Chapter Text
Izuku stared at the still glowing hologram, frozen on All Might's face.
It was his dream come true, he'd made it into UA!
He should be running to tell his mom the good news- laughing, cheering, hugging her until they both started to cry.
Instead, he stood frozen, vision beginning to blur.
"We're gonna be the greatest heroes in the world, Izu! The twin champions forever!"
His brother's words rang through his head, as they always did when something big happened. He couldn't help imagining that his brother was still standing by his side.
Osamu had said those words so long ago, they must've been four years old at the time.
Growing up, Izuku had believed it would happen. Him and his brother becoming a hero duo that took down dozens of villains. They'd spent their days chasing that dream, until Osamu got his quirk and Izuku didn't.
Osamu had insisted it would happen anyway, and Izuku wanted to believe him. But deep down he always knew it was a pipe dream.
That never stopped them from trying though.
He wanted to laugh at how differently everything had ended up, but he knew he'd only end up crying about it instead. He was already fighting tears.
Today was supposed to be the best day of his life, but without his brother there to share it with him, it just felt hollow.
Osamu had been missing for two years now, disappearing when they were 13. Izuku never stopped looking, even after the police gave up and claimed Osamu was a runaway. Even when his mom lost hope of ever seeing her son again.
He couldn't live without knowing what had happened to his brother. Even still, all he'd found so far were two years worth of dead ends. His hands tightened on the edge of his desk, turning his knuckles white.
His brother wasn't the type to run away, no matter how many of his neighbors and classmates claimed otherwise.
None of them knew Osamu like Izuku did.
All they saw was how different Osamu was, how strange he could act at times. People used to say it was like he was pretending to be human. Like he was actually something else entirely, some monster living among them.
Izuku had gotten into several fights with the people who said that about his brother, even though Osamu always said he didn't care, that none of it mattered.
His brother had a heart. He cared about the people worth caring for. He cared about their mother, about Izuku, about Kacchan. He went about things differently, showed how he cared in odd ways sometimes, but Izuku knew that he loved them all. Osamu wouldn't just leave them without a word.
Izuku knew there was more to the story, he just needed to find something, anything that proved he was right. More than that he just needed to know.
Even if Osamu was never coming back, Izuku needed to know what had happened to him, where he had gone.
He still hoped he'd find him alive somewhere, but after all the hours he'd spent researching kidnappings, he knew that even if he did Osamu might never be the same.
And if his brother was still alive and had been trapped somewhere- hurt, scared, waiting this entire time, Izuku had to break him free.
By now he had several theories as to what might've happened.
The police believed the runaway story.
Both Izuku and Osamu had been bullied all throughout their school years, Izuku for being quirkless and Osamu for two reasons: his quirk was more of an anti-quirk, which made others uncomfortable around him, and because Osamu didn't quite act the same as everyone else. So the police thought the bullying drove Osamu to leave.
The runaway story was wrong - he was sure of it. He had other ideas. The main one being that Osamu had been kidnapped.
It wasn't unheard of for kids to be taken in similar circumstances, and Izuku wondered if it was because of Osamu's quirk. In all his research after Osamu's disappearance Izuku had found a couple cases of strings of kidnappings that ended up being committed to take specific children, those with powerful or useful quirks.
Some of these children turned up in labs, taken to become human experiments in the name of quirk research and replication. Others were stolen to become morphed into living weapons, bringing death and destruction in the name of the villains that brainwashed them.
It wasn't hard to imagine why Osamu would be a target. While his quirk wasn't flashy, it could nullify all other quirks completely, and it never turned off, making Osamu immune to all quirk effects. The concept alone drove people to keep their distance, not wanting to ever feel quirkless, even for a moment.
Izuku had always seen the potential- a hero that leveled the playing field and freed people from the negative effects a villain's quirk might have. A power like that could change the fate of a battle completely.
He recalled all the hours he and Osamu had spent figuring out everything nullification could do, how many people he could save as a hero. Izuku leaned back in his chair. Those days felt so far away now...
