43 Chapter 43: Q&A part 2

"Alright, next question." Izuku moved on.

As Izuku looked through the chat, there were a couple questions that kept popping up. Such as people asking about his age and about his own quirk. These questions he didn't have any intention of answering.

However, one question he wasn't sure about that kept popping up was this.

What were your lives like before getting adopted?

This was a VERY loaded question. However, what kept Izuku from dismissing it outright, was the fact that kids like Eri and Kioku weren't present.

Most of the kids here had pretty much accepted their pasts and were willing to move past them. With the exception of Yonda, but he could always just not have her answer.

"Caretaker!" Kiba once again snapped Izuku back into reality. "You froze again."

"Oh right sorry!" Izuku quickly apologized, before looking back at the chat to see the question kept popping up. He took a few more seconds to decide whether or not to ask it, and in the end, he thought that leaving it to the children was the best way to go about it. "So you kids don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but...what were your lives like, before I adopted you?"

That question had varying reactions.

Kai, Shiruku, Otoko, and Netsu didn't have any notable reactions. If anything they seemed a little confused as to why anyone would want to know about that.

Kiba also seemed confused, and a little upset and uncomfortable. But not overly so.

Fu kept his typical deadpan expression. To be expected.

Sansan, for just a second, actually froze, before she started moving again, and even then she looked a bit less ecstatic.

Kei seemed unaffected. About what Izuku expected from her.

Yonda on the other hand was just...sad. The look of sadness on her face made Izuku regret asking it almost immediately.

Why do I have the feeling they have a range of backstories that go from Bad to Worse.

I feel bad for asking.

Ouf.

"Like I said none of you have to answer if you don't want to." Izuku reiterated.

"I'll answer," Kei spoke up, before looking at the camera. "I don't remember much of my life before my quirk, but I think it was good. But after I got my quirk...the people taking care of me didn't want me anymore, because my quirk was a problem. So they threw me out of the house and told me to never come back."

Fucking shitty parents!

Goddamn it I hate people sometimes!

Oh, this is taking a dark turn.

We asked for it.

Red Riot: Not manly! If you have a kid, then you have to take responsibility! You can't just kick em out when things get hard! And if you are gonna give them up, give them to an orphanage or something! Don't just leave them out on the streets!

"After that, I lived on the streets for a while. I can't control my quirk, so a bunch of accidents kept happening and I turned people to stone when I didn't mean to." Kei continued in a somber tone. "And people kept calling me a monster, and said that I was hideous, and they said lots of mean things."

People are the worst.

How is it that kids like this always end up surrounded by terrible people?

Dust to Dust: Because there is an abundance of terrible people.

Why didn't the heroes help?

Queen Crimson: What a silly question! Heroes don't help with things like this! Silly.

Bloodcurdle: Yeah. Doesn't give them any glory.

"And then after that, a bad man found me. And kidnapped me." Kei revealed, you could now see a bit of the pain on her face, as she relieved some bad memories, although she still seemed mostly ok considering what she was talking about. "He kept me locked in a cage with a blindfold on, and took me out so he could steal from places, he would make me use my quirk to turn everyone to stone, and if I tried to close my eyes he would hit me until I opened them."

What the fuck?!

I'm gonna be sick.

Oh, Kei.

Alien Queen: I think I want to vomit. That is disgusting.

Invisible Girl: That's low even for a villain.

Uravity: Kei you poor sweet girl. I'm so sorry.

"But, then everything got better! Because one day, dad took him down and rescued me!" Kei's expression brightened up significantly, and she smiled brightly at the camera. "Dad knocked him out, stone cold, and went to untie me...but he accidentally looked at my eyes and turned to stone. Sorry, dad."

Izuku smiled and walked over to her, giving her a quirk hug to reassure her. "It's fine. It wasn't your fault. None of that was. You didn't choose your quirk."

Kei's smile widened even further, and she hugged her father back.

Awww.

Alien Queen: Awwww.

Invisible Girl: Awwww.

Queen Crimson: Awww.

Izuku returned to his seat, and Kei continued her story. "When he went back to normal, he adopted me! Which was the best day ever! I got a new dad! I got a new little sister! I got to live in a house again and I didn't need to eat garbage anymore!"

It's so bittersweet to see how happy she is when she says she didn't need to eat garbage anymore.

Good on you Caretaker!

Shoto Todoroki: Good job Midoriya. This world needs more good parents.

Red Riot: He saved her himself and took her in even after she turned him to stone! Now that's manly!

Bloodcurdle: That's what a true hero does.

