Disclaimer: I own no rights to Boku no Hero Academia

Summary: From a young age, no one believed in her. Bullied, friendless, isolated from the rest, Itsuku learned to rely only on herself. A Hero is supposed to smile bravely while saving the day, but how does a machine, forged by years of neglect and solitude, learn to be happy again?

Prologue: Program Start

Hero.

To a young Midoriya Itsuku, that word meant everything, a crystallization of the greatest ideals of mankind. All her life, from the first moment she could remember, she idolized heroes and heroines with thinly veiled fascination. No matter how big or small, she loved them and everything that they stood for. For hours upon hours, she would simply watch her favorite heroes save the day, her young mind in awe.

In an ever-evolving world where Quirks, supernatural abilities that manifested in humans, dominated the public eye, the natural tendency of humans to abuse power gave way to danger. Like in the long-forgotten comics of old from hundreds of years ago, Villains appeared, eager to use their newfound power to destroy, control, and dominate the masses. And like in those old stories, Heroes rose to meet them.

All around the world, Pro-Heroes were birthed to combat the rising tide of evil as crime rates soared and respect for the law and humanity were increasingly ignored. The mundane police and army, as respected as they were, could no longer keep up with the pace of evolution. What could one do with bullets if a Villain was able to control metal? What could one do with tanks and bombs when a smirking madman could infest the minds of an entire country from hundreds of miles away? What hope did a single Quirkless human have against an enemy the size of a mountain?

Only the Quirked could combat the Quirked. That was the logic that now dictated the world.

Nowadays, that was just an understood truth. With 80% of the population manifesting a Quirk at a young age, the era of "normal" humans had ended long ago. Great Heroes like All-Might had taken center stage as the Symbol of Peace, enthralling the entire world with his unparalleled strength and ability to combat evil, all while smiling. Where once nations had banded together to hold the world together, one man stood as the one to bear it all.

For Itsuku, she was waiting for the day that her own Quirk would manifest, allowing her to start on the path to becoming a heroine, her dream. She watched on in awe as her classmates and even first friend, Kacchan, developed amazing quirks. She had always been fascinated by them, observing even the most dismissible power with unfettered fascination. Still, she could appreciate powerful and awesome Quirks like the next kid.

Kacchan's was especially impressive. His Explosive Quirk combined with his already impressive athletic and academic potential made him stand out. His desire to be the best and always strive for the best was inspiring in many ways. She couldn't wait to join him on his quest to be the best.

So, she waited for her own Quirk to manifest, dreaming every night of a day where she'd wake up and be able to control the wind, or walk through walls, or control animals, or be able to duplicate items. Then she would be able to take the stage with her friends and become heroes.

The age of four came and went, and then her fifth birthday quickly approached. Still, nothing had appeared. Not even a small spark of power seemed to emanate from her small frame, and one fateful day, she learned the truth.

"You won't ever manifest a quirk."

Simple, cold, uncaring…Those six words crushed her. Overnight, her dreams were stomped on, grinded to dust and blown away by the wind until nothing but a small speck of hope remained. She had wept, her young mind cursing the world for its cruelty as her mother tearfully hugged her close, her finger shakily pointing at her favorite hero saving the day.

She wanted to be like him, be like everyone else…

"I…can…still be a…hero, right?"

Nothing ever came from asking that question…nothing but apologies and tears.

A year had passed since Itsuku had learned she was Quirkless, and similarly it had been a year since her life had turned for the worse. Her classmates and "friends" mocked and ridiculed her every day for her inability to fit in, taunting her with her helpless nature and isolating her from the rest of the "normal" kids. Even Katsuki had turned into a bully and was at the head of it more often than not. That hurt more than she'd like to admit. Someone with power was supposed to protect people, not hurt them.

Her thoughts on the matter were quickly dismissed though as insults and jeers were thrown her way at every possible moment.

"Worthless!"

"Loser!"

"Dummy!"

"Weirdo!"

"Quirkless!"

"Charity!"

That name she hated the most. Her own name had been turned against her, and it hurt hearing everyone in her class refer to it so derisively. She tried to be strong, to bear the weight of her peer's incessant cruelty, but at the end of the day, she was only human.

Gone was the young and vibrant girl who smiled every day, and instead in her place, a scared and scarred young girl appeared, unable to stand up for herself and unable to say anything in the face of her tormentors. Still, she persevered, doing her best to always smile, just like her favorite hero.