Izuku had looked into the possibility as far as he could, but there was only so much he could do as a teenager. Most detailed cases and files were kept confidential, the public getting only the bare details.
News articles loved to focus on the fact the children had been saved, but that wasn't very helpful when Izuku was trying to figure out how he could save one more.
There was one other possibility that Izuku had considered, one that he hoped most of all was wrong. It was the only other theory the police still considered a real possibility. That Osamu was dead. That he'd died somewhere alone in an accident where no one could find his body. Or worse, that Osamu had done it intentionally.
Izuku wanted to write off the possibility entirely, to say his brother would never do that! But a part of him wondered if those words would be true.
It wasn't long before Osamu disappeared that Izuku had noticed it getting worse. Osamu was, in a way, fascinated with the idea of being dead, of never existing to begin with. He used to talk about it often.
Izuku had always tried to stop him from talking like that, but sometimes he still noticed a look in Osamu's eye, one that looked as dead and empty as everyone else always claimed they were. Those moments had always scared him with how real they were, the possibility that he might lose his brother to that darkness.
He had seen how it started. Their lives hadn't exactly been perfect, even when they were little.
Their dad hadn't treated them well, hadn't treated their mother well either, and one day, after finding out Izuku was quirkless and seeming unsatisfied with Osamu's quirk, he had left and never came back. Really, his absence had been a relief at the time, but they'd still suffered because of him before he finally left for good. It was a long time ago now, but it hadn't been easy on either of them.
Then there was school.
At first it had been fine. They were best friends with Kacchan and everyone was so excited to find out what their quirks were. They had dreamed of becoming heroes.
But Izuku never got a quirk and no one seemed to like Osamu's quirk. Their classmates hadn't been kind after that, and they'd gradually lost their friendship with Kacchan as well. Things hadn't been easy ever since and Izuku watched how it affected his brother.
All they'd had was each other and for the last two years Izuku's biggest fear was that that hadn't been enough.
But he'd found enough holes in that theory that he could never just accept it as the truth.
Even if Osamu went through with something like that, Izuku couldn't imagine him doing it in a way where he never even tried to tell Izuku why. There should have been a note, Izuku should've noticed Osamu making a plan, or at least found something afterwards. No body ever turned up either, even after dredging every river nearby.
There was also the day that it happened.
He and Osamu had made a plan together to watch the UA Sports Festival after school. It had been a tradition for them every year to watch the event and analyze every last detail, to break it down for Izuku's journal and talk about it for hours on end together.
It was something they both loved doing, no matter how hard things were sometimes.
If Osamu had planned to die, Izuku knew he wouldn't have done it then. He would've waited at least one more day. But Izuku never saw Osamu after class, he had just disappeared and no one had seen any trace of him ever since.
There was still more to the story, and Izuku knew he'd find it. Two years had gone by but now things were finally going to be different.
Izuku had kept pursuing his and Osamu's goal of becoming heroes, knowing Osamu wouldn't want him to lose the chance even if he couldn’t be there with him.
Izuku worried he wouldn't be able to manage it without a quirk and without Osamu there with him. But somehow he had run into All Might and became his successor.
He had not only gained a quirk but was given the strongest quirk he knew of, the might of Japan's number one hero. And despite not having much time to truly train, he'd still managed to pass UA's entrance exam.
What would Osamu think if he could see him now? Would he even recognize him? A lot had changed over the past two years. Things only got harder without Osamu there.
He tried to picture it, what Osamu might say to him now. He pictured the grin spreading across Osamu's face after he told him about getting One For All. He imagined Osamu messing up his hair while saying, "See? I told you we'd be heroes together!"
It hurt knowing that all he could do was imagine it instead of just seeing Osamu react in person, by his side like he always was.
He had only just gotten the news, and he was still reeling from it. Not only was this his lifelong dream but now he'd be somewhere where he would be surrounded by pro heroes and their resources. And once he begins hero training he'll gain access to far more resources than civilians could ever use.
He'll finally have the means of finding Osamu and he will stop at nothing to bring him home.
"Hold on, Osamu," he whispered, hands tensing. "I'm coming to find you."