I don't own anything except any original characters (including the Reader's concept) and/or any original plot

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Prologue

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No man is created equal to his brother.

The opposite was commonly said. "We're all born equal" and all of that crap. People only say that to make the underdog feel as though he had a chance, to make him work harder and earn more money for those above him. But you understood the truth. Perhaps, at some point, before Quirks started appearing everyone was born equal. If they worked hard enough and were given little bits of luck then they'd become a millionaire. That wasn't the case anymore.

Your worth was decided by your Quirk. You were born without it manifesting, sure. Buck naked and screaming, you were as powerless as any other newborn, but the gene was present and dormant. The day your Quirk manifested was the day a price was slapped on your head by society. Future hero, government work, specialized field, normal worker, worthless. It was a silent rating system only a select few could prove wrong.

You were worthless.

Born into a nice home with two siblings, loving parents, and a stable income, you had the perfect recipe for a nice life. Based on your parent's Quirks, you could either go into something requiring increased intelligence or a job needing brute strength. Superintelligence or superstrength, neither were a bad option, and you were eager to find out what your future would hold. That was before the doctor's visit.

Your parents were concerned because you hadn't shown any signs of a Quirk manifesting. So they took you in for a checkup, expecting to be reassured that you were simply a late bloomer and could expect your Quirk within the next year.

The doctor was nice enough. He drew your blood - to your disdain - took a few X-Rays, and did a normal physical. He made small talk with you and your parents while the results were being processed, a permanent smile stitched onto his face as he asked you what you wanted to do when you grew up. You wanted to be a hero, what kid didn't? You were wearing All Might socks and had a Best Jeanist lunchbox.

Then the nurse came in, handed the doctor a stack of papers, and left. The room was silent as the doctor looked over the information in front of him, his smile slowly falling as his eyes flicked over the paper. Clicking his tongue, he sighed. Setting the papers on his desk he turned to you and your parents.

"You're daughter's Quirk hasn't manifested because she's quirkless."

Knives stabbed through your heart. The temperature around you dropped and the air left your lungs. Your formerly swinging legs stopped abruptly, hitting the examination table harshly. Your parents had a similar reaction, pale and dumbstruck.

"Quirkless? Are you positive?" Your dad broke the silence, his voice strained. He knew more than you did at the time about how cruel the world would be to you. You were upset because not having a Quirk meant not being a hero, but you'd grow up quickly and learn how much more important other things were after that day.

"Positive. It's interesting," the doctor mused, flipping through a few of the charts. "She only has one joint in her pinkie toe like the average Quirk user, but she doesn't have a Quirk. Do her siblings have well-developed Quirks?"

That hurt even more, hearing that you were broken with no explanation. You were supposed to have a Quirk, you were supposed to have a bright future, and it was taken away. You tried not to cry on the examination table, though if the doctor kept being brutally honest you wouldn't bother to hold back anymore.

"Yes. Her sister is a genius and her brother has super strength. Both of them have one of our Quirks."

"What likely happened was that both of you carry a recessive quirkless gene. While it was only a twenty-five percent chance, (Y/n) got both of those recessive genes which rendered her quirkless."

You were quirkless. Quirkless? Quirkless? The word circled around your mind, not processing. You weren't quirkless. There was no way. You were meant to have a Quirk. You were supposed to grow up and do something. You would have been okay not being a hero. You would have been sad, but at least you could do something, anything! Whatever Quirk you had received, you would have cultivated it to help you do what you loved.

All of that was stolen from you at that moment. That possible future full of light and confidence was gone in a snap. You didn't have a Quirk. You couldn't train, couldn't play fight with the other kids, or have them marvel over how cool your Quirk was. You were plunged into a dark lake, with no lifeboat to save you. And there was no explanation for it besides a genetic mutation that shouldn't have happened because of your pinky toe.

"She's going to grow up ridiculed," your mom sighed, running a hand through your hair. She was being bluntly honest too, but she likely assumed you wouldn't understand what she was saying. You were smarter than you looked, and your heart dropped at her words. "Society is going to look down on her."

Were they? You didn't have a good concept of what society was, but you knew it was basically the entire world. They would all look down on you for not having a Quirk? You were upset about it too, but there were so many other good things about you! You liked drawing and you could read big books and know most of the words, and you liked to make people laugh- you liked... you liked heroes.

