The Gamer Hero, Deku - Chemical_Magecraft - 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

"Sorry, kid, it's not going to happen," the doctor said. "If you had a Quirk, it would've shown itself by now."

"What do you mean?" my mom asked.

The doctor pointed to an x-ray of my foot. "After the emergence of Quirks, there were studies done. It was found that most people with a Quirk lack this joint right here. It's possible for someone to have the joint and a Quirk regardless, but if Izuku here hasn't developed a Quirk at this age, it probably means he doesn't have one."

After that, I was crushed. The one thing that I wanted most was to be a hero, and now that dream seemed completely out of reach. How could I become a hero without a Quirk? I never completely gave up, but after a while, it just seemed so hard. It was around this time that I really started to get into video games. In them, I could be the hero. I was always the hero. I saved the day, stopped the bad guys, and had all kinds of cool powers. Maybe... maybe that was what kept me going. At any rate, I eventually redoubled my efforts to become a hero and began analyzing everything I possibly could about heroes. I watched hundreds of videos of fights between heroes and villains in all kinds of environments. I went to see every hero fight I could. I learned enough that I could theoretically be certified a Quirk counselor if I took the exam. Still, I always had some doubt as to whether or not I could do it. If there was ever a hero without a Quirk, they never made it big enough to even be mentioned. Everyone at school laughed at me for saying I wanted to be a hero.

But that all changed the day my Quirk awakened.

I woke up feeling odd, but couldn't quite place why. It only hit me when I was brushing my teeth. When I was just about done, I noticed something weird above my head in the mirror. I looked up and immediately spat out my toothpaste when I saw white text floating above my head. It might have been reversed, but I could read it clear as day.

The Gamer

LV 5

Midoriya Izuku

I had no idea what to make of it. "Why is there a text box floating over my head!?" I thought. "And what's with that part that says 'The Gamer?" I might have stayed there, staring like a deer in headlights at my own reflection, for hours if my mom hadn't called up to me.

"Izuku! Hurry up or you'll be late for school!" That snapped me out of my reverie. Whatever it was could probably wait until I was at school.

"Coming!" I yelled back down, and then hurriedly finished getting ready. When I went downstairs, she was waiting for me with my lunch. After she gave it to me (along with a hug and a kiss) I looked above her head.

Supermom

LV 11

Midoriya Inko

So it wasn't just me. It seemed to me like she couldn't see the words, considering the fact that she hadn't reacted at all. Still, better to be safe than sorry. "Hey, Mom?"

"Yes, Izuku?"

"Have you noticed anything strange today?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"I thought something was off. I guess I just stayed up a little too late last night." She narrowed her eyes at me. "D-don't worry, though! I'm fine now." That confirmed that she couldn't see the text floating above our heads. Satisfied, I headed out the door.

xoxoxo

On the way to school, I saw that everyone had a title above their heads. "It's just like a video game!" I thought. I stopped for a second as a thought struck me, then continued as I thought about it. "Could this be a Quirk? What if that's the reason? It'd explain why only I can see these titles. The doctor did say that it was possible I had a Quirk, just not likely. But why now? Why wouldn't my Quirk have shown up earlier?" I was so distracted that I didn't even notice the crowd until I walked into someone's back. After apologizing, I followed everyone's gaze to see a giant, monstrous man standing on the overpass.

Giant Monster Man

LV 32

Yamazaki Riku

"Guy gets cornered by heroes and just turns into a giant monster," a nearby man said as if it was a common occurrence. I made my way through the crowd toward the front. When I did, a bunch of fangirls squealed as a guy who looked like a cross between a ninja and a tree kicked the giant in the face. "It's Kamui Woods," I said. I squinted and just barely made out his title while he monologued at the villain.

?

LV ?

Nishiya Shinji

Huh. I figured that the titles had some limitations to it. My assumption was immediately given some credit when a giant woman kicked the giant villain in the jaw while he was distracted with Kamui Woods' special attack.

?

LV ?

Takeyama Yu

"Mt. Lady, huh?" the guy next to me said. "She's certainly making a name for herself. Seems like she might make it big."

"Yeah," I muttered. "She's certainly got a good Quirk for hero work. Plenty of power and flashy too. I can see a few downsides, though. She can't use it in tight spaces and being that big would definitely cause a lot of collateral damage." I was interrupted by a ping. I looked down to see... a blue text box?

A new skill has been created through special action! Continuously analyzing your surroundings has created the skill 'Observe' to gain information about objects.

Observe (Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00%

The ability to observe one's surroundings and gain information from it.

Gives the user information about the object it is used on.

Yet again, all I could do is gape at what I saw. A skill... so this wasn't just identifying people... I don't know how I immediately knew how to use it, but I did. "Observe," I thought while looking at the text box for the Observe skill, and a new text box popped up.

The text box for the Observe skill. Shows the effects and experience of the Observe skill.

I probably would've played around with this more, but the man next to me cleared his throat and said, "Hey, kid! Are you okay?"

"O-oh, I'm fine!" I blurted out.

"You looked pretty distracted, there. Something happen?" he asked.

"Don't worry about it," I replied. "My Quirk's just a little weird." I was just using it as an excuse, but... it had to have been my Quirk. There was no other explanation for it. I decided that I'd explore this new Quirk as best I could when I got to school. Wait. "I HAVE TO GET TO SCHOOL!" I realized and ran for it.

xoxoxo

Once I made it to my homeroom, I immediately collapsed into my chair, panting. I looked at the text boxes that had appeared on the run to my school.

The level of the skill Observe has increased by one! The level of the skill Observe has increased by one!

Those and a bunch of Observe text boxes made up most of them. I saw the LV1 on Observe's text box and inferred that I could probably raise the level of the skill by using it a bunch. Naturally, I spammed it at every item I could on the run over. However, there were two that I hadn't expected.

Due to repeated struggles, your VIT has increased by one.

Due to prolonged running, your DEX has increased by one.

Well. That was interesting. I suppose it made sense. I may have gained some weird video game power, but I was still in real life... supposedly... so I was still able to exercise. I wondered what my stats were, then had an idea. I concentrated, then thought the word "Menu" to myself, just like when I used Observe. It didn't surprise me, then, when a menu popped up.

Status Screen

Skill List

Inventory

Party Options

Map

Quest Log

Options

Well, that seemed interesting. I decided to start at the top and make my way down. "Status Screen"

Name: Midoriya Izuku

Title: The Gamer

Level: 5

HP: 250/250

MP: 275/275

STR: 10

VIT: 11

DEX: 11

INT: 30

WIS: 10

LUK: 10

POINTS: 0

MONEY: 0 Yen

What? I got most of my stats, but... why would a level five character have twenty more points in INT than in the other stats? I guess that explained why I didn't start at level one, but... maybe I got five stats per level after one and my Quirk automatically dumped those into INT because of my above-average IQ? I guess that made sense, but I really wished it hadn't. I could have probably used those points better myself, Quirk! Still... I decided that I'd have to train up my stats the hard way at first. "I can probably focus on INT, WIS, and LUC during school hours. Studying and doing math problems should probably increase my INT, maybe I could increase my WIS by meditating, and if I constantly flip a coin and call it that'd probably increase LUC. As for out of school, I said I was going to Yuuei, so nobody would think twice about me exercising like crazy. Actually, why haven't I done that already? 'Exercised like crazy' is half of what made Batman Batman, so why did it take me this long to figure out that I should do that!?" I then noticed another text box.

Due to planning things carefully, your WIS has increased by one!

That's probably what led to me questioning my previous actions. I would have thought about that further, but I was interrupted (again) by someone saying my name. "Midoriya-kun is also planning on going to Yuuei." Oh no.

"WHAT!? DEKU!?" Kacchan went over to my desk and started burning my desk with tiny explosions. I got a good look at his name.

Lord Explosion Murder

LV 14

Bakugou Katsuki

That title was really accurate. "YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A f*ckING QUIRK, YA sh*tTY DEKU! YOU'RE JUST A DISGRACE!"

"Kacchan..." I sighed. I was surprisingly calm considering the fact that an explosive blonde was shouting in my face. I guessed I was just really distracted by the whole "I have a Quirk now" thing. "You can't stop me from going to Yuuei, no matter what you do." "Actually," I thought, "while he's in my face like this... Observe."

Name: Bakugou Katsuki

Title: Lord Explosion Murder

Level: 14

HP: 800/800

MP: 725/725

STR: 27

VIT: 25

DEX: 35

INT: 29

WIS: 13

LUC: 13

Quirk: Explosion

Emotions: Angry, worried

That last one didn't seem right... "sh*tTY DEKU! I'LL MURDER YOU!"

"Bakugou, calm down!" the teacher said. "Remember, you're not supposed to use your Quirk in school. I don't think that getting a detention will look very good to Yuuei."

"FINE! I'M JUST GONNA GLARE AT HIM!"

"PLease limit yourself to that. That isn't against the rules and doesn't cause a disturbance."

"MAYBE I WILL!"

Wow Kacchan is high-strung. I sighed as he plopped back into his seat and started glaring at me. With that threat out of the way, I decided to test my new training regimen.

xoxoxo

On the walk home from school, I decided to review what I'd done at school. After Bakugou's outburst, I'd decided to try out meditation, which yielded quite the fruit.

A skill has been created through special action! Through repeated meditation, the skill 'Meditation' has been created.

Meditation (Active) LV2 EXP: 61.23%

By clearing one's mind, the mind becomes much sharper. This skill allows the user to meditate on the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything for enlightenment.

Increase HP recovery per minute by WIS while meditating.

Increase MP recovery per minute by WIS while meditating.

Increase stamina recovery per minute by WIS while meditating.

WIS can be trained through meditation.

Through repeated meditation, your WIS has increased by one!

I also found a 500 yen coin during lunch and started flipping it as I'd planned. Just like I'd thought, calling it right enough times had increased my LUC.

Due to repeatedly winning games of chance, your LUC has increased by one!

"I should probably focus on VIT and DEX, and especially DEX. Even if I can shrug off getting punched by a truck and hit with the same amount of force, there's going to be some attacks that I can only dodge." I would have done some more planning, but I was interrupted by a weird feeling and a ping. I was excited to see what this new text box would bring me until...

A new skill has been created through special action! Through exposure to impending doom, the skill 'Sense Danger' has been created.

I had about a second to think "Well that is the second most ominous thing I've ever seen," before a manhole burst with some form of sludge. The sludge consolidated into a single blob that somehow had eyes and a mouth with teeth.

Sludge Monster

LV 26

Kurosawa Shou

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

I stared at the pile of sludge in front of me. "Well, kid, seems like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately for you, I need a disguise." Ping. I looked at the new text box.

A new skill has been created through special action! Repeated exposure to bloodthirst has created the skill 'Sense Bloodthirst' to sense ill will.

Yeah, no thanks. I jumped out of the way as he lunged at me. "Observe"

Name: Kurosawa Shou

Title: Sludge Monster

Level: 26

HP: 1600/1600

MP: 500/500

STR: 30

VIT: 39

DEX: 34

INT: 16

WIS: 6

LUC: 6

Quirk: Sludge Body

Emotions: Grateful, bloodthirsty

Status: Sludge body

"Itadakimasu!" the slime said as part of his body shot out and stuck to my ankle. I gasped and quickly bent down to try and tear him off of me before he could do anything more to me. Unfortunately, my fingers slipped through him with little resistance. "Get over here!" he yelled, and I was yanked into him. As I was painfully dragged across the ground, I heard a ping, but I was a little too distracted by the sludge villain trying to eat me or something. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get away from him before he submerged me in himself and started trying to force himself down my throat. It was at this moment that I noticed something in the corner of my eye that I could somehow see perfectly fine.

HP: 184/250

MP: 275/275

And the HP was slowly going down as I struggled with the sludge villain. That was not a good sign. I struggled harder, but I couldn't get out. I thought I was going to die there. I heard another ping and looked up, hoping it was something I could use.

A new skill has been created through special action! Through repeatedly enduring damage, the skill 'Physical Endurance' has been created.

Due to struggling while unable to breathe, your VIT has raised by one!

Crap. Normally that would be good, but I couldn't use them to escape. My HP was still draining and my vision was starting to go dark. "Am I going to die here?" I thought. Just before I blacked out, though, I heard something.

"TEXAS SMASH!"

xoxoxo

When I came to, someone was lightly slapping me on the cheek. "Hey! Wake up!" a familiar voice said. I groaned and looked up to see... "Whew! Thought we lost you there!"

?

LV?

Toshinori Yagi

The name wasn't familiar, but there was no mistaking who the large, muscled, blonde man was. "ALL MIGHT!" I scrambled to my feet, now aware that I had been rescued by my idol. "Can I have your autograph?" He grinned and pointed at my hero analysis notebook, which must have slipped out of my backpack during the struggle. I opened it to the All Might page and beamed at the autograph that he'd written on it. "THANK YOU!"

"Good to hear it, kid! Always great to see a fan! Nowifyoudon'tmindmeIhavetogoturnthisvillainin!" He rushed out that last part while pointing to two soda bottles that the villain was stuffed in and then jumped away. Of course, by then... "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, KID?! LET GO!" I had stupidly grabbed onto his leg.

"If I let go I'll die!" I yelled back over the wind.

"GOOD POINT!" he said. He landed on a nearby roof and let me off. "I have to go now! Knock on the door and someone should let you down!" He made to jump again.

"Wait!" I yelled and closed my eyes. "All my life, I've looked up to you. I've wanted to be a hero just like you. But... my Quirk has only just surfaced. I'm sure it has potential, but it's going to take a lot of training for me to be able to use it as a hero. Even with potential, though, the exams to get into Yuuei are in ten months. Do you think I can still get into Yuuei?" I looked at him for an answer, but... "WHAT!?"

All Might

LV 9

Toshinori Yagi

If it weren't for the title confirming it, I'd have thought that he was a different person. Sure, he was blonde and very tall, but he was almost literally skin and bones! I guess whatever the hell just happened to him to make him a scarecrow was also what lowered his level, but... "Observe"

Name: Toshinori Yagi

Title: All Might

Level: 9

HP: 500/500

MP: 1100/1100

STR: 11

VIT: 4

DEX: 19

INT: 52

WIS: 35

LUC: 9

Quirk: One For All

Emotions: Annoyed, concerned

Status: Totally f*cked Up

"What happened to you, All Might?"

He sighed, then coughed up some blood. "Before I say anything, I need you to promise me you won't say a word of this to anyone. Don't go blabbing about this online, don't tell your friends, don't even say anything to your family. Got it?"

I nodded vigorously. "I won't tell anyone. It's obviously a big deal."

He sat down and raised up his now-baggy shirt, revealing a giant wound on his... everywhere... that could only be described as "Totally f*cked Up." It looked like someone took a fusion between a sledgehammer and a blender to his chest. "I was in a really bad fight five years ago. Took the villain down, but not before getting this ugly thing in return. By all rights, I should've died by now. Luckily, I 'only' got off with constantly coughing up blood and only being able to do hero work three hours a day."

"Toxic Chainsaw couldn't do that do you!"

"You really know your heroes, huh? No, it was another fight. I made sure nobody would hear about it, otherwise there'd have been a lot of panic. Kid, if you wanna be a hero, maybe you should wait a bit. Put it off 'til college or something, when you can actually use your Quirk." He got up and left through the door. I just stood there, stunned. Then I saw a giant explosion. "That's either a villain or Kacchan snapped," I said. "I wonder which one." Ping. "What's that?"

A quest has been created!

A quest?

What Now, Kacchan!?

You just saw an explosion! Maybe you should investigate.

Time limit: 30 minutes.

Well, I had nothing better to do... I looked down to see what I assumed were the rewards.

Completion: 2000 EXP, ?, ?, ?.

Failure: Bakugou Katsuki dies.

Okay. Definitely doing that now. Even if it could be considered vigilante work, I really didn't want Kacchan to die. I decided to run for it.

xoxoxo

When I got there, I saw a crowd of people standing just outside of the safe area. I pushed my way through the crowd to see the sludge villain from earlier in the middle of a flaming street, struggling with someone who was inside him. "Did he get loose when I grabbed onto All Might?" I thought. "Is this my fault?" I looked at the titles.

Sludge Monster

LV 26

Kurosawa Shou

Lord Explosion Murder

LV 14

Bakugou Katsuki

It was Kacchan in there! Before I knew what was happening, I was running in there. Ping. I looked at the text box.

New objective! Save Bakugou.

Welp. Looks like I made the right call. I focused back on the sludge villain in time to see him turning towards me. "You came back for some more, huh, kid? Well I'll kill you if you want it so badly!" The sludge villain looked like he was about to lunge, so I threw my backpack at his face. He flinched and yelled at me. I ran up to him and started tearing at the sludge around Kacchan's face. I heard a ping but didn't stop to look at it. I managed to get the sludge off of Kacchan's mouth. He gasped, coughed a bit, and then yelled, "GET AWAY, f*ckING DEKU! YOU'RE GONNA DIE!" That was either a death threat or he was actually concerned about me. Either way, my response was the same.

"What kind of hero would I be if I let you die?" I would've said something else, but my Sense Danger activated and I jumped back just in time to not get hit by a gooey punch.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" The sludge villain yelled. I would've done something but then I heard a pair of pings.

"I'M PATHETIC! DETROIT! SMASH!" a familiar voice yelled. A rush of air extinguished all of the fires and somehow blew the sludge villain apart while leaving Kacchan untouched. A few seconds later it randomly started raining. I looked to where the blast originated and saw All-Might standing there. "I'm sorry, boys."

xoxoxo

"What were you thinking!? You could have gotten yourself killed!" The heroes were not happy I rushed in there. I didn't really want to pay attention to their lectures, so I just looked at my text boxes. One of them congratulated me on how I made some sort of ripping skill my tearing the sludge off of Kacchan. It didn't look too good, but maybe I could work with it. The other one, though...

Congratulations! The quest What Now, Kacchan!? was completed!

Completion Rewards: 2000 EXP, Increased closeness with Toshinori Yagi, Access to the Skill Grimoir system, 3000 Skill Fragments

Your level has increased by one!

That... was something. At least I was level six now, even if I had no idea what a Skill Grimoir system was. Or what the heck I do with Skill Fragments. All I knew was that a bunch of balls like Munny from Kingdom Hearts swirled around me before getting absorbed into my body after All Might hit the villain, which apparently everyone saw and I had to explain that I had no idea what the heck happened there to the heroes. Turns out that random balls getting absorbed into the idiot kid who stupidly ran into the villain attack is normally a red flag of some sort. Specifically that, apparently. That is a really specific scenario to be wary of. At any rate, they eventually let me go when I promised that I wouldn't do anything too stupid without adult supervision. I was walking home when...

"HEY! DEKU!" A fuming Kacchan shoved himself at my face. "I DON'T EVER NEED YOUR HELP! IF YOU EVER TRY TO BAIL ME OUT LIKE THAT AGAIN, I'LL KILL YOU!" Just to make his point, he let out an explosion aimed at the sky as he walked away. I sighed and continued along my way... for all of five seconds before All Might ran out in front of me.

"I AM HERE!"

"All Might! What are you doing here? Weren't you speaking to the press?"

"HA HA HA HA! I STAND FOR JUSTICE, NOT SOUNDBITES! FOR I, I AM ALL MI-plghght!" He started to go on this big speech before spewing out blood and shrinking down to his civilian form. I gave him a few minutes to clean himself off before he said, "Young man, I came to thank you and apologize. If you hadn't told me that you couldn't use your Quirk, if you hadn't ran in there... I would've been a worthless bystander, too afraid to do anything. So thanks."

"All Might, I-"

"I'm not done. You told me you couldn't really use your power, so when I saw this boy who might as well be Quirkless try to save a life, it inspired me too. There are stories about every hero, how they became great. Most have one thing in common. Their bodies moved before they had a chance to think, almost on their own. And today, that's what happened to you." I'm not going to lie, I teared up at this part. A lot. "Young man, you too can become a hero!"

"I-I don't know what too say! Thank you!"

"And I'm going to give you my Quirk, too!"

"Wait, what?"

"My Quirk. It's called One For All. It's a special power that can be passed on from one generation to the next, cultivated by one user then given on to a successor." He patted the OH GOD wound. "I won't be able to be a hero much longer, so I've been meaning to find someone to give One For All. It's actually why I came here. So, kid. Whaddya say? Wanna be the next All Might?"

midoriyaizuku.exe has stopped working. Reboot? Y/N

Y

"WHAT!?" I yelled.

"I want you to be my successor. I'll also help train you to use your Quirk even if you don't want my Quirk, so don't worry about that."

I bowed. "All Might, I'd be honored!"

"Great, kid! Let's trade phone numbers." All Might asked me for my phone number. ALL MIGHT ASKED ME FOR MY PHONE NUMBER! I gave him my phone number and he gave me mine. "I'll call you when I get everything ready. See you then!" He then walked off. I spent the rest of my walk home in silence, contemplating what just happened today. It was so crazy! But one thing was for sure. One thing that I had to do the second I got home. I walked in the door and immediately said, "Mom! I have to tell you something!"

Mom immediately came running and said, "What is it, honey?" She looked a little nervous.

I gulped. "Mom," I said, "I have a Quirk." The look on her face, that look of relief, joy, and excitement, was something I knew I'd cherish for years to come.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

"Your Quirk is really weird," the green-haired doctor said. He didn't act too serious, so that didn't surprise me, but...

"Shouldn't you be a little more professional about this?" I asked. I was actually really excited. Who'd have thought that I'd get taken to a Quirk counselor!

"Alright," he said, then adjusted his glasses. "In my professional opinion, your Quirk is really weird. I think it's probably Mutant because it's always on, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on your appearance and manifested very late, even though most Mutant Quirks are usually present from the beginning. So you say you can see titles? Tell me what it says about me, please."

Bamboo Doctor

LV 10

Takenaka Saburou

"Bamboo Doctor, level ten, Takenaka Saburou," I recited.

"Interesting," he said, then turned his fingers into bamboo. "The title even provided a clue to my Quirk, Bamboo Shoot... What's yours say?"

"The Gamer, level six, Midoriya Izuku. It used to be level five, but I got a level up off a quest." He wrote something down on his clipboard.

"Okay. So you said that you have a main menu?"

"Yeah. I've only looked at one of the menus on it yet, but it looked like it worked like a game."

"Can you open it?"

"Sure. Main Menu!" I found out after telling my mom about my Quirk that I could trigger my skills and things by saying them out loud, too.

Status Screen

Skill List

Skill Grimoir

Inventory

Party Options

Map

Quest Log

Options

"Huh," I said.

"What is it?" Takenaka-sensei asked me.

"I have a new menu that I didn't have before called Skill Grimoir. I got something called the Skill Grimoir system as the reward for a quest, so I guess that's what that is."

"Okay... why don't you just tell me what they are?"

"Status Screen, Skill List, Skill Grimoir, Inventory, Party Options, Map, Quest Log, and Options."

"Y'know what, just open all the menus and tell me whatever you think's important. You seem like a smart kid. I trust you."

"Thanks, I think." I heard a ping.

A quest has been created!

Tutorial Level

You really should learn what your new Quirk can do. Open up all the menus.

Completion: 500 EXP, 100 Skill Fragments, Increased closeness with Bakugou

That last one was a little out there, but... "I just got a tutorial quest."

"What?"

"I got a quest telling me to look at my menus.

"Well then do that."

"Alright." I clicked the Status Screen button. "First I have the Status Screen."

Name: Midoriya Izuku

Title: The Gamer

Level: 6

HP: 325/325

MP: 400/400

STR: 10

VIT: 12

DEX: 11

INT: 30

WIS: 12

LUK: 11

POINTS: 5

MONEY: 0 Yen

SKILL FRAGMENTS: 3500

"It shows all of the things that my title shows, though it lists them name, title, level instead of title, level, name. After that, it shows my current HP, MP, some stats, points that I think I get five of per level and can be used to raise my stats, money, and Skill Fragments. I got the Skill Fragments when I unlocked the Skill Grimoir, so I think that they're linked. I can also raise my stats by doing activities that you would expect them to be used. For example, studying raises INT and stamina exercise raises VIT."

"Alright." He handed me a piece of paper. "Write down your current stats so the readers don't have to read you repeating those, too." What? "Next menu?"

"Skill List." The Skill List opened. "A list of my skills appeared with little icons representing them."

"Skills?"

"I got some things called skills. I guess you could say that they're like spells in a game? That's not exactly right, but I don't know what else to call them. I get them by doing certain things and they seem to be able to level up if I use them enough."

"Alright, so what skills do you have?"

"There's Observe, which gives me a text box with a bunch of information on what I use it on."

"Scan, cool. Do you get, like, a background or just what it is?"

"I only get a description of objects, but when I use it on people, it gives me a box a little like my Status Screen, only for them."

"Okay, can you use it on me, then write my Observe thing on the back of that paper?" I used Observe.

Name: Takenaka Saburou

Title: Bamboo Doctor

Level: 10

HP: 600/600

MP: 650/650

STR: 10

VIT: 12

DEX: 13

INT: 32

WIS: 49

LUC: 14

Quirk: Bamboo Shoot

Emotions: Interested, curious

"I also have Meditate, which I got by meditating."

"As one does."

"It allows me to restore my HP and MP as well as train my WIS."

"As one does."

"I got three skills called Sense Danger, Sense Bloodthirst, and Physical Endurance when I got attacked by a villain. Those three are..." I tapped on their skills, opening their windows.

Sense Danger (Passive) LV1 EXP 99.99%

A skill that allows one to sense impending danger in one's surroundings.

Sense Bloodthirst (Passive) LV1 EXP 51.08%

A skill that allows one to sense other's ill will towards one.

Physical Endurance (Passive) LV1 EXP 35.24%

The body's toughness increases, reducing damage from physical attacks.

3% decrease in damage taken by physical attacks.

"Different. They say they're passive."

"So they're always on?"

"I guess. I have a skill called Tear that lets me tear things and..." I noticed that I had no idea what the first two were. "Two skills called Gamer's Body and Gamer's Mind. Hang on, I'll see what those two do."

Gamer's Body (Passive) LV MAX

Grants a body that allows the user to live life like a game.

Gamer's Mind (Passive) LV MAX

Allows the user to calmly think things through. Allows a peaceful state of mind. Grants immunity to psychological status effects.

"Both passive. One gives me the body to live life like a game, which I think might be why I didn't have a bruise after the villain attack, and the other makes me constantly calm. Both are at max level. They're probably a manifestation of my Quirk."

"Okay. Sounds legit. What next?" I completed the copies of the text boxes that he'd asked of me. "I feel like I should feel insulted by the fact that I have the strength of a fifteen-year-old, but I've literally never touched a weight before so I can't really complain. So what's the next menu thing?"

"It's the Skill Grimoir that I got from a quest."

"Okay, crack that baby open!"

"Skill Grimoir," I said. A glowing ball of green light appeared in front of me and shifted into the shape of a book. It then dulled, turning into a book with a blank green cover. "It's a book," I said.

"I can see that," he told me, then wrote something down.

"You can see the book?" I asked.

"Yup. Weird, I wasn't able to see any of the other things... Open that thing and see what's inside." I opened the book and saw a list of skills with a short description of what they were and the words "Skill Fragments" followed by a number for each of them.

"I think it's a skill shop. There's a list of skills and what's probably a Skill Fragment price."

"Well the best way to test that hypothesis would be to try and buy one," he told me.

"Okay," I said. I looked over the skills for one that looked interesting within my price range and immediately saw one that was worth exactly as much Skill Fragments as the Quest was going to give me.

Mana Bolt (Active) Skill Fragments: 100

A skill that attacks by shooting a ball of mana.

Attack power increases with INT

Range 10m

Hello, beautiful. I tapped it. A blue box appeared.

You are attempting to learn the skill 'Mana Bolt.' This will cost you 100 Skill Fragments. Confirm purchase?

YES/NO

"It's definitely a skill shop. I just got a message telling me to confirm my purchase of Mana Bolt," I told him.

"Well now we should see what happens when you purchase a skill." I tapped yes. The words on the Mana Bolt section began to glow, then the light shot into me. I felt the knowledge enter my head as the words were erased. When they were fully gone, the rest of the text shifted so that there wasn't a gap where Mana Bolt was.

Mana Bolt (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 5

A skill that attacks by shooting a ball of mana.

Attack power increases with INT and skill level.

Range 10m

"I learned it. I can now shoot mana out of my palms as an attack."

"Mana?"

"MP, I'm pretty sure. The skill seemed good because it has more power the higher my INT is and I have thirty INT. It also only costs five MP."

He sighed. "Well I'm going to have to get some targets for you to test that out on. What next?"

"I'd like to know what happens if I try to open my Skill Grimoir while my Skill Grimoir's already open. I can't close it like my other windows. Or I just haven't found the X. Skill Grimoir." The current Skill Grimoir burst into motes of light that faded from existence as a second Skill Grimoir appeared with the same animation. I looked through it and it was identical to the other one. "I guess it just gives me a new one. That's good to know in case I lose it."

"What happens if you damage it?" Takenaka-sensei asked. I ripped the corner off of one of the pages. The book immediately burst into motes of light, like the old book. "Found the X," he said, and wrote some more things down. "Next menu?"

"Inventory," I said. A box appeared in front of me. This one didn't have any text and instead consisted of a grid and a separate box showing a silhouette of a person with a bunch of boxes that had my clothing in it. "I'm pretty sure that it works like a video game inventory. There's also an equipment screen, which I'm sure is what it is because it has my clothes for the equipment."

He tossed me his pen. "Only one way to find out about the other one, though," he told me. I touched the pen to the box and it was swallowed by a distortion of space... or something. "That looked so cool from my point of view." He held up his clipboard as if to write something down. He stared at it for a second, then looked up and said, "Can I have my pen back?" I handed him his pen and he said, "Right, now why don't you just mess around with it for a bit and see what happens. Maybe start by seeing if you can store something big, like that chair." I got up and focused. As I'd hoped, the inventory box moved where I commanded it to without me having to touch it. It swallowed up the chair, then spat it back out when I told it to. I tested to see how far away from me it would go and found that it stopped just over my arm's length away from my body. I then made it shrink down to one slot (with the equipment screen disappearing) and expand until it fully blocked my body from Takenaka-sensei's. Thankfully it was translucent, so I could still see him.

"Try throwing the pen at me again, " I said. He threw the pen and it was intercepted by my inventory, vanishing. I pulled the pen out of the inventory, closed the box, and threw the pen back to him. "I'm pretty sure I could catch projectiles with this."

"You're probably right, though you might want to be careful with it. Just in case. Next menu?"

"Party Options," I said. I looked at the resulting box. "It just brought up a box telling me that I need to form a party to get party options."

"Well then try inviting me to your party."

"Invite Takenaka Saburou to party," I intoned. He immediately jumped out of his chair and started protecting his face with his arms, the forearms of which turned into bamboo. "Are you okay?" I asked him.

"There's a box! It's blue and floaty and 2-D and appeared out of nowhere!" After a bit, he calmed down enough to sit back down and return his arms to normal. He cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses, and said, "That never happened. Right, so it says 'Midoriya Izuku has invited you to the party. Accept?' then 'Yes' or 'No.' I'm guessing I should press the yes button." He pressed what I assumed was the yes button. I couldn't see his box for some weird reason. I immediately got a notification that he had accepted a party invite. "Right, so I'm going to try to do stuff that being in a party would logically allow me to do while you look into the party options," he told me.

"Okay," I said. I opened up the Party Options box again. "I can see all the members, send them messages, bring them up on the map, and kick them." I noticed a button at the top and pressed it. "There's also a second tab for other options. Looks like I can change the party name and turn on experience sharing, though that one has a warning that it won't work if there's a level difference of ten or higher. What did you-" I was interrupted by a ping.

Takenaka: sup bro

"I found party chat," he told me. "It says that there're options for sending messages to one person or a whole group and also a voice chat. So I guess you're also a telepath of sorts. I can also open up a status menu that implies I can get points from leveling up like you, though I'm assuming I have to be in your party to get that. That's probably it for parties, which is a sentence I thought I'd never say. Leave party." A box showed up telling me that Takenaka Saburou left the party. "Next thing?"

"Map," I said. "I feel like I shouldn't have to say that I got a map. It shows me where I am and has dots that I'm pretty sure are people. Quest Log now?" He wrote something down and nodded. "It's also pretty straightforward. It has a tab for completed quests and ongoing quests. They both work like MMO quests, even have checklists of what I have to do." He wrote it down. "Onto the Options. I can mess with sound, which is interesting because I apparently have background music that's currently muted." I turned the music on. It was actually really nice. It was relaxed, just the kind of music you'd expect in a tutorial level. "I could listen to this for a while. Apparently I have an option between retro-sounding and orchestral music, which is nice of my Quirk to provide. Says here I can open my music up to party members or everyone." I pressed the everyone button. "Do you hear it?"

He bobbed his head. "Yup, that's tutorial music. You should probably switch that back to just you before you leave, by the way."

I switched it back and continued. "I can invert the Y-axis, which I will never ever do ever. Oh, those are subtitles. I can turn subtitles on." I did it. "I don't suppose you know any other languages so I can see if it translates it?" I saw that even my words had subtitles. Despite the fact that they were at the bottom of my vision and there was no way I should've been able to read them, I could see them perfectly fine, like with my health bar. He said some things in... was that Spanish? At any rate, I was able to read the subtitles giving me first what he said and then in parentheses the translation (I'm Spanish on my mother's side). "I saw the translation, which is awesome. That's about it. What now?"

"Well we've gotta see what that Mana Bolt skill ya got was, but first I've gotta tell you some things. I'm a Quirk counselor, remember? Your Quirk is pretty geared toward heroics, which is good because you said you're trying for Yuuei, right?"

"Yes, I'm really hoping to get into Yuuei even with my late start."

"Right, well I'm going to send them a letter of recommendation. It won't be enough on its own to get you into Yuuei or even get one of the recommended spots, but they're probably going to be looking out for you in the entrance exam. You'll still have to actually try, but doing your best should be enough. Next, public Quirk usage laws. You haven't had to deal with these so far, but you're going to have to remember not to use your Quirk in public. At least, don't make it obvious you're using your Quirk." He winked at me. "'Course, those laws only apply to active Quirk usage. You shouldn't have to worry too much about passive skills, though if they're really obvious like, say, super speed then you might want to exercise caution."

"I feel like super speed would be an active skill that drains a lot of MP," I said.

"That's beside the point. Another thing you shouldn't have to worry about is your Skill Grimoir. While you can't make it in public, Quirk usage laws state that Quirk-created objects are fine to bring into the public if they aren't something really out there like a glowing magical sword, so long as you don't purposefully use any anomalous effects that the object in question might have. In other words, you can't buy anything and don't break it on purpose, but nobody can do anything about you looking through the pages."

"Got it," I said.

"Right, I'm also supposed to recommend what I think is the best way to develop your Quirk. You don't actually have to listen to this, but I suggest you do. You should save your points for now. They'll probably be more useful in the future when you're trying to go from one hundred to one hundred and one than now when you're going from ten to eleven. Just save them for a rainy day or something. I suggest you also only spend Skill Fragments on skills you're absolutely sure about. Something tells me that it won't be as bad with those, but you should still spend them wisely. I also think you should get a healing spell and something defensive, like a barrier. Another great thing to get would be something like elemental manipulation which can have a lot of uses. Try also to see if you can make new skills by doing something to your old skills, like seeing if you can charge mana bolt or maybe trying to release the mana differently. That's about all I can think of right now, except maybe grind your stats some more before taking the entrance exam, so let's move on to seeing what Mana Bolt can do." He got up and had me follow him. We walked to a sort of gymnasium that was reinforced. "This," he said, gesturing around the room, "is the practical testing area. It's designed to withstand the punishment some of the more drastic Quirks can dish out." He pointed at an archery target standing in one corner of the room. "Give it a shot. We'll test what happens at different lengths away from the target to see the range on that thing."

"Actually, it's ten meters. The skill said so," I told him.

He sighed. "Well then just hit it at ten meters and see what happens."

I took aim. I held out my right hand, palm facing the target. I'd never done it before, but channeling my mana to my hand felt so natural. "Mana Bolt!" I shouted. A ball of sky blue light shot from my hand and hit the target dead-on, blasting a hole in the center of the target. Takenaka-sensei whistled. I thought back to what he said about trying to make new skills with my existing skills. I closed my eyes, focusing. Getting Mana Bolt didn't just let me shoot mana from my palms. It gave me the ability to feel and use mana. So instead of releasing the mana this time when I used Mana Bolt, I let it pool up. When it felt ready to burst, I opened my eyes and looked at my creation. It was a giant ball of blue light. I narrowed my eyes in thought. "It doesn't feel quite right," I muttered. "Maybe if I..." I started spinning the ball. After a few seconds, I released it and it flew at the target. When it hit the target, it exploded violently, destroying the target completely and making a crater in the floor. "Oops," I said.

"Don't worry about it, that happens a lot," Takenaka-sensei told me. "You're not in trouble or anything, though this is certainly one of the more impressive craters I've seen. Did you just make a new skill?"

"Yeah," I said. I looked at the text box that popped up after I threw the skill.

You have made a new skill. What would you like to name it?

"Spiral Mana Bomb," I said. Now that I had named it, a proper skill box popped up

Spiral Mana Bomb (Active) LV1 EXP 4.27% MP 25

A skill that pools mana and spins it for increased damage.

20% defense penetration.

600% damage increase

4 second charge time.

Can be charged for an additional 10 seconds to increase damage.

Additional 25 MP used per second.

"It's powerful, but it has a charge time so I won't be able to use it on the fly. It also eats a lot more mana than Mana Bolt. I can only just barely use it at the highest power when at full mana."

"You mean that wasn't full power?" he asked incredulously.

"That was about four seconds, which is the minimum charge time," I replied.

"I know I said it was fine that you blew up the floor, but could you please not do that in here? Also you should be really careful with that."

"I figured that giant bombs are a good thing not to throw around everywhere."

"Right, good. That's about everything for today. If you ever think of any questions or concerns about your Quirk, remember that my job is literally to help you with that, so..."

"Got it. Goodbye, and thanks for everything."

"Bye kid. I expect to hear about you doing hero stuff soon." I smiled at him as I left.

xoxoxo

I couldn't sleep the previous night. Today was the first day that All Might was going to teach me hero work! I ended up staying up all night grinding my INT, WIS, LUC, and seeing if I could increase Physical Endurance by biting myself.

Through repeated studying, your INT has increased by one!

Through repeated meditation, your WIS has increased by one! (x3)

Through repeated games of chance, your LUC has increased by one! (x5)

The level of the skill Physical Endurance has increased by one! (x8)

A skill has been created through special action! By repeatedly biting things, the skill 'Bite' has been created!

The level of the skill Bite has increased by one! (x8)

That was a productive night and yet I somehow didn't feel tired at all. It was pretty obvious that it'd be harder to upgrade stats as they increased in level, but I was prepared to deal with that. When the alarm I'd set to go off when I was supposed to wake up went off I got up from my desk and went downstairs to make myself breakfast. After I was done getting ready for the morning, I went to wait by the door and started meditating. Right after my WIS increased by one again, I heard a knock at the door. "I'll get it," I yelled at my mom excitedly. This was it! All Might was going to train me! I opened my door to see...

"Hey, ya sh*tty Deku!" Kacchan yelled at me. I almost laughed with how suddenly the music changed from calm, homey music to heavy metal. He didn't look like he was too angry, so I used Observe on him.

Emotions: Relieved, regretful

What? "What do you want?" I asked him cautiously.

"The hag told me she heard from your mom that you finally got your Quirk. Took you f*cking long enough. I figured that even if we haven't been the best of friends in a while, that's the sort of thing you're supposed to celebrate, so I... wanted to take you to the arcade or something. Maybe blow stuff up and whatever you can do later." Was he blushing? The emotions thing changed to also include embarrased, so probably.

"You certainly changed your tone about me pretty fast. Why do you want to be my friend now?"

"Shut the f*ck up, sh*tty Deku!" Kacchan shouted. "It's not like I was worried about a Quirkless loser like you getting himself killed 'cause he can't do anything like blow sh*t up or punch the air so hard it makes shockwaves!" Huh, that was actually pretty sweet for him. Still, though...

"So you were worried about me and wanted to discourage me from being a hero because I didn't have a Quirk," I realized. "You do realize that there are heroes who can get by totally fine without using their Quirks, right? The pro hero Mandalay has Telepath, which lets her send one-way telepathic messages to people, and yet I've seen videos of her taking down villains. Eraserhead's Quirk doesn't work at all on Mutant Quirks, yet I've still heard about him taking down Mutant villains. I've also heard about villains still giving him trouble with his Quirk being used on them, meaning that they were skilled enough to fight without their Quirks. Recovery Girl was in the top twenty at one point and her Quirk heals people, which has negative use in most one-on-one fights. There are even more examples of people with Quirks that are useless or finicky in combat who can beat villains. Heck, a relative of mine who is Quirkless used to be a vigilante, and actually took down villains! A Quirkless person could totally be a hero, though me being a Quirkless hero is kind of not an issue anymore."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry! There, I f*cking said it! Now why don't we go blow sh*t up to blow off steam? I bet you could use some practice with your Quirk," he said.

"I'd like to, surprisingly enough, but I already made plans for today."

"What kind of plans?"

"Uhhh-" I was very glad to be interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Young Midoriya, is that a friend of yours?" All Might asked as he walked up in his civilian form.

"Yeah, I guess so, this is Kacchan," I told him.

"Well hello, young Kacchan!" he greeted.

"Deku I swear to God don't get everyone to start calling me Kacchan again," Kacchan growled at me. "It took half a year for everyone in first grade to stop calling me Kacchan." All Might started laughing. "And don't you dare start, f*cking Skeletor! My name is Bakugou Katsuki, got that?"

"Got it memorized?" I said, with the appropriate gesture.

"Deku stop making f*cking videogame references you f*cking nerd. And what are you doing here, Papyrus?" What was that about videogame references, Kacchan?

"I was impressed by young Midoriya's courage in the sludge villain attack, so I decided to train him when he told me he wanted to go to Yuuei," All Might explained.

Kacchan burst out into laughter. "Deku's going to actually train for Yuuei? f*cking finally!"

"I thought you didn't want me to go to Yuuei when we thought I didn't have a Quirk?" I said.

"Yeah, but I thought that you just saying that you wanted to be a hero and then doing nothing to accomplish that except take f*cking notes about everybody's Quirks, like that'll SOMEHOW MAKE YOU INVINCIBLE WAS f*ckING STUPID f*ckING DEKU!"

"Well why didn't you say anything?"

"I was already trying to get you to give up. Telling you to take karate lessons would've been a mixed message!"

All Might cleared his throat. Then started coughing up blood again. I really needed to see if I could fix that a bit with a healing spell or something. "As I said, I decided to train young Midoriya. My name is Yagi Toshinori."

"How the f*ck does a f*cking beanpole like you know anything about fitness anyway?" Kacchan asked.

"I used to be in quite good shape," All Might explained. "I was in a very unfortunate accident and while I did survive, parts of my internal organs, unfortunately, did not. Now, I'm afraid that Young Midoriya and I must be leaving. It will take a lot of effort to get Midoriya in shape for Yuuei and I would also like to help him with his Quirk."

"You two got room for one more? I'm going to Yuuei too, so being in better shape'll probably be a good idea. Plus, this way I get to see what Deku's Quirk is too."

"If young Midoriya is fine with it, I would be glad to help develop another hero in the making."

"It's fine," I said. It actually felt really nice knowing that I could be friends with Kacchan again. "Let's go."

On the way there, All Might asked about both of our Quirks. Kacchan answered first, then looked at me like he really wanted to hear what mine was. When I was finished, he snorted and said, "Your Quirk is really f*cking weird. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that a video game nerd like you would have a Quirk like that."

"Be kind, young Bakugou. Though I must say, it is really weird," All Might said. "I'll probably have to move some things around with the training, but this could actually be really good." He stopped. "We're here." Kacchan and I looked up at the huge piles of trash strewn across the beach. "Trash gets washed in by the current on this beach, and people just dump their stuff here because there's already so much trash. Fighting villains might be a part of hero work, but so is community service. By the end of these ten months, this beach will be spotless. That will be part of your training. I also have the paperwork necessary to be a Quirk tutor, so a secluded place like this with no people will be fine for the two of you to train your Quirks."

"So we gotta clean this sh*t up, right? Got it!" Kacchan exclaimed, then did that exploding fist punch thing that he really likes to do.

"You go ahead, Kacchan. I have to talk to Yagi-sensei about my Quirk," I told him. I walked over to All Might and pulled out my Skill Grimoir. Once Kacchan was out of earshot I said, "I think Kacchan would be okay if you told him everything, All Might. He's a big fan of yours too, so he'd probably keep it a secret if you told him. Also, could you please look this over while we're training?"

"Alright, young Midoriya. Is this that Skill Grimoir that you spoke of?"

"Yes. I discovered that if you say bookmark while holding it open to a page, a bookmark will appear on that page. Would it be possible for you to read some of it and bookmark anything that you think I might find useful? Be sure to pay close attention to anything to do with healing, defense, barriers, movement enhancement, strength enhancement, elemental manipulation, teleportation, flight, and anything that uses the words 'super mode' and 'limit break.'"

"Don't worry, young Midoriya. It may seem odd to know that an old man like myself has played video games, but I have played quite a few. I still know some cool 'strats' and 'hax,'" he said, giving me the thumbs up as he accepted the book. There was something really hilarious about All Might talking video games. "Now perhaps we should fill in young Bakugou." We walked over to where Kacchan was lifting a tire. "Young Bakugou, I must speak to you."

Kacchan looked up from his tire. "What is it?" he asked.

"I haven't exactly been entirely honest with you. It is true that I wanted to train young Midoriya because he impressed me, but that isn't the only thing. I was also going to pass my Quirk on to him."

Kacchan blinked. "I'd call that a load of crap, but Deku's Quirk makes him a f*cking video game, so now I'm just curious about why the f*ck Deku would want that."

"I am, believe it or not, a pro hero. The accident that I told you about that left me like this was the attack of a powerful villain. My Quirk allows me to stockpile massive amounts of energy, which lets me still do hero work for three hours each day."

"WHY THE EVERLOVING f*ck WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF YOU f*ckING MORON?!" Kacchan shouted. "IF YOU'RE SO f*ckING BANGED UP WHY COULD YOU POSSIBLY THINK THAT f*ckING HERO WORK IS A GOOD f*ckING IDEA!?"

"Because," All Might said, "my hero name is All Might." With that, he went into his muscle form. Kacchan's mouth dropped. "If I, the symbol of peace, were to retire, there would be chaos! That is why I would like to train young Midoriya here to be my successor!"

"Dammit, this is going to have to be a secret, isn't it?" Kacchan grumbled.

"Exactly, young Bakugou!" All Might said, then reverted back to his regular form. "At least, until such time as I retire. Then I'm going to probably have to reveal to everyone why I retired."

"Okay, fine. Your secret's safe with me. Now why haven't you given Deku your Quirk yet? Shouldn't he have enough time to practice with it?"

"About that... my Quirk, One For All, is rather... powerful. The backlash would blow young Midoriya's limbs off unless he gains enough muscle to properly contain it. As such, the training is necessary to prevent that."

I blinked. "You mean I could blow my arms and legs off if I don't train hard enough?" Ping.

A quest has been created!

Roaring Muscles

As you are now, the power of One For All would immediately destroy you. Get at least 50 ViT before the Yuuei entrance exam or do it without One For All.

Completion: One For All, 5000 EXP, 5000 Skiil Fragments, Increased closeness with Bakugou, Increased closeness with Toshinori

Failure: Decreased closeness with Bakugou, Decreased closeness with Toshinori

"I just got a Quest to get fifty VIT in ten months with One For All listed as a reward. That's probably sufficient, right?"

"I suppose that if your Quest says it's okay, I'll just give you One For All then. That being said, perhaps the two of you should start working now?"

"Right!" we both said at the same time, then went off to pick up junk.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

The next breakthrough came about three months later.

I continued to grind my mental stats and any skills I could without making too much noise in the dead of night. Turns out that part of Gamer's Mind is apparently the ability to stay up all night long without needing to sleep, which was very useful. That night, I was doing some antiderivatives in my head when I heard two pings.

Through rigorous studying, your INT has increased by one!

The skill 'Mana Affinity' has been created through INT rising above 50.

Mana Affinity (Passive) LV1 EXP 0.00%

Mana. A mysterious power that allows people to do extraordinary things. This skill increases the user's sensitivity and control with that power, granting them an affinity with mana.

10% increase in mana recovery rate.

5% increase in total MP.

5% increase to magic attack.

5% increase to magic defense.

30% increase to MP-related skill effects.

I blinked. Then, I slowly got up and silently did the "You Got The Thing!" pose from Zelda. "Dah-dah-dah-daaaaaaaah," I whispered. That was a game-changer. If I got a skill like that for increasing every stat past fifty, and perhaps even other intervals, then that would be very, very useful. I brought up my stats.

Name: Midoriya Izuku

Title: The Gamer

Level: 6

HP: 1550/1550

MP: 2100/2100

STR: 32

VIT: 36

DEX: 34

INT: 51

WIS: 45

LUK: 30

POINTS: 5

MONEY: 0 Yen

SKILL FRAGMENTS: 3500

Definitely something to look forward to. It looked like I had to get the stats above fifty, and not just at fifty. I noted that my WIS was already approaching fifty. I'd ended up using Meditation a lot, seeing as it restored my HP and MP and I could use it anywhere that I needed to wait without drawing too much attention. I decided to just grind WIS at every possible opportunity until I passed fifty. I closed my eyes and began meditating.

A few days of Meditation grinding later, I finally got it.

The skill 'Nature Affinity' has been created through rising WIS above 50.

Nature Affinity (Passive) LV1 EXP 0.00%

The power of the forces of is nature great. The wrath of nature has leveled cities and decimated towns. This skill increases the user's sensitivity and control over those forces, granting them an affinity with the elements.

25% increase to mana recovery rate.

10% increase to elemental attack.

10% increase to elemental defense.

50% increase to element-related skill effects.

I grinned. Sure, I didn't as of that moment have any elemental skills, but I knew I could get some. In fact, I decided to do just that the next day.

xoxoxo

Despite how tiring it was, those long days I spent training with All Might and Kacchan became precious memories to me. Not only was I receiving help from All Might, but I was finally getting to be close to Kacchan again. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed having him as a friend until I got him back. Sure, he was... abrasive... but you could see how much he really cared if you looked closely enough.

The thing that I loved the most about those training days, however, was that I could finally use my Quirk. True to his words, All Might showed off his teaching license and had us sign some forms that said that he'd be officially tutoring us to use our Quirks the ten months before the entrance exam. With that, we were allowed to use our Quirks on the beach so long as he was around and we didn't use our Quirks on anyone that wasn't part of the training.

Kacchan came flying towards me, sparking palm facing me. "DIIIIIIE!" he screamed. His explosion, however, was blocked by a blue barrier that shimmered into existence around me. It shattered, but not before protecting me from all of the damage. "I still think that that's f*cking annoying, by the way," he said as he landed back on the ground.

Mana Dome (Active) LV 28 EXP 32.95% MP 45

A spherical barrier made of mana used to protect the user.

Protects against some damage.

Additional 45 MP used per minute.

A useful skill that I'd managed to puzzle out early on from seeing its description in the Skill Grimoir, which I'd been grateful for because I hadn't had to spend Skill Fragments on it. "If it works, it works," I told him, then adjusted my srance. "Now come at me."

"AND f*ckING HOW!" He blast-propelled himself at me, firing a second blast in just his right hand to make him spin for a punch. It would've been a good move... had a small sheet of mana slightly thicker than my Mana Dome not appeared in front of my blocking arm. "f*ck!"

Mana Shield (Active) LV 24 EXP 98.67%

An adaptation of Mana Dome that forsakes full-body protection for efficiency and increased durability.

Has higher durability than Mana Dome.

50 MP used per square meter of shield per minute.

"Again, if it works, it works," I repeated with a co*cky grin. This caused him to scream psychotically and charge at me. Kacchan was still so easy to rile up. He threw more of those enhanced punches, and I blocked each one. I then shot a blue rope of mana at him, which bound around his body.

Bind (Active) LV 13 EXP 5.45% MP 5

A skill to tie an enemy with a rope made of mana. Can only be used by those who have a talent in manipulating mana.

I'd made the skill after making a sort of rope with my mana and using it to tie up Kacchan in a spar. Actually, I got a skill called Mana Rope first, but using it to tie up Kacchan gave me a skill called Bind. "You still have too much of a temper, Kacchan. That won't be too good for hero work, even if you've been improving a lot," I said as I snapped my fingers. The Bind dissolved on cue.

Name: Bakugou Katsuki

Title: Lord Explosion Murder

Level: 21

HP: 2800/2800

MP: 1750/1750

STR: 42

VIT: 46

DEX: 55

INT: 37

WIS: 25

LUC: 14

Quirk: Explosion

Emotions: Angry

Fire Affinity: 50

His stats were coming along nicely. I'd noticed that I could see a thing that said fire affinity in his stat screen after I got Nature Affinity, probably from being more sensitive to the elements. "Shut the f*ck up, Deku. You of all people don't get to say anything about what is or isn't good for hero work. Now heal me, my fists feel like I just got in a boxing match with a brick wall." I sighed and walked over to put my glowing green hands on his, causing a similar glow to spread to his hands as the bruises faded.

Healing Hands (Active) LV 3 EXP 54.86% MP 50

The power of a charitable soul to channel mana into a target's body to heal them.

55 HP restored, r emoves minor illnesses, debuffs, and negative conditions.

The second skill that I actually spent fragments on. It'd cost me 1500 and needed me to have 55 WIS before I could get it, but it seemed like it'd be worth it at higher levels. Or I could just spam. I'd immediately tested to see what it'd do to All Might when I got it. Unfortunately, it was nowhere near the level needed to come even close to restoring him to his former glory, but he told me that he felt better and the skill got EXP off of it, so that was a plus. I'd ended up regularly using it on him as grinding.

"Thanks," Kacchan grumbled. "Now let's move on to regular old hand-to-hand."

"Though seriously, why do you know martial arts?" I asked.

"Hey, f*ck you, man! Quirk Fist is a good discipline! All the kata are adaptable enough to be used in conjunction with Quirks and it teaches you the kind lateral thinking needed to use Quirks in combat! You've seen my moves! And I've already seen you improve since you started! Now get in your stance!" And so it continued.

xoxoxo

After a long day of sparring and the leveling up of multiple martial arts-related skills (as well as Physical Endurance), I walked over to All Might. "I've decided how I want to spend the rest of my Skill Fragments," I told him as I healed him.

"Very good, young Midoriya! What are you going to get?" he asked, then handed me the Skill Grimoir. I opened to book to one of the bookmarks that All Might had placed.

Summon Basic Elemental (Active) Skill Fragments: 2000

Long ago, man learned of the power of nature and learned to harness it. Some learned to not only harness nature's power, but give it life of its own and summon it at will.

Elemental's power dependent on skill level, WIS, and elemental affinity.

"I'm pretty sure that the ability to make elementals could be really useful, at least from what the skill says," I said. "I'm still not sure why the skill's at such a low price, but I'm not really complaining." I placed my hand on the skill.

You are attempting to buy the skill 'Summon Basic Elemental.' This will cost you 2000 Skill Fragments. Confirm purchase?

I hit the "yes" button. As with the other skills, the words turned into light and flew into me. I frowned. "What's wrong, young Midoriya?"

"What's Deku working on?" Kacchan came up and asked, sipping his water bottle.

"The elemental summoning one," I told him. "It looks like summoning an elemental for the first time is a lot more complex than just using the skill. There's a whole ritual that I have to do get a contract with an elemental."

"Well then let's get started," Kacchan said. "Can't be too hard."

I looked up at the sky. "Yeah, but I can also tell that the ritual will make me unconscious for several hours, and it's getting late. I'd rather not worry my mom by coming home super late."

"Okay, so let's go do it at your house. That way your mom knows where you are."

I thought about it. "Okay. I take it you want to watch?"

He shrugged. Eh, why not? I don't have anything better to do." As we walked home he asked me, "Hey, Deku. What does that elemental-summoning skill even do?"

"I can summon elemental... magic things, I guess... that can control whatever element they're tied to. If I have more than one type of elemental, then for the moment I'd only be able to have one active, though that'll change as the skill levels up."

"So you can make multiple?"

"Yeah, but I have to have an affinity for whatever element I'm using. I gained a skill called Elemental Affinity that gives me bonuses to using elemental powers and other stuff, which allowed me to make an affinity that I can use for it. Actually, my Observe tells me that you have a fire affinity that's five times as high as my affinity."

He scoffed. "Well no sh*t. I've got a violently pyrogenic Quirk. I'd need it to not blow my hands off. Probably." He was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I've been meaning to ask, a lot of your skills, the way their descriptions read, it almost seems to imply that other people can use your skills."

"Did you read my Gamer journal?" I asked him. "How did you even read my journal? I've kept it in my inventory except for the times I wanted to read or write in it."

"I looked over your shoulder while you read from it a few times, dummy. It's actually a really interesting read. What, didya think I snuck in while you slept and somehow got you to open your inventory and take out your journal in your sleep?"

"That wouldn't work," I told him, then sneakily snuck my journal out of my inventory without anyone seeing. "Though if you want to read my journal you could just ask."

He happily took the journal and started looking through it. "Thanks, but you didn't answer my original question. What the f*ck is up with your skills?"

"I honestly don't get it. It... seems like it. Heck, the Summon Basic Elemental ritual has a mention of a contract from ages past, so who knows."

He nodded, then turned the page. "What does it feel like to use mana, then? Maybe it feels different from using a Quirk. Or similar. Or whatever."

I thought about it for a while. "It feels like taking from a well of power, then directing it in the way I need to. When I use the skills, though, it feels like the power is being directed in the way it's supposed to go. If I concentrate enough, though, I can... 'divert' the 'flow' to do something else."

"Huh," he said, then looked at his hand. "That's kinda what Explosion feels like, but it only ever goes to my hands. Weird."

"Hey, are you done with my book? I'd like to put an entry in for Summon Basic Elemental." He grumbled but handed my book over. I began writing the entry down with a pencil that I snuck out of my inventory.

"So what Elemental are you getting?" he asked.

"Huh?"

Kacchan scoffed. "You can only get one at a time, so I'm guessing you're only going to get one, even if you could probably get more."

I smiled and put my finger on my lips. "It's a surprise, Kacchan."

"It's earth or air isn't it?"

I stared at him for a second, then cleared my throat and said, "I will neither confirm nor deny your theory, but what makes you think that?"

"You said that your INT and WIS are both over fifty by now, so you're probably smart enough to know to start out with an elemental that you've always got material to work with. Sure, you could totally figure out some sort of fireball spell, but that'd be more MP used for something less versatile, so that's something you're gonna save 'til later. The only options that you're going to have a lot of are air, which if you don't have it then everyone's dead, and earth, which probably includes rocks, minerals, and maybe even refined metals. Both are more readily accessible than fire and water. Of course, if there're more elements than the four classic ones, then maybe element five is also a good option, so I don't know." Wow, he was putting his high INT score to work.

"I thought about making a cheese elemental, but I didn't think it'd be that gouda," I replied.

"Deku I swear to God."

"We're here," I said. We'd just walked up to my house. "Let's eat dinner before I do the ritual."

Mom was happy to have Kacchan over for dinner. "I'm glad to see you boys getting along after so long," she said as she set curry on the table. "If you don't mind me asking, why did you come here today, Katsuki-kun?"

Kacchan grinned. "Deku's gonna do some sort of magic thing and I wanted to watch." Mom looked at me for answers.

"I got a skill called Summon Basic Elemental that lets me use things called elementals to control the four classical elements. To use it, however, I have to perform a ritual that works as a sort of 'contract' with the elemental, and that might make me fall asleep."

"Oh," Mom said. "Okay... I guess that's okay, just brush your teeth before you do it. Also, you wouldn't mind if I watched, would you?"

"No, go right ahead," I said.

Later, after I brushed my teeth and Mom and Kacchan joined me in the living room, I laid my journal on the table and opened it up to the page on Summon Basic Elemental... or rather, the second and third pages, which were occupied almost completely by the summoning circle needed to perform the ritual. Two concentric circles, one only slightly smaller than the other, and with a five-pointed star in them positioned so that the points were all on the outer circle. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the air around me, how it felt...

Air Affinity: 10

...and on my new air affinity. "I, Midoriya Izuku, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I chanted, blushing at the way it was worded. Kacchan snickered. "I hope you heed my call. Come, Air Elemental!"

"f*cking called it!" Kacchan yelled. Something in the air stirred. Despite the fact that we were indoors, the wind began to pick up. It all swirled into the center of the circle, forming a miniature tornado. The tornado collapsed in on itself, the air solidifying into the form of a young boy with blue robes and short hair and wings that looked like they were made of varying types of cloud. Kacchan started laughing hysterically. "HAHAHAHAHA! HE'S f*ckING TINY!" The boy was also small enough that I could hold him in the palm of my hand. Despite his small stature, I could feel a powerful presence coming from him. He looked at me with piercing blue eyes, making me feel like I was staring into the sky.

"I'll begin in accordance with the ancient rituals. My real name is Midoriya Izuku. You have heard my true name; please tell me yours." As soon as I finished saying it, I felt myself pull apart, scattering into millions of pieces. I flew away, soaring over hills, mountains, valleys, and even oceans. I was no longer bound to a material form. I was free to go wherever I wanted, even if it meant everywhere. I was as free as the wind!

I was the wind.

I saw the living room again, except I was gone, replaced by a swirling hurricane in human shape. As I watched, the hurricane dissipated, leaving nothing behind.

And then I was back to normal. The air elemental was sitting on my hand. "I am here," he said. "My name is Halitus. You are Midoriya Izuku?"

"Yes."

"We are one, as the ancient contract dictates."

"Our souls are one."

"I am Halitus."

"I am Midoriya Izuku."

"Until our souls meet their ends," he started to say.

"We will be forever one," I finished with a feeling of awe.

"Should you ever need wind beneath your wings, call upon my power," he said with a bow, then dissolved into the air... or back to the air.

"...Okay," I said, and then felt like I was falling as everything went black.

That night, I dreamt of a gigantic storm, ravaging the whole world.

xoxoxo

Katsuki stared at the book sitting on his desk. "This thing might as well be a f*cking spellbook with how much detail Izuku put into it." He flipped through a few more pages, soaking in all the knowledge that was present. "f*ck, this thing is a spellbook." He closed it. Ever since Deku had described his mana, he'd been curious. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the power that lay within him. He'd drawn upon it so many times, using it to ignite the sweat on his hands and amplify the blasts. He'd never questioned it. It was just what his Quirk felt like. But now, now he had a theory. He drew upon the energy, but this time he didn't let it follow the path it normally took when he used his Quirk. It took a few tries, but he managed to make it rise to his hand without interacting with his sweat. He opened his eyes. A blue glow was emanating from his right hand. He laughed. "Deku was right," he muttered to himself. He concentrated, and the mana consolidated into a small ball hovering above his hand. He thought for a moment, then concentrated on fire. What it felt like, what it looked like. He looked at the ball of mana and tried to combine it with the fire in his mind. The mana responded to his thoughts, changing from glowing blue energy to a ball of fire. Katsuki grinned. With his free hand, he opened the book back up to the page Deku had used earlier, the one with the magic circle on it. Deku, for whatever f*cking reason, had even included the incantation needed to call the elemental. Not that Katsuki was complaining. He placed his right hand on the center.

"I, Bakugou Katsuki, call upon the contract of ages past to summon thee," he intoned. He'd probably have been a little bit embarrassed by having to say that if any people were around to watch him. Though, at the same time, the fact that he knew it was going to work really helped. "I hope you heed my call. Come, Fire Elemental." The fireball in his hand shifted, then began to change. It shrank down on itself, transforming into the shape of a young girl that could easily fit in Katsuki's palm. The girl had long, flame-colored hair that flowed down her back and glowed softly, with two pointed, yellow-furred ears of some sort of animal poking out the top. She had a yellow sundress with highlighting of similar coloring and glow to her hair, and, for whatever reason, she also had a tail made of fire. The girl looked at him with glowing, fire-colored eyes that made Katsuki feel like he was staring into a roaring inferno. He gulped. "I'll begin in accordance with the ancient rites. My real name is Bakugou Katsuki. I have told you my true name; please tell me yours." He felt himself begin to burn up, but it didn't hurt at all. He didn't become consumed by the fire but became it. He raged and raged and destroyed everything in his path. Entire forests were burnt to a crisp by him. He was fire itself. He saw himself, but he was made of white-hot flames.

And then he was back to normal. The fire elemental was exactly where she was before. "I am here," she said. "My name is Pyra. You are Bakugou Katsuki?"

"Yes."

"We are one, as the ancient contract dictates."

"Our souls are one."

"I am Pyra."

"I am Bakugou Katsuki."

"Until our souls meet their ends," she started to say.

"We will be forever one," Katsuki answered quietly.

"Should you ever need me to light your way, you need only call," she told him with a curtsy, then vanished in a burst of fire.

"Damn right I will," Katuki solemnly swore. He got up, then staggered. He didn't immediately pass out like Deku did, but he felt f*cking drained. "f*ck that hits hard," he griped. "But why the hell didn't I wipe out like Deku?" He closed the journal, turned off his light, then went to bed.

That night he dreamt of a titanic monster of fire burning all that was in its path.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

My alarm sounded. I yawned and turned it off. I hadn't had to sleep in a while, so that was a little weird. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, then looked at the text box that greeted me.

You have slept in a bed! Your HP and MP have been restored, and any negative status effects have been cured!

"Huh," I said. "I'm probably never going to see that again. Good to know, though." I sat up and did a few stretches to get myself moving. Remembering what I had done last night, I whispered, "Halitus." My new elemental appeared from nowhere, sitting on my bed and now about as big as a regular eight-year-old boy. He was, at the moment, in his incorporeal form, which I now somehow knew would cost me nothing to use unless I started using him to control the air around me. I could summon him to a corporeal form, but that would require a steady mana cost. "H-hello," I said cautiously.

"Hello, master," he replied. His voice didn't seem to make any audible sound, but I could still hear it in my head. "What do you need of me?" he asked.

"Nothing, for the moment. I just wanted some company, and to maybe ask you a few questions." I looked at Summon Basic Elemental. The skill had gained a level off of the summoning ritual, but now it was ever-so-slightly increasing over time now that I had Halitus out, which was good.

"What do you need of me?" I got up and started to walk to the kitchen. Unfortunately, today was a school day, so I couldn't stay at the beach all day and grind no matter how much I wanted to. My training options were really limited at school, but I'd have to make do.

"What do you know about me?" I asked.

"You are Midoriya Izuku. You are my master. Our souls are one. " He... did not waste words, did he?

I blinked. "Is that it?"

"Yes."

"What do you know about the world?"

"There is air. The air moves. People are noisy. This place used to look different." I idly wondered if the way he talked was something that all elementals did or if it was just Halitus.

"...What can you tell me about yourself?" I asked as I made myself breakfast.

"I am air. I move the air. Our souls are one." I sighed. This might be difficult.

"Who are you talking to, Izuku?" my mom asked.

"Oh, right," I said. I manifested Halitus, watching as air swirled around to give him a body. "You remember Halitus, right, mom?"

"Izuku, dear, I don't think I could ever forget what happened last night," she told me.

"Right," I said. "Sorry. I was just asking Halitus some questions about himself." Halitus gave a small nod of his head when I said his name.

"Oh, right. H-hello, Halitus?" she said uneasily.

"I am pleased to meet you, mother of master," he replied. Now that he was corporeal, his voice was audible.

"Please, call me Inko," she laughed.

"Of course, Inko-sama."

Mom sighed. "You... '-san' will do."

"Yes, Inko-san."

"Halitus, what exactly can you do to 'move the air,'" I asked.

"You give me mana and I can control the air in any way you want. My range currently has a radius of roughly one hundred meters, and it will increase as my power grows. My power will increase as your power grows."

"Okay," I said. "Do you know what my Quirk is?"

"I know not what a Quirk is. I know nothing of how the world is now."

"Oh," I said. "I'm going to have to fill you in on a lot, aren't I?"

"If that is what you wish, master."

xoxoxo

I ended up talking to Halitus as I walked to school. For whatever reason, Kacchan didn't meet me when I passed by his house like he'd started doing after we made up, so I just moved on. I'd made Halitus incorporeal before I left the house because I felt like maybe creating a sentient being made of air mana might be pushing public Quirk usage laws a little far. "...and that book was how I was able to summon you," I finished. He said nothing. I was about to say something when he suddenly jerked.

"Master, someone is rapidly approaching," he told me.

"HEY DEKU!" a familiar voice yelled. "WAIT UP!" Kacchan ran up to me, panting a bit. "You were just gonna leave without me, asshole?"

"I thought that maybe you were sick when you weren't waiting for me," I told him.

"Then check with that elemental of yours or something. He's gotta have some sort of air-sensing power."

"I only got Halitus last night," I told him. "I don't know everything about him yet. Why were you late anyway?"

He snarled. "f*cking alarm clocks. Sometimes they just spontaneously combust and sh*t."

"You blew up your alarm clock again, didn't you?" I sighed.

"f*ck off! This time it wasn't me!" Was it just me, or was he glaring at the air? "Well, not... directly me, anyway... Enough of that sh*t. Want your book back?" He handed my journal back to me.

I nodded. "Thanks, Kacchan."

He snorted. "What, didja think I was gonna f*cking blow it up or drop it in a pond like some asshole?"

I gave him a blank look. "You did that to one of my hero journals."

"Shut up," he said. "Hey, I gotta talk to you about something after school."

"Okay. We can meet on the beach after you're done with detention." Kacchan had blown up at some bullies who were trying to taunt me about how long it took for my Quirk to develop and had ended up in detention because of it.

"f*ckin' detention," he sighed. "Meetcha there."

xoxoxo

School was boring, as usual. Because I had to study to increase my INT, I was already miles ahead of every class. My INT also meant that my memory was more or less eidetic, so I didn't have to worry about forgetting what it was. So long as I paid enough attention in class to know what was going on, I'd be free to let my mind wander to more exciting topics, like how I now had an air-controlling spirit for a minion. I'd figured out in Homeroom that I could communicate with Halitus telepathically, like he did, and used that to test the limits of what he could do throughout the next few periods without anybody asking me why I was muttering to the air... though to be fair I did mutter a lot, so they might have just dismissed it as "Deku being Deku." I found out that Halitus could passively sense all of the air within his range. While he couldn't transfer the information directly to my mind, he could just tell me where everything was. He could also tell how the air was moving, allowing him to not only feel the wind, but air temperature and sound traveling through the air as well. I discreetly figured out that one MP was worth about one newton of force when it came to Halitus' air moving, so I unfortunately couldn't use it for sustained flight yet. After I was done figuring out what Halitus' limits, I went back to what I normally did during my classes, thinking about my skills. "Maybe I could do something to change Healing Hands," I thought. "If I try to reverse the flow, maybe I'll get some sort of life-draining skill. If I put more mana into it and change how fast it heals, that'll make a regen spell. Actually, could it be possible to change the effect from healing to some kind of buff? If I could make buffs that'd be so useful, plus I could try to do it in reverse to make debu-"

"Midoriya-kun, stop muttering!" my eighth-period teacher yelled at me.

"Ah, sorry!" I said. "I've gotta stop doing that," I thought. A few minutes later, the bell rang and I was finally free to go to the beach and work on my skills.

xoxoxo

I concentrated on my glowing hand as I hauled the tire over to the edge of the beach. The mana in it was primed to flow into the body of whoever I touched it with, giving them life energy. I felt that power, concentrated on it, then forced it to invert. Ping!

A skill has been created through special action! By reversing the effects of 'Healing Hands,' the skill 'Draining Hands has been created!

Draining Hands (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 50

The power of a greedy soul to take life force from a victim's body, converting it to mana.

50 HP drained, removes minor positive conditions.

Any HP drained by this skill is added to the user's MP. The user can choose to gain any effects removed by this skill.

