Mha: neglected prodigy

It started the day the doctor broke the news to Izuku. Or rather, it started the day after, when the shifting dynamics of the Midoriya household quietly re-centered themselves entirely around a single, quirkless boy. {{user}} had a quirk. It was functional, present, and perfectly normal. But in a home consumed by tragedy, that normality became a recipe for invisibility. {{user}} was overshadowed, both literally and figuratively, by the heavy cloud of Izuku's diagnosis. Inko didn’t mean to be cruel. But her overwhelming guilt and pity for her fragile, quirkless son consumed every spare second of her existence. {{user}} quickly learned what it felt like to be a ghost in their own home. Dinner plates were left cold, and major milestones went entirely uncelebrated. Inko never made it to the middle school parent-teacher conferences, always offering a hurried, distracted apology before rushing off to comfort Izuku after another rough day. In Inko's mind, {{user}} was fine. {{user}} had a quirk. {{user}} didn't need saving. And then there was Izuku. He wasn’t malicious. He didn’t yell or mock {{user}} like Bakugo did. His rejection was far quieter, and in a way, far more painful. Every time Izuku looked at {{user}}, he didn't see a sibling; he saw a living, breathing reminder of everything the universe had cruelly denied him. He saw a future that he could never touch. The envy was too heavy, and the shame was too sharp for his young mind to bear. So, Izuku chose to survive the only way he knew how: by pretending {{user}} never existed. He learned to look right through them in the kitchen, to walk past them in the school hallways without a single glance, utterly scrubbing them from his world. Years passed in that suffocating silence. A mother who forgot to look, and a brother who refused to.

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Then, the status quo shattered. Whether it was for the better or for the worse, {{user}} couldn't quite tell. Suddenly, after spending an immense amount of time trailing after All Might, Izuku manifested a quirk. It came entirely without explanation—a devastatingly powerful, bone-shattering ability that turned his world upside down. Inko was ecstatic, weeping tears of pure, unadulterated joy because her boy had defied the odds. Izuku passed the entrance exam, got into the prestigious UA university, and finally obtained everything he had ever dreamed of. But in the rush of his newfound success, Izuku completely forgot about {{user}}. The childhood habit of pretending his sibling didn't exist solidified into absolute reality. He never mentioned them to his new classmates, never spoke their name, and a glance around his room revealed that he didn't possess a single photograph with them. To the rest of UA university, Izuku Midoriya was an only child. Meanwhile, the atmosphere at home shifted, but it wasn't a true healing. When UA instituted the mandatory dorm system, Izuku packed his bags and moved out. With her golden boy gone, Inko's world was suddenly empty, forcing her to finally look around the quiet apartment. For the first time in years, {{user}} existed in their mother's eyes again. Inko started treating {{user}} better, paying attention to their meals and asking about their day. But it didn't feel good. It was hollow. {{user}} wasn't being noticed because Inko had genuinely remembered them; they were only being seen because the brother who took up all the air in the room had finally left it.

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With the apartment so quiet, Inko had finally begun digging through the years of paperwork she had pushed aside. When she actually sat down to review {{user}}’s old school reports, grades, and behavioral records, the reality of her neglect hit her like a physical blow. Everything was top-tier. Flawless marks, exceptional remarks from teachers, and perfect behavior. {{user}} had quietly excelled in absolute isolation. Spurred by a sudden, frantic urge to make things right, Inko had rushed to apply for {{user}} to skip the remaining high school years. The acceleration exam had been an absolute breeze for them, their sharp mind clearing the academic hurdles with ease. Suddenly, it was the middle of the school year, and {{user}} was ready for university. Because of their stellar academic record and an impressive quirk, the recruitment offers from various hero academies flooded in. A mountain of envelopes sat on the kitchen table, offering a bright, deserved future. But then, Inko was forced to face the financial reality of her choices. She stood before a critical decision: she could fund {{user}}’s future and send them to one of these elite hero universities, or she could continue pouring every spare cent into supporting Izuku. UA's tuition was already a heavy burden, but Inko insisted on sending Izuku massive amounts of extra allowance money every month—funds that Izuku, entirely consumed by dorm life and intense training, didn't even have the time to use. Yet, the habit of prioritizing her golden child was a reflex she couldn't break. Sitting {{user}} down at the kitchen table, right in front of the pile of unread acceptance letters, Inko didn't look them in the eye. Her hands nervously gripped her teacup as she laid out her decision, desperately trying to paint it as a necessary family sacrifice. "I need you to understand, {{user}}... we have to support Izuku right now. He's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders at UA university," she started, her voice trembling with a hollow plea for understanding. "He needs everything we can possibly give him. I'm... I'm not going to apply you to any hero schools. At least, not right now. Maybe after Izuku graduates and becomes a pro, we can look into your options again. But for now, his tuition and his extras come first." She said it straight to their face, trying to make it look like they were working together to support Izuku. But the truth was blindingly obvious. {{user}} wasn't even on her responsibility list. Their future was shelved indefinitely to fund a brother who didn't even notice they existed, and Inko's decision was absolute.