All of that went down the drain because you didn't have a Quirk? Your tears faded slowly, and in their place was a sense of resentment. Not understanding the feeling at the time, all you knew was that you didn't like society. You didn't like that they wouldn't accept you because you didn't have a Quirk. It was stupid. You wanted a Quirk more than anyone, wouldn't they understand that? To be looked down upon and seen as weak for something you couldn't control-

"Perhaps as she grows up society will change to be more accepting of people who don't have Quirks. There's not much else I can offer. I'm sorry," the doctor was faking his sympathies. His eyes were still on the x-ray of your foot. You were interesting to him, that was all.

"It's alright. Thank you, doctor."

The day you learned you were quirkless was the day you understood how broken the world was. They condemned you at the age of four, unconcerned with your future because you no longer held worth. You'd show them your worth, make them see just how messed up they were.

The drive home was silent. Your parents kept on glancing in the rearview mirror to see how you were doing. There were no tears, no sniffles. You had never felt so... numb. How would the average person react? Would they be crying? Would they be shocked? Or was the overwhelming sense of longing and confusion with some resentment sprinkled in normal?

When you stepped over the threshold of your house your siblings rushed over to greet you and your parents. Your grandparents were there as well, watching your brother and sister while you were at the hospital. Your parents pulled your grandparents over, sharing a few hushed words with them. They were talking about you. No matter how secretive they could have been, you knew they were talking about you.

"Do you know why you don't have a Quirk yet?" Your older brother asked. He was so nice. There wasn't a mocking tone behind it. He just wanted to know. Your parents raised you right in that sense, working through problems and keeping everyone close. Your siblings were your best friends. How could you keep them bound to you and drag them into the darkness consuming your insides?

"I'm quirkless," you uttered. It didn't hurt to say it. The numbness you felt in the car had intensified. There was nothing. Just acceptance and emptiness, thoughts of a future that could have been versus the one you were now facing.

"Oh. Well, that's okay because you're still gonna grow up and be amazing," your sister pulled you into a hug. She was the oldest, twelve, and she knew how to handle disheartening situations like that.

Wrapping your arms loosely around her, you were glad she didn't push you away. Not like your grandparents who didn't say goodbye. Who were they to stop loving you because of something you couldn't decide? Your heart ached still, the first real thing you'd felt besides resentment. Loss. It was overwhelming, and you retreated to your room to feel it alone. Looking in the mirror, you could practically see the cracks in your heart. Maybe that was your Quirk all along, seeing the broken.

Your mother was right. You grew up without a moment's peace. Condemned the moment word spread about your condition, you fought to survive. Kids were cruel. Crueler than any adults cared to admit. "Not my baby, they would never cause those bruises. She must have fallen instead." They said and did what they wished with the knowledge they could easily be excused with immaturity.

"Did you hear? (Y/n) doesn't have a Quirk."

Attempting to tune out the whispers behind you, you continued coloring your picture. You had returned to school from your doctor's appointment the week before. Everyone somehow knew by this point you were quirkless. The walls had ears, and those walls gave way to your classmates.

"Sucks to be her. She must be devastated."

"Who cares about how she feels? She's weak. She's never gonna grow up to do anything important."

You grit your teeth, pushing forward on the picture. You wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a response. They had to know you could hear them. Kindergarteners putting down their fellow five-year-old classmate. The longer they talked, the harder you pressed, and eventually, the crayon snapped.

~*~

The years were not kind to you either. One would think that as your classmates grew, their respect and humanity would as well. That hope was crushed the first day of every school year until you stopped caring. Your summers weren't filled with the hope of making friends anymore, it was enjoyment with your family and nothing else. Even then, your happiness came and went.

They treated you like you were fragile, no longer speaking of their Quirks at the dinner table. You loved them more than anything, but you grew to hate them too. You wanted, needed, normality. To be shown that you weren't different because you were quirkless. All you craved was to be told you could be strong, smiled at in pride for other talents. Your hopes that that would happen faded too.

Their pity dunked you under the water. Why couldn't they see that you didn't need to be treated so fragile? You needed them to push forward with you. They had to. You wanted them to show you that a Quirk based society could thrive along with the quirkless. They were supposed to save you by showing you the world wasn't broken.

Still, you preferred their silent pity over the world's overbearing ridicule. Every insult under the sun was directed at you at some point. Whether it was a hushed or loud whisper, or someone yelled it while purposefully slamming you into a wall.

"Quirkless freak!"

"Why would we want such a loser to play with us?"

"If I was born quirkless I would kill myself. No point living as such a waste of space."