I stared at the ominous purple glow that my hand had taken. It wasn't the best skill, what with the fact that it cost as much as it healed, but I was sure I could train it up so that it was better. "What's that, young Midoriya?" All Might asked. He was sitting on a folding chair in his civilian form nearby.

"I just made a life-draining skill from my healing skill," I told him. "I wanted to test out a hypothesis that I had. I guess now I could use this on myself to train my Healing Hands skill."

"Of course, that's a good idea. Just make sure to keep an eye on your HP and don't use it on others unless you have to."

"I wasn't planning on it," I said hastily. "I was, however, planning on seeing if I could make new skills from Healing Hands. I'm going to try to do something else that I thought of." I canceled the Draining Hands and switched back to Healing Hands. I let the mana build up and concentrate, then thought of something. "If I'm using this much mana, then I can properly stabilize it into projectile form, like with Mana Bolt. Having a ranged healing skill would be even better than a touched base one." I made a few modifications, then said, "Can I test out a skill on you? It shouldn't do any damage."

"Sure, but could you please be careful just in case?" I nodded, then shot a pulse of green light from my hand at All Might, causing him to glow slightly green for a second. Thankfully, he didn't appear to be hurt. Ping!

You have made a new skill. What will you name it?

"Regeneration," I said.

Regeneration (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 200

A skill that causes the target's body to heal itself over time.

Target regains 5 HP every second for 2 minutes.

Skill can be fired with a range of 10m with an additional 10 MP.

"It worked!" I shouted. Ping! I stopped working. "Huh?"

For creating multiple skills, you have received the title 'Skilled Gamer!'

"What's wrong, young Midoriya?" All Might asked.

"I just got a title. Hang on, let me see something." I opened my status screen. My title was still The Gamer, but now there was now an arrow on the box with my title, like when you can click on the box to bring up more options. I pressed the arrow, and it showed a box that had two titles: The Gamer and Skilled Gamer. "It seems like I can get new titles by doing certain things. I'm going to see if it has some sort of bonus or something." I Observed both of the titles.

The Gamer

The first title bestowed upon the one with the power of The Gamer. Has no special effects.

Skilled Gamer

The title given to a gamer who likes to make new skills.

15% bonus to skill experience.

"And?" All Might asked.

I equipped Skilled Gamer. "The title that I just got gives me more skill experience and my original title, which would be the default title, did nothing. I'll probably get more titles with different effects by doing significant enough things, which means that I could get even more skills."

"That's excellent, young Midoriya, but for now could you get back to work? It seems that that's all that that is for now, so you should continue with your training."

I picked the tire back up. "Of course!" I remembered the other skills that I wanted to make. I concentrated on Regeneration, but this time, instead of making the mana heal, I tried to make it reinforce the body. It clicked, and I applied it to myself. A blue light spread over my body and I felt the protection come over me.

You have made a new skill. What would you like to call it?

"Defense Up."

Defense Up (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 150

A skill that uses mana to defend the target's body.

Reduces damage taken by 5% for 2 minutes.

Skill can be fired with a range of 10m with an additional 10 MP

I nodded to myself. "This will be useful. I should probably make other buffs to go with it." I concentrated.

You have made a new skill. What would you like to call it?

Attack Up (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 150

A skill that uses mana to strengthen the target's offensive power.

Increases damage dealt by 5% for 2 minutes.

Skill can be fired with a range of 10m with an additional 10 MP

You have made a new skill. What would you like to call it?

Speed Up (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 150

A skill that uses mana to increase the target's speed.

Increases movement and attack speed by 5% for 2 minutes.

Skill can be fired with a range of 10m with an additional 10 MP

Through the creation of multiple complex skills, your INT has increased by one!

I grinned. Even if it would be a drain on my mana to keep them all up simultaneously, the fact that I had them meant that I could increase my stats if I ever needed to, plus I could buff others. Not to mention, the fact that they had an alternate casting mode meant that they might have the potential to get more casting modes, which would be extra useful. "Still, even with these buffs, it might be good to also have debuffs just in case." Just like with Draining Hands, I inverted the mana effects to see if I could make them into debuffs.

You have made a new skill. What would you like to call it?

Defense Down (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 150

A skill that uses mana to weaken the target's body.

Increases damage taken by 5% for 2 minutes.

Skill can be fired with a range of 10m with an additional 10 MP

You have made a new skill. What would you like to call it?

Attack Down (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 150

You have made a new skill. What would you like to call it?

Speed Down (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 150

"I think I'm good on buffs and debuffs for the moment," I said. "What should I work on now?" Suddenly, the BGM changed to Kacchan's image song, followed by Kacchan greeting me.

"Sup, Deku! We gonna talk now?" he asked as he ran up to me.

"Ah, young Bakugou. Welcome back," All Might said.

"What did you need to talk about, Kacchan?" I asked. He grinned, then held up his hand. He made a small explosion, the fire of which somehow stayed after the explosion ended. The fire grew, then swirled down to the ground beside Kacchan, where it condensed into the form of a young girl. I gasped. "What?"

Kacchan grinned wider. "You remember what you said about how you felt like other people should be able to use mana and stuff? I just proved you f*cking right!"

"Kacchan, that's amazing!" I exclaimed. "The implications of this... You might have just revolutionized everything!"

"I know I'm awesome, Deku, you don't need to tell me what I already know," Kacchan said smugly. Honestly, I think he was underselling what he did, if anything.

"Uh..." We both turned our heads to see the source of the noise. All Might was standing there, his mouth wide open and blood pouring out. I quickly walked over to him and used Healing Hands on him. "Thank you, young Midoriya. Young Bakugou, it seems that you've discovered that anyone can, with enough practice, use magic. This is something that I'm going to have to call in. You two don't have to worry about anything, though. For now, why don't the two of you get acquainted with your elemental powers?"

"Right," I said. I summoned Halitus to my side. "This is Halitus, as you know. What's her name?"

"Hello," the fire elemental said. "My name is Pyra. I'm pleased to meet you, Midoriya-san, Halitus-san." She gave a small curtsy.

"Greetings," Halitus said. "My name is Halitus."

Kacchan smirked. "Hey Deku, wanna have a spar using only elemental spells?" he asked.

"Sure, Kacchan," I said. We got on opposite ends of the part of the beach that we'd cleared away for sparring matches. "Let's begin," I said. Kacchan immediately lifted his hand up so that his palm faced me. An orangey glow began to come from his hand, and a ball of fire erupted from it and shot at me. I had Halitus block it with a small vacuum, causing it to snuff out mid-flight. "What was that?" I asked.

"How the f*ck did I figure that out first?" he asked. "Use your affinity on your mana, dumbass!" I blinked, then slapped my forehead. Of course I could do that. I held my other hand at him and gathered air-charged mana. I shot a small ball of pressurized air at him, a popup telling me that I'd gotten the skill Air Shot. "Now you're getting it!" he yelled excitedly. He shot a volley of fireballs at me, which I dodged some of and had Halitus block the rest. Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, I got a notification from Sense Danger that reminded me that Kacchan also had an elemental. A fire elemental. And I just let him light a fire. I dodged out of the way of the lances of flame that shot at me from where the fireballs hit the ground. I needed to increase my speed, but I couldn't use Speed Up because it wasn't elemental. As I used an Air Shot to blow the fire back, I got an idea. I gathered some air mana and let it spread over my body, combining with it.

A skill has been created through a special action! Unifying the body with nature's power has created the skill 'Elemental Aura' to empower oneself with the elements!

Elemental Aura (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 100

The combining of one's body with elemental power grants abilities according to that element. Power changes as the caster's INT, WIS, skill level, and elemental affinity grow. Only possible for those attuned to the elements.

Additional 100 MP used per minute.

Air Aura: Increases movement speed by 30%, increases jump height by 15%, increases DEX by 10%, user can generate wind and expend more MP to increase wind generation.

I felt myself speed up as a green glow spread across my body. Unlike with Speed Up, the glow didn't stop after I cast the skill because it was still active. I charged toward Kacchan, a combination of my running and the wind I was generating creating a cloud of sand behind me that smothered and blocked the flames. I threw a punch at him before he could get the chance to cast any more spells. He caught my fist with one hand, then started laughing maniacally. "HAHAHAHAHA! That was a f*cking good one, Izuku!" I blinked. Did he just use my real name? "Let me guess, you cloaked your body in air mana to give yourself some sort of elemental boost, huh?" He chuckled a bit, then his grin grew to a toothy smile. "Is this what it feels like to be proud of someone else? I'm gonna have to step up my f*ckin' game if you keep pulling sh*t like this, you know? How 'bout I start..." as he said that, a fiery glow began to envelop his body, and I could feel sweltering heat from his hand. "WITH THIS!" With that, he threw my hand back and punched me in the chest, making me fly back farther than I'd have thought he could. While I was staggered, he darted forwards with a speed I could barely see, then started pummeling me when he got to me. I couldn't find any openings, but then I had an idea. I overcharged my Air Aura, causing it to explode in a burst of wind that sent Kacchan flying back.

A skill has been created through a special action! By overcharging the skill 'Elemental Aura' to the point of explosion, the skill 'Elemental Burst' has been created!

Elemental Burst (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 200

The power of the elements can be too much for one to handle in great enough amounts. This skill turns that weakness into a strength by generating a burst of elemental mana.

Elemental Burst is strengthened if used while Elemental Aura is active, but destroys Elemental Aura when used.

I dropped to the ground as Kacchan was sent flying. Air obviously wouldn't work on Kacchan's fire aura, so I needed to use something else. I concentrated on the sand beneath my fingers, feeling it interact with my mana.

Earth Affinity: 10

I grinned. Kacchan didn't specify that I had to use air magic, just elemental magic. I looked at my mana, seeing that it was still high enough for a fight. I cloaked myself in earth mana the same way I'd used Air Aura.

Earth Aura: Decreases damage taken by 30%, Increases damage dealt by 15%, increases VIT by 10%, user can generate shockwaves and expend more MP to increase shockwave force.

This time, the mana that enveloped me was brown and cream-colored, like desert camouflage. As soon as I was done, Kacchan came rushing at me again and threw a punch at me with a kiai. This time, I blocked it with my arm, causing him to wince as his fist met my hardened skin. I punched him in the gut in return, which knocked the wind out of him. I took a step forward as I backhanded him, the combination of the shockwave and the strike knocking him over. He did a move that looked almost like he was breakdancing when he hit the ground, except he generated a wave of fire with the sweeping movements as he got up. I stomped, sending up a wave of sand in front of me to block the fire. It gave me an idea, so I used earth mana to compress some of the sand into rocks, which gave me a popup that said that I got the skill Rock Throw. I shot the rocks at Kacchan so that he had to dodge them instead of charge at me again. As he dodged, I ran towards him. He saw me and smirked as he began to run towards me. When we met, we both punched each other in the face, knocking each other down. We groaned simultaneously. "Draw?" Kacchan asked.

"Draw," I agreed. I placed my hand on his chest and started to heal him. "Before you say anything about not needing it, I need to practice with Healing Hands with every opportunity to make it more powerful."

"That's fine," he said. He was quiet for a moment, then said, "I really am sorry, Izuku," without any of the usual prickliness in his voice. I was so startled at him using my real name that I almost shot him in the chest with a Mana Bolt.

I sat upright. "D-did you just use my real name, Kacchan?"

"'Course I did," he said. He didn't sit up, but just stared at me. "I'm trying to be serious. Yeah, I was trying to get you to give up on being a hero because I didn't want to see you get hurt, but that doesn't excuse how much of a f*cking asshole I was about it!" He slammed his fist into the sand. "I just... I just got so angry when I thought about you getting hurt doin' sh*t like that, and I took it out on you. That was sh*tty of me, Izuku." He sighed. "I must be the f*cking worst at being a hero."

"It's okay, Kacchan," I told him. "Yeah, it sucked, and yeah, nothing will change the fact that you did it, but at least now we can move forward and work on our problems together." I smiled at him. "Also, I'm pretty sure that the title of 'The f*cking Worst at Being a Hero' goes to Endeavor."

Kacchan cackled at that. "f*cking good one, De-Izuku. I needed to hear that."

"You can call me 'Deku' if you want to, Kacchan," I offered. "I don't mind. The name's actually kinda grown on me."

"Whatever you say, Deku." He got up and did a few stretches. "Now let's blow some of this junk up!" He punctuated his statement with a blast of his Quirk.

"Actually," I said as I got up, "I had an idea that I want to test out." I held out my hand and concentrated. If I could make a shield out of mana, then why couldn't I make a sword? The mana built up and solidified, forming a katana made of blue mana.

Bound Blade (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 50

Weaponry is certainly useful, but may not always be readily available. This skill allows the user to forge weapons from their own mana. This skill can only be used by those with excellent control over their mana.

Extra 50 MP used per minute per weapon.

Max number of weapons: 1

"Did you just make a sword out of mana, Deku?" Kacchan asked. "That's pretty f*cking badass."

I nodded, then concentrated on the sword. "Maybe I could add elemental mana to it..." I muttered. I turned my Air Aura on, then made it extend to my sword.

Elemental Weaponry (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 50

The body is not the only thing that can be empowered by the elements. This skill allows the user to give the armaments they wield the power of the elements.

Additional 50 MP used per minute.

Air Aura: Increases cutting power by 30%, increases attack speed by 30%, allows user to generate wind from weapons as with Air Aura.

Earth Aura: Increases striking power by 30%, increases shock absorption by 30%, allows user to generate shockwaves from weapons as with Earth Aura.

I sped towards a nearby fridge and cut through it like it was made of butter. Two pop-ups told me that I'd gotten the skills Sword Mastery and Power Strike. "f*ck YEAH!" Kacchan yelled. "That's the sort of sh*t that makes me regret ever thinking you couldn't be a hero, Deku!"

I smiled. "Thanks, Kacchan. If you want, I could try teaching you some of my spells and see how good you are at them." The massive grin he gave was all I needed to know that he'd take me up on that offer.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

A few days after Kacchan revealed he could use magic, All Might got back to us about... whatever he had to do about the fact that we'd discovered that magic existed. Apparently, he'd had to contact some government higher-ups, though he didn't go into too much detail about it. "If anyone's discovered magic before you two, whoever did it kept it a secret," he told us. "The official ruling is that 'magic' and 'Quirk usage' are legally synonymous for the purposes of public Quirk usage laws. Additionally, you two are totally allowed to teach other people magic, but the suggestion is to only allow people who can be trusted with that power to learn about it, for obvious reasons. I've been asked to tell you that they need some notes from the both of you about the details regarding magic, like how to use it. Some scientists are going to do some serious research on the subject."

We agreed to do what he asked. Aside from that, we went on as normal, training for Yuuei. Kacchan decided to focus more on practicing his magic, with some physical workouts. I mostly did conditioning for One For All while training what magic I could at night and occasionally during the day, plus constantly having Halitus out to level grind Summon Basic Elemental without having to put in any actual effort. Aside from that, I decided that, while I would only have as many elementals as my skill's level would allow me to have out at a time, I should at least have the affinities for the other two elements just in case. Getting water had been as simple as just sticking my hands in the ocean until I got it, but I couldn't figure out how to safely get fire affinity (Kacchan smacked me on the head when I suggested just layering up buffs and then sticking my hand into a fire while using Healing Hands) until Kacchan had the bright idea to have me see if I could use Pyra instead of fire. Despite the fact that Pyra was made of fire in her fully summoned state, she would only burn things if she wanted to and was just warm to the touch when she didn't. I felt a little weird placing my palm on her forehead, but it did get me fire affinity. I found that Fire Aura gave me a 30% boost to attack damage, a 15% boost to movement speed, a 10% STR bonus, and the ability to generate heat. Water Aura, interestingly enough, gave me a 30% increase to magical defense, a 15% increase to magical attack, a 10% INT bonus, and the ability to both condense water from the atmosphere and generate it with MP. Their respective elemental weaponry skills gave similar bonuses. While I did occasionally use Elemental Aura in my physical training to see how they affected my abilities, I mostly just used my natural strength in the hope that that'd be the best for upping my VIT. It took most of the ten months before the entrance exams, but eventually...

Through rigorous exercise, your VIT has increased by one!

Congratulations! The quest Roaring Muscles was completed!

Completion Rewards: One For All (speak to Toshinori), 5000 EXP, 5000 Skill Fragments, Increased closeness with Bakugou, Increased closeness with Toshinori

Your level has increased by one! (x3)

I got my VIT up to 50. I looked at my stats.

STR: 44

VIT: 50

DEX: 46

INT: 73

WIS: 69

LUC: 49

I grinned. Most of my stats were either already past the fifty benchmark already or close enough that I could hopefully get them up to it within the next two months. But first, I had to do something. "All Might!" I called out.

"What is it, young Midoriya?" he asked, currently in his civilian form.

"I got my VIT to fifty!"

He switched to his hero form, then gave his trademark grin. "That's great, young Midoriya! Now I can pass my power on to you!"

"About that," I said. "How do you pass your power on to someone?"

"You see," he pulled off a piece of his hair and said, "for you to receive my power, you have to eat my hair."

"What the f*ck!?" Kacchan asked as he walked over from the inferno that he'd made, with the fire dying down as soon as he left it. "Why the hell does Deku have to eat your f*cking hair?"

"I can pass my Quirk on to someone through making them eat my DNA. I feel that the best thing to use for that is my hair."

I gulped, then took the hair that he offered me. "Down the hatch..." I muttered, then placed the hair in my mouth. It was hard to swallow, so I used the first step of a water spell that I'd made, Water Gun, to condense some water from the air to wash it down. I shuddered when I'd finished the water and, thankfully, the hair. "That was a little unpleasant..."

"I still remember how weird it was when I had to do it," All Might commiserated. "Now we just have to wait a few hours for your new Quirk to come, young Midoriya."

"Why the f*ck doesn't it come automatically?" Kacchan asked.

"Does it have to digest first?" I theorized. "And maybe the Quirk factor has to take time to grow in even after it-" I was cut off my a ping.

A skill has been created by gaining the power of All Might! By having All Might pass his Quirk to you, the skill 'One For All' has been created.

One For All (Active and Passive) LV1 EXP 0.00%

When Quirks first started to come into existence, there was chaos. In that chaos, one man born with the power to take the Quirks of others and give them to others or use them for himself took advantage of the situation to amass power. This man had a brother, who was born with the rather underwhelming ability to pass his Quirk, the ability to pass his Quirk on to another, on to another. While it is unknown whether it was out of malice or compassion, the man forced the Quirk Power Stockpile onto his brother, and from the combination of the two Quirks, the Quirk known as One For All was born.

Skill grants the user a second MP bar. When skill is not in use, this second MP bar fills over time when the first MP bar is filled, using the same MP regeneration rate. This second MP bar has no upper limit.

When activated, user can draw upon the second MP bar in place of the natural one.

User can expend MP to increase the power of most stats and skills.

"Wah!" I exclaimed.

"What is it, young Midoriya?" All Might asked me.

"I just got One For All. I think that my Quirk sped up the process of me getting One For All, which actually makes sense when you think about it. In most games, whatever effect food and other edible things have is applied immediately, despite how it would logically require time to digest. I guess that that also means that I can use food to... Wait, that's not everything." I looked once more at the description. It was weird. The skill felt a little more complicated than what it said. Aside from that... "The description of the skill states that it was made by someone with a Quirk that can steal other people's Quirks and give them to others. Do you... know anything about that?" I asked.

All Might sighed. "Sit down, the both of you. This will be a shock." Kacchan and I sat down on the sand as All Might sat on his chair. "That man was called All For One. He was probably the most dangerous villain in the history of the world. He gained many followers in the early years of Quirks thanks to his abilities. Thankfully, his own brother, the first bearer of One For All, disagreed with him and stopped him. Unfortunately, however, All For One survived and, I'm assuming, took some form of life-extending Quirk. I know this because he was the reason why I got this wound five years ago. I'd like to say that he's dead, but we never found the body, so we can't say for sure."

I... didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. Even with the Gamer's Mind, it was a lot to take in. I think that if I could have said anything, it would have been exactly what Kacchan was saying. "Fuuuuuuuuuck. That's... f*ck."

"I understand if you have reservations," All Might said. "I hoped that this wouldn't come up just yet. I wanted you to have a school experience unmarred by worry about All For One."

Kacchan scoffed. "Well maybe you still should've f*cking said something about that sh*t before Deku ate your gross f*cking hair, dumbass."

"It's fine, Kacchan," I said. "I was already prepared to be a hero, so learning that I already have an arch-nemesis isn't that bad. I'm still going to need some time to process this, but for now..." I got up and walked over to an area where there was only a stretch of sand so as to avoid collateral damage. "I've always wanted to do this." I co*cked my arm back. "DETROIT!" Energy flowed through my whole arm, and for some reason I got a Sense Danger warning. That really should've been a red flag, in hindsight. "SMASH!" I punched the air, the simple force of it causing a shockwave that sent sand flying. It wasn't as strong as All Might's, but it was still a Detroit Smash! My excitement was almost immediately destroyed by the fact that my arm felt like I'd punched the sound barrier, which I had.

System Warning: Using One For All at full power is inadvisable in current condition. Usage should be limited to lower power. Level up skill to decrease damage taken.

The level of the skill Physical Endurance has increased by one!

I looked at my health, then winced and activated Healing Hands and Regeneration. "I think that my body still isn't completely up to the task of using One For All yet," I said. "My health dropped about a quarter from that one punch. I think that I should probably train my physical stats a bit more in the next two months as well as One For All practice. That might be for the best."

"Deku you better not f*cking break yourself in half," Kacchan scolded.

"Yes, I would prefer that you not kill yourself, young Midoriya. That would be bad," All Might agreed. "If that's the case, then you should get back to work.

xoxoxo

I stared at the school. It was huge! I got the vaguest feeling that, if not for Gamer's Mind, I would have been shaking. "We're here..." I said.

"Yup," Kacchan said to with a toothy grin. "It'd suck pretty hard if you f*cked up now and got no points at all, huh?" I looked at him. Sometime during the last two months of training, his title had changed in addition to the levels and points of INT and WIS he'd gained.

Art is an Explosion

LV 27

Katsuki Bakugou

"I doubt I'll get zero points, Kacchan," I said. "My stats are all above fifty, and INT and WIS are both approaching one hundred. I'm probably the most powerful person taking the exams, and that's not even counting One For All." It had taken a tremendous amount of effort, but I felt great about myself for managing to get all of the fifty point skills before the Yuuei entrance exam.

The skill 'Heroic Strength' has been created through STR rising above 50.

Heroic Strength (Passive) LV2 EXP 2.14%

Some are endowed with the strength to move mountains. This skill grants enhanced physical ability.

10% increase to STR.

10% increase to physical attack.

50% increase to strength-based skill effects.

The skill 'Iron Body' has been created through VIT rising above 50.

Iron Body (Passive) LV5 EXP 7.21%

Some are bestowed with the vitality to endure any punishment. This skill grants enhanced physical durability.

10% increase to VIT.

10% increase to HP.

50% increase to HP-based skill effects.

The skill 'Fleet Foot' has been created through DEX rising above 50.

Fleet Foot (Passive) LV 3 EXP 3.21%

Some are bestowed with the speed to rival the wind. This skill grants enhanced swiftness.

10% increase to DEX.

10% increase to movement speed.

50% increase to DEX-based skill effects.

The skill 'Born Lucky' has been created through LUC rising above 50.

Born Lucky (Passive) LV1 EXP 87.56%

Luck can be a very fickle thing. This skill is bestowed upon those who luck favors.

10% increase to LUC

10% increase to loot drops.

50% increase to LUC-based skill effects.

Kacchan scoffed. "Like I'll let you just take that title without a fight," he said, lightly punching me on the shoulder.

"It's a contest, then!" I smiled. "Let's see who gets the most points!" "I feel really good about this!" I mentally exclaimed. Then I tripped. "Or not." Before I could even have Halitus try to stop my fall, I just... stopped. I felt odd, like gravity had stopped working on me.

"Sorry for using my Quirk on you without asking," a female voice said, "but I thought that you might not like going through your exams with a bloody nose!" Someone pulled me into a position where I wouldn't fall, then gravity reasserted itself on me and I landed on my feet. "I hope that's okay!" she said. I turned to see a cute brown-haired girl with rosy cheeks and a bright smile.

Space Kid

LV 19

Uraraka Ochako

"Oh no, it's fine!" I said. I probably would've just frozen up and blurted out nonsense words if I didn't have Gamer's Mind. I used to get really nervous when first meeting attractive people like that. "So your Quirk is some sort of gravity-manipulation power, right?"

"Yeah!" she said, then showed me one of her hands, or rather the pads on the ends of her fingers. "I can make objects weightless if I touch them with these things. It makes me all kinds of nauseous if I use it too much, though..."

"Even with that, it seems like a really powerful and useful Quirk," I said. "You'll probably be a great hero!"

She beamed. "Thanks! I'm Uraraka Ochako, by the way. Are you two here for the hero course too?"

Kacchan did that thing where he punches his fist into his other palm and makes an explosion to look cool. "Yup! Deku and I are gonna dominate this thing, so you'd better watch out."

I sighed. "Kacchan, could you please be nice to someone who could be our future classmate?"

She laughed. "It's nice to meet you two! I'll see you two in the hero course!" Then she ran off.

A few moments later Kacchan exasperatedly said, "Son of a bitch she only knows me as Kacchan now."

"We have to get to our exams, Kacchan," I reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah," he sighed.

xoxoxo

The written exams were... well, I suppose they were difficult, but my INT was so high that I breezed through them. After that, all of the hero course students had to attend a presentation (By Present Mic!) about what the practical exams would be like. The answer was robot-fighting, apparently. During the explanation, a boy stood up to ask a question and decided to scold me for muttering as well. That was embarrassing... After that, they escorted us to the fake cities where we'd be taking the exams. Unfortunately, Kacchan was sent to a different training ground than me, probably because they didn't want people who know each other working together. Present Mic announced that we'd have a few minutes to get ready for the exam, then clarified that that meant things like stretching but also things like preparing our Quirks. At that moment, I got a new quest.

A quest has been created!

Start Line

The Yuuei entrance exams include a ten-minute mock battle against robots. Get as many combat points as you can!

Optional objectives: Destroy the zero-pointer.

Completion: 100 EXP per combat point, 100 Skill Fragments per combat point. Optional: 2500 EXP, 2500 Skill Fragments.

Failure: You don't get any combat points, decreased closeness with Bakugou.

I readied up my buffs, holding them so that I could use them the moment the exam started but also regenerate my MP and use One For All to charge them up. As I looked over the crowd, I saw Uraraka. I started to walk over to her to thank her for earlier when I felt a hand on my shoulder. "What do you think you're doing?" I turned around to see the boy who scolded me earlier in a tight-fitting shirt that really showed off his muscles, unlike my tracksuit. He also appeared to have engines in his calves, which was probably his Quirk. "She appears to be getting ready for the mock battle." You could tell from his voice alone that he was really strict. "Were you going to use your Quirk on her to soften up the competition?" He looked at my left hand. I looked at the four balls of colored light in my hand. That probably looked bad, didn't it?

"It's not what it looks like!" I blurted. He raised an eyebrow. "The balls are for me, not her!" I clarified. He was actually really intimidating.

His face softened up a bit, then he bowed at a ninety-degree angle. "My apologies," he said, then came up. "What were you going to do with her, then?"

"I tripped earlier and she caught me. I don't think it would've been too bad thanks to my Quirk, but I wanted to thank her anyways," I explained. He nodded. I took a look at his name.

Class President

LV 24

Iida Tenya

"I see," he said. "I apologize for my harsh tone. It seemed at first that you were trying to distract the others."

I would have said something to him, but before I could, Present Mic yelled, "GO!" and a timer appeared on my UI, counting down from ten minutes. Everyone went quiet and started staring at him. "What are you standing there for, listeners!? You don't get countdowns in real life! Start already!" I panicked a bit, then popped my Speed Up and started using Air Aura. I dashed off into the mock city as fast as I could, looking at my minimap as I did. Now that the exam was starting, the robots were appearing as red dots on it. "Halitus, Dune," I muttered. My air elemental appeared, and next to him was my new earth elemental. I'd made her only a month ago. She had a very different style of clothing from the other two elementals I'd seen, with what looked like some sort of military desert camouflage uniform and a pair of goggles pushed up onto her hair. She had short, sandy blonde hair and dark brown skin that reminded me of rich soil. "Point me to where the most robots are," I told them. As I did, Iida ran up to me.

"A fellow speedster, I see!" he exclaimed over the wind. "I look forward to seeing what you can do if you get into the hero course!" Before I could say anything to him, he got even faster and dashed off. A few moments later, my elementals pointed me to a street where there were a lot of robots. I used the Attack Up, Defense Up, and Regeneration that I'd been saving for an encounter, then made a katana with Bound Blade and used Air Aura on it. Air seemed like it'd be the best for the mock battle because the speed bonuses meant that I could rack up a lot of points quickly. I proved myself right when I charged at the robots, carving through most of them in seconds. When there were only a few left, I shot my hand out at them and made a crushing motion, causing them to crumple like tin cans as Dune and Halitus combined their powers to destroy them with a combination of increased air pressure and their own armor pressing in on them. "That was so awesome," I muttered. I dropped my Air Aura and dissipated my Bound Blade to let my mana fill back up. I'd already gotten twenty-nine points and two level-ups in the span of... I checked the timer. Two minutes. "I'm doing great!" I exclaimed. As I ran to the next hot spot, a one-pointer surprised me by jumping out of the wall like an evil Kool-Aid man. I yelped, then pulled out my sword to slice at it. The robot managed to almost dodge my swing, ending up with me only chopping off its toe. Before I could utterly wreck it with a spell, a laser beam came out of nowhere and decimated it, resulting in me getting some, but not all, of the experience points from the kill. I turned to where the beam of light came from.

"Merci," a pretty boy (Was he... sparkling?) with blonde hair and a strange-looking belt said. "You and I make a great team, monsieur. You seem like excellent bait for les robots." He then ran off, likely in search of more robots. I decided to let it not bother me due to the exams being a bit of a competition and instead just continued on, destroying the robots I saw. I decided to use ranged skills to destroy them from a distance. "Air Slash!" I yelled. A blade of air shot at the three-pointer, cutting its "head" off. "Fireball!" The next robot I found was exploded and melted. "Water Gun!" The third robot was pierced by a bullet made of water, its delicate insides soaked into uselessness.

It continued on like that for a while until I found where most of the fighting probably occurred. Robot remains were everywhere. As I watched, Iida kicked a robot with his engine leg so hard that it just stopped working and Uraraka pressed her fingers together, releasing a bunch of robots to the cruel reign of gravity. It looked like everyone was resting before splitting up to find more points. I was about to leave when the ground started shaking. A towering, building-sized robot, the zero-pointer, rose up from the ground and started thrashing about. It goes without saying that this caused everyone to panic and run away. I was about to join them when I heard a familiar voice cry for help. I saw Uraraka trapped under a rock, with the zero-pointer coming closer. It wasn't even a question what I should do next. I ran as fast as I could, using Air Aura and another Speed Up to replace the one that ran out. As I ran, I used an Attack Up, Defense Up, and Regeneration on myself, then shot another Defense Up and Regeneration at Uraraka just in case. When I was close enough, I jumped, using a barely-harnessed Air Burst combined with some One For All to send me flying skyward. As I rose, I felt the glow of One For All rise up in my arm, and I let it go full-force, even added to it with some air mana. Because it was supposed to be a secret that I had All Might's Quirk, I didn't shout any of All Might's attack names. Instead, when I wound up my punch, I shouted, "LIMIIIT!" I punched at the robot with all my might. "BREAAAAAAAK!" The rush of air slammed into the zero-pointer, hitting it so hard that its face crumpled in. The zero-pointer toppled backward from the force of the punch.

Your level has increased by one! x7

I didn't feel as bad as last time, but it still hurt. I began to fall and gulped when I saw how far away the ground was. I really didn't want to know what would happen if my already low HP hit zero. I immediately activated Healing Hands, hoping to get my HP up enough that I wouldn't die upon hitting the ground. When I was closer to the ground, I made a sword and shield with Bound Blade. I crossed my metaphorical fingers and tried to use Earth Aura on myself and the shield while using Air Aura on the sword. It worked! Before I could begin the next phase of my plan (try to make a delayed Air Burst on the sword and then throw it at the ground), though, someone slapped me on the cheek and I felt myself become immune to gravity's pull for the second time that day. I stopped within half a meter of the ground and deactivated my skills as Uraraka released her Quirk. "Thank goodness!" she said sickly as the robot part that she was on touched down. "I was afraid you'd..." she started barfing before she could finish her sentence.

"Thanks, Uraraka!" I said. I jumped up to her and used Healing Hands on her. "I wasn't sure if my plan would work or not, so that was a relief."

She bolted upright as my skill began to take effect. "I don't feel nauseous anymore!" she remarked as she wiped her mouth off with a wet wipe she pulled from her pocket. She turned to look at me with excitement in her eyes. "Can you heal people with your Quirk?"

I nervously rubbed behind my head. "I guess you could say that..."

"That's awesome! Thanks for getting rid of my nausea, by the way!" Her smile was infectious.

"TIME'S UP, FOLKS!" Present Mic's voice blared over the speakers.

"Eep! I forgot about the exam!" Uraraka said. We both sighed and sat down on the robot. "It's too late to do anything now... How many points did you get, by the way?"

I counted the robots I fought up for a moment. "Thirty-eight," I said.

"I got twenty-nine," she sighed. "I hope that that's enough to get in the hero course. You're totally going to get in, though." She paused for a moment. "I don't think I got you or your friend's name, just nicknames."

"Yeah," I said. "I'm Midoriya Izuku. My friend's name is Bakugou Katsuki. Those were nicknames we've had for each other for a while."

She smiled. "Great to meet you then, Midoriya!"

"Are either of you two hurt?" someone asked. I looked down to see an old woman with a syringe-shaped cane.

"Recovery Girl!" I said. I looked at my HP to see if I was hurt, then jumped off the robot part. "I'm fine, thanks."

"I'm good too!" Uraraka said and jumped off as well. "It's cool seeing a pro like you!"

Recovery Girl nodded and then gave us some gummies. "Neither of you look hurt, though I suggest the two of you go to the doctor if anything starts hurting. Eat those one at a time, they'll help you recover your strength."

"Thanks!" Uraraka said. As Recovery Girl walked off to treat the other examinees, Uraraka turned to me and said, "Can you believe we just met Recovery Girl?"

"I know, right!" I exclaimed. "I should probably go now, but I hope I see you in the hero course!"

"Bye!" she said. I waved to her as I left.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

"Do you think I'll make it?" I fretted. I knew I got a lot of points, but I couldn't help but worry I might not get in. At least completing the quest had made my level go up from eighteen to twenty...

"Guuuuh!" A sigh cut into my worrying. I turned to see an incorporeal Dune lying down on my bed and fiddling with an ethereal sniper rifle that I have no idea where she got. She was really fond of the rifle for some reason, so I just asked her to just not have it out when she's visible. "You do realize that you got like forty points, right, Master?" she asked, then pointed her rifle at me. "And I'd eat my rifle if you didn't get any bonus points for saving that one girl with the gravity hands."

"Disagree with harshness," Halitus muttered from where he was sitting on my desk, "agree with sentiment."

"Yeah, so stop worryin'," Dune told me. "Maybe you should look in that magic book of yours to calm yourself down."

I nodded. I had 11,300 Skill Fragments, which really wasn't anything to sneeze at. I pulled out my Skill Grimoir to see if there was anything that I might want to buy. Only one really stuck out to me that I didn't think I could figure out without the book, a skill called Illusion Barrier. It said something about letting me make enemies, which seemed like it might be useful. At least, it seemed like it could be a good way to level up, especially that part where it said that I could make monsters. I was only level twenty despite my stats being higher than even Kacchan's, so leveling for me seemed to only work from fighting and quests, which meant that getting the bonuses to HP and MP for each level up would be a little difficult without easy access to enemies. Plus, it wasn't really that expensive at 500 SF. I clicked it, pressed yes on the confirmation, then dismissed the book when I was done. I frowned as I looked over the new skill in my mind. "That's odd..." I muttered.

"What?" Halitus asked.

"The way the skill is performed, I don't really get how it does what it does," I answered, then thought for a moment. "Though to be fair, I'm pretty new to magic."

"Well?" Dune asked. "Use it!" She'd sat up and was looking at me expectantly. I did as she asked and... nothing seemed to happen, aside from a slight drop in MP. To be fair, I'd used the empty setting because I didn't want to be immediately attacked by monsters, but I was expecting at least something. I looked around to see if my room was any different, but couldn't spot anything. Still, though, something felt off.

"Update," Halitus muttered.

"There's something weeeeird here, Izuku," Dune added nervously.

"What's wrong," I asked.

"Everyone's gone," Halitus stated.

"What!?" I asked.

"They vanished when you used your new skill," Dune clarified. I looked at my minimap and saw that the dots that symbolized other people had just gone. I looked outside. Even the animals were gone. I ran downstairs to see that Mom had just vanished in the middle of cooking dinner, as evidenced by the unattended food. "I really hope that this is just Illusion Barrier," I muttered before dropping the skill. To my relief, I saw Mom standing there after a layer of reality seemed to shatter and drop away.

"Ah!" she shouted. "You scared me, Izuku!" She blinked and then asked, "Did you just teleport, sweetie?"

"Sorry," I apologized. "That wasn't exactly teleportation, but..." I thought for a moment. "Can I test something?" I asked.

"Sure, sweetie, but could you please explain what's going on?"

I nodded. "I got a new skill called Illusion Barrier and I want to see if it works like I think it works," I explained, then pointed to a cup on the table. "Could you please watch that cup for me?" When she nodded, I activated Illusion Barrier and she disappeared. Or rather, I disappeared, leaving her behind. I immediately took the cup, tossed it into the air, caught it, and canceled Illusion Barrier. The cup shattered along with the skill as I returned to reality.

"What was I supposed to be looking for?" Mom asked.

"I wanted to know what would happen to an object that I touch in the Illusion Barrier," I explained. "If you didn't see anything, then that means that using it causes me to exist on another layer of reality, which makes the skill useful for so much more than just grinding. I could use it for stealth, hostage-rescuing, dodging attacks, and possibly more if I could figure out a way to see the real world within the barrier..."

"Ummm… I have no idea what you're talking about, honey, but as long as you're being safe, I'm glad," Mom told me. "Dinner will be ready soon, so why don't you stay down here?"

xoxoxo

I stared at my Skill Grimoir, frowning. I wanted to find a way to see through the Illusion Barrier without dropping it, but I didn't really know how. "I can't really make skills out of nowhere," I muttered, half to myself and half to my elementals. "With the buffs that I'd made, I used the base of Healing Hands, and the other skills I was able to make with mana manipulation and perhaps Mana Affinity thanks to their simplicity. With this, however, I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do. I figured I wouldn't even need any sort of remote viewing-type spell after I got you guys thanks to how useful are." At this comment both of my elementals thanked me for the complement. "Even then, I don't even know if modifying remote viewing is even the right thing to use for that. Considering the fact that it's called Illusion Barrier, some form of truesight might be needed..." Before I could start figuring out some form of remote viewing or truesight, Mom burst through the door looking really frantic.

"Izuku, you got a letter from Yuuei!" she said, holding up a letter. I'm not sure, but I feel like at that moment my face matched hers.

"OH MY GOSH!" I said, then snatched the letter. "THANKSFORBRINGINGTHISTOMEI'MJUSTGOINGTOGOTOMYROOMTOOPENITUPI'LLTELLYOUHOWITWENTLOVEYOUBYE!" I shouted as I rushed to my room. As soon as I closed the door, I ran over to my desk, turned on the lamp, and ripped open the letter. A small, circular device fell out and began to emit light from the top. I gasped when the light projected into a screen showing All Might's smiling face.

"I'M HERE IN THIS HOLOGRAM!" He shouted exuberantly. "I'm sorry I didn't contact you sooner, young man, but I had paperwork to do!"

"Why are you-" I started to ask, then was cut off by All Might continuing, probably because that was a recording and not a holophone.

"I'm glad you asked, young man! See, I've been hired as a teacher at my alma mater, Yuuei!" A voice that I didn't quite hear came from somewhere offscreen, accompanied by a hand. "Hm? What's that? I've got to do how many?" He turned back to face me. "Sorry to cut this short, young man, but I have to make this quick! Not only did you get thirty-eight villain points from the robots you destroyed, but you also got sixty rescue points from saving your fellow examinee, for a whopping total of ninety-eight!"

"Rescue points?" I asked, despite the fact that it was a recording.

"Why yes, rescue points! It was the entrance exam for a hero school, was it not? Yes, a student's resolve to rescue others, even if they should lose out on the opportunity to get a few more points, is something that should be rewarded! And you, who was willing to destroy the monstrous zero-pointer to save someone, have shown a heroic spirit that the staff of Yuuei would be remiss to turn away!" I started to tear up as his grin grew wider. "That's right, Midoriya Izuku. Welcome to your hero academia." I cried tears of joy as the hologram shut off. I let myself cry for a few minutes from the sheer realization that I was going to the school that I'd wanted to get in to for almost all of my life, and had been told that I had no chance of ever getting into. When I was done, I dried my eyes and looked over the papers that were in the envelope. Just the standard hero school forms and a letter from the principal congratulating me on how I'd been accepted into Yuuei. I might have teared up some more from that. I signed my parts on the forms and went outside. Mom was standing in front of the door with a nervous look on her face. I smiled, answering the question that was written all over her face. When she was done crying, I handed her the envelope and said, "There's some forms in there that you need to sign and mail back, plus the designs for my hero costume. I signed mine, so I'm going to do some training to make sure that I'm ready for Yuuei."

Mom smiled. "Of course, honey. I'm so proud of you. Go, do your magic."

xoxoxo

I looked around from the roof of my house. With everyone gone and the sun down, it looked like a ghost town. The skeletons shambling around really only added to that. After having tested to make absolutely sure that Illusion Barrier left me completely divorced from reality and I wouldn't just randomly destroy things from within the barrier, which would be bad, I'd used the other setting: Skeletons. While the barrier was completely empty at first, small cracks opened in the ground that each allowed a single skeleton with no equipment to climb out before closing. After just a few minutes of that, skeletons littered the streets in all directions. They weren't very tough according to Observe, but there were a lot of them, so I bravely retreated to the safety of my roof, where thy couldn't climb and didn't seem to want to spawn. "You do realize that you're gonna haveta start fighting at some point, right?" a now-tangible Dune told me as she looked down the scope of her rifle.

I nodded. "I'm going to, but I want to try something first." I concentrated on my magic. I might not have been able to automatically find a way to peer through the Illusion Barrier, but I felt like finding some form of eyesight-enhancing skill might have been a good place to start. I channeled magic to my eyes in a similar way to my enhancement skills, making sure to not overload them because I could tell that that wouldn't be pleasant. After a few seconds of careful magic-working, my vision blurred and then sharpened, to the point where I could hone in on individual details on the closer skeletons and could see the farther skeletons clearly despite it being nighttime. Ping!

A skill has been created through a special action! Infusing your eyes with mana has created the skill 'Hawkeye' to enhance vision!

Hawkeye (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 50

One's eyesight is an incredibly powerful tool that is to be cherished. This skill allows the user to see with more clarity than normal, greatly enhancing the gift of sight.

Additional 50 MP used per minute.

The skill wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it felt like a step in the right direction. Even still, the ability to enhance my sight was definitely a useful skill that I wanted to cultivate. But first... "Did the skill I just got do something to my eyes?" I asked my elementals.

"Green glow," Halitus remarked. "Larger pupils."

I nodded. "So using Hawkeye in public is out of the question..." That just meant I'd have to get creative. I looked at one of the skeletons that was far away. "Could either one of you hit that one skeleton?" I asked as I transmitted the image to them.

"On it," Dune said as she co*cked her rifle. The reason why I asked them was because, unlike me, they seemed to not have any drop in MP used for magic anywhere in their range, unlike me. As I watched the skeleton, I heard her pull the trigger, which somehow caused a spear of rock to protrude out of the ground and at the skeleton, launching its ribcage away and destroying it. I nodded. "Hey, how 'bout you try to to kill one of them now?" she asked.

I activated my Earth Aura in answer, then jumped off the roof to an area that was denser than normal with skeletons and used Earth Burst when I landed. Bones flew everywhere before dissolving into dust. From that, I got almost half as much SF as I'd spent on Illusion Barrier. Even with Born Lucky, the skeletons weren't worth much EXP and SF thanks to being weak, the highest being at level five, but there were a lot of them. My Sense Danger and Bloodthirst skills warned me that more skeletons were coming, so I activated Earth Aura again. The cracks in the ground that signaled the skeletons spawning opened up and the bony arms shot out. Before the rest of the skeletons could climb out, I stomped my foot, sending out a shockwave that killed the skeletons before they could even finish spawning. Unfortunately, the large amount of noise I'd made caused the rest of the skeletons to come after me. "Nope," I said, then switched to Air Aura and parkoured back up to my roof.

I looked down at the angry mob of skeletons looking up at me expectantly and said, "I really hope that these skeletons are as easy to kill as in Skyrim..." I thought for a moment about how to best make an AOE attack without dropping down there again to use Elemental Burst. I held my hands out and condensed air mana in the same way that I made Spiral Mana Bomb. When it was fully charged, I shot it into the crowd with surprising speed. The new spell, which I called Tornado Bomb, lived up to its name when it made a swirling wave of air so strong that it ripped all of the skeletons apart. As their bones disintegrated, I got 741 SF and another level up. After I dismissed the text boxes, I noticed that their dust wasn't disappearing, just swirling around in the last eddies of the Tornado Bomb. As I watched, the swirling of the dust picked up speed, then started flying towards the small crater from where the bomb hit. A crack that was much larger than the others opened up and the dust began to pour inside it. When all of the dust had poured into the crack, a large armored hand shot out of it. A skeleton clad in full samurai armour that was definitely over two meters tall climbed out.

Spirit of a Fallen Warrior

LV 34

Skeletal Samurai

I gulped. Sure, I had pretty high stats, but this was my first time facing any enemy with such a high level aside from friendly spars with Kacchan. The samurai drew his katana and pointed it at me. For a second, I thought about running away, but shook my head and abandoned the thought almost as soon as it came. I'd be a horrible hero if I decided to run from any fight that looked like there was a chance for me to lose. The first thing I did was layer all of my buffs. Using Observe, I noted that it had a low DEX compared to its other stats. I turned Air Aura back on, made a katana of my own, and jumped at the samurai. I managed to land behind him and turned to swing my sword at him, meeting his blade as it came down on me. "Halitus! Dune!" I shouted. Spears of earth shot at the skeleton as the wind picked up and pushed it off of me. While it was off balance I swung at the elbow of its sword arm, hoping to cut it off. I cut through the armor and the bone, but the arm refused to fall. A quick Observe told me that that took a small chunk off its health, though. The skeleton swiped at me again and I jumped backwards before I could be cut. From there, I sent a volley of Air Slashes at the samurai. They didn't do much, but they did manage to take some more health off, which was a win. I exchanged the Air Aura on my blade for Fire Aura and dashed back at the skeleton. We struck swords again, but this time its sword started to glow red from the flames. I willed my fire to grow hotter and slowly cut through the softened metal. When I cut all the way through, I used Power Strike to make my sword swing faster as I chopped into its neck. Like with before, my sword cut through a bone but didn't disable the skeleton, probably because it was already in pieces but still held itself together with magic. Before I could get back, the skeleton cut me with the remnant of its sword. Fortunately, my Physical Endurance was already almost level one hundred from me biting myself over the course of ten months, so it didn't hurt too much. I jumped back and started to heal myself. The skeleton charged at me, but because it was so slow I was able to dodge easily and stick my sword in it again. This time I overloaded the Fire Aura and let go. I jumped back as the Fire Burst engulfed the samurai, making use of Hawkeye to keep an eye on it through the flames. Thankfully, the skeleton was almost out of HP, so I just shot Mana Bolts at it until it died, which was surprisingly effective. When its HP reached zero, it fell over from the force of the last Mana Bolt and started crumbling. Thankfully, this time the dust actually disappeared, leaving behind a scroll and giving me a level up. I picked up the scroll, which caused a window to appear.

You have picked up the skill book for the skill 'Vacuum Slice.' Would you like too learn it?

"Huh," I said. "I guess that this is another form of the Skill Grimoir," I muttered. "Does this mean that Illusion Barrier is working with my Quirk?" As I was inspecting it, I vaguely felt something roughly tapping me on the back, but I brushed it off. "I guess that that was where my confusion was coming from," I mused. "It wouldn't be the first skill of mine that works with my Quirk, but this is the first time that I know of that a skill was modified..." I was tapped on the back again. "What is it?" I asked as I turned around. I saw a group of skeletons pounding on my back as hard as they could, which apparently wasn't very hard. I checked and saw that I still had Defense up and Regeneration on for a few more seconds, so I was taking one or two damage from the hits and just immediately healing it off. "Huh," I said. I renewed my buffs to make sure they couldn't do anything to me and switched to Earth Aura just in case. Because the skeletons couldn't actually hurt me, I learned Vacuum Slice, causing the scroll to dissolve like the words in my Skill Grimoir. Vacuum Slice actually didn't seem like that bad of a skill. It was almost the exact same thing as my Air Slash, but it wasn't air-element and cost less. The only problem was that I could only use it with a sword or some other kind of blade as a medium. It seemed like I could also use it to enhance my sword by not letting go of it. I tested that theory by creating my trusty katana and slicing through the skeletons. I then realized that I had no baseline to how hard a skeleton was to cut with Bound Blade alone and ran over to another skeleton to cut it. "It does let me cut things easier," I muttered.

I decided that I was probably okay on fighting skeletons for the night and ducked into a bush so I could switch Illusion Barriers. Without the skeletons to impede me, I simply walked home. On the way home, I brought up my skill menu to to see if how my skills were doing.

xoxoxo

"Should water ever rise up to drown you, call me for help," the small girl in blue ninja garb said before melting into water.

"Of course I will, Rayne," I told her. Unlike the last two times, I didn't even feel tired. I immediately summoned her back, though. Thanks to Summon Basic Elemental upgrading to Summon Lesser Elemental, she looked like she was about ten years old, not eight. My other two elementals also looked older, and for whatever reason Dune had gained some gray spots to her camo. Rayne had light blue clothing, like Halitus, though she had navy blue as well as sky blue and her hair was the same colors as her clothes. Her hair was done up in two buns with yellow ornaments on them. She had a scarf made of some strange white material that made it look like it was made of seafoam or something and small white circular sunglasses that didn't cover her eyes at all. "Hello again," I said.

"Hi!" she said cheerfully. "What do you need me for?" she asked then unsheathed her sword what the heck? "Do you need me to stab anything?" Her tone was still totally cheerful even as she brandished the wave-themed ninja sword she'd pulled out of its sheath on her back.

"A-ah! That-that won't be necessary! I just wanted to talk!" I quickly explained.

"Awww," she complained. "I wanted to stab something!"

"Weapon buddies!" Dune shouted and waved her gun in the air in a way that I didn't even need to know anything about gun safety to know that that was the exact opposite of gun safety.

"Weapon buddies!" Rayne agreed. She waved her sword around with Dune. I was really glad that I'd decided to do the ritual in the Illusion Barrier.

I edged over to where Halitus was sitting. "I think we should let them finish before we start talking," I said.

"Yes," he agreed.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

I trembled with anticipation as I looked at the school from outside the gates. "Can you believe it, Kacchan?" I asked. "We're going to Yuuei! And we're in the same class!"

"f*ck yeah we are!" Kacchan pumped his fist in the air. "f*cking Yuuei!"

"This is our first step as heroes!" I exclaimed. "Wait, wouldn't our first step as heroes been-"

"First step as heroes, f*ck yeah!" Kacchan agreed.

"It's so manly!" a male voice I'd never heard before said. I looked over to see a boy with spiky red hair and a wide, shark-toothed grin and a girl with pink hair and skin, horns, and very... distinctive eyes, both in school uniforms.

"Are you guys starting the hero course today too?" the pink girl asked. Is it rude to refer to her as 'the pink girl?' I looked up at their titles so I wouldn't have to call them by nicknames.

We Will Rock You

LV 26

Kirishima Eijiro

Alien Blood

LV 24

Ashido Mina

"Yeah," I said with a smile. "We're going to be in class 1-A. What about you guys?"

"Us too!" Kirishima said. "Let's walk to our homeroom together!"

As we walked to our homeroom class at Yuuei oh my gosh oh my gosh, Ashido said, "Hey, what are your guys' names? I'm Ashido Mina by the way!"

"Kirishima Eijiro!" Kirishima added.

"My name is Midoriya Izuku," I answered. "It's nice to meet you."

"You're looking at the future number one hero, Bakugou Katsuki!" Kacchan boasted. "And I guess Deku here will manage to make number one for a few years before I make my triumphant return," he added.

I gasped. "Kacchan, that's one of the nicest things you've ever said to me!"

"Hey, I just told you my name's Ashido Mina, not Bakugou Katsuki!" Ashido interjected with a laugh. When Kacchan looked at her with a confused expression. "Just kidding! So what about your Quirks? If you don't mind me asking, anyway. Mine's Acid! I can make this corrosive stuff from my skin that doesn't burn my skin, plus it makes my skin pink for some reason."

"Maybe the altered pigment is a side effect of whatever makes you resistant to your acid?" I theorized. Ashido gave me a carefree shrug.

"Mine is Hardening!" Kirishima offered, pointing to himself. "I can turn my skin all hard and kinda rocky at will, and yes, I've heard all of the jokes."

"Explosion," Kacchan said with a grin. "I sweat what's basically nitroglycerin from my palms and can ignite it at will. I'm also resistant to impacts and fire, which is how I haven't gone deaf or blown my f*cking arms off yet."

"So manly!" Kirishima cheered. "I haven't even seen it in action and I can already tell it's super cool-looking, unlike mine!"

"I'm sure yours is perfectly fine, Kirishima," I assured him.

He chuckled a bit. "Sure, but it's not as flashy as some other Quirks."

"Yeah, well my Quirk doesn't even hold a candle to the potential bulsh*ttery that is Deku's, but that doesn't mean mine sucks," Kacchan roughly interjected.

"What is your Quirk anyway, Midoriya?" Ashido asked.

I chuckled and rubbed the back of my head. "I-it's a little hard to explain..."

"It's called The Gamer and it lets him do RPG stuff, like upgrading his stats and leveling up," Kacchan explained.

"Yeah, that's about it," I said. "I can also get various skills and then level them up and I have an inventory that I can put things in and take them out later."

"Which is pretty bullsh*t, how it works," Kacchan added. "He can shove f*cking anything in there, even if he can't even carry it."

"That's awesome!" Ashido said.

I smiled. "Thanks!" I stopped in front of the massive door for class 1-A.

"Why's it so big?" Kirishima asked.

"It's probably just in case there's someone with a Mutant Quirk that makes them really big," I explained. I opened the door to see that only about half the class was there. I was glad that Kacchan insisted we come early, because I felt like I would've been almost late otherwise. Instead, only about half the class was there and Kacchan and I just calmly walked over to some empty desks and took our seats. The first thing that Kacchan did after sitting down was to immediately put his feet up on the desk, which made me sigh. "Our new teacher might not be as okay with you doing that as our last teacher, Kacchan."

He just glared at me. "And you mumble a lot, Deku. Ya sure the teach'll like that?"

"Fair enough," I mumbled and pulled out my Skill Grimoir to wait for the teacher.

"You!" A familiar voice yelled after a while. I looked up from my book to see that one uptight guy from the exams, Iida. "Don't put your feet on the desk! It is disrespectful!" I sighed.

"Well how 'bout you shut the f*ck up, teacher's pet," Kacchan growled. There it was...

I shut my book. "Kacchan, please don't get in a fight on the first day. Iida, please don't rile Kacchan up, he doesn't like it when people order him around like that."

"Well he should get used to being ordered around, because this is a school and the teacher will have to order you around." I slumped my head. That did not sound like it'd go over well.

Kacchan glared at Iida. "Deku wasn't talking about teachers, dipsh*t. I hate it when I feel like people who don't have any reason to boss me around are looking down on me and sh*t, asshat."

Iida blinked, then bowed at a ninety-degree angle. "I apologize for my insensitivity, though I... would prefer that you do not use words like that in a school environment."

Kacchan sighed and put his feet on the ground in a calm manner that I was not at all expecting. "Don't be an as- a jerk about asking and we won't have an issue, alright? And for what it's worth, I'm sorry 'bout getting that angry so soon." He looked away and started blushing slightly. "I've started to notice that my anger issues are really bad and not at all what a hero should act like, so I'm trying to get better with that."

Iida smiled widely at that. "I accept your apology. It is very admirable that you accept your flaws and are working to better yourself! I am sure that you will make a fine hero when we graduate!"

Kacchan chuckled and gave him a grin. "You're actually pretty alright, man."

As Iida got to his seat, I heard the door open and a familiar voice said, "Oh, hey, Midoriya!" I looked over to see Uraraka waving at me. "We're in the same class! What a coincidence, huh?"

"O-oh, hey, Uraraka!" I waved back. "I hope that we'll get to be friends over the course of our education!"

"If being friends is all you want to do here then you should leave now," a voice said from the doorway. I just barely managed to see a bit of what looked like a yellow sleeping bag from the doorway. The person inside the sleeping bag got up and discarded his bag before saying, "It took you five seconds to quiet down." The man with dark hair and clothes walked into the room and glowered at all of us as Uraraka got to a seat. "My name is Aizawa Shōta," he said, then took a sip from some sort of juice pouch. "I'll be your homeroom teacher for the next three years, assuming you stay in Yuuei."

"That name sounds familiar..." I muttered to myself. It was obvious from the facts that I couldn't see his level and title and his being a teacher at Yuuei that he was a pro hero, but I couldn't remember who he was.

"Your gym uniforms are in my desk," he told us. "Put them on and come outside."

xoxoxo

"You guys are going to run a Quirk assessment exam," he told us when we all went outside.

"But what about orientation?" Uraraka asked.

Aizawa-sensei shook his head. "Teachers in the hero course have a lot more leeway than traditional schools. None of you have ever used your Quirks in physical exams because of stupid laws that were put in place. Here, however, you have no restrictions." He tossed a ball to Kacchan. "Bakugou, you were the top scorer in the entrance exam. What was your best score with the softball throw?"

"I forget exactly, but I think it was like sixty-seven meters. That about right, Deku?"

"Sixty-seven point nine," I corrected.

"Use your Quirk," Aizawa-sensei told him. Kacchan grinned and went to the circle. "You can do anything you want, just stay in the circle." Kacchan threw the ball as hard as possible with what looked like a shaped charge explosion. The ball shot off like a rocket and landed far enough away that I was willing to bet Kacchan had broken a kilometer. Though when Aizawa-sensei turned his phone to us, I saw that Kacchan was just barely short.

"That was awesome!" someone said, with everyone joining in the cheer.

"Do you think this is a game?" our teacher asked harshly. "This is serious. Every single one of you are here to be pro heroes. If any of you are here for fun, you won't be soon. At the end of this physical exam, whoever has the lowest score will be expelled."

I'm proud to say that, for the first time, the whole class united together all to scream "WHAT!?"

"You can't expel someone on the first day!" Uraraka said.

"I can and I will," Aizawa-sensei scowled. "Don't like it? Don't be last. Pro heroes have to be ready for natural disasters and other horrible occurrences, so this should be nothing. First is the fifty meter dash. Asui and Iida go first." Iida naturally got a good score on account of his speed-boosting Quirk which, now that I had a good look at it, appeared to be engines inside his calves, which reminded me of the Turbo Hero, Ingenium. Considering his last name, was he a relative? The other girl, Asui, was able to get a decent score with her Quirk, which if I knew my Mutant Quirk naming conventions right, was probably called either Frog or Toad. If the slight glisten on her skin that I saw with my Hawkeye-boosted sight was any indication, it was probably Frog.

The rest of our classmates' runs were just as interesting. While some of them just couldn't or didn't use their Quirks for the dash, like the one girl whose Quirk seemed to be that she was permanently invisible, most of our classmates used their Quirks in really creative ways. For example, Uraraka made her clothes lighter and that one hot French boy from the entrance exam (Aoyama, I think his title said) used his laser-based Quirk for propulsion. Somehow. Soon enough, it was Kacchan's and my turn to run. Kacchan and I grinned at each other as we activated our Elemental Auras and I used a Speed Up. While I only ran, the buffs I had combined with my nearly sixty DEX meant that that gave me an S-rank score. Of course, Kacchan scored less than a second ahead of me thanks to his combination of Fire Aura and what looked like fire jets coming from the palms of his hands, as opposed to continuous explosions. I'd seen him trying to do that before, but it seemed like that was the first time he actually managed it.

After that, we had the grip strength test. I didn't get the best score, but I didn't get the worst either, so it wasn't a total loss. In the next test, the standing long jump, I managed to combine Air Aura with another air magic skill I'd made called Glide to get one of the higher distances. With the repeated side steps, I managed to another point of DEX mid-test, bringing me up to sixty. It wasn't much help, but I'd like to think it was what let me get the second-highest score, behind the short, grape-haired boy, Mineta.

I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie

LV 16

Mineta Minoru

He used his... sticky, yet bouncy hair ball Quirk... to bounce himself fast enough to get a ridiculously high score. I was impressed by his creativity, though that was immediately brought down by how much of a creep he was being toward the girls in our class... I do agree that almost everyone in our class was unfairly attractive, but he really shouldn't have been making those comments about the girls...

In the ball throw, I was amazed more by the fact that Aizawa-sensei's scoring app had an infinity symbol programmed into it than the fact that Uraraka managed to get it. Without gravity, the force she threw it with was certainly enough to get it into space, or, as the invisible girl, Hagakure, put it, "yeeted that ball into the sun!"

Achtung, Baby!

LV 20

Hagakure Tōru

I still wasn't sure how she could see if the light passed through her eyes... I asked her, but she wasn't any help at all.

Where was I? Oh, right, the ball toss. Eventually, it was my turn to throw the ball. I looked down at it, then looked across the ball toss field. I hadn't used One For All at all so far in the exam, but I decided I should probably use it at least once and I didn't see myself having any other opportunities to use it, at least not usefully. Air Aura and Speed Up alone would be enough for the distance run and the other ones... I doubted I could think of any way to actually use All Might's Quirk, or even my own powers for that matter, in them. The earth-colored glow of Earth Aura engulfed my body, concentrated on my arm more than the rest of my body, and I carefully drew out the power of All For One so that it didn't affect any more of my body than necessary. Apparently I'd managed to bring the amount of One For All I used down to ninety-five percent, which actually really helped. I co*cked back my arm as the glow of One For All mixed with my Earth Aura, and infused air mana into the ball in an attempt to make it fly farther. "LIMIT BREAK!" I shouted, then threw the ball as hard as I could. "BALL TOSS!" A blast of displaced air unbalanced me for a moment as the ball shot through the air like a cannon ball. I winced at the pain and saw that my HP took a bit of a hit, but was encouraged by the amazed reactions of my classmates. It was hard to believe that I was practically Quirkless a year ago... I shoved down the pain and turned my Healing Hands on myself as Aizawa showed us my score.

"Are you okay, Midoriya?" Aizawa-sensei asked me. "It's hard to believe that you can use such a powerful... 'attack' without any sort of backlash." He then looked down at my hands. "Also your hand is glowing."

"O-oh, ah, that... that just means I'm totally fine!" I lied.

Kacchan scoffed and I felt some minor impending doom. "Deku's lying, that's his healing spell."

Aizawa-sensei gave me an odd glare, then his eyes started to glow red, which I could only assume was his Quirk. It appeared as if the gravity around his head was somehow disrupted and I got a system message warning me that All For One was disabled. "Oh, you're Eraser Head, the Erasure Hero," I finally realized when I saw his trademark goggles. "I always thought your Quirk was really interesting." I then noticed that my mana was still working fine and only All For One was disabled, which was interesting.

"Just testing," he said, then blinked to deactivate his Quirk. "Report to the nurse's office when we're done here, Midoriya."

I gulped, then shook my head. "N-no, I can still go, my Quirk makes me really durable and Healing Hands takes care of the rest."

"It's because of your healing abilities that I want you to report to the nurse's office," he clarified. "Assuming you can use it on others, at least. Yuuei offers a special program for people with any kind of healing power that could eventually lead to you becoming a licensed Quirk healer, and I want you to talk to Recovery Girl about it, even if you end up not taking it."

"Right," I said.

"Hey, how'd your 'healing spell' thing stay on if Aizawa-sensei's Quirk disables other Quirks?" Kirishima asked.

I gulped. "A-ah, uhh, well, you see..." I didn't know if Aizawa-sensei knew about my magic or not, and if he did, whether or not he was okay with me telling the rest of the class... I looked at Aizawa-sensei for any sort of confirmation and he nodded. "I think it's that his Quirk only stops the Quirk Factor from working properly, so it didn't affect my Healing Hands, which is more of a spell..."

"What?"

"You can tell them more," Aizawa-sensei told me.

"Literal magic," Kacchan offered. "Deku here somehow managed to bumble his way into discovering actual, literal magic using his Quirk without realizing it, then I figured it out from his constant muttering, and now some government officials or something know about it. Don't worry, you guys won't get dragged off by some shady suits just for knowing, but they'd prefer it if how to use it doesn't get into the general public just yet. We are allowed to teach you guys, though." He looked at a classmate of ours with a raven head, Tokoyami, who looked like he was trembling with excitement. "Are you vibrating, Bird Face?"

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

LV 22

Tokoyami Fumikage

"No," he somehow calmly denied, despite still vibrating. "How might one such as I learn to harness such power as that?"

Kacchan shrugged. "I don't know how you in particular would do it, but I figured out how to take the energy that I feel when I use my Quirk and use it for other sh*t. That stuff's called mana, and you use it to do magic. Don't know how you guys with Mutant Quirks work, so good luck with that. It's possible to make mana a particular element by concentrating on it, but I don't know if you can do that without an 'affinity' for it."

"I was planning on having them tell you that later, but it came up, so now you know. You're welcome to try using it for the last tests, but I doubt you'll figure it out," Aizawa-sensei said.

True to Aizawa-sensei's words, the rest of the exams were mostly uneventful, though Tokoyami and Hagakure managed to do something with dark and light magic in the long-distance run, which I thought was strange because I couldn't make any light or dark elemental affinity with Nature Affinity. Maybe they're just more esoteric or something. At the end of the physical exams, Aizawa-sensei pulled up a holoscreen with what appeared to be our rankings on it. "I ranked you from best to worst, not going to go over the rankings." Mineta screamed when he saw his name at the bottom, causing Aizawa to sigh. "Relax, Mineta. I was lying about expelling the lowest scorer. I'm not even allowed to do that anymore."

"Anymore?" about half the class asked.

"And even if I could and was going to, your performance in the repeated side steps combined with your... below-average height... making it more difficult for you to do some of the exams would have made me reconsider."

"It was to make sure we did our best, right?" a tall, black-haired girl who I definitely saw pulling something out of her body said.

Pure Imagination

LV 25

Yaoyorozu Momo

"Sure, let's go with that," Aizawa-sensei said in a way that made me feel like that was an afterthought. "Pick up a syllabus in the classroom. And I want to see you two, Midoriya and Bakugou. Just wanna get a good idea of what you can do."

xoxoxo

Kacchan and I walked out of the building when we were done. Aizawa-sensei just wanted us to write down what we could generally do that wasn't on our Quirk files, then asked me to teach him Hawkeye to see if it did anything with his Quirk. "We just finished our first day as students of Yuuei," I said. Ping. "Huh?"

"What's up, Deku?" Kacchan asked.

"I just got a title for surviving the first day of Yuuei," I explained, then checked it out. "Yuuei Student. It gives me ten percent extra HP and MP. Looks useful."

"Damn. Guess that means we're officially Yuuei students, eh Deku?"

"Hello, Bakugou and Midoriya," Iida said as he walked up to us. "I must admit I was quite surprised with your revelations, though I suppose I understand the reason why this hasn't been made public knowledge quit yet."

"Actually, it's not technically a secret, it's just that it's being researched more before any information about it becomes officially published," I told him. "So don't worry too much if you tell someone. In fact, I'm pretty sure the press conference is going to be sometime this month."

"It's so cool, though!" Uraraka said as she ran up. "I'm actually hoping that gravity's an element, because that would be awesome. Guess I'm gonna be meditating tonight!"

"Good luck!" I said. "I think there might be more complex elements than the ones I can use, so gravity might be possible. It'd probably be really cool to have gravity magic, plus there are a lot of possible uses for it."

We chatted for a while before parting ways. I even managed to teach Iida and Uraraka a few basic spells before they left.

xoxoxo

I decided to upgrade my mental stats after school. I really wanted to know what happened if I got either WIS or INT to one hundred. Not to mention, Meditation was almost to level one hundred, which felt like it was important. My skill with Meditation was up to a point where I could do it while walking and maintaining Elemental Aura and skills like it, though I still zoned out while doing it so it wasn't practical to use. I still paced around in my room while meditating in the hope that that would slowly level up one of my physical stats. Plus, whenever I banged my toes on something it didn't hurt because of my Physical Endurance and contributed to leveling it. Eventually, I heard a ping and felt myself realize a new thing about my Meditation, an aspect of the energy flow I hadn't considered before.

A skill has been created through special action! The skill 'Enlightenment' has been created through Meditation reaching MAX level!

I grinned. Just like with Summon Basic Elemental and Summon Lesser Elemental, it looked like at least some of my skills could be upgraded if I maxed them out, though it seemed like anything aside from Summon Elemental would work more along the lines of giving me a new skill than upgrading an existing skill.

Enlightenment (Passive) LV1 EXP 0.00%

The goal of many great minds is to gain the power of enlightenment. This skill represents the nascent power of enlightenment, granting abilities beyond one's wildest dreams.

Allows STR, VIT, DEX, and INT to be trained as with WIS by Meditation.

Grants more uses at higher skill level.

Unlike with Summon Basic Elemental, which leveled up rather fast even at higher levels, this skill felt like more than just a step up. Sure, it was just an upgrade to Meditation at the moment, which was literally what Summon Lesser Elemental was, but it literally stated that it'd grant me more abilities at a higher level. I tested it out to see how it works and noted that I could only train one attribute at a time, which I would have been disappointed with if not for the fact that it was still a ludicrous ability.

All in all, I felt pretty optimistic about my budding career as a hero.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Yuuei was... surprisingly mundane. I don't know what I was expecting, but after the rush of being taught by pro heroes wore off, it was actually boring. At least it was good for leveling Enlightenment. Though Enlightenment actually leveled rather slowly for a level one skill, probably because it was a prestige skill. I was really excited to see what getting that up would do.

Of course, there was one class that I didn't want to miss one second of. Hero Basic Training.

"I AM HERE!" All Might shouted as he burst through the door in his silver age costume, causing a wave of excitement to run through the class. "Today will be your first class with me, All Might! In this class, you will learn what you will need to defeat villains and save lives! But before we begin!" He pointed at some panels on the wall that Observe told me held our hero costumes behind them! On cue, they slowly came out from the wall. "I'm not the only one who's going to be in costume today! Suit up in your new outfits and meet me at training ground beta!

xoxoxo

All Might gave his trademark brilliant smile as he watched us slow-walk through the entrance to training ground beta, somehow in perfect sync. "They say clothes make the pros, class, and you are no exception!" Everyone looked so cool in their costumes!

"Hey, Deku!" Uraraka said as she walked over to me. She had a black-and-pink bodysuit that looked like a futuristic space suit. "I love your costume! It's supposed to be like an RPG character, right?"

"Yeah that was the idea," I said. At first, I'd wanted a jumpsuit with horns that looked like All Might's hair, but when I showed it to Kacchan he hit me so hard I leveled up Physical Endurance (though to be fair I was almost to the next level at the time) and told me that it would be too obvious and it'd make me look like a rabbit. Upon threat of further violence, I agreed to change my outfit to something a little more original, and decided to just go with the RPG theme that my Quirk gave me. I had a green waistcoat over a long-sleeved white shirt, dark green pants, my sweet red shoes, white gloves, a small utility belt that I suppose was superfluous with my inventory but still looked cool, and a green hooded cloak that I had include rabbit ears as a joke to Kacchan at first, then decided I liked it and kept it. It all had light armor that didn't mess with the look or harm my mobility but still added slightly to my defenses. The most surprising part, though, was that my request for a sword so I didn't have to waste mana on Bound Blade was accepted. Sure, I had spells that worked well with a sword, but I could also make swords and I didn't expect them to let me have a sword on my first year. "I think yours looks nice too." I also expected that without Gamer's Mind I would have been very flustered...

