Orphans stick together
“Don’t worry, Miss Kayama. I’ll assure you that we’ll find your son a perfect home where he will grow up happy.” Kyuudai reassured his recent visitor as said visitor came to drop her baby off at his orphanage.
“I hope you’re right.” The 17 year old girl mumbled before she looked at the sleeping baby wrapped in a blanket. “I’m sorry, Nekiru. Me and papa just can’t take care of you with our current lives.” The bluette whispered, kissing the baby on his forehead before handing him to Kyuudai. “Farewell, my boy. I hope you’ll live a life of bliss and fortune.” She whimpered as her eyes teared up. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite alright, young lady. This can’t be easy.” Garaki said with a sympathetic tone, waiting for Nemuri to finally leave. “I thought that woman would never leave.” The Doctor groaned before he looked at the baby with a creepy smile. “Never mind her. You will be of great use to us, young lad.”
“Mr Garaki, please take this girl from us. Her quirk, it’s monstrous.” Saiaku Toga pleaded as he, his wife Miotosu Toga and their first child Himiko Toga sat in the orphanage’s owner’s office.
“He’s right, sir. She’s more trouble than she is worth.” His wife added as the two parents refused to look at their daughter, who looked at her feet embarrassingly.
“I-I didn’t mean to drink that birdie’s blood. I-it just smelled so nice.” Himiko stuttered nervously, only for her parents to get angrier.
‘This is what we mean, sir! This demon child keeps going on about blood and its smell and all that nonsense!” Miotosu screamed furiously as her husband tried to calm her down, all the while glaring at Himiko.
“Don’t worry, mister and misses Toga. I’ll take this child off your hands.” Kyuudai said before pressing a button on his desk. “Nekiru my lad, please come to my office.” He said. And a minute later, a boy slightly younger than Himiko with dark hair entered the room. “Take little Himiko to the others while I finish discussing with her parents.”
“Yes sir.” The boy, who was probably around four, said before turning to Himiko. “Ya coming or not?”
“I don’t want to come with you. I don’t know you.” The blonde growled, only for her father to push her towards the boy. “But daddy, you said I should stay away from weird boys.”
“And I also told you to stop this demonic nonsense, yet you didn’t listen.” The older man growled as he and his wife once again didn’t look at their daughter, causing Himiko to awkwardly follow Nekiru towards a place where other children were playing.
“This is the playroom. We can do whatever we want here until dinner and bedtime.” Nekiru explained as Himiko looked around the room, already seeing multiple things she wanted to play with. “Do you want to color with me?”
“…Sure, why not.” As Himiko said this, the duo sat down at a table with paper and crayons. “So, what should we draw?”
“Mice…I like mice, rats and other rodents.” Nekiru mumbled as he made a couple gray balls before adding a triangle with two pink balls on top and a pink tail.
“Then I’ll draw a cat to eat the mice.” The blood-loving girl giggled as she drew an orange circle before adding a smaller one as the head, a thick line as the tail, two small triangles as the ears and a cute face. “We used to have so many cute kitties near my house. Though they were all scared of me.”
“Sometimes I see a rat in Mr. Garaki’s lab while he puts needles in my body.” Nekiru mumbled as he kept adding more mice and rats (which were just bigger ones) to the drawing.
“Why does he stick needles into you?”
“I don’t know. It hurts but he says I owe him. I don’t know what that means but it sounds important.”
“Well if it hurts, we should say something about it. Come, we’re telling mommy and daddy.” Himiko said determinedly, only for her new friend to look at her confused.
“Himiko, your parents left when I came to pick you up. This is an orph-a-nage.” The boy explained, having trouble saying the big word. Not that Himiko cared, because as soon as she heard that her parents left, it all sank in.
Her parents had abandoned her for her quirk.
“Toga, can you stop crying please? It's not so bad.” Nekiru mumbled as the girl began to sob.