That's such a sad story. So glad it had a happy ending.

Creati: I still struggle with the fact that a parent actually condemned a child to such a fate.

Alien Queen: We Stan Dadoriya. Especially Uravity.

Uravity: MINA!

Invisible Girl: Stan.

Stan.

Stan.

Poor girl. I can't imagine how hard that must have been.

Well on the bright side she seems to be doing ok now.

Kei was ready to let her other siblings tell their stories, but when she looked around she saw that her story had a serious effect on her siblings.

Fu's expression was mostly neutral, but there was a bit of anger in his eyes. Just a bit. But even that was a lot for someone like Fu.

Kiba and Netsu looked furious. Like they wanted to hunt down and destroy the people who gave their sister such a hard time.

Kai, Yonda, and Shiruku were actually crying.

Sansan and Otoko...well it was hard to tell what they were feeling just looking at their expression, but they certainly didn't seem happy.

"Things were bad, but...they're not bad anymore. I have a great family now with lots of brothers and sisters! And they're all really nice!" Kei said happily, looking around at her siblings with a huge smile on her face. Trying to reassure her siblings. "So I don't really care about all that bad stuff anymore. Because now I'm happy and everything's going to be fine! Because you guys rock."

Such a precious ball of sunshine.

Protect.

I will guard that smile with my life.

Alien Queen: I will fight for that smile.

Invisible Girl: I will KILL for that smile.

Queen Crimson: Ditto.

As Kei was winding down after finishing her story, she was suddenly tackled hugged by Shiruku. Thankfully she was gentle.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you," Shiruku told her, some tears rolling down her face. "I swear I will be the best sister I can be. So you'll never be that sad again."

"Yeah, and if any villain wants to try and touch you, they have to go through me!" Netsu said, making a fireball rise above his hand.

"Of course I will protect my family with all my might, so if anyone would like to call you a monster or lay a hand on you again, I will personally rip their heads from their shoulders," Kiba promised.

"You don't need to do all that." Kei smiled and blushed. "Murdering someone would make everything dad's doing...go up in flames."

There were some groans from most of the kids, but Netsu and even Kai laughed a bit.

"I think your funny sister," Kai admitted.

I don't but for some reason, I'm laughing as I'm crying.

Same man. Same

Makes me almost want to adopt...almost.

As someone who has adopted children, this warms my heart.

Don't get all cheery yet, that was just one of their backstories.

Fuck.

"Well if we are sharing our backstories, then I guess I'll go next." Shiruku stepped up after wiping her face clean. "Mine is not very interesting. I was born with my quirk, so I always looked like this. My parents gave me up at birth and handed me over to D.O.C. and I was raised there for most of my life. It was...fine I guess. I didn't go hungry or have to eat garbage or anything. I had a comfy bed and a T.V. and they even gave me some stuff to make clothes. But...it's a lot better here. I was so alone back there. And I could never go outside. And sometimes, I would hear the people talking about me. About how ugly I was and about how they hated taking care of me. Now I have a daddy who loves me and a family that cares, and actually wears the clothes I make!"

Ok not nearly as bad.

Still pretty bad!

Poor poor spider girl. She had a bunch of material stuff but was given no love. I'm so glad she's in a better place now.

Creati: None of this feels right.

"I was raised by D.O.C. too!" Kai spoke up, looking a bit sheepish. "They didn't like me very much. They yelled at me a lot. They said I was such a hassle and that I should try to make their jobs easier. I didn't have a T.V. or anything so I just sat around and napped a lot. It was very boring. And lonely."

What shitty government agents!

I know taking care of someone of that size would be hard, but that's just fucked up to talk to a kid like that!

Disgusting.

Uravity: And Kai is such a sweetheart too! How could anyone talk to him like that!

"I was taken by D.O.C. too!" Netsu was the next to speak. "But I wasn't raised there. My parents gave me up because I kept setting everything on fire by accident. I was kept in a room and they didn't let me go outside, and I couldn't fly around a lot. It was sucky."

Ok so far. The least tragic backstory.

Man, I'm so glad Dadoriya's getting those kids out of there. Being lonely fucking sucks.

Daddy. Izuku turned his head to Yonda as she heard her speaking out to him.

Yes, dear? He responded.

Otoko says that his backstory was like Shiruku's. Where he was lonely. And the people taking care of him hated looking at him. Yonda repeated what she was told. It was very boring, and he's glad to be here instead of there.

Otoko nodded to affirm what she said was true.

The other children gave him sympathetic looks, and Sansan actually moved over to him and wrapped around his body, to hug and comfort him.