Ururaka sighed. "I wish I'd been more specific with my costume, this is a little embarrassing..."

"Look at it this way; at least you're not Ponytail or Invisible," Kacchan said with an amused grin. His costume was pretty cool, but I still think those gauntlets looked a little too bulky, even after he had them reduced a bit and include switchable sweat cartridges at my suggestion. I saw he also had the water bottle I'd suggested to keep hydrated so he could sweat more. "One of them's half naked and the other's only wearing gloves and shoes."

"In my defense, I need bare skin for my Quirk, Creation," Yaoyorozu stated.

"Dude, I'm naked, like, all the time when I'm at home," Hagakure told Kacchan. I noticed that her title was transparent. Not fully invisible, but harder to see than it used to be. I shrugged it off as my Quirk making it harder for me to see her title because she was supposed to be harder to see. "And I got points in the entrance exam by sneaking around buck naked and messing around with the robots' innards and stuff."

Mineta gave a thumbs-up. "Naked ladies..." He drooled... Ugh.

"Nobody asked you, Dick-for-brains!" Kacchan shouted at him.

"Now that you're all in costume, we're going to begin with combat training!" All Might told us. "Unlike the entrance exam, where you fought robots outside, today you'll all be fighting each other indoors! Now, can anyone tell me why it is important to know how to fight indoors?"

Almost immediately, Iida's hand shot up. "While it is true that most confrontations between heroes and villains happen outdoors, the vast majority of all fights between heroes and villains are in fact inside!" He was wearing really cool white armor that reminded me of Ingenium and my Observe told me was more to reduce wind resistance than defend from attacks.

"Exactly, young Iida! And so for your training exercise today, you will be divided into teams of two! Those teams will then be pitted against each other, one hero team against one villain team! The villains will be hiding a fake bomb somewhere in the building and it will be the heroes' job to find it! The heroes will win if they capture both villains or touch the bomb! On the other hand, the villains win if they capture the heroes or survive to the end of the time limit! And try not to hurt each other too hard!" Then he pulled out a cardboard box. "And the teams will be decided by drawing lots!"

"Why lots?" Iida asked.

"Pros can't always choose who they're working with, so maybe it's to represent that?" I offered.

"Exactly, young Midoriya! Now, let's see who the teams are!"

xoxoxo

In a freak twist of fate that further cemented my decision to no longer grind LUC because it's not that worth it, Uraraka and I, in team A, were put against Kacchan and Iida in team D. Kacchan and Iida as the villain team were given five minutes to get set up, and we were allowed to plan outside while they were in there. I sighed. "What's wrong, Midoriya?" Uraraka asked.

"I know that this might sound a little bit like bragging, but Kacchan's really the only person in the class that I know for sure could win in a fight against me. I think Todoroki might be able to put up a decent fight, but Kacchan knows what I can do the best and his Quirk and magic combined make him a definite threat. Plus, he's the only person who might be able to counter the plan I came up with."

Uraraka grinned. "Then we're just gonna have to do our best! What's the plan?"

I nodded. "First, I'm going to summon reinforcements. Don't freak out." I summoned all of my elementals, including my new fire elemental, Blaise. He wore a light brown long-sleeved shirt with thin black horizontal lines. His black pants, black shoes, and black gloves covered up the rest of his skin below his neck. He had a mane of wild white hair with five wavy red... ponytails(?) arranged in a way that made his head the center of a five-pointed star. He also had a neck warmer/mask in the same shade of white as his hair that was pulled up over his nose. What little skin on his face that was visible was pitch-black, and his scleraless eyes glowed bright blue. He was probably the least human-looking elemental I had.

"Wow, what kind of spell is this?" Uraraka asked as she crouched down a bit to look at Dune. Thankfully, I'd managed to get Dune to switch from a gun to some sort of military-type knife sheathed on her sleeve in public.

"Sup, I'm Dune," Dune introduced herself.

"Halitus," Halitus muttered.

Rayne gave her a wide, toothy grin and pulled out her sword. "I'm Rayne! Need something stabbed?"

"No, Rayne," Blaise sighed as he grabbed her hand and lowered the sword she was brandishing for her. "Name's Blaise."

Uraraka laughed, causing Rayne to give a toothy grin and blush a little. "These are my elementals," I said. "They're able to control the elements. My plan is to use a certain spell I have to sneak into the building." I bit my lip. "Unfortunately, the best way to use it is to have you act as a distraction... Is that okay?"

She nodded. "It's totally okay! I'm guessing there's technical stuff at work?"

"Yeah. The spell, Illusion Barrier, takes me and anything I include into a sort of pocket dimension, and while I know how to exclude my elementals, I don't think I can put you in and not me..."

"I said it's fine!" Uraraka beamed. "That's super cool though! So you can just disappear at will? That's gotta be so useful!"

"Start!" All Might's voice said from our earpieces.

"I'm pulling us in!" I warned. "Illusion Barrier!" Nothing seemed to change, but I knew it worked. "Right, we should probably split up so we can cover more ground. Objects, like the bomb, will still be where they were when I used the spell, but Kacchan and Iida aren't in the barrier. I saw them on my map in the northern part of the building, but the map doesn't show elevation, so we need to check each floor. Let's go!"

xoxoxo

Bakugou sighed. This was going to be a f*cking nightmare. "I am loath to act on the side of the villains, even if it's just for practice, but if I must, then I shall," Ingenium Junior said.

"'Kay, first off, Glasses, you're gonna have to think like a villain sometimes if you wanna get the jump on the real villains," Bakugou said. "Second off, can you please let me think?"

"Ah, yes. Is Midoriya likely to give us trouble?"

Bakugou gave a deeper sigh. "More like he's gonna f*cking appear out of thin air on top of the bomb if I don't figure out a counter to what I'm pretty sure is dimensional f*ckery. Deku's got a spell called Illusion Barrier that lets him go to some other dimension of total bullsh*t or something where everything's the same but nobody's there."

Even through his helmet, Bakugou could see Glasses' wince. "That sounds like it'll be difficult to counter. I will defer to your lead."

"Right, first off, this." Bakugou made a fire ball, using it to summon Pyra. Like Deku's elementals, Pyra seemed to have ranked up, causing her to look older and gain a small bump on her forehead for some reason. "This is Pyra. She's made of fire. Deal with it."

"Hello," Pyra said with a small wave. "I am a fire elemental."

"If I know Deku like I know Deku, and I know Deku, then Round Face is gonna pop out of nowhere sometime soon with at least one of Deku's four elementals to distract us. By the way, Deku has four Pyras of various elements. Deal with it. While that happens, Deku'll make his way over to the bomb in his Bullsh*t Barrier and just pop back in on top of it. I want you and Pyra to hold off Round Face and the elementals while I try to enact Operation Punch Deku in the f*cking Face from Another Dimension, or OPDFFAD for short. That sound good?"

Glasses nodded. "It does, though I'd like to know what OPDFFAD entails, if you don't mind me asking."

"Step one is to make some kind of sensory spell that can hopefully be used to sense dimensional f*ckery. I've already made a spell that I think can do that, but I have to concentrate on it and it's a bitch on my mana. Step two is to try using it on Deku while he's entering or exiting Bullsh*tland. Step three, try to use that data to sense where Deku is in Bullsh*tland and then cause my fist to enter Bullsh*tland with magic."

"There are a lot of ifs in that plan..." Glasses sounded a little doubtful.

Bakugou glared at him. "You got a better plan?"

"On the other hand, this is a training exercise. Why exactly do you think your spell will sense Midoriya's Illusion Barrier?"

"Because I used it on Round Face and felt something when she used her Quirk that wasn't magic, which I'm assuming was her gravity f*ckery, which according to Einstein is a type of dimensional f*ckery."

"I... do not believe those were his exact words, but that sounds about right."

"Then I got Deku to use his inventory and felt a similar but different feeling, which pretty much confirms it's f*ckery Detection."

"I literally cannot argue with that logic."

"Now shut up so I can detect f*ckery." Bakugou leaned on the bomb so he could close his eyes and reach out with his f*ckery Detection. It needed him to spread out a thin layer of mana over the area he wanted to detect, which meant that he wouldn't be able to use it over too large of an area if he wanted to do it for a while. Thankfully, Pyra had given him the general direction of Deku's and Round Face's heat signatures, so he was able to find the two relatively easily, plus all four of Deku's elementals. Just a few f*cking moments after he got set up, All Might announced that the heroes could start, causing Deku drag them all into Bullsh*tland. Bakugou definitely felt... something when they f*cked off, but he felt like he'd need to feel an exit to get any concrete idea. Still, he definitely felt just the lightest bit of a person-shaped spatial disturbance or whatever the f*ck where the heroes were. He was able to follow one of the signals that he thought might have been Round Face until it made its way to the room with the bomb, convening with some other, shorter, human-shaped disturbances.

"Get ready," Bakugou warned, then concentrated harder on the signal. He was just in time to catch Round Face and the elementals getting dumped out of Bullsh*tland, which gave Bakugou a surprising degree of insight on how Illusion Barrier worked. He felt Bullsh*tland change when Round Face was spat out, then felt it change back a few moments later when Deku presumably recast the spell. It seemed like there was some sort of dimensional barrier or whatever the f*ck that was already there, and Deku called on a part of it to use his Illusion Barrier, which Bakugou figured made sense of what Deku was muttering about when he was talking about his spell. But with that knowledge, Bakugou figured he could maybe punch Deku. He grinned as he felt Deku's signature approaching, then Blast Rushed at it when it jumped toward the bomb. "DIEEEEEEE!"

xoxoxo

The plan seemed to be going off without a hitch. Uraraka found the bomb quickly enough and called me to bring my elementals over. As they got into position, I found a spot that was out of the way enough that the villain team wouldn't notice me blink into existence for a moment, but close enough that I could get over to the bomb quickly and not keep Uraraka waiting for too long. I undid the Illusion Barrier for a moment before pulling myself and only myself back in. I'd had a lot of practice with exiting and reentering Illusion Barrier whenever I was switching between empty and skeletons, so it took less than a second. I ran toward the bomb as fast as I could, using Air Aura and Speed Up to get there faster. Within a few seconds, I saw and jumped at the fake bomb, aiming to land on top of it so I could just appear there and win. It looked like I was about to win!

Then Kacchan faded into existence in front of me, screaming, "DIEEEEEEE!" He punched me on the jaw, throwing me back. I was stunned, but more from the shock of Kacchan appeaing out of nowhere in an area I never expected him to than from pain. "You thought you could escape fighting me by f*cking off to Bullsh*tland, Deku?" Kacchan smirked at me. "f*ck that noise."

"How?" I asked. I noted that I could see Iida and Pyra fighting my team as I got up. "Did the skill fail?"

"f*ck yeah it did!" His grin widened and he pointed at himself. "And I was the one who made it fail!"

"I'm gonna stab you!" I heard Rayne say gleefully.

I immediately turned to see Rayne brandishing her sword at Iida. "No maiming, Rayne!" I shouted frantically.

"But he tried to kick the pretty lady!" she retorted.

"No!" I said like I was telling a little kid not to draw on the walls. I turned back to Kacchan. "Sorry, didn't want Rayne to kill Iida."

He shrugged. "That's fair. Now hit me with your bes-" He cut himself off by using his gauntlets to block the flat of my sword. Kacchan being Kacchan, this only served to make him look extremely happy. After a quick test showing that trying to recast Illusion Barrier was futile, I used Air Aura to strike at him with a quick flurry of blows. Even though he wasn't as fast as me, Kacchan was fast enough that he could use both gauntlets to block my strikes. Of course, my plan wasn't to hit him with a sword. Instead, I kept his attention on my sword as I got out the capture tape that All Might gave us. I managed to make a loop with the tape with my hand and then gave Kacchan a particularly hard swipe. When he blocked, I tried to catch his hands in the loop, which would have disqualified him. Unfortunately, he incinerated the tape before it even touched him and then backhanded me, knocking me back. I tried to jump over Kacchan, but he Blast Rushed up at me and punched at me again, though this time I Air Jumped away, landing on the side of a pillar. I pushed off of the pillar with eight percent One For All, aiming to get over Kacchan. Unfortunately, he just flew up to me, causing me to to jump up to the ceiling and kick off away from Kacchan. This time, I threw an Air Shot at him, blasting him back and me toward the bomb. For good measure, I threw a Bind at him, which I really should have done earlier. Without Kacchan to deal with, I realized that maybe I might be falling hard enough to damage the bomb, so I braked with air mana. While it didn't stop me completely, I slowed down enough that I touched down on the bomb relatively lightly. "HERO TEAM WINS!" All Might announced.

xoxoxo

After the battle ended, All Might had us meet up in the room where the rest of the class had watched our fight for a review of our fight. "Now," All Might said, "who can tell me who the MVP if this round was?"

Yaoyorozu raised her hand. "Surely it's Midoriya, right? He came up with the plan, and it would have gone without a hitch if the matchups had gone any differently."

I felt my cheeks heating up a bit. "N-no, surely the others deserve some of the credit too..."

Kacchan slapped me upside the head. "You won, idiot."

"Yeah, but you three and the elementals also..."

"I won't deny that everyone contributed, young Midoriya! However, you most certainly deserve the spot of MVP!"

My eyes watered a bit. "Thanks, everyone..."

"And unless there are any more questions, let us begin with the second match!" All Might loudly declared. I perked up at that. I was really excited to see everyone's Quirks in a fight.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

After our review was over and I answered a few questions about my elementals, All Might announced that the next matchup would have, for the hero team, Shoji Mezo, the tall guy with six arms, and Todoroki Shōto, a boy with white-and-red hair who had some sort of weird, flexible ice-like armor over the entire half of his body that had the red hair, covering a rather bad burn scar on the left side of his face as well. For the villains, there was Hagakure, who I noticed had leveled up twice, and a guy named Ojiro Mashirao, whose costume looked a lot like a karate gi.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

LV 29

Ojiro Mashirao

It looked like he was a martial artist, so I was a little excited to see how that worked with his tail Quirk, or magic in general for that matter. I watched the screen showing the villains getting ready. Just as I thought, Hagakure's title completely disappeared when she took her gloves and shoes off. When the villains' prep time was up, Shoji spread out his arms, turning the hands on all but the bottom pair into ears, which I assumed was him using some sort of echolocation to find the villains. After a few seconds, one of the ears on his arms turned into a mouth and said something to Todoroki. Todoroki touched the wall with his right hand, causing frost to form all over it and Shoji to move out of the building.

The Path to Isolation

LV 35

Todoroki Shōto

Ice spread from Todoroki's right hand and leg, but I noted that it was only his right hand and leg, with his left side doing nothing. That seemed to be the nature of his Quirk, Half-Cold Half-Hot. Interestingly enough, Observe told me that his Quirk was actually having two separate Quirks on the two halves of his body, Cold on his right and Hot on his left, which was interesting. The ice generated by his Quirk spread to cover the entire building, with enough control that the bomb was barely frozen and Hagakure and Ojiro only had their feet frozen to the ground. With the ice from Cold like that, I couldn't wait to see him use Hot in battle. "Holy crap that guy's powerful," Kacchan muttered as he warmed us up from the cold we could feel even from that far away. I blinked at that. Kacchan would never have said that a year ago.

I pointed at the part of the screen that showed the villain team, which was showing a lot more light than it had before. "I don't think Hagakure's done yet!" I said. I was only barely able to make out a humanoid shape standing where Hagakure was, glowing like the sun. And like the light of the sun, she seemed to be heating up her surroundings, creating massive amounts of steam and melting the ice around her. The ice melt was enough to free Ojiro. However, it seemed that using that spell drained her, because after she stopped, I saw the outline of her hands and knees in one of the puddles she'd made from the melted ice. Ojiro walked over to her and said something to her, probably asking her if she was okay. While I couldn't tell if Hagakure said anything due to the lack of audio, I assume she told him the pick her up or something, because Ojiro started awkwardly groping the air roughly where Hagakure was, then grabbed on to something invisible and pulled it up. When he was done, he blushed and appeared to apologize profusely, likely responding to something Hagakure said. Hagakure recovered enough to not have to lean on Ojiro, just in time to vanish before Todoroki showed up. Todoroki blinked when he saw the mostly-thawed and waterlogged room, then said something to Ojiro. After a small conversation, they both entered fighting stances.

"Midoriya, are you the one making that noise?" Asui asked me.

I noticed that, in my excitement to see my classmates use their Quirks on each other, I was making a bit of an "eeeeeeee" noise. "Ummm. No?" I made a conscious effort to not make that noise anymore. "L-let's watch the fight."

Todoroki swiped his right hand at Ojiro, causing a series of icicles to freeze in a line approaching him. Ojiro spun, slapping the ice with a glowing tail. The ice was stopped, either from Ojiro hitting the ice or, more likely, the magic he used in the attack. Todoroki shot off another ice wall at Ojiro, causing him to jump into the air and land on the first wall of ice, then jump along it to drop kick him. Todoroki grabbed Ojiro's foot with the armor on his left arm, then point-blank froze Ojiro in a pillar of ice. I winced in sympathy. That looked unpleasant. Of course, in the confusion, Todoroki didn't seem to notice a roll of the capture tape All Might gave to both teams "float" out of a hidden pocket on one of Hagakure's gloves and approach him. When Todoroki froze Ojiro, his arms were close together enough that Hagakure was able to quickly tape his arms together, capturing him. "Young Todoroki has been captured!" All Might announced on his microphone. He flipped a few switches on the microphone and said, "Clever thinking, young Hagakure! Now, I would prefer young Mashirao to not be frozen for too much longer, so if you cannot free him again, I will be forced to disqualify him and have young Todoroki use the other half of his Quirk to warm him up. Can you recreate what you did earlier?"

Todoroki backed up a bit, letting Hagakure work her magic. Heh. A hand-shaped red glow appeared on the ice Mashirao was in, causing it to melt faster than I would have thought she'd be able to. Once Mashirao was free, he thanked Hagakure and started talking to her about something while doing some exercises to warm up. Hagakure shook off the water that had melted onto her feet and hid her tape in some ice so she could hide invisibly. After a couple moments, an eye and ear on Shoji's arms discretely poked out from behind a corner, surveying the room. An extending third arm with an eye on it snaked up to the ceiling, slowly inching its way over to the bomb. When he was about halfway to the bomb, Mashirao looked up and used his tail to launch himself toward Shoji, careful of the ice, and Shoji's arm started to speed up. Before either of them could reach their destination, however, Shoji randomly recoiled as if he was punched in the stomach by an invisible fist, causing his extended arm to retract. Mashirao tossed his tape at Shoji, rightly guessing that Hagakure was there and able to capture Shoji. "Villain team wins!" All Might announced.

xoxoxo

"Now! Who can tell me the MVP of this round!?" All Might asked after they came back.

I raised a hand, almost done from healing Mashirao from the minor hypothermia from Todoroki and sunburn from Hagakure. Luckily, however, Hagakure seemed to have warmed him up slowly enough that he didn't have shock. "Is it Hagakure?" I asked.

"Exactly right, young Midoriya!" All Might confirmed. "Now, at the beginning, it looked like Todoroki would be the MVP with how he would have incapacitated both villains with no fight had young Hagakure not utilized such an impressive special move!"

"Yeah, that was a pretty cool trick!" a blonde guy named Kaminari who had an electricity-based Quirk said. "Todoroki was all like, 'Oh, let's see how you like all this ice,' and you were all like, 'Screw that, eat a solar flare!'"

Hagakure pumped her fists. "Yeah, it was awesome! I was trying to figure out what to do, so then I remembered that sunlight melts ice, and I have light magic, so I figured I could melt the ice. Hey, do you mind if I call that move 'Solar Flare?'"

Kaminari grinned. "Yeah, that's awesome!"

All Might cleared his throat. "As I was saying, young Hagakure's Solar Flare seemed to be an example of either great improvisational skill or excellent planning! In addition, she was able to incapacitate both of the members of the hero team by taking advantage of her Quirk and her teammate's distractions! Therefore, the MVP of this round is most definitely young Hagakure! Now, unless there's anything else any of you wish to discuss, we shall continue on to the next round!"

xoxoxo

The rest of the matches were... honestly not quite as exciting as the first two. Don't get me wrong, it was great seeing the rest of my classmate's Quirks in action, but... I guess I was just spoiled by Todoroki's ice and Hagakure's Solar Flare and invisible sneak attacks. Yaoyorozu looked like she was going to give an interesting fight at first, especially with the surprisingly advanced level of magic she showed despite having only a day to work on it, but she was unfortunately hampered by having Mineta as a partner, who spent most of the time ogling her revealing costume. It was a shame; their Quirks put together seemed like they could have been very useful. After every match was finished, All Might congratulated everyone on how we didn't have any major injuries and the fact that I was able to heal off the minor injuries before rushing off, which only I and Kacchan knew was because of his time limit. After he was done, I reminded Mashirao to talk to Recovery Girl just in case I missed something before walking to her office with him. On the way, we chatted about what little I knew about martial arts compared to him and what I knew about magic. We gave each other some pointers before we reached the nurse's office. After Recovery Girl gave Mashirao a small checkup and a clean bill of health, I gave her the paperwork she'd given me the day before for my medical training, accepted a bit of homework for me to start out on, then shooed me back off to class. When I exited, I saw that Mashirao was waiting for me. "Why are you still here?" I asked.

He gave me a small smile. "We're going to the same place anyway. So what was it you were saying about sensory enhancement?"

xoxoxo

"Kacchan it's literally called f*ckery Detection," I said while we walked home after school. "You invented a new spell that involves infusing unaspected magic into the fabric of reality itself and called it f*ckery Detection."

"Jealous?" Kacchan gave me a sh*t-eating grin.

"I'd honestly be lying if I said I wasn't," I admitted, "but my point is that you called it f*ckery Detection! And my Quirk recognizes it as being named f*ckery Detection!"

"Cool. So what else does your Quirk say about it?"

I sighed. "It says that while there are forms of unaspected magic that can be... dimensional f*ckery... it's more likely to be something called 'tertiary elements,' which I suppose confirms my theory about esoteric elements. It also says that it can detect 'natural' distortions in reality, which I guess might be that... Bullsh*tland... that you told me about... It's actually pretty interesting, though unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to test out those tertiary elements for a while."

"Why's that?"

"Assuming the four elements I have are considered primary elements and I get a skill that grants me new elements every WIS benchmark, then I'd need one-fifty WIS for tertiary elements," I explained. "Sure, I'm almost to one hundred, but my progress slows down the higher my stats get..."

Kacchan's head whipped around to stare at me. "Back the f*ck up. You already have stats near one hundred?"

"Only WIS, unfortunately. I've been focusing on WIS a bit more than the other stats because I want to know if I do get secondary elements for getting it over one hundred."

"Meh," Kacchan said. "So what do you want to do with f*ckery Detection?"

"Actually, I want to see what the difference between you and me using Illusion Barrier is," I said. "Not here, obviously, but when we get to your house."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know how to do that now. Why do you want to see me do it?"

"I think that my Illusion Barrier might have a few modifications from my Quirk. Obviously, you don't have my Quirk, so now that you can use it too we can find out! Plus, now that I have f*ckery Detection I can sense how Illusion Barrier works!"

"You just wanna see someone use Illusion Barrier, don'cha?" Kacchan asked.

"Maybe."

He shrugged. "Not judging." When we reached Kacchan's house, we greeted his mom and moved to his room, which had at some point in the last few months turned into something of a magic laboratory, or at least a small testing ground. It'd already been explosion-proofed, fire-proofed, and sound-proofed from how he occasionally activated his Quirk in his sleep, so we didn't even have to do too much work to get it ready. While Illusion Barrier wasn't dangerous or anything, it was pretty much tradition at this point that any time we came together to work on magic, it was either on the beach or in Kacchan's room. "I'm ready," I said as I watched him with f*ckery Detection active.

"Usin' it," he said, before reaching out to... Bullsh*tland... with his magic, creating a spatial distortion that I could feel centered around his body. He disappeared into his own Illusion Barrier, and a few moments of trying later I managed to learn a skill called Space Invader that took me into the barrier with Kacchan. "Sup, Deku. What now?"

"Now that we know you can use Illusion Barrier, the next step is to see if you can add the skeletons to the barrier," I said. "Assuming you can, I'd like to know if yours will spawn a boss if we kill enough of them."

"Right, turning it off." I felt Kacchan let go of the barrier, ejecting us back into reality. Almost instantly, he cast the new barrier, making the necessary alterations to the spell to theoretically enable the skeletons. As with before, I didn't accompany Kacchan but instead used Space Invader to give it more EXP. "-ctual f*ck!?" I caught the latter half of Kacchan's curse, then followed his gaze out the window to see what he was looking out. The sky had turned red with clouds of black smoke and the trees and grass looked like they'd been set on fire. Rayne told me that there was no water nearby, while Dune made note of molten lava where the water used to be. As we watched, small, yet angry-looking wisps of fire drifted off of the ground.

Jump in the Fire

LV 11

Fire Wisp

"I think you might not be able to make skeletons, Kacchan," I said.

"Oh, you f*cking think, Deku!?" Kacchan asked. "No, I thought these were bullsh*t f*cking fire fairy bones!"

"So maybe the monster type changes from person to person..." I hypothesized. "By the way, they're called fire wisps and the lowest-leveled ones are eleven. Maybe we should try killing a few now to see what boss spawns?"

Kacchan sighed. "f*cking fine. Now how the f*ck do you suggest I do that? I don't think punching'll work and fire's probably an even dumber idea."

I shrugged. "Try non-elemental magic?" We left Kacchan's house and confirmed that the wisps were susceptible to magic, then we split up to kill more wisps. I remembered how useful Tornado Bomb was on my skeletons, so I decided to try it out on the wisps. Thankfully, they were snuffed out instead of lighting my bomb on fire, giving me a level up. After I used a second Tornado Bomb, the last embers of the wisps stayed in the air before streaking off in Kacchan's direction. I internally cursed and rushed toward Kacchan as fast as I could. I just managed to make it in time to see a massive wisp floating in front of Kacchan.

Fight Fire With Fire

LV 40

Inferno Wisp

"Kacchan!" I shouted as I activated Water Aura and shot a Water Gun at the Inferno Wisp to push it back, which seemed to deal bonus damage from the elemental weakness.

Kacchan took the hint and exploded himself back to me. "That's a f*cking giant wisp," he said.

"It's called Inferno Wisp and it's level forty."

The Inferno Wisp charged us and we rolled out of the way of the massive fire monster. The ground was seared from its touch. "How the f*ck do we fight something that's level f*cking forty!?"

I shrugged. "You're almost forty and my stats are probably around that range. Its title says Fight Fire With Fire, though, so maybe you should hit it with some explosions?"

"Yeah, but what what if I'm the Fire and not the Fire?"

"Can you at least hold it off for a bit?" I asked.

Kacchan scoffed. "Can I?" He made a lash out of mana and started whipping the wisp with it while I started charging up a water version of Spiral Mana Bomb. I watched with bated breath as Kacchan whipped the fireball and dodged out of the way whenever it rammed or shot at him, ready to intervene if it looked like he needed it. My newly-christened Whirlpool Bomb reached minimum charge, so I shouted, "NOW!" Kacchan shot straight up with his Quirk to give me a straight shot. I let it charge just a bit more before taking a few steps forward and throwing the bomb at the Inferno Wisp. A whirlpool condensed from my water magic, thrashing the boss monster around. Unfortunately, the Inferno Wisp just barely survived my attack. I shot a few more Water Guns at it while Kacchan fired off Mana Bolts from where he'd landed. Between the two of us, we managed to kill the boss before it managed to attack us.

"That was f*cking stressful," Kacchan griped as he wiped some sweat from his forehead. He walked over to where the wisp had died and picked up a scroll that had appeared when it died. "I can't f*cking read this," he said after opening it. "Didn't you say you learned a spell from yours?"

"Actually, I think that it might have been a part of my Quirk," I said.

"So we still don't know what happens when your Quirk doesn't f*ck up the Illusion Barrier," he said as he held the scroll out to me.

"I guess so." I took the scroll from him. "Yeah, I can use my Quirk on this. Is it okay with you if I do it?"

"Sure, but I want to know whatever you get from it if it's any good."

"I would have done that anyway, Kacchan," I answered, then used my Quirk on the scroll, absorbing it like the last skill book. "Fire Dash." I demonstrated the skill, coating myself in fire magic that propelled me away from him. "Just what it sounds like, a fire spell that coats you in fire and propels you in whatever direction you want. It'd probably work well with your Quirk."

"Cool. You gonna write that down for me?"

"Sure, let's just get back to your..." I looked around. All of the buildings were scorched enough that I couldn't tell exactly where we were. "Kacchan, where's your house?" I asked.

"Shhhhhit."

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

I gulped. There was a huge mob of reporters standing in front of the gates, worse than any swarm of skeletons my Illusion Barrier could spawn. Their large, beady, camera-like eyes turned to focus on me, and they lurched over to me in a single horde like ravenous, information-hungry zombies. "Young man, have you been in a class with All Might yet?" the leader of the pack asked me.

"Eep," I said. "W-well..." I was cut off from an oppressive feeling coming from my left. I turned to see Kacchan glaring at the press gang.

"We're going to class," Kacchan said coldly. "Would you kindly f*ck the hell off?"

"Hey, weren't you that one boy from the sludge mon-" Kacchan glared harder.

"Actually, we were both involved in the sludge monster incident..." I corrected.

"Wasn't the other kid Quirkless?"

"My Quirk is really weird, okay? I only really learned how to use it after that..."

Kacchan angrily cleared his throat. "Now could we please get to our class!?" he demanded.

"But-"

"Pretty f*ckin' sure what you're doing is illegal," Kacchan said.

"And it's our job as heroes in training to report crimes in process, right?" I contributed.

"Right, so how 'bout you guys disperse before we go get one of our pro hero teachers, who I'm willing to bet won't like how you won't let us through."

"I really don't," Aizawa-sensei said from behind me. "Now please let my students go to their class unless you have a genuine, valid reason to keep them from their education aside from 'I want to know how All Might teaches.'"

"If it's any consolation, he's nice and gave us some pointers on our Quirks," I said.

"You got your statement, now let us through," Aizawa-sensei said. The crowd let us pass, though the lead reporter lady tried to chase us and was blocked by the security barrier.

"What the hell is with that? I could have died!" The reporter yelled.

"That thing's meant to catch villains who try to enter!" Kacchan yelled. "If it comes down, that means you're trying to trespass!"

Aizawa-sensei sighed. "I'll deal with this. You to get to the classroom."

xoxoxo

Kacchan and I summoned our elementals, causing some oohs and aahs from our classmates. "So these are our elementals," I said. They waved for the class, showing off a small application of their powers as well. "They're sorta like spirits made from a certain element of magic. I don't know if we create them or summon them from nature with the elemental ritual and they don't seem to have any answers. My theory is that they do exist in nature, but without a summoner they're too... primordial, if that makes sense, to do anything. It's only by forming a contract with a summoner that they can take humanoid forms. Any questions?"

"They're so cute!" Mina said.

Pyra smiled. "That wasn't a question, but thank you," she said.

"For whatever reason, they look like kids," Kacchan said. "Apparently how powerful they are is dependent on skill level or something. Our elementals are actually at the second stage or whatever. They looked even younger a couple months ago."

Tokoyami walked up to me and bowed on one knee. "Honored keeper of ancient knowledge, wouldst thou teach me thy power?" he said in a dramatic voice.

"What the f*ck did I just listen to?" Kacchan asked to nobody in particular.

"Child of shadow," I said, playing along with him.

"Jesus f*cking Christ Deku what the actual f*ck," Kacchan groaned.

"Thou art but a fledgling in the ancient art of magyck, yet thy drive to learn is great."

"How the actual f*ck did you manage to audibly pronounce 'magic' like that?"

I continued despite Kacchan's interruptions and the popup for Magycked Words. "For thy great ambition, I bequeath upon thee this." I raised my hands into the air, using Inventory to make a scroll slowly materialize from thin air, glowing with magical light. The scroll dropped into my hands and I held it out to him.

"Okay, so would anyone else like to f*cking point out that Deku literally f*cking had that ready in advance?" Kacchan asked.

"I thank thee for the arcane knowledge thou hast granted upon me," Tokoyami said as he gingerly accepted the scroll from me.

"Hey fun fact apparently words like thee and thou are actually informal, which makes this sh*tshow a lot more stupid," Kacchan said dourly.

"My only request for thee is to share this arcanum among any of our peers who should ask for it," I told him.

He bowed his head. "I solemnly swear it." He got up, gave me a small smile, and said, "And thank you for playing along..."

"Right, that's it. I'm f*cking done. Taking a nap 'til Aizawa-sensei comes back," Kacchan said, then sat down at his desk. "Thanks for not yelling at me, Iida," he muttered before putting his head down.

"I've decided to not be too annoyed about that so long as you don't curse too much when class is actually in session," Iida explained. "Speaking of which, I believe we should take our seats soon. Aizawa shouldn't be too much longer."

"I've actually been here for all of Midoriya's speech, I just wanted to watch," Aizawa-sensei said from behind his desk, causing me to jump. "Now where should you guys be right now?" We all quietly took our seats. "Good. Now, first I'd like apologize if anyone was inconvenienced by the reporters outside. We're taking care of it. Next, I'd like to say that I saw the recordings from yesterday's Hero Basic class and I have some notes. Off the top of my head, Todoroki, you should try to be a little more efficient. Maybe try freezing the room instead of the whole building next time. Mineta, actually try. If anyone wants notes in more detail, talk to me. Now, what we're doing today is going to decide your future." Everyone tensed up. "You need to pick a class representative." And with that, the mood immediately lightened. Just about everyone raised their hands and asked to be class representative. It made sense; while being the class representative is normally a responsibility that people don't want, in the hero course it's a really good idea because hero agencies tend to notice people who take responsibilities like that.

"Everyone!" Iida shouted over the din. "We need to work this over in an orderly fashion! Perhaps we should put this to vote!"

"Don't we barely know each other?" Asui asked. "And won't everyone vote for themselves?"

"All the better!" Iida stated. "Anyone who has already managed to gain the trust of enough people to get the most votes would most likely be the best candidate for class representative."

After all of the votes were counted, the rankings were put on the board. "How did I get four votes!?" I asked. I really had no idea how that happened. I mean, I voted for Iida.

"Right, Midoriya's the representative and Iida and Yaoyorozu can figure out who's deputy between them," Aizawa-sensei said. After me, Iida and Yaoyorozu were tied for second place with two votes each.

xoxoxo

"I love the food here," Uraraka said as she ate some rice. She, Iida, Kacchan, and I were eating lunch together.

"You're literally eating only rice," Kacchan said.

"Well some of us are on a budget, Kacchan!" Uraraka said.

Kacchan twitched. "Don't f*cking call me Kacchan. And can you seriously not afford anything other than rice?"

Uraraka blushed. "My parents don't really have too much money... It's already expensive enough for me to be here..."

Kacchan sighed and got up. "You're really gonna make me buy you something aren't you?"

She flailed her arms in front of her. "N-no! You don't have to do that for me!"

"You need to eat actual f*cking food, idiot!"

"I don't want you to have to spend that much money just for me!"

"Too bad, my mom's a model! Just about everything on the menu's f*cking chump change to me!"

Uraraka stopped her protesting and gasped. "Your mom's Bakugou Mitsuki! How did I miss that? You guys are almost identical!"

"f*ck if I know."

Uraraka pressed her fingers together and blushed a little. "Y'know, I'd kinda like to know how she looks that young. She's almost forty and she's still pret-"

"Aaaaand I'm gonna stop you right there before you start talking about how hot my mom you just said looks like me is. It's weird enough when strangers do it." He sped off. "I hope you like curry!"

"To answer your question, though," I said after Kacchan left, "it's because her Quirk, Glycerin, makes her sweat moisturizer." I grinned a bit. "It's actually a little interesting. While only the sweat from Kacchan's hands explodes, the sweat all over his body is altered, which is apparently a leftover of his mom's Quirk. Theoretically, Kacchan will age about as well as his mom does thanks to that."

"I didn't know Emitter Quirks could be passed on like that," Iida said. "I thought it was only Mutation Quirks that did that."

"No, Emitter Quirks can do that too, though it's normally a lot more subtle. Even though it's not my Quirk, I'm actually heat-resistant and have slightly more fire affinity because of my dad's Fire Breath, and my mother and I have more water affinity and can cry a lot thanks to her mother's Quirk, Ocular Gushers, which let her shoot water from her tear ducts like some sort of reverse heat vision. I haven't figured out how to do it at will, though now that I think about it I should probably be able to do it with magic." I felt my cheeks heat up at the looks they were giving me and chuckled a bit. "I... like talking about Quirks..."

Uraraka smiled. "I think it's pretty cool! Plus, Yuuei is definitely the kind of school to do that!"

"Thanks," I said. "Though how exactly do you know about Auntie Mitsuki? No offense, but you don't exactly strike me as the type to really follow the fashion world..."

Uraraka blushed. "W-well sometimes I just read the articles!"

For some reason, Raine randomly started cheering loudly. I jumped and Blaise reassured me that she hadn't stabbed anyone or anything before I had to look for her. "Are you okay, Midoriya?" Iida asked.

"O-oh, I'm fine," I smiled. "Raine just started randomly cheering for some reason, so I had to make sure she didn't stab anything. She's really enthusiastic about stabbing things..."

"That's a little disconcerting," Uraraka said.

"She also started gushing about you after seeing you for some reason..."

Uraraka stopped eating her rice and cleared her throat. "Okay, so I'm a little uncomfortable now. Iiiiis there by any chance a way to detect elementals?"

I shrugged. "I only know one detection spell, and it'd only work on tertiary elementals. Oh, by the way, while we're on the subject of tertiary elements, I have reason to believe gravity is one, so you might want to check that."

"Okay, I'll put that on my magic to-do list, right below 'Detect Elemental,'" she said, then began fiddling with her chopsticks. "Hey, let's talk about something that doesn't involve an invisible stabhappy spirit who likes to talk about me? Hey, Deku you're class rep now! Let's talk about how you got two other votes!"

"What do you mean, 'two other votes?'" Iida asked.

"Well Deku obviously voted for himself, and I voted for him too, so who were the other two?"

"Actually I voted for Iida," I butted in, "and if I had to guess, one of the votes for me was Tokoyami because I gave him that scroll."

"AMONG OTHER THINGS, DEKU!" I heard Kacchan's voice from somewhere in the cafeteria.

Dune giggled. "Context." I rolled my eyes.

"I suppose I should add that I voted for you, not myself," Iida added. "And thank you for putting as much faith in me as I put in you. I appreciate it."

"Yeah, thanks to the both of you, too," I grinned. "Both of you voted for me, even though I don't think I really deserve it..."

"Dude, you literally discovered magic," Uraraka said bluntly.

"I did it accidentally, and we only found out thanks to Kacchan..."

"You managed to discover magic without even meaning to!" Uraraka shouted. I noticed that she'd put her chopsticks down and they had a glowing pink aura around them. She grinned and put her hand on her rice bowl. "Speaking of which," she said, then her rice bowl started glowing pink too. "Iida, pick up my rice bowl."

Iida tried to pick up the rice, but gave up after struggling a bit. "Did you amplify the gravity on your rice?" he asked.

I picked up her chopsticks, which felt like they were made of lead, and used f*ckery Detection on it. "I think she did. This is pretty cool, Uraraka!" Some alarms blared, causing me to drop the really heavy chopsticks. "Warning. Level three security breach," a voice said from the same speakers that the alarms were coming from. "What's that mean?" I asked.

"This is the first time I've actually heard this alarm and I'm a third year!" a student near us shouted over the racket. "It means there's an intruder!" Everyone started panicking and stampeded to the exit, and I was swept away from my friends in the tide of students despite my high STR stat. "G-guys!" I tried to shout over the noise. "Someone could get seriously hurt if we keep doing this!" I tried some more, but I just couldn't get anyone to listen to me... Eventually, though, I saw Iida spinning through the air like he was trying to use his Quirk in zero gravity. Before I could do anything, he hit the wall over the emergency exit sign.

"EVERYONE! CALM DOWN!" he shouted, causing the mob to stop. "It's just the media! They managed to make it past the front gate somehow!" He pointed toward some windows. "Take a look! There's nothing to worry about!"

"Oh hey, the spinny guy's right!" One of the students said.

"And the police are coming!"

"Now that we've calmed down, I suggest we form an orderly line. All of that pushing and shoving could've seriously hurt someone!" Everyone followed Iida's orders and calmly evacuated. Except, of course, for Kacchan, who decided to bring Uraraka her curry.

xoxoxo

"We've still got to pick the other class officers," I told the class. "But first, I'd like to step down as class representative. I'm honored, but I don't feel like I'm up to the task. I couldn't help at all when the code three happened, and my deputy managed to calm everyone down and get a handle on the situation. I'm nominating Iida as class representative and Yaoyorozu as his replacement as deputy."

"I can get behind that," Kirishima said. "Iida really handled that situation! Let's hear it for Emergency Exit!"

"Thank you, Midoriya!" Iida said with a bow. "I will not let you down!"

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

I trembled with excitement. We were boarding a bus that would take us to an off-campus facility designed to train us in rescue scenarios. Sure, the combat training was pretty cool, but the first time I ever saw All Might, what made me really want to be a hero, was a video of his debut, which was a rescue operation where he single-handedly saved one hundred people. And here we were going to learn how to do that! Why wouldn't I be excited? Plus I was wearing my hero costume again! "Everyone please gather in two single file lines!" Iida said. He was really taking his duty as class rep seriously. Though I suppose that is why I made his class rep... We got on the bus, which, it seemed, wasn't exactly the kind that Iida was expecting when he made us form lines.

"I like being straightforward and saying what comes to mind," Asui, who was sitting next to me, said. "Midoriya."

"Yes, Asui?"

"Call me Tsu," she corrected. "I'm going to be blunt. Your Limit Break power reminds me of All Might."

"Yeah, that's right!" Kirishima said. "It's super manly!"

I gulped. She was really perceptive, wasn't she? Luckily, I'd prepared an explanation for it that didn't involve One For All. "It might look like it, but I think it works differently from All Might's Quirk," I lied. "I call it Limit Break, but really it's just me using a skill I got for getting all of my stats above fifty."

"So your Quirk gives you special powers for increasing your stats?" Tsu asked.

"Y-yeah. I only got one skill for each individual stat, but they each made the stat I got them from work better, I guess is a good way to say it. And the WIS skill was what gave me access to all four elements."

Tsu nodded. "Sounds useful. How does Limit Break work, exactly?"

I winced internally. It looked like I couldn't just distract her away... "It isn't exactly like the traditional video game limit break, but I wanted to keep with the video game theme because my Quirk gave it to me. The way it works is that I have a second MP bar that just... doesn't have an upper limit. That's not to say that I have infinite power, but whenever my actual MP bar is full, the second bar stockpiles MP for later use. I can't use the second bar to fully power any skill, but I can use it for part of the cost. What makes it really powerful, though, is that I can use it to power up not just skills but STR and DEX too. Of course, the reason I don't use it all the time is that there's some backlash from using it." I put my hand my head. "Of course, my Quirk makes damage just a number, but I don't really want to find out what happens if my HP reaches zero..."

"I think it's pretty awesome!" Kirishima said. "It's super flashy too, unlike my Hardening." He demonstrated his Quirk by hardening his arm.

"I think your Quirk is awesome too," I said. "It's the sort of Quirk that could be really useful in pro hero work."

"Yeah," he sighed, "but I'm not that sure I'll be too popular... You've gotta factor in how cool it looks in the pro hero biz."

"My Quirk is pro-level in strength and flashiness!" Aoyama offered.

"Yeah," Mina said, "but it also gives you killer stomach aches..."

"Oui..." he sighed.

"If you're talking about flashiness and strength, the kings of that in 1-A have to be Todoroki and Bakugou," Tsu added. Kacchan perked up a bit on hearing his name.

"If I had to pick one of those two for a popularity contest, though, I'd have to pick Bakugou," Uraraka said. "They're both pretty standoffish at first, but if you get past that Bakugou's kind of a nice guy."

Kacchan blushed a little and turned to face the window. Pyra appeared next to him and said, "That's 'Kacchan' for thank you."

"SHUT UP!" Kacchan yelled at Pyra. "And how the hell are you physical? I didn't summon you!"

"Speaking of elementals," Tokoyami said with a slight grin. "Would you like to see mine, Midoriya?"

I smiled. "Of course!"

From Tokoyami's cloak a dark haze emerged, taking the form of a young boy in black, bird-themed armor, a basic elemental. It looked like he had a sword and shield behind his wing-shaped cloak. His eyes were red, with black sclera. "My name is Corvo," he said.

"My elemental is a dark knight," Tokoyami said proudly. Corvo demonstrated his power by radiating some darkness despite physics saying that that was impossible.

"Hey, I got an elemental too!" Uraraka exclaimed. A purple-and-blue glow formed from the air next to her, condensing from gravity itself to form a young girl. Much like Blaise, her skin was midnight-black, but she also had sky-blue patches on her cheeks. Her eyes, or at least what I think were her eyes, were a solid yellow. Her blue hair, pulled vaguely into pigtails, was nebulous and glittered with stars. She wore a simple purple dress with a crescent moon on the center.

"Hi," she muttered. I didn't see it much but I think her tongue was also yellow...

"Her name's Nebula," Uraraka offered. "She's a little shy. I'd show you guys what she can do, but we're in a bus and I'd rather not flip us over or destroy the suspension..."

Iida nodded. "A wise decision. Perhaps she'll get her time to shine at the training facility. I certainly heard a lot from my brother on how useful gravity manipulation could be after I told him about your Quirk. By the way, you might receive an internship offer from Team Idaten sometime in the near future."

"I also made an elemental!" exclaimed Hagakure. A light shined from her invisible hands, and from that light came a girl in a silver-colored sundress. Her hair and the fur on her foxlike ears and tail were the same silver color. The only thing on her that wasn't silver was her white, fluffy scarf. "Isn't she cute?" Hagakure asked.

"Hi, everyone!" the elemental exclaimed with a blinding smile. "My name's Lucy!"

"Man, I wish I had an elemental," Tsu said. "Even without the whole 'manipulating the elements' bit, you guys have friends that you can summon at any time."

I Observed her. "Actually, Tsu, it looks like you have water affinity, which means you should be able to summon a water elemental."

"Oh. Cool. Thanks, Midoriya."

"We're here," Aizawa said, then the bus stopped. "Everyone out."

Outside of the bus, a person in what looked like a marshmallowy space suit was waiting for us. "I'm glad you're all here," they said. "I can't wait to show you my facility."

"Ohmigosh*t'sThirteen!" Uraraka shouted, stars in her eyes. "They're one of my favorite heroes!"

"Thanks! Uraraka, right?"

"THIRTEEN KNOWS MY NAME!" She started searching herself for something. "Oh man I wish I had something for you to sign and a pen to sign it on!"

"Um... isn't it a little rude to ask someone for an autograph when you've just met?" Nebula asked quietly.

"Thank you for your concern, random small child that I've been told is actually some sort of elemental spirit, but I actually really like meeting fans. If you find something to sign, I'd love to sign it for you."

I pulled a piece of cardstock paper and a pen out of my inventory. "Don't worry, Uraraka, I made sure to put multiple sixty-four stacks of multiple different kinds of paper in my inventory just in case someone needed paper. Or to eject at villains like a poorly-managed sylladex."

Uraraka gladly took the paper and pen from me. "You're a literal angel, Deku! I'll make sure to make it up to you somehow." She gleefully got Thirteen to sign it, but then just stared at it. "Crud, what am I going to do with this?"

"I can hold on to it for you," I offered.

"Great," Aizawa-sensei said dully. "Glad that we got that sorted out. Now unless anyone else wants an autograph, let's go inside.

xoxoxo

"I designed this facility to simulate several disasters heroes might need to help out in," Thirteen said as they showed us the various disaster areas of the facility. "I call it the 'Unforeseen Simulations Joint.'"

"So it's Universal Studios Japan?" multiple members of the class muttered at once.

"No, that was not at all a factor in the naming," Thirteen said in a flat tone that made me feel like they weren't telling the truth. "In fact I only learned of the existence of that place after I named it." Oh look at that, Observe implied that they were lying.

"Thirteen, where's All Might?" Aizawa-sensei asked. "Did he forget about this and schedule an interview or something?"

"Oh, uhhh... I need to speak to you about something over here," Thirteen said. They took him out of earshot of us and said something that involved them holding up three fingers. I heard a few small pops to the tune of Shave and a Haircut, the sign Kacchan came up with to ask me to invite him to party.

Kacchan: dumbass used up his time for the day didnt he

Kacchan: and stop changing my name to kacchan deku

He wasted no time in PMing me.

Deku: Hey, I set my name to Deku, didn't I?

Deku: And yeah that's probably what happened. I saw something about him stopping some villains on his way to work.

Kacchan: shouldnt he be getting better? youve been using your healing spell on him every f*cking day

Thirteen started giving a cool speech about their Quirk, Black Hole, and how Quirks could be very dangerous if misused. It was nice, but I also had to focus on PMing Kacchan.

Deku: It's not that simple. For one thing, Healing Hands isn't that strong, all things considered. Yes, it's a very good spell, but I'm pretty sure that I'd still have trouble healing anything much worse than a light fracture.

Deku: Second, All Might's time went down a lot after giving me his Quirk. I think he's still stockpiling MP, but it seems he's doing it less. Eventually, even if I make him be in even better condition than before AFO, I think he's still going to run out of power.

The BGM shut off, as did the USJ's lights. I noticed some sort of black mist coming from the fountain in the center of the facility, and it seemed I wasn't the only one. A man with powder blue hair and disembodied hands clamped all over his body emerged from the mist, followed by a crowd of other people.

Death on Two Legs

LV 61

Shigaraki Tomura

At level twenty-three, he was thirty-eight levels higher than me. And over the mist, there was another title.

Purple Haze

LV 57

Watanabe Kurogiri

"Hey, I didn't think we were starting already," Kirishima said. "Who are those guys anyway?" The BGM came back, but... that wasn't feel-good field trip training music. That was ominous music.

"Everyone get back," Aizawa-sensei barked.

"I don't recognize all of their names," I said, "but a lot of them are actual villains." I was especially worried by the giant, black-skinned, bird-looking man with an exposed brain standing next to Shigaraki.

?

LV?

Nomu

There was just something... off... about him. And I couldn't Observe him, which was offputting considering how the only other people that applied to were high-ranking pro heroes.

"I see Thirteen and Erasor Head," I think it was that Watanabe guy that the deep voice was coming from. "Odd. All Might should be here."

"Aw, and I brought a whole raid party for him," Shigaraki complained. "Let's hope he comes out when the kids start dying."

Aizawa's capture scarf unfurled. "Thirteen, protect the students and contact the main campus."

"It seems one of them has a Quirk that is blocking the sensors," Todoroki said. "With how prepared they are, I doubt we'll just be able to call for help."

"Good catch, Todoroki. Kaminari and Midoriya, you two have powers or equipment that can be used to contact others. Use them. I'll hold them off."

"But how?" I asked. "Your Quirk is best used in ambush or one-on-one fights."

"A hero can't just glide by doing what their Quirk is best at." With that bit of wisdom, he was off. He took out three long-range-type Quirk users before they even realized what had happened. I instantly became a lot less worried for him and joined my classmates in running like hell.

"You're not going anywhere," Watanabe said as he rose from the floor. Or a portal on the floor, according to f*ckery Detection. "We are the League of Villains," he monologued. "Pardon the imposition, but we have come to murder the symbol of peace." His misty body spread out. "I hope you don't mind too terribly."

"LIKE HELL WE DON'T!" Kacchan screamed as he and Kirishima charged Watanabe. Smoke from an explosion clouded them from our sight.

"A commendable effort," Watanabe said as the smoke cleared, revealing him to be relatively unharmed, "but if you persist in your endeavors, I fear you'll both wind up dead."

"Get back, you two!" Thirteen yelled.

A chuckle emanated from Watanabe's body. "Don't worry, Thirteen. You won't have to worry about that soon enough. After all, my job in this operation is to scatter you all to the four winds!" With that, he exploded into a thick purple haze that engulfed us all. After a few moments of disorientation and a sudden change to my minimap, I found myself in the air over what looked like a lake.

"Ah, crud."

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

"Ah, crud," I said as I crashed into the water. I wasn't too concerned with the fall because of my high HP and almost-prestiged Physical Endurance, and swimming was probably really easy with water magic and an elemental. No, what was really concerning was that there was a villain with a shark mutation Quirk swimming menacingly toward me. Thankfully, Tsu came out of nowhere and kicked the guy before he could get too close. I think she was carrying Mineta like some sort of parcel too.

"Hey, Midoriya," she said despite being underwater, then grabbed me with her tongue. I was dragged with her to the surface, where she gently deposited me on a nearby boat. A second later, Mineta made a lewd comment to her and was thrown onto the boat next to me.

"Note to self, don't piss off Tsu," I thought. She climbed on board next. "Thanks for saving me, Tsu," I said.

She nodded. "Don't mention it. This is shaping up to be a bad day, kero," she understated.

"Yeah," I said. "I think that they planned this. One of the villains said All Might should be here, meaning they had our schedule. Maybe one of them snuck in when those reporters invaded," I theorized. Mineta and Tsu both suppressed a shudder.

"Yeah, but won't All Might get here to rescue us?" Mineta asked. "Aizawa-sensei said you could contact Yuuei!"

I shook my head. "Unfortunately, the party invite function has a range limit. I tried, but we're too far away for me to invite anyone at Yuuei to my party, which is what he was talking about," I explained. "Actually, though, I can do this." I cleared the party chat history, changed the party name to an explanation on what the party invite was, then sent invites to our classmates and teachers. Though I couldn't see them, Tsu and Mineta reacted to the boxes randomly appearing in front of them.

"What is this?" Mineta asked.

"Is this that 'party invite' thing you were talking about, Midoriya, kero?" Tsu asked.

"Yeah, just press 'yes' and you get in. There's a party chat function. Hang on, I'll put instructions in it for the others." I typed in some quick instructions as the others joined in, as well as the reason why I couldn't just summon All Might.

Kirishima Eijirou: Dude holy crap, this is awesome! Sucks that you can't just ring Yuuei, but I guess all Quirks have their limits.

I noticed that Thirteen and Iida weren't responding and Todoroki declined. I sent him another invite, but he just declined it again. I recalled his title, The Path to Isolation, and winced. I wasn't going to be able to add him, was I?

Deku: Does anyone know why Thirteen and Iida aren't joining? I'm starting to get a little concerned.

Uraraka Ochako: That warp bastard got Thirteen with their own Quirk and Iida's probably out of range. Don't worry about the warp guy, though. I have him.

I blinked. Even through the chat, I could tell she was angry. I hoped she didn't go overboard...

"Right, we need to fight our way out of here, right?" Tsu asked.

"What!? Why?" Mineta objected.

"Midoriya," Tsu said.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"You have a healing spell, right? And beyond that, aren't you getting special lessons from Recovery Girl? Thirteen's down, so we need to get you over there ASAP, kero. Plus there's just the fact that they're probably going to attack soon."

"Yeah, hang on, I'm going to do something first." I opened up my status screen and, for the first time, used some of the points I'd accumulated over the course of having my Quirk. I only had to use ten, though.

By raising WIS above 100, two random skills have been created!

The skill 'Tactician' has been created through WIS rising above 100 and having INT above 80!

The skill 'Mantra' has been created through WIS rising above 100 and having the skill Enlightenment!

The skill 'Duality' has been created through WIS rising above 100!

It was an odd feeling. I felt... something shift in my mind, along with a my mana changing somehow. It was interesting to know that I could get extra skills for the hundred benchmark, plus the fact that they could be influenced by other factors. Before I could check out what they did, though...

"I'm tired of waiting!" one of the villains shouted, and a blade of water crashed into the boat, causing it to start sinking.

"AAAAAHHH!" Mineta started screaming and threw some of his head balls into the water. "I didn't think we'd actually be fighting villains so soon! I don't want to die!"

I slapped him. I don't know why, but I felt like it was the best course of action. It did get him to stop crying. "Mineta," I said sternly, putting my hands on his shoulders. "This isn't the time for panic. It's unfortunate that this happened, but we can't just wish ourselves out of this situation. I don't know why you decided to become a hero if you're so afraid to die, considering how high the mortality rate is, but I need you to stop whining and focus." I turned my attention to the villains. They were afraid of Mineta's balls, backing away from them. They didn't know what his Quirk was, and more likely than not ours as well. I noticed that even with just a glance, I could tell their emotional state, Quirks, and other information that I'd normally need to use Observe for. Why was that...

Tactician. It granted me enhanced critical thinking, decision-making, and thinking ability in general, but only in battle or other such high-stress scenarios. Not only that, but it synergized with Observe and Gamer's Mind to passively grant me any information I could find useful in my current situation. That... was a very good skill, and I could tell why it needed to have INT so high. Armed with the knowledge that I didn't even need to bring up the skill box to know what my new skills did, I used Tactician on them. With Mantra, all I could tell was that it was useless in my current situation because it had the exact opposite activation requirements as Tactician, most likely because it was useless in my current situation because it had the exact opposite activation requirements as Tactician, but Duality... Duality was exactly what I was hoping for. In addition to giving me a slight boost to elemental magic, it, as the name suggested, allowed me to combine any two primary elements to create secondary elements.

"I have an idea," I said, then looked at my hand. I combined fire and wind, and small sparks arced across my fingers. "Tsu, I need you to get Mineta out of here. And Mineta, I need you to throw as many of your hairballs as you can at the villains after I use my Limit Break. If all goes well, you shouldn't even have to aim that much." I stepped onto the railing, preemptively buffing myself and and activating Lightning Aura. Tactician immediately told me that Lightning Aura boosted movement speed, attack, STR, and DEX, and obviously let me generate electricity.

"What are you even doing, Midoriya!?" Mineta screamed.

"LIMIT BREAK!" I shouted, drawing on One For All and my newly-made lightning affinity. As I jumped from the railing, sparks arced from my clenched fist. I made sure to have Blaise and Halitus help make sure none of the villains were too hurt by the voltage after confirming they could collaborate to control lightning, plus have Rayne chipping in by purifying parts of the water to make some insulation so the lightning wouldn't go out of control. "THUNDER HAMMER!" I punched the air, shooting a lightning bolt combined with a Detroit Smash at the water. Thankfully, I saw that none of the villains were too badly hurt from the resulting electrified whirlpool, just incapacitated from the balls Mineta threw. From that alone, I jumped up five levels to twenty-eight, and got a few other notifications. Tsu's long tongue wrapped around my waist, plucking me out of the air.

"You okay, Midoriya?" Tsu asked once we landed in the shallows. "You said that Limit Break gives you backlash, kero."

I nodded. "Yeah, it stung a little and I need to wait a bit so I can recover my HP, but there aren't any villains around so I should be good."

"What do we do now?" Mineta asked nervously.

"I'd say we should go to the entrance, where Thirteen is," Tsu said, looking at what I assumed was the chat log.

"Actually," I said, then created a few glowing green orbs from my mana, then manifested my elementals to give them to them. "I think we should check out Aizawa first. I recently got a new firing mode for my Regeneration spell that lets me store the effect in an orb and only release it when it's broken. Hopefully that'll tide Thirteen off for a while, but Aizawa-sensei's probably starting to get tired by now..."

"You want to go where even more villains are!?" Mineta asked.

"Between Tsu's long tongue and hopefully water magic, your sticky balls that we've already proved are very good at stopping villains, and my magic, we should probably be able to pick off a few villains for Aizawa without getting dangerously close," I suggested. "Now let's go before something bad happens."

"Something else, you mean," Tsu said. "Kero."

xoxoxo

Kaminari screamed as he ran away from a villain. "Damnit, Kaminari!" Jirou yelled. "Why didn't you ask for any support gear!?"

"I didn't think about it, okay!"

"At least tell me you figured out how to use magic to help your Quirk!"

He dodged another attack. "How?"

Jirou sighed and blasted a soundwave straight from her jack at an enemy. Figuring out that sound was an element was a godsend for her. Not only could she do quicker shots from her jacks, but the sound magic was boosted by louder sounds, making her boot speakers devastating. "See, lightning is even more what I'd think of as a magical element than sound, so why shouldn't you be able to use lightning magic?" She stared at him dodging a bit more. "For now, though..." Jirou kicked the blonde generator into a villain, causing Kaminari to instinctively activate his Quirk. When he was touching a villain.

"Heck yeah!" Kaminari shouted as the villain was launched back from both the current and his own spasming muscles, taking out another villain. "Did you see that?"

"Cool," Jirou said. "Do it some more."

"I wish I could use magic with my Quirk," Yaoyorozu said, then took out a villain with a net. "Unfortunately, I haven't figured out any way to do that."

Jirou shrugged, then blasted a group of villains over with her speakers. "You ever seen Full Metal Alchemist?"

"No, I don't believe I have," Yaoyorozu said. "Why do you ask?"

"Dude, you should totally watch it!" Kaminari butted in. "It's an oldie but a goodie! Plus you'd probably like all that stuff with chemistry and stuff!"

"Hey," a villain shouted. "Stop talking about anime in the middle of a fight!"

"What I meant," Jirou continued, "was that the way you said your Quirk worked reminded me of the alchemy in it. You said your Quirk breaks down the lipids in your body and then lets you turn it into other stuff, right?"

"Yes?"

"Yeah, well the alchemists in FMA do their stuff by understanding, breaking down, and remaking matter into whatever shape they want, following the law of conservation of matter. Sound familiar?"

Yaoyorozu nodded. "Thank you. I doubt I'll be able to do it in the middle of battle, but it's definitely something to think about."

"Though yeah, you probably should watch it if you're gonna try to be an alchemist," Jirou said.

"Dude, I've got the whole thing on Blu-ray!" Kaminari shouted over electrifying another villain. "Brotherhood and the movies too! Let's watch it some time!"

"Thank you both," Yaoyorozu said. "Now, it's ready!" She hunched over and a giant blanket-like object burst from her, and I'm not making this up folks, Yaoyoreotard. Yaoyoreotard...

"What good's a blanket gonna do you guys?" one of the villains taunted.

"It's not a blanket!" Yaororozu responded. "It's an insulator!" She covered herself and Jirou fully. "Go, Kaminari!"

"Alright! Indiscriminate Discharge!" He dumped as much electricity as his Quirk could handle into the air, shocking all of the villains.

"Dang, this is a pretty big-" Jirou started to say as she lifted the insulator, then looked at Yaororozu and blushed. "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR CLOTHES!?"

"Sorry," Yaoyorozu said. "I had to make it under my costume, which broke it a little..."

"Don't look, Kaminari!" Jirou shouted at Kaminari through the opening in the insulator, hypocritically still looking.

"Whee~" Kaminari said, completely oblivious to both of them on account of his Quirk frying his brain.

xoxoxo

"And we're gonna cheese it if anyone even looks at us the wrong way, right?" Mineta asked.

"Yeah, that's the plan," I said. I handed them Speed Up orbs. "Crush these and you'll go faster." We watched Aizawa-sensei beat up a few of the villains before setting his sights on the leader, Shigaraki. He charged Shigaraki, trying to elbow him in the gut. Shigaraki caught his hand, though, and Aizawa-sensei's hair dropped. I felt a sense of foreboding, then saw Aizawa's sleeve start to disintegrate where Shigaraki was touching it. He jumped back, though I saw that some of his skin had also been destroyed. He kept fighting, though, even with what must have been unbearable pain. I called Halitus back over to me, now incorporeal, and gave him a Regen orb. Unfortunately they didn't stack, but getting just one over to Aizawa-sensei would help him a lot. I had Halitus slowly levitate the ball above the villains with air pressure and over to Aizawa-sensei. But before Halitus could get it over to him, though, that... thing, the Nomu, slammed his head into the ground hard enough that blood splattered out. Even with Gamer's Mind, I was sickened with how the Nomu crushed first his injured arm, then his uninjured arm. His screams were bloodcurdling. Before Nomu could kill him, though, the warp mist guy, Watanabe, teleported in.

"Shigaraki Tomura," he said.

"What is it, Kurogiri!" Shigaraki shouted back. I figured it would be about how Iida got out, and that this would distract Shigaraki and maybe even get the villains retreat, so I made Halitus break the Regeneration on Aizawa and was about to enter an Illusion Barrier, but Tactician and Sense Danger told me that would be a bad idea. Aizawa could wait, but...

"Well then, let's at least get some of the hunt targets before we retreat," Shigaraki said before he ran with surprising speed to us. I tried to jump up to fight him, but the water hindered me a bit. Before I could get Rayne to help me, though, what I feared the most happened.

Shigaraki placed his hand on Tsu's face.

We all froze in terror, but nothing seemed to be happening. Shigaraki laughed and looked back to Aizawa, who was staring at him. "You've got a high CON stat, huh? Damn, you're amazing." Before he could say anything else, though, I activated OFA and swung at him with an eight percent punch with lightning added into it. However, Nomu just seemed to appear in front of my punch, tanking the hit. I noticed, though, that the lighting seemed to bother it. "Heh. For a kid, your level's pretty dang high," Shigaraki said.

"What?" I thought. "Can he see my level? His Quirk is Disintegration, otherwise Aizawa wouldn't have been able to stop him. Actually, he said CON and not VIT, so I guess he's just a gamer, not a Gamer."

"Meh," he said. "I've got these two. Kill the boy, Nomu." Nomu reached for my head, and Shigaraki reached for Tsu and Mineta. I doubted Aizawa would be able to use his Quirk again, so I told all of my elementals to get him away from my friends. However, there was a slight delay when entering an Illusion Barrier that meant that Nomu was going to be touching me by the time I was going, so I didn't see how I could get away without using my elementals...

One skill. Tactician gave me the one skill I could use to get myself away from Nomu without forsaking the others. One skill that I'd only just got and didn't even have the time to test out, yet it was perfect for my situation. As with Air Aura, I let air mana saturate my body...

A skill has been created through special action! The skill 'Elemental Embodiment' has been created through Elemental Aura reaching MAX level!

...but this time took it one step further. Before the giant fist of the Nomu could close down on my head, it dissolved, along with the rest of my body, into the air itself.

"What the actual crap!? Is this kid an Heir of Breath?" Shigaraki asked after getting blown back by a combined effort of Rayne and Halitus and then seeing me avoid Nomu by becoming air. Interestingly enough, I could hear him perfectly fine despite not having ears.

I canceled Air Embodiment because it was actually a little on the expensive side. That being said, though, it was definitely a welcome tradeoff for complete immunity to both physical damage and one element, plus the logical weaknesses and resistances of whatever element I became. "Shigaraki Tomura," Watanabe, or Kurogiri, as Shigaraki called him, said. "I believe that that is Midoriya Izuku, the discoverer of magic. If I had to guess, his Quirk facilitates the use or development of magic somehow, meaning he has the potential to become even more dangerous to our goal than All Might." I gulped. Being overestimated by a villain with control over a giant monster with a level that I couldn't even see wasn't fun.

"Higher-level threat than All Might, eh? Yeah, I don't want that. Nomu, kill the hacker." The giant monster appeared before me at a speed that made me almost completely sure that that thing had a speed-raising power. In that instant, I had an idea. Instead of trying to run or dodge, I let the punch hit. My body was splattered across the ground, which was exactly what I was planning on. Instead of painting the floor of the USJ red with my blood, all Nomu's punch really accomplished was soaking the floor, with the exception of a perfect circle around Aizawa-sensei and the area by the water with Mineta and Tsu in it thanks to Rayne, in water that I'd made sure contained the impurities of normal water. I'd heard of inexperienced hydrogenesis Quirk users trying to use their water to conduct electricity and failing because of the way their Quirks worked making only pure water, an insulator, before and made sure that that didn't happen. "Dammit, this kid has water magic, too!?" Shigaraki yelled. "This is bullsh*t!" The BGM my Quirk supplied me switched to something that I felt was really fitting for the situation, so I switched it to public. "sh*t, does anyone else hear anime protagonist music or is it just me?" he asked.

My hand shot out of the puddles, and I pulled myself up from the water. I didn't really have to, but with magic like mine, a little showmanship every once in a while was fun. Nomu charged at me, but I combined air and water mana to form ice magic. I was locked into using water magic when Water Embodiment was in effect, but it seemed I could partially get around that to combine it with another element if at least part of me was still flesh and blood. "Ice Beam!" I intoned as a beam of cold shot from my hand, covering Nomu in a layer of ice that I was sure it'd break out of quickly. "That thing, Nomu, it was made to kill All Might, right?" Inside I was screaming, but on the outside I kept a mask of calm to try and intimidate them as I pulled myself fully out of the water. "I noticed when I punched it, even though I'd upped my strength a lot it wasn't hurt by the force, but at the same time it was bothered by the electricity I added in. And just now, it didn't have a counter to my ice." The Nomu broke free through sheer physical strength, tearing chunks of frozen flesh off. I noticed the wounds appeared to be healing at an increased rate. "Aside from pure muscle, of course." I froze Nomu again. "So my guess is it was tailored to fight All Might, a pure physical fighter. Shock absorption, strength on All Might's level, super healing for if All Might did manage to land a blow, that about right? But you didn't even bother to give it much special defense aside from the healing, did you?"

"Dammit dammit dammit!" Shigaraki shouted. "How the hell did a little brat manage to figure out my anti-All Might weapon like that!? Let's kill him!"

I grinned as the music reached a peak. For the second time that day, I shouted the magic words. "LIMIT BREAK!" Lightning mana surrounded my body.

"And he's got a limit break too!? f*cking hell, this kid is OP!"

"LIGHTNING BARRAGE!" I shouted, then dissolved into pure electricity and entered the water to rush the Nomu. Electricity doesn't travel anywhere near the speed of light, but it does travel a lot faster than sound in a good conductor, so at close distance I might as well have teleported. When I exited the water I traveled a lot slower, but still definitely faster than I would have normally. Despite the fact that I was energy enough to travel as a current, I was able to hit Nomu with a lightning-fast barrage of OFA-enhanced punches, Lightning Embodiment mitigating the physical damage even from my own attacks. Even though Nomu literally couldn't touch me, I arced away when it tried to punch at me, though more to deliver some relatively light punches to Shigaraki and Kurogiri than to actually dodge the attack. I was absolutely sure to not let them touch me, on account of how they might have been able to hurt me, and went back to Nomu. I picked up where I left off with my wild charge, stopping every few milliseconds or so to take down a few more villains before returning to Nomu, until my MP reached a little under half, at which point I retreated back to Aizawa and deactivated Lightning Embodiment. Keeping my eyes on the villains, I knelt down nest to him and started using Limit Break: Healing Hands on him, focusing on his vitals and eyes.

"Damn... f*cking... hackers..." Shigaraki whined. Nomu wasn't moving, the parts where I hit it were smoking. As I watched, it fell face-first.

"That kid just took out Nomu, holy crap!" one of the villains shouted.

"f*ck this sh*t, let's get outta here!" another villain contributed. Before they could, though, the doors slammed open.

"NEVER FEAR," a voice that I'd never been happier to hear (and that's saying something) shouted, "FOR I AM HERE!" All Might, who just then I saw for the first time in his muscle form wearing anything but his trademark smile on his face, dramatically and literally ripped off his tie, then disappeared in a blur of speed. He incapacitated several of the villains without even slowing down and stopped in front of me. "Are you okay, young Midoriya?" he asked me.

"Running a little low on MP, but I'm more worried about Aizawa-sensei," I said, now focused more on healing him because I doubted the villains would even do anything with All Might there and Nomu down. "By the way, that steaming pile of monster there was supposed to be able to kill you. While it might have been able to give you some trouble earlier, it wasn't nearly as effective against two new skills I just got."

He grinned. "Good job, young Midoriya!" Then he addressed the villains. "Now, how about you boys stand down and save us all some trouble?"