Even now, she still wanted to be…

"Tch, are you still following us around? Get lost Charity Case!" Katsuki roared, his palms spiking as he traipsed through the woods with his two friends in tow, "I don't need your slow butt holding me back!"

"But…but…" Itsuku mumbled as she struggled to keep up with her childhood friend, ignoring the small scratches and her hurting feet. She had been hoping to play today…

"I said GET LOST!" he screeched, sparking a bigger explosion that rattled the trees overhead, uncaring of the fact that his explosion had knocked the girl to her back, "I'm not going to tell you again! You freaking useless side-character!"

Itsuku tried to respond, but her shaking form was quickly abandoned as the three boys disappeared underneath the trees. Smile she told herself. Grin and bear it. Everything was fine.

All of it was lies. The tears wouldn't stop coming no matter what she told herself. She collapsed into a ball on the ground and cried. There wasn't anything wrong with her, yet why did it seem like everybody treated her like it?

Why did it matter if she had a Quirk or not? What had she ever done to receive such cruel treatment from her classmates? The teachers didn't care, and no one had ever told her that it would be okay. There was no one that understood her, no one she could turn to. She was absolutely and completely alone.

She hated feeling so powerless, underappreciated, and abandoned. Didn't anyone understand that no one hurt more about the fact that she was powerless than her?

"I hate you, Kacchan!" she screamed at the shadowed forest, rubbing her eyes as the tears streamed down her face. Everything was wrong. She had no friends, no father, no Quirk, no future…

In that singular moment, something died inside of Itsuku. Her eyes, once always bright and hopeful, dimmed. The world seemed to lose color as the sky darkened in her eyes. It was a cruel world, one filled with Villains, bullies and unfairness. No tears, complaints or whining would ever change that. There was no one to rely on…no one but herself.

Silent and suddenly mute, the young girl wiped her tears and stood. Itsuku would never forget, and she vowed to one day prove everyone wrong. Her small fists balled as she stared into the unforgiving blackness of the forest, swearing it to herself.

She didn't care if her once-friend had the ability to produce explosions from his nitroglycerin-like producing sweat glands, she'd beat him one day. She'd stand atop the mountain and prove to everyone that she was…

Itsuku blinked, reviewing that thought in her head.

What was nitroglycerin anyway?

How did she even know that word? Much less, how it related to Katsuki's Quirk…

She closed her eyes and focused on that feeling again, and suddenly, a wealth of information appeared. His current explosion radius, range of effectiveness, limiting reactions, time to tire, and weaknesses were all laid out bare in her mind's eye. Things she couldn't have possibly understood were plainly conveyed to her.

A small tugging on the corner of her lips was the only indication that she had discovered something amazing, and as she walked away, her steps eerily uniform, she made a new promise to herself.

She did have a Quirk.

And Itsuku was going to use it to its fullest to become the greatest Heroine the world had ever seen.

Things changed drastically in the following years.

She was still friendless and considered a social outcast among her peers for being "Quirkless", but Itsuku couldn't bring herself to care any longer. Instead she decided to focus on herself, doing everything she could to work towards her dream as everyone around her either pitied or ridiculed her. They paid no mind to her nearly flawless academic record, her nearly inhuman, relative to the Quirkless, athletic performance, or her large array of extracurricular activities that she had taken upon herself. All that mattered to them was that she was Quirkless. She was okay with that.

The young girl who wore her emotions on her sleeves was gone. The childlike wonder of the world ceased to exist for her. Playing games, hanging out with friends, joking about dumb things…She forsook them all for her one goal.

She had to be perfect. Everything she did had to be executed with the utmost best of her abilities. Itsuku didn't have the leeway for anything else. There was no time for distractions, and she didn't want any.

Inko didn't know what to do anymore.

She knew she had been a horrible mother, unable to even muster up the courage to ask her daughter about how she felt. Dreams about that fateful day where she had done nothing to reassure her child haunted her dreams at night. She would tear up at the mere memory of her beloved daughter laughing and smiling, something she hadn't seen for the last nine years. Everything about her once energetic daughter had changed.

Her beautiful, bright and happy child was gone. In her place there was a cold and expressionless…robot.

