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ohmyarceus2022-04-19 07:33 pm
lightningbearer) wrote in ohmyarceus2022-04-19 07:33 pm
Let's talk Tragic Backstories!
Welcome to the Tragic Backstories™ meme!
Step 1. Post your character(s)!
Step 2. Explain your character's horrific, tragic backstory in as much lush and lurid detail as you can manage!*
Step 3. Read everyone else's posts and be appropriately horrified!
*Please be sensible and note if there's likely to be particularly disturbing imagery, and likewise keep in mind when reading that these are tragic backstories for a reason
OPTIONAL: Use this handy-dandy code to white out spoilers and/or any particularly gnarly bits:
Eri | My Hero Academia
Oh god, oh god oh fuck. Here we go.
I will AGAIN warn that everything about Eri's backstory is a spoiler for Season 4 of My Hero Academia, so like, if you care about that... don't read. Just know this adorable child is also a bundle of trauma.
Deep breath... here we go. Note that I have linked some images here just for the heck of it, and while they aren't necessary, they are still there. If they don't load, try to reload the page... wiki image links tend to be weird sometimes.
As many of you likely know by now, the world of My Hero Academia is a world in which the majority of the planet's population possesses a superpower of some kind... dubbed "quirks", and Eri is no exception to this. Though her grandfather was the head of the Shie Hassaikai, one of many Yakuza groups in Japan, Eri's mother and father presumably weren't really involved in that.
Her parents seemed to be, by all accounts, good parents. Eri lived happily while she was still a baby, a simple and normal life looking to be ahead of her. While she was growing, however, there was a small horn starting to grow out of the side of her forehead... which was ultimately brushed off as merely early signs of the child's incoming quirk.
Eri, however, turned out to be a rare case. The quirk she was born with did resemble any of the other registered quirks in her family. It was a rare, but not impossible occurrence... her quirk was a Mutation, and an ability that would be difficult to comprehend and understand.
Case and point, Eri's quirk eventually awakened, and when her father went to pick his daughter up... suddenly he was gone.
The only remains of Eri's father were a pile of his clothes, now on the floor in front of a very confused child. Eri's father was dead.
The sight filled Eri's mother with fear, and she began to scream about how Eri was a "cursed child" that had killed her husband. This would become a memory that would be etched into Eri's mind at the earliest possible age.
Eri was disowned by her mother, ending up in the care of her grandfather. Due to the mystery surrounding how Eri's father died and Eri's newfound quirk, her grandfather then placed her under the care of Kai Chisaki, who had also been taken in by Eri's grandfather when he was young, and was now an adult at the time. The reason for this was because based on the information received, Eri's grandfather assumed that Eri's quirk was similar to Chisaki's quirk: Overhaul. He believed that Chisaki would be able to find out what Eri's quirk was, as well as sympathize with the young girl.
However, this assumption was wrong. Eri's quirk had been assumed to be called "Vanish", as it had made Eri's father vanish into thin air... but this was not true. "Overhaul" could deconstruct and reconstruct objects that Chisaki touches with his hands, and Eri's quirk was nothing like that. Eri's quirk... was Rewind. Eri possesses the ability to reverse a living being's body back to a previous state, and the size of her horn signifies how much Rewind energy she has stored up. The incredibly dangerous part about this ability, however, is that Eri is too young to understand how to stop her power once it activates, and it is fully possible to rewind a living being to the point before they existed. In addition, due to the fact it only affects living creatures, it is dangerous and hard to train such a power.
Seeing the terrifying nature of this power, Chisaki saw an opportunity. After numerous experiments on Eri's power, he discovered that in addition to her Rewind ability, her blood also possessed properties that could suppress the bodies' ability to manifest the 'Quirk Factor' thus inhibiting the victim's quirk... albeit only temporarily.
Chisaki proposed his plan to Eri's grandfather, expecting praise... but the old man simply looked at Chisaki, horrified at what he was proposing they do to the little girl. Therefore, in order to continue with his plans unabated... Chisaki used his quirk to place Eri's grandfather into a coma, allowing him to take over the Shie Hassaikai.
Now that he was pulling the strings, experiments on Eri began in earnest... and Chisaki would utilize his quirk to create bullets that can be shot at a target to inject them with Eri's blood. This would prove to work successfully, temporarily inhibiting the quirks of anyone who is hit with the Quirk Inhibiting bullets. How did he create these bullets, however? As stated before, his quirk disassembles and reassembles whatever he touches...
You may be able to see where this is going.
Chisaki would use his quirk on Eri repeatedly, destroying the girl's body, collecting her blood, then repairing her. This was far from a painful or humane process, and it was done hundreds upon thousands of times during Eri's life. All of this was for the sake of perfecting the bullet... changing the temporary nature of the Quirk Erasure to a Permanent one. Quirk-Destroying bullets... an incredibly dangerous weapon.
While Eri attempted to escape and resist on numerous occasions, each attempt was ultimately to no avail, and would additionally tend to result in the ill fate of someone else... usually whoever was in charge of keeping her from escaping in the first place.
See, this is how Chisaki kept her under control. He knew full well of what Eri's mother did to her, and he took full advantage of it. It was repeated to Eri almost constantly, telling her again and again that she's a cursed child... that her 'selfish actions' would only bring others pain. Eri was a kind and gentle girl... she never wanted to hurt anybody, and mental scars began to set in just as quickly as the physical ones.
When Eri had a true opportunity to escape from him after running into Izuku Midoriya and Mirio Togata while the boys were on patrol, she had clung to Izuku desperately... however, the instant that Chisaki showed a slight bloodlust... the intent to kill, she went back to him... willing to return to that hell rather than risk others being hurt as a result of her 'selfishness'. True to this, upon returning to the Yakuza hideout, the man in charge of watching her was immediately killed by Chisaki in front of Eri.
...Fortunately, the tale of Eri's pain and misfortune ends here.
The patrol that the two heroes Eri bumped into were for the sake of finding Chisaki himself, and saving Eri just became a primary goal. Eri was tracked down, and though the fight was brutal and Mirio Togata was shot with a newly-perfected Quirk-Destroying bullet... Eri was saved, as she was able to finally grasp the hope and will to be saved, and Chisaki was defeated and placed into custody.
Though Eri was saved... the mental hold that Chisaki held over the young girl would not immediately go away... however, with a lot of work, Eri was able to smile again, the ghost of Kai "Overhaul" Chisaki banished from the girl.
Ultimately, this story has a happy ending. Eri is kept at U.A. under the supervision of the many U.A. teachers, particularly Shoto Aizawa, whose Erasure quirk could stop Eri's quirk in case she would lose control... allowing her to properly learn how to control her quirk herself. She's a cheerful, sweet, and precious girl... though some scars still remain, and will perhaps remain forever.
Still, at the very least, she's able to move past the horrific events of her past and move toward a bright life... and hey, that just so happens to be here in the World of Pokemon.