other children have their Quirks yet, and I think they were a little bit afraid of him", Izuku shifted again, clutching Mister Doggo even more tightly into his chest, "I had to put one in a time out for trying to take the new blocks away from him".
"Oh, Izuku", she murmured, but he turned his face away, "I think we should go visit Grandma", she decided, happy that she had the next two days off, "okay? We can go see Grandma and Sherubi".
He perked up at that, always happy to be able to play with a dog, before lowering himself back down, almost immediately retuning to looking as downtrodden as any two-year-old could manage. Sakura smiled, patting her on the shoulder as they left, and Inko resolved to visit her mother in the morning, hoping that whatever it was, they would both help Izuku get back to normal in the morning.
"Grandma!"
Inko smiled, as Izuku shot across the front of her mother's garden, until she swooped him up, making exaggerated groans as she did, while Sherubi ran around her heels excitedly, jumping up and down, before realising she was there as well, and racing over to run circles around her.
She paused for a moment to scratch behind his ears and rub his belly, before he decided that he'd been greeted properly and returned to the source of all the noise.
She made sure that the car was locked, before following her mother inside, who was busy tickling every inch of Izuku she could get her hands on, to pay her much notice, but she found she didn't much mind. She felt a need to speak with her mother, and while she did feel that it was urgent, Izuku was laughing for the first time since she'd picked him up at day care, and she didn't want to stop that just yet.
Changing her shoes for house slippers, she went upstairs to use the bathroom, and by the time she had come back down the stairs, her mother had already given Izuku a juice box and a biscuit and was now watching him and Mister Doggo run around with Sherubi, using the expanse of fields at the back of the house.
She fixed herself a cup of tea, pouring a fresh one for her mother, before joining her at the door, just watching Izuku and his two favourite dogs run around.
Inko didn't know how long the two of them stood there, watching it happen, but it was long enough for the two of them to finish their tea and set the empty teacups down.
"So, what is it?"
"I'm sorry?"
Ima rolled her eyes, as she turned to face her daughter, "What's bothering you. You usually don't call me randomly and all-but beg to be allowed to come and see me - and by the way, so long as you bring my grandson, you don't need to ask - but nevermind that. Tell me, what happened?"
Inko sighed but truly wasn't surprised that her mother had figured out that something was wrong; not only was it obvious, but she wasn't stupid either.
"His Quirk came in - Izuku's, I mean".
Ima blinked, "Oh".
"Yeah".
"He has a Quirk?"
"He does".
"You're sure?"
"I am".
"But…"
"I know".
"How?"
"I don't know".
"Well… oh".
"Yeah".
They watched Izuku and Sherubi race around for a few moments longer, stood together in silence, before Ima chuckled to herself.
"You should be grateful then. Whoever sent him here was either a complete genius, or extremely lucky".
"I know that I should be grateful", she wringed her hands nervously, "but I'm still worried-"
"Welcome to parenthood", her mother muttered dryly.
"Sorry", she swallowed, "it's just… won't he stand out?"
"Doubtful", Ima shrugged, "what's his Quirk?"
"Apparently, he's really strong. He managed to throw a toy block threw one wall and into another", she sighed, "I had to have them examine him. We registered his Quirk as 'Superstrength', but they know mine and I listed his father as having a firebreathing one-"
"Smart", Ima nodded, "fire Quirks are everywhere".
"-that's what I thought", Inko agreed, "but neither of them lead to superstrength. It's too obviously different. Someone will know something's up".
"Psh", Ima waved away her concerns, "random mutations pop up all the time. I remember fifteen percent of all Quirks being mutations".
"Twelve-point-eight seven percent", Inko corrected.
"And Quirkless are at what? Twenty?"
"Twenty-point-one three, but that's overall. In Izuku's generation, it's now less than nine", she sighed, "and those are the worldwide numbers. A few of the Nordic countries still have numbers that are much higher than the rest of the world, but just in Japan, it's now under three percent in his generation, and that's taking into account rural areas, where the numbers are always a bit higher too. Tokyo reported less than fifty births last year. Yokohama, Osaka and Nagoya each had less than twenty", she shook her head, "Sapporo and Kawasaki both reported none".
"See? Having no Quirk would've made him stand out far more than having one. Even a mutate between generations is easier to explain, because last I checked, no one knows what causes them, unless that's changed?" Inko shook her head, "Whoever chose to send him must have been beyond clever. Even 'genius' is too small a word".
"What do you mean?"
"A body that's at least externally identical to the human body, capable of eating our food, drinking our water, breathing our air and has its own form of a Quirk to go along with it".
"It's not just externally".
"What isn't?"
"His body. All of his bones and organs line up with our as well. Or at least, they look like they do. They took x-rays as part of his QDE, just to see if he had any mutant properties, and when I thought about getting them, I thought, 'that's great', because I could pass any differences off as part of his Quirk, make them list it as a mutation".
"Smart thinking".
"Well, with only a single exception, he has a perfectly baseline human body. Same bone structure, same organ layout".
"Remarkable", Ima mused, "and as I said, simply genius", she turned to face her daughter fully, curiosity played out across her face, "what was the exception?"
"His small toe".
"His toes?"
Inko smiled softly, "Just the one, or two, I suppose. He has three phalanges in his small toes".
Ima blinked several times in succession, "That's it?"
"That's it", Inko confirmed.
"But everything else?"
"Perfectly in line with our own", she shook her head, "sometimes, I wonder if I dreamed up the entire ship. If I hadn't seen it crashing for myself, I don't think I'd believe it".
"It is fascinating", Ima agreed, as she watched Sherubi tackle Izuku, licking his face and covering him in slobber, as the boy erupted into giggles, scratching at the dog's ears and belly, "but it also tells us that whatever physical differences exist between us and the boy can probably only be found on the cellular level".
Inko smiled as she watched her son play, "That makes sense", she mused.
"It also means that it's all on you".
She frowned, "What do you mean?"
"Whoever sent him here, must've known that he would be able to blend in. Yet they sent him here, alone, and other than that thing we've shoved into the old barn, there's nothing about him that screams, 'alien', at you. Either they had no chance to include anything, or they simply didn't want to. There are a few symbols etched within the thing, but unless he was born with knowledge, which I doubt, there's no way he can learn to read them. Unless youdecide otherwise, all Izuku will ever know will be us. Whatever he little he can learn about who he is and where he comes from, is all going to be on you".
"Not you?"
Ima shook her head, "No, that's not my place. I'm his grandmother, not his mother. I had my go", she smiled, cupping her daughter's face for a moment, "and I raised a good girl, who became a brilliant woman-".
"Mo-om".
Ima just continued to smile, "You're old enough now to make your own decisions. Your own choices, and I'm sorry, but as scary as it is, being a parent means making choices for your son too".
She looked over to where Izuku and Sherubi were rolling about, getting filthy and covering themselves in mud, "I don't know if I'm ready for that".
"No mother is. Hell, no parent is. All we do is guess, and then we fret and then we worry, and after all that, we realise that all we can do is make it up as we go along. You can ask for advice, take help when its offered or go it alone, but in the end, as the parent, it's all your decision".
"But you'll be here to help?"
"Well, naturally dear".