"Kurogiri, it's Game Over," Shigaraki growled. "I don't care about the minions, just use Teleport on me." Kurogiri's mist enveloped Shigaraki before even All Might could do anything, and the both of them escaped.

"That f*cker left us!" a villain said. "Now how are we supposed to get out of here!?

"I'll give you two choices, in handcuffs or on a stretcher!" All Might said. "I suggest the handcuffs, there's less bruising!"

Within moments, all of the villains stood down. With that, our disaster of a field trip came to a close.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

I closed all of the text boxes I'd gotten now that we were back at Yuuei, the police were done taking our statements, and just waiting for our parents to show up on account of the fact that they didn't want to let us go just yet unless it was with a relative. My level jumped from twenty-eight straight to thirty-six after taking out the Nomu. It made sense, it was so above my level that I couldn't even see how much it was above my level. Plus I got another title, Giant Slayer, for having beaten more than one opponent with a level at least fifty over mine, the other one probably being the zero-pointer. It gave me a small offense and defense boost for every level over mine an enemy was, which I knew almost immediately would get less and less useful as time went on, even if it was very good at the moment. I was already level thirty-six, and it was the first semester. Not to mention, depending on how it worked, it was entirely possible that it'd make me weaker against weaker opponents. Of course, I wasn't the only one who leveled up in the USJ. I looked over at Uraraka, who was sitting next to me.

Megalovania

LV 23

Uraraka Ochako

Apparently she'd stopped Kurogiri for so long by using gravity to slam him into the ground and then making him fall in another direction whenever he tried to make a warp gate to get away. It was apparently really effective, at least until he managed to trick Uraraka into throwing him into a portal. She had a really intense look on her face still, and I could feel my weight fluctuating from the gravity mana she was unconsciously releasing.

"I apologize deeply for not being able to help more," Iida said to Uraraka.

She sighed and lightened up. And I mean literally lightened up; the gravity effect stabilized, causing her chair to stop creaking. "No, you did fine. I just couldn't help feeling like... Like maybe if I noticed that portal sooner, I would've been able to do cancel out Thirteen's Black Hole..."

"I-I'm sorry!" Nebula said.

Uraraka smiled and ruffled her starry hair. "No, you're fine."

"B-but I couldn't help at all, you did everything..."

"There'll always be next time," she said. Nebula sniffled. "Let's... change the subject for now. What the heck was that thing you did to the giant monster?"

"Yeah," Kirishima shouted, quieting the general conversations that were going on, "that was super manly!"

"I would also like to know," Tokoyami said.

I felt my face heat up a bit and rubbed the back of my neck. Almost everyone who was still there was staring intently at me as they waited for my explanation. "So, you guys know how my Quirk works like a video game, right?" They nodded. "So one factor of this I almost never use is that I get points for leveling up that I can use to raise my stats, and I used that to raise my WIS, which gave me three new skills. One of those was Duality, which raised my elemental affinity and gave me access to secondary elements, one of which was lightning."

"I told you, Kaminari!" Jirou shouted, pointing at him. Yaoyorozu smiled awkwardly and put her arm on Jirou's shoulder.

"And then I got a much better version of Elemental Aura from raising its level enough called Elemental Embodiment when fighting the Nomu, which was what I used to beat it."

"So that's why it looked like you were teleporting," Hagakure said.

"Yeah, though it wasn't really teleportation," I said. "I just spilled a lot of water on the floor and conducted myself through it in Lightning Embodiment."

"Dang, that's pretty awesome," Kaminari said. "I wish I could do that."

"Well if you practice Lightning Aura enough, you might be able to do it. To use Elemental Aura, you infuse your body with elemental mana. Elemental Embodiment is just that, but... more," I explained. "Sorry I can't give you more for that, but I only used it three times in the middle of battle and the downside of automatically learning things with my Quirk is that it's a little hard to explain how to do them sometimes unless I concentrate really hard on what I'm doing."

"Nah, it's cool, man. I'm sure I can figure it out eventually."

"And by the way," Kacchan said. "You probably shouldn't use a spell that makes you generate electricity all over your body anywhere near anything sensitive to electricity. Not at first anyway." He paused for a moment. "Actually with your Quirk, you should probably know how the f*ck that sh*t goes."

Kaminari gave a thumbs-up. "Don't worry, I learned that lesson already."

"What were the other two?" Sero asked. "You said you got three WIS skills, right?"

"Yeah. There's Tactician, which just lets me think better and automatically gives me information on my skills as I need them, but only when in a battle or crisis. The other one..."

Mantra (Passive) LV1 EXP: 52.19%

Mantra is a sacred utterance, words to live by. This skill represents the ability to change one's meditation into an internal mantra when not in danger, providing some of the benefits of meditation without the downside.

Allows the use of Meditation as a passive when not in times of high exertion and/or stress, but with 1/5th the effect.

Stacks with Meditation.

"Mantra is interesting. I can't use it in battle, but it basically turns another of my skills, Meditation, into a passive at the cost of some of its effect. That pretty much means that my HP and MP regenerate a bit faster and, even more usefully, I can automatically train one stat aside from LUC at a time."

Slowly, we broke back up into our smaller groups and started talking to each other. "Hey Deku," Uraraka said, then pointed to Tsu, who was sitting alone. "Is it just me, or is Tsu-chan shaking a bit.

I winced. "Oh," I said. I'd asked her if she was okay after everything was over, on account of the part where she almost died, but she just said she was fine and I didn't even think to Observe her to check to see if that was the case. Though in hindsight doing that might have been an invasion of privacy. "She... almost got her face disintegrated. I think I might need to talk to her."

Uraraka got up, a serious look on her face. "No, I'll go."

xoxoxo

Tsuyu Asui felt like she couldn't breath, and her heart was pounding. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see that man's hand in front of her face. Her hands kept on shaking, even when she tried to stop.

"Are you okay, Tsu?" a familiar voice asked. "Deku said something about your face almost disintegrating, which sounded like it was really scary," Uraraka said.

Tsu took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself. She didn't want to worry any of her classmates. "I-I'm fine, Uraraka."

Uraraka sat down next to her. "You can call me Ochako, if you want. It's okay if you're scared, Tsu. I was terrified, and I didn't even get attacked." Tsu bit her lip. Her vision started to blur, and a hot tear rolled down her cheek. Ochaka held her arms out, offering a hug. "Do you want to cry on my shoulder." Tsu let out a small kero and leaned into her embrace, pressing her face to Ochako's shoulder. She sobbed and let the tears flow. "There," Ochako said. "Feel better?" Tsu nodded, face still on her shoulder. Ochako rubbed her back lightly. "That's good."

xoxoxo

"I feel shame as a class representative that I didn't notice how Asui was suffering," Iida said as he watched Uraraka comfort Tsu.

"Maybe you could see if anyone else needs a hug?" I offered.

"Ah, thank you, Midoriya. I will do that."

"Just remember," Kacchan said, "if someone's on the verge of a f*cking panic attack, make absolutely f*cking sure to use your f*cking indoor voice."

"I know that," Iida said using his f*cking indoor voice. He looked over at us. "Bakugou, Midoriya, are you two alright?"

"Oh my f*cking what," Kacchan said flatly. "I'm pretty sure we're both fine!" He shooed Iida off. "Go, ask how everyone else is!"

"We're good, Iida," I said. "Koda looks a little nervous, maybe start with him?" I gave Iida a thumbs-up as he walked over to Koda.

I heard the tapping of a certain needle cane. "Midoriya-kun!" Recovery Girl said as she entered the room. "I'd like you to come to my office. I've patched up Erasor Head and Thirteen enough that I'm willing to let you get some hands-on experience."

"Right," I said. "I'm coming."

"Izuku!" my mom shouted, then grabbed me in her death grip of motherly worry. "Are you okay? I was so worried!"

"Katsuki!" Auntie Mitsuki shouted. "You damn well better be alright!"

"I'm fine, ma!" he shouted back to her.

"So you two must be Midoriya-san and Bakugou-san," Recovery Girl observed. "If you don't mind, Midoriya-san, I'd like to take your son to my office for a bit."

Mom stepped back a bit and inspected me. "Is Izuku hurt?"

"M-mom, I'm fine!" I said.

"Sorry, I think I should've worded that better," Recovery Girl said. "Midoriya-kun is fine, but I'd like to have him help with the actual wounded. He's taking my support hero courses, remember?"

"Oh, right!" Mom said. "How is my dear Izuku doing, by the way?"

"He's doing pretty well, which is why I want to borrow him for a bit. Plus, his healing spell can be safely used on people I've used my Quirk on because he's the one providing all the energy. I still need to learn it..."

"Right," I said. "If you don't mind, Mom, I'm going to go with Recovery Girl. I'll see you when I'm done."

She smiled at me. "Go on, sweetie."

xoxoxo

I looked over my new elemental affinities.

Air: 20

Earth: 20

Fire: 30

Water: 30

Bio: 20 (earth+water)

Ice: 20 (air+water)

Lightning: 20 (air+fire)

Molten: 20 (fire+earth)

Sonic: 20 (air+earth)

Vapor: 20 (fire+water)

I'd tested each combination of elements in Illusion Barrier just in case any of them were immediately explosive. The only one that did anything close to exploding, though, was sonic, which caused a low humming sound when I used it. Bio was... worrying at first, but I found that all it was was a combination of poison and plant, though I felt like maybe there might have also been some flesh manipulation in it that I wasn't quite willing to mess with just yet. It was interesting, though, using the secondary elements. Now that I was out of danger and able to properly concentrate on my magic, I noticed that it wasn't exactly fusing the elements together as I thought it was. If anything, it was more like using power that was less fragmented than the primary elements. It was odd but that was the best analogy I had. "Right," I said. "Is everything ready?"

"You do realize that this probably isn't the best idea, right?" Blaise asked, referring to the six ritual circles equidistant to my bed and in particular the molten lava and cup of boiling water he was keeping warm.

Halitus nodded. "Agreed."

"I'm going to be out of it either way, might as well speedrun it," I responded.

Rayne grinned widely. "I like it! We get all of the new weapon buddies at once!"

"Yeah, weapon buddies!" Dune agreed, happily pulling the cord on my I Am Here All Might action figure (with kung-fu grip).

"Right, let's start this," I said. I placed my hands in front of the circles, had Dune put the Laughing All Might in the empty circle to provide the sonic element, and activated the six rituals at once. "I, Midoriya Izuku, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee."

xoxoxo

I stirred from my sleep to the sound of a familiar explosion. "Suck it!" a slightly less familiar voice said. I opened my eyes to see several children that looked like they were roughly twelve, along with one girl who looked like she was ten, in varying states of corporeality. The boy whose voice I heard looked like he could have easily been Kaminari's younger brother, except for the odd-looking ears, the red spots on his cheeks, and a strange lightning-bolt tail. He had a yellow jacket with two brown stripes on it. My new lightning elemental, Raimon. He was holding one of the controllers of my Switch, and judging from his furious button presses he was the one who was playing the Pikachu that was winning. A lot.

"Cheater," Rayne whined. She'd gained even more dark blue on her clothes and hair, and she now had blue fingerless gloves with white knuckles. It looked like she was playing as Greninja. She wasn't very good with Greninja, though. I couldn't help but notice how Raimon and Rayne resembled the characters they were playing as. "I knew I shoulda picked the sword guy..."

"Which sword guy?" my vapor elemental, Claude, asked. He wore light, red body armor, had three spikes in his red hair, and for some reason reminded me of a lobster. "Aren't like half of them sword guys?"

"Thirteen of seventy-four," Halitus corrected. Halitus had changed a lot, actually. His hair was now sky-blue instead of his robes, and he had two long ponytails. His robes were fully made of the cloudy material with the exception of five blue tassels in the back that might have actually been some weird tail. He now had patches on his cheeks like Raimon, though his were white.

Claude rolled his eyes. "Same difference."

"Not even close, bro," the biggest of the elementals, Iggy, said. He was my new molten elemental. He had a red long-sleeved shirt with three blue circles on the sleeves and two large brown lumps on the back. His hair was also red with a few spikes, so he and Claude almost looked like they could have been brothers if not for his... camel ears? He had a red tail as well. "And I think it's my turn now." He put his intangible hands on Rayne's controller, and I felt a weird shift in the mana that was automatically leaving my mana pool as he and Rayne switched between being partially summoned and fully summoned. "Who else wants a go?"

Mifuyu, my ice elemental, switched with Raimon. "That would be me." Oddly enough for an ice elemental, she had dark red hair, eyes, and two tails. She was dressed in dark blue ninja clothes, like Rayne, but in a different shade. She had a small yellow gem on her forehead. Mifuyu picked Shiek and Iggy picked Dedede.

"So how are you guys able to summon yourselves?" I asked.

"That would be from my help," Pyra said. "It seems we elementals can summon ourselves, partially or fully, so long as our summoner can bear the strain of our summoning without a noticeable decrease in mana. Master Kacchan gained the strength to handle me recently, and it seems your current limit is three. With Sonia out regardless to allow us to be as loud as we want without waking your mother up, that meant that we've mostly been playing doubles matches."

"You're welcome, by the way," my sonic elemental said. She had a purple shirt, a black scarf, and black jeans. On her nose she had rounded triangular purple sunglasses that you could still see her golden eyes through and over her ears were some expensive-looking purple headphones. "Yeah, after the primary elementals filled us in on everything, Pyra showed up and told us how to summon ourselves so we could play some games to wait for you to wake up on your own."

"We did have some fun with a party game earlier," Juniper, my bio elemental, said. She had a blue-green dress with darker green patches on it. Around her neck she had a scarf that appeared to be made of green fronds, with a sort of brooch on the form of a pink bud. Her eyes were red, her hair was green, and she had pointed canine teeth. "I hope you don't mind too terribly. We didn't mess with anything and made sure not to mess with your saved data."

"Actually, if you guys want to make an account on that you totally can," I said. "I'm pretty sure that'll give you guys save files separate from mine."

"Let's do that later, then," Blaise said. His shirt darkened and the sleeves now had small patches of light blue on them. His scarf had changed to have long red ends with a few black dots on them. "For now we're just playing Smash."

"Can I join in next round?" I asked.

"Sure," Sonia said. "We still have an hour or so 'til morning, according to a few of your neighbours' clocks anyway."

"Hey, can I play next too?" Dune asked. Her clothes were now half camo and half solid black.

We played until the sun rose. It was fun.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

"So now you have ten elementals?" Kacchan asked as we walked. We had a day off from school because of the USJ incident, so Kacchan and I decided to go to an arcade to have some fun and play games.

I nodded. "Yeah, with the six elements I got from Duality. I did all six rituals at once, actually."

"That was probably a f*cking stupid idea."

"That's what Blaise said, though with more cussing."

"No sh*t," Kacchan said. "Seriously, what if that put you in a f*cking coma!?"

I shrugged as we started to cross the street. "I felt less tired after summoning the higher my skill level was, and even beyond that Duality raised all my-"

I was cut off by a speeding van ramming into me. It made me take a step back and I took a hit to HP, but otherwise it was the van that was broken by the collision. I pried myself from the dent I made in the car and ran to the driver's side door. "Oh my gosh, are you guys okay!?" I asked. The door opened, and the man inside punched me in the face, which surprised me more than anything, and grabbed me by the neck. "Oh," I said as I felt him hold a knife to my neck.

"Alright, nobody move or this freak gets it!" the criminal yelled. His accomplices got out and brandished knives as well, though thankfully they didn't grab any other hostages. I heard a motorcycle coming.

Kacchan laughed. "You f*ckers do realize that you just took the guy who unintentionally totaled your car by getting f*cking hit by it hostage?"

The motorcycle sound screeched to a stop, and Present Mic ran up. "Hey! Stop!"

"We've got a hostage, jackass!" one of the villains jeered.

"Hi, Mic-sensei!" I said, waving at him.

Mic-sensei grinned. "Hey, listener! You okay?"

"I'm fine," I said. "Hey, can I ask you something about Quirk usage laws?"

"Sure!"

"I know people are allowed to use their Quirks to get out of situations where there is a danger to themselves, but I... don't actually feel threatened at the moment, so I don't know how legal it would be."

"I'll show you threatened!" the man holding the knife to my neck shouted, then tried to stab me. I say tried because apparently I couldn't be stabbed by normal people anymore, though to be fair the man was trying really hard. I noticed a text box that was probably the reason for that. It looked like I got it when I got hit by the car and just didn't hear it over the sound of metal hitting me. "The f*ck?"

"What did I f*cking tell you?" Kacchan said.

"I mean, they are trying to stab you..." Present Mic said.

"And let's just say," I continued, "that in my attempt to get away from the person threatening me with a knife I 'accidentally' incapacitate all three of them, can I be arrested for that?"

Mic-sensei chuckled and said, "Technically, you're good because you're being attacked by a weapon."

I nodded, then exploded into electricity. I arced through the three villains with exactly enough voltage to knock them over without causing lasting damage and reformed next to Kacchan. "That good?"

"Great! I'll need to snag you for a couple minutes for some paperwork, though."

xoxoxo

"Okay," I said, coming back to Kacchan. "So where were we?"

He stared at me for a bit as we started walking again. "You're f*cking unbelievable," he told me. "You were just hit by a f*cking car, then stabbed. What the f*ck?"

"Physical Endurance prestiged and I wasn't actually stressed enough for Mantra to deactivate."

"Are you okay, kero?" a familiar voice asked me. I turned to see Uraraka and Tsu walking up to us. "That looked like it hurt," Tsu said.

"Thanks, but I'm fine," I told her with a smile. "As I was explaining to Kacchan, a passive skill of mine that reduces physical damage just reached max level, which means that I now take one fourth damage from any and all physical attacks."

Uraraka whistled. "That's pretty broken."

"Plus, because it maxed out, I got a new passive, Damage Reduction."

Tsu put her finger on her lip. "I think we already have a general idea, but what does that do, Midoriya?" She asked me.

"I'll have to test it, but judging from the description it removes point-five percent of my HP from all damage, which doesn't sound like a lot, but with my VIT that's a lot, especially combined with Physical Endurance. And assuming it levels linearly, that means that at max level it'll take an attack that does more than half my HP without the skill for me to actually feel it, which is pretty good."

"Deku's Quirk is f*cking broken, who would have f*cking guessed?" Kacchan said.

I chuckled. "Let's talk about something else, though. I take it you like space, Uraraka?"

"How'd you know?" she asked.

Kacchan snorted. "Gee I f*cking wonder." Uraraka was wearing a galaxy-print skirt, a JAXA shirt, and a moon-shaped pendant. "Where the f*ck did you get that necklace anyway? No offense, but isn't your family poor?"

"This?" Uraraka asked, pointing to the pendant. "It was a birthday gift from my cousin Shōta. He doesn't visit us often, but he always sends us stuff like this." She chuckled. "Mom's always worried he's spending too much on us, though."

"Though seriously, maybe you should've seen about staying with your cousin before you decided to get your own apartment?" Tsu said. "Didn't you say he lives somewhere near here?"

"You f*cking what?" Kacchan asked.

Uraraka blushed. "S-so, my parents live in Mie..." Kacchan slapped his face.

"And that's why I brought Ochako-chan home with me, kero," Tsu said with a tone of... something in her voice. Annoyance?

Uraraka blushed a little. "I-it wasn't quite like that..."

Tsu nodded. "So luckily both of our parents were visiting yesterday-"

Kacchan glared at Tsu. "What," he demanded, causing Tsu to make a startled croak.

"My parents' jobs mean they aren't home all the time," she explained, a little faster than normal. "They leave me in charge of my siblings, but at the same time literally the entire neighborhood looks out for us, so don't worry about it, kero. They didn't leave us to fend for ourselves in an unfamiliar environment with no adult supervision Ochako-chan. So I may or may not have not been in the best state at the time, so because I was clinging to Ochako-chan we decided to just have lunch at my house. At some point Ochako-chan's... living situation... came up and now she lives with us. Our parents banished us from the house while they're moving Ochako-chan's stuff into our spare room. So where are we going, kero?"

"Kacchan and I were going to go to an arcade," I said. "You don't have to come."

"Nah, that sounds pretty fun and neither of us had actual plans other than the fact that I wanted to see if I could spot Ochako-chan's cousin in the wild, kero."

Uraraka made a little noise and pressed her index fingers together. "We have several thousand yen in coins, Deku's Quirk counted. Don't f*cking worry about it, Uraraka."

"Thanks..."

xoxoxo

"Damn it!" Kacchan groaned after I beat him easily yet again in the old Street Fighter game. Tsu and Uraraka went elsewhere after Kacchan challenged me. "How the f*ck are you so good at this all of a sudden, Deku?"

"Sorry, Tactician keeps activating," I apologized.

"Well I'm gonna f*cking beat you anyways! Let's go again!"

I opened the skill boxes for Tactician and Mantra and read them closely. "Hang on, I might be able to cheat the system."

Kacchan snorted, then put another coin in the machine. "Whatever." I took a deep breath, then chose my character. As the match started up, I reminded myself that it was just a game, and that I didn't need the boost. Even when Kacchan got me locked in a combo, I never got the same feeling of clarity and rush of information that I became accustomed to with the repeated activations of Tactician. I just barely managed to beat Kacchan, and by the time I was done Mantra and Tactician both leveled up despite the fact that Mantra wasn't that near level up and I specifically didn't use Tactician. "I'll get you next time, Deku." He put in more coins for a rematch.

"So apparently Ochako-chan's actually monstrously good at fighting games," Tsu said once we were done. It was even closer, but I still managed to beat Kacchan.

"I might have almost accidentally used my Quirk on the machine once or twice," Uraraka added, blushing slightly. "That would've been bad..."

Kacchan stared at Uraraka for a moment, then popped some coins in the machine. "Right, I wanna see this. You and me, Round Face."

I don't think Uraraka had actually played Street Fighter before. She messed around in the character selection screen for a bit before picking a character at random. When the match started, she hit random buttons and just let Kacchan get some hits on her. "Oi Round Face, you're supposed to fight back," Kacchan said after stopping. "Have you not played Street Fighter before?"

Uraraka pressed the jump button a few times. "In my defense, my family doesn't have a lot of money, so I never really went to arcades. My cousin did get me a couple Pokémon games for birthday and Christmas presents, though." She started doing some attacks.

Kacchan twitched. "'Kay, no offense, but I don't really feel like curbstomping a total newbie right now. 'Specially one I'd actually be willing to call a friend. Might feel a little bad."

"Oh, don't worry. I think I've figured it out now." Without any more warning, Uraraka launched a near-perfect series of attacks on Kacchan. To be fair, I think it was more Kacchan's sheer astonishment than anything else that made him unable to fight back, but Uraraka still wiped the floor with him.

"Yeah that was my first match with her too," Tsu told me when the round ended. "The next couple rounds are even better." As Tsu said, the next round was a close win for Kacchan, followed by a close win for Uraraka in the tiebreaker. In the rematch, Kacchan didn't even win once, even if he came close. Kacchan's really good at Street Fighter, so that was impressive.

"Damn it. 'Nother round?" Kacchan asked.

Uraraka nodded. "I'm having fun." Kacchan grumbled, but put another coin in. That time it wasn't even close.

"How the f*ck are you so good?" Kacchan asked.

Uraraka shrugged. "I have no idea but I'm not complaining."

"Right, much as I hate to admit it, you're too good for me." Kacchan looked over at me and grinned. "So's Deku, so let's see how you two fight."

"I'm fine with that if you are, Deku."

I nodded. "Let's go, then." Before we started, Kacchan cackled maliciously and whispered in Uraraka's ear.

"He told her some combos, by the way," Sonia told me. Oh boy. At first I tried to keep from using Tactician to be fair to Uraraka, but after losing a somewhat short first round I changed my mind. Even with Tactician automatically giving me both characters' entire movesets and each button she pressed on the controller, it was surprisingly difficult. I think that the only thing that let me win in the end was the fact that my DEX leveled up from the frantic button pressing and the Mantra I'd been using earlier.

"That was intense," Uraraka sighed.

"I know. Even with Tactician, you almost won," I said.

Tsu smirked and pointed at something. "Hey Ochako-chan. There's a flyer for a tournament over there. Says it's a week from now and there's a cash prize, kero."

Uraraka's head snapped over to where Tsu was pointing. "Cash prize?"

"Dammit, I was gonna compete..." Kacchan sighed.

xoxoxo

Aizawa Shōta sat up in his bed. Recovery Girl would probably have scolded him for doing that if she hadn't stepped out, but between her Quirk and the healing spells Midoriya had taught her, he was mostly just sore. He reached out with his good arm to grabb his phone from where Hizashi put it and opened up his photo album to a picture that he looked at often, even if he had a framed copy back home. It was twelve years ago, a few months before his mother's accident. She'd dragged eighteen-year-old him down to Mie for his cousin's third birthday, and they decided to take a family picture. He sighed at the younger Shōta who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world than next to his mother. His gaze drifted over to his aunt, uncle, and cousin. His uncle was a large, burly man with light brown hair, while his aunt looked almost exactly like his mother, though her eyes were a different color and lacked the ability to erase the gravity of whatever she was looking at. Even if his mother was older, they were always mistaken for twins. And his cousin... Sweet, young Ochako already looked so much like her mother, even as a toddler. The only difference was the age and the fact that she had her father's hair. Aizawa looked at a few later photos, pictures of Ochako that his aunt and uncle sent him. He laughed at a picture of Ochako with her sixth birthday cake all over her face.

"What are you looking at?" Thirteen asked him. He always thought they looked a little odd outside of their containment suit, all thin and with pitch-black skin.

"Pictures of my cousin," he responded.

"Ah. Your cousin. You never talk about her much."

"I don't talk to most of my coworkers in general. No offense."

"None taken. So what's she like?"

Aizawa thought for a moment. He really was too secretive. Perhaps it was the concussion or the near-death experience, but he felt like he should change that. "You've met her."

"Oh? When?"

"Yesterday."

Thirteen shot up, then winced and gingerly touched the bandages on their back. "Ow... Who was it?"

"The girl who asked for your autograph."

"Ah. If you don't mind me saying, I didn't exactly... get that impression from you two, if you take my meaning."

Aizawa shrugged, then winced from the pain in his bad arm. He slowly lowered himself back down on his bed. "I see you almost every day and this is the longest we've talked, after we both nearly died. My family lives in Mie. You do the math."

"I see. I always see you with Kayama and Yamada, though."

"I've been friends with them since I was a student here and they basically adopted me with joint custody. They keep dragging me out to do things."

"So she hasn't met you?"

"No, she has. I don't visit often, though, and the last time I visited... Was it really four years ago?" Thirteen stared at him. He couldn't really tell what they were thinking, their face was too alien. "I send them money, though. My family isn't in the best of financial situations, and they don't let me spend too much money on them, but I send as much as they'll let me."

"So if they live in Mie, where exactly is your cousin staying? Mie isn't exactly a short train ride from Musutafu..."

"I... Son of a bitch."

"They told you she was fine and you bought it, didn't you?"

"sh*t."

They chuckled. "I take that to be the case." Aizawa reached for his phone again. "Do it later. Hopefully she'll be fine for a day, and if not then at least she has friends, right?" Aizawa nodded. She was getting along well with Tensei's brother. "You, on the other hand, won't be fine if Shuzenji-baasan finds out you've been exacerbating your injuries by yelling at your relatives over the phone." Aizawa blanched and lowered the phone.

"Do you... drink?" he said after a while.

"I think if I didn't I'd die rather soon."

Aizawa rolled his eyes, then winced because his eye still hurt. "I meant, do you drink alcohol? Sake?"

"Ah. Hang on for one second." They sat up slightly, enough to take a sip of the water by their bedside. Then they spat it out. "Are you sure you didn't get hit too hard?"

"Ha ha," Aizawa deadpanned. "I absolutely did, though. It made me introspective. Want to get a beer sometime?"

"Absolutely, but clearly only after the both of us are out of the infirmary."

"Obviously."

"You're getting out tomorrow, yes? I mean, Shuzenji-baasan won't like it, but with her healing you'll be well enough by then and you aren't going to miss your class, are you?"

"No, I won't."

"What will you do, then?" Aizawa picked his phone back up and reopened his photo roll. Then he changed the picture because the picture of Ochako with chocolate icing on her forehead was horrible for any serious insight.

He stared at the family photo from over a decade ago. Ochako looked so young, so happy. And yesterday, she could've died. Aizawa could've, almost did die, before she even got to know him. "Learn more magic, for one thing," he decided. "I'm going to talk to Midoriya."

xoxoxo

I sneezed. Odd, it wasn't that cold and I didn't have allergies. If I was more superstitious, I'd have suspected someone was talking about me.

"How the hell did you still manage to beat me at DDR that last time?" Kacchan asked Uraraka. "You were sneezing up a f*cking storm!"

Uraraka sniffled. "I habe no idea."

"Right, I should probably take Ochako-chan home," Tsu said. "It's probably going to be dinnertime by the time we get home anyway. Bye, you two."

"Oh, actually!" I said. "Before you two go, could I ask a favor?"

"What's up, Deku?" Uraraka asked as she rubbed her nose.

I pulled a scroll out of my "pocket." "This scroll contains knowledge on the Illusion Barrier and Space Invader spells. When Kacchan and I defeated each of our bosses for the first time, we got scrolls that I could use to learn a skill related to the boss. We have no idea if it's a side effect of my Quirk or not, though."

"So you want to see if that happens if we go in without you, kero?" Tsu asked.

"'Course, we didn't give it to any of our classmates because my Illusion monsters were made of fire, meaning it's entirely possible for the monsters to counter the user's element. That's not really a concern with Round Face, though. I didn't see it in person, but I heard you were f*cking awesome in the USJ. Protect Tsu, won't you?"

Uraraka beamed at the compliment and saluted Kacchan. "Roger!"

"And Tsu should probably be able to do something about whatever the f*ck gravity monsters Uraraka's insane magic spawns."

"I'll take that as a compliment, kero."

"Yeah most of the time Kacchan compliments people like that..." I said. "You two will do fine, though maybe Tsu should get a water elemental?"

"Yeah, I got one, kero. I was gonna show everyone tomorrow. Though if I may ask, how did you have that scroll on you?"

I chuckled. "That's actually from an elemental that I recently summoned," I said.

"One of six," Kacchan interjected. "All at the same time."

"That probably wasn't the wisest idea," Tsu said.

"I KNOW!"

"Right, so as I said," I said, then sent a mental command to Sonia. She nodded, then "materialized" a pair of floating turntable-like devices. "Huh. At least now I know who was reading Homestuck on my phone," I thought. She started fiddling with the records and gave me a very Strider-like nod. She somehow managed to mess with my BGM in addition to setting up a very subtle noise distortion field like I asked. "One of my elementals, Juniper, can control any organic material, with enough control that she can turn part of a tree into a pre-written scroll. Add that to the fact that my most recent upgrade to Summon Elemental actually granted my elementals some of the benefits of my Quirk, which includes shared Inventory when in range of me, and I was able to get that scroll for you guys from a nearby tree."

"You really play it fast and loose with Quirk usage laws, don't you, Midoriya?" Tsu said. Kacchan snickered.

"Yeah, that's fair." I had Sonia cut the field, causing me to hear a scratch that was hopefully just my Quirk before the normal BGM resumed. "Right, good luck you two."

"Try not to die," Kacchan added.

"We won't," Tsu said.

Uraraka waved at us as she started to walk away. "Bye!"

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

"So did you do it?" I asked Tsu and Uraraka when I saw them by the front gate.

"No, not yet," Tsu said. "We're still practicing with the spells, kero."

"Oh, and I think I found a new element!" Uraraka added. "I remembered how you said you had more fire and water affinity because of your parents' Quirks, and I asked my dad about the specifics of his Quirk. Turns out his fingerpads actually latch onto things using some kind of magnetic thing, which means I can use some kind of weird magnet element!"

"So what, like electricity?" Kacchan asked.

"Not exactly," Uraraka said, then pulled out a small metal ball. "Watch." The ball started floating.

"No offense, but that isn't exactly a new trick for you," I said.

She grinned. "Yeah, but what about this?" The ball glowed lightly around the middle, then split cleanly in half. "I did say it was a weird magnet element, remember?"

"Did you just break the bonds between its atoms down?" I asked. "Uraraka, please be careful with that."

"I know what happens when you split an atom, Deku. Oh, and also I got another elemental, so that's a thing."

"Cool," Kacchan said. "How 'bout we get to the classroom so you can summon them."

xoxoxo

"So you have how many elementals now?" Jirou asked me.

I summoned them, pulling out materials when needed. "Ten."

"Sup," Iggy said.

"Right. Hey, can I have the elemental spell? I was gonna ask you at the USJ, but..."

I nodded. "Oh, yeah, totally. Hang on." I pulled a leaf out of my inventory, giving it to Juniper. "Watch this." The leaf expanded and changed into a piece of wood, which paper then sprouted from. There was just something really cool about handing people scrolls with spells written on them. When Juniper was done, I handed Jirou the scroll.

"Little overkill, but thanks. I take it she's your plant elemental?"

"Bio, but yes," Juniper said.

"Can we show you our elementals now?" Tsu asked. I nodded. Tsu summoned a ball of water and Uraraka created some form of almost-visible ripple in the air that I could feel with f*ckery Detection. It definitely wasn't gravity, though. The water and ripple both expanded and turned blue, becoming humanoid. Tsu's water formed into a small boy with dark blue hair and clothes, though with a lighter blue ruffle on his collar.

"Hi, everyone!" he said with a bright smile. "I'm Bubbles!"

"Bubbles?" Kirishima asked.

"Yeah!" Bubbles created a white bubble wand with a pink loop for the bubbles. He waved it, forming some oddly thick bubbles that looked like they were made purely out of water. "Bubbles!" The water bubbles floated like normal bubbles, though.

Meanwhile, Uraraka's ripple formed into an androgynous child that also had blue hair and clothes, though theirs looked... metallic, I guess? Their eyes had black sclera and red irises. "Greetings," they said. "My name is Ion."

"Didn't you already have an elemental, Uraraka?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"Yeah. Nebby's a gravity elemental, but Ion here's..." She paused, then looked at Ion. "Actually, what element are you, exactly? I know you're some kinda magnetic element, but..."

"My element has had many names in the past because of its seemingly erratic nature," Ion said, closing their eyes. "Alchemy, matter, reality, chaos, cataclysm, destruction, attraction. These names are a result of people at the time not knowing what exactly it affects and not thinking to ask. However, it does have a true, proper name: particle. Think of it like a culmination of the three fundamental forces of nature that are not gravity, as it allows for the manipulation of the electromagnetic and nuclear forces." They opened their eyes. "Is that a sufficient explanation?"

Uraraka looked a little worried. "Those... Were words. That you said. So like, Full Metal Alchemist plus magnet powers?"

Ion blinked. "I do not know what this Full Metal Alchemist is, but I assume so. In fact, a rather simple application of it is the spell Compass, which allows one to feel magnetic fields, including Earth's."

"Actually," Yaoyorozu said, "I think I might also be able to use this... particle element."

Ion nodded. "My senses indicate you to be right. Perhaps you might be willing to demonstrate?"

"Of course." Yaoyorozu made a small cube of what my Observe told me was wood with her Quirk, then used magic on it, reshaping it into a sphere.

"You are correct. That was an application of particle magic, Quirk and spell both."

Yaoyorozu nodded and pocketed the ball. "Thank you. Jirou, could I please borrow that scroll Midoriya gave you when you're done with it?"

"Sure," Jirou said.

"I can make another if you need," I said.

"No, that's fine."

"Classmates!" Iida shouted as he burst through the door. "Class will start soon! Take your seats!"

I looked around. Aside from the elementals, who didn't have seats, the only person who wasn't sitting was Iida. "Umm... I guess we should probably unsummon the elementals too?" I said.

He sighed. "Yes, Midoriya, I see my mistake." He walked to his desk as our elementals said goodbye.

"Hey, so who's going to be teaching today?" Ashido asked as she leaned back in her chair. "Aizawa-sensei's probably still out, so..."

The door opened. I facepalmed when I saw Aizawa walking through the door. "Alright, class. I'm glad to see you're in your seats already." He had bandages wrapped around his eye and one of his arms was in a sling. I noticed that, with the level ups I'd gained from USJ, I could see his title and level now.

Eraser Head

LV 79

Aizawa Shōta

"Aizawa-sensei, are you sure you're good to be teaching," I asked.

He stared at me, raised his hand, and did he just cast Regeneration? "I'm fine, Midoriya. And Recovery Girl insisted on teaching me healing spells just in case. Now, the first item on the agenda. The school's counselor, Hound Dog, would like me to remind you all that there is no shame in visiting his office after a traumatic event, and that it doesn't make you any less of a hero. In fact, I'm going to see a therapist soon, though that's more because of my tendency to isolate myself leading to the degradation of my relationship with my family than anything else... Next, I'm sure you've noticed by now that one of your classmates isn't here."

A wave of confusion rolled over the class. We were? I couldn't think of anyone who was gone, and it seemed that neither could the rest of the class. "Wh-For the love of..." Aizawa sighed. "Mineta. It's Mineta. After the USJ incident, he decided to transfer to the general education course." I winced. That might've partially been my fault... "On to better news, then... The last thing I have to say for today is that we will be having the Yuuei sports festival in a few weeks."

"Yeah, the sports festival!" Kaminari shouted.

"Is it really a good idea to still have the festival after what happened?" Jirou asked.

"C'mon, Jirou, don't ruin this..."

Aizawa nodded. "It's a fair concern, but Nedzu seems to think that this'll show the public that we've dealt with the problem. And we're going to up our security, so we are dealing with the problem. I feel I should remind you all, this is probably your best opportunity to get scouted, so put your best foot forward. And finally, Bakugou."

Kacchan perked up at the sound of his name. "Yeah, teach?"

"Because you had the best score in the entrance exam, you're giving the speech at the beginning. If you need any tips, ask the principal or All Might. Class dismissed."

A buzz of excitement filled the room. The sports festival! Yuuei's sports festival was seen around the nation, and even in other countries. "Everyone's fired up, huh?" I said.

"Of course we are!" Kacchan shouted. "It's the f*cking sports festival!"

"Of course!" Iida agreed. He was excitedly fidgeting in a way that made it look like he was dancing. Or he was doing some kind of happy dance. "Our goal is to become heroes! This is our chance to prove ourselves to the hero agencies of Japan!"

"I'm fired up!" Uraraka shouted. She had the most intense face I'd ever seen on her. A visible glow of pink surrounded her, and I could feel the gravity fluctuations from a few meters away. "I'm gonna win this thing!" She punched the air above her, and a wave of altered gravity rattled ceiling.

"Not if I beat you!" Kacchan shouted.

"You're pretty excited, huh, Ochako-chan?" Tsu commented.

"Yeah, that excitement's pretty manly!" Kirishima cheered.

"Uraraka, I understand your excitement, but please curb your magic before you destroy something!" Iida shouted.

It was then that she noticed the gravity she was putting out. "Oh. Sorry."

xoxoxo

"So..." I said later, when we were in the hallway. "Why are you so determined to win, Uraraka?"

She stopped. "Um... Well..." She hesitated.

"Are you okay, Ochako-chan?" Tsu asked.

She nervously touched the tips of her fingers together. "Well... it sounds kinda bad..."

"I'm sure it's not that stupid," Kacchan said. "f*ck, the grape said he was only in it for the ladies. Can't be much worse than that."

She blushed. "Well, see, the thing is that I'm kinda... in it for the money..."

"Yeah, I can see that," Tsu said.

Her blush deepened. "D-don't get me wrong! I also wanna help people, but..."

"Your family," I guessed. "You said that money's tight, so you want to help them out, don't you?"

"Yeah," she said. "Cousin Shōta sends us some money, but we only accept so much because he'd probably not leave anything for himself if we didn't. I want to be able to support my parents and make sure Shōta doesn't have to worry about us at all, so I need to sign with a good agency."

Iida started clapping. "How inspiring! A truly selfless goal! I am sure you will do magnificently!"

She smiled. "Thanks, Iida."

"If you wanna learn some hand-to-hand, I'll help," Kacchan offered.

"So will I, kero," Tsu added.

"Yeah, I'm sure I can help you with your magic," I said.

She smiled. "Thank you all."

xoxoxo

I opened the door to the teachers' lounge. I thought back to earlier, when I was about to leave the classroom.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Midoriya," Aizawa-sensei said. "I'd like to speak to you, when you have the time."

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"No, everything's fine. I'd just... like to get your opinion on something."

So I excused myself during the lunch break to see what he wanted. I saw that he was on the phone, so I decided to politely wait for him to finish. "It wouldn't have been a bother at all, Obasan," he growled to whoever was on the other side of the phone, presumably his aunt.

Sonia offered to give me the other half of the conversation, but I declined.

"In fact, I would've loved to have her over." He made a frustrated noise, then took a deep breath. "Yes, I haven't visited in a while. I apologize for that. But I would have preferred she been with me than having noone in an unfamiliar environment." He scoffed at something his aunt said. "Okay, she's with a friend now, but what about before then?" He sighed. "Well, just so you know in the future, it wouldn't have been a bother at all. You're family. Goodbye." He hesitated for a bit. "Love you too," he sheepishly added, then hanged up. He sighed. "Why is my entire family so damn selfless..."

"Um..." Aizawa turned to face me. "I think maybe you are too," I said. "You should probably be in the infirmary still."

He pointedly cast Regeneration again. "I'm fine. Now, I'm sure you want to know why I wanted to talk to you?"

"Was it related to magic?" I asked.

"Yes. I've managed to figure out some simple strengthening magic, and now I suppose I know some healing spells." He frowned. "Saying this out loud feels like I'm playing some kind of RPG, but I guess that's life now."

I laughed. "Tell me about it, my Quirk is literally video game logic." I thought for a bit. "Aside from elemental magic, I do have a few spells I could give you." I took out another leaf and turned it into a scroll.

"Showoff," he said as he placed it on his desk.

I shrugged. "Juniper, my new bio elemental, can make scrolls really fast."

"I guess that makes sense."

"This scroll has some non-elemental spells you might find useful. Next, do you mind if I use Observe on you?"

"Didn't you say you couldn't use that on me?"

"I can now because I leveled up enough."

He nodded. "Well then do it."

"Observe," I said. Oddly enough, he had ten fire affinity. "Did your father have a fire Quirk?" I asked.

"That's literally the only thing I knew about the bastard, why?"

I blinked. I was not expecting that. It was also kind of a coincidence, considering my father... "Well, you... have some fire affinity..."

"I see."

I made another scroll. "These are some fire spells. Speaking of your parents, what's your mother's Quirk? That might open up another elemental affinity for you."

"My mother's Quirk was Graviteyes. It let her erase gravity from an object by looking at it. I don't know where the Quirk-erasing part of my Quirk comes from, but I at least know that my mother's Quirk was the reason my hair floats when I use mine." His mom's Quirk reminded me of Uraraka's, actually...

"Are you related to Uraraka?" I asked.

He blinked. "How did you know?"

"Yesterday she said something about a cousin Shōta who lives around here. You just said your mother had a gravity-nullifying Quirk, like hers, and I just heard you talking to your aunt about a situation that sounded a lot like Uraraka's." And then I pointed at what looked like a family portrait. "And in hindsight, that little girl in the picture looks a lot like a young Uraraka."

"Yeah." He sighed. "She doesn't recognize me, though... I'm kind of a bad cousin."

"Well, I can't tell you much about gravity magic that you probably wouldn't be able to guess on your own because I don't have it yet, but Uraraka could." I smiled." And at the same time, I'm sure she'd love combat lessons from her cousin, especially with the upcoming sports festival. She wants to do good so she can help support her family."

He grinned. Then he started laughing. "You're good, problem child. I'll talk to her."

I nodded. "Then for the moment, let's start you off on fire. Make a ball of mana, then concentrate on merging it with fire."

He made the ball of mana and closed his eyes. After a few moments of concentration, the mana ball became a fireball. "There. What next?"

His level jumped up by one just from using fire magic for the first time. I'd noticed first with my classmates; it seemed like levels worked differently for people who weren't me. "That's a basic fire spell right there. Just play around with that and other spells and you should be good." I made another scroll and put it on the growing pile of scrolls on his desk. "Aside from that, you might want to consider contracting elementals. They have trouble translating their magic to something we can learn sometimes, but they do help a lot."

He stared at his fire. "Thank you, Midoriya. Your help has been invaluable." His level wavered for a moment. "This fire... No, this magic, I feel like I should be able to..." The fire changed colors to indigo and black as it roared to new heights for a moment before he got a hold of it again. Aizawa's level started scrolling up and up until it reached eighty-six, where it turned back into question marks. The heat from the fire felt... deeper than normal fire.

"That's... not normal fire," I said.

"Obviously."

"No, but even in terms of magical fire, your level increased enough that I can't see it anymore. Sure, you were apparently only seven levels from it before, but... to level up seven times at least from simply gaining the ability to use some kind of magic and not mastering it..."

He closed his hand, snuffing out that arcane fire. "So are you saying I got stronger by simply using this blue fire?"

I shook my head. "Not exactly. You might have, but it's more likely that it's just symbolic of how bad of an idea it would be to fight you. Levels seem to work that way for other people. But still, to gain so many levels at your level... The one thing I know for sure is that if you learn how to properly use whatever magic you just did, you probably won't have to worry about becoming more powerful anymore."

He stared at his hand. "Is that so? Thank you, Midoriya."

"Now could you please talk to Recovery Girl when you're done with work for the day."

He snorted. "Fine, problem child."

xoxoxo

Class was over for the day, so Uraraka opened the door to leave. She stopped, though, because there was a crowd of students in front of the doorway. "Why are you all here?" she asked.

"Do you need us for something?" I asked.

"They're scouting the competition," Kacchan said as he walked up to them. "Checking out the class that fought a bunch of villains and won, right?"

"So this is class 1-A," a voice from the back said. A very tired-looking boy with purple hair wilder than mine stepped forward.

Drowse

LV 11

Shinsou Hitoshi

He sneered. "You know, I wanted to be in the hero course, but my Quirk wasn't suited to the entrance exams. Did you know that if someone from gen ed does well enough in the sports festival, they can get transferred to the hero course? In other words, I've come here as a declaration of war. I'll be gunning for one of your spots in the sports festival."

"Oh hey," I said. "We actually had someone drop out after... well... you know, so you might get in if you try hard enough!"

He sighed. "Damn it, I was trying to be all cool..." He shrugged. "Well, I guess that's ruined. Just know that I'm hoping to become one of your class..."

"Good luck!" Uraraka said.

"Yeah, yeah..." He waved as he walked away.

"So! You guys're class 1-A, huh!?" someone else shouted.

Kicking Your Can All Over the Place

LV 26

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu

He had silver hair and... I think that was fur around his eyes? "You guys were the ones who were in that villain attack, weren't you!?"

Kacchan glared at him. "What of it?"

"I'm from class 1-B, and I'm here to check out the competition!"

"You are class 1-A!" a third person shouted, a blonde this time.

Copycat

LV 22

Monoma Neito

He sneered at us. "How arrogant. First you hoard all the magic to yourself, then you hoard all the media attention to yourself."

"Okay what the f*ck was that last bit?" Kacchan asked.

He gave an arrogant pose. I'm pretty sure he copied that from a JoJo villain. "Of course, you jerks of class 1-A just so happened to gain the attention of the media within the first month of class. How arrogant."

An audible snap could be heard, followed by an oppressive, sweltering heat filling the room. An aura of fire surrounded Kacchan. "What. The f*ck. Are you talking about?" He ground his teeth together. He looked like he was about to explode in more ways than one.

"You know what, f*ck you all. I'd have told you all how to do some magic. It's only f*cking fair. But if this is how you f*cking react to a f*cking class getting attacked by f*cking villains, then f*ck you. People almost f*cking died, I don't think f*cking anyone in the class would've actually asked for a f*cking villain attack, and here you jackasses are throwing yourselves a f*cking pity party over how you didn't get your five seconds of fame! f*ck off!" He vanished. With a low application of Space Invader, I was able to tell that the Illusion Barrier he made was filled with fire and he'd already left. Most of the crowd softened a bit after having been told off.

"Okay, you might have gone a bit too far there, Monoma..." Tetsutetsu said. Monoma harrumphed.

"If you guys wanted to learn magic, you could've asked," I said.

"Aren't you worried about your friend?" Monoma sneered.

"His temper can be a little explosive at times, as you just saw. It's best to give him a few minutes of alone time to cool down first. Now, just a quick show of hands, who wants to learn some basic magic." I counted the hands raised, then made a sheet of paper for each. "These are some basic nonelemental tricks and how to use affinity if you think you might have it. It might be a bad idea to disseminate some of the more advanced tricks to people without knowing how well they can be trusted with them, but at the very least this is more than enough to, if you're good enough, figure out something good." I placed the papers on a nearby desk. "Now I should probably go talk to him." I entered Kacchan's still-active Illusion Barrier.

xoxoxo

"Hey, Kacchan," I said quietly, and sat down next to him. I could guess from the ruined and smoldering building we were sitting in, but... "How are you feeling?"

He sighed. "I f*cking exploded again. It keeps on happening." He played around with a tiny, candle-sized flame, changing its shape and color. It didn't do anything like Aizawa-sensei's fire, though. I guess it was special or something. I'd have to ask him about it later.

I shrugged. "Well you did get angry because someone called the class arrogant for getting attacked by villains, which is probably among the better reasons to get angry. And you did manage to blow up in here, where you can blow off steam without damaging anything in the real world. Probably a lot better than getting into a fight or something..."

He chuckled. "What the f*ck did I do to deserve a friend like you?"

"Absolutely nothing."

This made him laugh even more. After a while, he said, "I'm probably going to take up Hound Dog's offer."

"Cool," I said. "I'm going to try to find that one Shinsou guy who walked off and see if he wants to learn magic. He might be fun to have in class."

xoxoxo

Uraraka walked into the teachers' lounge with Tsu. "Heeeey, little listeners!" Mic-sensei said when he noticed them. "What brings you here?"

"Aizawa-sensei asked to talk to me when class finished?" Uraraka said.

"Oh, is Shōta finally talking to her?" Midnight-sensei butted in.

"Wait, what?" Uraraka said.

"I knew it," Tsu said, looking at something. Uraraka followed her gaze to Aizawa-sensei's desk, where she saw a family portrait. The same family portrait that was hanging on her family's wall, one of the few photos they had with both her and her cousin... Shōta...

"Oh..." Uraraka said. Then it hit her. "WHAT!?" she shouted, then felt her face heat up a bit. She slapped her hands to her face. "How did I never notice that!? I even knew his Quirk!"

Tsu patted her on the back. "It's okay, Ochako-chan. Nobody wants to believe that their cousin is a scruffy, grumpy hobo..."

The door to the teachers' lounge closed, and Uraraka turned to see Aiza- cousin Shōta. "If I knew I was going to come back to my cousin's girlfriend calling me a scruffy, grumpy hobo, I'd have listened to more of Shuzenji-san's rant..."

Uraraka felt her face heating up, and Tsu quickly removed her arm from her back. "Ribbit," she whimpered, her face bright red.

"Ah, i-it's not like that," Uraraka said a little too quickly. "I-I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to... but she and I aren't..." She stopped when she heard Mic-sensei and Midnight-sensei laughing.

"That was a joke," Shōta grinned. Then his face fell. "Sorry for not visiting ever... I don't really have an excuse."

Uraraka shook her head. "No, it's okay. So uh, what did you need me for, or was that what you wanted to talk about?"

"No, I was actually going to talk about magic, though I was hoping to bring that up if I saw the opportunity. Did Midoriya tell you elemental affinity can be inherited?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I got something called particle affinity from Dad. I'm guessing you want tips on gravity?"

"Yeah. I'll help you with fighting, too. I have it on good authority that you want to make a splash in the sports festival."

Uraraka smiled. "Sounds great."

"If you don't mind, I'd also like some tips," Tsu said.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

In the weeks leading up to the sports festival, we saw a surprising amount of magical advancements in the world. Supernatural healing, which was once considered rare and often involved some sort of caveat that meant it couldn't be used freely, turned into a matter of training, skill, and mana, even if it was weaker. I actually did some volunteer work helping some local hospitals out with the spells, as well as the regular medical help I needed to do for Shuzenji-sensei's healing course.

While only lightning mana could be directly converted into electricity, special generators were built to use other kinds of mana as fuel, meaning more people could work at power plants and more clean energy. There was probably also research being done to use mana as it was. More water-users meant improved water services. Construction businesses flourished with earth mages. Apparently Uraraka's parents in particular gained some profit because she was able to use her elementals to get her parents a few interesting spells in their elements. She and Aizawa were really happy about that, actually.

Conservation only benefited from a new wave of bio-elementalists and other kinds of magic-users. In fact, I heard there was a group that was in the process of getting permits to use magic to deal with the trash in the sea and on the beaches better. Not to mention, even unaspected magic was incredibly useful in agriculture, so farms were able to produce more crops. I even heard about some experiments in infusing plants with magic, which sounded interesting.

While there was, unfortunately, a bit of a rise in villain attacks with the advent of magic, pro heroes were better able to combat it with the fact that hero agencies had more or less turned into modern-day mage guilds. I'm sure there was someone out there biding their time until they learned how to cast Ultima or Raise Greater Undead, but at the same time pro heroes were organized, well-funded, and now produced their own spells, so they could handle it. I even saw on the news that the Wild, Wild puss*cats now had a series of cat-themed spells.

There were still some limitations on dissemination of magical knowledge to the general public, but a few weak spells were made available to everyone. With the buzz about magic, I heard there were talks about reducing Quirk- and magic-usage laws, which was exciting. I mean, I may or may not have been using my magic in public a bit already, but it'd be nice to be a bit less sneaky about it...

xoxoxo

"Poor thing," I said as I looked at the small, gold-furred cat that Juniper alerted me was in a nearby alley. She was missing part of her right foreleg, and the stump was bleeding. She had a few more scrapes, and her fur was dirty. She gave me a weak meow. I'd always liked cats, so I felt a pang in my heart to see one so hurt. "What happened to you?

Stray Cat

LV 6

Kitten

I reached my hand out to her, but she shied away. I concentrated, trying to use Magycked Words to put my intention into what I was about to say. "I want to help," I murmured in a soothing tone, then closed a popup for a new skill, Animal Whisperer. She looked a little bit calmer now. "Good, now just hold... still..." I slowly reached my hand out to her, whispering affirmations to her. She let me touch her, and I activated Healing Hands. "That's a good girl. I'm healing you now."

Unfortunately Healing Hands couldn't do much for her missing limb, but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore. After her wounds were dealt with, I gave her a quick rinse to clean her off, making sure to dry her off completely before she could get cold. Oddly enough, though, her temperature didn't drop at all from the water. She purred at me, now doing much better. She didn't have a collar, but... "Does she have a chip on her, Raimon?" I asked.

"I don't... think so?" he said. "I can't find anything like that on her."

I grinned. "Then I guess you're coming with me, girl." I picked her up. "A cat with golden fur... I think I have the purrfect name for you." She purred, and her fur... glowed. She got really warm. "Okay nevermind Yang it is," I said.

Stray Cat

LV 6

Yang

A cat with a Quirk... I'd heard of people having pets with Quirks before but I wasn't entirely sure what the rules were. I assumed I'd have to register her, though.

"Don't you still have school today?" Claude asked.

I bolted up. "Crap! School!" I looked at the time. Kacchan was probably looking for me. I looked around for a place to put Yang, then had an idea.

xoxoxo

"The hell were you taking so long?" Kacchan asked me when I ran up to him.

"I, uhhh... had a magic thing?" I said, then rubbed the back of my head.

Wait crud that's was the wrong hand! I quickly lowered my arm, but not before a meow escaped from my sleeve...

"Why the f*ck did I just hear a cat?" Kacchan asked.

"Oh I don't know, maybe there's a cat nearby?" Kacchan looked around, then focused on my sleeve. I acted totally natural, nothing up my sleeves at all! For a second I felt like he would buy it.

He didn't buy it.

"Oi Deku, what's up your sleeve?" He grabbed my hand a bit more forcefully than I'd have liked, causing it to fall out of my sleeve. "...What the actual f*ck," he said after a few moments of holding my disembodied right hand.

"Stupid Rayman limbs..." I muttered.

"Meow," Yang said as she poked her head out of my sleeve. To be honest I wasn't entirely sure how my sleeve was staying in proper shape considering most of my forearm was made out of air, but it was. Somehow.

"Did... Is your arm a cat now?" He looked between my still very much real hand and the cat's head coming from my sleeve. "You know what, I'm going to hold your hand hostage until you f*cking explain."

"Not my hand!" I shouted. "I need that to not get arrested." I started trying to fly my hand out of Kacchan's grasp. Because my hand was attached to a body part I'd turned to air, it could fly. Somehow. It wasn't strong enough to escape Kacchan, though. Actually, I wondered how much of my body I had to turn into air before the rest would fly. I'd have to test that later...

"Stop muttering and answer the damn question."

"I wasn't just going to leave Yang there! She lost a leg."

Kacchan facepalmed, letting go of my hand. It floated back to Yang, and I scratched her chin with it before nudging her back so I could put my hand back in place. She was taking Air Embodiment surprisingly well. I was actually a little worried she'd activate her Quirk... "You named her already. In hindsight, though, I'm more surprised you haven't done something like this already. Actually, is it okay that the cat's breathing your arm?" He stopped walking and just rubbed his temples. "Hang... hang on, I just need a f*cking moment to process how f*cking absurd that last sentence was."

"I've confirmed that it's perfectly safe for both me and whatever's breathing me. Same for other elements. And I'm sure someone's said something like that before."

He started walking again. "Right. Your life is f*cking weird. Not gonna give myself a headache. So how long can you do that?"

"Partial Embodiment is a lot less taxing than Full Embodiment, so it's just slightly more than what Mantra gives me back. In fact, if I get another point of INT, then it might just break even. If I use Meditate every so often, I'll be able to keep this up until we get home. Assuming we don't have practicals in Hero Studies today."

He shrugged. "f*ck it, good for you. Now we should probably hurry as fast as we can without you jostling the cat. We're already a little late."

xoxoxo

I was walking in the hallway on my own when I heard a meow. I froze and so did Aizawa-sensei, who was walking past me. I silently pleaded with Sonia to help. She gave me a grin. A grin I could almost describe as like the Cheshire Cat's...

"Meow," she said. Audibly. Even with Gamer's Mind, I could feel my heart pounding. I tried not to let it show on my face. I tensed up, though, when Yang meowed again. Though I noticed that Aizawa also grimaced. Yang pushed my hand out of the way, but at the same time a black cat with golden eyes poked her head out of Aizawa-sensei's capture weapon.

Alley Cat

LV 4

Blake

I nodded at him.

He nodded at me.

Yang and Blake meowed at each other.

I offered Aizawa-sensei my right arm in an invitation to pet Yang. He gratefully did so, then pointed to Blake. I used my floating right hand to pet her.

We nodded to each other, then gently nudged our cats back into their hiding spots and walked away. I had to Meditate in the bathroom for a bit because the stress of the moment deactivated Mantra, though.

We never talked about our encounter, though we did trade a few cat puns later in the day. I'm not an expert, but I think that makes us brothers.

xoxoxo

"Hey mom?" I said as I opened the door. "I have something I'd like to ask you about..."

"What is it, sweetie?"

I brought Yang out from behind my back. "Her name is Yang."

Mom sighed. "Honey, you know a cat is a big responsibility..."

"I promise I'll take good care of her!" I promised.

She frowned, then nodded after a moment of thought. "Alright, you can keep her."

"Thank you!" I shouted. "Oh, uh... By the way, she has a Quirk..."

"Izuku..."

xoxoxo

As it turned out, the Japanese government is very approving of Quirky animals being pets with responsible owners, though there was some red tape surrounding it. It made sense that they wouldn't want animals who had no concept of Quirk usage laws just roaming the streets... First I had to get her registered and fitted with a special chip that could withstand a lot more heat than normal chips thanks to her fire-based Quirk. Then we had to go to specialized classes for us to be able to deal with her if she activated her Quirk. I also got a good prosthetic for her with some of the money I got for various prizes related to discovering magic.

Thanks to Animal Whisperer I gained an increased understanding of all animals. After a few talks with Yang, I could pretty much speak cat, which was neat. I was hoping to get a familiar skill, though. Even if I never used Yang like a proper familiar, a familiar skill might give me access to her Quirk, I Burn, which would be nice.

For my preparation for the sports festival, I decided to focus mainly on DEX and INT. Because I was more or less indestructible due to Damage Reduction and Elemental Embodiment, I didn't need to worry about VIT at all. Because of that, I decided to focus on my original idea I'd had before Roaring Muscles to train my DEX, though with INT training as well to power up my magic. It was close, but a few days before the sports festival I got both above one hundred.

DEX gave me three skills, Light Step, Flash Step, and Weird Flex. Light Step was the next version of Fleet Foot and Flash Step was, well, a Flash Step. I could use MP to cross a few meters in the blink of an eye. Weird Flex... had a fitting name. It seemed to just make me disturbingly flexible. The flavor text implied that it was what made contortionists contortionists, and I couldn't really disagree with that. It seemed like it'd be useful, though, because it was a passive that didn't use MP.

Raising INT gave me Mana Talent, Eye for Magic, and Open Mind. Mana Talent, like Light Step, was a better Mana Affinity. Eye for Magic, which I got because I had an eye-enhancing spell, was a spell that allowed me to "see" magic, which was absurdly useful. I could probably copy spells just by looking at them, for one. It gave me really bad eye strain, though. Open Mind was also a potentially useful spell. The flavor text said it was mind magic, which was useful in and of itself because it gave me a base for mind magic, and it allowed me to hear other people's thoughts. When I used it, I was able to hear the internal monologues of everyone in the spell's radius, and could hone in on one person in particular. I wouldn't use it much because it was clearly an invasion of privacy, but I was sure I could put it to good use.

With my stats where I wanted them, I spent the rest of the time before the sports festival practicing various spells and skills. The day of the sports festival, I knew I was ready.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

"I promise I'll be careful," I told my mom before heading out.

"And I'll record the whole thing for you!"

"Thanks!" Before I left, Yang meowed and butted her head on my leg. I chuckled and rubbed her head, causing her to purr. "See you later, girl."

xoxoxo

Security was upped for the sports festival. I was mostly fine getting through because I had a student ID, but there were still some precautions. I saw some pro heroes on my way to the stadium, too. Everyone was tense as we changed into our gym uniforms. It was to be expected. Not only was the event televised, but our careers as heroes may have depended on how well we did. No pressure.

"We will be entering the stadium soon everyone!" Iida shouted when we were all in the waiting room. "Please prepare yourselves physically and mentally!"

"Midoriya," a voice that I only partially recognized said.

"What's up, Todoroki?" I asked him.

He glared at me. "You may have your magic and you may have some kind of support from All Might, but I plan to beat you." He turned around and started to walk away.

"The f*ck's your problem, Half-'n-half?" Kacchan asked.

"Yeah, what's with the declaration of war?" Kirishima asked.

"Todoroki," I said. He stopped for a moment. "I'm aiming for the top too," I told him. He scoffed and walked away.

xoxoxo

To be honest I probably would have been very nervous if it weren't for Gamer's Mind. There were just so many people in the stands... I guess maybe between the USJ incident and the fact that it was known generally that the discoverer of magic was in 1-A, the first-year festival was the place to be. I made sure to look confident when we were walking in. I even used Hawkeye because I was technically allowed to for what I hoped was added impressiveness. Present Mic introduced each of the classes as they entered the field to thunderous applause.

Midnight-sensei, who was acting as referee, brandished her... whip thing. "Now for the pledge, we have Bakugou Katsuki from 1-A!"

Kacchan walked up to the podium and took the mic. "Gonna keep this brief, 'cause I'm pretty sure none of you are here to listen to me talk. I'm going to be aiming for the top." He looked sternly at all of the classes assembled. "If any of you aren't gonna do the same, you'd freaking better have a good reason." Oh thank goodness he didn't rile up the other classes too much. The people in the stands cheered at his speech, short as it was. I even saw some people from the other classes grinning.

Ding!

A quest has been created!

Sports Festival

The Yuuei sports festival is the biggest event of the year! You'd better do your best!

Completion: ?, Further rewards dependent on how well you do

I figured I'd get a quest at some point... It was interesting that there weren't any losing conditions, though. I guess it'd be a win even if I lost in the first round, though I'd lose out on anything that wasn't the question mark if I did that. Speaking of the first round...

"Give it up for Bakugou, ladies and gents!" Midnight said. "Now, let's get on with the first event!" She raised her whip, and a giant holoscreen appeared in the air above her. It cycled through a few different things before settling on the obstacle race.

"I guess it's going to be an obstacle course," I muttered, grinning. I could probably do pretty well in an obstacle course with my powerset.

xoxoxo

I did a few stretches while we waited at the start of the course. Everyone was in front of a large hallway that looked like it was supposed to bottleneck us if we all rushed through it, which we probably would considering the fact that it was a race.

"Oh my gosh, Deku! What's wrong with your spine!?" Uraraka shouted at me.

"Huh?" I looked down. Oh. My body was twisted almost all the way around. Yeah that probably looked bad.

"Spines are not supposed to do that," Tsu added, a little greener than usual.

"Sorry," I said, untwisting myself. "Forgot how flexible I got from getting the next DEX benchmark..."

"We're starting soon!" Iida shouted.

"Sorry."

The countdown started. "Begin!" Midnight shouted when it reached zero. A low hum came from me as I activated Sonic Aura. Lightning Aura would've been faster, but at the same time it might've hurt someone in the close quarters. It wasn't for long, though. I ran and jumped with all of my strength, landing on a platform made by Halitus in midair. Without wasting a moment, I switched to Lightning and shot forward.

At my top speed, I was easily able to outpace the slowed crowd, dropping back down when I was ahead of everyone. I did notice Kacchan and Uraraka flying behind me, though. Because I was so ahead of everyone else, I was the first to notice hordes of robots waiting on the other side of the bottleneck, with three giant ones in the middle. It looked like they were recycling the robots from the entrance exam. I jumped between a series of air platforms, the final one lining me up perpendicular to the center of one of the zero-pointers. I jumped at it with everything I had, using Fire Dash to propel myself even more. Just before I hit the robot, I switched to Magma Aura for more power and durability and created a lightning-enhanced spiked gauntlet to punch it with for extra piercing damage. I distantly heard Mic-sensei commenting about me.

The zero-pointer fell and I rode it down in the crater I'd punched in it. When it was done falling, I reached out for a bit of the robot's metal hull that was less heated than where I'd hit it and was by the robot's head a moment later. I'd promised myself to not overuse Elemental Embodiment because of how broken Sonic Embodiment in particular could be in a race with how it might as well be a short-range teleport with how it worked, but I was fine with a momentary use of Lightning Embodiment. I used the momentum I somehow still had after downgrading to Lightning Aura to race past the robots. For the most part I didn't bother fighting them. I was just fast enough that they couldn't really catch me, and I guess they were programmed to not chase any students who got through them. I did disable a few for EXP, though, and one robot...

I got an idea as I was approaching a two-pointer. It looked like it would just barely fit. I pointed at it, and Raimon appeared on top of it. He placed his hands on it, causing it to retract its limbs and make itself as small as possible. I opened my inventory, made it go as wide as I could make it, and rammed into the two-pointer inventory first. Luckily I was right and it disappeared in front of me, sucked into my inventory. I'd have to ask about bringing it back out in the middle of a game, but it seemed like a good ace up my sleeve.

I made it to the next obstacle with a huge gap between me and the rest of the contestants. Kacchan, Uraraka, and Todoroki were closer, but there was still some distance between us. I stared at the gaping hole in the ground in front of me, then at the stone pillars with tightropes connecting them. "There is no way they did this without a lot of earth mages," I muttered. "And how did nobody see this giant chasm by the arena? I guess it doesn't matter, though. What matters for now..." I gathered air mana on my back. "Is getting across." Because the sports festival was an opportunity to impress the hero agencies of Japan, I'd decided to not use the same few tricks over and over again. And so the air mana I was gathering formed into great wings of swirling green air. "Halcyon Wing," I intoned. I flapped them once, sending up a cloud of dust before the air stilled unnaturally. After seeing Kacchan use Fire Dash and Uraraka gravity magic to fly, I'd decided to find a way for people to fly using any element. Much like how people with healing Quirks were almost always given priority for medical training assuming they were competent enough for medical work, competent and powerful enough fliers were practically assured to get into hero schools simply on account of how useful flight is in hero work. Having flight as a relatively easily teachable skill seemed like the sort of thing that would be very useful for heroes in general. My favorite of the flight spells I'd made was an air spell, Halcyon Wing. It was a little costly, but it looked so pretty and had the ability to calm the surrounding air.

I jumped as high as I could, then flapped my wings. As a side effect of its air-calming, Halcyon Wing reduced the amount the air resisted my passage, making me fly even faster. A few students shot some generic spells at me, but I was easily able to dodge them. I dropped onto a tree on the other side of the obstacle and undid my wings. They unraveled in a shower of feathers that I grabbed with my magic, causing them to swirl around me. I used up a few of the feathers to chop off the branch I was standing on, then started using bio magic on the branch as it fell back onto the course. It grew into a small tree with an unusual root system, which drove itself into the ground in four parts like legs. I gripped onto the tree's trunk, using a thickened branch as a foothold. Bio magic was really fun once you got used to it. I made my tree walker go forward and, now that I was going slower, started listening to the commentary.

"And Midoriya's still in the lead, now with some weird plant thing!" Mic-sensei shouted.

"That's probably his bio magic," Aizawa-sensei said. "Among other things, he can use it to alter the shape of and control plants. To be honest it just looks like he's showing off now."

"To be fair, isn't that the point of the sports festival?"

Aizawa-sensei shrugged. "I suppose. And speaking of showing off, it looks like Todoroki's using some kind of ice platform and probably ice magic to fly over the chasm. That's certainly one way to do it."

I came up on the final obstacle of the race, the minefield. I'd seen it with Hawkeye while I was flying, which was why I'd made the tree walker. Though I was paying for that now, as Kacchan, Todoroki, and Uraraka were approaching behind me. I lengthened my walker's roots and increased the amount of mana I was using to make it walk, letting it go faster. I also gave it a Speed Up and started preparing a backup plan for when they caught up. Because of my walker's thin roots, it was able to step around the mines, and for the few that it stepped on in my rush, its roots were sufficient enough to not get blown away, which was why I'd used four legs in the first place.

"Damn it Deku, you won't win that easily!" Kacchan shouted from behind me. He and Todoroki were approaching quickly, with Uraraka just a bit behind them. I shot my remaining feathers in front of them, blowing up the mines. They were still gaining, though, so I pushed my walker even faster, then switched spells when they were just barely behind me. Jets of steam burst from my hands and feet, propelling me forwards and blowing the two back into some mines. I hit the ground running, keeping ahead of the others. With the lead I'd given myself, I was able to run to the end without anyone passing me.

"AND IN FIRST PLACE WE HAVE MIDORIYA IZUKU!" Mic-sensei shouted. The crowd was cheering for me. I grinned at All Might, who I saw smiling at me in the stands.

xoxoxo

"The next game of the sports festival will be a cavalry battle!" Midnight-sensei announced once everyone was back in the stadium. That was kind of good for me. I'd had an idea for a spell about a week ago that I thought I wouldn't be able to use in the sports festival because it was pretty much only useful on allies. The display changed to show what looked like the points each of the people who made it got, sorted by position. I looked at number one, for the point total I had. Ten million. It looked like there was a bonus for getting in first place, because up until first the points increased by five per position. "Here's how it works! The points of each member of the teams will be added together and put on a headband, which will be worn by your rider. You're supposed to steal those headbands, which is how you get points. Those headbands must be worn from the neck up, so getting a lot will get annoying fast. And of course, the person to beat is Midoriya, with ten million points! Whoever has that by the end is pretty much assured to get to the next round!"

"Oh," I said. sh*t. That was not good. I had a giant target on my back now, or rather my forehead.

"You guys will have fifteen minutes to find your team and come up with a plan, starting now. Have fun!"

I gulped. My work would certainly be cut out for me. Even with my powers, the whole "everyone will be gunning out for you if you team up with me" thing sounded like it would make it hard to find willing teammates... I tried a few people, but they all shied away.

