He didn’t stop running, not until his lungs were screaming and his legs were burning. Even then, he only stopped because he collapsed to the ground. Around him, the buildings were less dense, further apart from one another. The smell of the city was less, overwhelmed by the scent of nature. In the distance was a small patch of trees, threatening a forest up ahead. Izuku caught his breath, gathering his thoughts and trying to make them coherent.
This must be the outskirts of Musutafu. Ages ago, his family had gone on a walk through those woods, but that was a very different time, and the forest had grown thicker and less traversable. It was back when he could say with certainty that his family loved him.
Now though…
Toshinori had a quirk that could be passed on, and never even considered giving it to his quirkless son. Oh god! Izuku just ran away from the number one hero’s home! How could he have been so stupid! They were just going to drag him back there to suffer through their disappointment. Any infinitesimal chance he had of getting into UA was completely destroyed. Izuku would be lucky to be able to leave the house at all! What’s worse, they would consider themselves justified. Obviously Izuku couldn’t be trusted to take care of himself. He ran away after all.
The looming threat of his own family’s judgement spurred him to keep moving. If he could get away from Musutafu, then he could try and make something for himself. As much as he hated it, Toshinori would never consider he’d be able to get that far on his own. It would be the perfect disguise.
And it only took ten years of neglect to make it so.
Izuku walked, skirting the edge of the city and the forest, looking for anything he could use as shelter. The sun was setting and he didn’t really want to be out and about at night. It would be harder to move safely, and the night also brought villains, villains who’d think nothing of taking advantage of a lost teenager.
Just as the sun disappeared, he found a small shack. It might have once been a shed for a building that had been demolished, but it was four walls and a roof with a closing door. The walls were mostly intact as well. It was perfect shelter! He managed to pry open the door enough for him to slip through. Inside was basically empty. A few old tarpaulins were draped over the gutted remains of an engine. It was a bit drafty, but Izuku got to work and made a makeshift bed. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than the cold hard ground.
As the night settled in, Izuku’s thoughts drifted back to his family. Would any of them care that he was gone? Mizuki probably wouldn’t even notice. In all likelihood, neither Mom or Toshinori would either. Haru would, and not just because he’d chased after him. Thinking about his brother hurt, but Haru was better off without him. When he was an amazing pro hero, he wouldn’t need to worry about his weak, quirkless younger brother.
Thinking about his family hurt.
Somehow he managed to fall asleep, though it was fragmentary and not all that restful. Many times he’d startle awake, either from a nightmare of being locked in his room at home, or because he was sure he’d heard something moving outside the shack. Needless to say when the sun had risen enough that the light was unavoidable, Izuku was still bone tired. It was useless though, he had to keep moving. He needed to get as far away from home as he could.
A clattering from above spooked him. Jumping to his feet, he looked up to see a bird sitting on one of the ceiling supports. At first glance he thought it was an owl, but it wasn’t like any that he’d seen before. Maybe a barn owl, but barn owls did not have purple and blue wings, nor did they stare quite so intently at people. It was unnerving, so much so that Izuku didn’t really want to stay there any longer.
Squeezing back out into the bracing chill of early morning, he pondered which route he should take. Ideally he needed to get to a train station. With that thought in mind, he retraced his steps from the day before and headed back into the city. Once he found a station, he could sneak on board a train. Even if a conductor kicked him off, it would still be far enough that his family would never find him.
A heavy thump nearly sent him sprawling on the ground. Luckily he was able to stay standing, whirling around to face … no one. There was nobody there. Confused, Izuku kept his guard up. There were plenty of quirks which could have hit him at range, the user probably hiding. A loud hoot drew his attention to the ground. The barn owl was there, staring up at him.
Was this normal behaviour for owls? Izuku may not be an expert, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t. The owl leaned backwards, twisting its head to face back towards the shack, and hooted again.
Izuku decided the best course of action was to ignore this strange bird and continue on his current plan. He needed to get to a train station and get as far away as possible. After that, he’d have to improvise. At least then he could lie and claim to have some kind of quirk if people asked. At least that way he could use homeless shelters as an absolute last resort. It all required him to…
Another thump to his back had him crash to the ground this time. Izuku turned back and glared but the owl didn’t seem fazed by it at all. It simply twisted its head backwards and hooted again, though it also hopped on the spot. Izuku stood but when he made to walk away, he caught the way the owl tensed, preparing to knock into him again.
“What do you want?”
The owl hooted.
“You think it’s funny? Knocking down the kid who has nothing, over and over again! It’s not as if this has never happened before. It’s not as if nearly everyone in my life hasn’t done the exact same thing! Apparently even animals see me as pathetic. I am not pathetic!”
The owl didn’t react to his rant. Izuku couldn’t help but laugh.
“And now I’m ranting at an owl as if it can understand me.”
This was too much, because when he said that the owl hopped and hooted.
“You’re saying you can understand me?”
Another hoot.
“This is it. I’ve finally cracked,” he said, sitting down heavily and letting his head hang, “it’s not like I’ve got any way to prove it. It’s not like I can say ‘if you can understand me, come sit on my shoulder’ or something like that.”
There was a flutter of wings and then a surprisingly light weight rested on his shoulder. Izuku looked up and the owl was there. It hooted at him in a way which he almost thought was smug. Izuku was stunned.
“You can understand me.”
The owl hooted once again. It must have some kind of quirk, either one which made it smarter or just one that allowed it to understand human speech. Izuku couldn’t help but laugh again. Of course he would find an animal with a quirk. It was just his luck. Apparently even animals would get quirks before him. His laughter was quiet, broken, half way to being sobs. At the noise, the owl gently nipped his ear.
“Sorry, sorry. It’s been a rough few days,” he said, though that was putting it lightly, “but I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my screw ups.”
