The Emperor's Dragon

Test of Courage

Yakuni blinked. The little girl didn't disappear.

"I'm awake," he confirmed for her, as he shifted into a more comfortable sitting position as he looked over at the girl again.

She was young and her long hair was remarkably untangled. She had wide red eyes and a horn growing from one side of her forehead. It probably had some function to do with her quirk. She was dressed in a simple shift and her arms and legs were wrapped with bandages.

"Are you like me?" she asked.

"Like you?" Yakuni couldn't answer her question. He had no idea what she was talking about.

"With a quirk he wants to use. That's why he takes me apart."

"Oh," he said, taking a deep breath. The pain was easing. It would be easy to tell her yes, and then play on that but she might then tell Overhaul. "No, I don't have a quirk."

"You don't?"

Yakuni had seen a lot of reactions in his life when he told someone that he was quirkless. Pity was the most common. Fear the next, as if he was contagious. He'd never thought he'd see envy, but that was unmistakably the emotion that came after shock. Then her expression shifted to one of sorrow.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

"What are you sorry for?"

"My quirk took your quirk away," she whispered.

Yakuni frowned. "I never had a quirk," he told her.

That seemed to get through to her and her red eyes stared at him for a moment before she burst into tears. He had no idea what to do and just watched for a moment. He knew better than to approach someone crying. Who knew what her quirk was and if, as she'd hinted, her's took away other quirks then...

"Why are you crying?" Yakuni asked after a few moments when it became obvious it wasn't just a few sobs.

"I wish I didn't have a quirk," she bawled.

Logically, he knew that there were some people who didn't want their quirks. In school, there'd been those who wanted their quirks to do more, or rarely do less and sometimes they wanted someone else's quirk but no one didn't actually want their quirk because they knew any quirk was better than no quirk.

"Why?" He asked. Yakuni could still remember how hard he'd wished for his quirk to come in at that age. He could remember the devastation he'd felt when it had been confirmed he was never going to get one.

She didn't answer for a few minutes. "Because my quirk hurts people," she eventually said.

Without seeing what her quirk did, he couldn't agree or disagree with that statement. "Well, you can learn to control it," Yakuni said instead. He tilted his head back, and looked up at the ceiling.

"No, I can't," she sniffed.

"Of course you can," he countered. "You are what, four, five years old?" Yakuni wasn't that great about estimating the age of kids.

"I'm seven," she said.

"Seven! Then you can definitely learn to control it," he shrugged.

"How?" the girl gave a gulp. It was wet and snotty and Yakuni suppressed a grimace at the noise.

He thought about his own quirk and learning to use it. They'd figured it out quickly and once he knew how it felt, he'd just practiced. But he'd practiced on small things first before working his way up and practicing without pockets. This girl seemed to know what her quirk did so she should know to practice on small things.