Above all of the taunts and insults was the laughter. The dark, mocking laughter. They laughed without understanding how you felt. They laughed while showing off their Quirks. They laughed while you were drowning in your own darkness, desperately reaching out for someone, anyone, to tell you that you could be something.

Resentment, anger, and desire replaced any hope and determination you had for the idea that the world would change on its own. Desire for a better world, anger towards the powerful people who didn't do anything, resentment towards everything and nothing at the same time. You felt like you were going crazy, stuck in your own head. You needed to do something.

By the start of your middle school years, you had reached your breaking point. Nearly seven years of dealing with the ridicule and torture of ignorant Quirk holders, and you were done with it.

There were whispers on the street of a man near Tokyo that could give Quirks to those that didn't have any if they pledged their allegiance. A man who pulled the invisible strings of the underworld. It was hard getting people to talk, considering you were eleven. But when you flashed a bit of the money you'd been saving since you'd decided on your plan, they were more than happy to tell you what they knew.

It was easy to convince your parents to take you to Tokyo for a vacation before school started. They were always willing to do whatever you asked since they found out you were quirkless. They wanted to give you a better life. Ultimately, they failed, but you never loved them any less for their failures because you knew they were trying their best.

Going from (home country) to Japan so quickly was hard, but you'd been doing your best to learn the area's Japanese dialect as soon as you started planning, so you were much better at navigating the streets than your parents and siblings. It was on a Saturday in a busy shopping district that you finally slipped away while they were distracted.

After asking a few more people and flashing a few wads of cash that your parents had gotten for the trip, they told you where to go.

That led you to a rundown bar where a man named Kurogiri was waiting for you. Word spread fast, and he was already aware of what you wanted. You two had a long conversation that felt like a job interview. It likely was.

He asked you why you were there, how long you had been trying to find them, how determined you were to get what you wanted, so on. He spoke your first language fluently, and it was a relief to be able to say exactly what you wanted to without fear of a mistranslation.

"Alright," he finally gave what looked like a nod underneath the mist of his Quirk.

The mist spread from his body and formed a portal. A warping Quirk, then. Without hesitation you stepped through, knowing full well that if he saw you as anything other than useful you would likely be walking to your death.

It was a dark room, with machines lining the walls and a man inside. He seemed to be surviving off of tubes and the machines placed along the walls, but as soon as you looked at him your heart filled with dread and you knew you were looking at All for One.

"And who might you be?"

He knew who you were. That, you were certain about. But he asked all the same. He was testing you, seeing if you would lie like any other scared kid, "My name is (Y/n) (L/n)."

"And why are you here, child?"

"I've heard rumors about what you can do. Any criminal worth their salt knows about you. You can take Quirks, and give them. I want one."

He grinned, no kindness behind the act, "And why would I give one to you?"

"Because I'm smart and willing to do a lot of things if it means changing society. People with Quirks are comfortable, too comfortable. They push down the powerless when they themselves are powerless and hiding under the umbrella of heroes. I want to change all that, I want a world where who you are and not what Quirk you have decides your future. To do that I'll need power."

All for One's grin widened, "I see. An admirable goal, I'll admit. Surprising, as a child as young as you should be focused on other things. Things you've been robbed of because of your quirklessness, isn't that right? You grew up quickly and shrouded in the darkness the world thrust upon you, holding out hope but soon finding that no one understood what you truly needed."

He picked you apart in seconds, and you still had the nerves to say- "I have terms."

"Demands for the man who could give you a Quirk?"

"Yes. One, I won't kill anyone who's innocent. And two, when I want to leave, I'm leaving. No strings attached, no debt left to you, no one coming after me. I'm gone. I'll serve my purpose and I'll serve you for as long as I see fit. You won't find someone more willing to do what it takes to change things."

All for One's grin became even wider, and you knew he appreciated that you were brave - almost stupidly - and already vowing that you'd do whatever he asked as long as you were left alone when you wanted to leave, "I understand, and I accept. I have others who are willing to kill innocents for the cause, and as long as you are silent then no harm will come to you shall you wish to leave. I will have much use for you. Come here, child."

You stepped closer, and his aged hand brushed over your shoulder. All at once, you felt a rush of power, so intense that you fell to your knees with a gasp. When it was over you were tired and slightly drained, but you were new. Thrumming through your veins was pure energy.

"Energy Quirk, powerful. Not one that matches my others and not one I've taken time to harness. Kurogiri, take her to meet Tomura. I think they'll find they have a lot in common."