"Are you still looking for teammates, Deku?" Uraraka asked me from behind.

I turned around. "Are you sure about this, Uraraka? N-not that I'm not grateful, but I'm pretty sure just about everyone will be going after us because I got first last round..."

She nodded, a determined look on her face. "And that makes it even better! Everyone's eyes are gonna be on our team, so I'll definitely get noticed if I'm on your team!" She seemed to realize how what she said could be taken and blushed a bit. "Not that I don't want to help you, Deku! It's just... you know..."

I smiled. "Yeah, I get it. Come on, I think I know who else we can use." I scanned the crowd for a moment and almost immediately spotted him. I ran over to him. "Iida! If it's not too much of a bother, would you like to be on my team?"

He hesitated for a moment, then gave one of his deep bows. "I'm sorry, Midoriya. It's just... I don't want to be in your shadow for the sports festival."

I nodded. "I understand. I'll go try and find someone else." I walked away a bit.

"How did it go?" Uraraka asked, having just caught up to me.

I shook my head. "Iida didn't want to be in our group. We need to find someone else." I looked at the countdown. Half the time was up already. "And we should probably do it fast."

"Oh, so you need another person?" a loud voice said. "Well that's perfect!" I turned around to see a girl with pink dreadlocks wearing a pair of steampunk-ish goggles on her forehead. Her yellow eyes had crosshairs on them. "The name's Hatsume Mei, and I'm your answer! With my babies you'll be sure to win!"

"What's with the support gear?" Uraraka asked. "Aren't we not supposed to have them?"

"You're a support student, right?" I asked. "And I'm guessing your... 'babies' are support items?"

She grinned wider and got up in my face. "Oh, you're a smart one! Yes, of course my babies are wonderful, wonderful gadgets that heroes across the globe will use! Eventually. And everyone's eyes will be on you, the holder of the ten million points, so if I show off my babies in your team I'm sure to get good rep!"

I smiled, but backed up a bit. "Having some support gear will be awesome." I had an idea. "Actually, I just thought of something. We'll need another person, and I'll probably have to talk to Midnight-sensei about this, but... Hatsume!"

"Yes!?"

"I'll use my magic to help, but we might need to make temporary modifications to your babies, is that okay?"

She nodded energetically. "Of course, so long as you can put them back. I'd also love to see magic being used! I might be able to make even better babies!"

"Good. And I'll also try to teach you a spell I learned recently that lets me see magic, because to be honest I really wanna see that. You might be able to do it relatively easily, if your Quirk is eye-based like I'm assuming." She cackled and nodded. "And finally, how good are you at hacking?"

She rubbed her hands together. "Adopting a new baby? I like the sound of this."

"Isn't it more like kidnapping and brainwashing someone else's baby?" Uraraka asked, poking her chin.

"We've got a lot of work to do," I said, "but if we split up we should be able to get done on time."

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

"So the cavalry battle's about to start," Mic-sensei said, "and I've just gotta say..." I strapped myself into the harness Hatsume had thoughtfully made for me so that I wouldn't fall while I was Meditating, because I really needed to use Meditation for my crazy plan to work. "IS THAT ONE OF THE ROBOTS FROM EARLIER!?" The two-pointer that I'd stowed in my inventory during the obstacle race. I was sitting on the center of the robot's torso, which thankfully acted a bit like a platform, Uraraka and Hatsume were by the front of the robot, with Hatsume arm-deep in the robot's guts still. Our final teammate, Tokoyami, was by the back of the robot due to its size. While I was the only one with a harness, my teammates had bits of scrap metal that Uraraka had magnetized that let them stick to the robot but still allowed them to move if they needed to.

"Too loud, Mic," Aizawa complained. "And yes, that is one of the robots from earlier. The problem child argued that if his teammate, Hatsume, modified and hacked the robot, then it would be her creation and therefore, as she is a support student, her team would be allowed to use it." He sighed. "And apparently the principal specifically wrote into the rules that hacking the robots is okay, so it's not even technically a loophole. When I asked Nedzu about it, he just maniacally laughed."

"To be honest I probably should've seen that coming."

"Probably. And by the way, the cavalry battle begins in about one minute, so get ready."

I took a deep breath and focused on my mana. A ball of faintly glowing light blue mana appeared on my chest, and three tendrils of mana extended from it. The tendrils touched my teammates on the chest, forming balls of mana on their chests like mine. Bestow, a spell I thought of that allowed me to share my mana with others, though there was a bit of mana lost. "So interesting!" Hatsume shouted as she poked the ball of mana on her chest, her eyes glowing. She was actually pretty good with magic, judging from how quickly she'd picked up Eye For Magic.

Tokoyami put a hand up to his mana ball. "I feel power flowing through me," he muttered.

I nodded. "Just remember that even with Meditation, I have a limited amount of mana. And there's three of you, which means that my mana will be split between you. We should be fine if only one person does something big at a time, so coordinate your spells."

"On three!" Midnight shouted.

"And finally snap me out of it if we need something big and I'll use Limit Break," I said quickly, then activated Mana Dome and Meditation.

"Begin!" Midnight shouted.

I couldn't really see much of what was happening at first because of how I was meditating and in the center of the robot. However, after a few moments, it seemed like Bestow started to synergize with Open Mind and possibly even Meditate, Tactician, and the party we'd made, because I was able to see through my teammate's eyes. I mostly focused on Uraraka because Tokoyami was watching the rear and Hatsume was piloting the robot. I kept a bit of an 'eye' on Hatsume, though, because I hoped to absorb some of her mechanical expertise. Uraraka saw that a lot of the teams made a beeline straight for us. One of the teams used some sort of ground-softening Quirk. "I'm gonna lower gravity!" Uraraka shouted. "Hit the jets, Hatsume!" I felt a sudden drain on my mana coming from Uraraka. A pink glow spread from her body, engulfing the entire robot. Hatsume activated the robot's jets, and despite its weight it flew. Tokoyami deflected a few shots that came after us with Dark Shadow.

When we touched down, the robot sank a bit. Hatsume looked down at the legs and saw some mud, using Eye For Magic. "Someone's attacking my new baby with water magic!" she shouted.

Uraraka looked around and saw Tsu and someone from gen ed that I didn't know very well riding on Shoji's back. "Tsu-chan!" she shouted.

Tsu spat out a glob of water, which shaped itself like a buzzsaw. "Ochako-chan, I'm sorry to do this, but-"

"Well I'm not at all!" Hatsume shouted, then laid her hands on the robot. She stared at her hands with Eye For Magic as she poured mana into the robot. She, and therefore I, could see how the mana interacted with the technology. I heard a text box open as I learned the skill from her. Blue lines spread across the robot, and Hatsume's vision changed to the robot's camera. She shot a net at Tsu's team, entangling them, and made the robot carefully step out of the mud.

"DEKU! YOUR f*ckING ROBOT WON'T SAVE YOU NOW!" All three of my teammates turned in unison to see Kacchan's team. Kacchan jumped off of Kirishima, his front horse, and started flying at us with Fire Dash. Tokoyami had Dark Shadow curl around me protectively.

"He's going after my baby!" Hatsume screeched.

"I've got this!" Uraraka shouted. She slapped her hands on the robot, blue sparks springing into existence and traveling over to the leg Kacchan was aiming for. When Kacchan tried to explode the leg, it just... compressed a bit before springing back with a wave of energy. Kacchan was knocked back, but another one of his horses, Sero, grabbed him with his tape. "Get us out of here, Hatsume!"

"What did you do to my baby?" Hatsume demanded as the robot ran.

"I temporarily messed with the strength and stuff of the armor using particle magic. I can do that to my skin, too. It feels really weird." If I wasn't drawing in the energy of the world or however Meditation worked I'd have asked how that worked. It sounded interesting.

A few teams moved to intercept us. "I'll be taking your headband, Midoriya," Todoroki said. "Kaminari!" His teammates were Yaoyorozu and Kaminari in the back, on roller skates that I assumed Yaoyorozu made, and Iida in the front.

Yaoyorozu made a sheet and a grounding rod while Kaminari started to build up lightning. "I believe my power will be the most useful in this situation," Tokoyami said. "My comrades, please allow me to complete access Midoriya's font of power." Tokoyami drained my MP even faster than Meditation could bring it back. In return, a shroud of near-total darkness engulfed the world. "Primordial Void!" he intoned. Through Hatsume's enhanced eyes, I could just barely see Corvo and Dark Shadow emerge, though Dark Shadow was so big that it dwarfed our robot. I remembered what he said, about how Dark Shadow got stronger but harder to control the darker it was. "Now, my minions of shadow, let us have a true revelry in the dark." Dark Shadow rushed forward, with Corvo riding him and seemingly controlling him, or at least directing him.

Kaminari shot most of his lightning at Dark Shadow, or at least I think that's what happened in the gloom. It wasn't very effective with such poor light, and it seemed that the dark magic was dampening the lightning itself somehow. Dark Shadow raged, knocking back all of the teams. The drain on my MP abated, and the black shroud started to fade away. "Run, Hatsume!" Tokoyami shouted. "Away from Todoroki's team!"

"I can see!" she shouted as the robot started running away. Tokoyami saw Todoroki freeze out the other teams in the confusion and then Iida shouting something. Todoroki made a ramp of ice and Iida shot off faster than I'd ever seen him run before. Tokoyami made to intercept with Dark Shadow, but Todoroki's team sped up even more as the ice at the tip of the ramp exploded, and then Kaminari shot a bolt of lightning at Dark Shadow that stunned it. Yaoyorozu shot a miniature cannon past Tokoyami. I opened my eyes just in time to get hit in the back of my head with the cannonball that shattered my Mana Dome. It didn't hurt, but it was really jarring! Because I'd flinched from the hit, I wasn't able to react in time to stop Todoroki from snatching my headband. Their team landed on a platform of ice, then slid down the slide that Todoroki turned it into.

I took stock. The two skills that I'd learned, Sight Sharing and Technomancy, wouldn't be very useful. However, we already had everything we needed to get that headband back.

"Ditch the robot and go after them, guys!" I shouted. Luckily, Todoroki didn't think to melt the slide. Actually, I couldn't remember him ever using his fire in battle. That probably wasn't a good sign... My teammates jumped into the formation that we'd discussed on the slide, and I used Sonic Embodiment to take my place as the rider. Tokoyami used Dark Shadow to push us down and I used Speed Up on my teammates. Now that I wasn't using Meditate, which didn't let me use Observe while I was using it, Tactician told me that Iida's engines were stalled by whatever special move he'd used. "That move wiped out Iida's Quirk for the rest of the game, so we have a chance! Get me close!"

Uraraka lowered our gravity, letting us run faster. I noticed that the robot was tailing behind us, but I didn't give it much thought. We got within range, and Todoroki's eyes widened as his left arm caught fire, a knee-jerk reaction. I slashed my arm at him with wind mana, blowing his defenses away, then used a light amount of One For All to grab the golden headband. They'd flipped the headbands around and mixed up their order to try and trick us, but with Observe and Tactician that meant nothing to me. "We're flying away!" I shouted, activating the jetpack I hadn't had to use yet in the cavalry battle. Uraraka used a mixture of her Quirk and gravity magic to lift us out of there. Apparently the reason why she got such bad nausea when she used her Quirk on herself was because she was resistant to it, but she didn't have as much of a problem with gravity magic.

"DEKU!" Kacchan screamed at me, flying toward us. It looked like he was back to attacking us...

"Uraraka! My baby!" Hatsume shouted. Uraraka got what she meant immediately and pointed at the two-pointer, which jumped and started using its jets. Uraraka pulled on Bestow again, causing the robot to glow pink and start flying. It intercepted Kacchan, but it looked like Uraraka did the strengthening spell again. This time, though, well...whatever the spell did, it didn't completely solve the problem of Newton's third law of motion. The robot absorbed all of the force, yes, but when it rebounded the force... It was weightless. "MY BABY!" Hatsume shrieked as the robot was repulsed away from Kacchan. I didn't want a giant robot, even a giant robot with the weight of a beach ball, crashing into the stands or even worse the stalls outside, so I grabbed it with Mana Rope and braced myself on an air platform. I swung the robot down to try to take some of the motion off.

"Get on the robot!" I shouted after getting the robot to only be slowly falling. We landed on it and I started meditating again to help with keeping us lightly falling.

"And Team Midoriya are back just in time for the end of the cavalry battle!" Mic-sensei shouted when we touched down. "The game was totally crazy, but now it's OOOOVEEEER!"

"In first place, we have Team Midoriya, clearly," Aizawa-sensei said. "Second place is Team Todoroki, third is Bakugou, and fourth is... it looks like Team Shinsou snatched a few last-minute points. Impressive."

"We'l be taking a lunch break, but we'll move on to the final games after the break, folks! Stay tuned!"

I dropped off of the robot, not waiting for Hatsume to lower it. "Are you okay, Midoriya?" Yaoyorozu asked me, rubbing her elbow.

"O-oh, I'm fine," I reassured her. "I can fall from higher than that without any problem."

"No, I mean from when I shot you. That looked like it hurt..."

I shook my head. "No, no, it was more surprising than anything! My Mana Dome probably took most of the hit, and my Quirk is really overpowered. I think I wouldn't be too hurt if All Might were to punch me in the face."

She nodded. "That's impressive. I still apologize, though. I was aiming to just pop your barrier, but we were going very fast, so..."

"It's fine!"

xoxoxo

After we left to get lunch, Todoroki stopped me and rather forcefully asked to meet me alone. I saw no reason not to, so I followed him to an abandoned hallway. "What did you need me for?" I asked. "Did you get hurt in the caval-"

"I was overwhelmed." He glared at me. "Your power. I only saw it once, but it reminded me of All Might."

"I'm pretty sure All Might doesn't use wind magic. He just punches the air hard enough that it looks like he does."

"I don't mean your magic. You did... something that wasn't magic."

"How did you know?"

"I can sense magic. And that sudden movement you did, it was more like All Might's Quirk than magic."

I blinked. "I'm sorry, did you just say you can sense magic?"

"And considering how All Might seems to be supporting you, I have to ask one thing." I gulped. I didn't know what he was going to say, but he was getting pretty close to the truth... "Are you All Might's secret love child or something?"

I spluttered. "Wow, I wish I was All Might's secret love child! All I know about my dad is that he had some kind of firebreathing Quirk and curly white hair. And that he owes us a lot in child support."

"Regardless, you clearly have some kind of connection to All Might. Just know that I must beat you. You see, my father is an ambitious man. He wanted to be the number one hero, and wasn't even satisfied with second place." His voice became ice cold. "And so he made me to carry out his ambitions."

"What do you mean, 'made you?'" His Quirk involved two separate powers, even stated in Observe to be two Quirks in one body. It reminded me of that Nomu thing...

"Are you aware of Quirk marriages?" Oh. In hindsight that was the more likely conclusion. Probably worse, though. He snarled. "My father used his influence to put pressure on my mother's family, forcing an arranged marriage. It took the bastard four tries, but he finally made me, his masterpiece, and trained me relentlessly. My mother hated my left side. I don't blame her. It's his." I'm not a psychologist or a Quirk counselor... yet... but that seriously did not sound like a good sign, psychologically speaking. "I remember one time, she was talking to someone on the phone, about my left half." Seriously, I could tell Tokoyami was joking whenever he called his power a curse, but it seemed that Todoroki genuinely felt that the entire left half of his body and the power it gave him was some sort of... well, curse. "She saw me, and threw boiling hot water at me face, as you can see. As you've probably noticed by now, my left side is heat-resistant, but not fireproof."

"Yeah, I may not have a fire Quirk, but I still have some weak fire resistance from my dad. Speaking of which, I suddenly feel very grateful my jackass firebreather dad was an absent jackass firebreather father."

"I envy you for your absent parent."

"You know, if you want I could try to heal that scar? It's obviously tied to some serious trauma, and I figure not seeing it in the mirror would ease some of the pain?"

He shook his head. "No. My purpose was to tell you this: I plan to deny my father the satisfaction of using his fire. I'll defeat you without ever using my left side again, this I can promise you." He started to walk off, leaving me in thought.

I Flash Stepped behind him a moment later and put my hand on his right shoulder. "You do realize I'm going to have to report this, right?"

His head whipped back. "What?"

"One of the stipulations of Shuzenji-sensei's training program. If I find evidence of any of my classmates being abused, I'm to report it to her or another teacher, with or without their permission. Even if I wasn't, though, I wouldn't just take that and say nothing. What kind of hero would I be if I learned my classmate was being abused and didn't say anything?"

"I appreciate the offer, but Endeavor's influence is too much. He always boasts how, if we did do anything, he'd have his people on it." He shuddered. "And then he'd punish us."

"Have you ever actually done anything?" I asked.

"I just said-"

"You said what he told you," I corrected. "A few years before Endeavor's debut, there was, obviously, another hero in the number two spot. Undertow. He had a flashy, powerful water Quirk that let him shoot water from any part of his body, and lots of it. To be honest, it'd be pretty funny how similar he was to Endeavor if it didn't extend to the point of abusing his daughter in the form of 'training.' Apparently, he even married a telekinetic so he could get a child with hydrokinesis, much like with your situation."

"What happened?"

"It took a while, but Undertow's sister reported him. She'd known for a while, but he'd threatened to... do something to his daughter if she did." I wiped a giant tear from my eye and sniffed. "It wasn't publicized much, because people were afraid that a pro of that ranking turning out to have done something like that could've triggered massive unrest, but Undertow was arrested and some of his charges were released, enough that nobody would question the arrest. He's still behind bars today." I smiled. "And at the same time I'm sure All Might would be willing to help you if he heard what happened, and I doubt that the influence of the number two hero outstrips that of the symbol of peace."

Todoroki nodded. "I'll take your word for it. Though, how do you know about Undertow if, as you said, the whole story was suppressed?"

"My grandmother told me about it." I used some magic on my tear ducts, causing a massive amount of water to pour from them. Then I wiped off my face and shirt because I didn't put any pressure into it, making the water dribble all over me. "She didn't want me to repeat her mistake."

Todoroki blinked. "Wait, so are you saying-"

"Undertow is my great uncle, yes. We don't talk about him much, though, because of the whole, ah..."

"I see. You have my condolences. If I may ask, would it be possible for you to get me in contact with Undertow's daughter?"

I rubbed the back of my head. "Ah... that won't be possible, unfortunately. For one, she kind of hated my grandmother? Okay, not exactly hate per se but, well... Grandma didn't blame her, what with how she didn't say anything about the abuse for a while. And I think Undertow made it worse somehow..."

"When was the last time I talked to my siblings..." Todoroki muttered.

"Yeah, child abuse is pretty awful," I said. "Anyway, I think she reached out to my mom a few times, but... well... Then she died..."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

I shrugged. "I didn't even know her. Well, I didn't know her personally. I knew a lot about her. She was actually a pro hero."

"Was that... how she..?"

I gave him a small nod. "The hero duo Water Hose. A husband-and-wife pair. About two years ago, they sacrificed themselves to take out a dangerous villain with a powerful enhancement Quirk. But enough about my messed up family. I won't force you to go to Shuzenji-sensei now, but when the sports festival is over we are talking to him, even if I have to drag you there myself."

He grunted. "Fine. If it will really destroy my father, then I'll happily talk to Shuzenji-sensei."

"That's probably not quite the healthiest thing to say, but it's better than not telling anyone about the abuse, so I'll let it slide," I muttered. Todoroki shrugged and started to walk off. This time I let him.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

We were gathered back in the arena field. Midnight explained to us how the next part of the sports festival would go. For the teams who won the cavalry battle, there was the combat tournament. The rules were simple. In each fight, we had to either incapacitate our opponents or remove them from the arena. And before the tournament, there would be other games that everyone could participate in. Even the tournament combatants could attend them, but Midnight-sensei suggested we not do that, because we should conserve our stamina. That really wasn't an issue for me, but I decided not to participate in those battles because it could be unfair to the others. Before we drew lots to see our placement, Ojiro raised his hand. "I'd like to withdraw from the tournament!" he declared.

"Oh?" Midnight said. "What brought this on? You do realize you're probably going to miss out on a chance to be scouted, right?"

He grimaced. "I don't even remember the cavalry battle. I don't want to move on to the tournament if I didn't even really do anything."

"Whoa, that's so manly!" Kirishima yelled.

The other member of Team Shinsou, Nirengeki from class 1-B, raised his hand. "I'd also like to withdraw, for the same reason..."

Midnight grinned. "I like your spirit! Alright, you two are out of the tournament! Now we need to get some students to replace them!"

After that, it was agreed that Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki Ibara from 1-B would take their places. We all drew the lots, deciding who we'd fight and in what order. It was just my luck that I was in the first match against Shinsou. And then I'd probably have to face off against Todoroki after winning that...

"Midoriya, right?" someone asked me from behind. I turned to see Shinsou.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Ojiro's tail wrapped around my face before I could. "Don't say anything," he cautioned me. Shinsou snorted.

I removed Ojiro's tail from my face. "Because of his Quirk, right?" I asked. Shinsou stiffened. "If I had to guess, it's a mental Quirk. Some sort of mind control, tied to... people responding to something you say?"

He sighed. "Yeah, that's about right..."

"It sounds amazing for hero work. Too bad the entrance exam was robots, huh?"

Shinsou stared at me incredulously. "You... don't think my Quirk is villainous?"

I shrugged. "Quirks aren't really villainous. Well, if you have a sentient Quirk like Tokoyami's Dark Shadow that actively wants to be a villain then you could make that argument, but Quirks are normally controlled by the user. They're tools." I pointed at him. "If you use your Quirk for hero work then you have a hero's Quirk, and if you use your Quirk for villainy, then you have a villain's Quirk. Still, your Quirk would let you deescalate hostage situations and other villain attacks without having to fight, and even if you have to fight then there's always the possibility of a villain slipping up in the middle of battle. To be honest, I'd place a mind-controlling Quirk like yours pretty high on the list of Quirks I'd like if I didn't have mine."

Shinsou's face softened. "You know, Midoriya, you're the first person I've met who didn't call my Quirk villainous."

"You should probably sue your Quirk counselor for malpractice, then."

He chuckled, then turned around. "You're a good man, Midoriya. I won't bother you again."

"Wait." He stopped. "I think it's only fair if you know a few things about me. First, there's a pretty good chance, depending on how our Quirks work, that your Quirk won't affect me right or might even just fail to work on me."

He raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"My Quirk, The Gamer, works somewhat along the lines of RPG logic, meaning that among other things I have passive skills that grant me various affects," I explained. "One of them is Gamer's Mind, which came with my Quirk. It says that I have immunity to psychological status effects."

"I... see."

"I mean, I'll try not to get hit by your Quirk anyway because that's very unspecific, but I just thought you should know. I also have two other passives I think you should know about, Physical Endurance and Damage Reduction."

"So let me guess, physical attacks are useless on you."

"Not useless, but they do so little that to you it might as well be. Magical attacks aren't included in Physical Endurance, so comparatively speaking that's my weakness."

He sighed. "I guess I know what I'll be doing during the break."

I Observed him. "You have affinity for the sonic element, by the way. I'm guessing it's either because of your voice-based Quirk, or if any of your relatives have a more traditional sound Quirk, or maybe both?"

"So I have sound magic?" he asked. I nodded. "Good to know. Thanks, Midoriya."

"Was that really a good idea?" Ojiro asked after he walked away.

"Even with what I told him, he's probably not going to beat me, considering our stats and abilities," I said. "And if he displays more than just dependence on a powerful supporting Quirk, then he's more likely to get in the hero program."

"I guess..."

xoxoxo

"Seriously, are you two f*cking dating yet?" Kacchan asked Tsu and Uraraka now that we were in the stands watching the pre-tournament game.

"What makes you think that?" Tsu asked, blushing slightly.

Kacchan raised an eyebrow. "f*cking seriously?"

Uraraka hid her blush behind Tsu's hair. It was easy to do, between Tsu having a lot of hair and the fact that Tsu was literally sitting on Uraraka's lap and snuggling up against her. "In my defense, I like body heat because I'm a frog," Tsu muttered.

Kacchan shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He then turned his attention back to me. He knocked on his seat in the passcode, so I invited him to my party.

acridThermogenesis: hey dont be mad

acridThermogenesis: but i may or may not have eavespropped on your conversation with half and half

acridThermogenesis: *eavesdropped

acridThermogenesis: what the actual f*ck is my name deku

I sighed. I really should have noticed him. Actually, one of my elementals should have told me he was there.

conjuringGamer: Don't eavesprop on other people's private conversations, Kacchan!

conjuringGamer: This is your punishment!

acridThermogenesis: oh f*ck you and your stupid references

conjuringGamer: How, exactly, do you get what this is a reference to anyway?

acridThermogenesis: f*ck

acridThermogenesis: you

acridThermogenesis: and why the f*ck did you never tell me that you were related to the ex number two hero

conjuringGamer: WDTAU

acridThermogenesis: the f*ck

conjuringGamer: We Don't Talk About Undertow

acridThermogenesis:

acridThermogenesis: fair enough

acridThermogenesis: and in my defense

acridThermogenesis: half and half has been glaring at you for gucking ever

acridThermogenesis: 8f*cking

acridThermogenesis: **f*cking

acridThermogenesis: f*ck why cant i type today

conjuringGamer: You do realize you used to be worse to me, right?

conjuringGamer: And I can certainly handle myself against Todoroki in a fight, if that's what you were worried about.

conjuringGamer: Or I could've just ran with Illusion Barrier.

acridThermogenesis: sh*t i dont know man

acridThermogenesis: stop busting my nub or whatever the f*ck trolls say

acridThermogenesis: im sorry

acridThermogenesis: f*ck it ill say it without the stupid accent so you know im serious

acridThermogenesis: I'm sorry, Deku.

conjuringGamer: Don't worry, I forgive you.

conjuringGamer: I was just messing with you.

acridThermogenesis: WELL DUCK YOU THEN

acridThermogenesis: f*ck

acridThermogenesis *f*ck

I chuckled a bit. Annoying Kacchan was fun sometimes.

Uraraka Ochako: Um.

Hatsume Mei: Well this is awkward

Tokoyami Fumikage: I Think You 4cawt To 4emove Us 4om 4 Pa4ty, Mid4iya.

"Duck," Kacchan muttered.

"What?" Tsu asked. Uraraka snickered, then spat out a long strand of green hair.

xoxoxo

I walked down the corridor to the stadium. It was time for the first match. I took a deep breath, then felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see All Might in his emaciated form. "Good luck, young Midoriya."

I nodded. "Thank you, All Might." I turned back to the opening and walked into the stadium.

"AND ON ONE SIDE," Mic-sensei shouted over the roar of the crowd, "WE HAVE THE KING OF MAGIC, MIDORIYA IZUKU!" I walked up to the stage and saw Shinsou emerge from the other side of the stadium. "AND ON THE OTHER, WE HAVE THE ONLY STUDENT FROM GEN ED TO MAKE IT TO THE THIRD ROUND! MASTER OF THE MIND, SHINSOOOOU HITOSHI!" I looked at Shinsou's level.

Give 'Em Hell, Kid

LV 19

Shinsou Hitoshi

"No hard feelings, right Midoriya?" he asked me. I shook my head, careful not to talk. To be honest I was looking forward to seeing what he'd thought of for me.

"WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET'S START!"

Shinsou smirked. The roar of the crowd died away, replaced by a ringing in my ears. He started to walk forward, and I heard the sound of his footsteps over the ringing. It was very loud, almost like the sound was reverberating all around me. Before I could react, I felt like all my sense of balance was lost, and I had an extreme feeling of nausea. I clutched my stomach, trying my best not to topple over. "Neat, huh?" he asked me, his voice amplified like the sound of his footsteps. I grimaced. My head was swimming. "I got the idea from my mother's Quirk. She can disturb people's inner ears with the sound of her voice, making them disoriented. I figured I could mimic that with sound magic. Judging from your reaction, I did pretty well."

I braced myself on an air platform and gathered my thoughts. It looked like he was taking his time moving because he had to concentrate on the spell, but it seemed like he was starting to get more comfortable, so that might change soon. Tactician told me that the effect the spell had on me manifested in the status effect Dizzy. I used Healing Hands on my head, causing the nausea and balance loss to fade. The ringing stayed, though. It felt more like it was the medium for Dizzy than a part of it. "Sonia," I thought.

"No use, Izuku," she replied. "Can't work with magic sound."

"Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be that easy." I kept up the Healing Hands with my left hand, though I knew that that meant I couldn't use it for any magic aside from the healing spell.

"It looks like you figured out a way around that. I wonder if you can keep it up while fighting me, though." He raised his hand and snapped his fingers at me. I Flash Stepped out of the way of the resulting shockwave thanks to the improved reaction time my high DEX gave me, but crashed into the ground when I was struck with Dizzy again in midair. I groaned. Flash Stepping shouldn't have caused Healing Hands to fail... "Looks like your healing spell can't keep up with it when you go that fast."

"That's probably it," I muttered as I started to get up. I noticed my mistake when the ringing in my ears stopped. For a second I felt very faint, like I was about to pass out. I almost fell back down. The feeling passed after a second, with a popup saying that the status effect Brainwashed had failed to affect me because of Gamer's Mind. "Ah."

Shinsou smirked. "So you are immune to my Quirk, but it still stuns you for a second." The ringing returned, and with it Dizzy. I noticed that my Healing Hands had slipped when Shinsou tried to use his Quirk on me. I put them back up, keeping both hands up this time.

"Limit Break!" I shouted, the glow of my Healing Hands getting brighter. "Healing Fists!" I jumped at Shinsou.

"Wait, what?" Shinsou said, then just barely managed to duck out of the way of my punch. The effort broke the spell, making my hearing return to normal. "Right, that's it." He took a deep breath and screamed at me with sonic magic. The shockwave hit me dead-on, blowing me back a bit even though I'd braced myself. I retaliated with a blast of wind strong enough to blow him to the edge of the arena. With a small gesture, I had Dune shift the ground under him, dumping him out of bounds. "Dammit."

"THE MATCH IS OVER!" Mic-sensei shouted. "Man, what was up with Midoriya? Did he eat a bad omelette or something?"

"If I had to guess, Shinsou did something," Aizawa-sensei said. "He either found a new use for his Quirk or made some sort of disorienting spell."

"If it was magic, wouldn't there have been some sorta glow?"

"Not all magic glows, Mic. You know this. You've literally used non-glowing magic."

I walked over to Shinsou. "Sorry about that," I said as I offered him my hand.

He took it and pulled himself up. "I'll consider it payback for the ear assault. Speaking of which, how're your ears? Would probably suck if I deafened you."

I gave him a thumbs-up. "I'm good, thanks to my Healing Hands. Though you might want to test it again with me or Shuzenji-sensei around, if you're really worried about that."

He nodded. "Probably a good idea."

xoxoxo

After making sure that Shinsou wasn't hurt from when I knocked him down, I went back to the section of the stands where class 1-A was supposed to sit. Ojiro was waiting for me by the door. "Midoriya!" he shouted. "Are you okay?"

I grinned. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Deku!" Kacchan shouted from his seat. "The f*ck was that?"

"Shinsou can use sonic magic now," I told him, then sat down next to him. "What you saw was him wreaking havoc on my inner ears."

"Damn." He chuckled. "So that was probably more difficult than your next fight's gonna be."

"What do you mean be that?"

Kacchan snorted. "We both know that between your ungodly physical defense and your elemental magic, the only person in the tournament who can match you in a straight fight is me, maybe also Uraraka but I'm gonna f*cking destroy her. Half'n'half-"

"His name is Todoroki," I reminded him.

Kacchan rolled his eyes. "Todoroki might come close if he actually applies himself, but all he's really done is throw ice around. I'm guessing from what we already know about magic and Quirks that while Half'n'half's Quirk has ice magic acting to freeze sh*t, the ice itself isn't magical, meaning you can use an elemental on it easy. And even if not, can he really f*cking put up with your bullsh*t as well as I can?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right..."

"And even though Tape Dispenser-"

"Sero."

"-might have a chance of winning against Half'n'half, can he even do a f*cking thing to you?"

I thought about that for a moment. "It's probably arrogant of me to say that there's no way for him to beat me, but it isn't really likely, is it?"

"No f*cking chance of that happening. Now shut up, the match is about to start."

Todoroki and Sero walked into the arena. As soon as the match started, Sero shot tape at Todoroki, wrapping him up. It looked like he was about to throw him, but...

Todoroki, without even moving, created the biggest wall of ice I'd ever seen with his Quirk, obstructing my view of the arena. It was so big that it cast a shadow over half the stadium, and Mifuyu told me the ice actually extended far above the top of the stadium. I scowled, my breath fogging up from how close the ice was to my face. "Kacchan," I ordered.

"Right." He summoned Pyra, and they started warming up the suddenly very cold area with light streams of fire. "You might wanna keep the water from drippin' on anyone, Tsu," Kacchan suggested.

Tsu just shivered and sluggishly buried her head in Uraraka's chest. "K-kero..." Uraraka wrapped her arms around her gently.

"f*ck. Right, you're a frog..." Kacchan sighed, then sent a few more flame strings around Tsu. "Deku, can you leave your water elemental here?"

I nodded, summoned Rayne, then slapped the metal railing meant to prevent us from falling onto the field. A microsecond's worth of Lightning Embodiment later, and I was on the other side of the railing and far enough to the left that I didn't crash face-first into ice. I stormed up to the arena, but looked toward Midnight before actually getting up on it. She was iced over...

"G-g-go r-right ahead, M-M-Midoriya," she shivered. I nodded and summoned Mifuyu and Blaise, who started helping Midnight, then stomped over to Todoroki.

"That was excessive, even for you!" I shouted, then shoved him away from Sero, who he was trying to melt out of the ice. With a gesture, I ejected him from the ice, grabbed him, then started warming him up. I checked up his sleeves and pant legs with probably a little more force than was actually necessary to make sure he didn't have any frostbite, then turned back to Todoroki when Blaise took over warming Sero up. "You do realize that your ice can kill, right?" He looked remorseful. Good.

"I was going to thaw him..."

I sighed. "I don't just mean Sero."

He tilted his head. "What?"

I stared at him incredulously for a moment before waving my hand in the general direction of the giant iceberg in the middle of the stadium.

"I'm aware that I used a bit too much force, but I made sure to stop the ice before it reached the audience."

"And if you didn't?" I demanded. "If you overdid it so much as a bit more, then people would have died. Hell, if anyone in the audience has a Quirk that makes them more susceptible to the cold, then they could be going into shock as we speak! I've got an elemental keeping an eye on Tsu, and Kacchan's keeping everyone warm, but that's still an issue!"

Todoroki blinked. "Oh."

"Why did you do that?"

"I was annoyed from talking to my father, and I took it out on Sero. I apologize."

I clenched my fist. "Limit Break: Sublimation," I intoned. My arm buzzed with One for All, and steam rose from it. Without even looking away from Todoroki, I swung my arm back, shattering the iceberg into powder with a combination of ice magic and sheer force. The powder was quickly vaporized by the vapor magic I'd also put into my punch. "I sympathize with you Todoroki, I really do. But if this is the way you're going to act then I'm going to beat you." With that said, I turned around and walked through the mist I'd created to get back to my seat. With DEX only a little out of human bounds, I vaulted up the wall to the stands, nimbly pivoting on the railing and landing back in the chair I was sitting in before.

"Damn, Deku," Kacchan whistled.

"How's Tsu?" I asked Uraraka.

Uraraka stroked Tsu's hair gently. "Tsu-chan fell asleep. Should I wake her?"

I shook my head. "It's probably best to let her sleep, at least for now." I turned back to Kacchan and Observed him. "Do you need me to restore your MP?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Normally I wouldn't take you up on that, but I've seen Uraraka training and I'm pretty sure that if she was one hundred percent and I wasn't then I would f*cking lose."

Uraraka beamed. "Wow, Kacchan! That was basically a compliment! And it wasn't backhanded or anything."

Kacchan rolled his eyes, though he had a small grin on his face. "f*ck you, Round Face."

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Tsu groaned, then rubbed her eyes. "This isn't Ochako-chan's..." She picked her head off my shoulder and looked at the seats next to us. "Where did Ochako-chan and Kacchan go? What happened?"

"You fell asleep after Todoroki gave an overly-forceful display of his Quirk and I thought it would probably be better if you were allowed to sleep it off," I said. "It's almost time for their match."

She hummed. "Do you mind telling me what happened while I was out?"

"Oh yeah, sure. First there was Kaminari versus Shiozaki, from class 1-B." Tsu nodded. "Kaminari shot a lightning bolt at Shiozaki, which she blocked with her vines before tangling Kaminari up. Kaminari managed to make some sort of... lightning buzzsaw, but Shiozaki just wrapped him up in more vines until he stopped. After that it was Iida versus Hatsume."

"Wasn't she the support course girl you teamed up with?" Tsu asked.

"Yeah that's her. Their fight was..." I tried to think of how best to describe it. "It was interesting. A little on the long side, though..."

"What happened, kero?"

I chuckled a bit. "Well... Hatsume kinda took the thing over as a sort of advertisem*nt for her support gear, then forfeited the match when she was done..." Tsu snorted. "Yeah... Then it was Ashido against Aoyama. Ashido managed to take out Aoyama's belt, but lost still when Aoyama shot her with a laser. He looked uneasy afterwards, though. I think his belt might be needed to stabilize his Quirk..."

"That's not good."

I nodded. "Next was Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami. Yaoyorozu made a shield, but Tokoyami overwhelmed her pretty fast. Finally, Kirishima versus Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu from 1-B."

"I might be thinking of someone else, but aren't their Quirks the same?"

I shrugged. "Similar, but not the same. There are definitely differences between making your skin hard and making your skin metal. That being said, though, the two of them looked like they were pretty evenly matched, so their fight also dragged on for a bit."

"Who won?"

"When they figured out that they would draw in a physical match, they started using magic. Turns out Kirishima is slightly better at earth magic that Tetsutetsu."

She tapped her chin. "And now it's about to be Kacchan against Uraraka-chan, right?"

"Yeah."

She looked a bit excited. "This is going to be so anime."

I laughed. "I know, right?"

Tsu sighed. "It's a good thing I woke up when I did..."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Maybe you should get some kind of heating system in your costume? I know that that thing on Todoroki's back on his hero costume heats him up when he gets too cold."

"I was thinking about asking the support company for something like that for the winter."

"It's probably not a bad idea to get it as soon as you can. I mean, you did just pass out from an ice Quirk..."

She nodded. "Fair enough. I'll talk to Shōta about it when all this is over."

"And now!" Mic-sensei shouted. "Here we have the last match of the first round, and it sure seems like a doozy!"

"On one side we have Bakugou Katsuki, Quirk Explosion," Aizawa-sensei said. "On the other, Uraraka Ochako, Quirk Zero Gravity. They both have powerful Quirks and potent magic to back them up."

"Watch out for debris, folks, 'cause the arena is totally getting wrecked!"

I looked at Kacchan and Uraraka's levels as they walked to the arena.

Megalo Strike Back

LV 44

Uraraka Ochako

The Phoenix

LV 45

Bakugou Katsuki

I activated Hawkeye, because I did not want to miss anything.

xoxoxo

Bakugou grinned as he regarded his opponent. "No holdin' back, right Uraraka?"

Uraraka nodded, finishing up her stretches. "Not at all!" The dust by her feet stirred slightly.

Bakugou punched his palm, a small explosion escaping from his fist. "This might be your only round, but like hell it won't be a round to f*cking remember!"

Uraraka got into a fighting stance, Bakugou following suit. "Thanks, but bold of you to assume I'll lose!"

"Right, I want you two to remember that there are spectators, so try not to hit the stands with too many giant rocks," Midnight said. "And remember that you should probably try to avoid killing or otherwise permanently harming your opponent. It goes without saying, yes, but I've seen you both wreck things, so better to be safe than sorry."

"I got it, I got it," Bakugou assured her.

"Right, let's do this!" Uraraka shouted, fire in her eyes.

"Okay. Begin!" Both combatants exploded with power on cue, Bakugou a raging fire that caused the ground under him to glow red and Uraraka a pink aura that cracked the concrete like a hammer blow, the resulting debris floating into the air weightlessly. Uraraka shot her hand out in front of her, shooting the rocks at Bakugou. He erected a wall of fire that exploded the chunks of concrete before Fire Dashing at Uraraka. When he was right in front of her, he tried to explode her. Uraraka blocked, blue sparks dancing across her arms. The force of the explosion hit her, was absorbed by her arms, and released back at Bakugou, enhanced by a wave of pink magic. The two were blown back, and Uraraka's skin steamed and tore from the backlash. Her sports uniform top was annihilated, though thankfully not the black tank top underneath. A wave of green magic washed over Uraraka as she cast Regeneration.

Bakugou conjured two fireballs and threw them at Uraraka. She countered by throwing a pink ball of mana that sucked up the fire before exploding in front of Bakugou. Though he blocked the initial explosion, the pink mana clung to him. His eyes widened as the world seemed to shift, and what was behind him moments before was suddenly "down." He managed to recover and start flying before he fell out of bounds, but by then Uraraka was ready with her next trick. She'd laid her hands on the ground, and blue sparks danced across the ground around Bakugou. It shattered, the rubble floating weightlessly for a moment before gravitating towards Bakugou. He cursed, then exploded in a wave of fire that destroyed the rubble. The pink aura around him faded away, and he started to fall to the ground before pivoting in midair to land on his feet. He laughed, then flew at Uraraka again. Uraraka grinned and started flying towards him as well.

They clashed, fire against gravity, releasing waves of force as they rebounded off each other. They smashed against each other a few more times, each time sending shockwaves that cracked the ground beneath them and battered the audience with heavy gales. After their clashes, they flew to opposite sides of the now very ruined arena, floating several meters above the ground. As if by an unheard agreement, they both raised their hands skyward, gathering balls of their preferred element. A few tense seconds passed, Bakugou's fireball growing into a raging typhoon of flames and Uraraka's pink gravity bolt darkening to an almost black color. They simultaneously hurled their attacks at each other. When the two powerful spells clashed the inferno exploded into a blinding sun, while the black hole imploded, drawing in all of the fire and also all of the debris loosened up in their clash. The two attacks merged into a single, blinding point before exploding with the force of a supernova. Even though the two combatants blocked, they were simultaneously launched backwards, thankfully not hitting anyone when they crashed.

Midnight blinked. "Dang. I... guess that's a draw? Midoriya, if you don't mind you should probably make sure neither of them died."

xoxoxo

I gaped. "They're both idiots..." I muttered.

"That was hot..." Tsu croaked.

I turned my head. Oh. Tsu's face was red, and mostly not in a crush blush way. "Are you okay?" I asked. She looked sunburned...

"Water," she muttered, her eyes somehow wider than normal.

I took a few water bottles out of my inventory, then cast Healing Hands and Regeneration on her. Just to be safe, I made a few Regeneration Orbs and placed them on my seat as I got up, and summoned Raine to check on the other spectators. Hopefully nobody was as bad as Tsu, considering we were in front, but... "I'll go check up on the others." I turned to sound and went straight to where Uraraka crashed. Kacchan was probably better off because his Quirk made him resistant to heat and sudden forces as a required side effect of his Quirk, which was why I was prioritizing Uraraka. Thankfully it didn't look like she was too hurt, even though she'd crashed into a wall hard enough to crack it.

"Hey Deku-kun..." she waved weakly.

"Please do not move until I give you the okay," I said, then started poking her leg. It looked like she could feel it. "I don't know how you survived that in one piece."

She grinned. "Shō taught me some body-strengthening magic. It was actually what I based RePulse on." I started healing her. She might not have broken her spine, thankfully, but she had bruises all over her body, especially her back, her skin was torn in several places, and she had so many hairline fractures all over her bones! "Ow, thanks. Did I win?"

"Tie," I said. "Sorry." She winced. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure that this was the most impressive of the first-round matches. And there's probably going to be a tiebreaker." I finished healing her and offered her a hand. Once I'd helped her up, I said, "Right, I should probably check on Kacchan now," and sound-teleported off.

Kacchan... was somehow barely hurt? I knew he was damage-resistant as a necessity to not tear himself apart with his Quirk, but I didn't think he was that damage-resistant... I was more concerned with the fact that Endeavor was standing over him.

"-was an impressive match, young man," Endeavor said. "I see promise in you."

Kacchan snorted. "Yeah, yeah, ya flamey bastard."

Endeavor glowered at him. "Your attitude, however, could use some work."

"Really?" Kacchan glared at him. "My attitude needs work? f*cking funny coming from you, Mister I-Throw-Firey-Tantrums-Whenever-"

"Kacchan?" I interrupted him. "Even if you feel fine, I should probably take a look at you before you get into a shouting match."

Kacchan bit his tongue. "Fine. Let's go, Deku." He dragged me away from Endeavor, to an exit where we could talk in peace. I still had Sonia throw up a sound barrier, though. "I get it," he sighed. "Don't get him suspicious about what we know."

I healed up the few wounds Kacchan had. "Yeah, but at the same time I don't blame you for getting heated up."

He glared at me. "Was that a f*cking pun?"

"Right, you should probably get back to the field." I started to walk off. Kacchan tried to grab me, but my shoulder dissolved before he could grab it.

"Deku get back here you f*cker!"

I grinned at him as the rest of my body turned to sound.

xoxoxo

A few minutes later after I'd helped out a few spectators who were in need of water, Cementoss-sensei had formed a table out of cement on an island of restored ground in the middle of the destroyed arena.

"The tiebreaker will be an arm wrestling match!" Midnight-sensei announced. "You may use your Quirks and magic, however you aren't allowed to break the table to throw your opponent off-balance. Get ready!" Kacchan and Uraraka put their elbows on the table and grabbed each other's hands. Their eyes locked, the looks on both their faces intense. "Iiii'm gonna step back a bit..." Midnight muttered. "Begin!" she shouted after getting to what she judged to be a safe distance.

It looked like Uraraka tried to weaken Kacchan by making him heavier, but he used a sort of modified Fire Dash to resist it. He responded by using a jet of fire coming from the back of his hand. Uraraka put up a good fight with what I could now see was some surprisingly heavy-duty strengthening magic that I decided to ask her or Aizawa-sensei about later, but in the end it looked like her increasing Kacchan's weight acted against her...

Kacchan slammed Uraraka's hand into the table, hard enough for the table to shatter, but thankfully it looked like she defended at the last second (causing a secondary shock to further ruin the table) so hopefully her hand wasn't too hurt...

Midnight-sensei blinked and swished her whip. "Well, it looks like the winner is Bakugou Katsuki!"

Kacchan grinned and offered a hand to Uraraka. When he helped her up, I noticed that she winced a bit. I sent a message to Kacchan telling him to go to Shuzenji-sensei and take Uraraka with him.

"Well that was a pretty awesome end to a pretty awesome round!" Mic-sensei shouted. "And after Cementoss is done fixing the arena we'll get on with round two! Give it up for Cementoss, everybody!"

xoxoxo

I walked down the hallway. It was already time for my fight with Todoroki. I took a deep breath and thought over my strategy again. The air chilled slightly as I prepared myself for the match ahead, my breath visible.

"Hello, boy," a voice interrupted my thoughts, and I almost walked face-first into a giant chest.

I flinched and looked up at the flaming man who was standing in front of me. "Todoroki Enji," I said.

"You know, you remind me of All Might," he told me.

I clenched my fist. Even with The Gamer's Mind keeping me level-headed, I was very tempted to punch him in the face. "I'll take that as a compliment," I ground out. "Right, well I think they're expecting me. Good talk." I started to walk away from him.

"You know, my Shōto is meant to surpass All Might."

Ping.

Something inside me... snapped. The air around me became frigid cold as I turned around to glare at him. He flinched. "Listen here," I growled and jabbed my finger at his throat. My eyes felt odd for some reason. "I don't know what the hell you did to Shōto," I lied, "but anyone with eyes and a brain can see that he hates you. Do you know something I was able to pick up from what little he's said to me?" Endea- Enji was shaking. "He thinks of his left side as a curse, and especially after what you just said to me I'm certain that you're the reason why." I turned back around. "I'm going to make Shōto use his left side, but it won't be for you. It'll be for him. Now goodbye." With that said, I stormed off.

While I walked to the exit, I checked out the text box that I heard when I was yelling at Enji. "Huh," I muttered. "That's... interesting, but I don't think I should use without testing it a lot first..."

A skill has been created by unlocking one of the hidden Quirks of One For All! By directing your wrath at a deserving target, the skill 'Fear' has been created!

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

I dismissed the text box as I walked onto the arena. Todoroki and I glared at each other and I looked at his level.

Cold

LV 40

Todoroki Shōto

"Won't this be a cool fight, folks?" Mic-sensei shouted.

"Both Midoriya and Todoroki have proven themselves to be capable of great feats of power," Aizawa added. "Be on the lookout for flying ice."

"Alrighty, I want a clean fight, you two!" Midnight declared. "Try not to freeze the audience again. Go!"

Todoroki started the fight off by sending an encroaching wall of ice at me. I waved my hand, causing the ice to shatter before it could even get close to me. I was still struck with a wave of biting cold, but I just warmed myself back up with some fire magic. Then I infused myself with ice magic. Snowflakes fell off my body as frost spread along the ground by my feet. Todoroki shot another ice wall at me, but I destroyed it again. This time, though, the cold didn't even bother me. I could feel it, but with Ice Aura active I was much more resistant to the cold. I activated Open Mind to try to get a better read on Todoroki.

"-get in closer so he can't... Wait, what is that magic? It's almost like he's... Hang on." For some reason the Wii theme music and the Wii Shop Channel music started playing over each other in his brain.

Todoroki took advantage of my confusion to charge at me by surfing on a wave of ice. Before he could touch me I sublimated the ice he was standing on and punched him in the gut with low-power OFA. "Were you able to sense me reading your mind!?" I asked him incredulously after he slammed into an ice wall he made.

He blinked. "Yes." I deactivated Open Mind. "Can you not sense magic?"

"I can see magic if I use a certain spell, but I can't just sense it..."

"Oh. I assumed you could because of how you draw in ambient magical energy to replenish your mana reserve."

My eye twitched. I inhaled and clasped my hands together. "Okay. This... is neither the time nor the place for whatever the hell exposition you have. Can we... Can we talk about this later?"

Todoroki shrugged. "That's fine." Then he clenched his fist. The frost by my feet surged up, trapping me up to my waist in ice. "This battle won't last long, anyway."

I used a partial application of Ice Embodiment to walk through the ice. "I wouldn't be too sure about that, Todoroki." I shot a beam of ice magic at him, which he blocked with a wall of ice. I Flash Stepped into his ice wall, merging through it and to the other side. I saw his eyes widen right before I punched him in the face with an ice-wreathed fist. He tried to catch me between two ice walls, but I switched on Ice Embodiment at just the right time to merge with the ice. I exploded out of the ice, caught the shards I'd made, and threw them at Todoroki. He blocked them with yet another wall of ice, but I noticed something before he did.

"Just like I thought, you're getting cold," I said after using Sound Embodiment to get behind him. He turned around, slower than he would have before, letting me see that his right side was covered in frost and he was shivering. "That's the thing about Quirks. They have the potential to be even more powerful than magic even when less energy is used, but they usually have some drawback. Kacchan's Quirk lets him make powerful explosions, but it hurts his arms. Uraraka's Quirk lets her erase gravity, but it gives her nausea. Tsu has frog powers, but also a weakness to extreme temperatures. And you? You're resistant to your Quirk, but not immune." He sighed, his breath visible. "Sure, you'd be fine if you used your two sides in tandem, but you don't. Here everyone's going all-out, but you're only using half your power!"

Todoroki glared at me and tried to hit me with another ice attack. It was weaker and slower, though, so I dodged it easily. "Did my father bribe you into forcing me to use his power? And after what you told me..."

I growled and tossed his ice at him. "This has nothing to do with him!" He tried to charge at me again, but I threw him away even easier than the last time. He was almost thrown out of the ring before he managed to stop himself with a wall of ice. It looked like he'd switched to using ice mana instead of his Quirk, which meant he traded the high power he was used to to not be affected by his ice, but the damage was already done. He was covered in frost and visibly shaking. "Everyone here is giving it their all and here you're holding back half your power, literally!"

Todoroki dashed at me with a significantly smaller wave of ice compared to before. I made blades of ice on my shoes and skated away. "Why are you doing this?" he asked me.

"How could I call myself a hero if I couldn't save one person?" I asked. "Now show my your full power!"

"I refuse to use my father's power," he said.

I growled. "IT'S YOUR POWER, NOT HIS!" I screamed. I saw a flash of something in Todoroki's eyes, and flames danced off his scar.

This Life Is Mine

LV 42

Todoroki Shōto

I smiled. Not only did his level raise by two, but his title changed to something much more uplifting. "Why?" he asked me as his entire left side lit ablaze, warming up his right side and dispelling the ice. It looked like he was also resistant to temperature shock. "Why were you so insistent on getting me to use my fire?"

"It's like I said. I wanted to save you." His fire flared.

"Shōtooooooo!" Enji screamed from the sideline. I glared at him. He looked over at me for only a moment, but thanks to Tactician and the fact that I knew what to look for I felt... I guess the best way to describe it was the "level" of fear he was feeling. It was either zero or so minimal that I couldn't feel any fear on him, but I still felt something there. I pulled on it, raising the amount of fear he felt as high as I could. In the span of a moment, his expression of joy turned straight to terror, and was it just me or did a dark stain appear on his pants?

"Right, so where were we?" I asked Todoroki as Enji slinked off like a coward.

Todoroki smiled at me. It was small, but I definitely saw it. "I believe we were about to get this fight started for real." His fire roared and he swiped his right arm at me. Incredibly thick ice spread out from all around him, frost spreading onto his hand but immediately melting off. I grinned and jumped towards him, sailing through the wave of ice. I readied a One For All-enhanced punch as he glowed red-hot. The air around him shimmered as he pointed his palm at me. I activated Mana Dome. Before we could even clash, he caused an explosion by superheating the air that had been chilled from our icy fight.

I was blown back by the sheer force of the explosion. I saw the ground sail under me, and in my desperation clawed at it. Ping. Before my fingers touched the concrete, they transformed into sharpened white claws that I used to dig into the ground and slow myself down. Skeletal, another of the past wielders' Quirks. Hopefully it just looked like ice, though... I still grabbed the two chunks of ground that my bone claws tore up with molten mana and turned them into giant lava shuriken, like a lavabender. I got up and saw Todoroki just barely in the arena, saved just in time by a wall of ice. I chuckled. "You up for more?" I asked over the roar of the crowd.

Todoroki got up. "Of course," he said.

I threw my lava shuriken at him. He froze one and shot the other with a fire blast. He still had to dodge because fire-based attacks are not the best at stopping molten magic, but I gave him an A for effort. It was good to know he was using his fire, at least. He threw an ice attack at me, which I dodged, and hit me in the face with a burst of fire. That hurt, but not enough to stop me.

I grinned and slammed the ground. "Limit Break!" I shouted. Glowing cracks spread along the ground around me. Lava erupted from the ground and converged on me as I merged with it. "Molten Tiger!" I shaped the lava around me into, as I said, a giant tiger, with varying levels of heat used to make the stripes and other details.

Todoroki gaped at me for a second before giving me a small smile. Small flames danced around the left side of his body, a preparation for the sheer amount of ice he produced and then compacted into the shape of an Eastern-style dragon, which he froze himself by just the feet onto the back of. "Arctic Dragon!" he answered. We roared at each other and charged. I sank my red-hot teeth into the side of his dragon while it dug into my shoulder with teeth made of white ice. Each bite made my MP take a hit, while at the same time my bites did the same for Todoroki. Still, with his Quirk he wasn't expending nearly as much as me. One for All helped, but it looked like Todoroki was coming out ahead...

I dug my claws into the ground, creating cracks that stretched out under Todoroki's dragon. Lava erupted, curling around its thin body before solidifying in the chill. That took a big chunk out of my MP, but it was worth it to immobilize the dragon. I swiped at Todoroki with my claws, causing him to eject himself from where he was standing on the dragon's back. While he was still in the air, I opened my mouth and spat a high-powered fireball at him. While the heat didn't affect him much, the concussion from the blast knocked him back to the edge of the arena. Before he even landed, I slammed my front paws into the ground. Cracks spread along the ground, and right after Todoroki landed the ground he crashed on was sent flying backwards by an eruption of lava. While he was able to immediately chill it enough to turn the lava into a surprisingly stable column, the concrete gave out from the sudden changes in temperature and he fell out of bounds.

Midnight cracked her whip. "Todoroki is out of bounds! The match goes to Midoriya!"

Todoroki sighed and slumped down. My Molten Tiger collapsed as I left it and then walked over to Todoroki. The left half of his uniform was almost completely burned away from his own fire. "You okay?" I asked. I rubbed the back of my head. "Sorry, I might have overdone it a bit..."

Todoroki shook his head. "I'm fine," he assured me as he got up. "I suppose if I'm out of the tournament anyway, I should talk to Shuzenji-sensei?"

"Oh, yeah. That's probably a good idea! You might not even miss out on too much, there's a TV in the temporary office." I thought for a moment. "Do you want me to take you there?" I asked. "I know where it is and I'll back you up if your father tries to talk to you."

Todoroki considered it. "Sure. I'll tell you about how I can sense magic on the way." He held his hand out.

I shook his hand. "Let's go, then," I said with a smile.

xoxoxo

"I believe I promised to tell you about my ability to sens-"

"Shōto," Enji interrupted. "It's good to see you using your fire. You should train, though. You have no control over it. Just look at your poor shirt!"

"Enji," I growled, taking a step forward. He flinched before I even thought to use Fear again. Good. I could live with my friend's abusive father developing a conditioned fear response to me.

Before I could actually use Fear, though, Todoroki stepped forward and put his arm in front of me. "Let me, Midoriya." He glared at his father. "I forgot about you, out there. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, though, so I'll think about that." He walked past Enji. "We're leaving now, Midoriya."

I glared at Enji as I followed Todoroki. You'd better believe I used Fear on him.

"As I was saying, I believe I promised to tell you about my ability to sense magic."

"Yeah, how did that happen."

"To be perfectly honest I have no idea." He was silent for a moment. "I technically know what caused it, but not really. About a year ago, maybe a little less, I was resting after a particularly... intense... training session with my father." I winced. "I don't know if it was that I was in a bad state, or if it was something that would have happened to me anyway, or what, but while I nursed my wounds I felt... something. It was a wave of magic, more powerful than anything I've seen since, yet at the same time I didn't see anything. Perhaps it was just because I wasn't used to my new sense, though. I passed out, and when I woke the next day I could feel magic teeming in everything. It was... an adjustment... but eventually I gained a feel for it. It was a tremendous help. I could feel the fire within my father, letting me know where he was and how agitated he was without even seeing him."

I winced again at the implications. "Soooo... what was it you said about me absorbing ambient magical energy?"

Todoroki shrugged. "Everyone does it, as far as I can tell, but I've noticed that you do it much more, and you seem to increase your intake at times."

I nodded. "That's probably Meditation or Mantra. I've tried to teach other people how to use them, but nobody seems to be able to figure it out. If there's a part that I've been doing automatically, probably due to my Quirk, that'd explain that."

"I see. You said that you can see magic, right?"

"With a spell called Eye for Magic, yeah. It doesn't seem to pick up the ambient magic, though. Just spells and stuff."

He stopped walking. "Watch, please." He closed his eyes. With Eye for Magic I saw that his mana was acting in what looked like a similar way to how mine acted when I used Meditation. It was a bit different, though... "It's nowhere near as good as yours, but it helps in a pinch..."

"That's... interesting. Do you think you could teach other people to do that?"

He shook his head. "Not likely. I was only able to figure it out because I could sense the magic, which I don't know how I figured out in the first place."

I sighed. "Oh well." I saw the sign for Shuzenji-sensei's office. "Right, we're here. Do you want me to go in with you or..?"

"No, that's fine. Go watch the tournament."

"If you say so." I pulled out a small piece of paper and wrote my number on it. "Just in case you need someone to talk to," I offered.

He accepted it. "Thank you, Midoriya."

xoxoxo

On the way back to the stands, I bumped into Aoyama. "Are you okay?" I asked. He looked really queasy.

"Ah, non non," he said. "Don't worry about me, ça va bien!" He had an uneasy smile.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Your belt was melted."

Aoyama smiled for a bit before sighing. "You see, my belt... it was made to help me control my Quirk, as my power is too much for my body to handle. I don't know if I can do this without it..."

"I believe in you," I said. "I'm sure that if you do your best, you can do well. And remember that even if you don't think you can use your Quirk, you still have magic and your fists, right?"

Aoyama beamed at me. "Merci," he said with a twinkle.

"De rien," I replied.

He gasped. "Tu parles francais?" he asked excitedly.

I nodded. "Oui, un peu." I confirmed.

He sparkled some more. "I didn't know anyone else in our class spoke French!"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Learning. I don't suppose-"

"Oui! Of course I'll help you with your French!"

I smiled. "Thanks. If you want I'll help you with magic. Speaking of which, good luck with your match!"

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

"Sorry about that again..." I apologized to Tsu, holding a small flame in front of her.

She harrumphed jokingly and leaned a bit more into Uraraka's chest, her arms crossed. She was using Uraraka's new sport uniform jacket like a makeshift blanket. "You're such a hypocrite, Midoriya. You yell at Todoroki for freezing up the audience, then you go just as cold as him when you fight him, kero."

"Sorry, I was hoping Blaise and Pyra working together would be enough to keep everyone from getting cold..."

"Hey," a lazy voice drawled. I turned my head to see a basic fire elemental suddenly sitting on the railing in front of me. His hair and clothes were mostly black with a few orange stripes. He had black cat ears, a black cat tail, and catlike orange eyes with yellow sclera. "I helped too, ya know."

"Oh hi, Charlie!" Uraraka said.

"Who the f*ck are you?" Kacchan asked him.

"That's Aizawa-sensei's fire elemental," I said.

"And I'll have you know I helped out," Charlie grumbled.

"Only because you were forced to, niichan," another voice said. A girl with sky-blue hair in a sort of bowl cut that covered her eyes appeared in midair. Upside-down. She had very pale, actually outright just white skin and two weird red horns that formed a sort of deformed heart shape when seen from the side. She had a simple white dress, almost exactly the same color as her skin.

Tsu waved at her. "Hey, Cass. Kero."

"Hey, Tsu-chan," Cassiopeia, Aizawa-sensei's gravity elemental, said. "Are you and my aunt finally dating yet?" Tsu and Uraraka both spluttered, now blushing. "Iiii'll take that as a no, then." She smirked, and with a momentary glow of her horns Tsu's head was suddenly shoved into Uraraka's chest by an unseen force that was probably gravity. "C'mon, you guys've obviously noticed the attraction between you two~"

"Th-that's because you're literally making Tsu-chan gravitate towards me!" Uraraka shouted, blushing heavily. Tsu said something that was probably agreeing with Uraraka, but it was muffled so I couldn't tell for sure.

"I have no idea what you're talking about~" Cass taunted. She cheekily stuck out her tongue.

Even though I wasn't the direct target of it, I could feel Aizawa-sensei's glare from all the way over in the announcer's box. Was that what Enji felt when I used Fear on him?

Good.

Tsu and Uraraka stopped being attracted to each other. By gravity, at least. "H-hey, look at the time!" Cass said. "G-gotta go!"

"That girl..." Tsu muttered, still blushing heavily.

"Tsu do you need me to heal you?" I asked. "Your nose is bleeding a little."

She felt her nose. "Oh. Yeah please do that, kero. Sorry, sometimes my nose bleeds a little easy." I placed my hand on her face and cast Healing Hands.

"Do I have to beat up a child?" Kacchan offered.

"D-don't worry about Cass," Uraraka said. "She doesn't do stuff anything as bad as that a lot, and she always apologizes later after Shō gives her a lecture."

"And this is the first time she drew blood, kero," Tsu commented.

"I feel kinda bad for Aizawa-sensei," I said. "Some of my elementals are, no offense, a little hard to manage..."

"Hey!" Rayne shouted.

"...but at least my other elementals help keep them grounded." Blaise put Rayne in a headlock despite the fact that they were both immaterial. "Aizawa-sensei, on the other hand, only has those two."

"Yeah, lazy elementals are annoying to deal with," Kacchan said. I looked at him. "I am assuming," he added suspiciously quickly.

"Alright, then," I said. "Hey, shouldn't you be heading for the waiting room, Kacchan?"

He shrugged. "I trust Birdface and Sparkles-"

"Tokoyami and Aoyama."

"-Birdface and Sparkles to give each other a good fight. Unfortunately I won't be able to watch their fight, directly anyway, but at least I can watch Glasses'."

"His name is Iida, problem child," Aizawa-sensei said over the speaker.

"Thaaaat's right folks!" Mic-sensei shouted. "It's Iida Tenya! Versus! Shiozaki Ibara! Who will win, technology or nature? Let's find out!"

"Start!" Midnight-sensei announced.

And then it was over. Iida was really fast.

"Damn, that was quick," Kacchan said disappointedly.

"That's what she said," Tsu muttered.

"I'll kill you, Frog," Kacchan threatened flatly.

"That's also what she said," I joked.

Kacchan twitched. "That one doesn't even make sense!"

"Maybe you should go now?" Uraraka suggested. "Iida's fight's over."

He sighed. "Fine, just tell me what happens in... Tokoyama and Aoyami's fight?" He glared at what appeared to be thin air. "Did I f*cking ask, Pyra!?" Kacchan grunted and stomped off, grumbling about fires and... leaves for some reason?

A few minutes after Kacchan left, Tokoyami and Aoyama walked onto the arena. "Get ready!" Midnight-sensei said after Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei said their part. At her command, motes of dark magic started to emanate from Tokoyami. At the same time, Aoyama started to sparkle with light magic. It occurred to me that Tokoyami and Aoyama were both, in their own ways, among the most showy people in our class...

"I wonder which one of us shall win?," Tokoyami remarked. "Your holy light, or my curséd shadow?"

"Hey!" Dark Shadow protested. "I have feelings too!"

"Shall we see, mon ami?" Aoyama replied. "But do keep in mind that I won't go easy on you!"

"I wouldn't dream of it!"

"Start!"

Aoyama shot first, all of his sparkles turning to lasers at once. It seemed that Tokoyami anticipated that, because just before the lasers hit him a shroud of darkness spread out in front of him. Dark Shadow shot out from behind the shroud, slightly enhanced by spending a few moments in darkness, but was blown back easily by Aoyama using a sparkling light bomb. Aoyama tried to hit Dark Shadow with a few more lasers, but was thwarted by Tokoyami shooting them with bolts of darkness. Dark Shadow lashed out at Aoyama again, but he dodged out of the way, hitting Dark Shadow with yet another point-blank burst of light.

"Tres magnifique!" Aoyama said, striking a pose that reminded me of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. "Your desire to win shines bright in your fighting!"

"Of course!" Tokoyami agreed, and that was definitely a JoJo pose. "What student of Yuuei would I be if I didn't give this fight my all!?"

Aoyama's grin widened. It faltered for a moment when his stomach started to glow, but then went even wider. He clutched his stomach, but in a confident way and not just nausea. His hand glowed and he twisted it, drawing a ball of sparkling blue light out of his stomach. I couldn't be certain, but it looked like he removed the light his Navel Laser was building up before it fired out and hurt him. Dark Shadow lunged at him again, so he shaped the ball into a sort of spear shape and tossed it at him. "SPARKLING SPEAR!" he shouted as the javelin pierced into Dark Shadow and then exploded in a bright light. Dark Shadow shrank down and retreated back into Tokoyami, muttering something about it being too bright out.

"Impressive, you managed to defeat my Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami said. "But don't think this means you've won!" To back up his threat, Tokoyami made two balls of darkness.

"I wouldn't count on it!" Aoyama shouted. He created another spear from his Navel Laser to match Tokoyami's shadow balls. Tokoyami threw one of the shadow balls at Tokoyami, but Aoyama threw his Sparkling Spear at it. The spear pierced through the shadow ball, not even slowing down, then exploded right in front of Tokoyami. He was knocked back, landing near the eadge of the ring.

He groaned, then summoned Corvo. Now that I could see him properly it looked like he'd ranked up, as he looked older than the last time I'd seen him not in a shroud of oppressive darkness. "It seems I'll need more than just my own power to best you," Tokoyami said as he got up. "I shall defeat you with the power of shadows!" As Corvo charged at Aoyama, Tokoyami created and fired several feather-shaped projectiles. Aoyama created yet another Sparkling Spear, which he used to slice through all of the black feathers. He then caught Corvo's sword when he tried to swing at him.

"Splendide!" Aoyama beamed. "Two knights crossing blades! How I wish I were wearing my armor! But wait!" Aoyama jumped back and released his spear, which floated in front of him and then unraveled into ribbons of silvery light. I used Eye for Magic while watching him do an entire magical girl transformation sequence, except instead of a cute dress he made himself a suit of armor similar to his hero costume out of light. Honestly there need to be more magical girl transformation sequences into full plate armor. While he still had some of his Sparkling Spear left over, it looked more like a Radiant Rapier than anything. That didn't seem to bother him at all. In fact, he seemed delighted that he had a vaguely sword-like object to wave around. He grabbed the rapier and thrusted at Corvo.

Corvo blocked with his shield, then swung at him with a shadow-enhanced sword. Aoyama dodged nimbly, only the tip of the sword scraping off of his armor and taking a few motes of light with it. Aoyama riposted with a series of thrusts. Corvo blocked the first two, but the third touched him in the chest. Aoyama caused the rapier to shoot forward as a laser, pushing Corvo with it. Tokoyami shot some more feathers at Aoyama, but his starry cape curled in front of him in defense. The cape was destroyed in the attack, but before it could fully dissipate Aoyama's stomach started to glow. With no warning, a Navel Laser shot out at Tokoyami. In a last-ditch attempt to block it, Tokoyami summoned Dark Shadow again. Dark Shadow tried his best, but he was still weakened from earlier, so he basically evaporated when the laser hit him. Tokoyami was hit, punched out of the ring. Aoyama, meanwhile, collapsed to the ground from the backlash of using his Quirk. His armor dissolved in a flash of light.

"Tokoyami is out of bounds! The winner is Aoyama Yuga!" Midnight-sensei announced.

"Well fought, my friend," Tokoyami congratulated him.

Aoyama gave himself a few moments before saying, "Same to you. It was un match difficile." Then he retched. "Excuse-moi. Quirk backlash..."

Tokoyami nodded. "I know how it is."

xoxoxo

A few minutes later, Tokoyami and Aoyama had left, replaced by Kacchan and Kirishima. "Heck yeah!" Kirishima shouted with a big, toothy grin. "This fight is gonna be so manly!"

Kacchan grinned and punched his palm, exploding it slightly for intimidation factor. "You're pretty damn manly yourself. Try to keep up."

"Start!"

Kacchan blasted himself towards Kirishima, aiming a firey kick at him. Kirishima raised his hands in a block and activated his Quirk. Kacchan responded by using his fire and explosions to pivot in midair while keeping his momentum, then exploding in Kirishima's face right before he could ram into him. They were both knocked back by the explosion, and Kacchan naturally recovered easier because he was used to being thrown around by his explosions. Kirishima wasn't too fazed after he landed, though. He skidded along the ground for a bit before creating a rock wall to stop himself. "Not bad," Kirishima said as he got up.

"Not bad yourself," Kacchan responded. "That was a pretty powerful explosion."

Kirishima's grin widened and he showed off his hardened arms, which were still steaming. "It'll take a bigger blast than that to take me down!" Then he stomped the ground. Spears of concrete shot from the ground, aimed at Kacchan. He exploded upward, then destroyed the spears with a second blast when they followed him. The blast propelled Kacchan forwards, over Kirishima.

"DIE!" he shouted, then put his hands together for a big blast. He waited until Kirishima hardened to hit him with a blast hard enough to drive his feet into the ground.

"That's so manly!" Kirishima shouted as he used earth magic to eject himself out of the concrete.

And right into Kacchan's trap. "DIE!" he shouted, then placed his hands on Kirishima's back while he was still in midair. Kirishima was sent flying, and just barely managed to erect an earth wall to crash into before he sailed over the arena boundary entirely.

