Part I: Before Chapter 1: Iro Henka has No Friends Iro Henka had come to the conclusion that there was no such thing as “friends”. She decided this one day, as she sat alone in the janitor’s closet for, what was it now, the fifty-third day in a row? Yes, there was no such thing as friends, or at least not for one so exploitable as herself. Everyone wanted her solely for her Quirk. Quirks were an intrinsic part of a person. They did not define their personality, per say, but defined how others viewed them, which was, in Iro’s opinion, more important. For example, anyone with a blood Quirk or manipulative Quirk was deemed “probably a villain”. People with faint quirks were “soft”, or “weak”. And then there were the heroes. They had incredible, flashy quirks that impressed everyone. Not everyone with one of these quirks was expected to be hero, but every hero was expected to have one of these quirks. Besides that, most quirks had little to no real impact, but could be used for a specialty job or hobby. Iro’s Quirk fell into the last category. Her “superpower” was to change the color and or pattern of whatever she touched. Whether she wanted it to or not. Because of this she wore gloves almost 24/7, except when she was showering. The gloves’ fabric swirled in an ever-changing color shift, which drew a lot of attention she really didn’t want, so she sometimes wore a second pair of gloves over her first. When she was little, Iro had the tendency to talk about her Quirk a lot. She wasn’t bragging, and most other kids were talking about them, because everyone’s quirks were manifesting around that age, but her chatter attracted the attention of a nearby group of trope girls. You know the kind, with one leader and two to four sidekicks to back up her point. This girl was Nise Tomodachi, and she was in love with Iro’s Quirk. So Nise and her posse sauntered over to Iro, and introduced themselves. “Hi! I’m Nise Tomodachi, and a little birdie told me that you can make things different colors.” “Yeah! Wanna see?” Iro replied. “Of course,” Nise said. Iro slipped off her tiny glove and patted her sweater. The pink sweater became a light yellow. “Amazing,” Nise muttered, before looking Iro in the eyes and saying, “Can you make my dress purple?” “Sure!” Iro beamed, happy to help. She reached over, and as soon as her finger touched the fabric, a shade of lavender spread all over it. “Wow,” Nise said. “Do you wanna be friends?” Nise asked. “Yeah!” Iro cheered. And so they were “friends”, for around 5 years. But, at the start of fifth grade, things went downhill. Iro never really spoke her opinion, out of fear of losing Nise’s friendship. But this was too much. Iro invited Nise and her group to her birthday party. None of them came. She ate her cake in shame. When school came on Monday, Iro confronted Nise about it. “Why didn’t you come to my birthday party?” Nise simply sighed, looked at her nails and said, “Because we had a spa day, alright?” Iro looked baffled. “Well why didn’t you tell me about it? I wouldn’t’ve had my party on the same day!” “Because we didn’t want you there. You’re not cool.” “Then why am I your friend?” But Nise and her girls sashayed away. One of them turned around and said, “I want you to take a good hard look at yourself and ask yourself that question again.” She looked down, and the first thing that looked out of place was her hands.... her gloves.... her quirk! Of course! Her Quirk! Who wouldn’t want a Quirk like hers? It was so cool. It was... cooler than her. The truth came to her like a bullet through her skull. Her Quirk was what everyone wanted. That’s what made her her. She was her quirk. That’s what she would always be. Nise and her groups weren’t friends with Iro, they were friends with her Quirk. So she cast herself away. She started eating lunch in the janitor’s closet. She took up reading all hours of the day. She clothed herself in grey and black, desperate to not draw attention to her shameful self. Because for Iro Henka, there was not such thing as “friends”. And there would never be. But even so, a tiny part of her held out hope. Notes: So yea, this is the first chapter. Iro is the first person you see, so I needed to fill in a little on the world for non mha fans. Part I is just the setup. The story before the backstory. Next chapter: Inku Makkurona is a Toughie!
So ye. Sorry I’ve been off the radar for so long, I really haven’t had time to log on to scratch everyday. I actually wrote this chapter months ago, and was just having trouble with the sketch because my first concepts were *awful*. The music I stole from an animation meme (credit in the name).