As Izuku spoke what Yonda told him to the camera, Fu turned to Kiba. "I think I should tell our story."

"What?!" Kiba glared at her brother. "Why shouldn't I be the one to tell it! I am an amazing storyteller."

"Because you're overdramatic," Fu explained. "Knowing you you'll go on for hours about a small detail, and over exaggerate things. By the time you finished talking, the Q and A would end. And the others wouldn't even get to speak. You've already spoken more than everyone else here combined, and you're gonna speak more after, so just let me do this."

Kiba pouted heavily and crossed her arms. "Hmph."

Fu sighed. "Please, grant me this honor, lady Kiba, queen of eternal darkness."

Kiba's pout lessened, but she still didn't look particularly pleased. "Fine."

"Thank you," Fu told her.

"Alright does anyone else want to share?" Izuku had just finished talking about Otoko's origin and was ready to move on.

"I'll go," Fu said before looking at the camera. "Since me and Kiba were together for most of it I'll be telling both of ours, but Kiba's definitely gonna chime in at some points."

"Of course," Kiba said with much self-assurance.

"Well, we've already said that our birth parents didn't want us because of our quirks." Fu reiterated. "But after that, we were on the streets. And we weren't doing too well since Kiba needs blood to live and I need meat. We had to steal and attack people just to survive. She would never kill anyone but...Kiba needed their blood."

Wait! Lady Kiba attacked people!

She had to survive.

Queen Crimson: You gotta do what you gotta do.

Alien Queen: Lady Kiba is completely innocent! If she didn't get blood she would have died! If anything we should blame the crappy parents again!"

Invisible Girl: Yeah! The parents are the problem.

Uravity: Kiba didn't choose her quirk. She didn't have a choice.

Creati: It is squarely the parent's responsibility to care for their children's needs. If they made the choice to abandon that responsibility and the child had to seek out other means of sustaining themselves, then any harm done by that child should be blamed on the parents. If they wanted to give up Kiba then they should have given her to the D.O.C... Granted it has become apparent that the D.O.C. are not overly capable, but it would have been far better than just leaving her out on the streets. They knew Kiba needed blood to survive so when they kicked her, they knew they were either condemning other people to get attacked by her so she could live, or they condemned their own daughter to die.

Shoto Todoroki: What she said.

"It was really hard before I met Kiba. It's not that I felt lonely. It's that I felt nothing. And that feeling, of not feeling. Is horrible. All I ever did was try to survive. But that lack of feeling...made me kind of want to stop surviving." Fu explained.

Oh god, I just thought about feeling nothing. I can't even comprehend what that would or I guess wouldn't feel like, and that is fucking terrifying.

It's like thinking about not existing! You just can't!

You know I thought having Fu's quirk would be cool, but now…

"But when I met Kiba, she was just so...well...Kiba. She's just fun to be around, fun to watch. She finally made me feel things again." Fu explained. "So we stayed with each other. Kiba would help me steal meat and I would give Kiba my blood. We were still homeless and had to endure all the things that went with it but it was so much better than before. If only just because I actually wanted to survive again. And it was all thanks to Kiba. Which is why she means so much to me."

Kiba meanwhile was faintly blushing from the sheer amount of genuine heartfelt praise Fu was giving her. She of course turned away from the camera in a bad attempt to hide it.

Wholesome.

Alien Queen: I can now die content.

Invisible Girl: Good because we now all have Diabetes.

Queen Crimson: So worth it.

My teeth rotted away from all the sweetness and fell out...ah who needed them.

Lady Kiba is blushing!

"But...eventually, we weren't able to get enough meat. So...I went on another meat rampage." Fu continued. "But I got really lucky that day. Dad, Kei, and Eri were selling some homemade food in the park, and the hero Fatgum just happened to be there. I bit into him but since he's Fatgum, it didn't do any damage, and dad gave me all the meat he had nearby to get me back to normal. Which then let me give Kiba my blood. After that, Dad took us in. And we never had to steal or worry about starving again. And I'm forever thankful for that."

"Fu." Izuku couldn't help but also feel a little touched.

Another happy ending!

Thanks, Caretaker!

Feed dat hungry boi.

With most of the backstories done, Izuku looked over to the last two. Sansan and Yonda. "Do you two want to share or should we move on. It's ok if you don't. There's nothing wrong with that."