Itsuku's room, once filled with Hero paraphernalia of her favorite heroes and heroines was pushed to the wayside, only occupying a small corner of the room now. Instead, hundreds and hundreds of books and notebooks filled the room. Tomes on science, philosophy, art, technology, combat and strategy lined the walls, and Inko often found her daughter silently writing in another notebook, one among thousands at this point, her eyes and hand on some indecipherable page next to her.

Every day, Inko worried for her daughter. She had never heard from her about any of the normal things that teenagers worried about, friends, appearances, grades, and all the other silly things young people thought of. Itsuku was a machine that continued to study, workout, train, rinse and repeat.

She rarely talked at dinner and didn't partake in any of her previous activities from when she was a child. In fact, the last substantial thing that Itsuku had said to her, in recent memory, was "Go on a diet and exercise." Embarrassed, Inko had quickly followed through, despite her guilt, and was starting to regain her former youth from so long ago.

However, she would give it all up just to see her precious daughter smile again.

What did she want now? What were her dreams? Did she find something else in her life? What were her favorite hobbies? How were her friends? Did she have any? Boyfriend…Girlfriend? What was going on in her young daughter's mind?

"Mom," her daughter suddenly called, breaking her from her train of endless worries at the dinner table, "In a year, I'm applying for Yuuei."

"Wha…Honey? Are you still…" she asked, her fears rearing their ugly head as she imagined her daughter getting smashed, slashed and broken to bits by some unknown assailant. Itsuku didn't expect any words of support, nor did she need them any longer.

"Yes."

That was all she said as she gathered her dishes and deposited them into the sink to wash, disappearing into her room without another word once she put away the dishes, the floating sound of pen against paper the only sign that she was still awake.

"Itsuku…" Inko mourned, cursing her inability to be a good mother, thinking back all those years to that singular moment again where her only child had needed her the most, and she had failed. She blinked back the tears that always came. "I'm sorry."

"Well, let's talk about the test results, class," Itsuku's teacher at Aldera Junior High began, his face grim before morphing into a wide smile, "Not like any of that matters anyway! You're all planning for the Hero course! This stuff is pretty worthless."

Instantly, the entire classroom erupted into spirited cheers as all the young men and women, aspiring heroes and heroines, flaunted their powers enthusiastically. All except one young woman, whose face remained blank and impassive, not a single twitch appearing on her face as her classmates celebrated the nearing of the end of their junior high days.

"Yes yes! I know you all have wonderful Quirks, but remember, you can't use them out in public so freely. I'll let it pass this one time because you've all been so wonderful," the teacher continued blissfully, uncaring of the various exam papers strewn around the front of the desk.

"Oi! Sensei. Don't lump me with the rest of these bottom-feeder rejects! I'm miles above and beyond anyone here. It's not even funny!" Katsuki said with a smug sneer, his feet resting on his desk while he sent a challenging glare to the rest of his class. Naturally the rest of his class objected to the strong statement, but he paid them no mind, another dark glare being sent around the room. Predictably, no real objection was voiced.

"Oh yeah. Bakugo, you wanted to get into Yuuei right? Pretty impressive," the sensei continued, looking down at his list of students from the clipboard in his hands. While Bakugo was hot-headed, generally unpleasant, and hard to get along with, he was considered highly intelligent and truly did have a drive to become a hero. His quirk would no doubt be a great asset to fighting crime and villainy. His attitude needed some adjustment though.

"That's why the rest of you all are EXTRAS!" he yelled, jumping on his desk with undiluted smugness, "I aced the mock test! I'm the smartest here! I got the best damn Quirk around, and none of you rejects can fucking deny it!" He huffed, feeling satisfied the entire class had shut up.

"Hmm. Midoriya seems to be applying as well. She qualified," the teacher continued, slightly surprised, looking up at the emotionless girl still sitting in her seat, reading a book as the rest of the class continued to go wild.

Silence met that sentence as the entire class turned towards the most mundane member of their class. A nervous laughter rose in the room as old habits began to kick up.

"Ha…ha you…you can't get into Yuuei just by studying," one boy, one of her previous bullies, said weakly, trying his best to ignore the cold chill down his spine, "Who ever heard of a studying heroine!"

"Y…yeah!" the rest of the class joined in, nervous laughter, meant to be taunting, rising in the room. Itsuku didn't care, and simply turned a page in her book. Katsuki didn't take well to that. He simply could not tolerate being compared to a no-presence loser with delusions of greatness.