Kirishima laughed as he peeled himself out of the Kirishima-shaped indentation in the cracked wall. "That was a good one, man!" he said as he turned to face Kacchan. "Getting me into the air like that? Manly!" His grin widened as the rock wall broke apart, though the pieces didn't fall. "Guess I'll have to up the ante!" Kirishima pointed at Kacchan, and the rocks from the wall shot at him. Kirishima's rocks blocked off all angles of escape aside from dodging back, which would make Kacchan ring out.

Kacchan stood his ground. Before the rocks reached him, he burst into flames. Kirishima winced as the rocks... went through him? I focused my eye-enhancing skills on Kacchan just as the last dregs of the spell wore off. It looked like it was still unpolished, considering the fact that Kacchan's clothes were burned in areas and his skin was red and steaming, but that was definitely Fire Embodiment! Kacchan charged with an explosive dash while Kirishima was still in shock, punching him in the gut. Kacchan followed up with a small explosion that pushed Kirishima out of bounds.

"Kirishima is out of bounds! The winner is Bakugou Katsuki!"

Kirishima laughed again. "Damn, that was manly!" He hopped back onto the arena and clapped Kacchan on the back. Kacchan frowned a bit, but... was that a blush? "The way you just went through my rocks! I've seen that spell before and I still didn't see that coming!"

"You weren't a slouch yourself, Kirishima," Kacchan said. "If I didn't pull a stupidly advanced spell out of my ass you might have won there. Just remember not to gawk the next time someone does something like that and you should do fine."

Kirishima beamed. "You mean it?"

"Yeah, you're good."

I got up from my seat. "I should probably get ready for the next round. Bye!"

"Bye, Midoriya," Tsu said.

"Good luck, Deku!"

xoxoxo

"That match was awesome, Aoyama!" I told Aoyama when I saw him in the hall. "That armor trick was pretty great!"

He grinned. "Merci. I suppose it's a good idea to use it on Bakugou?"

I nodded. "You didn't hear it from me, but you should probably think of some offensive magic for your next fight as well." I winked. "Wish me luck!"

xoxoxo

Iida got into a ready stance on the opposite side of the arena. "Midoriya. I hope we will have a pleasant match."

"Me too, Iida."

"Begin!"

I Flash Stepped to the side when Iida charged at me. He turned back around to face me and continued his charge. When I Flash Stepped again, I was tripped by a raised rock that wasn't there a moment before. Apparently having a mutation that gives you metal engines in your legs gives you earth affinity. Who knew? "You won't be able to dodge this! Reciproburst!" I stood up just in time for Iida to slam into me. My physical defenses may have meant that that didn't hurt, but he was still pushing me back easily. I tried to use magic to grip to the ground and...

Ping! Ping!

My feet stuck to the ground. No, my shoes stuck to the ground, first from the spell Grip and then because of my new Quirk, Magnetize. Even though Iida was pushing me as hard as he could, and with a special move at that, my shoes were not just gripping the ground better but also strongly magnetized, as was the ground under them. The good news was that Iida was nowhere near strong enough to uproot that combination. The bad news was that Magnetize was one of those Quirks that the user can't exactly turn off once it's applied to something, and instead wears off after time, so I was stuck for about five minutes or until I set my shoes on fire, and it would probably look suspicious if I did that.

Wait, no it wouldn't.

"Well... you certainly didn't dodge..." Iida muttered as his engines stalled. I figured that was what took his Quirk out in the cavalry battle. Now that he couldn't push me off the edge, I punched him in the stomach with a sonic-enhanced fist. While he was knocked back I coated myself in Fire Aura, concentrating it on my legs. The heat burned off the magnetization on the cement completely, but only weakened my shoes because I didn't want to melt them. I Flash Stepped at Iida, leaving behind footprints of fire. He blocked my kick with some basic defensive magic and pushed me away. I landed on the ground in front of him. "Impressive, Midoriya!" Iida shouted. Then he grinned. He also set on fire, though it looked like he couldn't quite focus it on his legs as well because he wasn't nearly as skilled with Fire Aura as me.

"Oh right," I said. "Internal combustion engine."

"That's right. I won't just let you win."

"I wasn't planning on it."

Iida used fire magic to compensate for his lack of Engine when he charged me. I dropped on my hand and kicked at him. It wasn't perfect, but my DEX made up for that. Iida countered with a kick of his own, creating a small wave of heat. I grabbed Iida's leg between my legs, using it and a fire jet to pivot and launch myself upward. I had Halitus create an air platform, which I kicked off of. I flipped in midair to axe kick Iida. He dodged backwards, which was to be expected with how much wind-up that attack had, but that wasn't its point. "LIMIT BREAK!" I shouted when my heel hit the ground. "EARTH SURGE!" Iida's eyes widened as the ground rose up in a wave. He was pushed all the way out of the arena, which was mangled beyond recognition.

"Iida is out of bounds! Midoriya wins!"

I stared at the aftermath of Earth Surge. "Um... I can probably fix that," I offered Cementoss.

He waved me off with a smile. "You're fine, I'll do it."

I walked around the wall of rock I'd made. "You okay, Iida? I might have overdone it a bit."

He sighed as he got up. "I'm fine. I... suppose I still have some training to do before I'm able to catch up to you."

"If you want I could spar with you sometime," I offered. "I could really use some experience with pure physical fighting."

He nodded. "I'd love to."

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

"This tournament has been so exciting so far!" Mic-sensei shouted.

"It's almost over, but I doubt there won't be some more... excitement," Aizawa-sensei added.

"That's right! This next battle will be Aoyama versus Bakugou! Who will win, folks? Will it be the radiant paladin, or will the red-hot warmage!"

"Start!" Midnight-sensei said.

"Let us have a glorious battle,mon ami!" Aoyama glittered.

Kacchan laughed. "Like it'd be anything else! Hit me with your best shot!"

"As you wish!" As with Tokoyami's fight, Aoyama opened by turning his sparkles into lasers. But while Kacchan dodged them his navel started to glow again. Aoyama struck a pose, and ribbons of light erupted from his stomach and enveloped him. The armor looked slightly thicker than what he had last time, but was unmistakably the spell he'd used last time.

"Let's see what you can do!" Kacchan shouted. He blasted himself at Aoyama, fists blazing. He slapped Aoyama in the armored chest and shot himself back with a small explosion. The hits caused Aoyama's armor to fluctuate and knocked him back, but aside from looking a little less vibrant the armor held. Kacchan grinned.

Aoyama smiled back at him and shot another wave of lasers. Kacchan tried to phase through the lasers with Fire Embodiment but was still blown back anyway. "Shall we get this battle started for real?" Aoyama asked as he struck a pose and used the distraction to fire up his Quirk again. His armor thickened and formed a stylish helmet, then the excess light flowed down his arms and formed into a rapier and buckler. Aoyama flourished his sword and shouted, "Taste the sting of my Silver Chariot!En garde!"

Kacchan's grin widened. "If that's how you're gonna play this..." he muttered. He struck an equally dramatic pose, almost literal fire in his eyes. A glow similar to Fire Aura engulfed his body, but it looked deeper somehow. I honed my senses on it and heard aping.

A new skill has been created through special action! From extensive use of skills to understand magical effects, the skill 'Analyze' has been created!

"That'll be useful," I muttered. It created a text box with information that I already knew some of from using Eye for Magic. Which meant it would probably be made passive by Tactician, unlike Eye for Magic or Open Mind. Score. Now if only I could get an Open Mind version... I filed that away for later and looked at the Analyze text box.

Fire Ignition

An infusion of the fire element into one's body stronger than Fire Aura. Grants greater enhancement than Fire Aura, but damages the user.

Increases attack damage by 90%, increases movement speed by 45%, increases STR by 30%, user generates extreme heat.

150 MP used per minute.

User takes 150 HP of fire damage per minute.

Locks user into using exclusively the fire element.

Maybe he tried to brute force Fire Embodiment and got something somewhere in between? It looked like I'd be healing him after this fight...

The ground crackled and glowed from the sheer heat pouring out of Kacchan. "If that armor of yours is Silver Chariot... how 'bout we call what I'm doing Magician's Red?" Even I could barely follow it when he ran at Aoyama, leaving only a few burning footprints behind him. He was behind Aoyama before he could even react, andslammedhis leg into him. Aoyama was sent flying, sparkles erupting from where Kacchan kicked him. Aoyama almost flew out of the arena from that one attack, but managed to force himself to slam into the ground using light magic, leaving a rainbowy afterimage of himself for a second. The ground cracked from the hit and Aoyama's armor looked a little worse for wear, but Aoyama just looked a little dazed. He used that new spell, Starlight Dash, to get up immediately.

"DIE!" Just in time, too. Aoyama just barely managed to Starlight Dash out of the way of Kacchan dashing at him. Kacchan stopped on a dime when he passed through Aoyama's afterimage, shattering the ground from his stomp, and shot himself at Aoyama again. It almost looked like he was hitting the ground so hard that he was being launched around by the recoil... Aoyama flinched and raised his shield. Kacchan slammed shoulder-first into the shield. The buckler flashed in an explosion of light, knocking Kacchan back. He almost landed outside of the arena but Fire Dashed back in just in time. "Not bad," Kacchan said. Then he lunged back at Aoyama. He let loose a flurry of almost-blows, just barely stopping himself from triggering Aoyama's shield trap whenever he maneuvered it in place with an explosion. Even though Kacchan never landed a hit on Aoyama, though, each explosion pushed him back a bit.

Kacchan yelled and slammed the ground in front of Aoyama. The ground exploded, knocking him into the air. Then Kacchan wiped his forehead and flicked his hand at Aoyama. A few small beads of fiery light flew off of his hand, landing on Aoyama's armor and shield. The mana-charged sweat droplets exploded, launching Aoyama back. Before he could touch the ground, Kacchan tackled him again. This time Aoyama didn't manage to save himself in time. He dropped outside of the arena and let his armor dissipate. Meanwhile, Kacchan collapsed to the ground. His skin was red, and he had steam rolling off of him. Luckily his pants were mostly fine, but his shirt was more ash than shirt...

"The match is over!" Midnight announced. "Aoyama is out of bounds! Bakugou is the winner! Now go to the nurse before your next match, Bakugou."

xoxoxo

I waited in the waiting room while Kacchan got chewed out by Shuzenji-sensei. Sonia flinched at something and sat down next to me.

"Hey, Izuku," she muttered out loud, even though she was still incorporeal. She liked doing that sometimes, probably because she was a sound elemental.

"What's up, Sonia?" I asked.

"You... might wanna be extra nice to Iida for a while..."

"Did you eavesdrop on a conversation?"

She frowned. "It's not... I heareverythingwithin my range. That's just what it's like as a sound elemental. I used to not... process it, I guess, but now that I'm contracted I know what everything I hear means..."

"Oh." That was... interesting. I'd heard the elementals say things that implied they existed somehow outside of being summoned, but that was... interesting. "Do you... want to talk about it?"

Sonia shook her head. "Nah. It's actually a lot nicer than not really knowing anything that's going on. Besides, Granny's almost done yelling at Kacchan."

I got up. "Alright, then. Let's go."

xoxoxo

Kacchan grinned toothily at me. "So. It's you against me, huh?" He said over the roar of the crowd. "I figured it would be." He did his signature fist-punch. "Let's have a great fight, Deku!"

I smiled at him. "I'll make sure of it."

"IT'S THE FINAL FIGHT, FOLKS!" Mic-sensei shouted. "MIDORIYA VERSUS BAKUGOU! WON'T THIS BE A SHOW!?"

"Midoriya and Bakugou have shown themselves several times in the sports festival to be very talented and very powerful," Aizawa-sensei added. "Honestly, evenI'vebeen inspired by the crazy things the students have been doing..."

"Start!"

Kacchan jumped at me with a proto-Flash Step, boosting with his explosions. I reacted just in time to activate Elemental Embodiment, and Kacchan swung at air. It still hurt because he used fire magic, but I rematerialized behind him and Bass Blasted him. Naturally Kacchan didn't go anywhere near the edge from the sound blast, but he went a bit further than I thought he would. "LIMIT BREAK!" I shouted right off the bat. I swung my arm like I was throwing a bowling ball, outputting a lot of ice magic. "GLACIER PRISON!" Kacchan was encased in a giant wall of ice. Just as I thought, that was only a temporary stop. I could see him melting through the ice already. I Flash Stepped in front of the Glacier Prison and activated Ice Aura. I kicked the base of the ice, cleanly breaking it from the ground, and pushed it with a small use of OFA combined with ice magic. The entire Glacier Prison started sliding like in Kirby when you move into an enemy you used Ice Kirby on, if you were able to freeze boss-sized enemies with Ice Kirby.

Kacchan exploded out of the ice in a wave of steam and water before he went out, spraying half the arena in water as he hurtled straight towards me. I planted my feet and swung back to hit him. He threw a few strands of his hair at me for some reason, then co*cked his own fist back. When I went to swing, my arm was stopped by something, letting Kacchan get a free hit on me. Whatever blocked my arm didn't stop me at all from getting knocked back. I had Dune raise a few rock walls for me to crash into. I got back up and... tried to Flash Step. Something around my chest this time stopped me. Luckily Damage Reduction meant that it didn't hurt me too much... I looked down at what was blocking me and saw several strands of long fibers. As I watched, a few more threads of silk wrapped around my body.

"You've probably noticed by now, huh?" Kacchan said. AndthenI thought to check his affinities again. Sonic 40 and Bio 30. "You can come out now, Leaf!"

The silk anchored to the rock wall I threw up grew and morphed into a green-haired boy in a green blanket cocoon that may or may not have been a giant leaf. He grumbled a bit and said, "Hey."

"The surprise is over, get him," Kacchan ordered. Thousands of strands of silk erupted from the bio elemental and wrapped around me and the surroundings. I was quickly wrapped up tight in a silk cocoon. I tried to use Lightning Embodiment to escape, but the webbing was resistant enough that that was a waste of time and MP. I struggled, trying to get some leeway, and took stock of the situation. I couldn't really move, the silk blocked my lightning, I could hear, or rather not hear, that there was enough material that it was soundproof, Halitus told me that it was airtight... I tried water and then bio. Water just left the cocoon wet, but I was able to merge into the web with bio. Leaf tried to keep me in the center, but I was, with a little difficulty, still able to phase through the silk. My hand got free of the web, so I slammed it into the ground and turned it into roots. I pulled the rest of my body out of the cocoon by turning into a small oak tree.

"OH WHAT THE HELL!" Kacchan shouted. "Alright, let's do a pincer attack on the tree!" Kacchan Fire Dashed at me from one side while Leaf lashed out with silk from the other. I burst into cactus needles, evading the webs and stabbing Kacchan a few times. I gathered my body back together, except for a few needles that Kacchan manage to incinerate, and reformed behind him. Kacchan turned around, murder in his eyes. "Leaf," he growled.

Leaf sighed and shot more silk at me, while Kacchan threw fireballs where Leaf wasn't covering. I smiled at Kacchan before turning into water. Leaf's string shots stabbed right through me, splashing even more water around. It didn't help that all of Kacchan's fireballs hit into what remained of the ice prison, nor that I had Rayne subtly spread all the water around. I "fell" into the puddles, then popped up behind Kacchan. I slapped him with a wave of water, soaking him, then switched to Lightning Embodiment.

"Ah, shi-" Kacchan started to say before getting punched by my lightning fist. He coped a lot better than the last time I used that combo, though, because after only a few hits my hand hit his wooden face with a lot less impact. Kacchan smirked and transformed his arm into a bunch of vines, which he wrapped around me. I changed back to normal and almost immediately turned to air to get away. Kacchan cursed as I rematerialized on the far side of the arena from him. He pointed at me, a fire lit on the tip of his finger. I grinned, activated Eye For Magic, and mirrored Kacchan perfectly, copying the magic he was putting into it almost perfectly. He shot the fire bullet at me, which I copied. Then he blinked and summoned more fireballs. I summoned more fireballs almost immediately. With my INT it was hopefully quick enough to look simultaneous. We threw a few more fireballs at each other before Kacchan realized that that was getting him nowhere.

"You're not finishing me off with a stupid copycat game, Deku!" Kacchan dashed at me using Fire Ignition. I managed to mimic it with One For All, but fumbled with the explosion to the face that followed it. My head shattered. Conveniently it happened to be made out of stone and I was able to piece it back together. "Damn Elemental Embodiment..." Kacchan blasted me a few more times. This time, however, I blocked the explosions with a Mana Shield, then hit back with a Steam Blast. Kacchan recovered with Fire Dash, then started flying upward. "Come and get me, Deku!"

I grinned, forming Halcyon Wing to fly after him. Really, it was bound to happen at some point. I flew after him, just barely lagging behind him. I flapped my wings, shooting a few feathers at him. Thanks to Halcyon Wing's secondary effect his flight spell also faltered for a moment, letting me catch up and kick him toward the boundary. He blasted himself back up and threw two blades of heat at my wings. I scattered my wings into feathers long enough for the blades to miss most of the feathers, then reconstituted my wings with most of the rest of the feathers. I threw the few that I left out at him and followed up with a small lightning bolt. Kacchan dodged the feathers, but I curved my lightning to strike him in the shoulder. It wasn't enough to do any major harm, but he growled and clutched his arm from the shock. I grinned and fired an Ice Beam at his hand, which was clutching his arm. I also iced that lightning wound for him while I was at it.

"DEKU YOU f*ckER!" Kacchan shouted as he plummeted. He caught himself with Fire Dash, supplemented with Fire Ignition, and rammed straight at me. The fire melted the ice as well. I flapped my wings, which was now no longer enough to screw up Kacchan's Fire Dash, and ascended fast enough that I hoped I would dodge him. It didn't work. "DIE!" Kacchan screamed as he punched me in the face. I shot all my feathers at Kacchan while I was still ascending, then turned to air. I floated down while Kacchan dodged all the feathers, then turned back when I was under him.Ping.I stopped falling before I even used a flight spell.

"Really?" I muttered to myself. "I get a flying Quirk now?" I shrugged it off and reached for the source of my new Quirk, Float. "Hey Kacchan!" I shouted. He pivoted in midair to face me. "Limit Break: Flurry of Blades!" A spear appeared in my left hand and a kunai in my right, both glowing brighter than my normal level 98 Bound Blades. I gave the spear Electric Aura and the kunai Wind Aura, then threw both of them at Kacchan. He dodged them both and shot an explosion off at the spear, but I'd already created my next two weapons, a flaming flamberge and a steam rapier. Bound Blade's interaction with One For All was interesting. Trying to supercharge a single weapon would either make it explode or cause it to become gigantic. Both of thosecouldbe useful in the right circ*mstances, especially as a surprise, but it was a lot better to just generally enhance the skill itself. This made the weapons slightly stronger and gave me a sort of connection to them, but there was an even bigger advantage to it.

Namely the fact that I could make a theoretically infinite amount of weapons, and give them their own individual Elemental Weaponry. Within a few seconds, I'd thrown a little over a hundred weapons at Kacchan. He managed to dodge most of them, though. "What, are you just gonna keep throwing weapons at me, Deku?" he asked. "That's not gonna work!"

I grinned and looked at the mass of floating weapons above Kacchan that I managed to keep him from noticing just by keeping him focused on dodging. "You'd think that..." I sent all the weapons at him at once. Kacchan noticed before any of them actually hit him, thankfully, and started dodging and exploding them again with more than a few curses. While he was preoccupied, I started charging up a large ball of ice magic. When he was most of the way done with my storm of weapons, I threw the swirling ball of frigid energy at him. "Arctic Storm!" I shouted when it hit him, engulfing him in a miniature blizzard. He was tossed out the side, steaming and covered in frost, and I had Halitus make an air cushion to keep him from hitting the ground too hard.

"Bakugou is out of bounds! Midoriya wins!"

I floated down next to Kacchan, landing lightly. "You suck," he told me with a grin wide enough that I had the strangest feeling he wasn't being sincere. I offered him my hand, which he grabbed. "Still, that was a damn good fight," he said as I helped him up.

"C'mon, let's get you patched up so you can accept your silver medal," I said.

He snorted and lightly hit me. "f*ck you, asshole."

"Love you too."

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

A skill has been created through special action! The skill 'Imaginary Architect' has been created through Bound Blade reaching MAX level!

A skill has been created through special action! The skill 'Item Enchantment' has been created through Elemental Weaponry reaching MAX level!

I closed the text boxes that appeared while I was throwing an inordinate amount of weapons at Kacchan. Those looked insanely useful but there wasn't much rush, so I planned on setting some time aside later to read those, paying very close attention. For now, though, it was time for the rewards ceremony.

The rewards ceremony. For the Yuuei sports festival. That I won. When I went to the podium that the first-, second-, and third-place winners were supposed to stand on I felt like I was floating. "I can't believe I placed first in the Yuuei sports festival!" I thought to myself. I was about to step onto the first place plat- Oh wait I actuallywasfloating. Huh. Weird, it felt almost natural... Luckily the podium was underground for added showmanship, so nobody actually saw me floating.

"Were you just floating, Deku?" Kacchan asked. Well, almost nobody saw me...

I scratched the back of my head. "Haha... I kinda got excited. Didn't even notice."

Kacchan looked skeptical. "How the hell didn't you notice you were floating? I feel like that's the kind of thing you'd notice."

"I'll tell you later." Then I decided to show off a bit. I activated Float, on purpose this time, and floated up onto the podium without turning around. Kacchan snorted and jumped onto the second-place spot.

"Isn't thistres magnifique?" Aoyama asked us as he got on the third place platform. Normally Iida would join him as the other person in third place, but he'd left earlier, telling us that his brother was attacked by a villain. I hoped he was okay...

After a few minutes of us waiting, Sonia alerted me that Midnight-sensei was about to announce us. The hole above us filled with smoke and bright flashes of light from fireworks as our podium started to rise. I got into what I hoped was a distinctive, but not too weird, pose as the confetti started falling on us. Well, it fell around me and on the other two. I flashed a little smile at Halitus and Juniper just before we rose into view.

"Iida is also in third place, but he had to leave for family problems," Midnight added. "Now, to present the medals, we have..." she pointed at the top of the wall of the arena, where a familiar shadow appeared.

"AH HA HA HA!" All Might shout-laughed, then jumped down in front of the podium. "I have come to present the medals!" Midnight presented the medals to All Might. He picked up the bronze medal and approached Aoyama. He smiled at him as he gave him the medal. "Young Aoyama, your resolve was impressive. Even though you suffered hardships, you persevered, and look at where you ended up. You will make a fine hero." He gave him a small hug and went back to get the silver medal. "Young Bakugou," he said as he put the silver medal around Kacchan's neck, "you have shown so much fire today, literal and metaphorical. You might perhaps want to tone down the aggressiveness just a bit, but you are very well on your way to becoming a great hero. I mean it." Kacchan grinned like an idiot as All Might went to get the gold medal.

The gold medal that he placed around my neck.All Might was giving me the sports festival gold medal I had dreamed of this moment, literally dreamed, for years!"Young Midoriya, you are... are you vibrating? And glowing?" I totally didn't stop vibrating because I totally wasn't glowing in the first place. I noticed that in my excitement that totally didn't cause me to literally vibrate I failed to notice a series of text boxes that had popped upholysh*twhatisthat.

Congratulations! The quest Sports Festival was completed!

Completion Rewards: 10000 EXP, 10000 Skill Fragments, Quirk menu unlocked, Mending unlocked, Blackwhip unlocked, Singularity unlocked

Bonus rewards for performance

Placed first in Obstacle Race: Swift as the Wind title, 5000 EXP, 5000 Skill Fragments, +2 to all stats, A copy of the Quirk of one member of Yuuei of your choice added to Quirk Shop

Placed first in Cavalry Battle: Cavalry Leader title, 5000 EXP, 5000 Skill Fragments, +3 to all stats, A copy of the Quirk of one participant of Cavalry Battle of your choice added to Quirk Shop

Placed first in Tournament: Champion of Yuuei title,10000 EXP, 10000 Skill Fragments, +10 to all stats, The copies of the Quirks of the people you defeated unlocked, Copies of the Quirks of the other participants of Tournament added to Quirk Shop

Your level has increased by one!(x2)

Okay. That was... something. Several somethings stacked on top of each other, actually. I had actually forgotten all about that quest. I mean I know I just got first place in the Yuuei sports festival, butthose rewards... Sure I didn't get any milestones from the stat boosts, but+15 to all stats. And it was pretty obvious what "A copy of the Quirk of..." meant, and that wasludicrouson its own even if there was a pretty big downside..."

"Young Midoriya, are you okay?" All Might asked me. "You've been staring at the air and muttering for a while now and even knowing what your Quirk is I'm starting to get worried."

I jumped. "Oh, sorry! I'm fine, I just got a really surprising quest reward." I looked at Kacchan and Aoyama stealthily, noted that they were staring at me, and then had Sonia whisper in his ear.

"I'd like to talk to you later. Hopefully it's not a pressing matter, but it's kind of serious."

All Might nodded. "I understand, young Midoriya," his voice whispered in my ear, just like I'd done with him. "You should have free time later. I'll meet you in my office." He then turned around to address the audience. "This was an amazing sports festival, folks! These three fine young men took the top three, but if could have gone very differently! Who knows, maybe in an alternate universe young Tokoyami reached third place, young Todoroki was in second, and youngBakugouwas the one who won out in the end? It's that aspect of the sports festival that I admire the most! The way that everyone works their hardest and challenges each other for the spot at the top! It's wonderful! Now, there's one last thing I'd like to say to the students!" He pointed to the heavens. "Say it with me, folks!"

"PLUS ULTRA!" everyone in the stands shouted at once, at the same time that All Might said, "Thank you for your hard work!"

"WHAT!?"

xoxoxo

I checked out the Quirk menu, which I'd found in the main menu, while I walked to All Might's office. It was a menu that looked like the skill menu, except it was divided into two sections. The first one, labeled Quirks, looked like a list of all the Quirks I had unlocked and man was that anamazingsentence to have just thought. I put aside the two popups asking me to pick from a long list of Quirks, which luckily didn't have a time limit so I would scroll through those later. The first one on the list was surprisingly enoughnotThe Gamer, which was the second. Instead it was that Singularity Quirk I'd gotten with the rest of the quest rewards. I tapped it, bringing up the text box.

Singularity (Emitter)

A distortion in the fabric of reality that can pull in anything, even the immaterial. It fuels The Gamer's miraculous power.

Usage does not use MP but instead lowers HP and MP regeneration, scaling with usage. Overuse causes HP and MP regeneration to stay lowered for longer.

Well that raised more questions than it answered. I... guess it made sense, considering the fact that my mom's Quirk let her pull in small objects, but it was also completely out of left field. I sighed and put it aside for now. I had a lot on my plate already, Singularityprobablywasn't going anywhere. I checked The Gamer. That one didn't have anything surprising, just what I knew already from Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body. Actually, I checked my skill menu and noticed that Gamer's Mind, Gamer's Body, One For All, and presumably the other Quirks that were in my skill menu were gone. I checked the rest of the Quirks from One For All. They looked about right. Mending was a rewinding Quirk that only worked on inanimate objects, which I was actually really excited to play with. It wastime manipulation!Blackwhip, meanwhile, had slightly confusing wording, but it looked like it was energy tentacles. That one old Spider-Man theme song may or may not have played in my head when I read it.

Then I looked at the Quirks I got from the tournament. Brainwashing, Half-Cold Half-Hot, Engine, and Explosion. All of them were powerful Quirks, and now I justhadthem. I felt like they were there, but they weren't... active, I guess. The same went for the other Quirks aside from Singularity, The Gamer, and One For All, now that I thought about it. After a moment of thought I "activated" Explosion. My hands tingled for a second. I carefully, carefully triggered it.

Bang!

I jumped and looked around. It looked like there was nobody around to see the small explosion I just made.

I just used Kacchan's Quirk.

I laughed, then stared at my hands. Next I activated Half-Cold Half-Hot. My right side got colder and my left side got hotter. I laughed as frost spread across my right hand and fire danced on my left. Then I made a few small explosions, proving that the two Quirks were both active at the same time. I activated Blackwhip and-

System Warning: Using multiple non-native Quirks at once may lower efficacy and exaggerate downsides. This can be improved with training.

Fair enough. I turned my new Quirks off. Then I wondered how Mutant Quirks would work with that. I decided not to try Iida's Quirk, at least at first, and instead looked at the second part of the Quirk menu: Quirk Shop. The first Quirk on that part was Sludge Body. From the looks of things it was the Quirk of that sludge villain that attacked me all that time ago, though it didn't have any description aside from saying it was a Mutant Quirk and what looked like a cost in Skill Fragments. I scrolled down the surprisingly long list, though not actually as surprising when I realized it looked like the Quirks of all the people I'd gotten EXP from beating like another kind of spoil, for what I hoped was a Mutant Quirk. If itwas, it was hands down the best Quirk I could think of to have it permanently on.

There. I bought it, burning through 2000 SF, and turned it on immediately.

Super Regeneration (Mutant)

Just like I'd hoped, I could turn it off at will. I used Draining Hands on myself to lower my HP by half and stifle my HP regen, then activated Super Regeneration. My HP regeneration skyrocketed for a moment, but went back down to its normal level when I turned it off. That was enough for me to be comfortable testing out Engine. Which caused my pant legs to rip when my thighs grew and sprouted mufflers. Honestly I should've seen that coming. I turned Engine off, which confirmed that turning off Mutant Quirks made the mutations automatically disappear like a Transformation Quirk, which made about as much sense as the fact that I could now copy people's Quirks and there was no indication that it was temporary. Then I tested out Mending. Like I thought, it made my pants good as new. Well, good as it was about one minute ago. That wasawesome.

And then I noticed that I was standing in front of All Might's office and he was staring at me through the window, blood dripping out of his gaping mouth. A pink-haired boy wearing a matching cardigan appeared next to me with a sound like a heartbeat. He had oddly-shaped ears that had feelers on them that reminded me of Jirou's Quirk, except they curled up at the end instead of becoming earphone jacks. He was still a basic elemental, which wasn't surprising considering the fact that I'd only thought to Observe All Might at his lower-level form for affinities a week ago. Turned out he had a few points of sound affinity, so he was able to summon Seth. "This is what you meant when you said 'it's not a pressing matter, but it's kind of serious,' isn't it?" He said the quoted words in my voice, which was weird.

"Yeah. I can explain, by the way."

All Might nodded and opened the door. "Let's talk."

xoxoxo

All Might contemplated what I told him. "I see," he said after a while. "That is... interesting."

"I was a little worried because it reminded me of what you said about All For One," I said.

All Might laughed. "You thought I was worried about that? I've seen copying Quirks before. In fact, young Monoma in 1-B has a copy Quirk. If I freaked out at every person with a Quirk that I thought could be related to One For All I'd have lost my spot as number one long ago, if not my hero license."

"Oh good," I sighed in relief.

He patted me on the shoulder. "Really, young Midoriya. Have more faith in me, please."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Sorry..."

"You're okay, young Midoriya. I understand where you were coming from."

"Also I figured I should probably tell you about it because you're my heroics teacher and Quirk copying is probably the kind of thing you should tell a heroics teacher."

"That sounds about right."

Seth placed a tray with two cups of tea on the table. "The tea is done," he said. "Be careful, it's hot." He smiled and faded with another heartbeat.

"He seems nice," I said.

All Might nodded. "Heisnice. He helps me around the house, too."

"That's good. Unless you have something you want to talk to me about, I think I should go now. I still have some time before I need to be there, but I should get back to homeroom."

"Goodbye, young Midoriya. Congratulations again."

xoxoxo

Aizawa-sensei was smiling. Even though it was only a little grin it was honestly a little disturbing. "You all performed well today," He told us. "There are a few things I think you could've done better but, well, there's no such thing as perfect. Now I'm sure you're all excited to go home, so I won't keep you long. You have tomorrow and the day after off to rest up. Class dismissed." As everyone got up to leave, Aizawa-sensei said, "Oh, and I want to talk to you, Midoriya." It wasn't too loud, but Sonia made sure I heard it.

I waited until everyone was out of the room and walked up to Aizawa-sensei. "What did you need me for?" I asked.

"Shuzenji wants to see you sometime over the break. Something about your private lessons."

"Thanks for telling me," I said. Then I looked at one of the two popups asking me to pick a Quirk, the one from the obstacle race. I scrolled it down near the bottom of the Es, looking for what was probably one of the more useful Quirks for me. Jackpot. "Actually, I have something I want to talk to you about..."

Erasure (Emitter)

xoxoxo

"I'm home!" I shouted as I walked through the door.

"Leaf hair!" Yang meowed, darting up to me. She purred and rubbed her head against my leg.

"Hey, girl," I said as I started petting her. I picked her up and started rubbing her as I walked inside.

"IZUKU!" Mom shouted as she ran into me, tears streaming down her face. She hugged me, getting my shoulder wet.

"Are you okay, mom?" I asked.

She wiped her eyes and gave me a big smile. "It's just... You won! You did it and you were soamazingand I'm so happy for you!"

I felt my own eyes water. "Ha, thank you. It was so unbelievable, to be honest." I pulled her in for another hug.

"I recorded the whole thing, if you want to watch it," she offered.

I smiled. "Yeah, let's watch it together."

She smiled. "Yeah, let's do that."

"Oh yeah by the way I can copy Quirks now."

She froze. "WHAT!?"

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

Yang purred as I scratched her chin. "How does fire work?" I asked her in the semi-language cats use to speak to each other.

"Things hit me and fire inside grows," she answered. "Can use fire inside to make myself stronger or warm up."

I nodded and rubbed behind her ears. It sounded like it let her absorb kinetic energy for later use. If I was right it reminded me of One For All but fire-flavored. It probably wouldn't be as powerful as One For All because it was trained up by eight people before I got it, but if it worked right it might be worthwhile to have just in case. As for how I was going to get it?

Copy (Emitter)

The ability to temporarily copy the Quirks of others by touching them. The user can only use one copy at a time and they will wear off after five minutes, but multiple Quirks can be copied at a time. Accumulated resources are not copied.

Current Quirks:
I Burn (Emitter): 4:57

It was only a theory at the moment, but my guess was that the way my Quirk copying worked by somehow obtaining data on Quirks and then storing them until I decided to buy one, where it fleshed it out to a full copy. But how did it get the information in the first place? My theory was that it was in some way tied to Skill Fragments or EXP. That was the common link between every Quirk in my Quirk Shop, so maybe it also encoded some information on the person's Quirk while it was at it. Or it was just a third, invisible type of spoil, but in the end it meant the same thing. Outside of special circ*mstances like quests the only way for me to get new Quirks was to fight someone.

And that wasn't really ideal, so I was hoping if I had a Quirk temporarily it would give The Gamer the same information needed to put the Quirk in the Quirk shop. Which brought me to where I was now, trying to copy my cat's Quirk. I scrolled through the Quirk shop, crossing my fingers and hoping that I didn't waste 3000 SF.

I Burn (Emitter)

I held off buying it. If I was testing, I was testing every possible downside now and not finding out later. First I turned off Copy and reopened the text box for it. It said it still had I Burn on it, but the timer had stopped at 4:42. I turned it back on. The timer started again. I turned Copy back off. So it paused the Quirk as it was when it was off. I wondered if that meant that a Quirk that had a cooldown would only have its cooldown go down when it was active. That would be a little inconvenient because I could only have two Quirks active at a time if I didn't want them to lower in quality, which would probably also slow down the cooldown timer. The only way to know for sure, though, would be to find a Quirk with a cooldown and test it out.

Wow it didnottake me long after getting the power to copy Quirks to get Gotta Catch 'em All thoughts... It made me wonder if that was how All For One started out...

Ignoring that dark thought, I entered an Illusion Barrier. I decided to make a skeleton barrier. The skeletons really weren't worth much at this point, even the bosses, but at the same time they couldn't really hurt me and I could at least kill the mooks without any real effort. Speaking of which, I sent my elementals out to eradicate any skeletons that popped up. Because they were part of my magic any skeletons they killed would give me spoils, so even if it wasn't much it would eventually add up.

Now that I didn't have to worry about property damage, I turned Copy (I Burn) back on and slammed my head through my room's wall. I felt heat well up in my body. It reminded me of how One For All's energy pool recharged when I used Meditate at full MP, but only for a moment. If it got that much energy, then that meant that it absorbed energybeforemy defensive passives, which was the best-case scenario. Now the question was if it would still charge while I wasdischarging. I reached for I Burn like I did with One For All and jumped with all my strength. I didn't get much energy back from the original jump at all, but crashing through the roof filled me up. While I was in the air I activated one of the two skills I earned in my fight with Kacchan, Imaginary Architect. I started simple, mana forming into solid shapes on my roof. I landed on a light blue tower made entirely of magic.

I heard creaking coming from my roof. Even though Imaginary Architect made temporary structures from pure energy it seemed to still have weight. It didn't make physical sense, but at the same time I remembered that Bound Blade had weight to it and Imaginary Architect was basically just the theory behind Bound Blade taken to eleven. I wasn't much of an architect (though with Imaginary Architect it would probably be a good idea to fix that...) but I managed to make supports that made sure my house didn't fall under the weight of the tower I just made. I dropped Super Regeneration, the second Quirk that I had active, for Float and jumped off of my tower to survey it. It looked decent, but with how much it was draining me even though I had Mantra active I decided to make it a bit smaller. I smiled with the result and went back to the top to check out my other new prestiged skill.

Item Enchantment, as the name suggested, let me enchant items, which on its own I knew Ihadto get out of my head and into the hands of inventors. And I knew just who to talk to about that. But it also had a minor benefit of allowing me to automatically add enchantments to anything that I create with magic, cutting some of the creation's MP cost out of the enchantment's MP cost. I formed a large brazier with a simple Fire Aura-like enchantment. The brazier lit automatically.

I jumped back off of the tower to look at it again. I'd made a pretty good lighthouse. It was a shame it'd disappear the moment I stopped supplying it mana. I mean I could probably figure out a way to make it last longer, possibly with some sort of magic longevity enchantment, but this particular tower didn't have much life left in it. I took out my phone and snapped a photo, then let it die. It actually looked really pretty while it was dissolving, so I took a few more pictures. I sat down in midair and made myself a chair with Imaginary Architect. It fell because it was a chair and didn't have the power to fly. Next I tried to make a flying chair with air magic. It fell, but slower. I guess I made aglidingchair... Third time was the charm, I made a flying chair. Well, "flying" chair. I didn't have any way to actually move it aside from pushing it, so it was more like a floating chair, but it wasn't a gliding chair. Well actually I was using a Quirk called Float to fly so...

Semantics aside, I reclined in my magical floating chair that I made just because and checked my Quirk menu. Copy was almost out of I Burn, just a minute left, so I decided to just wait it out. While I was waiting I made a marble out of mana and started playing with it. Item Enchantment was too good not to grind out a lot of uses for. I didn't manage to make what I wanted to before Copy ran out, which to be fair that was less than a minute so it wasn't likely I'd make a major artifact, but I was hopeful with what I saw all the same. Once Copy lost I Burn I checked back in the Quirk shop and smiled.It was still there.I bought it after closing the menu and opening it again to see if "updating" it did anything. It looked like it lost the energy I'd accumulated, but I didn't really care about that. I swapped Copy out for it because I hoped it would slowly charge over time.

I looked at the ground, where a few skeletons were spawning, and told my elementals to not kill them. If I wanted to charge up I Burn, then wouldn't it be a good idea to have a bunch of skeletons who couldn't hurt me at all gang up on me? I activated Air Aura and jumped as high as I could, then created a platform in the air and used it to springboard myself as hard at the ground as I could, switching Float for Super Regeneration. I slammed into the ground hard enough to make a crater, then sat up. Because I was grinding anyway, my left hand glowed green and my right hand glowed purple. Getting a better healing skill was probably a good idea, so I was just going to powerlevel Healing Hands and Draining Hands. "Okay, now I should probably look at those titles I got."

I started with the title I got from the obstacle course, Swift as the Wind. It was basically passive Air Aura except instead of generating wind it boosted wind affinity. Useful, especially if I were to combine it with Air Aura. Cavalry Leader wasn't very specific, but assured me that using it would make me better at leadership, riding, and driving and would increase EXP for skills related to them. I guess the driving part came from the robot... Still, it could be useful. Especially if I could make vehicles with Imaginary Architect. Once I got one the appropriate licenses, which would probably be easy if I had a title that increased my ability to drive. Champion of Yuuei, though, was probably the best. It increased HP and MP both by 25%, which on its own was great because it was an upgrade of my Yuuei Student title. But it also said that it improved my Quirks, which could hopefully mean...

I turned Float on without turning off my other two Quirks, but didn't use it. Success! Adding a third Quirk didn't destabilize them with Champion of Yuuei. Maybe... I added Copy to my pile.Thatdid it. I turned Float off. I could probably increase my limit faster by going over it, but for now I was content to just have as many Quirks as I could have active at once without any downsides, especially because that would make I Burn charge slower.

"What next..." I muttered to myself as I felt skeletons ineffectually pounding on my backside, rubbing my chin with my life-draining hand. Aside from grinding until it was time to go see Shuzenji-sensei, I only had two more things that I could think of that I wanted to do. "First," I said as I summoned my Skill Grimoir, "Let's see if there's anything worthwhile in here." I flipped through the pages. Nothing really stuck out to me enough that I wanted to buy them that I wasn't confident I could eventually figure out on my own eventually. That, plus the fact that buying skills and buying Quirks used the same currency, made me decide to only really use the Skill Grimoir for inspiration. I shrugged and broke it over my knee.

Now it was time for some fun. Singularity. It was permanently active like The Gamer and One For All, which heavily implied that it was mine in a way that the copied Quirks weren't. The fact that it literally said it powered The Gamer somehow certainly added to that. It said that I could draw in anything. I decided to test that out on my house. I reached out with a muscle I'd never used before that somehow still felt so familiar and touched the wall with it. A green glow spread across the wall where Singularity touched it, and I could feel where the wall was in relation to me as if by instinct. I tugged on the link I had with it. The portion of the wall that I was connected to was easily ripped out of the rest of the wall. I checked my MP bar and even subtracting Draining Hands and Mantra adding to my MP regeneration the dip wasn't bad at all. Dang, how powerful did I have to be to rip part of the wall out? Next I tried to see if I could pull it in any direction aside from toward me. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn't lift it up or swing it around, just make part or all of it accelerate towards me. That was different from Mom's Quirk, as she could swing objects around if she moved her hands right, but I supposed I couldn't complain that my absurdly powerful gravitation Quirk didn't also let me easily throw entire walls at people. Not that I couldn't throw a wall at someone with Singularity, it'd just be harder to do.

Next I decided to see what "pulls in the immaterial" meant. On a hunch, because according to Todoroki I could probably do it, I created a simple Mana Bolt on my finger, holding it there, and targeted it with Singularity. It changed from light blue to emerald green. "Neat," I said, then shot the Mana Bolt. About halfway through its max distance I pulled on it. It stopped for a second before coming back to hit me in the chest. "So that proves I can pull in magic," I muttered. "Can I do other forms of energy?" I pointed at a skeleton and targeted the air around it. I concentrated really hard on trying to draw warmth, thermal energy, from it. After a few failed attempts where I just pulled the skeleton towards me a bit I managed to move something that wasn't the skeleton or the air surrounding it. A few more tries and the skeleton was covered in frost. "I did it!" I cheered.

I smiled and moved on to my next idea. If I could move magic and fire... could I move light? I took a deep breath and concentrated. A green aura surrounded me, covering the area around me in a tinge of green. I pulled at all the light around me at once. "Black Hole!" I shouted as I was enveloped in darkness. This lowered my MP regeneration a bit more and I was started to feel a weird strained feeling in my stomach, probably another drawback of Singularity. I tried making a Magelight, but even the magical light couldn't pierce the darkness I'd created. "This isn't your average everyday darkness," I quoted, "this is...advanceddarkness!" I smiled as I realized that the connection I'd forged with the area that let me suck all the light out also let me feel everything in the area. It'd probably take some practice to fight in Black Hole, but I could definitely see the merit in making an area of advanced darkness around me that I could sense all of.

I dropped the advanced darkness with a bright flash of green light. I winced because it hurt my eyes. I'd have to watch out for that in the future... I didn't think that I had anything else I could test out about Singularity, except maybe range, so I decided to grind for the rest of the time I had left. I sat down and made a weight set on a set of rails a bit like a guillotine over my head. It didn't hurt me at all when it dropped on my head, but just having it sitting on my head was enough to make my I Burn energy go up slightly faster. It killed the skeletons that were hitting me, though... I shrugged and went into Meditation, setting the stat that it raised to INT and the stat Mantra raised to WIS. It was time for grinding.

xoxoxo

"You wanted to see me?" I asked Shuzenji-sensei when I entered her office.

"Ah, Midoriya," she said. "Good. Take a seat." She gestured to a chair, which I sat in. "Do you know why I called you here?"

"Aizawa-sensei said it was about the Quirk healer lessons?"

She nodded. "You know, it's surprisingly easy to get a Quirk healer license, as long as you can heal with your Quirk and are decently competent. I'm certain it was made that way on purpose. Even if it's illegal to use Quirks in public without a license, I figure at least some government figures decided that having anyone who can heal mortal wounds with a snap be allowed to, as long as they signed the right paperwork, of course. Speaking of..." She pulled out a few sheets of paper and handed me a pen. "As of the sports festival, which by the way I counted as part of your supervised service, you've completed all of the necessary prerequisites aside from signing these papers. Read them if you want, but you have to sign here, here, and here to get your license."

I nodded and read the papers. It seemed in order. I signed them where I was asked to. "Great," Shuzenji-sensei said. "Now because you're a minor you have to get your mother to sign there. Come back to me with it when you get back to school and I'll be able to get it to you by your work study."

"Work study?" I asked.

"Right, your class is going to have a work study with hero agencies soon. The timing felt right, so I figured I'd get it to you before you leave. If anything it'll impress whoever you choose."

"Thank you, Shuzenji-sensei. Also, do you think I could get some costume adjustments while I'm here? For one thing, with my VIT and defensive passives the armor probably isn't worth the slight reduction in mobility anymore."

"Power Loader should be in the development studio. He's the one you want to talk to about that."

"Thank you. Can you tell me where that is?"

xoxoxo

"That's interesting," Power Loader said after I told him about my copy power. "I have some ideas on how I could help with that. I've had to deal with a lot of Transformation Quirks, after all. I won't be able to make anything special for any Quirks unless you tell me which ones you want to be prioritized and how exactly they work, but I should be able to make it so that you don't destroy your costume every time you use a Transformation or Mutant Quirk. Unfortunately, though, I don't think it'll be done before your work study."

"That's okay," I said. "Do you think you could adjust my costume so it doesn't have the armor? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I have two defensive passives and a self-healing Quirk just in case, so I think I'll take the slight increase in mobility over the armor."

"Good idea. Don't worry, I should be able to do that pretty quick."

"Thank you," I said. "Say, you're Hatsume's teacher, right?"

Power Loader froze. "...Why are you asking?"

"I got a really good spell for support gear and, well, making things in general, but it's kinda complicated, so my best idea for how to get someone else to know it is to have Hatsume watch me using it with the magic-sensing spell I taught her."

"I don't suppose you could try to teach the magic-sensing spell to me?"

I shrugged. "I could try, but I'm pretty sure the only reason Hatsume learned Eye For Magic so easily to begin with was that it was compatible with her Quirk."

He sighed. "Fine, then I'll tell Hatsume that you're looking for her. But I still want to try to learn the spell."

"Okay, so what you do first is..."

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

After getting back from Yuuei, the first thing I did was show my mom the paperwork Shuzenji-sensei gave me. We cried tears of joy together and hugged, then she signed it and I decided to go talk to Kacchan. I figured it'd be a good idea to fill him in on my new powers.

"You canwhat?" Kacchan asked.

"I can copy Quirks now," I answered. He stared at me for a while. "Are you okay?"

He sighed very loudly. "You know what, why not? You can copy Quirks now. Cool." He stuck out his hand. "How do you do it?"

I grinned and made sparks from my hand. "It's a little finicky, though a bit less thanks to an exploit I found out about, but if I fulfill the right conditions I get a copy of a person's Quirk that I can 'buy' from a new menu."

"And those are?"

"I think it's supposed to be just from either beating someone in a fight or potentially from quest rewards, but one of the rewards for the sports festival quest I got was a choice of two Quirks from a pool limited to people from Yuuei. One of the Quirks I picked was a copying Quirk, which thankfully gives me a copy too."

Kacchan nodded. "Yeah I remember that guy. Kind of an asshole. So what was the other one?"

I felt a sting in my eyes as I activated it. My hair felt weird, and while I couldn't see them I assumed my eyes were glowing red. "Try to use your Quirk."

He snorted. "Iknowwhat Aizawa-sensei's Quirk looks like, asshole." I laughed and turned it back off. "So you just... have a bunch of Quirks now?"

I shrugged. "There's a limitation. If I have too many Quirks out then it lowers their effectiveness. But yeah, I have a bunch of Quirks now. I got the Quirks of the past One For All users, there are the two I just said, Super Regeneration from that Nomu thing that I bought because it's a passive boost to healing, the Quirks of everyone I beat in the tournament as another quest reward, and my cat's Quirk, which I tested Copy on."

"Damn. And knowing you, you got some other stupid good thing during the sports festival."

I nodded and pulled out my phone, using Technomancy to turn it on and open my pictures without actually pressing any buttons.

"Showoff," Kacchan muttered, then looked at the picture I took earlier. "Is that a f*ckingtower?"

"Yup. I got a new spell called Imaginary Architect after that last attack in our fight."

"When you threwf*cking swordsat me?" Kacchan asked.

"BecauseI threw f*cking swords at you. It's an improved version."

"How the f*ck is anentire toweran improved version over being able to make some swords?"

"Now I can make anything out of magic, if I have enough power."

He thought for a moment. "Yeah I guess that makes sense."

I switched to the second photo where the tower was dissolving, the only indication that I was interacting with my phone the blue, circuit-like lines that glowed to life on it and my hand when I did. "And this is what happened when I stopped using Imaginary Architect. Pretty, right?"

Kacchan nodded. "Yeah, it kinda is. Don't suppose you've got enough of an understanding of it to teach it to me yet?"

I shrugged and made a small sphere. I tossed it into the air a bit, then dissolved it mid-throw and replaced it with a small cube. I tossed that cube around a bit, added spikes to it, then dissolved it. Next I made a lab coat with a lot more concentration due to how complicated it actually was, actually making it around my body. I managed to make it a lighter shade of blue than the other IA constructs, but in the end it was onlyalmostwhite. It did, however, behave exactly like a lab coat made of cloth should, down to how it ripped when I pulled one of the sleeves off. Even breaking a part of the construct didn't destabilize it, which was a failing in most Quirks and spells that made temporary objects. Even my Skill Grimoir worked like that. It wasthatself-contained... "Yeah, I think I should have a good enough grasp on it now. It's a bit complicated, though."

"This isn't gonna be like Meditation where it just doesn't work, is it?"

I shook my head. "No, from what Todoroki told me Meditation has an aspect to it that my Quirk reproduces automatically."

"How the hell'dheknow that?"

"Apparently he can sense magic."

Kacchan twitched. "How the sh*t does he do that?"

"Beats me. Still, the biggest hurdle to you learning Imaginary Architect should just be that it's really complex. You might want to start out with Bound Blade first."

He sighed. "Ugh, fine."

xoxoxo

I spent the rest of the day (and night) switching between grinding both Imaginary Architect and Item Enchantment and reading up on basic architecture. Around midnight, I decided to check out the hero news. I opened up the website I normally used for hero news (not even using my hands, Technomancy was fun) and scrolled through the articles. One caught my eye.

Pro Hero Ingenium Critically Injured by Hero Killer Stain

"That was what you overheard, wasn't it Sonia?" I asked. She nodded quietly. "Well, thanks for giving me a heads up. Come to think of it, I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me anything you hear about that you think I might need to know? Nothing personal about other people, unless you think they're going to get hurt or something, but stuff like explosions or villainous plotting?"

She smiled. "Yeah, I'll do that!"

"Thanks." I clicked on the article. Yeah it did not look good. "I don't need to tell you to keep an eye on Iida, do I?"

"Nope."

"Thanks..."

I was glad that I was using Technomancy to use the computer, because that freed up both of my hands. My left hand started to glow green with Healing Hands and my right hand glowed purple with Draining Hands to give it something to heal. While I was at it I switched Super Regeneration off. I didn't know if I would be able to help with Iida's brother at all, but it was a reminder of why I got Healing Hands in the first place. I wanted to heal people, and Healing Hands still had its limits even in the nineties.

xoxoxo

I stopped practicing my new skills around noon of the next day to check out one final thing that I had gotten recently that I wanted to mess with. Enlightenment had recently leveled up enough to unlock its next ability:

Allows the user to access their own subconscious mindscape through Meditation.

It would probably be more obviously useful if not for the fact that The Gamer already prevented any form of tampering to my mind, but at the very least it changed Enlightenment from (Passive) to (Active and Passive), meaning that I could hopefully level Enlightenment up at least slightly easier by exploring my mindscape.

I created a perfectly generic object with Imaginary Architect, automatically enchanted with that one slowfall enchantment I'd stumbled upon earlier (though not the floating one), and used Singularity on it. I floated over the construct with my legs crossed in the stereotypical meditation pose and pulled it into the air, adjusting my pull on it when it was halfway between me and the ground so that it just hung there, my 'gravity' pulling on it as much as Earth's. I closed my eyes and let my skills guide me deeper within my own mind.

xoxoxo

I felt like I was falling backwards for what somehow felt like both an instant and an eternity at the same time, scenes from my life flickering in and out of my vision. After that interminable time, I found myself in the foyer of what looked like a hero museum. It felt familiar, and from the looks of it combined some elements from some of the hero museums I'd been in before, though maybe with some other aspects as well. I suppose that made sense, itwasmy mindscape after all...

The central figure of the foyer was a larger-than-life statue of All Might in a triumphant pose raised on a pedestal.

...

...

Fair enough...

The statue had a spiderweb of large cracks on it, exactly where the real All Might's wound was. "I know this is my mindscape, but iseverythingin here going to be so on the nose?" I muttered. I shrugged and picked one of the hallways leading out of the foyer at random, one labeled 'Magic,' and walked through it.

"Whoa," I said. The giant room on the other side looked something like the library of a medieval fantasy magic school, instead of the museum theme of the foyer. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves packed with books, there were moving models of various moments scattered around the room, an ornate pedestal with a large book in the middle with a large spiral staircase around it, and balls of light floated around the ceiling to provide light. I walked over to the closest model. It was the tower that I'd made yesterday. As I watched it dissolved like it had when I stopped supplying it with energy, then reappeared after a few moments. I walked away as it looped itself and examined another one. This time it was the flurry of blades that I'd used to finish off Kacchan. Not all of the models were mine, though most of them were, but every example was an example of magic that I was impressed or amazed by. For example, Kacchan and Uraraka's fight, the time I destroyed Todoroki's iceberg, the cavalry battle, the first time I cast Halcyon Wing, those shenanigans with Yang, the Wild, Wild puss*cats' cat spells I'd seen on TV that one time, my fight with Nomu, that one time Kacchan pulled me out of Illusion Barrier to punch me in the face, my first time using the elements with Kacchan, and the first Mana Bolt that started it all were among them. It was nice to see them all memorialized like that, even if it was only in my own head.

After I was done looking at the pretty displays, I checked out a section of one of the bookshelves. It had a label on it, 'Lightning,' with little lightning bolts on it. I pulled a book out at random and opened it to a random page. Most of the text was garbled for some odd reason, but I could make out one passage.

Lightning Bolt

A simple lightning spell. The user gathers electrical energy with lightning mana and shoots it in a burst at the target.

It was almost exactly what my own skill entry for Lightning Bolt said, but without the cost and everything. I frowned and flipped through the pages. I couldn't make out any of the other entries, but to be fair I didn't know too many lightning spells. I really needed to fix that, and with the other elements too. I closed the book and it flew back into its spot with just my intention to return it. I thought about Lightning Aura and Lightning Embodiment, and a dash-like lightning spell I'd made with the hope of creating a flying lightning spell called Arc Step. Those were my other three major lightning spells, so they should probably be somewhere in the lightning bookshelf. Again, my thoughts caused the books to move on their own. Two books pulled themselves out of the bookshelf and floated in front of me.

I plucked one of them out of the air and opened it to a random page. It had Lightning Aura and Lightning Embodiment on it, with one spell in between them. I stared at the passage. It was almost like it was constantly shifting, like some sort of selective but cripplingly bad dyslexia, but I felt like I should know what it was. I almost caught a glimpse of it... I checked one of the other passages that I couldn't read. I didn't have that feeling of recognition, but I still caught a flash of what it might be. Filing that away for later, I turned my attention back to the familiar passage. What could it...

Maybe a lightning version of Kacchan's Fire Ignition? As I thought it, the shifting of the slowed to a stop. The description was still a blur, but I could at least read that I was right.

Lightning Ignition

Maybe it was because I knew what the spell was, but didn't know it? If that was the case... I put the lightning books back and summoned an air book. Yup, Air Aura and Air Embodiment were there with their descriptions, but with a passage for Air Ignition in the middle that I couldn't read the description of. I put them back and looked at some of the other sections of the bookshelves. Aside from the elements, there were several books on healing, enchantment (apparently Elemental Aura and Elemental Ignition, but not Elemental Embodiment, were enchantment-type, plus my buff spells), illusion, offensive, defensive, sensory, movement, mind, summoning, and even more books of magic. There were so many books, most of them almost completely indecipherable. I supposed it represented the sheer scale of what magic could do. Heck, there were even a fewbookshelvesthat I couldn't read the titles of.

After looking through a few books, I decided to check out the book on the pedestal in the middle. For it to be in the middle of a library full of magic, it had to be something impressive, right? I approached the pedestal and... it was just an oversized version of the Skill Grimoir. The pedestal had a counter on it that looked like it was showing me how many Skill Fragments I had at the moment. "Status," I said to check.

The menu didn't open. I frowned. "Menu." Nothing. "Skills." Nothing. "Skill Grimoir?" The giant Skill Grimoir was summoned to my hands, not the one that I could make from my Quirk. I guess it made sense, Quirks being a part of the body, that even if part of my Quirk affected my mind I couldn't use some parts of my Quirk within my own mindscape. Heck, now that I thought about it the only part of my UI that was still was the minimap. "Does that mean my magic won't work?" I asked myself. I created a simple little Magelight and added it to the floating lights. I cast the spell, yes, but even though it felt almost exactly like it did when I did it in real life, it didn't feel like I used any energy in it. "Weird."

I shrugged and looked at my Skill Grimoir. I wondered what it would look like to use it in here. I clearly could, otherwise why would the pedestal have an SF count on it to make up for the fact that I couldn't check my status screen? I flipped through the book for a skill that I wouldn't mind using SF on. There was a decently cheap skill called Shock Sphere that I was fine with. I confirmed the purchase. The words peeled off the page as usual, but when they dissolved into light they didn't go directly to me. Instead, the light split and streaked over to books in the lightning and offensive bookshelves. There were no text boxes, but I knew how to use Shock Sphere when the last of the light entered the books. I summoned both books to see that yes, there was a completed passage for Shock Sphere in them.

"That's... something..." I muttered. I guess that the books were a representation of my skill list? I moved onto the last feature of the room, the staircase. It was made out of floating strips of the same stone-like material as the flooring, but with small bits of red carpet on them. I walked up the staircase to see what was up there. The staircase was long and the tower that it went up was hollow, meaning that I could fly around there with a lot of room if I felt like it. The room at the top of the staircase looked like... maybe it was supposed to be the top of a wizard tower? The large room was circular, with eight large windows that lined up with the cardinal and ordinal directions on my minimap. There was an empty bookshelf, some tables, and a few training dummies and targets by the walls in between the windows. Creepily enough, the space outside the windows was just a blank white void...

I jumped out the window to see what the outside looked like, but realized when I tried to use Float that my copied Quirks weren't working either. I fell for a few meters in surprise before casting Halcyon Wing. The base of the tower was just a part of the circular staircase, instead of the library at the bottom. I tried to fly under the tower to see what would happen, but bonked into a perfectly white floor. There weren't even any shadows, which made sense when you considered the fact that there was also no light. I looked around the white void.

"I wonder what this is supposed to be?" I muttered. "Maybe it's supposed to be something like visualization of magic? I can use my magic in here, plus there were those dummies, so maybe I can use this place like a training ground for my magic. It'd be a bit nicer if it wasn't just this blank white void..." I had an idea. "If this is all in my head..." I closed my eyes and imagined the forest I used to play in as a kid. Soon the image in my head felt almost real and I realized that my eyes had opened at some point. I flew back up and surveyed the new forest. It probably wasn't exactly accurate, even aside from the giant wizard tower that stayed in there when I replaced the void, but it was still a forest in my head.

I flew around the forest for a bit, seeing how it looked. It kind of looked like it was randomly generated with my memories of the forest, because it didn't look like it was exactly the same as the real thing. Certain areas seemed to repeat too. I also checked what would happen if I destroyed a tree or something. It just smashed like a normal tree. Not sure what I expected to happen there. After that, I wondered if I could create NPCs in there. I imagined a ring of bokoblins, like from Breath of the Wild, around me. Before they could attack me I tested out my new skill on them. Shock Sphere, fittingly enough, reminded me a bit of the electric lizalfos from Breath of the Wild. At least, that electrical explosion that they could do. A sphere of lighting magic centered on me enveloped the bokoblins, causing them to convulse. When I ended the spell (which seemed like I could continue it just by supplying more MP), they all fell down and faded out of existence. I hoped it wasn't that deadly in reality...

With the training grounds tested out, I flew back into the tower and jumped down the stairwell. I didn't even feel any impact when I fell on the floor, and the floor didn't look damaged either. I got up and finally walked through the exit hallway of the magic room. I suddenly found myself back at the foyer of the 'museum,' standing exactly where I had been when I first entered my mindscape like I'd teleported there.

"That was interesting. Let's see another room." I walked up to a hallway, which had a sign that said 'Memory Lane.' This time, the room was just a long hallway with paintings hung all along both sides. On the left side I saw memories that were, generally speaking, negative. Fear, anger, sadness, every picture evoked emotions like that in me. Meanwhile every memory on the right was positive. When I looked at the left side it felt like it was longer than the right side, but when I looked at the right side it felt like it was longer than the left. Only when I didn't focus on either side and just stared down the middle did I see that the two sides were equal.

Does that count as a metaphor? I feel like that's a metaphor.

I kept my hand on the wall of happy memories as I walked down the hallway. My hope was that it'd serve as a reminder not to linger on the bad memories. As I walked down the hallway reminiscing, I noticed that some of the memories on the happy side were also on the negative side, just in a different light. I got to the end of the hallway having only cried a few times. Like the last room, exiting it brought me back to the beginning.

I looked at the hallways around the foyer, wondering what else could be in them. "One more," I promised myself, and went through a hallway labeled 'Heroes.' The large room was filled with statues and pictures of various pro heroes. The ones I admired more had more prominent statues, with All Might's being the centerpiece of the room. I noticed with pride that while there was a statue for Endeavor, it was destroyed. Only the legs were intact, with the rest of him just being a pile of rubble with demeaning graffiti on it.

However, I quickly noticed that there was something completely out of place near the All Might statue. A party of seven, who by the way I had never seen any of before, sat at a cheap folding table in cheap folding chairs. And because this was in my mindscape I apparently couldn't see their titles. There was a man with long white hair, a woman with a short, spiky ponytail that kinda reminded me of a pineapple, a blonde man with red eyes, a white-haired man with a large scar over his left eye, a bald man wearing an opened leather jacket with no shirt under it and a pair of goggles on his forehead, a black-haired man in a coat with a collar so high it covered his mouth, and a motherly-looking woman with a beauty mark under her mouth. It looked like they were about to play some sort of card game.

The man with long white hair, who looked like he was the dealer, shouted "Five-card Mao is not in session!" and threw a card at the man in the coat, who was the only one holding his cards. The man picked the card up and added it to his hand, which was currently about twice the size of the others'. The long-haired man said "Five-card Mao is not in session!" again, and threw another card at the other man. They repeated this several more times, the white-haired man's shouting getting more exasperated each time. Soon the man in the coat was holding all the cards.

"I win," he said smugly.

"That's not how Five-card Mao works!" the white-haired man protested.

"How does it work, then?" The man looked through his numerous cards.

The white-haired man slammed his hands on the table, rattling his five cards. "I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU!"

"Then how are we to play the game?" the man asked smugly as he set most of the deck down.

The white-haired man sighed. "You figure it out. That's supposed to be part of the fun..."

"Um..." I said, and all seven of them turned to stare at me in unison. "What are you people doing in my head?" I asked.

"The kid's here," the bald man said. "How is the kid here?"

The motherly-looking woman got up. "I suppose some introductions are in order. Sorry for alarming you, Midoriya. We're... the past users of One For All, the Quirk you have now. My name is Shimura Nana."

"Oh," I said. "So I guess One For All takes some kind of copy of the user's mind?"

The bald man shrugged. "Probably something like that. Name's Daigoro Banjo. Sup."

The man in the jacket nodded. "Hikiishi Jiroku."

"Hello, Midoriya," the scarred man said. "My name is Honenuki Shikotsu."

The blonde man waved at me. "Hello," he said with a small Russian accent. "I am Sokolov Kyousan."

The woman with the ponytail smiled at me. "Hello, Midoriya. My name is Kaizen Futaba. It's nice to meet you."

Finally, the white-haired man got up and shook my hand with an apologetic grin. "And I'm the reason you're in this whole mess, sorry. Shigaraki Ichigo." I gasped. Come to think of it, he looked a bit like that hand guy, Shigaraki Tomura, if he wasn't so... crusty. He winced. "Yeah, like that hand kid you fought. I think he might be my nephew, but I kinda don't like the idea of my brother procreating. He wasn't a very good brother and I doubt he'd make a great father either. You can call me Ichigo, by the way. I understand if you wouldn't want to call me Shigaraki."

"Um... So if you're all here then where's All Might?" I asked.

"Oh, he's in the closet," Shimura said.

"I knew it!" I said.

"Oh no, I meantthatcloset," she said, pointing to a literal broom closet in one corner of the room.Why was that even there?"Toshinori's openly bi, or at least he was in school."

"Oh, so did you know him when he was in school?" I asked. "Or I guess you would know anyway if you were in his head too..."

She nodded. "I did end up in his head eventually, but Iwashis teacher at Yuuei."

"Wait, why is he in the broom closet? I asked.

"See, the thing about that is..." Daigoro said. "Maybe it's best if you see for yourself."

I shrugged and walked over to the closet door. I could see something under the crack, but it didn't look like a pair of human feet... I opened the door, revealing a hazy yellow silhouette that was roughly All Might-shaped, but didn't look like an actual person. He didn't react to me opening the door. "Oh," I said.

"Yeah, he kinda creeped us out after a while, so we just stuck him in the closet," Ichigo said.

I waved my hand in front of his face. He didn't react at all... "Is he... conscious?"

"We don't think so, or at least we hope not," Honenuki said.

"We don't remember our times as that strange half-shadow, but at the same time most of ours were short," Hikiishi informed me. "At the very least, he doesn't react to anything and won't until the real Toshinori dies."

"I see," I said. That was kind of disturbing... "So are your real souls in here? Is that how it works?"

Sokolov shrugged. "It's best if you don't think think about it, existentially."

"Okay," I said, closing the door. "Would it be possible to get another chair for me?" I asked. "Actually how did you get those chairs?" I turned around to see that there was an extra chair right next to Ichigo. "Right, mindscape." Ichigo patted the empty chair.

I sat down as Ichigo shuffled his cards really fancily. I didn't even know you coulddosome of those those things to shuffle a deck of cards.

Or it was just mindscape logic...

"So do you wanna play too, Midoriya?" Ichigo asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah, thanks." When he dealt my cards I almost picked them up, but remembered the whole thing with Hikiishi and stopped myself.

"Five-card Mao is now in session!" Ichigo said as he flipped the top card of the deck over, the two of hearts. "I figured we'd do this in the order of what bearer we were, and we could say a bit about ourselves to Midoriya. I'll start." He placed the eight of hearts down on top of the first card. "I was the first bearer. Our enemy, All For One, is..wasmy brother. He kinda snapped when our father killed our mother, which to be fair was pretty dang traumatic, but that doesn't really make anything he did cool. We had a few arguments, he locked me in a room for months, then he tried to control me by giving me a powerful Quirk. Still don't get what his plan was there, even with the chance of brain damage. Plus I mean even then we already knew that Quirks could be genetic, so he should've figured I could've been even a little bit more compatible with his Quirk than some random schmuck, so-"

"You're rambling again, Ichigo," Kaizen interrupted him.

"Right. Thanks, Futaba-chan," he said. I guess they knew each other. "So yeah, I used the Quirk he gave me to escape him and join what may have been a precursor to those pro hero organization things, though obviously without the overt government support. Speaking of, I think that's when you come in, Futaba-chan."

Kaizen nodded. She put down the eight of diamonds before speaking. "I was Ichigo's sidekick. He took me under his wing after he couldn't dissuade me from being a hero and showed me ways to use my Quirk that I would have never thought of. When he was on his deathbed I promised to continue the fight against his brother and was the first to have One For All passed to me. If I may, Midoriya, I would like to advise you to not underestimate the power of my Quirk, Mending."

Sokolov nodded. "My turn." He put down the three of spades.

Ichigo picked up the card, took a card off the top of the deck, and tossed them both to Sokolov. "Bad move. Try again."

Sokolov grunted. "What about this, then?" He put down the seven of diamonds. "My mom lost her Quirk to that bastard Hisa-"

Hikiishi threw a card at him. "Watch your language, there's a kid present."

Before Sokolov could pick up the card Ichigo swiped it up and threw it and another card at Hikiishi. "That's not a rule," he said.

Hikiishi picked the cards up, took another one from the deck, and threw all three at Ichigo. "You said can make new rules if you win."

Ichigo glared at him. "I'll give you that one, but only because I agree with the rule." He turned to Sokolov. "Continue."

Sokolov nodded. "My mom lost her Quirk, so I decided to melt the brain of the person responsible. I suppose if we're saying what our Quirks are, I should say mine's Fear. Luckily Kaizen got to me before I could get to him, and she made me her successor."

Honenuki threw his card down next. Seven of spades. "Believe it or not, but I used to be one of All For One's allies. Was born into it, actually. In fact, the Quirk you got from me, Skeletal, was a combination of my birth Quirk, Spike Growth, and a Quirk called Bone Armor. One day, though, I made the... well, not mistake, but I questioned him." He tapped his scar. "How I got this. Kyousan saved my as- life and I didn't really have anywhere else to go, so he basically adopted me."

Banjo slammed down the jack of spades. He shrugged. "Honestly I became a hero because I was bored and liked using Blackwhip. Don't know what Honenuki saw in me, but to be fair he was dying and the other guy was an even bigger jerk. Not really much to say."

Hikiishi looked at his cards for a bit. "I was always good at using my Quirk, Magnetize. I was heavily encouraged to become a hero, so I went with it." He put down the jack of diamonds. "I suppose Banjo saw promise in me when we worked together, because he gave me One For All."

Shimura played the queen of diamonds. "I also became a pro hero because of my Quirk, Float. Well, I really did want to help people too, but having a Quirk that let me fly played a factor in my becoming a hero too. I only ever met Hikiishi a few times before I... well, when he gave me One For all he was about to die. I became a teacher after that, hoping that maybe my successor would be spared the traumatic circ*mstances of my getting One For All." She laughed wryly. "I'm honestly not too sure I was able to do that for Toshinori..."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Hikiishi muttered.

"I don't blame you," Shimura assured him. "Now it's your turn Midoriya."

"Okay," I said. I looked at my cards. If I understood the rules right, the only card I had that would work was the queen of hearts, so I placed it on Shimura's card. "My name is Midoriya Izuku, as you know. I think the Quirk I was born with was actually Singularity, but it's really weird and didn't even show any sign of being there until a few months ago, when I got The Gamer. I know I'm not very experienced, but I hope to make you all proud."

Banjo grinned at me. "You're doin' great already, kid!" he shouted.

"Yes, I'm proud to call you my successor," Ichigo added with a grin.