After a few moments of contemplation, Sansan made a decision. "When I was born. I acwedewentwy kwilled my mama. Because I'm mwade of acid. And my birth daddy didn't want me. So he gave me to someone, but they didn't want me eitfwer. So they kept mowvwing me awound. Then, one day they awasked me to go in a jwar, and they twapped me inside. I couldn't get owot. Or mowve! Then he threw me into garbage on the beach. And I was there so swo long! A whole year!"

Wait what the fuck!?

Alien queen: Ex-fucking-cuse me? She was trapped in a bottle for a whole fucking year?!

Winner! We have a winner for the most tragic backstory! Fuck this species!

That is actually worse than prison!

Netsu shuddered at the idea. "A whole year! In a jar! And you couldn't move!"

Many of the other children grimaced at the idea as well.

"But then daddy freed me! And took me in like all the other kids!" Sansan started moving around even more than usual, as if to show off her freedom, bouncing around everyone.

Okay, so the order of most tragic backstories is. Sansan at number 1. Kei at number 2. Fu at number three. Lady Kiba at number 4. And the rest of them are pretty similar so they can share number 5.

That seems about right.

So was Dadoriya just going around finding small abandoned children and saying, this is mine now?

Uravity: It's more like small abandoned children kept finding HIM, and saying, this is mine now.

Izuku turned to Yonda. Yonda. You don't have to if you don't want to.

Yonda had mixed feelings. On one hand, she didn't quite feel like sharing. On the other, literally, everyone else had already shared, and they had shared some pretty harsh past. Some worse than her's.

She wanted to feel like she was part of the family.

Father, you can tell them. Yonda knew that at the very least, she didn't need to be the one to explain it.

"Alright." Izuku turned to the camera. "Yonda was born to neglectful parents. They fed her and gave her a place to sleep, but they barely paid any attention to her. And never really loved her. However, little did they know. Yonda was born with her quirk. At first, everyone just thought she was deaf. Until she started speaking. And when she started speaking, that's when she also revealed that her father was cheating on her mother. After that things took a downward turn. Her parents of course got divorced after the incident, and her mother became an alcoholic and started blaming her for the divorce. And what's worse, is that she could hear every thought going through their heads while this happened, and since she can hear thoughts through walls it was just a never-ending hate and vitriol, with a lot of it aimed at her."

You know I always knew that being able to hear people's thoughts would be more trouble than it's worth, but this is like, worst-case scenario.

Should there be a license to be parents!? Because this is not ok!

Earphones: Oh god it's like my quirk but worse. And constantly surrounded by people who hate me.

"Fortunately her mother at least had the sense to hand her over to D.O.C." Izuku explained. "And while that was better for her, it still wasn't great. Because the people who were taking care of her, didn't like their jobs or her very much, and since she can hear thoughts, she could hear exactly how much they didn't like her."

Yonda could remember all the cruel comments thrown her way by both her parents. Ruinous child. Life destroyer. Nosey bitch.

Honestly, her time with D.O.C wasn't much better than before. Except she finally got to have a T.V., and this was introduced to the concept of family. A real family.

Something she had been robbed of, and desperately wanted.

Poor Yonda. Quirks that you can't turn off really are the worst. She heard Kei think.

Can I set bad parents on fire? Is what Netsu was currently thinking. Which was concerning but Yonda was confident that those thoughts wouldn't go anywhere.

Similarly, Kiba was thinking As a hero. Can I rip bad parents apart?

I wish I could make something that would symbolize family. Shiruku thought, which made Yonda smile a bit. She couldn't SEE what people were thinking, but she imagined that she was visualizing clothing designs.

Sansan was currently bouncing around like a furious slime. Stupid. D.O.C.. I'll melt em.

Yonda would think that the abundance of violent thoughts among her family would be problematic. If she weren't touched that they were for her sake.

I feel so bad that I feel nothing while listening to this. Wait, she can hear this. Sorry, Yonda. Muted emotions and honestly there are so many sad backstories I can't really feel anything but a bit of sympathy. Fu apologized.

Yonda gave him a look that indicated that it was fine. She wasn't looking for pity anyway.

Are you alright? She heard Otoko ask her.

Yonda nodded, mustering up a smile at her big green friend.

If you need to talk. Then we can talk. Otoko reminded her.

"Alright, so that's everyone," Izuku said, before looking at the clock. "And it seems that time's up to."

"Ah, it appears that question took up quite a bit of time. So I hope you were all satisfied with it." Kiba addressed her audience.

Aww, it's already over!

I didn't get to ask a question!

I want more Kiba!

"Now, now. This will not be the last time such an event will transpire. And perhaps next time we will be joined by more of my wondrous family." Kiba said to placate the audience. "Now, until next time my minions!"