“Shut up!” Himiko yelled while scowling at the boy with tears in her eyes. “W-why are mommy and daddy abandoning me?”
“Don’t worry, my parents abandoned me too.” Nekiru said casually as Himiko’s eyes widened before she turned to the boy.
“What did you say?”
“I said my parents left me here too. When I was a baby.”
“And you’re not sad about that?!” Himiko yelled, confused at the boy’s calmness about the subject.
“I dunno, I sorta remember my mama’s face but that’s all. I don’t really miss her because I don’t even know my parents.”
Hearing this, Himiko briefly turned towards the exit. If she left now, she might be able to catch up with her parents. But what would she do then? Her parents clearly didn’t want her anymore because of her quirk. “Nekiru was it? Do you want to continue our drawing?”
“Sure, but what about your parents?”
“Who needs them? All I need is a new little brother. And luckily for me, you seem to fill my requirements.”
Years went by at the orphanage. Children came and sometimes went but neither Himiko nor Nekiru were ever adopted. Himiko because of her quirk and Nekiru because he refused to leave her behind. Besides, as soon as people learned that his quirk allowed him to release poisonous gas onto people if he looked at them, most lost interest.
But one day, when Himiko turned thirteen, Kyuudai called them towards his office.
“Nekiru, Himiko, I need your assistance with something.” He said as all of a sudden, a purple vortex appeared behind them. Once the old man went through it, the two children knew they had to follow him through it, transporting them to a dark laboratory. “Children, for the past decades, I’ve worked with a man who can do miracles with his quirk. But as of today, I want to see if I can perform similar miracles to lighten his load.”
“And what does this have to do with us?” Himiko asked harshly as she stood in front of Nekiru protectively.
“I need test subjects. So I would like to ‘give’ both of you an extra quirk.” The old man explained. “Though the process is quite painful.”
“…I’ll do it if you leave Nekiru alone. You already hurt him enough with all those dumb needles.” Himiko growled, causing Kyuudai to raise his eyebrows with intrigue.
“You’re quite protective of him. Almost as bad as Kurogiri and her two brats.” The old grumbled. Despite this, Himiko didn’t let up…but Nekiru did.
“I’ll do it as well.” He said, earning him a confused look from Himiko. “You always protect me. S-so I want to get stronger and protect you as well. A-and a second quirk can help.” Despite his stuttering, Himiko saw the determination in his eyes.
“Awe, playing my hero, how sweet.” The blonde teased while ruffling Nekiru’s hair before both walked into a chamber Kyuudai opened up. Once inside, the old man puts a collar with a vial around both their necks before leaving to go to the control room, not before closing the chamber.
“Ready, baby bro?”
“I’m not a baby!”
As Himiko began to giggle at Nekiru’s pouty face, they suddenly were overwhelmed by an immense amount of pain as the chamber lit up and the vials were pumped into their bodies.
Himiko nails began to grow as between her fingers grew webbing, which then grew towards her armpits until she had batwings.
As for Nekiru, his eyes began to hurt, getting pushed from the inside of his skull until they popped out, only for them to regrow in his eye sockets while his old ones floated upwards.
“Succes!” Kyuudai cheered from his control room while Nekiru went to check on Himiko.
“Are you alright? You kinda grew wings. That must have hurt.” He asked as Himiko flapped her wings up and down until she was airborne.
“So cool!..What are you doing?” The bat girl asked once she saw Nekiru and his pair of extra eyes looking away.
“*murmur murmur*”
“Speak up, buddy. I promise I won’t hit you..too hard.”
“I don't want to look under your skirt.”
“Focus, you two.” Kyuudai cut off the duo with another announcement. “Since you two have done such a good job, I want you two to meet a couple people.”
“Who?” The now dual quirked children asked in unison.
“Their names are Tenko, Hana and Nao Shimura. Though one day, they’ll be known as Tomura, Kanashimi and Kurogiri.”