Vocalized

“His quirk is called Vockinesis. It's similar to your Telekinesis, Midoriya~Kun, but instead of using his mind to control objects, he uses his voice. When his voice is high pitched, he makes objects float and move away from him, and when his voice takes on a lower pitch, objects are pushed down to the ground and move towards him. Now, he controls objects whenever he talks, so if he wants to not use his quirk, he can't talk,” Dr. Tsubasa explained my quirk to my mother on my fifth birthday.

“I see,” my mother said, her smile strained and her tone cold. “Can you put his quirk registry as quirkless? He won't be able to use his quirk anyways, so he might as well be quirkless.”

“Sure, Midoriya,” Dr. Tsubasa said, turning to his computer. I looked at my mother, eyes wide.

“Why-,” I started to ask, but my mother slapped me across the face.

“Don't speak!” she yelled. Dr. Tsubasa wasn't even fazed. “You listen to me, Izuku. You will tell no one about your quirk, and you won't speak again. Got it?”

Her tone left no room for argument, so I just nodded as I held my cheek and held back tears.

“He's now registered as quirkless,” Dr. Tsubasa said, turning to face my mother again. “That’s it for this visit. Also, please tell Hisashi I’ll have the project done by Friday.”

“I’ll let him know,” my mother said, smiling. “Thank you, Tsubasa.” She got up and grabbed my wrist. I bit my tongue, so I didn't scream. She dragged me out of the room and to the car. The drive home was quiet and so was the house.

I stayed in my room, dreading my father’s return to the house. My father is the fire breathing hero Dragon. I knew that he was going to hurt me once he found out that I was useless. My father came to the house two hours after my mother and I got to the house.

It took all of ten minutes for him to burn down my door and drag me into the living room. He screamed at me. He burned my skin, clothes, and my heart. He slapped me. He kicked me. This lasted for over an hour. I had third degree burns. So many cuts and bruises covered my body. My mother had just watched everything happen. Not once did she try to help me. When I tried to push myself up, I failed. I was silent as I curled into a ball and cried. It was one of the worst days of my life.

This was just the beginning. When I woke up the next morning, I had to figure out how to treat my own wounds since my mother wouldn’t. At least my father hadn’t burned me anywhere I couldn’t cover, like my face. While I was treating my wounds, I heard my mother on the phone with Auntie Mitsuki. She was…fake crying.

“He doesn’t have a quirk, Mitsuki,” she said through tears. “On top of that, he hurt his vocal cords yesterday when he was playing outside. Now, he can’t talk. I-I just can’t believe that he’s not going to be able to become a hero with Katsuki.”

I didn’t like what I was hearing. I quickly finished treating my wounds before I grabbed my backpack from my room and went outside. I wasn’t running away. I just needed to get out of the house. I limped around as I made my way to the park across the street from the house. I sat down and took my notebook out of my backpack. My hands were shaking a lot, but I ignored it and started writing about heroes.

After a little while of writing, I took a break so my hand could rest. I watched the other kids play on the playsets. While I was just watching the other kids, I heard someone sit down next to me. I turned to see who it was. I saw a man with long black hair, black eyes, and a scruffy appearance. He looked exhausted, which is how I felt. He was wearing a black jumpsuit and a big scarf around his neck.

“Are you alone, kid?” he asked, glancing at me. I hunched in on myself slightly. Mother told me to never talk to strangers, but this man seemed nice. I nodded. He sighed. “Where are your parents then?” he asked, turning to face me fully. Now that I could see his face fully, I could see that he looked kind of young, like he was in his early twenties and not in his early thirties like I thought.

I thought about how to answer him since I couldn’t speak without using my quirk. Then, I remembered my notebook. I opened it to a clean page and wrote ‘at house’. The man nodded. “Are you unable to speak?” he asked in a soft tone, not an accusing one like most people would use. I nodded. He nodded, too. “What’s your name, kid?” he asked. ‘Izuku Midoriya. Please call me Izuku,’ I wrote. The man just nodded. “I’m Shouta Aizawa,” he said, and I smiled.

I talked with the man–more like he talked and I wrote–for a while. It was probably an hour or two. We were talking when Kacchan showed up. “Deku!” he yelled, I tensed. “Mom said you don’t have a quirk and you can’t talk,” he said, arms crossed in front of his chest as he stood in front of me. “Why are you so useless?”

I hunched in on myself. “That’s no way to talk to someone,” Aizawa said, glaring at Kacchan. Kacchan looked Aizawa up and down before laughing.

“And who do you think you are, Old Man?” Kacchan asked, still laughing.

Aizawa’s glare sharpened. “I’m an underground hero,” he said, which I wasn’t surprised about since he’d already told me.

“Yeah, right,” Kacchan continued laughing.

Aizawa opened his mouth to say something when a man with long blonde hair and green eyes came over. “Shouta!” the man exclaimed, grabbing Aizawa’s arm. “Thanks for waiting for me! We can head home now!” the man was very loud. He was wearing a black leather jacket, leather pants, and a white t-shirt. He looked like a rock star or something.

“We can leave in a second, ‘Zashi. I need to take care of this first,” Aizawa said, only glancing at the blonde man once as he continued to glare at Kacchan. The blonde man, ‘Zashi, tilted his head as he looked at Kacchan.

“What are you gonna do? Are you gonna beat up Deku since he’s a worthless, quirkless, loser?” Kacchan asked, smirking.

“No,” Aizawa said, anger in his tone. “You need to understand that a quirk doesn’t define a person’s worth. A quirk is just a tool. It’s something that’s used to aid you. Just because he doesn’t have a quirk, doesn’t mean he’s useless or worthless. I know you’re like five, but you need to understand that by calling him worthless, you’re bullying him.”

Kacchan paused. His eyes widened. No one had told him anything he'd done was wrong, so to be called out by someone he didn't know was a jarring experience for him. His gaze turned to me. His expression softened. “I-I’m sorry, Zuku,” Kacchan said, turning his face to the ground. “I- I shouldn’t bully you. Not just because I want to be a hero, but because it’s not right to bully people. The only reason I've been mean is because I could get away with it. None of the teachers stopped me; they encouraged me, so again I'm sorry.”

I beamed as I jumped to hug Kacchan. I cried silently as I hugged him.

“You want to be a hero right?” Aizawa asked as I continued to cry. “Well, if you want to be a hero, you can’t bully other people. Being a bully can be just as bad as being a villain in some cases. It doesn’t matter how strong your will is. If you continuously hurt someone for something they can’t control or for no reason at all, then you will never be a true hero. Lucky for you, you’re still a kid which means you can still redeem yourself. So if you want to be a true hero, kid, be respectful to others. I’m not saying be a kissass, and do everything for them. Just don’t go out of your way to be mean. If they’re rude to you, just roll your eyes and tell them to fuck off.”

When I opened my eyes again, I was in my room. That was all a dream of a memory.