Worthless No More: A Quirkless Not Worthless AU

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: This has been inspired by Quirkless Unbound by Shadowhuntress and Zyla_SweetBean on Archive Of Our Own. I strongly recommend you read that before reading this. Some scenes and dialogue will be the same, but will take place mainly from OC's perspective. This is to answer the What If..? question: "What if Maddie and Tenko were childhood friends?" A few minor plot points will also be changed. MHA belongs to Kohei Horikoshi.

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Inko sighed as she picked at her meal in the mess hall with her fork. She didn't have an appetite today, despite her current appearance. The years had not been kind to her. She rested her head on her closed fist, her eyes clouded over and lost.

Things had been... difficult ever since she had been arrested. The day she lost Izuku. It had been agonizing not knowing what had happened to him. Was he in one of those facilities, broken down to be a submissive pet? Had he been "adopted" and held against his will in a humiliatingly plush environment? Had he been picked up by Quirkless traffickers? The lack of knowledge was killing her, but she knew better than to press anyone for information. After all, she was only viewed as his abusive mother.

She had only done what was best for Izuku. If she had him documented as Quirkless when he was four, the Quirkless Commission would have swooped in and locked him up anyway. She would lose custody rights over him, all because he didn't have a Quirk. She didn't want her baby to go through that. Yet, it had happened anyway. Frankly, she knew she wouldn't have been able to hide him forever. She did her best to make it last as long as possible. It had just happened way too fast and way too soon.

Throughout all of this, she still felt as though she failed him as a mother. Not because she didn't hand him over to the QC, like everyone else told her, but because she failed to protect him. He must be so scared. Izuku had a soft heart. She wasn't sure if he would survive in a place like that. But she knew her boy, and she prayed with her entire being that he wasn't just going to roll over, that he was fighting back. The thought got her through most nights.

She thought about her son all the time during the years she spent in prison. It gave her immense joy and filled her with so much sorrow. She wanted to be there for him, but now that she was a convicted criminal, she didn't think she'd ever be able to see him again. She could only hope that he was better off wherever he was now, knowing full well that was only wishful thinking. She sagged in her seat, defeated and dejected.

That was until the far wall opposite her exploded, pieces of concrete and twisted rebar tumbling from the gaping hole that was created. A few of the other women shrieked and ran for cover, but none of the falling debris came close to endangering anyone. When the dust cleared, the afternoon sun shone in from the new opening. And silhouetted in that sunlight was a girl. A girl in an orange Tartarus jumpsuit.

Now, she was clearly a young adult at the very least, but her short stature would have people mistake her for being a teenager. Her brown hair shone golden in the sunlight, her blue eyes darting around the vicinity. White feathery wings sprouted from her back.

The other inmates stared up at this winged girl in bewilderment. She noticed all the stares and suddenly looked awkward, chuckling nervously to herself. "Uh, hey. Sorry to bother you." She said this as if she was visiting someone's house, not busting into a state prison. "But is there an Inko Midoriya in here, by any chance?"

Many eyes turned to the green-haired woman then, and her nerves shot through the roof. But this girl didn't appear to have any malicious intent, despite being a Tartarus escapee. Seriously, how did she even do that?! Regardless, she shakily got to her feet, tentatively raising her hand. "U-Um, that-that's me," she stammered.