The owl hooted, hopping off his shoulder to land in front of him.
“Did you want something?”
The owl hopped in place, doing that weird thing again where it angled its body while twisting its head to look back at the forest in the distance.
“Do you not want me to go to the forest?”
It moved its head side to side, obviously saying no.
“Ok, do you want me to go to the forest?”
That got a very happy reaction as the owl jumped in place and hooted loudly. Izuku stood and slowly ambled back towards the forest. The owl gave another happy hoot before taking off, flying in loose circles around him.
“I’ve no idea why you want me to go to the forest, but you’re not going to leave me alone until I do, right?”
Another hoot.
“Didn’t think so. It’s not like my plan was any better. Get lost in some woods or get lost in a big city. At least in the woods I might be able to find something to eat without being screamed at by people.”
The walk was calm and actually quite nice. While the owl could apparently understand him just fine, Izuku had no idea what it was saying in reply. The one sided conversation was nice though, even if he started feeling bad for calling the owl ‘Owl’ in his head.
“Can I call you Blue? I’m sorry if you’ve already got a name, but I want to call you something, and I probably should have given it more thought but I’m really tired and drained and I can’t seem to get my brain to think about something like that.”
The owl cut him off by landing on his shoulder again. It lightly batted his head with its wing.
“I take it that’s a yes to the name?”
Another hoot and the owl took off again, flying in low circles around him as he kept walking. When they reached the tree line, Blue landed, hopping on a branch. It was definitely odd behaviour but Izuku had resigned himself to whatever fate this strange owl had in store for him. Through the trees, Izuku followed as Blue flew from branch to branch. The world around him was quiet, so much so that Izuku jumped out of his skin when a bush rustled next to him.
Appearing out of the foliage was a deer. Its fur was tinted red and it didn’t have antlers, though that wasn’t obvious at first. In their place were twisted branches in the shape of antlers with cherry blossoms blooming along their length. It was another strange animal, looking at Izuku with intelligence.
“I’m going to call you Red.”
Sue him, he left his creativity behind with his family apparently. The deer didn’t seem to care. It walked alongside him as he continued following Blue. It should have come as no surprise, given the company he was currently keeping, that they were joined by yet another strange animal. This time it was a squirrel with green fur. Its tail was a large leaf. It skittered about, jumping from the branches of the trees to the ones on Reds head with almost manic energy.
Izuku, of course, called it Green. When he told it this, the squirrel chittered, finding a comfortable perch on his shoulder as he kept walking.
Finding one animal with a quirk was rare. Finding two, basically impossible. Finding three? It went against everything they knew about quirks. If quirked animals were this common, why didn’t they appear more often? It was very confusing, so much so that Izuku barely noticed when they started walking up hill.
It was only when he saw the river to his right also flowing up hill that it registered. Something very strange was going on. Quirked animals were one thing but this was against the laws of physics. Izuku kept following Blue as the trees opened up, revealing a small glade next to a sheer cliff. The drop was obscured by a thick covering of fog. Despite that, it was a nice view as he looked out into the distance.
“That was a lovely hike through the woods, but I’m hungry now and I need to get back to find a train,” Izuku said.
When he tried to leave, Red stood in his way. Blue landed on its antlers and Izuku hadn’t thought a hoot could sound disapproving until now. Green chittered once more, scurrying off his shoulders and around his ankles. Only once his attention was completely on the squirrel did it shoot off, towards the edge of the cliff.
“Hey wait!”
But Green didn’t jump. It instead brought his attention to something Izuku hadn’t seen earlier. Next to the edge of the cliff was a stone tablet, embedded in the ground. It showed no sign of erosion or wear from the elements, almost as though it was freshly placed. The stone was smooth aside from the writing carved into it.
Only those who know no power can make the leap.
Izuku didn’t understand. Make the leap? What was that supposed to mean? Red nudged him and gestured with its antlers to the thick fog surrounded the drop.
“You’ve got to be kidding me? You want me to jump off a cliff? As suicide baiting goes, this has to be the most elaborate one I’ve gotten so far, so congratulations!”
Still the animals refused to let him leave. Green kept chittering, slapping its hands against the stone tablet as if it was supposed to mean anything. It just served to anger Izuku even further. After everything he’d been through in his life, was it all going to end because three quirked animals told him to jump? It wasn’t like he had anything to lose, but still, would the last fourteen years have been wasted if he gave up now?
Red made a disgruntled noise before running past Izuku and jumping off the cliff. Izuku cried out, reaching to try and stop the deer but it was too fast. He clenched his eyes shut, waiting to hear the sickening crunch as Red hit the ground. Only it didn’t come. He tried peering through the fog but he still couldn’t see the bottom.
Maybe it wasn’t a cliff. Maybe it was only a short drop.
Green slapped the stone tablet once again, joined by Blue who hopped beside it.
“Are you trying to say if I jump off there, I won’t die?”
The animals jumped up excitedly, making happy noises. It was crazy. It was insane. It was … the only thing Izuku could do right now.
“If this works, I’d better get something out of it. There’s no way I lived through fourteen years of hell just to die in some random forest.”
The animals didn’t seem deterred. Blue took off, doing a loop in the air before diving through the fog. Green gave one last chitter before following the owl. With them no longer there, there wasn’t anything stopping Izuku from turning around and leaving, but here there was a chance for … something. Something had possessed three animals with quirks, who really should have avoided contact with humans, to lead him here and show him the tablet. The tablet wanted him to jump, saying only those without power could make the leap.
Izuku had never known power, so if this tablet was to be believed, he could do this, whatever this was.
He took a few steps backwards. Imagining that he was being chased by all the bullies he’d ever known, all baying for his blood, made it very easy to run forward. He closed his eyes, waiting until he thought the time was right and then…
Izuku jumped.