The rest of the former bearers echoed the sentiment. I laughed and rubbed at my suddenly wet eyes. "Thank you."

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

I opened my eyes and deactivated my Quirks and skills, stepping on the perfectly generic object with one foot and jumping off a moment before it fully dissolved. "That waswaysmoother than it had any right to be," I muttered as I checked the time. About an hour had passed since I entered my mindscape. Huh. It felt like it was longer than that. Maybe time passes faster in the mindscape? I checked the text boxes that had popped up while I was meditating. It looked like the menus I'd tried to open when in my mindscape had opened in reality, for one... I closed them and looked at the ones that were left over.

Your WIS has increased by one!(x4)

Your DEX has increased by one!

Your CON has increased by one!

Shock Sphere (Active) LV1 EXP 1.49% MP 100

That was surprisingly good for an hour of meditation. Especially because neither of my stat boosts were set to WIS. I guess stumbling around in one's own mindscape is a great method of self-discovery. For one thing I decided I should probably stop raising All Might on such a high pedestal. Maybe I'd ask him if I could call him Yagi-sensei?

I shrugged. "I wish I could talk to the past bearers in the real world, though. They were really nice. Plus having seven seasoned heroes that I can ask for advice at any time would be really handy. Too bad I can't just invite them to my party." I thought about that for a minute. "Actually,canI do that?" I recited the party invitations and crossed my fingers. One by one they appeared in my party window and I opened up the voice chat.

"So is this how your party ability works?" Kaizen asked.

"Honestly I didn't think that would work," I said, "but I'm really glad it did."

"We're glad it worked too, kid!" Daigoro added.

I laughed. "Thanks! There are probably going to be times when I can't talk and have to use the text chat, and other times where I'll have to disband the party temporarily, but you guys don't mind keeping me company, do you?"

I heard Shimura chuckle. "I don't mind at all. And I'm sure the others don't either."

"I'd be glad to keep you company," Honenuki said.

"Better than playing another of Ichigo's stupid games," Hikiishi added.

"Hey!" Ichigo said indignantly.

"They are fun, but itdoesget old sometimes..." Sokolov muttered.

"Not you too!"

I laughed. This was going to be great.

xoxoxo

Bakugou Katsuki: youre real f*ckin blase bout the voices in your head deku

Shigaraki Ichigo: To be fair we are actual people and we can only be voices in his head using his Quirk.

I'd decided that, because Kacchan already knew about One For All, I would tell him about the past bearers. I did it on the morning of the day that we were going back to Yuuei. He was surprised, but almost immediately shrugged and said, "You know what, this might as well f*cking happen." Currently we were on the train to Yuuei.

Hikiishi Jiroku: if you think about it, we're like ghosts haunting your friend.

Bakugou Katsuki: oh like thats so much better

I saw a young girl with bright eyes staring at us out of the corner of my eye. "Mommy, it's the magic people!" she shouted to a woman next to her that I assumed was her mother.

"Don't bother them, Chi-chan," the woman said.

"Are you talking about us?" I asked the girl.

She gasped. There were stars in her eyes. Literally. "Yeah! I watched you guys on the sports festival! Your fight was awesome!"

Kacchan smirked at the girl. "You know it, kid."

She bounced on her feet. "Yeah! You guys were all like bam, pow, woosh!" The rest of the people on the train were starting to look at us. The girl pouted. "I wanna be a cool hero like you guys, but my Quirk is dumb..."

"I'm sure your Quirk is great!" I objected.

"All I can do is make my eyes glow."

"Well I mean for one thing you can probably use it to see in the dark." Kacchan said.

"That's the only way I can use it, though!"

"I wouldn't be too sure," I said. "Can you control how bright it is?"

She nodded. "It's hard, but if I try really hard I can make it as bright as a flashlight for a bit."

I put my hand on my chin. "I'd bet that even All Might would be thrown off if someone he was fighting randomly shined a flashlight in his eyes. And if you practice really hard you should be able to make them even brighter." I poked Kacchan. "Believe it or not, when his Quirk first came in all he could do was make little pops."

"Just make sure not to hurt yourself practicing," Kacchan reminded her. "Quirk strain is not fun. I mean, mine was probably a lot fu- a lot worse than yours would be because it's caused by explosions and not glowing, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful."

The girl nodded excitedly.

"And be careful in general," I said. "Hero work is dangerous. I suggest you learn martial arts or something like that if you really want to be a hero."

"Like you're one to fuc-" Kacchan caught himself before swearing. "Like you're one to talk, Deku."

"Fair enough. You should also try to learn some magic. It's a lot more versatile than Quirks, plus you can probably enhance your Quirk with magic." I winked. "Just be mindful of property damage."

She beamed at us. "Yeah! I will!"

Her mother smiled. "Thank you. She loves heroes."

I chuckled and rubbed the back of my head. "It's actually pretty flattering."

"Yeah, I got my first fan!" Kacchan said. He reached over to give the girl a high five. She looked really grateful, so I gave her a high five too.

"Thank you both sooo much!"

xoxoxo

"Damn, this is some heavy rain," Kacchan muttered from under his umbrella while we were walking to Yuuei.

"What bad luck, huh?" I said. I also had an umbrella, but at the same time the water was subtly avoiding me so I didn't even get slightly wet. Having so many elementals can be very convenient.

"What are you two doing, you're going to be late!" Iida shouted at us from behind. He was wearing a poncho and jogging.

"What the f*ck are you doing, Glasses!?" Kacchan shouted. "This is not the f*cking weather for a nice morning jog!"

"There is no wrong weather for a nice morning jog!" Iida shouted as he passed us.

We managed to catch up to him in the entrance hall. "I heard about your brother, Iida," Kacchan told him while he was putting his boots in his locker. "If you need to talk to someone about it... well you probably shouldn't talk to me, but I speak from experience when I say that Inui-sensei is very willing to help."

"Inui-sensei?" I inquired.

Kacchan grunted, blushing slightly. "Hound Dog," he muttered.

"I appreciate your words, but I don't need to talk about it," Iida said as he closed his locker door.

"Iida, it's okay to not be okay," I said. "It doesn't make you any less strong. Even All Might has his bad days."

"Thank you, Midoriya," Iida said as he started to walk away. "But I'm okay. I promise."

I frowned at his title.

I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

LV 36

Iida Tenya

"I'm gonna have to press X to doubt that one," I said after he was gone.

"Deku I know you have that whole gamer hero thing going on but that joke was so f*cking terrible I think I'mlegally obligatedto give you a wedgie," Kacchan told me.

"Please don't."

xoxoxo

"I have a few announcements before today's business," Aizawa-sensei said, acting like normal and not at all mentioning the fact that he was wearing, with the exception of the same scarf and possibly the goggles hidden under it, an entirely new hero costume. He kept the original color scheme, but his outfit looked like it was inspired by a more close combat-oriented fantasy wizard that wouldn't look out of place in a JRPG at all, complete with a wizard hat and a collapsible bo staff holstered on his belt that Observe told me was made with an experimental design that let it more effectively channel magic. He was also clean-shaven for once, though he still had the dark bags under his eyes. It made that scar he got from the USJ incident stand out a little more.

"First," he pointed to Shinsou, who was standing awkwardly next to him, "we have a new student. Make him feel welcome or whatever. Now sit down, Shinsou. There's an empty seat behind Midoriya."

"Congratulations, Shinsou!" I told him with a smile when he sat down. "I knew you'd get in!"

"Thanks," he said, then looked at Aizawa-sensei. "Was he always wearing that weird martial artist wizard outfit?"

"No, that's new. Scarf's the same, though."

"I thought so."

"If you're all done talking," Aizawa-sensei said menacingly. "We're having a very important hero informatics lesson today." He grinned evilly. "Pay attention, because this could affect your entire hero career." A terrified murmur broke out in the classroom.

"This is not what I was hoping for my first day..." Shinsou muttered.

Kacchan, who was sitting in front of me, looked back at him. "Eh, don't worry. Aizawa-sensei's just a f*cking drama queen like that. Watch, he's gonna say that this is just us picking our hero names." He pointed at Aizawa-sensei.

"You'll be picking code names today," he confirmed, as if on cue. The class cheered, causing him to glare at us with his Quirk activated. His hat floated slightly before he turned it back off. "This isn't just for fun. You'll be going on a work study soon, so naturally you'll be needing a hero name to go by. Are there any questions?"

Kaminari raised his hand. "Why are you wearing a wizard outfit?"

"Are there any questions about thework study?" Aizawa-sensei glared at him.

"Is there any reason behind the work study?" Shinsou asked.

"It's meant to give you guys hands-on experience with hero work. Also, more than a few of you have already gotten a lot of draft picks from hero organizations already. Usually those offers are given to second and third years, who are more experienced, but therehavebeen several unique circ*mstances for your class." He pressed a button on his remote, bringing up a list on the smartboard. "These are the offers that were extended to 1-A."

"Oh wow," I thought. My name was on the top of the board and I had almost five thousand offers!

"Congrats, Midoriya!" Shimura shouted through the party chat.

"Yeah, that's something to be proud of, I'm assuming..." Ichigo added.

"Good job, kid," Hikiishi said.

I sniffed and wiped the tears off my face... and desk... I thanked them over the text chat and looked at the rest of the board. Kacchan was below me at a little over four thousand offers. Aoyama, Todoroki, and Uraraka were next below us at around two thousand each. Iida, Tokoyami, and Kaminari had offers in the hundreds. Sero, Yaoyorozu, and even Shinsou had a few too.

"Don't worry, those of you who didn't get any offers," Aizawa said. "There are hero organizations that work with Yuuei to give students who don't have any offers work studies. And as I said, usually only second and third years get offers. So I'm sure you'll get at least a few by next semester."

"And that's what the hero names are for!" Hagakure blurted out.

Aizawa nodded. "That's right. Technically you can change your hero name at any time, but once you start getting popular chances are the public is going to call you the same name even if you change your name, unless it's accompanied by serious rebranding or something like that."

"Oh, isthatwhat the wizard outfit is for?" Ashido asked.

Aizawa glared at her for a prolonged period of time. "No. Comment. Because having a good hero name before you even debut is so important..."

Midnight-sensei strutted through the door and stood next to Aizawa. "Yuuei strongly encourages the teachers of the hero course to organize a workshop session for their students before their work studies so they don't call themselves something dumb like, oh, I don't know... Eraserhead?"

"f*ck you, Nemuri," Aizawa muttered, causing Midnight to wink and stick her tongue out at him. He sighed and pulled a folding chair and some small dry erase boards out from behind his podium. "Midnight here is going to make sure the names we pick are all right. The annoying thing with hero names is that whatever you pick tends to end up reflecting on your hero career, so choose carefully."

"Wait, are you picking out a hero name, too?" Kaminari asked.

Aizawa grunted and started handing out the dry erase boards. "Against my better judgement I decided, for multiple reasons actually, to adopt a more public hero persona," he explained.

"WHAAAT!?" almost the entire class shouted at once.

"Yeah, yeah. 'Course, I need a new name for it, and the timing lined up so I unfortunately had the 'brilliant' idea of participating in this exercise with you guys, for solidarity or whatever." When he was done with the dry erase boards he put his folding chair next to Uraraka and sat down. "So for the next however long, just think of me like a fellow student. Plus Ultra or whatever."

I uncapped my dry erase marker and stared at the board. What kind of hero did I want to be? What kind of name did I want to have? I had a flash of inspiration, but... I sent Kacchan a message with my Quirk. I wanted his opinion on it.

He turned back to me. "Really?" he asked. I nodded. "Well I can see where you're coming from with that," he shrugged. "If ya really want to, go for it."

I wrote down my idea and waited for everyone else to be done. Kacchan looked like he was having a bit of trouble, but shooed me off when I asked if he needed help.

"And now you'll be presenting your hero names, starting with who's done!" Midnight said after more than a few of my classmates had put down their markers. Nobody said anything, but the air tensed when she said that. "Of course you have to present them!" she said with a grin. "If you can't stand proud and present your name to your own peers, how are you going to stick to it in the face of the public?"

Okay that made me a little nervous, but I shook it off. I was about to volunteer myself for the first presentation, but Aoyama and Aizawa both stood up before I could.

"I shall go first!" Aoyama glittered as Aizawa muttered, "Let's get this over with."

Aizawa sighed. "After you, kid."

"Thank you, my wonderful teacher!" He strutted up to the podium and stylishly revealed the name he wrote on his board. "'Shining Hero: I Can Not Stop Twinkling!' That means that you can't stop my sparkles!" As he said that, literal sparkles bloomed into existence around him. Honestly that was about what I was expecting from him.

"I like it, buuut maybe take out the 'I' and shorten 'Can Not' to 'Can't?'" Midnight suggested.

"Yes! That's perfect,mademoiselle!" Aoyama beamed.

"That'sa good name?" Shinsou snarked under his breath.

"I don't know," I said, "I think it's kind of a nice name."

"Because you're a f*cking sap," Kacchan added.

I shrugged. "Maybe a little."

Aizawa sighed. "Well, I guess that means I'm next." He walked up to the podium unenthusiastically and lifted up his board. "Magician Hero: Grimalkin," he read, blushing slightly. He'd put a cute little cat paw print on the end where a period would be.

"Ah, like the witch's familiar from Macbeth!" Yaoyorozu said.

Aizawa nodded. "Yes, exactly."

"I love it!" Midnight shouted. "Cute, but still bold!"

"Thanks," Aizawa muttered as he walked away from the podium.

"Now, do we have any more volunteers?" Midnight asked.

Kacchan got up. "I might as well get this over with too." He presented his name. "The Explosion Hero: Grenadier."

"Excellent! It's simple, striking, and goes with your hero outfit's theme!" Midnight commented.

"Thanks, teach." Kacchan said. "I figured it'd be way better than my first idea."

"What would that be?"

"King Explosion Murder."

Midnight winced. "Yeah, Grenadier's a lot better. Next!"

Shinsou nodded and got up to the podium. "I'm afraid it might be a little dark, but... Control Hero: Mindjack."

Midnight nodded with a grin. "I can see your concerns, but it's perfectly fine. Better than King Explosion Murder, at least."

"You're welcome for the example, I guess," Kacchan grumbled.

"Now, who wants to go next?" Midnight asked.

I stood up. "I'd like to," I said. I walked up to the podium, took a deep breath, and showed the class my dry erase board. "The name I decided on is the Gamer Hero: Deku."

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

"Now that you've picked out your hero names it's time to get serious again," Aizawa said, having reclaimed his podium. He pulled out some packets and sheets of paper. "The work study will take place next week, starting Monday and ending Sunday. Those of you who got offers from agencies are heavily suggested to pick from that list, but if you ask for the other list I'll give you one. I'm mainly saying that for the people who didn't get many offers so you don't feel like you don't have a lot of choices. Keep in mind, everyone, that you should think carefully about what kind of hero agency you'd want to work for. Depending on the kind of hero work you want to do, you might want to look for a rescue agency. Or that'd be a waste of time if you want to focus more on taking down villains or crime investigation."

Midnight nodded. "If you want to do rescue work, go to an agency known for rescue work. Make sure to look up an agency before you choose it, too." She winked. "Would be pretty embarrassing if you thought your choice was an underground investigation specialty and you end up working under Wash, huh? And don't worry if you can't find too much, you can always ask one of your teachers."

"Right, it's almost time for lunch," Aizawa said. "You have a few minutes before that, though, so I suggest you spend it thinking about where you're going to go for your work study. You have until Friday to tell me where you want to go or Nedzu will pick for you. And trust me when I say that you don't want that. So all of you better think carefully about your choice." He passed out the papers, handing out the more uniform stack to the students who didn't get any offers and giving the people with offers their own packets (though Sero, Shinsou, and Yaoyorozu respectfully asked for extras of the first stack on account of only having gotten single sheets of paper...). I gulped when my extra-large packetthumpedon my desk. "Have fun, kid," Aizawa-sensei told me with what sounded like the lightest bit of sympathy.

"...Would it be inconsiderate to say I feel slightly intimidated by this thing?" I asked. It wasso big. The closest packet in size was Kacchan's, but even his wasn't nearly as big as mine. It'd take me a while to read through it all...

"Nah," Shinsou said. "As much as I'm jealous you got so many offers, I really don't envy you having to go through all those agencies." He scanned his list of offers. "Dang, guess I didn't need the other sheet. That one looks good." He pulled out his phone and started looking up whichever offer caught his eyes. I sighed and went back to my list. It had some basic information on each of the offering agencies, but I didn't know if that was enough that I could delegate some of the pages to my elementals...

"You're really thinking about that, huh Midoriya?" Tsu said after I'd read a few pages.

I chuckled nervously. "Ah, most of it is just that there are so many to go through. I've only gone through a few hundred..."

"Hey, at least you got any," Ashido whined.

"S-sorry..." I said. "I just... feel like I have to pick a good one, because there are so many..."

"That sounds reasonable," Ojiro said. "Luckily I'm already familiar with one of the agencies on the list, but if I wasn't..."

"Yeah... So I take it you've already picked an agency?"

"Actually, I have too!" Uraraka added.

"Nice," Tsu said. "Who is it? Studio Thirteen? The Wild, Wild puss*cats? Maybe Team Idaten?"

Uraraka blushed slightly. "A-actually I'm thinking of going to Gunhead Dojo!" She punched the air. "I know I want to be a rescue hero, but I realized when fighting Bakugou that maybe it'd be a good idea to at least have some experience with fighting and stuff even if I'm a rescue hero, y'know? Plus I think my fight with Bakugou awakened something in me."

Kacchan chuckled. "Yeah, that fight was pretty f*cking great. You're pretty damn good already, but I can see why you wanna get some combat training." He looked back at his sheet. "Probably gonna go with Best Jeanist."

"Did not think you'd go for him, Bakugou," Ashido commented. She chuckled. "Though now that I think about it you kinda channeled him a bit in that fight with Midoriya, huh?"

Kacchan shrugged. "He's the highest-ranked hero that I got an offer for, though I suppose I also do wanna branch out a bit and figure he's as good a mentor as anyone."

Uraraka held her hand out to him. "Yeah, expanding new horizons!"

Kacchan snorted and high-fived her. "You're a dork."

"Well who's dorkier, the dork or the dork who high-fives her?" Uraraka asked.

Kacchan rolled his eyes. "You, for making that dumb f*cking comment."

"By the way," Sonia's voice suddenly whispered in my ear even though she was sitting invisibly on Iida's desk, "Iida's heartrate spiked when he circled one of the names on his list. Hosu was where his brother was attacked, right?"

I winced. "That doesn't sound good. The man who attacked him, Hero Killer Stain, is a serial killer villain who always attacks in fours before moving to a new city, and Ingenium was his first strike in Hosu..."

"That bad?" she asked.

"I... hope I'm wrong about it, but he may be trying to get revenge." I sighed. "What am I going to do about this?"

xoxoxo

"Hey, Todoroki!" I said as we walked to the cafeteria. He was probably going to sit alone, but I'd decided to invite him to join our table. "Or should I call you Shoto?"

He looked like a deer in headlights as he turned me. "Um..."

My eyes widened. "S-sorry, I meant like your hero name, not your first name!"

"Right," he said. "Though, I don't mind if you do call me Shoto. I've... never really had a friend before..."

"Well that's... not exactly good, but I was planning on inviting you to sit with us at lunch. Would you like that?"

He blinked. It looked like he was a bit startled, like he hadn't expected that. "Yes," he said after think about it for a moment. "I think I would like that."

"Great! Follow me!" I smiled.

"Midoriya," he muttered after a few moments of silence. "I... initially thought of taking my father's offer."

"Offer?" I asked.

"His name was on my list of agencies I got offers from..."

I winced. "And... you said 'initially?'"

"I saw another agency, though. One that I remembered from when I looked up Water Hose. Have you heard of the Wild, Wild puss*cats?"

I nodded. "They're a rescue-oriented agency, but they might be really good for you. Better thanhimat least... I didn't know they took students, though."

"I didn't either, but I'm grateful for them."

I smiled at him. "That's good. Ah, here's our table."

Shoto was a little uncomfortable at first, but he warmed up to everyone by the end of lunch.

xoxoxo

I knocked on Shuzenji-sensei's door. We didn't have anything going on in our afternoon classes aside from looking over our options (and while I couldn't completely delegate that task to my elementals Juniper had offered to read them to me) so I got permission from Aizawa-sensei to talk to Shuzenji-sensei. "It's open!" she called.

I pulled my paperwork out of my inventory as I opened the door. "I got it signed!"

Shuzenju-sensei smiled at me. "Good job, Midoriya-kun. Give it here so I can give you your license, please."

I handed her the paperwork, which she started looking over one last time. "By the way, when you have time Power Loader wants to see you, something about you collaborating with one of his students."

I nodded. "I'll check in on that later, then. I have a pretty good idea of what it's about."

She nodded, then finished checking the paperwork. "Everything looks in order." She reached into one of the drawers of her desk and pulled out a small rectangle of plastic. "You can get another if you lose it, but it's annoying and I suggest you take good care of it."

"Thanks," I said. I sniffed. It wasn't a hero license, but it was so close! "H-hang on, give me a minute." I managed to only shed a single giant tear, then putmy new healer licensein my inventory when I had composed myself.

"Should I be concerned about the size of that tear?" Shuzenji-sensei asked me.

I shook my head, pulling the water off with my water magic. "No, it's a leftover mutation from my grandmother's Quirk, Ocular Gushers."

She nodded. "Okay then. Are you good?"

"Actually... can I voice my concerns about one of my fellow students?" I asked.

"Is this about Iida-kun?" she asked.

I flinched a little. "Yeah. I... just wanted to say..."

Shuzenji-sensei sighed. "Yeah, we're keeping an eye on him. Unfortunately not much we can do at the moment, if he's not willing to talk about it..."

"Thanks anyways. Also, I'm very close to prestiging my healing skill, so do you think I could try to heal Iida's brother when I do?"

She rubbed her chin. "That means you'll get a better version of it, right? I'll see what I can do about that, especially if it's as good as you think."

I bowed. "Thank you. I'll go now."

xoxoxo

I walked back to the development studio, after having cleared it with Aizawa-sensei of course. By now Juniper had gone through about a fourth of the list, but I was still no closer to figuring out who I was going to go with, even with the past bearers giving me advice. There were just... too many.

So I was going to take my mind off of it, for now at least. I opened the door of the development studio-

And dodged out of the way of a flying Hatsume. I had Halitus create an air cushion to catch her softer than the wall would.

"Hatsume, just the person I wanted to talk to," I said as Halitus lightly blew the soot off her. "Are you hurt?"

She gave me the thumbs-up. "I'm perfectly fine." Then she started invading my personal space with a mad glint in her eye. "Now what was it you wanted to tell me about?"

I backed up a bit. "Maybe we should talk in the development studio?" I suggested.

She nodded vigorously. "Of course, of course!" She walked through the open door. "Follow me, please!" I followed her to a workbench directly across from the door with a smoking, destroyed machine on it. Hatsume sat down on the swivel stool in front of it and sighed. "It's always a fun surprise when one of my babies explodes, but I wish I could unexplode it so I could try to see what went wrong."

"That would sound so wrong out of context..." Claude muttered, looking at the broken 'baby.'

"It still kinda sounds wrongincontext," Iggy added.

"I might be able to help with that, if you don't mind," I offered, switching Float out from Mending.

"You can?" she asked.

I nodded and rapped the device lightly with my knuckle. It stopped smoking, the buckled parts smoothed out, the soot disappeared, and various bits of metal flew across the workshop to reattach to it.

Hatsume gasped and examined the machine. "My baby! Good as new! How'd you do it?"

I hesitated for a moment, but then shrugged and just came out with it. "It's a long story, but I can kinda copy Quirks now."

She stared at me with a huge grin. "So you want me to build you adaptable hero gear that can be used with all kinds of Quirks?"

I blinked. She was certainly eager... "That wasn't exactly why I wanted to talk to you today, but if you're offering then I'd be happy to at least try that out."

"Then what did you want to talk to me about."

I pulled a small marble out of my inventory. "Use Eye for Magic, please." She stared at the marble intently with glowing eyes and nodded. I backed up a bit and channeled some mana into the marble, activating it. The marble glowed as a bubble of mana formed around me.

Hatsume gasped. "Is... is that... anenchantment?" Even without Eye for Magic I'm sure I would have seen a mad glint in her eye.

I grinned. "Yup. I learned the skill after my last fight in the sports festival. I think it might be a good idea to teach it to someone whose Quirkdoesn'tinvolve easily learning magic, so they might be able to teach it to more people."

Hatsume drooled. "I agree to your terms. I will make sure Majima-sensei knows how to do it, and I'm sure he'll take over from there.Now teach me your ways."

I could understand her enthusiasm, so I took out two more marbles and tossed one to her. "Watch closely, I'll enchant this one with the Mana Dome spell and then let you try." She was vibrating. I activated Eye for Magic and stared at the marble as I enchanted it. It was a bit like programming the spell into the marble, using Item Enchantment as the programming language. I watched the way the enchantment set into the marble carefully so I could help out Mei if she had any trouble with it.

"Right, now you try," I said when I was done. She grinned maniacally as the marble glowed with her mana. I stared at it. She did it almost perfectly. The bubble wavered a bit when she activated it, but still... "That's actually a pretty good first try," I told her. "You've almost got it."

She grinned. "I think I know how to do it from here. The babies I can make withthis..."

I nodded. "I take it you'd be willing to help me develop good enchantments? The Item Enchantment skill also lets me passively enchant anything I make with magic, which could get interesting if I have a good portfolio of enchantments."

She nodded vigorously. "Of course, off course!" She thought for a moment, then pulled out a lens that was probably meant to be used for a robot eye or something. "Watch this!" It looked like she was putting the Eye for Magic spellintothe lens, which was a pretty genius idea, actually. Unfortunately, though, the lens cracked. "Damn it!" she yelled, then looked through the lens. She sighed and held the lens out to me. "You can fix this, right?"

I took the lens and Analyzed it. It was almost there, but not quite. "Yes, but it'll probably wipe the enchantment. Mending doesn't exactly fix things so much as it returns them to a previous state." I checked out the enchantment on the lens by holding it up to the shield marble. It looked off, but it was definitely promising!

"Drat. Ah well, just do it. I wanted to practice wiping enchantments, but I suppose I can do that later."

I nodded and Mended it. "Probably a good idea." The lens uncracked and the enchantment disappeared. I handed it back to her. "And I think that making magic-sensing lenses is also pretty genius."

"I know, right!" She grinned and attempted the enchantment again. This time she got it perfectly. She looked through the lens and grinned, then handed it back to me. "Keep it, I'm gonna see about making magic-sensing goggles for my whole class."

I grinned. "That's gonna be fun."

She nodded. "Actually, you said you can copy Quirks, right?"

"Yeah."

"If you want you can copy mine."

"Thanks. I can think of a few ways that I can put it to good use. Can you use it like a magnifying glass, or only to see faraway things with better detail?"

She grinned. "Correct! I can zoom in on even the tiniest of circuits as well as the farthest of people!"

"That can be pretty useful. I mean, even if it was only farsight I could use it for spell sniping, which could be pretty fun, but that's also pretty good!" I held my hand out. "I can copy Quirks through skin contact, if you will." She high-fived me. "Thanks. I'll check in on you later."

She pulled out her phone. "Actually, let's swap phone numbers so we can talk enchantments!"

"Yeah, that sounds good!"

"Gettin' a girl's number, huh?" Raimon joked. "Dang, Izuku, I didn't know you were such a player!"

I mentally rolled my eyes as I gave her my number. We talked for a bit more about enchantments and design (she was way more useful than Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, when it came to developing my Imaginary Architect ideas) before I returned to my classroom.

xoxoxo

Kacchan slapped me on the back after dismissal. "You figure out who you're going with, Deku?" he asked me with a smug grin.

"No, not yet," I said. "I assume you have?"

He nodded and showed me his packet, or rather the name on his packet that was circled. "Best Jeanist," he bragged. "Number four hero's pretty f*ckin' good, huh? Plus, he'll probably have some tips for my silk magic." He emphasized that statement by creating a small strand of silk between two of his fingers.

"So that's... something you're doing now?" I asked.

"Yeah, it was pretty fun tying you up," Kacchan said.

"Is that really something you want to admit?" Tsu asked him.

He silently flipped her off, which was honestly pretty tame for him. "Plus, I could probably use something to restrain villains and not just blow 'em up."

"Yeah, that's probably a good thing to think about," I said. "You wanna leave now? I should probably get home soon so I can read through my list."

"Yeah, sure, let's go. Mom's gonna wanna see this." He opened the door.

"I AM HERE IN A BIZARRE POSITION!" All Might shouted, bent over to be right in front of Kacchan's face. Was it just me or did he look slightly nervous? His trademark smile was wavering ever-so slightly.

"The f*ck are you here for?" Kacchan asked him.

"I need to borrow young Midoriya for a bit." Saying this, he held up a small slip of paper. "A late submission."

Kacchan nodded. "I got it, I'll wait to walk home with him." He grabbed my shoulder and yanked me toward All Might. I stumbled forward a bit, but caught myself so I didn't crash into All Might. "You guys've got talking to do anyway," his voice said despite his lips not moving.

"Follow me, then, young Midoriya." All Might started walking and I followed him.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask..." I said as we walked.

"Hm? What is it, young Midoriya?"

"Do you mind if I call you Yagi-sensei? At least when we're talking in private?"

He smiled at me. "Of course, my boy! Though, what brought this on?"

I chuckled sheepishly. "It's a bit of a long story but, well... I kinda entered my mindscape and realized I put you on a bit of a pedestal."

"There was a literal pedestal, wasn't there? Probably with a giant statue of me." He lightly touched his chest. I cast Healing Hands on him, just in case. "And... might I guess there was a crack in the statue?"

I blinked. "Y-yeah... How'd you know?"

"It's not my first time dealing with mindscape logic."

"When would you have..."

Yagi-sensei gave me a small but hearty laugh. "I'll tell you later." He led me down the bathroom hallway. "Now, this offer..." He started trembling slightly. "Well, it comes from my old homeroom teacher, back when I was in Yuuei..." I frowned and used Open Mind. What kind of person could they be to make All Mi-Yagi-senseinervous like that?

Not wanting to probe too deep, I only made out flashes of a yellow blur bouncing around a gymnasium and some yelling. "Why would he come out of retirement to send that offer?" Yagi-sensei thought. "It must've been that letter I sent him..."

I turned it back off. "Hey, is he talking about Torino?" Shimura asked.

"Was this person a friend of your mentor?" I asked.

Yagi-sensei flinched. "Er... Yes. He... Well, he saw a lot of promise in you, but thinks you could use One For All better."

I thought about it. "I... probably could, yeah. Speaking of, though, I found something I think you'd like to know about."

He eased up. "What is it, young Midoriya?"

"I think it might be better just to 'show' you, actually. Invite Yagi Toshinori to party."

Yagi-sensei looked at the text box for a moment before accepting.

"Hello, Toshinori," I heard a bit of a smirk in Shimura's voice.

Yagi-sensei coughed up a bit of blood in surprise. "Sh-Shimura-sensei?"

She chuckled. "Yes. Sorry for the surprise."

"H-how? Are you... a ghost?" He started looking around for her. "Speak, apparition," he said.

"Oooooh, Iiiiii'm aaaa ghooooost," Hikiishi said. "And I'm here to make you faaaaaaaart."

"Don't tease, Jiroku," Kaizen chided.

"What," Yagi-sensei said flatly. He looked at something, probably the party list. "Young Midoriya, are these... the past users of One For All?"

I nodded. "I kinda... found them in my mindscape. I think it's a part of One For All or something."

Yagi-sensei nodded. "I remember seeing vague shadows of what I had assumed were the previous users once or twice when I was first getting a hang on One For All... Perhaps it was a glimpse of these... ghosts."

"Oh yeah I remember that," Daigoro said. "Was pretty freaky when it first happened..."

Yagi-sensei nodded. "It wasveryfreaky." He cleared his throat. "Young Midoriya, do you mind if I stay in your party for a bit? I think... I'd like to catch up with my old mentor."

I nodded. "Yeah, I understand, Yagi-sensei."

"Thank you, young Midoriya." His smile eased up a bit.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

I looked at my newest text boxes as Aizawa-sensei talked.

Through repeated meditation, your VIT has increased by one!

By raising VIT above 100, two random skills have been created!

The skill 'Healing Grace' has been created through VIT rising above 100 and having a healing skill with a level of 95 or higher!

The skill 'Immovable Object' has been created through VIT rising above 100!

The skill 'Purity of Body' has been created through VIT rising above 100!

Through repeated meditation, your STR has increased by one!

I'd actually got them on the way to school so I could go to my work study, which was pretty lucky. My VIT had been pretty close to the hundred-point benchmark after that ridiculous +15 to all stats, so naturally I'd had my Mantra set to level it up for the past few days. And now that I had the skills, I'd probably be trying to get my STR up. It wasn't as high as VIT was, but it still wasn't that far off so I'd set Mantra to level it unless I was Meditating, when I would switch Mantra to something else and use Meditation for STR. Mantra's benefits had improved slightly as it leveled up, so it might even happen within the month!

I closed the text boxes after I was done reading what the skills did. Purity of Body was the standard improved version of the previous benchmark's skill, nothing much to comment on there other than the fact that it probably synergized well with Damage Reduction because it improved my HP. Immovable Object was... I suppose it was good and I could definitely find uses for it, but it looked a little unwieldy, too... It was a powerful barrier spell, but the barrier got a lot of its strength from being rooted, completely immobile. Even after turning the skill off the barrier would take a few moments to dissolve, leaving me immobile unless I could brute force my way through it... which I could probably do if I wanted, but not without using up more MP. At the very least I was already halfway through puzzling out how to use Item Enchantment to combine it with Imaginary Architect, which would give it a lot more versatility (though I doubted I'd get much EXP if at all for it if I only used an enchantment derived from it...). The barrier would be immobile even in midair, though it thankfully made me immobile relative to Earth and not truly immobile so I wouldn't fly off every time I used it.

I noticed, though, that it reminded me of Illusion Barrier in a way. I couldn't tell too well without actually using the skill, but it felt like it drew on the same underlying dimensional... thing... that Illusion Barrier tapped into, though in a different manner. Instead of creating another layer of reality using its fabric, it seemed like the barrier would gain extra stability by being rooted to it. Though maybe 'rooted' might not have been the right word for it...

The best skill, though, was Healing Grace. In addition to increasing the rate at which my HP naturally regenerated, it also enhanced the effects of any skill I had that was even remotely related to healing. That was amazing, especially with how my current objective (even if I hadn't gotten a quest for it) was to heal Iida's brother. And that wasn't all Healing Grace enhanced. Regeneration, Meditation, and Mantra also healed for more now, though it seemed that Super Regeneration, being a Quirk and not a skill, didn't have the same benefits. It didn't seem to do anything for the MP regeneration effects on Meditate and Mantra, and while I couldn't check it as easily I assumed the same could be said for the rate at which it trained my stats. Not that I cared that much, it was already good. And that wasn't even mentioning its active effect, which let me sacrifice HP to further increase how effective my healing skills were at healing others. HP that it caused me to regenerate at an increased rate. Iwouldhave to be careful with it, but just skimming a bit off the top of my very large HP bar to improve my healing and level up Healing Grace faster seemed like a good idea.

Okay maybe I was overhyping Healing Grace just a little, but it looked pretty good. Plus the fact that it modified Mantra meant that it was passively gaining EXP with Mantra, even if it was only a little.

"Remember, you're not allowed to wear your hero costumes in public without express permission from a hero you're studying under," Aizawa reminded us. We were waiting for our transportation at a train station, and Aizawa-sensei was using it as an opportunity to give us some reminders. "And make sure you keep track of them, don't just leave them lying around." He glared at me. "Speaking of... Midoriya, you're the only person here without a costume case. Where is it?"

"I have it in my inventory, sir," I told him. "I figured that since I would only be allowed to take it out when I'm allowed to use my Quirk anyway, I might as well make it easier on myself."

"I suppose that's fine, then. And everyone, remember to mind your manners. Now go, your transportation should be here soon."

"Yes, sir!" everyone said before we went our separate ways. I noticed Iida walking away alone, so I walked towards him.

"Iida!" I said. He stopped. Kacchan and Uraraka walked up behind me. "Just remember," I said. "If you ever feel overwhelmed, you can talk to me."

"Me too!" Uraraka added.

"Again, I'm probably not the best person to talk to, but I'll totally listen if you want," Kacchan said.

I smiled. "We're friends, okay?"

He slowly turned around. "Of course." With that, he resumed walking to his train. I followed him. "What are you doing, Midoriya?" he asked.

"Sorry, I think my train is this way too."

He glared at me. "Did you plan this?"

I raised my hands in defense. "I swear I didn't! My train is just this way."

"I suppose so."

"Good luck on your work study, though," I said. "And be safe."

He nodded. "You too, Midoriya."

xoxoxo

I stared at the little map that Yagi-sensei had given me, comparing it with my minimap as I walked down the street. "So this Gran Torino guy even made Yagi-sensei nervous... I wonder what he's like."

"I can't say what he's like now, but when I knew him he was nice, though very... severe," Shimura told me.

"So like Yagi-sensei's version of Aizawa-sensei?" I asked.

She made a noise a bit like a verbal shrug. "Kind of, but not exactly."

"Well I can't wait to see him."

"Speaking of, why did you choose to go here?" Honenuki asked me. "You have us, so it's not like you really need his instruction on how to properly use One For All. No offense to him, of course."

I shrugged. "Yagi-sensei said that he was heavily DEX-based, and I've been meaning to work on my mobility anyway. Plus I didn't want to just brush him off, if he knows about One For All and All For One." I paused. "Hang on, were they just the two halves of that saying? Why did I not notice that before?"

"That was the last time my brother and I agreed, actually," Ichigo explained. "A few years after he forced Power Stockpile on me, we had a confrontation. He had continued to use his Quirk, called Power Theft then, for his own selfish gain, while I had just found out I could give my Quirk to someone else." He chuckled wryly. "We actually used One For All and All For One as a bit of a shared catchphrase when we were kids, so we agreed to split it in half, as it were."

"That's... kinda poetic, actually. Thank you for telling me." I stopped, seeing that I was in the right place. I looked up from the note. "Huh. This...isthe right place, right?"

The place was... this might sound bad, but it looked a little run-down. Yagi-sensei mentioned that this Torino guy had come out of retirement to teach me, so it was probably just that the building was old. The doors looked fine, though, so I hoped that it was just that the outside that was worse for wear. I knocked on the door, waiting to be let in.

A few minutes passed, so I knocked again. And again I was met with silence. "Excuse me," I said loudly. "I'm here for an internship?" There was definitely someone there on my minimap. I asked my elementals, and they told me the person was just... laying there, covered in ketchup and sausage links. "I'm coming in, excuse me!" I decided, then opened the unlocked door. If I didn't know the old man was alive and the things under him were ketchup and sausages, I probably would've thought he was dead. It didn't help that the lights were off and there was a shattered plate on the floor.

Get Off My Lawn

LV 92

Torino Sorahiko

Though I was pretty sure the dead didn't have titles. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked.

His head shot up. "I'm alive!" he shouted.

"Yeah, do you need help cleaning up? You appear to be covered in ketchup." I didn't want to assume it was a test or prank, in case he actually did slip while carrying a plate of ketchup-covered sausages. "If you'll allow it, I have water magic and can summon paper towels with my Quirk."

"Oh, thank you, young man!" He got up shakily, leaning heavily on his cane. He was definitely wearing a hero outfit, regardless of his current state. I didn't think anyone would wear a yellow cape and a domino mask casually, at least. "Who are you?"

I pulled some paper towels out of my inventory. "I'm Midoriya Izuku, from Yuuei. I'm here for a work study?"

He took the paper towels and started wiping himself off. "Oh. Who are you?"

"Midoriya Izuku."

He smiled at me. "Toshinori?"

That was Yagi-sensei's name, so I guess he knew I had One For All, at least... "Um, any help, guys?" I asked the past bearers.

"Maybe try reading his mind?" Hikiishi suggested. "You can do that, right?"

"Sora, why?" Shimura sighed.

"Where's your costume?" the old man asked once he finished wiping himself off. His bearing had shifted, and he looked a lot more serious. He wasn't shaking anymore. "Put that on and fire One For All off at me."

I opened my inventory and dragged the costume case over to my equipment screen. Just like I'd hoped, it autoequipped my costume for me, and it even put on a little button that looked like it would let me autodequip my costume and pack it back up for me (hopefully returning my original clothes with it). I'd have to check if it actually did that, but it was cool nonetheless. My hero costume appeared on my body with a rush of air. I stretched, checking the changes to the outfit. It looked mostly the same, but I could already feel that it was easier to move around in than my old costume.

"How'd you do that?" Torino asked.

"Did you get any information about my Quirk?" I asked him.

"It's called The Gamer and it gives you powers like a video game character, specifically an RPG."

I nodded. "I have an inventory power, which is what I used to get those paper towels for you. It also has an equipment menu, and I just equipped my hero costume."

"That makes sense, I suppose." He got into a fighting stance. "Now hit me with your best shot. One For All only."

"Um... Can I do something first? If I throw a blast of One For All, it'll probably cause property damage."

"What is it?"

"I have a spell that... It's a little hard to explain but basically I can use it to let us do as destructive training we want without worrying about property damage, by basically putting us in a temporary pocket dimension."

He nodded. "Do that, then."

I placed my hand on his shoulder and dragged us both into an Illusion Barrier. Then I turned around and punched at the door. "LIMIT BREAK!" I shouted as the blastwave wrecked most of that wall, as well as the street and the building on the other side. "I am very glad I used Illusion Barrier," I said as I shook off my hand. It didn't hurt too bad, but after using One For All at 100% it was a little tingly.

"Well there's your problem, kid," Torino said. "Well, I can see another thing that you should be mindful of, too, but you've got one main problem. I know a bit about video games, you know. Watched a few YouTube videos on some RPGs when I decided to take you on, too. Plus I watched your performance in the sports festival as well. You're thinking about One For All like a limited resource or a super meter to draw on when you need a big attack, but that ain'tjustwhat it is. Think about how Toshinori uses One For All, I'm sure you've seen him use it before."

I nodded and put some ideas about what he meant in the text chat for the past bearers to give their thoughts on. "I think I get what you're suggesting."

"Good." To my surprise he jumped around the rest of the room, zooming between the floor, three remaining walls, and even ceiling. He landed on a nearby table, breaking it, and grinned at me. "You wanna put it into practice?" He pulled out a stopwatch. "You have three minutes to land a single hit on me, using only One For All. Starting now." He clicked it and started jumping around again. He was using his Quirk, Jet, which let him shoot powerful jets of air from the bottoms of his feet. He darted in for a punch, and I dodged backwards, tapping into One For All. Really, it was so obvious that I would've hit myself if I had time. It was basically what I did for Elemental Aura already, just using One For All instead of elemental magic. I felt a feeling like lightning running all over my body as I jumped. I sailed clear out the hole that was the broken fourth wall, still keeping my eyes on him.

He bounced a few more times before shooting straight at me. I stood my ground, concentrating more One For All in my arm. When he was close enough that I was hoping he couldn't dodge the attack, I punched in his direction. It was a textbook Texas Smash, sending a powerful shockwave in Gran Torino's direction, but he managed to dodge to the side with his Quirk. He shot at me again, but I dodged out of the way first. "I see what you did," he noted. "You saw me bouncing around the room with blinding speed and decided to get me out in the open, where maybe I'd be a bit slower." He grinned. "Changing the environment to your advantage or your opponent's disadvantage. Good. Just remember that it might not always work. After all, you're the one on a time-"

I didn't let him finish that, trying to blindside him by charging at him while he was still monologuing. He still managed to shoot upwards before I hit him, but I had anticipated that and used Weird Flex (that might have been cheating slightly, but it was less of a magical or Quirk-related skill and more of a literal skill that just happened to get enhanced by The Gamer, like Sword Mastery) to pivot so that I could push off the ground with my hands. The ground cracked with the force that I used pushing off of it, and I shot into Gran Torino foot-first. He grunted, stunned, and I punched off the air a few times to get on the opposite side of him so I could catch him before we hit the ground.

Your level has increased by one!

I was already pretty close to a level up before that fight, so even though it wasn't much of a fight the EXP was still enough to level me up.

"Sorry if that was a little too hard," I said when we landed, then pulled out my Quirk healer license. "I can heal you, if you're hurt."

He grunted, got up, and rubbed his stomach. "Thanks, kid." He chuckled. "You really showed a lot of promise there, kid," he said as I healed him. "It only took me a little prodding to correct how you use your Quirk."

I smiled. "Yeah, and we didn't even touch on my other Quirks."

He raised his eyebrow. "'OtherQuirks?' Plural?"

"Sorry, did Yagi-sensei not mention that?" I asked. I raised my hand, switching Skeletal in. Oof, my costume wasn't looking too good after that giant blast... I was already going to use Mending after my demonstration, but still... I tensed my arm, activating Skeletal. White armor calcified along my hand and forearm, forming something like a gauntlet that destroyed the remains of that sleeve and glove. "The Gamer evolved the ability to copy Quirks during the sports festival. I got the Quirks of the past bearers, as well as a few others, as quest rewards from a quest related to the sports festival." I deactivated Skeletal, causing the bone armor to retract back into my skin, and fixed my costume with Mending.

"Well, practice with those new Quirks of yours for now." His demeanor lightened. "I'm gonna go get us some food!" He walked away.

"Um... Let's go inside first so I can drop the Illusion Barrier first?" I suggested. "I don't think I'm allowed to just drop us out of a pocket dimension in the middle of the street."

He looked at the carnage we'd made, then around at the lack of people on the street, and chuckled. "That sounds about right. No use scaring the civilians." We walked back inside. "Who are you, again?"

I broke the barrier. "Midoriya. Should I just practice with my Quirks and magic until you're back?"

"Sure. But who are you, though?"

I sighed. "Just go, please."

"Goodbye, Toshinori!" He said with a smile as he walked out the door.

"Goodbye," I said. The second the door closed I activated another Illusion Barrier, leaving my elementals on the other side so I would know when he came back. I'd recently gotten a new setting for Illusion Barrier, but I decided against using it quite yet and just made another skeleton barrier. "Practice with my Quirks. Got it." I activated One For All again, getting that electrical feeling again. It reminded me of using Lightning Aura, actually. Which made sense, given how close what I was doing was to Elemental Aura.

That gave me an idea, but first...

I jumped, putting all of my strength into it. I immediately regretted that, as using One For All's full power to jump seemed like it was slightly overkill seeing how high I flew. Luckily I had I Burn on, so I'd absorbed all the energy from how hard I hit the ceiling, an impact hard enough that I lost some HP from it even with my Physical Endurance and Damage Reduction. And then I absorbed the negligible amount of energy I got from punching through a cloud a moment later. Speaking of which, I looked at the building...sI just destroyed from the giant hole in the cloud I was above. It was so far away that even with Hawkeye I could just barely see the largest chunks. I didn't actually expect it to work, so I was pleasantly surprised when I felt them when I reached out with Singularity. "The range it has isridiculous, if it can do that," I muttered. Iyanked, pulling those chunks upwards. "It doesn't even feel like I'm straining it..." I did notice my regeneration dropping a few points as I pulled the chunks up to me, but it was amazing how muchpowerI got out of Singularity.

I turned off Singularity as I dropped below the cloud headfirst, switching to grabbing the chunks that had just flown past me and into the clouds with Blackwhip. I made a barrier enchanted with Immovable Object above my feet and braced on it to stop the building chunks. I strained at their momentum for a second, then jumped with half the power I had used before once the pull from the chunks abated. As I hurtled downwards I looked around the town I was above. I saw a few important landmarks: a tower, a square with a fountain, an important-looking building that could've been town hall, and the train station I'd arrived at. I double-checked that I was still in the Illusion Barrier, because this would be really bad otherwise...

I raised the amount of One For All I was using and swung my hands, trying to hit the four targets with the building pieces I was carrying with Blackwhip. My aim was a little off, but considering the fact that I was throwing around giant chunks of rubble I was fine with the result. Plus, they had all ended up crushing some skeletons that had spawned. I'd read in an article of tips for heroes Yagi-sensei had shared in one of his classes that in general a hero should try to not throw stuff at people if they can avoid it because they can typically hit harder than whatever they can pick up and it lowers property damage in general, so while that was fun I wasn't planning on making a habit of throwing buildings at people.

I let myself fall after that. I'd lost some of my momentum when I'd thrown the buildings, but I was still coming in fast. I could probably just use Float to stop falling, but I decided to try to tank the landing instead. It'd be great for I Burn, for one. I switched in Skeletal, giving myself some extra armor over the areas that I'd be landing on, and used Earth Aura to provide some shock absorption. I landed in a textbook three-point landing in the middle of a throng of skeletons, triggering an OFA-overpowered Earth Burst as I did that basically caused a miniature earthquake.

"Ow," I said despite the fact that it only took off a small bit of health that I gained back almost immediately. "Deadpool was right, thosearehard on the knees..." I got up, turning Skeletal off and Mending my shredded costume again. I was standing in the middle of a crater with giant cracks radiating from it. I noticed dust pouring into one of the cracks. "Hello," I said as the skeletal samurai spawned. "It's nice to see you again." I could've probably just flicked it to death with One For All, but I decided against that.

The skeleton charged and swung at me, but I blocked it with Skeletal armor. I trapped the sword as I glanced off my armor by forming spikes of bone around it, then switched in Magnetize without switching Skeletal, Copy, or I Burn out. I could feel that the efficiency dropped when I used Magnetize on the sword, but not as much as the last time I tried it. After Magnetizing the sword, I slapped the skeleton's armor, giving it a dose of Magnetize too, and pressed the sword to it. I snickered when the skeleton tried futilely to pry the sword off of its armor, even though Magnetize wasn't as strong as it could've been.

It glared at me, despite not having any eyebrows. I somehow got the message that it wanted me to take our fight seriously.

"Okay, sorry." I put the palm of my hand up to its chest. "I'll take this seriously now." I switched out Magnetize and Copy for Explosion. I had an idea I wanted to test, so I created a hole in the bone armor on my palm for Explosion to work. I gave my hand a bit more One For All than the rest of my body and triggered a blast. I was forced to take a step back from the recoil as an explosion like a shaped charge blasted a hole through the skeleton's armor. It was armor-piercing, sure, but just like when I tried chopping bits off of the other skeletal samurai it only shaved off some HP.

"I guess sometimes finesse just doesn't compare to brute force," I muttered. True, I could've taken it down with hits like that, but it would take way longer than just encasing it in ice with Half-Cold Half-Hot and throwing it into a building with Blackwhip, which I did. This time the skeleton didn't drop anything, which hopefully wasn't because I encased it in ice before killing it.

I got a message from my elementals that Gran Torino came back, so I went back to his house in about a second using Sonic Embodiment. I placed myself about where I thought the floor was before I turned it into a crater, then dropped my Illusion Barrier. Thankfully, dropping out of Illusion Barrier in a position where something was there in the real world didn't do damage to anything and just caused the two objects to move if possible until they weren't inside each other, so even though my aim was off and my feet were clipping through the floor I just shot up until I was standing.

"Ah!" Gran Torino, who was carrying some grocery bags, shouted when I appeared out of nowhere. "...Who are you, again?"

"Sorry for startling you, Torino-sensei," I said. "I decided to train in my Illusion Barrier, which was a good call because the first thing I did wrecked this building."

"That's nice, whoever you are." He yawned. "I'm tired. I think I'm gonna go to bed after I put these away."

"Oh, I thought you'd want to spar some more..." I said.

He handed me a bag full of packages of frozen taiyaki. "That's nice, kid. Wanna help me put away the groceries?"

"...Did you only buy taiyaki?" I asked. Observe told me the other grocery bags only had taiyaki in them, too... It was a good thing The Gamer meant I didn't need to eat, I guess...

"Don't be silly, Toshinori!" he said with a goofy grin, then produced a lollipop. "I got this for you, young man!"

I took the lollipop. "Thanks, I guess..." I put it in my mouth. It was green apple, not my favorite flavor but at the same time it wasn't my least favorite flavor. He probably picked it because of my hair... I checked the fridge when I put the taiyaki in the freezer. He had a wide variety of food, a lot of it healthy but also a lot of sweets, too. I guess he just really felt like getting taiyaki. I felt his gaze on me while I checked the fridge. Maybe he was testing me by showing fake signs that he was senile?

"Good night," I told him when we were done putting the taiyaki in the freezer. "I think I'll train a bit more before I turn in for the night. I'll try not to stay up too late, though." That was kind of a lie, but one could argue that because The Gamer made it so I didn't have to sleep I technically couldn't stay up to late...

"Good night, Toshinori," he said with a grin.

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

The Moon looked so pretty tonight. It was full, a giant orb floating in the sky. I took a few seconds to admire it before I summoned Iggy. "I want you to look at the Moon and tell me if something happens to it," I told him. We were on the roof of Gran Torino's agency building. I'd jumped up for the practice and because I wanted a good view of the moon for what I wanted to do.

"What should I be looking for?" he asked.

"If the Moon turns green, tell me."

"Why would the Moon turn green?" he asked me.

"I'm testing the absolute max range of Singularity," I explained. "I don't think it'll actually reach the Moon, but in case it does I'm worried that Illusion Barrier wouldn't either. So I want you to stop me before I alter the Moon's orbit, because even if I only do that slightly it could have devastating effects."

Iggy gaped. "Why would you be able to hit the Moon?"

"I noticed when I was using Singularity earlier that, when I used it on an object that was very far away, it felt like I wasn't even close to its max range. And when I asked, the past bearers told me that when they got One For All their birth Quirk got a lot more powerful. I still don't really have a good grasp on what Singularity's deal is, so I just want to test something ridiculous just to see how powerful it is."

Iggy nodded. "Sounds good, I guess. Do your thing, Boss."

"Thanks." I opened up an empty Illusion Barrier and looked up. I reached up with Singularity, letting my Quirk search for either its limit or the Moon. I felt no barrier at the end of my Illusion Barrier, and Singularity didn't stop until...

I felt Singularity connect with something so far away, yet still didn't feel any sort of strain from the range. I'd tested with other ranged Quirks (interesting sidenote: my elementals were not immune to Quirks like Brainwash or Fear, which was probably something to look out for come to think of it) and simply looked it up, and from what I could gather, you could normally feel it when you were starting to get to the end of your range limit. I didn't feel anything like that with Singularity. A second after Singularity connected, the Moon seemed to turn a brilliant emerald color, washing everything in green light. No, the Moon had already turned green the moment my Quirk took effect on it. It was just that it took about a second for the light to reach me due to the distance. "Amazing," I said. I was tempted to pull on it, just to see if I could, but I stopped myself. First...

I exited the barrier. "Any changes?" I asked Iggy. I felt my connection to the Moon from my Illusion Barrier fade with the Illusion Barrier, so I doubted it, but better safe than sorry.

He shook his head as he dematerialized. "Did it work?"

I smiled and remade my Illusion Barrier, pulling him and my other elementals through. "Wanna see?" I asked. I reached out for the Moon again. My elementals gasped in awe as the Moon turned green. It was beautiful. I still wondered, though...

"And now, Perry the Platypus," I said in my best Drusselstinian accent, "I will steal the Moon with my Sphere Attractinator Quirk!"

Blaise, who I'd manifested just for my joke, stared flatly at me. "First of all, I'm some sort of bug, not a platypus."

"You are?" I asked, still in my Doofenshmirtz impression. "You don't really look that much like a bug."

"Well I am," he said. "And second of all, what the f*ck?"

I shrugged. "It kinda reminded me of that one episode of Phineas and Ferb."

"I have no idea what that is."

"Oh, we'll have to fix that later. But for now..." I raised a palm to the Moon and clenched my fist. I didn't actually need to do it to use Singularity, but I thought it looked cool. As I clenched my fist I pulled on the Moon. Like before, it took a second for the effects of my Quirk to show up due to the distance.

And then the Moon exploded, a large part of it flying off as emerald-glowing chunks. Whoops. I was very glad I was doing this in an Illusion Barrier now.

"You pissed on the Moon," Blaise said, awestruck.

"Really?" I asked, then dispelled the barrier before I could see any repercussions from exerting enough force on the Moon to make it explode. "You know that, but not Phineas and Ferb?" I winced, I was starting to feel that strange aching sensation in my stomach that I seemed to get after overusing Singularity. My regeneration definitely went down more than just a few points, too. Even if I was apparently only able to pull on a portion of it, exerting that amount of force on something that large and far away wasn't exactly effortless.

Blaise shrugged. "We watch YouTube sometimes."

"Fair. We can talk about that later, but for now can you guys watch my back?"

I opened up my skill window for Illusion Barrier. I figured it was about time I checked out my new Illusion Barrier. It was apparently ninja-themed. That sounded like it could potentially be very annoying, but also good practice.

Like with Kacchan's fire-filled barrier, normal reality seemed to completely fade away when I entered the barier. The building I was standing on became a much more traditional one, causing me to stumble a little when the roof suddenly changed from flat concrete to slanted shingles. I looked around the barrier. The small town had morphed into a thick forest of abnormally large sakura trees, pink petals falling from their branches. I wondered if they were only sakura trees because they were currently in season, and how the barrier would change depending on the time of year or honestly even the time of day...

Sense Danger flared as my elementals warned me about an attack from behind. I Flash Stepped out of the way of a shuriken made of a shadowy material. I looked back to see a humanoid figure made of the same shadowy material, except for a white kitsune mask.

"Ninjas," I said.

Light Cannot Exist Without Shadow

LV 42

Ninja Shade

The ninja didn't talk, it just charged at me with a hand on the shadowy hilt of a blade. I took a breath, remembering my idea from earlier. I activated One For All, drawing on the power of lightning as I did. I tried to merge my Lightning Aura with One For All, like a sort of reverse of my normal Limit Break. With a feeling like lightning along my spine I felt myself speed up, green lightning arcing off my body. I jumped at the shadow ninja, lightning scorching the shingles under my feet. I put a hand on my own sword, as I was still in my hero costume, and slashed at the ninja with a lightning-enhanced sword.

We both landed with our backs to the other. I flourished my sword and slowly sheathed it. My elementals cheered when the ninja fell at the same time.

"That was rather dramatic," Kaizen muttered.

I shrugged. "The elementals liked it."

"Do it again, do it again!" Rayne cheered.

I looked at the ninja. As I watched, its shadow body melted away, leaving behind only the mask. A shadowy shuriken fell from above, shattering the mask. I looked up, but didn't see any possible source it could've come from. When I looked back down I saw that the shards of the mask and the shuriken that shattered it were melting into shadows.

I looked around at the trees. "Juniper, I might need you."

The sakura petals swirled around, forming into my bio elemental. "Of course," she said. "Shall we, then?"

I nodded, then jumped with only a minor amount of... whatever I was going to call this new special move. Elemental Break? Elemental Fusion? No, that didn't feel quite right... I intentionally underpowered it so that the roof didn't break, aside from the scorching from the lightning arc. Once I was in the air I jumped again, off of an Immovable Object platform. Having used the Immovable Object enchantment in Illusion Barrier a few times, I could tell for sure that the two spells drew from the same source, that weird underlying field or barrier of magic that seemed to surround everything. I didn't know if that made it stronger in the barrier or not yet, because I hadn't actually used it in the real world, but I wondered if it did.

Of course, my jump off the immovable barrier was a lot stronger, closer to using the full power of my lightning-enhanced One For All. I winced in pain as I soared upward. It looked like that jump took a lot more out of my health than when I'd jumped with the normal full cowling of OFA. Why was that...

Oh, it was lightning damage, wasn't it? While it seemed like my body was starting to get a better handle on One For All's backlash, the main reason why I could handle the backlash was because of the synergy between Physical Endurance and Damage Resistance. But by turning it into an elemental power it changed either part or all of the backlash into elemental damage, which removed Physical Endurance from the equation. I hadn't noticed it much because I was only using a small percentage of it earlier, so it was offset by Damage Reduction still, but increasing the output also increased the recoil damage. It hopefully wasn't something I couldn't deal with, probably by keeping Super Regeneration in and not using higher power levels too much until the backlash started to go down more, but I'd still have to be careful about it.

Even though I hadn't used as much of OFA as the last time I'd jumped like that, I still jumped through the clouds. And this time the lightning arcing off of me lit up the clouds as I passed through them. I waved my hand at the clouds, blowing them away with vapor magic. With a better view of the ground below, I could see that the sakura trees spread out as far as I could see, occasionally breaking for a clearing or old-fashioned building. "That's pretty interesting..." I muttered, then made another platform. I touched the platform feet-first, preparing to jump down. But first I turned off my enhanced lightning aura, switching it out for a molten version. The electrical stinging faded, soon replaced by a sluggish burning.

Interestingly, this permutation was a little different from regular Molten Aura. Normally, Molten Aura just cloaked the user in an oppressive, dry heat that caused nearby rocks and other earth materials to get red-hot and even start melting at higher output. But this merging of One For All and Molten Aura caused parts of my body to turn into a craggy, rocklike material. I guessed maybe parts of Skeletal in One For All were being drawn out by the molten magic? Or maybe it was just merging an enhancement Quirk with molten magic in general that produced that effect..?

"An interesting theory," Ichigo said. Did I say that out loud? "How 'bout we try to figure it out later, work on this Illusion Barrier now?"

I nodded. "Let's do this, then." I stopped Floating to keep my feet on the barrier and jumped. I used a fraction of the enhanced One For All, more than the lowered baseline I was using passively but not as much as the amount I'd used to jump up there, and shouted, "Limit Break! Meteorain!"

I hurtled to the ground, a fiery aura forming around me. I saw Juniper fighting with a few ninjas below me. Right, I had her materialize before I jumped. I sent a telepathic message to her, telling her that I'd take care of the ninjas and that she should leave now. She nodded, summoning a bunch of roots from the ground to entangle her opponents before scattering into sakura petals. Most of the ninjas were able to dodge or slash away the vines, but a couple were snared. I kicked off a quickly-made barrier, changing my trajectory slightly.

I crashed into the ground fist-first, smashing a partially-melted crater into it. The fiery shockwave immediately burned away most of the ninjas. One remained, very burnt but still ready to attack. I pointed a finger at it, readying a quick Bass Blast to take out the sliver of health it had remaining. My arms and legs burned from the backlash, but my HP wasn't even halfway down.

The ninja was taken down by a flurry of pink petals before I could shoot it. "Thanks for the assist," the petals said as they reformed into Juniper.

"Sorry," I said. "Probably shouldn't have just left you like that."

She nodded. "It's okay. Were you surveying the barrier?"

"Yeah." I switched my molten One For All back out for the lightning one. "As far as I can tell this place is all forest. Though I think the town we were in to begin with was pretty inland so I wonder if it might look different around the coastline? I'll check that out later, though. Probably when I'm back home near Dagobah Beach."

"Behind you," Juniper said. As I turned around I saw one of the trees suddenly engulf a ninja. There was acrunch, then the shadowy material the ninjas dissolved into after death seeped from the seams. "We should keep an eye out for more."

"Yeah," I agreed. More ninjas were appearing, forming from the same black mists they decomposed to. In a flurry of Flash Steps and flashing lightning, I slashed through half of them in an instant. Juniper tried to trap the other half with tree roots, but a few slipped away from her grasp. I hit them with a few quick bolts of lightning, though unfortunately that wasn't quite enough to kill them. Still, Juniper managed to grab and crush them when they flinched from the blast.

I shot a bolt behind me, frying a ninja that tried to sneak up on me. I flashed back, finishing the ninja off with a quick slash of my sword. More ninjas jumped at me, but I cut them off with a quick casting of Shock Sphere, then finished them off with my sword.

"How many more until we find the boss?" Juniper asked.

I shrugged. "To be honest I never really counted..."

"You probably should," she said, then looked down. "Though I suppose it's a moot point for now..."

I looked down. The shadowy material the ninjas dissolved into had returned, and now it was flowing into my shadow. My shadow darkened and shifted, separating from my feet and moving away from my body. It peeled off the ground, forming into a ninja.

Shadow Cannot Exist Without Light

LV 81

Shinobi's Shade

The boss ninja wore a mask almost identical to the ones that the regular ninjas wore, save for the fact that it was pitch black. The rest of its body, on the other hand, started out as black as its mask but slowly lightened until it was pure white. It drew its silver sword, gleaming in the moonlight, and brandished it at me.

"Get it, Juniper," I ordered as I drew my own sword. I copied the shade's gesture, keeping its attention as Juniper gathered the roots under it. When the shinobi didn't react to the roots gathering in the ground I had Juniper try to ensnare it, keeping ready for any tricks the ninja might pull. The roots lashed out at the shinobi.

And passed right through it. The ninja's title disappeared as its legs distorted and dissipated from the grabbing roots. The ninja, which upon using Analysis I learned was actually an illusory clone, faded into shadows.

"What?" Juniper said.

I looked around. There was no sign of the-there. Some of the falling sakura petals hit seemingly nothing, bouncing off of a vaguely person-shaped void in the air. "It's invisible!" I silently told Juniper. With an order from me Juniper made the petals surrounding the invisible ninja in all directions turn into pink spikes, driving them at it. Shadows leaked out as most of the spikes hit their mark. They probably didn't do a lot of damage, but it was enough that the ninja was forced to drop its invisibility. I Arc Stepped at the shade, propelled by lightning magic and One For All. Lightning wreathed my sword as I aimed it at its chest.

The ninja did the invisibility clone trick again, but now that I was onto it Tactician told me the second it was replaced by a clone, and I was able to alter my trajectory slightly to where the petals were disturbed. My aim was a little off, but my sword carved a sparking gash into the ninja's side as it reappeared. The ninja snarled, the first noise I'd heard it make, then slashed its own sword at me. I Arc Stepped to the side, letting the arcs the spell made lash out at the ninja as I did so, but the gleam of the sword intensified and shot out at me even though I dodged the actual blade. A blade of pure moonlight scored a direct hit on me, launching me back and slicing off a chunk of both my HP and my shirt.

I winced and activated Super Regeneration. "Light magic... I guess it makes sense considering the outfit..." The ninja didn't give me any time to rest. As soon as I'd recovered, spikes of pure shadow burst through my chest. I was very glad that I'd activated Super Regeneration and my regeneration had recovered from my earlier stunt with Singularity, because those spikes did even more damage than the light blade.

"IZUKU!" Juniper screamed in concern, along with the rest of my elementals and the past bearers. Man, there were a lot of voices in my head...

I winced, but gave Juniper a thumbs-up. "I'm good," I coughed out, "focus on the boss." I altered the amount of energy from the cowl of lightning that I was keeping contained in my body, upping the light and disrupting the shadow spike from the lightning arcing onto it. I don't know if my wounds closed up as the spikes dissipated or if my weird physical body just didn't properly register the wounds aside from the spikes going through me to begin with, but I luckily didn't see any damage from the spikes aside from the holes they left on my clothes. It looked like the shadow attack came from the shadow that was made when I was hit by the light blade, so now I had to watch out for that; a few one-two hits like that in quick succession would probably kill me.

I looked back over to the ninja. Juniper was doing a good job of keeping the pressure on it. Even more sakura petals were swirling around it, scoring minor cuts and preventing it from disappearing again. It looked like the petals were only doing one or two points of damage at most, but the sheeramountof them was enough that it was steadily chipping away at his health. Though unfortunately the shade appeared to have a lot of health, so if it came down to a battle of endurance I'd be there for a while.

I gathered One For All in my hand, the lightning arcing off it intensifying, and punched at the ninja. Juniper tried to keep it in place, but it heard the bolt and dodged at the last second. It was a glancing hit, but it still hit. I jumped at the shinobi, readying my sword. I slashed down, but the ninja blocked with its own sword. Our swords met, then I saw the ninja's sword gleam again.

"sh*t!" I ducked, just barely grazed by the attack. I looked down at my shadow, seeing the inky black spikes starting to form. I made an Immovable Object-enhanced Mana Shield between me and the shadow. I planted my feet on the shield, then slashed at the shade. I took a leaf from its book when it blocked again and forced my lightning through its sword before it could shoot me with a light beam again. "Limit Break!" I shouted, casting Shock Sphere. "Lightning Field!" A field of pure white lightning seared into existence around us. It hurt me a little, but from the looks of it it was hurting the shade a lot more. I kept the enhanced spell up, though I tried to shrink the field a bit so it'd cost less. Juniper couldn't make any roots grab the ninja due to the intense lightning, but I grabbed the ninja.

The white-clad shade screamed and tried to shake me off as I kept up the voltage. Its health quickly drained from the lightning. I added to the damage by turning Skeletal on and impaling it with some spikes of my own. Lightning arced along the spikes of bone that penetrated the ninja's body. The drain to the shade's health sped up, and the spikes greatly hindered its ability to shake me off. Shadow spikes hit me from somewhere, weaker now but still taking a little off my HP, so I calcified my skin to hopefully keep them from doing too much damage to me again. It took a minute and a chunk out of my MP, but eventually the shade's HP hit zero. I shut off my lightning and retracted my spikes as the shade started to unravel into shadow-stuff. I breathed a sigh of relief and dropped the shinobi. My costume was looking horrible by now, so I Mended it.

Your level has increased by one!(x2)

"Are you okay?" Juniper asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, that was more stressful than the samurai boss... Don't worry, Super Regeneration kept my health from dropping too low." My HP was almost back to full already, Super Regeneration wasso good.

I looked down at the shade as it finished dissolving. This time a shuriken that glowed as if made of moonlight hit the shade's black mask. It split perfectly in two, then the two halves of the mask changed into black scrolls. I picked up the scrolls. Text boxes popped up, telling me that they were skill books for the skills 'Smoke' and 'Mirror.' I tried to read the scrolls, but again they were in a language that I simply didn't understand. I took pictures of the scrolls, then used them. The scrolls dissolved into light, then absorbed into me.

It seemed that they were the cloning and invisibility spells that the ninja used on me. Smoke let me cloak myself in a haze of magic that would make me invisible until I got hit hard enough (though I wondered how Damage Reduction would factor into that...), attacked anything, or used any skill that projected magic. Mirror allowed me to turn my magic inward to create an illusory duplicate of myself. The duplicate would remain totally still until touched, at which point it'd fade away. I wondered, given the wording, if I could enchant the decoys Mirror made with Item Enchantment. Something to play with later.

"I think I'm gonna Meditate and do some light spell practice for the rest of the night," I said. "That was a little tiring." I Floated back to the agency building, letting my elementals deal with any ninjas that showed up, then decided to try out Smoke before exiting the Illusion Barrier. It got a little harder to see due to that magical haze, turned out that that was literal and not just a way of describing the formation of the magic. It looked like there was a thin layer of smoke around me. Still, it did make me invisible and it didn't impair my vision too much, especially if I used Hawkeye.

I exited the barrier on top of the building, then jumped down. I used Float, which didn't disrupt Smoke, to get down gently (I wasn't worried about getting hurt, but I was a little worried about the pavement...). I walked up to the front door and carefully opened it. As long as I wasn't forceful enough, I was still able to interact with things. It seemed like Torino was still asleep, which made sense because it was still around midnight. I collapsed on a sofa made from Imaginary Architect, sighing. It looked like casting Imaginary Architect broke Smoke, unfortunately. Still, it seemed like a really good spell. Would be useful for stealth missions, at least.

"Good night," I said to nobody in particular, then closed my eyes to meditate.

xoxoxo

A/N: Also here's an omake I thought of like a while ago lol. To make up for the wait, I guess. It's from what is for some reason one of my favorite videos. If you wanna see the video, just look up 'what is a skeleton's favorite snack' on YouTube.

Ribs

Honenuki grinned at Midoriya. "I have a joke for you," he said.

"What?" Midoriya asked.

"What is a skeleton's favorite snack?"

"I dunno..."

Honenuki's grin widened. "Go on, guess!"

"Death?" Midoriya... didn't really guess.

"No," he chastised. "Go on, guess!"

Midoriya chuckled. "I don't know..."

"Come on!" he shouted, starting to sound angry. "Guess!"

Midoriya laughed.

"Why are you laughing?" Honenuki demanded. "I haven't told the punchline yet! What is a skeleton's! Favorite! Snack!"

Midoriya chuckled nervously.

"Guess!"