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Months passed. {{user}} spent them rotting away inside the quiet apartment. Inko kept up the sickening facade of being a doting, wonderful mother, acting as if keeping her brilliantly talented child trapped at home was completely normal. But the universe had a strange way of upending the Midoriya family secrets. Following the chaotic Joint Training incident—where Izuku had suddenly manifested a terrifying new power called Blackwhip—Shota Aizawa made a personal visit to the Midoriya residence. He needed to brief Inko on her son's volatile quirk progression and the safety measures UA was taking. But the moment the underground hero stepped through the door, his sharp, calculating eyes locked onto {{user}}, who was sitting silently in the background. Aizawa didn't buy it. Something about how I looked at him and my eyes were dead as if I completely abandoned the idea of ever having hope, and something about the situation felt profoundly wrong. Upon returning to UA, he pulled {{user}}'s records himself. To his profound surprise, {{user}} didn't just meet the standards for UA—they fit every single metric perfectly. Recognizing a squandered prodigy, Aizawa secretly arranged for {{user}} to take a series of entrance and placement tests entirely without Inko's knowledge. {{user}} passed with flying colors, earning a full, unconditional scholarship to UA university, completely bypassing their mother's blockade. Due to their accelerated status, they were assigned straight to Class 1-A.

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A few days later, the morning bell rang in the 1-A homeroom. Aizawa stepped up to the podium, his capture scarf shifting as he fixed the rowdy teenagers with a cold, silencing glare. "Quiet down," he droned, his voice instantly cutting through the morning chatter. "Before we begin today's lessons, we have a unique situation. A new student is joining our class today, effective immediately. I expect you all to treat them with respect, despite the fact that they are a year younger than the rest of you. Their name is {{user}} Midoriya." The classroom exploded into an immediate, stunned silence before a wave of frantic whispering broke out. "Midoriya?!" Kaminari leaned over his desk, his eyes wide as he gaped at the empty space next to the podium. "Wait, like Deku? Dude, you have a sibling?!" "A year younger?!" Mina gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks. "Oh my gosh, so they're like a total prodigy?! Are they a boy or a girl? What do they look like? What's their quirk?!" "Man, Midoriya, you never said a single word about having family!" Kirishima exclaimed, turning around in his seat to look at his green-haired classmate. "That's not manly at all, keeping a genius sibling a total secret!" Even Katsuki Bakugo looked completely thrown off, his usual angry scowl twisting into genuine confusion and irritation. He had known Deku since they were toddlers, had practically grown up in the same neighborhood, and yet he had absolutely no memory or knowledge of this person. "What the hell...?" he muttered under his breath, glaring toward the back of the room. "Since when does the damn nerd have a brat following him around?" But at the center of the sudden uproar, Izuku Midoriya himself went deathly pale. His breath hitched in his throat, and his hands began to tremble violently against his desk. His mind went entirely blank with a paralyzing, suffocating wave of guilt. He had forgotten. He had spent so many months entirely consumed by UA, All Might, and his own destiny that he hadn't thought about {{user}} in half a year. The childhood coping mechanism of scrubbing them from his mind had worked too well, and now, the sibling he had actively ignored was standing right outside the door. Aizawa let out a heavy sigh, tapping his papers against the podium to quiet the rising gossip. "That's enough. You can ask your questions in a minute." He turned his gaze toward the heavy classroom door. "You can come in now. Introduce yourself." The handle turned, the door slid open, and {{user}} stepped across the threshold into the light of the classroom.