Kumokyo Ichishi/Synopsis

History
Kumokyo had a relatively normal childhood, a surprising feature of her past. She grew up to quite a late age without actualising her quirk, leading to her parents and her peers to believe she was quirkless. Due to this, she was bullied quite often at school, and her parents weren’t able to do anything about it. She shared being quirkless with her friend Aya, who at the time was her only friend. She possessed a fascination of trains at this age, though not yet at a level where it would be considered unusual.

Kumokyo finally awoke her quirk at age 9, when in a moment of stress, she accidentally summoned a train directly into a school building, injuring dozens and killing a teacher. She was summarily arrested, but was found unaccountable and charged with manslaughter, amounting to the fact that up until this moment Kumokyo had no way of knowing she even possessed a quirk, much less a highly destructive one. She was quickly put into quirk counselling, but her actions haunted her despite her innocence.

Additionally, upon learning that her friend had suddenly developed a quirk, Aya felt betrayed and left Kumokyo. With a fresh wave of bullying and hatred due to her accidental usage of her quirk, Kumokyo ran away from home.

Mental Breakdown
Kumokyo lived in abject poverty for almost a month until she was found by the police, where she was suffering from malnutrition and poor health due to long-term exposure to the elements. Kumokyo quickly recovered, but her parents immediately began to worry for Kumokyo’s mental state when she started to mutter incoherently and talk to herself in the darkness.

The only thing that could bring Kumokyo out of her daze was, strangely, conversation about trains. Unknown to her parents at the time, Kumokyo had sought shelter in the deeper parts of the Japanese metro system, where she felt safe from the continual social onslaught she had experienced during this time, and thus she had mentally drawn the connection between trains and safety or positive thoughts. Kumokyo’s train obsession slowly became unhealthy, as it transformed into a getaway from the absurd and unwelcoming harshness of reality.

Despite, or perhaps due to her mental state, Kumokyo was still yet unable to control her quirk, and caused another accident when she was startled by the mailman. Thankfully, nobody was hurt by this particular incident, but the police were interested in keeping Kumokyo under constant surveillance in the interests of public safety. Kumokyo, hearing this and unwilling to put her wellbeing in strangers and city officials who treated her like a criminal, ran away from home once more into the night.

Encounter with Nocturne
"This bread! It's really good!"

- Kumokyo to Nocturne Alone and hungry on the streets again, Kumokyo breaks into a family restaurant with her quirk, and stumbles inside in search for food. However, she is quickly discovered by Haiji Nisekou, who initially responds angrily until he realises the culprit is a fearful and wide-eyed child. Witnessing the total and utter destruction unleashed on the restaurant’s wall, Haiji, who was secretly the villain Nocturne, offers the child a place to stay for the night, to which Kumokyo hesitantly agreed.

While at first suspicious of Nocturne, Kumokyo quickly feels at ease amongst the villains, who don’t treat Kumokyo negatively like all of her peers used to. With that, she decides to settle down with her newfound friends and start her own train collection.