Her Shadows [1]

Keiko Aizawa: Origin

It was the first day of classes at UA and I was less nervous than I probably should have been. I hadn't met anyone new from my class yet and I wasn't sure how well we would get along, not that I cared too much about making friends, but it's nice to get along with heroes you could work with in the future. You see, I got into the prestigious UA High School on recommendation from a few different pro heroes.

Allow me to back up for you. My name is Keiko Aizawa and I am a part of the 80% of the population that has a unique ability called a quirk. Mine is known as shadow manipulation and it does exactly as the name suggests, plus a few other things. I've been using it for years, training and pushing my limits so that I could be like my dad, the pro hero Eraserhead. He's not my biological dad, but he's more of a father than my real one. My biological parents are a story for another time.

Like I said, it was my first day of classes and the first day I would meet the rest of my classmates. I had to drag my ass out of bed at the crack of dawn in order to get to school on time and do my morning routine of going for a run and working out. I'm not exactly a gym rat because my social anxiety would actually manifest and kick my ass for making me go out in public to train, so Dad and I made a small at-home gym and training room so that we could both train, occasionally inviting my best friend over. I guess you could say my personality fits my quirk. I'm like a shadow in a room and lots of people don't notice me, which is fine by me. I don't want to be a pro hero like All Might, although I do respect him (who doesn't). I'd much rather be a hero like Dad, who stays out of the public eye as much as possible.

After I got out of bed, I walked sluggishly out of my room, petting my cat, Yuzuki, who was laying at the foot of my bed. I opened the door to the hallway and walked to the kitchen, where I figured Dad would already be waiting. Sure enough, there he was, sitting at the table and looking like he was half asleep, which he probably was. If you didn't know any better, you'd think that Dad and I were related by more than a name. We acted extremely similar and I even looked kind of like him after spending 8 years with him.

"Good morning," he said lazily, bringing his coffee to his mouth and taking a sip.

"If it was a good morning, I'd still be asleep," I retorted.

Dad snorted into his coffee as soon as I said that, but he composed himself again very quickly. I went about the kitchen looking for something to eat but didn't find anything. Guess we'll have to go grocery shopping sometime soon. I thought to myself. Instead, I poured myself a cup of coffee and grabbed a bag of chips that were definitely not meant to be eaten as breakfast. I was about to sit down across from Dad to eat when our two long-haired cats started circling around me and meowing, signaling that they were ready for their breakfast. Sighing, I set my breakfast down and poured their food into the designated bowls on the ground. I grabbed my breakfast again and sat down across from Dad.

"Are you still not going to tell me who my teacher is?" I asked for the millionth time since I found out I was accepted into UA.

"No," he responded. "You'll figure it out later today. Besides, you already know the majority of the teachers there."

"I know," I pouted while tossing a chip into my mouth. "But still, what's the point of having a dad who is a teacher at the school I'm attending, but not being able to know in advance who my teacher will be?"

"Maybe I should have just kept my job a secret then," he mused with a small smile on his face.

"Maybe you should have," I responded with a smile.

The rest of our breakfast was eaten with very few words exchanged. That's just how Dad and I were though. We didn't use a lot of words, so we showed our love with our actions instead. That's why he got me Yuzuki when I was eight years old. I had been bullied at school for my quirk and my eyes, which were obviously things I could control, and Dad happened to find Yuzuki, who shared a unique eye color with me, at a shelter. After that, I'd been bullied a few more times because of the scars I had on my face. There was an x-shaped one under my left eye and a vertical scar on the right side of my lips. The kids in my classes always found them unnerving. It was after those incidents that he finally pulled me out of public school and homeschooled me instead, which led to me hanging out around UA facilities a lot and meeting almost all of the teachers and faculty there.