Schooling
Chapter 4 Schooling
Time passed and soon, he was enrolling his little princess in a school. It was close to their apartment, so he wouldn’t spend too long picking her up after his shifts.
He was a little worried, though. He hoped he was wrong, but he knew she’d have a hard time at school due to being Quirkless. It was the reason he’d taken so long to enrol her in a school and the reason he was actually reluctant to her going, but he knew ―and Naomasa had insisted― he couldn’t keep her isolated at their home forever.
She needed friends her own age.
But knowing that didn’t make his worry disappear. He didn’t want his little princess to have a hard time due to something she couldn’t control and wasn’t even a fault to begin with.
So it was actually with a heavy heart and an obviously forced smile that he brought little Yumi to her first day of school.
She looked so happy and eager that he felt a bit guilty over having postponed it for so long. She was chattering away about making friends and getting to play tag and a thousand other things that children her age loved and Toshinori sent a prayer to anyone who was listening that the day would turn out as she wished.
His prayers went unanswered.
When he went to pick her up and saw her little round face covered in tears his heart broke.
He’d actually arrived a few minutes late, being held back by an arrest a couple blocks away, and didn’t get the chance to speak to her teacher. He swore he would on the next day.
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Things didn’t get better.
Talking to her teacher only served for Toshinori to receive a lecture on how Quirkless children didn’t easily adapt to being inferior to their classmates and how they isolated themselves and were often jealous of others’ Quirks.
It was all a ball of crap and Toshinori went back home filled with an anger he rarely felt.
That woman even had the nerve of saying his little princess was confrontational because she’d frozen in his place a bully with a glare from her precious green eyes.
Upon reaching home, he told Yumi-hime that he’d be looking for a new school. Naomasa agreed with him.
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He’d already had his suspicions for a while, but when her second school called him ranting about her ‘temporarily killing’ a classmate with just one stare, he rushed to the centre.
His Yumi-hime was crying her little heart out in the principal’s office when he arrived, with the supposedly dead child being fussed over by his parents looking all hale and healthy, except for the pallor of his skin.
Apparently, the child had been bullying a younger girl who had a weak water-based Quirk and Yumi had intervened. When the child pushed her to the floor and mocked her dream of becoming the first Pro-Hero without a Quirk, she’d looked at him and glared and the child had frozen.
He’d been petrified to the very core of his being, his breathing, heartbeat and Quirk stopping altogether and his body going rigid.
The school staff had thought him dead for a few minutes before his normal functions returned.
The principal of the school and her homeroom teacher were quiet angry about him supposedly holding back the fact that she had a Quirk― ‘and such a dangerous one to boot!’―, but Toshinori didn’t care.
He went straight to his little princess, picked her up in his arms and sussed her slowly, rocking her and caressing her hair to calm her down until her sobs turned into little hiccups.
Then he very frostily informed the staff that he’d be retracting his child from the school and turned over to the other child’s parents a small paper card that informed them he worked for the All Might agency and the number they should call if they wished to sue for compensation, and left.
He called Naomasa on the way to UA and explained what happened, giving him a heads-up in case the police got the notice too.
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UA held one of the most advanced research labs in the country in addition to having Recovery Girl, whom was the only doctor Toshinori could say he fully trusted, so taking her there had been the logical solution.
There, they confirmed what Toshinori had already suspected: his little Yumi-hime had a Quirk, and a strong one at that.
“She’s a special case.” Explained Recovery Girl. “I’ve never seen anything like it. When the hospital told you she was Quirkless, they weren’t completely wrong. She actually lacks the gen that serves as the marker for everyone who possesses a Quirk, but if they had looked deeper they would have noticed that her trash-DNA has mutations that correspond with Quirk modifications.”
“What does that mean?”
“She has the power, but lacks the marker of said power. On the surface, she appears to be Quirkless, but her body does have the changes of a Quirk. What worries me, though, is that some of the genes seem to be dormant, and we have no way of knowing if they’ll surge in the future or what could happen if they did.”
It took a while for them to find out what Yumi’s Quirk was based around, but her DNA finally yielded that she had some kind of paralysing stare and was impervious to flames ―which answered some of the questions Toshinori had since the day he rescued her from that fire.
They decided to name her Quirk: Pyrolysing.
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As a result of the incident where she petrified a classmate, Toshinori decided to get Yumi home-schooled and just looked for adequate tutors for her.
Slowly, he was witness to the changes she went through, as her shyness slowly retreated, being replaced by a small streak of mischief that he welcomed wholeheartedly.
Her confidence built up even more as she picked up running and hiking as her hobbies ―which his friend Naomasa practiced with her since his own health didn’t allow him to. Instead, Yumi and he often strolled through the park or the beach together when the weather allowed it.
The changes weren’t just in her attitude, though, as he finally couldn’t help but notice on the day of his birthday, upon introducing her to his Master Gran Torino.
The man had showed up out of the blue with the excuse of his birthday, but Toshinori suspected he’d known about Yumi-hime and decided to visit. He’d still proudly introduced her as his daughter.
Yumi-hime had still been in her pyjamas, ones resembling his All Might uniform that the blond had picked up for her without shame. Her pretty face was hazy from sleep, her green eyes looking brighter than usual, and her red hair was mussed from sleep just like Toshinori’s in the morning. He still remembered the warmth he felt when she asked him to take her to the hairdresser because she wanted her hair cut like his ―she’d wanted to look more like him, period.
The cute picture she made was too much even for the hardened hero his master was and the three celebrated his birthday in their own quiet way.
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If asked about who her favourite hero was, his little Yumi would always answer the same: Toshinori.
Not All Might, no. Like any child, she admired All Might, but him being her dad did actually have some impact and she didn’t feel the same awe as others, especially when her feelings were tempered by her worry for him.
Besides, it had been Toshinori, in all his weak and damaged form, that had rescued her that fateful day.
No, if asked, her answer was always the same. Her hero was Toshinori.
However, her favourite Pro Hero was another matter altogether.
He could clearly recall the day she’d quietly approached him and said she didn’t want to be a hero anymore. Seeing her big innocent eyes looking so defeated had been harder than watching her cry.
When he asked her why she changed her mind, she told him that her tutor had explained she didn’t have a good fight oriented Quirk and would therefore be unable to enter a Hero School.
A small part of him had wanted to leave it at that, knowing very well the risks she’d be facing where she to continue pursuing that path. But as a Hero, and most importantly, as a father, he couldn’t just watch as all her dreams were ruined forever.
And so he told her about Eraserhead, the underground hero who fought villains everyday with the Erasing Quirk, his special scarf and pure wits and determination.
From that day on, the underground hero became his little Yumi’s favourite Pro Hero.