With a roar of fury, he swiped his hand downwards towards his childhood friend's desk, intent on destroying not only it, but also that infuriating book in her hands.

"You damned, Charity Case!"

Itsuku's eyes hardened, and in a blink, just as Katsuki was about to smash her desk and burn her book to ashes, she kicked the desk upwards with her legs, and in one fluid motion, slammed her book down on Bakugo's head. The entire class went silent as Katsuki hit the floor, cold, his jaw and head no doubt heavily bruised.

"I told you before," Itsuku muttered blankly to the motionless explosive quirk user, "Don't ever talk to me again." The entire classroom fell silent as they watched the most powerful quirk user in the room get swatted like a fly on the wall. Without another word, Itsuku fixed her desk and continued to go back to reading, roughly shoving the now unconscious Bakugo to the side.

No one else dared comment on the situation, knowing that saying anything in either camp would instigate something painful on their behalf. It wasn't the first time they had seen the infamous book of death…

Ever since entering Junior High, despite being "Quirkless", Itsuku had been known by another name, one that invoked a feeling of dread in those that had been on the receiving end of those damned book spines.

As it turned out, even if you were Quirkless, if you were a girl and were pretty, that could be overlooked, slightly. And according to the general population of the school, Itsuku was a very pretty girl. Her dark, forest green hair had grown ever since she was a child, reaching the middle of her back, and her body had begun developing a lot earlier than most of the girls in the school, much to the envy of her female peers. She was also universally accepted as one of the smartest people in the school and was very talented in sports as well.

Secretly, her body was worshiped by some of the more perverted males in the school, praised for being just the right mix of toned musculature and feminine beauty. The boobs helped too.

Subsequently, she'd had a lot of boys and some girls attempt to woo her, mainly through a lot of backhanded compliments, intimidation, fake friendship and false promises of protection against her main antagonist, Katsuki. None of them ever ended well, for the ones approaching her anyway.

In the past few years, she hadn't been idle. Her dense muscle mass was a result of years of training, countless hours of combat she had been simulating at various dojos in the city, and hundreds of days of physical training. Quirk or no Quirk, a swift punch to the face and kick in the gut was enough to down any human, baring those with some endurance-type quirk. They didn't last long either though, always underestimating the power of her precise strikes at debilitating points in the body.

The fact that she was hiding a Quirk was just the icing on the cake. While it wasn't useful for direct applications in battle, it was invaluable in the flow of it, and she had been training with it for years now.

Machine Learning. That was what she had named her nearly invisible Quirk all those years ago. It was a Quirk that allowed her to analyze and store all information related to a certain topic after a few repeated exposures, like a learning AI that stored a vast vault of information and improved on it.

Physically writing encoded knowledge quicker, cutting down learning by almost 50%, a vast improvement from where it started at 6% when she first confirmed her Quirk. It also passively applied to her body, allowing her to adapt new movements quickly and refine them to the highest degree after only a few attempts. Active usage of her Quirk also allowed her to quickly come up with solutions in battle, analyze an enemies' battle tendencies and counteract them appropriately.

Combined, her precise ability in combat, emotionless nature, chilling aura, good looks and near encyclopedic swathe of knowledge had earned her the infamous moniker:

Robotic Queen

A/N

For anyone curious, Izuku 出久 is how his name is spelled. Alternatively, the first kanji 出, can be read as De, which is usually a first instinct of most Japanese. Hence why his name becomes Deku in the manga.

In this fic, the name is Itsuku which is read as 慈, which is used in various words in Japanese that mean mercy, compassion, pity, charity or benevolence. Hence why her derogative nickname in this fic isn't Deku, but a play on the word Charity.

But anyways, I've been thinking a bit about the background of Midoriya for a while, debating on how such a bullied and isolated kid could have grown up so…relatively adjusted. So, I set out to tell a more "realistic" tale of a damaged child who is more cautious about her peers than her enemies, where she chose to fight instead of running from her problems.

Also, if you haven't already figured it out, not a BakugoXMidoriya fic.

Also also, couldn't find the original source of my cover-photo, which I do not own. Hopefully if the owner ever does grace my presence, I hope they don't mind and Thank you!

Hope you've enjoyed,

-Woona the Cat