MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

"Excuse me? Please?"
The woman doesn't notice him at first - lost in her private grief, she rocks back and forth on the park bench, tears streaming endlessly down her face. Izuku has been watching from a distance for ten minutes, waiting for the area to clear. The familiar tightness in his throat tells him this won't be easy, but he forces himself forward anyway.
When she finally looks up, her eyes are red-rimmed and hollow. "Were you... talking to me?"
"Yes," Izuku manages, offering what he hopes is a comforting smile. "Sorry to bother you. I can leave if - "
Her hand shoots out, cold fingers wrapping around his wrist with desperate strength. "No. Please don't go."
He settles beside her carefully, used to this reaction by now. "I'm Midoriya. What's your name?"
"Sato," she whispers after a long moment.
"Nice to meet you, Ms. Sato. What can I help you with?"
Relief floods her features even as fresh tears fall. "I... I'm trying to remember something. Something important. Why can't I remember?"
"It's okay," Izuku says gently, the same way he always does. "Take your time. Just breathe."
The simple instruction somehow steadies her. "I left something," she says suddenly. "At home. I left something at home."
---
Her apartment building is only a few blocks away. Ms. Sato guides him to the fifth floor with increasing urgency, though she takes the elevator while Izuku opts for the stairs - a habit he's developed for situations like this.
The lock picks easily under his practiced hands. The moment they're inside, a small one-eyed cat comes running, bell jingling frantically as it weaves around Ms. Sato's ankles. Her ghostly fingers barely graze its fur, but the purring is thunderous.
Izuku checks the kitchen first - empty food and water bowls tell the story he already knows. While he fills them, Ms. Sato watches her cat with the desperate love of someone who knows their time is limited.
"I left her," she says, voice breaking. "Three days ago, when that villain... the building collapsed. I wasn't fast enough." For a split second, she flickers - blood streaming down her face, clothes torn and burned - before returning to normal. "She could have starved."
"It wasn't your fault," Izuku says softly, though his vision blurs with unshed tears.
"Make sure she's okay," Ms. Sato pleads, stroking her cat one last time. "Promise me."
"I promise."
She smiles through her tears, finally at peace. When Izuku blinks, the kitchen is empty except for the purring cat at his feet.
---
Six years earlier
"The X-rays are... puzzling," the doctor admits, adjusting his glasses. Izuku sits in his mother's lap, trying to understand the complicated words swirling around him. "Izuku has the extra joint typically associated with quirk manifestation, but at six years old..."
"Other doctors said it was practically impossible for him to be quirkless," Mom interrupts, voice tight with hope and fear.
"There is one possibility," the doctor continues carefully. "Some people possess what we call 'invisible quirks' - abilities so obscure they go unnoticed their entire lives, or can only activate under extremely specific circumstances."
From the corner chair, a wet boy named Ishida - who'd introduced himself while Izuku was getting measured - snorts. "That's lame. Almost as bad as having no quirk at all."
The doctor shrugs apologetically. "Without knowing what the quirk might be, there's no way to register it."
Mom's voice trembles. "What if he sees things? He talks to people who aren't there, stares at walls for hours. When he was three, he said his father tucked him in, but Hisashi died when Izuku was a baby - "
"Mrs. Midoriya," the doctor says patiently, "children have wild imaginations. It's dangerous to encourage them to see something in nothing."
But Izuku isn't listening anymore. He's watching as Ishida rolls his eyes, stands up, and deliberately swats the jar of tongue depressors off the counter as he walks through the wall.
The jar clatters to the floor. The doctor frowns, muttering about drafts as he picks it up.
Izuku says nothing for the rest of the visit, his mind racing as pieces click into place. No one else can see his friends - he's always known that. But this is the first time one of them has affected something others could see.
Dad was dead when Izuku saw him at three, but Mom remembered him talking about it. Ishida was soaking wet but left no puddle, yet the doctor saw what he knocked over.
As they walk through the hospital corridor toward the exit, Izuku sees them everywhere - pale figures in bloodstained gowns wandering the halls, calling out to loved ones who can't hear them. When one woman stumbles close to Mom, reaching out desperately, Izuku's fingertips brush ice-cold skin. She turns to him with hollow eyes and recognition, blood spilling from her lips.
Izuku buries his face against his mother's side and cries - not from disappointment about his quirk, but from terror at what he can see.
---
Present day
The no-kill shelter takes Mika without question. She's a sweet cat despite her missing eye, with striking white fur patched with gray and orange. The staff promises to find her a good home, and Izuku leaves his number just in case.
At home, he settles in front of the TV while Mom finishes dinner. The volume stays high - it drowns out the whispers in the pipes and the doors that slam by themselves. He flips channels until he finds what he's looking for.
The psychic show is as gaudy as ever. Tonight's host - wearing a spangled silver waistcoat and an embarrassing bolo tie - promises to commune with the dead for his studio audience. Izuku watches him perform "exorcisms," "contact" deceased relatives, and "cure" nightmares. The stage is empty except for the host and his crying participants. He's talking to absolutely nothing.
"I don't understand how you can watch this garbage," Mom says, pausing in the doorway.
"Why do people do this?" Izuku asks quietly. "Just make things up and pass it off as real?"
Mom sighs, settling behind him. "Maybe because even in our world of quirks, some things still seem impossible. And as long as people want impossible things to be real, others will profit from that want."
"But it's not impossible," Izuku says, throat tight. "That's the problem. Shows like this make everyone think it's a joke."
He feels Mom's eyes on him. "I know, Izuku. And you're proof it's not impossible. One day people will know that." She kisses his head. "Your quirk is real, no matter what anyone says."
"It's not much good for hero work," he mutters. "And I'm still officially quirkless, so no school will want me."
"You don't need to be a pro hero to help people," Mom says gently. "You help people that heroes don't even know need help. I think that's pretty amazing."
After she leaves, Izuku tries to focus on homework, but the fake psychic show has left him feeling sick. It's like the boy who cried wolf, except everyone else did the crying, and now when there's a real wolf, no one believes it exists.
He's nearly finished his math when the TV begins to glitch. Static fills the screen, then clears to show what looks like an empty room before dissolving back into white noise.
"Third time this week," Mom sighs, trying the remote before giving up. "Let me know if it gets better."
The static convulses. A pale hand emerges from the screen, grasping at air. Then comes a head - black hair falling like a curtain - followed by shoulders and arms as the ghostly figure drags herself out of the TV and onto the living room carpet.
"TV's working now, Mom!" Izuku calls as the news returns.
"Good! Play nice, you two!"
The pale ghost girl settles beside him on the couch, her damp hair falling across his homework. Izuku scoots over to give her a better view. "Just math today, Yuki," he says apologetically. "Pretty boring."
She makes a sound like static but leans closer anyway. She's never spoken in all the years he's known her - almost as long as he knew Kacchan before their friendship ended. But she doesn't need words to keep him company.
In a world where he's learned to live with the impossible, these quiet moments with the dead are sometimes the most peaceful parts of his day.