"You're putting me under a lot of pressure..." Midoriya muttered, still giggling a little.

"GUESS!" Honenuki yelled. "f*ck!" He banged his head against the wall, then turned back to Midoriya. "GUESS, GOD DAMN YOU!"

Midoriya didn't answer, too busy silently laughing.

"WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER ME!?"

Midoriya wiped a giant tear from his eye.

"WHAT IS MY FAVORITE SNACK!?"

"...bones?" Midoriya finally guessed.

Honenuki stared at Midoriya for a moment, fuming. "NO!" He banged his head into a different wall. "NO!"

Midoriya started to say something, but Honenuki cut him off.

"WHAT IS IT!? WHY MUST YOU FAIL ME SO OFTEN!?"

Midoriya had slumped over from his laughter.

"RIBS!" Honenuki screamed. "SPARE RIBS! f*ck!"

Hikiishi walked into the room. "...the hell happened here?"

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

Torino Sorahiko yawned as he opened the door. He jumped a little as he saw his new student standing right outside his door, reaching to grab the handle. The kid didn't seem to react to him opening the door, though. He gave the kid a dumb smile. "Something up?"

The kid didn't respond.

"Who are you again?"

The kid didn't respond.

Torino blinked. He waved his cane in front of the kid's face. He didn't respond at all to it. Torino frowned, a more serious expression crossing his face. He poked the kid. Or at least tried to, anyway. His hand went right through the kid's chest, causing it to distort and darken. "What the-" Torino exclaimed as the Mirror clone, though he didn't know that that was what it was, disappeared.

He frowned, seeing that the main room of his house was full of clones of the same person in various poses now that he wasn't distracted by the one in front of his room. They were everywhere, crawling all over the walls, doing things on the ceiling, even floating in midair. Though they were all frozen in place mid-whatever they were doing.

Torino jumped high into the air, passing through and dissipating a clone doing the Superman pose, and landed on the ground floor. "First of all," he said, then poked his cane through a clone that wasdabbingof all things. "No. Second of all, what the hell is going on here?" He inspected two clones that seemed to have been frozen mid-conversation in some kind of tea party. They were holding blue teacups and saucers that Sorahiko did not own. "Did he bring his own..?" he muttered, brow furrowed slightly. He poked one of the clones. It disappeared like the others, taking its teacup with it.

"What-" He stopped, feeling a presence behind him. He turned around just in time to see a clone looming over him with a goofy face, one that was definitely not there a moment ago. "Okay, what is going on here?" he growled, then prodded the clone. Like the rest, it faded when he touched it. "Maybe..." he muttered, then gathered wind magic around him. The air swirled, then he shot it off in all directions.

"Ah!" a voice shouted as the wind ripped through the nearby clones. Torino saw dark mist appear, then get blown off of a clone that appeared out of nowhere. No, the boy's clothes and hair were flapping in the wind, this one was real.

Torino blinked, then gave him a dumb smile. "Who were they, again?"

The boy sighed.

xoxoxo

"Sorry about that," I said, putting the taiyaki in the microwave. It looked like it was different from the one I was used to, but I think I got how it worked. "I got two new skills last night while I was... let's just simplify it and say I was practicing with my Quirk... and wanted to test them out a bit. I might've gotten a bit carried away with it, though..."

"I noticed," Torino grumbled. He looked at the clones that he hadn't destroyed yet. "So why haven't you turned the spell off yet?"

"That's the interesting part!" I said, setting the timer for the microwave and turning it on. "Smoke, the invisibility spell, requires constant upkeep, but Mirror, the clone spell, seems to be instantaneous. I cast the spell and make the clone, then it stays there. I think the magic is... self-contained or something, so it stays for a while unless it gets disrupted. I kinda wanna see how long they last, actually."

He raised an eyebrow. "'You think?' You seem a little unsure of how your spells work, kid."

I rubbed the back of my head nervously. "Ah, yeah, that... My Quirk can let me learn spells through methods other than actually figuring out the magic behind them. If that happens, then while I can still use it as a skill I have to examine how the magic flows when I use the skill to figure out how the spell works, and that can unfortunately mean that when I've first learned more complicated spells I can't tell you exactly how they work. If I learn the spell normally I know how it works, obviously, but if not then it's like instinct. When your Quirk first came in, did you immediately know exactly how it worked?"

He shook his head. "I can't say that I did."

"It's probably similar to that, though maybe not exactly," I said. "For one, I automatically know the standard usage, as well as the general effects of that standard usage, even before casting." I tilted my head in the general direction of the clones. "So while I know that Mirror creates stationary, illusion-like clones of myself by directing my magic inwards at myself, I don't know exactly how directing my magic inward accomplishes that or how long they last. Though usually it says what the duration is..."

He furrowed his brow. "So... what? Your Quirk makes any spells you learn a part of it?"

I shrugged. "Maybe something like that? It quantifies spells, plus a few other things, as skills in the skill list, so that makes sense."

"That's an interesting Quirk you've got there..."

I nodded with a chuckle. "Yeah, it's got a lot of moving parts to it, and to be honest I'm still not quite sure how it works." The microwave's timerdinged, it sounded like it was done. I took the plate of now-cooked taiyaki out of the microwave and brought it to the table. "Careful," I said, "the plate's hot." I sat down and took one of the taiyaki.

Torino gave that dopey smile again. "Thank you, young man!"

"Hey, so why do you act like that?" I asked. "You act a lot more serious when we get to business, or when you think I'm not around."

He grinned at me. "I'm f*cking with you!" He took a taiyaki from the plate.

I sighed, lightly facepalming. "I was worried about that..."

"There is one thing I've been serious about, though, young man." Despite the fact that he acknowledged that he was messing with me, he was still talking in that 'feigning senility' tone. He started blowing on the taiyaki.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Who are you again?" He nibbled the taiyaki a bit.

I sighed, but a thought occurred to me. "Do you mean... my hero name?"

He nodded, still nibbling on the taiyaki.

I nodded and finished up my taiyaki. I got up and struck a bit of a pose. "I'm The Gamer Hero: Deku!"

"Ah, you're calling yourself The Gamer Hero because of your game-related Quirk," Torino noted. "And Deku... is that a Zelda reference or are you calling yourself a wooden doll, like how video game characters are basically just puppets?"

I smiled a little. "I guess a little, but that's not the original reason..."

He raised an eyebrow. "Then what is the reason?"

"It's a nickname from a friend of mine," I said. "When we were both in preschool and just learning kanji he noticed that my name could be read as Deku. This led to some... teasing by other students. There's a lot more to it than that, but we recently made up and, with my permission, he started calling me Deku as a nickname. And I guess... I kinda liked hearing what was once an insult being used as a friendly nickname. And using it as a hero name, my hope is that it'll remind me of my past. My Quirk came in really late, so for most of my life I was dismissed as Quirkless." I sighed. "It... wasn't pleasant, but as a hero I think I should try to remember the bullying, so I can be the sort of hero who stops stuff like that. If that makes sense..."

"So that's who you are," Torino said, nodding. He held out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

I chuckled and shook his hand. "Thank you. It's nice to meet you, too."

"Now then, kid, why don't we do some more One For All practice?" Torino asked. "You said you were practicing last night, right?"

I nodded. "Do you want to take this somewhere else or should I make the barrier here?"

"Let me put the rest of the taiyaki away, then you can do it," he said. He put the leftovers in the fridge, then nodded to me and held out a hand when he closed the door. I took his hand and cast Illusion Barrier. As soon as I did it he immediately used his Quirk to shoulder check me, pushing me into the main room and knocking me over. I noticed that my Mirror clones had carried over to the Illusion Barrier somehow, as I had been rammed through several of them.

Torino winced and rubbed his shoulder as I got up. "Ah, that hurt..."

"Are you okay?" I asked. It didn't look like his health had decreased much if at all, but... "I'm pretty tough due to my Quirk, so that probably wasn't great for your shoulder."

He grunted, but stopped rubbing his shoulder. "Yeah, I'm fine, kid." He grinned. "So why don't we see how your skill with One For All is improving?"

He started bouncing around immediately, not giving me any more warning than that. I got why; it wasn't like I could ask a villain for a five-second time out to charge up my Quirk. I quickly dodged an attack, then tapped into One For All. I darted back as the electric feeling of the new application of my Quirk, which I was thinking about calling Full Cowling, trickled through my nerves. Torino Jetted in for another strike, but I quickly dodged and grabbed his wrist. I lowered my output so as not to hurt him, then threw him into the ground.

He grunted and got back up, grinning at me. "Good move, kid. Looks like you're a fast learner."

"Thanks," I said, then rubbed the back of my neck. "Though part of that might be because of my Quirk..."

Torino snorted. "Whatisn'tpart of your Quirk, kid?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, my Quirk is pretty broad... Hey, wanna see something I thought of last night?"

Torino nodded. "Let's see it."

I infused One For All with elemental mana, like I had last night. This time, though, I used air mana instead of lightning mana. I was a little worried about using the lightning magic-based version if we were to spar, because it involved lightning arcing off of my body. Instead, the air mana caused high-pressure wind to swirl around my body. "Elemental Cowling," I said. "Unlike Limit Break, which is magic enhanced by One For All, Elemental Cowling is me using elemental magic to enhance the effects of One For All." I smirked and jumped around the room, imitating the stunts he was doing with his Quirk moments ago. "Though to be honest you could probably argue that it's a bit like Elemental Aura on One For All still..." I muttered after stopping.

Torino shrugged. "If it's still you using One For All to enhance your body regularly I'll say it's fine. How does the Elemental Aura affect it?" He motioned at my feet, which I could see a small amount of dust swirling around. "Speaking of which, you might wanna try to get a bit of a handle on your runoff, if you can. No sense wasting energy if you can help it."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," I nodded. "Plus, while it's not as bad while I'm using an element like air, some of the elements I can use with it could potentially be dangerous to just have radiating off of my body at the levels that it can get with Elemental Cowling..." I stared at my hands, feeling the energy flowing through my body. Magical energy spilled from my body due to One For All, though maybe... I tightened my supernatural grip on the magical energy I was exuding. I managed to compress the magical wind into my body after a few seconds of concentration. It made the backlash damage from the Air Cowling a little worse, but since I was using Super Regeneration I could deal with it.

I hopped a bit, seeing how the change to the technique affected it. "Do you mind if I test it out a bit?" I asked him. It didn't seem like my effective stats had changed much, but I wanted to make sure it'd work out alright before using it in a fight or something. Especially since it wasn't considered a skill by The Gamer, I was kinda used to my Quirk automating complex things like that...

Torino nodded. "Go ahead, kid. And why don't you practice with the other elements you can use for it, too?"

"That sounds like a good idea," I agreed. I jumped around again. I let out a burst of wind every time I jumped, and whenever I tried to prevent that wind burst it also disrupted the flow of the One For All energy that enhanced my movements. The first time I tried that out I ended up falling on my face due to my jumping power suddenly being cut out from under me. I accepted it as just part of Elemental Cowling, probably from how it was infusing elemental magic with One For All. Once I accepted that, I wondered if I could weaponize it.

I made a box in front of me mid-jump, then kicked it. On top of the sheer force that Elemental Cowling automatically granted me, the burst of wind seemed to knock it forward. Though it was a little diffused from being an omnidirectional burst... I landed on the other side of the wall and nodded to myself. It was a start, but maybe I could improve it a little. I did a few more midair kicks on momentarily-created boxes, trying to force the wind burst to focus more on the box instead of just blowing out in all directions. It took a few tries, but I managed to make it more of a cone than a blast. It was a start.

I jumped to the ground and switched my Elemental Cowling from air to earth. Like with Magma Cowling, Earth Cowling caused parts of my skin to seemingly turn to rock when I used it.

"What's that?" Torino asked when I rolled up my sleeve to examine the rocks.

I shrugged. "I don't know why, but using Elemental Cowling with certain elements makes parts of my skin turn to those elements, instead of making me radiate those elements." I clenched my fists a bit, then tested out the mobility of my arms. "I think it's either because of Skeletal being a small part of One For All or maybe just what it looks like when you combine a Quirk that enhances your physical capabilities with those elements. It doesn't affect my mobility much if at all and adds some armor."

He nodded. "Want me to test your armor?" he offered.

"That'd be nice, but remember that my Quirk makes me really damage-resistant," I said. "I'm especially resistant to purely physical damage, due to a passive skill."

"You get passives?" Torino asked incredulously. He sighed, then closed his eyes. "Well, I've been thinking about trying to do this since you keep talking about it anyway..." Before I could ask what that meant, he started to exude a familiar glow of green magic.

"That'll help," I said. Analyze confirmed that it was Air Aura. "Elemental Aura, I've noticed, seems to turn at least some part of the damage a person deals into elemental damage, at least as far as my Physical Endurance is concerned."

Torino nodded, winded up to hit me, then sighed and let his new Air Aura drop. "Actually, would it be better for me to just throw some kind of wind blast at you?" he asked. "Would probably hurt me less."

I nodded and made an X with my arms so I was ready to block his spell. "Yeah, that makes sense. Try compressing and spinning the mana, sort of like a spinning arrow. Either that or make it more like a slashing blade."

Torino chuckled and held his hands out at me, gathering air-aspected mana. "I thought I was the one who was supposed to be teaching you." He threw the spell, Wind Lance, right at my crossed arms. Normally Wind Lance was the sort of spell that could pierce through defenses, due to its shape and the spinning, but Torino's Wind Lance barely scratched my HP under the Earth Cowling defenses before it dissipated. Though part of that might also have been due to how Torino's Wind Lance was a little shaky compared to mine...

"How is it?" Torino asked.

"Seems pretty good," I said, shaking out my arms a little. "Though I'll probably use other elements more..."

He chuckled. "Yeah, if you're so hardy already that seems like a good idea."

"Of course, defense isn't the only benefit of Earth Aura..." I rubbed my chin, then looked at my feet. The ground beneath them seemed to be quivering a little. It was a bit subtler than the dust swirling from Air Cowling, but now that I saw it I knew to rein it in. "You might wanna brace yourself," I told Torino. "Or hover, if you can?"

He nodded, then jumped. It looked like he was letting out a steady stream of air from his feet, letting him float roughly in the air. From the look of strain on his face, though, it wasn't something he could hold up for too long. Jet seemed like it was optimized more for bursts of speed than steady propulsion.

I stomped my foot. It wasn't the hardest, but the resulting shockwave caused the floor to crack and a lot of dust to get kicked up.

Torino sighed as he let himself drop to the ground, then coughed from the dust. "You might wanna watch out for collateral damage with that one, kid."

I nodded, then switched my element again. "I think you can probably tell what this element is," I said as I caught on fire.

He smiled at me and hit his palm with his other hand. "Ooh, is it light?" he asked in the same tone he'd kept using to ask what my hero name was. "I bet it's the light element!"

I chuckled. "No, it's fire." I examined the fire that was thankfully not burning my clothes. Just like the wind from Air Cowling, that was probably something I'd have to deal with... I was interested to see that when I internalized the fire-tinged energy, it caused my skin to start glowing with a faint red light. It looked like how holding a hand up to a bright light could let you see the light through your hand still, but over my entire body like my bones were red-hot. It also made me feel like my bones were red-hot, but I managed.

"See?" Torino said with a grin. "Light element."

I rolled my eyes with a laugh. "Fire Aura, according to my Quirk, raises STR, attack damage, and move speed, as well as the general 'fiery aura around your body' deal. Meaning..." I sidestepped a bit, my movement enhanced by the Fire Cowling and my footprints bursting into flame. Then I punched the air, my fists automatically bursting into flame as I did. "That feels pretty good, actually," I said. Wind Cowling made me faster, sure, but thepowerbehind Fire Cowling felt... almost satisfying.

Torino clapped. "Impressive. You need to test anything else out, or are you going to move on to the next element?"

"Next element," I said, then switched over to Water Cowling as fast as I could. It felt like my element-switching was getting a little bit faster from practice, which was good. Even a small delay could make all the difference in a fight. A thin, but clearly visible barrier of water enveloped my body as I infused One For All with my water affinity. It even spread over my face, though I could still breathe, hear, and see normally despite the thin film of water covering my eyes, ears, and nose. "This feels weird..." I muttered as I looked down at my wet hands. Thankfully, I could still talk as well, though it sounded a little distorted.

"Looks like a force field," Gran Torino remarked.

"Yeah, that's the interesting part about Water Aura," I said, then flicked my wrist off to the side. My water shield lashed out as a whip of water, destroying a few more Mirror clones and putting another crack in the floor. "The four basic elements, when used in Elemental Aura, seem to correspond to one of the stats that my Quirk quantifies, aside from WIS and LUC of course."

Torino nodded, following along. "You have a luck stat?" He was a little confused about that. Huh, I would've thought that that would've been included in the notes. Though to be fair I didn't really do much with it.

I sighed. "Yeah, but it's not as easy to train as my other stats... Plus, it doesn't really have as many tangible benefits as the others, so hopefully it's fine where it is."

"I suppose that makes sense," he conceded. "You said Fire Aura correlates to STR, I'm betting Air Aura is... DEX, was it?"

I nodded.

"Earth has to be whatever the defensive one is, then."

I shrugged. "You're probably thinking of VIT, though VIT is technically more HP than directly defense for what it's worth..."

He shrugged. "Close enough. So that leaves... is the last one INT? Is that a magic stat?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. "INT and Wis are both magic stats, with INT affecting magic potency and MP capacity and WIS affecting MP recovery and I think elemental abilities. There's no WIS element, but water is the INT element."

"So it... increases your spellcasting ability?" Torino guessed.

"You could say that. It increases damage I deal with magical attacks, but even more than that it makes me resistant to damage from magical attacks."

"That sounds useful." He held his hands out like he'd done when he cast Wind Lance earlier. "Want me to test how well it works?" He seemed a little eager to throw another Wind Lance at me...

"Fire away," I said as I braced myself.

He made the lance, then fired it at me. Unlike last time, the lance of air magic splashed off my water shield with a spray of mist. My HP didn't even drop aside from the slow drain from using Elemental Cowling. "I don't think it even got past the barrier," I noted.

"That could prove useful..." Torino mused. "Want me to try doing something bigger?"

I rubbed the back of my head. "Thanks, but I think I'm fine for now..."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. Are there more elements than those four?"

I nodded and turned Water Cowling off, the water running off of my body. "Air, earth, fire, and water are the primary elements," I said, forming balls of each element in the air around me. "They're like... the most basic, broken down forms of elemental magic, except maybe elementless magic if you count that. Above them are the six secondary elements." I created examples of those, too, above and between the two primary elements they corresponded to. "The simplest way of describing them is combinations of two of the primary elements, though honestly I have a feeling that it's more like they're larger fractions of a whole..."

He shrugged. "Far as I can tell I only have the air magic, so I'll take your word for it. Do you have any other elements?"

I sighed. "Theoretically, according to how literally everyone else's Quirks and elemental affinities seem to work, I should have gravity affinity already, from my mother if not from... another factor." I rubbed my chin. "Heck, with how my inventory works I wonder if I should also have some space affinity... But at any rate, whenever I tried to access that gravity affinity..." I splayed my hands. "Nothing."

"Think it could be due to your Quirk?" Torino guessed.

"Honestly I can't think of anything other than The Gamer that could be doing it. It sets me apart from how other people react with magic in so many ways already..."

He frowned, making a 'hmm' noise. "Do you think there could be a magic element? Like how I have air affinity because of my air-related Quirk, you could have some sort of magic affinity because your Quirk affects your magic so heavily?"

I shrugged. "It's... I don't know if it's possible or not, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised. Still, I imagine that's something high-level that I also can't use until I hit the right WIS benchmark..."

"So for now you're limited to primary and secondary elements, then," Torino reasoned.

"Yeah," I said. "I've got enough stat points in reserve to get my WIS over 200, but I'm saving those for an emergency."

Torino's eye twitched. "Right, stat points. That let you raise any of your stats immediately. Yeah, saving those for an emergency is probably a good idea."

I chuckled nervously. "Yeah, sorry. My Quirk is kind of a lot."

He waved me off. "No, you're good. Back to Elemental Cowling, how are the secondary elements?" He walked over to a nearby chair and pulled it back to where he was originally standing. "Don't worry, you're good, kid, I just wanted to sit down."

I shrugged at his question. "For the most part, the secondary elements are a mix of the two elements they're based on. The only two I've actually used as Elemental Cowling so far are lightning and magma. Lightning, being air and fire, gives a boost to both DEX and STR, though it's a little weaker for them individually than what air or fire grant on their own. It grants an even bigger speed boost than either, plus it still has that boost to attack power."

"And it makes you emit lightning," Torino guessed.

"And it makes me emit lightning, yeah," I nodded. "Magma is earth and fire, so VIT and STR. It actually loses the speed boost, but makes me hit even harder and still has that defense boost."

"Does it... make you get red-hot rocks on you or something?" he asked.

I gave him a smile. "Huh, you're starting to get kind of a hang on this."

He laughed. "Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing..."

"I mean it's probably a good thing. Now, for the elements I haven't tried..." I quickly used Bio Cowling. Patches of my skin turned green, thorns sprouting from it. "Makes me gain plantlike bits," I noted, then turned it back off. "As for the stats, it boosts defenses, especially magical. INT and VIT, since it's earth and water. It seems like it's all the earth-related elements that physically change me. Makes me wonder what Sonic Cowling would do..."

"Sonic Cowling?" Torino asked.

"Air and earth," I answered, then used it at a lower level than the rest of the Elemental Cowlings I was using. No part of my body turned to sound, but I immediately started producing anincredibly loudsound.

"Shut that off, young man!" Torino yelled, glaring at me and covering his ears. I did not blame him.

"Sorry," I said, accidentally at an incredibly loud volume due to the Sonic Cowling. I shut it off. "Sorry, sorry," I said. "Are you okay."

"Please do not use that in my presence again," he grumbled, rubbing his ears.

"Yeah, that's fair..." I muttered, my head down. "It... makes me faster and grants some defense, if you're curious..."

He sighed. "It's fine, kid. What next?"

"Ah, I guess it's just ice and vapor left," I said.

"Vapor?" he asked.

"Steam, basically," I clarified. "Fire and water, so STR and INT. Boosts speed, though not as much as wind or lightning, and offensive power."

"And makes you a walking sauna."

I shrugged. "It can get above boiling temperatures, depending on what I want. Though Vapor Cowling might have a hotter default, considering how Elemental Cowling works."

"And the final one, ice?" he prompted.

I turned Ice Cowling on. The air around me immediately chilled, and frost started to form on my clothes and body. I internalized it, making the chill in the air abate but making me feel like my veins were filling with ice water. According to my elementals my skin paled and turned slightly blue at some parts. "C-cold..." I said, shivering a little.

"You okay, kid?" Torino asked, looking a little concerned.

I nodded. "Y-yeah, that's just what it l-looks like when I use Ice Cowling, ap-parently." I turned it off, because even if I could deal with the HP loss that was just anunpleasantfeeling. "As for what it does..."

"Is it air and water?" he asked. "I think that's the final combination, and that kinda makes sense."

I nodded. "So DEX and INT. Should make me faster and magic-resistant."

"Huh, usually you think of ice as being the slow element," Torino mused.

I shrugged. "Just how the elements work out, I guess. Plus, ice skaters can be pretty fast."

He sighed, rubbing his temples. "That is such a random connection that I'm annoyed it actually kinda makes sense..."

"And that's all the forms of Elemental Cowling I can use, at the moment," I said. "What do we do now?"

Torino got back up and started stretching. "For now, let's practice fighting a bit more. Later... who knows, we might fight some villains."

I gasped. "Wow, really?" I asked, beaming at him. Maybe it was a little fast, but I was a little excited to get some hands-on experience.

Plannedhands-on experience, anyways...

Torino rammed into me, glowing with Air Aura. "If you can hold your own against me!" he shouted.

I grinned and blasted him back with Air Burst, then cloaked myself with Lightning Cowling. I kept the lightning under my skin, making flashes of green light occasionally trace in those branching lightning patterns under my skin. "I'll do my best!" I yelled as I jumped at him.

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

"This is weird," Gran Torino grumbled to himself, poking at what appeared to be air. "People are gonna think I've gone senile..."

True enough, some of the other people on the train were staring at the old man in the outlandish costume grumbling to the teenager in an equally outlandish costume while interacting with some sort of invisible text box.

"They react to mental commands," I said as I closed the options menu without moving. It turned out I could turn off the particle effects from loot drops or even make it so only I could see them like the BGM, which was odd because I could'veswornI wasn't able to do that before...

"Good to know," he responded, then sent a quick test message through the text chat.

"Looks like you're getting the hang of it," I said. I looked outside. "It's getting kinda late, huh?"

"All the better!" Torino said. "It's not like villains don't come out during the day, of course, but the cover of night tends to embolden villains. You're more likely to get some hands-on experience."

"I think we're passing through Hosu right now," I said. I pulled out my phone and opened up my text messages.

"Using his phone while someone's sitting next to him, how rude," Torino jokingly grumbled.

I frowned at the last text I'd sent to Iida, asking if he was okay. I was still a little worried about him, and the fact that he'd left me on read didn't help...

"Hey, is that smoke?" someone on the other side of the train asked. Torino and I looked over to see smoke rising in the distance, a glow coming from behind the buildings.

Then the train stopped, a voice from the intercom telling us to stay put. "What's that!?" someone shouted, then the civilians on the other side backed away from the windows. A man with white hair and claws, seemingly a pro hero from his outfit,smashedthrough the wall. It looked like he'd picked a fight with a car and lost. Then a huge, pale hand grabbed his face and slammed him down. The person... no, the monster the hand belonged to entered the train cabin through the hole it'd made. It had pale skin, four eyes, and didn't have the beak-looking mouth of the one I'd seen before, but its exposed brain, abnormally large build, and vacant stare all reminded me of the Nomu from the USJ incident.

And if that wasn't enough...

Brain Fog
LV 59
Nomu

"Nomu," I quickly had Sonia say to Torino. "It looks weaker than the one from the USJ, but be careful."

He nodded, then jumped up with his Quirk and launched himself at the Nomu. He knocked it out of the hole it'd made, following soon after.

I advanced on the wounded hero as soon as my mentor cleared the area, hands glowing green in preparation. I carefully touched his ribs, which were almost all broken, and cast Healing Hands on him. I also added in some One For All and HP from Healing Grace to hopefully help with the more severe damage.

The hero groaned. "Someone get the name of the villain that hit me?" he muttered as he opened his eyes. He wiped off some of the blood that was tricking down his forehead. Then he tried to sit up, but I put a still-glowing hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

"Don't," I ordered.

"Who are you?" he asked groggily.

I pulled out my healer license and showed it to him. "Midoriya Izuku," I said. "I'm a hero student, hence the costume." I stowed my license back into my inventory, then waved four glowing fingers in front of his face. "How many fingers am I holding up?" I asked, then checked how dilated his eyes were.

"Four. Also why are your hands glowing?"

"Healing," I answered, then closed up the last of his cuts and scrapes. "There, you shouldn't need any more medical attention for the moment, but try not to exacerbate your injuries and see a doctor when this is over." I looked up at the other passengers. "Is anyone else hurt?"

None of the passengers said they were injured, so I put a finger in my ear and activated the voice chat. I didn't want to distract him by making him read while he was on the job. "Torino-sensei, I know you'd probably prefer if I didn't fight, but can I help make sure no civilians are in danger?"

I heard him sigh over the chat. "Fine, but no fighting unless absolutely necessary, and you'll try to escape before you even think about fighting. And use that one invisibility spell you mentioned, actually."

I nodded. Then said "Yeah" when I remembered that that was voice chat and he couldn't hear the nod.

"What are you doing?" the hero asked. It looked like he was feeling good enough to stand up. "You don't have anything in your ear."

I sighed. "One part of my Quirk is a sort of telepathy-like ability that I can use on anyone I pre-designate, though only if they consent to it."

"What?" Torino asked, as I hadn't muted myself on the voice chat yet and it only picked up my voice.

"Sorry," I said. "I was talking to someone over here." Then I muted myself, so I wouldn't accidentally do that again.

The clawed hero raised his eyebrow, then said, "Yeah, but why did you touch your ear? Is that part of it?"

"I uh..." I felt my face heating up a little. "I didn't want to confuse people because I talking to myself..."

The hero snorted. "Right, assuming your sensei said you could go, I guess I'll guard the train. That sound good?"

I nodded, surveying the outside of the train. "Try not to get in close contact, if you can, though hopefully nobody attacks the train again. Do you think I should repair the hole?" I asked, pointing to the gaping hole in the train.

The hero blinked. "I mean, if youcan, it probably wouldn't hurt..."

I nodded, then jumped out the hole. I set my Quirks to Float, Mending, and Super Regeneration, then placed a hand on the train near the hole. Even though the hole was pretty big, Mending was still powerful enough that I could effortlessly set it back to before the Nomu broke it. As the broken surface of the train pulled itself back together, I produced the haze of Smoke and let it coat my body. Between the invisibility of Smoke and Float letting me fly without breaking it, I was probably the safest person in the city. And that wasn't even counting the absurd resistance to damages that my passives gave me.

I sent my elementals out to search for any civilians as I flew in the direction of the smoke and fighting. Most elementals could find humans pretty easily, since they could sense their element with a great deal of accuracy even if there was magic preventing them from using it. Between the air people breathed and displaced, the ground beneath their feet, human bodily fluids, body temperature, electrical nerve impulses, sounds like heartbeats, vapor in the breath, and the fact that most people were made of materials that counted as the bio element, I currently only had two elementals of my ten thatcouldn'tsense the location of most humans in their range. And even Mifuyu and Iggy could just teleport around and use their eyesight when dematerialized.

There were people running away from the fighting en masse, but for now it seemed like there were only three people in range aside from the pros already fighting that weren't fighting. Instead, they were staying mostly still in an ally. No, two of them were still. The third was advancing on one of the other two. Rayne and Juniper told me that the two who weren't moving had their blood outside their bodies, and Juniper was able to tell that the third had some of that blood on something they were holding. Dune identified it as a chipped, poorly-cared-for sword. One of many blades on the third person's body. Oh yeah, and from the engines in his legs one of the two still figures, the one the sword-wielder was advancing on, was Iida. I headed for them immediately.

Hosu... Iida must have decided to go after Stain. I got to their positions within moments, able to go in a straight line since the buildings between us were so low. I looked down at the scene, using Hawkeye and Zoom to see them with higher clarity.

A Blood-Red Stain Upon This World
LV 78
Akaguro Chizome

Yeah, that was Stain alright... He wore all dark clothes, black and red mostly, with a white bandanna mask. He had so many weapons, even hisbootswere weaponised with spikes that it looked like he kicked Iida with at one point My Sense Bloodthirst skill spiked just looking at him. Bad, the situation wasbad! I needed to get Iida and the other hero out of there. I took a deep breath, concentrating.

I am about to engage an enemy.

It was like a switch flipped when I told myself that, my regeneration rate lowering slightly and my awareness of my surroundings expanding as Mantra exchanged itself for Tactician. I Observed the three on the ground. The hero's name was Akando Nitai, Native. Quirk: Air Shield. He could solidify and immobilize air into hard, flat barriers under his touch, like my Mana Shield but invisible. Affinity for air, water, and ice. He had a status condition called bloodcurdled and was very afraid at the moment, though his fear was actually more on Iida's behalf than himself. Iida also had bloodcurdled and was afraid, though he was also filled with hate for Stain and grief for his brother. His shoulder was also pretty damaged. A pool of blood was starting to form under him, and Stain had a boot on his back and a sword pointed at his head...

Stain had no conditions on him aside from the fact that apparently his nose was cut off a long time ago, and barely any damage. Eep... He was filled with disdain for Iida. His Quirk was Bloodcurdle, a temporary paralysis Quirk that activated when the altered taste buds on his tongue touched the victim's blood. That was probably where the bloodcurdled status came from. Did... did I even bleed anymore? I thought back to when the Shinobi's Shade hit me with those shadow spikes. I couldn't remember seeing any blood on myself. I didn't even cough any up despite the fact that it felt like my lungs were pierced...

Still, probably not an excuse to get reckless.

Statwise, Stain had disturbingly high DEX, as well as pretty good VIT and LUC, but his STR and INT were only decent while his WIS was actually bad for his level. He also had high bio affinity, but judging from his MP and what I'd heard of the wounds he inflicted, he probably didn't use it much. Hopefully. I didn't want to know what a serial killer using bio magic would look like...

I considered my options. Could I grab Iida and Native with Singularity or Blackwhip? Maybe, but the green glow and/or shadowy tentacles would probably give it away and I didn't know how quickly I could safely lift them away. It'd probably get me in a lot of trouble, but maybe if I went on the offensive and tried to take him down as quickly as possible with the element of surprise...

A quest has been created!

Stain Remover
Akaguro Chizome, also known as The Hero Killer: Stain is staring down your friend. It's possible you may be the difference between him living and dying.
Optional Objective: Please do not get into legal trouble. (Tip: being a licensed healer gives you more options than you might think)
Completion: 10000 EXP, 10000 Skill Fragments
Optional: 5000 EXP, 5000 Skill Fragments, you don't get in legal trouble.
Failure: Iida Tenya and Akando Nitai die, potential for death.

Or I could try not to get in legal trouble. I think that was the first time a quest gave me a tip. Did that mean thatmy Quirk itselfdidn't want me to... No, save it for later. Focus on saving Iida for now. Aside from healing, what was I allowed to do as a licensed healer... "If an injured party is in an actively dangerous situation, a licensed Quirk healer may use their Quirk to remove and protect the injured party from the dangerous situation at their discretion, should their Quirk empower them to do so." In other words, I wasn't allowed to attack Stain directly, but Iwastechnically allowed to get Iida away from him and... protect him.

I could do that.

First, Flash Step to right next to Stain and Iida. Good, that didn't disrupt Smoke.

"No matter what you say," Iida shouted, "you're still just the villain who hurt my brother!"

Quirks to Skeletal, Blackwhip, and Copy. Quickly tear a finger off my glove with Skeletal, then switch Skeletal out with Mending. Poke Stain as softly as possible so I get his Quirk-

His face whipped around to look at me. Yeah I should've expected him to notice that. Got it, Mend glove, use Blackwhip to pick up Iida-that breaks Smoke, Stain sees me and raises his sword in my direction- use Mirror just in case, Flash Step to NativeMana Dome!

The bubble of magic faded into existence just in time for Stain's throwing knife to bounce off it and clatter to the ground. He snarled, then jabbed his sword into my Mirror clone. It... probably wouldn't have hurt me, but I winced anyway as his sword dispelled my clone.

"Cowardly child, hiding behind a barrier..." Stain said.

"And you're a serial killer," I reminded him.

"Midoriya, what are you doing?" Iida whispered hoarsely as I gently set him down at my side.

I pulled out my healer's license and showed it to Native. "I'm a Quirk healer, sir. With your permission, I can get you back in fighting shape in moments."

Native blinked, then laughed. "You're really something, huh?" He glanced at Stain, who was now breaking his poorly-maintained sword on my Mana Dome, then looked back to me. "Not like I have much of a choice, huh? All right, though I should probably have a few words with you when we're done." His eyes flicked over to Iida. "Bothof you."

I could feel a small change in Iida's demeanor, even though I wasn't looking at him. Still, triage, I stayed focused on Native. Though at the same time, I focused on my Healing Hands skill as I used it on him.

Healing Hands (Active) LV 99 EXP 98.79% MP 25
The power of a charitable soul to channel mana into a target's body to heal them.
500 HP restored per 25 MP, removes minor and moderate illnesses, debuffs, and negative conditions.

It was just barely at the point of prestiging, so I was hoping that I'd be able to feel whatever process happened with The Gamer when my skills prestiged. I'd been curious for a while, but because the last few times had been in the heat of combat or at random I hadn't been able to really observe it all that well. Well, this still wasn't the best circ*mstances, but better than randomly being hit by a car... I put my hand on Native's shoulder, casting the healing spell on him. I also poured some Healing Grace and Regeneration into it, too.

Ping.

Native sighed in relief as his wounds closed and twitched when I removed the bloodcurdle. He stretched a bit, thenshotup. "Can you let me out without letting him in?" he asked, poking the barrier.

I nodded. "When you're ready." It used to be that Mana Dome was solid both ways, making it a little difficult to use more than a few spells through it, but with some leveling I'd gotten to a point where I could make it selectively intangible. I could even leave it behind for small periods of time, which I was considering that I might have to do if Native got bloodcurdled again.

Native nodded and exited the bubble, charging at Stain. Stain threw a knife at him, but he quickly blocked it with a swipe of his hand.

"My brother... would be so disappointed in me, wouldn't he..." Iida muttered.

"Hm?" I turned my attention back to Iida, though I still kept an eye on Native in case I needed to pull him back out. He was slumped over on the ground, though mostly because he was still paralysed. "Ah, your shoulder looks pretty bad... Let me heal it?"

Iida made a noise, like he was struggling to do something, then sighed. "No, I... I don't deserve it."

I looked at the blood starting to trickle down his armor. "I don't believe you don't deserve it. And that looks pretty bad, it might leave some lasting damage if I don't treat it now."

He sighed. I couldn't see his expression behind his helmet, but he didn't sound happy... "I... Stain told me that... if I targeted him and didn't focus on Native, if I only cared about taking my vengeance out on him... I don't deserve to call myself Ingenium." I heard a choked sob. "I... I'm worried he might be right."

I turned my gaze back to Stain and Native's battle. It looked like Native wasmostlyon the defensive, but he was using his air shielding to jar Stain's weapons from his hands and get them away from him. Stain was threatening, but if he couldn't draw blood then he couldn't use his Quirk, while Native was using his Quirk to counter Stainandcould still throw the occasional punch or wind blast. It looked like it was going to be an endurance battle, and while my healing spells couldn't restore MP they could partially help with physical stamina loss. Okay, help Iida.

I shrugged. "Maybe, but..." I waved a hand at Stain. "Do you really thinkhe'sthe best judge of morality? Maybe you're not quite a hero yet, but... that's why we're going to Yuuei, right? So as long as you can recognize your mistakes and try to do better, I don't think you're as hopeless as he says you are."

"I... I suppose you're right. Thank you Midoriya."

I gave him a smile. "All right, now how about I fix that shoulder up?" I raised my hand, and with the use of more MP than I was used to I made it glow an immaculate shade of white.

A skill has been created through special action! The skill 'Miraculous Touch' has been created through Healing Hands reaching MAX level!

Miraculous Touch (Active) LV 1 EXP 0.00% MP 1000
The power gained by one who has reached out and touched a miracle, and whose touch has become a miracle itself.
50000 HP restored per 1000 MP, removes moderate to major illnesses, debuffs, and negative conditions. May lessen the severity of severe negative conditions.

It felt... Like the description said, like I was holding a miracle.

"Is that..?"

I smiled at the hope I heard in his voice. "I actually just got it. Miraculous Touch, an upgraded form of Healing Hands. I'm hoping it can heal more severe injuries than Healing Hands can. Tell me how it feels." I laid my glowing hand on his shoulder, sending the miracle into his body. His wounds, visible through holes in his armor, glowed with the same white light, then sealed themselves and faded away like he'd never gotten them. Well, his armor was still punctured until I Mended it as well and he still had some blood on him, but he looked a lot better.

Iida sighed in relief, then held out the arm that was injured. He clenched and unclenched his fist a few times, then reached up and removed his helmet. "Thank you, Midoriya," he said, giving me awonderfulsmile.

I smiled back. "You're welcome." I looked at my no-longer-glowing hand, thinking back to how it felt to use the skill... and how it felt to gain it. It was like... I feltsomethingin my body shift and grow as the skill prestiged,thenI heard the ping of the text box appearing. Maybe...

I thought back to how I made Draining Hands from Healing Hands. Draining Hands was still more than a few levels away from prestige, but I should've been able to...

Ping.

A skill has been created through special action! By reversing the effects of Miraculous Touch, the skill 'Vampiric Touch' has been created!

A dark, foreboding aura started to spread over my hands before I stopped it. I was really more interested in the similar sensation of the feeling of the skill developing in my body. I guess it made sense. My Quirk was supposedly a part of my body, so if it gave me skills then I'd feel it in my body. And the feeling was more in my hands than anything else, which was probably due to how I used those skills with my hands.

And while I was making skills... I took the feelings I had when I got the Miraculous and Vampiric Touch spells, my knowledge of the Healing and Draining Hands spells, and even Healing Grace and... concentrated on all of them, pulling the related but opposite powers together to hopefully...

Ping.

A new skill has been created through special action! The skill 'Equilibrium' has been created through gaining an understanding of converting energies!

Equilibrium (Active and Passive) LV 1 EXP 0.00%
Life energy and magical energy are not so seperate as one may first think. This is how most healing spells work: they convert mana into life energy and infuse that life energy into an injured party. Some rarer spells work in reverse as well, draining the life from a target to restore one's mana. One who has sufficiently mastered such spells may learn to freely convert their life and magical energies between each other.
You may convert HP to MP or MP to HP at will at a rate of 1 HP to 1 MP or 1 MP to 1 HP. As well, you may substitute HP for MP or MP for HP for some or all of the cost of any skill.

...make something new. I'd try it later, but I didn't focus on their life-and-death theming so much as the focus on exchanging HP and MP. I didn't know if it'd be more efficient than using Miraculous Touch for healing, but Vampiric Touch still sucked up most of the MP that it gave back. Plus, if one of my bars was full but not the other, I could probably siphon off some of the full bar to add to my regeneration. Actually, could I put that into One For All?

At any rate, now I was pretty sure that something physically changed in my body whenever I got a new skill. It... was probably due to The Gamer, but I'd have to talk to someone who didn't have my Quirk to make sure of it.

"Ack!"

My attention shifted back to the fight. Stain was panting heavily and, from Observe, looking a little worse for wear. However, it looked like he managed to hit Native, because the hero was clutching his now-bleeding arm and Stain was lifting a bloody knife to his mouth. "Excuse me," I told Iida, then Flash Stepped out of the Mana Dome just in time to catch the now-paralyzed Native. Stain growled as I Flash Stepped back, but with the knife on his tongue he wasn't able to charge me fast enough to prevent me from getting back into the safety of my shield.

"Rgh, thanks, kid," Native said as I placed a glowing hand by his wound. "Wooh, that feels even better than the last one."

Stain took a stab at the Mana Dome. "This won't protect you forever!"

Native jumped up, paralysis gone, grabbed Stain's wrist through the Mana Dome, then threw a punch with his other arm. Stain blocked the punch, sneered, then-

Then strained and failed to bring up the hand Native grabbed. "What?"

"Air Shackle," Native smirked, then let go of Stain's wrist to punch him in the gut. Stain grunted, dropping the knife and Native's hand, then staggered backwards. He didn't get too far back, as the hand that Native grabbed was stuck in place by... Analyze. Oh, interesting. Native formed a band of air from his Quirk around Stain's wrist, instead of actually grabbing it. It wouldn't last that long, but it was enough to really trip him up. While Stain was off-balance, Native struckhardat his jaw. The air shackle dissolved just in time for Stain to slam into the ground.

"Is that... it, then?" Iida asked.

I Observed Stain, just to be sure. "Looks like he's unconscious. What now?"

"Now," Native said, then took out some zip ties, "I restrain him and we take him to the police. Can you two check him for any more weapons?"

I nodded. "I can do that. Iida, why don't you take his boots?"

He nodded, looking at the spiked boots and rubbing his shoulder. "That sounds wise."

I had Dune point out the last of Stain's hidden weapons, then collected the weapons that Stain had dropped so we could secure them all together. Native bound Stain's arms and legs together with multiple zip ties each, just in case he woke up and tried anything. He had Iida carry the weapons, bound together by more zip ties, then had me help him carry Stain.

Note to self, buy zip ties...

"I'm sorry, both of you," Iida said as we left the alleyway. "My desire for revenge blinded me, and I fear that I acted in a way unbecoming of a hero."

"As long as you understand what you did wrong, kid, I think I'm gonna give you a pass," Native said. "Don't do it again, but... you said he hurt your brother. If I was in your shoes, I don't think I would've done much better." He chuckled. "And hey, thanks to you I'm still alive."

I was about to chip in, but stopped and looked at Stain when I felt my Sense Bloodthirst go off. His eyes were still closed, but-

Something yanked me off the ground, jarring Stain from my hands and carrying me away. I squirmed and turned to see another of the Nomu. Right, that was still going on... I quickly used Lightning Embodiment, shocking and passing through the Nomu easily. It screamed as I turned Lightning Embodiment off, then grabbed at me. I quickly switched Float on, then Flash Stepped away. I turned in midair to fly away from the Nomu as fast as I could.

And then Aizawa-sensei was there, in his Grimalkin costume. I'd turned around to see the road empty except for Iida, Native, and Stain, but Aizawa-sensei just... popped into existence, facing the Nomu. His eyes flicked over to me and he snorted, then focused back on the Nomu. "Get clear, problem child," he calmly ordered, sparks dancing from his hands to his staff as he raised it.

I immediately complied, using Flash Step to get closer to the ground and well off to one side from Aizawa-sensei and the Nomu. I didn't even know he had lightning affinity, but with all my experience of magic I knew that if someone told you to get clear, you get clear. He drove his staff into the ground, sending lightning along the ground and then spiking up like a reverse lightning bolt into and around the Nomu. The monster roared in pain as the magic ran through it. It looked impressive, but I would've thought Aizawa-sensei would do something more eff-

A wave of blue light washed over the lightning bolt, and suddenly it was a tree. The Nomu roared again as it strained against its newfound restraints, though it didn't look like the lightning that was inside it was transmuted as well. How did he do that? I Analyzed the tree. It had a bit more magic than a normal tree would, but Analyze didn't say it was magically grown, where normally a freshly force-grown tree would. I looked back at Aizawa-sensei. "How did-" I started to say, then noticed Stain charging at him behind his back, wielding a blade made of... something red. "Behind you!"

Aizawa-sensei disappeared, teleporting in front of Stain and suddenly wreathed in a crimson glow. He immediately backhanded Stain, then somehow transferred his aura over to him. Stain fell over, straining under the sudden increase in gravity.

I noticed that Stain's arms and legs were bleeding where the zip ties were, and his red blade had flattened into a... was it made of blood? So I guess... he must've cut himself trying to get out of the zip ties, then made the sword from his own blood. I glanced over to Iida and Native, who looked fine aside from some surprise. "Cowardly hero," he grumbled.

"Don't care," Aizawa-sensei said, then teleported up to the Nomu. Even though he appeared in midair, he just calmly stood there and pointed a hand at the Nomu. "Sleep," he said. The Nomu immediately stopped screaming, slumping over. A sleep spell...

He teleported back over to Stain, who had managed to get up to a crouch. "And now for you," he said.

Stain glared at him. "You heroes... always showboating. The hero society is corr- Agh!" He was cut off by Aizawa-sensei snapping his fingers, slamming him into the ground by making the gravity effect higher.

"I'ma showboater?" Aizawa-sensei asked, then crouched down to be closer to his face. "This coming from the edgelord serial killer who always attacks four times per city because four means death. And honestly, the only reason we know you're claiming to be killing the bad heroes is that you 'only' maimed some of your victims. The only commonality between them was that they were heroes. Oh, and they were the types of heroes who patrolled in dark alleys when they knew a serial killer was around, for the most part." Aizawa waved his hand, causing thick metal chains to sprout from the ground and wrap around Stain. The gravity aura glow faded once he finished the chains.

Stain struggled against the chains, reinvigorated by the removal of the gravity but still unable to act due to how tight and secure the chains were. He glared at Aizawa. "The hero society is corrupted by fake heroes who are no better than the criminals that they claim to protect against," he spat. "They must be purged from society if it is to become truly just."

Aizawa laughed at him. "'Truly just?' Where's your judge? Your jury? You're a serial killer, not an executioner. You want to make hero society more just? You should've gone into law." He stood back up. "But now that's a moot point, because you're going to jail."

Stain yelled, squirming in his chains. "The only hero worthy to defeat me is All Might!"

That just made Aizawa-sensei laugh even harder. "All Might? He's such a showboat, though! I respect the man, he's done a lot, but if you really hate showboating heroes then why is All Might so worthy and not some underground hero?"

"How dare you!"

"Because I'm a hero. Now you're gonna wake up behind bars in three... two..." He snapped his fingers. Stain stopped struggling, his eyes rolling back into his head. He scoffed. "Midoriya."

"Yeah?" I responded.

"He was bleeding, and with that blood knife I'm worried it might be dangerous to let those wounds stay open. Do you think you could heal him a bit without removing the sleep spell.

I shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm not sure..."

"It can't be helped, just do it." Then he glared at me, activating his Quirk for added effect. "Now what are you and Iida doing here?"

I gulped.

Chapter 34

Chapter Text

Aizawa-sensei glared at me, activating his Quirk for added effect. "Now what are you and Iida doing here?"

I gulped. "I... The hero I was interning under and I were in a train that got stopped by one of the Nomu. He went off to fight the Nomu and told me to stay behind and help with the evacuation. I... stumbled onto the scene of Stain attacking Iida and Nativetechnically speakingevacuated them from a dangerous situation and healed them."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "You're on thin ice, problem child." He sighed. "But if you didn't directly attack Stain, then technically you haven't done anything wrong. Just don't get too close to any more serial killers until you have youractualhero license. For now we have to deal with these two." He pointed at Stain and the Nomu. The chains he bound Stain with detached from the ground and melded together, so that he was still restrained but could be moved. "You heal Stain, I have to deal with the Nomu."

I nodded, then crouched down in front of Stain. Just in case, I made sure I wasn't close to his head. I didn't think he could do anything if he bit me, but just in case... I considered using Miraculous Touch again, to get more practice, but shook my head. It was powerful, but probably too powerful for this. I could control Healing Hands enough to not dispel Aizawa-sensei's sleep spell... hopefully... but I wasn't sure I could do that with Miraculous Touch. And hopefully all I would need for Stain was to stop the bleeding.

I laid a glowing green hand on Stain's wrist, healing the wound there and quickly removing my hand as soon as it closed up. I did the same with the rest of his cuts, keeping my hands on him only for as long as necessary. He stirred when I finished the last wound, which made me jump, but when I took my hand off him he calmed back down. Just in case, I Analyzed him. The spell was weakened, but he was still out.

"Is that the hero killer?" a deep voice asked. I looked up to see Endeavor glaring at Stain, a flaming hand raised in his (and because of how close we were, my) direction. He had some heroes, including Gran Torino, behind him.

"Ah, he's..." I started to say, but was cut off by Aizawa-sensei appearing next to me, the winged Nomu appearing, wrapped in chains, on the ground next to Stain as he did.

"Under a sleep spell, which he should remain under as long as you don't hit him while he's down," Aizawa-sensei said, snuffing out Endeavor's fires (including the ones over his hair that he always maintained as part of his costume) with a quick application of Erasure. I looked over to the tree he'd used to capture the Nomu... or where it was, because now it looked as if it was never there. Seriously, how did hedothat?

"Um, actually, it got weakened when I healed him so he might wake up easier..." I muttered.

He sighed, then glanced down at Stain.

"Eraser," Endeavor growled, lighting his hair back on fire. "We need to put down the monsters, at least."

"It's Grimalkin, now." Grimalkin stepped in between Endeavor and the Nomu. "And killing mind-controlled and/or Quirk-transformed civilians is supposed to be last-resort. I have it sedated, so what weneedto do is send it to a secure facility to be studied, see if we can find a way to undo whatever it is they did to it. Speaking of which..." He disappeared, taking Stain and the Nomu with him.

Ping.

Congratulations! The quest Stain Remover was completed!
Completion rewards:10000 EXP, 10000 Skill Fragments
Bonus rewards for satisfying optional objectives: 5000 EXP, 5000 Skill Fragments

Your level has increased by one!

I got up and looked at the quest rewards as Endeavor yelled at the spot where Aizawa-sensei was, his hair flaring. Combined with the EXP I got thanks to my "assisting" with Stain and the Nomu, that was enough for a level up. I didn't think my Quirk would count me just touching Stain as helping, but then again I did use a Quirk on him... Or maybe it was because I blocked some of his attacks with Mana Dome? Both?

"You okay, kid?" Gran Torino asked, walking over to me. "You were mumbling a bit."

"Oh yeah, I'm fine."

He nodded, smiling. "Good, good." Then he frowned. "Now, young man, what were you doing here?"

I winced. "I uh... I helped some people that were in danger?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "We'll be talking about this later."

"Yeah that's... that's fair," I sighed.

xoxoxo

Gran Torino... wasn't exactly pleased with me. I guess that was fair... After a lecture, he assured me that I wasn't in any legal trouble or anything, though we'd be waiting a few more days before trying to go to Tokyo for patrols if we even went at all, and not just because the train was going to be down for a few days after the Nomu attack. Instead, I spent most of my work study training with Torino in his agency building, occasionally patrolling a few blocks around the town. Gran Torino was actually pretty good at teaching me how I could apply my abilities in hero work.

Although apparently the town he was based in had a really low crime rate, so the patrols were really uneventful aside from a few people recognizing us. That was probably for the best. "The best days are the ones when you don't have to do anything," Gran Torino told me during one of our patrols. "Heroes fight the good fight, but ultimately if a hero's doing their job it means something's gone wrong somewhere."

The past bearers also had a few things to say about how I'd saved Iida, though their message was a little mixed. Ichigo, Sokolov, Honenuki, and Banjo all seemed pleased with how I'd gone about it, but reminded me to be careful when snatching people away from villains with some prodding from Kaizen, Hikiishi, and Shimura. When Gran Torino went to sleep, because he still needed sleep and I didn't, they offered me advice on how to use their Quirks and some of the other Quirks I had, either while I was Meditating or practicing/grinding in my Illusion Barriers.

I texted Iida after the incident. He wasn't in too much trouble, thankfully, but his work study got cut short because he disobeyed orders and went off to fight a villain for revenge and apparently his mother's look of disappointment was punishment enough. I also got some worried texts from some of our friends, since they knew Iida was at Hosu and he hadn't been answering his phone before. After a text to Iida to make sure it was fine, I told them that he texted me and he was fine. Still, everyone was a little worried about him, me included. Still, I had something that I was hopeful would cheer him up.

xoxoxo

"Thanks for helping me set this up," I said as we walked to the hospital. "I know I could've done this after the work study was over, but..." I was in my hero costume-without my sword, that'd probably send the wrong message-because this was technically part of my work study, though since I already had my healer license I could just have asked Shuzenji-sensei when it was over.

"Of course, kid," Torino-sensei said, giving me a smile. "It's not quite as in-your-face as fighting villains, but this is still hero work. Plus, we can probably do a little patrolling around here when you're done."

I returned his smile. "Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks."

We entered the hospital, where a doctor was waiting for us. "Are you Midoriya Izuku, then?" she asked. I noticed that her eyes were... either she didn't have sclera, her sclera were the same shade of green as her irises, or her irises were large enough that I couldn't see her sclera.

"Ah, yes, I am," I answered, then looked away from her eyes when I realized I was staring.No wait you're supposed to stare at the eyes.

"Don't worry, I'm used to people being unnerved by my eyes," the doctor said. She adjusted her glasses. "Follow me, then. We've prepared the patient for your arrival."

"Ah, sorry!" I said.

She shrugged. "You didn't mean anything by it. And at least I never have to direct anyone's eyes upward... much. Now, walk this way." She started walking to the elevator, so Torino and I followed behind her. "If I may ask," she said as she called the elevator, "how do you plan to heal him? I... haven't learned the spell myself yet, but I've read on your Healing Hands spell, and it seems it can't heal anything as severe as a spinal injury..."

I nodded. "That's true, unfortunately, but my Quirk allows me to learn new spells far more easily than most people. After a lot of practice with it, I managed to learn a more advanced version of Healing Hands."

"Oh?" There was a ding as the elevator opened, and we all stepped inside. The doctor... Inoue-sensei, according to her nametag and what my Quirk told me, pressed one of the buttons, and the doors closed. "Would you be able to teach it to anyone?"

I thought about it, created a few wisps of the healing energy of Miraculous Touch, then shook my head. Though... maybe 'created' wasn't the right word? "Not... Not yet. And I don't think it'd be easy to learn. You might need to spendyearsof practice on Healing Hands first, and even then it feels like there's more to it that mastering Healing Hands just wouldn't be enough for..."

"How so?"

"There's..." I frowned, thinking of a good way to describe it. "Honestly it feels a bit like elemental summoning? Or maybe Illusion Barrier? I think part of it is drawing power from somewhere or something else. My Quirk does it for me automatically, but another person might have to figure out how to do that manually..."

"Interesting," she said, adjusting her glasses. The elevator doors opened, and we exited. "So you think that perhaps this healing spell has some unique component to it that might make it hard for another to learn?"

I shrugged. "More or less, yeah. I might be able to figure out what it is if I use it more, though."

She nodded. "Even if your Quirk is helping you can still examine how the spell is working as you're using it, I take?"

"Exactly. Though of course, it's a lot easier to get the hang of entry-level spells than something my Quirk let me skipyearsof steps on."

"Interesting." She stopped in front of a door. "We're here."

Iida was waiting in a chair by the door, a woman that looked like she might have been his mother sitting next to him. He looked up at me, steadying himself with a deep breath. I took a quick look at his title.

I'm Okay Now
LV 39
Iida Tenya

I smiled. It looked like he was doing much better. "Hey, Iida," I said.

He stood up. "Thank you for doing this, Midoriya." Well, he still didn't move with the same confidence he used to, but hopefully what I was about to do would help with that.

I nodded. "Of course. I'll do the best I can."

Inoue-sensei opened the door, and I walked in after her. Torino-sensei sat in one of the chairs and didn't follow me in. I suppressed the urge to wince when I saw Iida Tensei. He... didn't look that good.

"Ha, it's okay, kid," he said weakly, looking up at me. He was really pale... "I know I must not look the best. Kinda why you're here."

"Sorry..." I muttered. I looked at Inoue-sensei.

She nodded. "Go ahead. We've removed the catheter and IV, in case your healing spell tries to remove them, and while he should be fine if you purge the drugs in his system I'm here if there is a problem."

"Okay," I said, and took a deep breath. And on my end... I asked Juniper to pay attention, just in case. She couldn't actually help, but she could hopefully tell me if anything was going really wrong. Not that anything would go wrong, hopefully. I closed my eyes, concentrating. I held my hand out to Tensei, summoning the healing light of Miraculous Touch. It... yeah, I was definitely drawingsomethingfromsomewhereand adding it to my spell. I wished I had more to go on than that, though...

But that wasn't what I was trying to do at the moment. I opened my eyes and placed my hand on Tensei's chest, the light of my Miraculous Touch spreading across his body, especially downwards.

Tensei's eyes jolted open and he sucked in air. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, a bit of color returning to his face.

I Observed him quickly. Nothing bad... "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Ah, yeah, just... surprised. My spine is tingling, should it be tingling?"

I frowned, then shrugged. "Probably? I don't know what getting my spine healed feels like, but it doesn't look like anything bad is happening to you. I'm going to add some power to the spell now." In addition to feeding MP to it, I added in HP and power from Healing Grace and One for All. The glow in my hand slowly became almost blinding, the powerful glow spreading across all of Tensei's body before retreating down to his legs and lower torso as it finished with anything wrong with his upper body. I kept it up as much as I could, but eventually the glow started to dim and it felt... harder to use Miraculous Touch on him. "Sorry, I..." I took my hands off Tensei, canceling the spell...

And nearly dropped as a wave of fatigue suddenly washed over me.

"Whoa, you okay, kid?" Tensei asked, sitting up and reaching for me on reflex.

Inoue-sensei grabbed me before he could, though. "Sit," she said, guiding me into a chair by Tensei's bedside.

"Thank you," I muttered shakily.

"Do you need anything?" the doctor asked me.

I shook my head, grabbing a water bottle out of my inventory. Eep, my MP was almost empty, and my HP was at about half. Note to self, pay attention when using Healing Grace... "My Quirk... I think it draws in magic from somewhere, but basically my energy regenerates really fast without me having to eat or anything. I'll be fine in a few minutes, and back up to full within an hour." I took a sip of my water.

"That's really good," Tensei said. "Stamina and resource consumption is something a lot of heroes have to worry about, I know I tend to need a bit of juice after taking down a villain." He shifted a bit, then winced. "Ah, pins and needles..."

Inoue-sensei gasped. "Tensei, you sat up," she noticed.

"I... I did!" he said, then lifted his blanket to look at his legs. He bent them a bit, then started wiggling his toes. "It... feels a little numb, but..." He smiled, then started swinging his legs to the side of the bed.

"Stop!" she scolded, then held Tensei down before he could get up. "I'm sure you're feeling better, but please do not try to stand just yet."

He stopped, then nodded and scooted his legs back away from the side of the bed. "Yeah, sorry." He frowned. "It... maybe just be because I'm not used to it, but..." he poked his leg, "it still feels a little numb?"

"Sorry," I muttered. "I probably should've tried to level the skill up a bit before coming here. It may not have fixed everything..."

Tensei gave me a smile. "Hey, don't worry, kid. I mean, the doctors said that I'd never so much as wiggle my toes again, and now?" He started furiously wiggling his toes, just to prove that he could. "I mean sure, maybe I'll still have to spend a couple months in rehab..."

Inoue-sensei cleared her throat. "Might be closer to a year..."

Tensei glared at her, then jerked his head slightly in my direction.

"But even in the worst-case scenario his prognosis now is likely to be much better than it was before," she quickly added.

I chuckled and gave Tensei a smile.

"Right, a year in rehab and maybe, what, needing a cane or something for a while isway betterthan needing a wheelchair for life! Seriously, thank you so much, Midoriya, I feel better than I've felt in a week!" He beamed at me.

I sighed, slumping over in my seat. "Thanks..." An idea popped into my head. "Actually, I just thought of something..." I closed my eyes, Meditating to recover my MP.

"You don't have to do that," Tensei assured me. "I'm already a lot better."

I opened my eyes back up and shook my head. "It's okay. This shouldn't be as draining, though on the other hand it also might not do much for you..." Right, build up the power of Regeneration, now... add Miraculous Touch to it. The ball of green energy building in my hand brightened to a brilliant white, apingnotifying me that I just learned a new skill. Look over... oh, it's nameless. Right, if this is Regeneration on Miraculous Touch, then...

"What's that?" Inoue-sensei asked.

"Miraculous Recovery," I decided. It felt a little more unstable than I was used to Regeneration being, so I placed my glowing hand on Tensei instead of shooting it at him. The glow infused into his body, making his lower back light up like when I'd used Miraculous Touch on him, except a little duller. "It won't be as powerful as what I just did, but the effect should sustain itself over the course of a few minutes so it might heal the rest of the damage just by being persistent. I can't make any guarantees, though..."

"Seriously, you've already done more than enough," Tensei reminded me. "Don't apologize because you can't make me better than I was before an injury that should've disabled me for life!"

"Right, yeah," I said. "Though I think this is the best I can do for now, aside from maybe reapplying Miraculous Recovery when it runs out, but I should probably just step back and let the doctors handle it from here?" I glanced at Inoue-sensei for a moment.

"That sounds like the best course of action," she nodded. "But first, do you think you can handle visitors, Tensei? Your brother and mother are waiting outside."

"Oh, bring them in, bring them in!" Tensei said, his smile growing. "I'm definitely feeling better!"

"I'll get them," I offered, getting up.

"I'll do it, you should get more rest," Inoue-sensei ordered, stopping me with a hand on my shoulder. "You may recover fast, but you still collapsed." She walked over to the door before I could really argue with that. "Midoriya is done and Tensei is feeling much better, you can see him now."

"Tensei!" Tenya blurred into the room. I got back up, offering him the bedside chair. "You're... you're okay!" He dropped into the chair immediately.

Tensei chuckled and leaned over, patting Iida on the head. "Not a hundred percent just yet, but..." With a bit of effort he raised his leg and wiggled his toes again. "...definitely better than zero! I'll probably need some rehab still, but if all goes well I'll be back in my suit this time next year."

"Please tell me you won't strain yourself, Tensei," his mother said as she walked into the room after Tenya. She took a breath, then said, "I am so relieved to hear that you're doing better."

Tensei gulped, then nodded. "Ah, yeah, totally." He put his leg back down and sat back in his bed, still sitting up but now leaning on the headboard and pillow. "Gonna follow all my doctors' orders."

Iida-san hugged him. "I was so, so worried when I heard you were in the hospital," she told him.

"Yeah, I know," he muttered, returning the hug.

Iida-san stood back up and looked directly at me. "Midoriya."

"Yeah?" I said.

She bowed, and suddenly I knew where Tenya got his right-angle bow from, though she did it a little more smoothly than he did. "Thank you so much. If you ever have anything the Iida family can help you with, you need only ask."

"Yes, thank you, Midoriya!" Tenya shouted, getting up and bowing as well.

"Ah, you're welcome," I said. "And... thank you, I guess?"

Iida-san started to say something but was interrupted by Inoue-sensei's phone ringing. "Sorry," Inoue-sensei said as she took out her phone and walked to the door. "It's one of our nurses, so it must be urgent. I'll take it outside." She went outside and took the call, saying "Yes?" to the caller before she closed the door.

"-healer kid, is he still here?" Sonia said after a moment in a mimicked, slightly frantic voice, probably from the phone call. "I think it's about you," she clarified.

"Yes, he just finished up. Is something the matter?" Inoue-sensei responded, her voice not muffled to me thanks to Sonia.

"ER room two, got a patient. She's stable but going to lose her eye and this is all we can think of that can maybe help with that." And with that I was already at the door.

"sh*t. Okay, I'll ask him, but he may not be able to help and he technically hasn't signed on for-"

I opened the door. "I'll do it, just give me directions."

"Follow me," she said.

I shook my head. "I can go really fast even without using any active boost to speed myself up."

"Right," she said, and pointed to a door on the other end of the hall. "The stairwell is there, the ER center is on the ground floor, take a left and then a right. It should be room two. I'll catch up with you as soon as I can."

I nodded, then started running. Something I didn't really appreciate, due to using Elemental Aura and other buffs a lot, was that my stats werehigheven with only passives. My base DEX was already over one hundred, so with the DEX milestone passives that boosted my move speed I could movefastif I wanted to. There was awooshof air as Torino-sensei used his Quirk to catch up to me. "Why are we running?" he asked.

We reached the stairwell in a moment and I threw myself down the gap between the stairs without much of a thought. I rolled when I hit the ground to bleed off some of the force, more because I was worried about damaging the floor than myself, then immediately sprang up and followed the direction Inoue-sensei gave me. Torino-sensei slowfell down just after and jetted at me. "Patient going to lose her eye, they're hoping I can help.

He nodded as we flew down the hallway. "Let's hurry, then."

I had to jump and wallrun to avoid some doctors, then slid to a stop in front of the ER rooms. "Did you call for me?" I asked the nurse standing in front of the door to room two.

"Well that was certainly a stylish entrance," they said with a snort. "You got here pretty quickly. Do you think you might be able to help?"

"Honestly I have no idea," I admitted, getting back up. "But if there's a chance it can, then I might as well try."

"Good answer," they smiled. "Could you ditch the gloves and cape, though? We've treated her wounds but it's best to keep ER sterile, and you just rolled around on the floor."

"Oh yeah, sorry." I opened my inventory with a thought and switched my hero outfit out for a fresh pair of clothes. "That better?"

The nurse raised an eyebrow, but nodded and opened the door. I put on the gloves and scrubs they gave me, tested to make sure that the rubber didn't somehow cancel out my healing magic, then nodded to myself and looked over at the patient.

Oh.

The woman looked familiar, and the painful-looking burn over her left eye only seemed to add to that familiar feeling. Her hair was mostly white, but with a few red strands scattered around her head. Her title made the family resemblance obvious, though...

The Loneliest of All
LV 23
Todoroki Fuyumi

I took a deep breath, then got to work.

Chapter 35

Chapter Text

I slumped down on a bench in the lobby, staring at my hands. I was really glad I didn't have to sleep, because I was worried that I'd be seeing that in my nightmares if I did...

"Are you okay?" a voice jolted me out of my thoughts. I jumped and looked up to see Inoue-sensei approaching me, holding a clipboard.

"Yeah," I said, "it was just... I'd thought the lessons had prepared me for... seeing things like that."

The doctor nodded and sat down next to me. "I've been a doctor for years, but some of the things I see still horrify me. And the first time is always the worst. To be perfectly honest, I'm impressed by your resilience. I probably wouldn't have been able to remain so calm as you were in that situation when I was fresh out of med school."

I chuckled. That was mostly thanks to Gamer's Mind, but... "Thanks. I'm just glad I could help. Though, if I may ask..."

"How is she?" Inoue-sensei guessed.

I nodded.

"I can't get into specifics, of course, but she won't be losing her eye. We're letting her sleep for now, and we'll be monitoring her when she wakes up, but odds are you greatly shortened her stay in the hospital. Speaking of, though, I have some paperwork for you." She handed me the clipboard.

I flipped through the paperwork, recognizing some of it as being like what I'd had to fill out when I volunteered to heal. There was some that I wasn't as familiar with, though.

"In case they need you as a witness for the investigation," Inoue-sensei explained, a bit of ice slipping into her voice. "Surely you noticed, but that sort of damage is unlikely without a Quirk, definitely Heat-type judging by the vaguelyfist-shapedburn she had before you healed it. There are some other factors, of course, but that's all you need to worry about."

She said that, but I was really worried about Fuyumi. It had looked like she'd been punched while wearing a pair of glasses, between the shards of glass that I'd had to pull out with Dune's help and the cuts and burns from where the frame pressed into her face. And the amount of damage I'd had to repair from just one blow... It had to have hurt. Endeavor had seemed angry after Aizawa-sensei showed him up, but he couldn't have done that, could he?

With what Shoto had told me about him...

I took a breath to calm myself and pulled a pen out of my inventory. "Where do I sign?" I asked, quickly reading through the paperwork.

"It should be on the last page, though you'll also need to send it to a parent or guardian since you're a minor. We can send it to them electronically if you provide us with an email."

"Right." I filled out the needed information, then handed it back to Inoue-sensei.

"Thank you," she said. "We'll get this sorted as soon as possible."

"You're welcome," I muttered.

"Is something wrong?" the doctor asked.

"Nothing, just... thinking." I sighed. "Do you think it'd be better if I just... did this? Healing, I mean."

"Why do you think that?" she asked me.

"Well, so far Tensei's gone from 'most likely paralyzed for life' to 'could be back on his feet within the year' and from what you said I cut Fuyumi's hospital stay down a lot as well," I said. "I want to be a hero, but what if I could do more good healing full-time?"

The doctor adjusted her glasses, then took a... very deep breath. It took her several seconds just to inhale, then a few more exhaling. Come to think of it, I didn't remember hearing her breathe at all before. Maybe she had enhanced lung capacity? Dune had mentioned she could sense a lot of metal where her lungs should be, maybe that had something to do with it... "How much does it matter that you might be better at healing?" she asked me. "If you'd prefer to be a hero, then be a hero and do as much as you can. And besides, you can certainly do both. I saw your performance at the sports festival."

I nodded. "Right, sorry. I... probably shouldn't complain about being super powerful..."

She shrugged. "You're a child with the power to vaporize icebergs. It's not something to take lightly." She chuckled. "Though I can't exactly say that I can completely empathize."

I laughed at that. "Yeah, that's fair."

"As I was saying, it's possible for you to do hero work, then volunteer at the hospital when you have the free time for it. If your energy regeneration is as powerful as you said earlier, then it hopefully shouldn't be too taxing on you as long as you pace yourself." She adjusted her glasses again. "Besides, people are starting to learn healing magic. I haven't quite mastered it yet, but some of my colleagues have learned how to use the Healing Hands spell and are attempting to innovate. Perhaps one of them will learn how to do something more powerful like the spells you used today."

"Yeah, you're probably right," I said. "Thanks, that really helped."

She nodded. "You're welcome. It's... sort of my job to help people. Though that usually involves stabbing them back to life, of course."

"Yeah, that is true," I chuckled nervously. That wasn't the phrasing I would've used...

A white-haired man walked in the building, a mixture of anger, concern, and being on the verge of tears on his face. He was a bit taller and burlier, but I could see the family resemblance with Shoto, and my Quirk confirmed him to be Todoroki Natsuo. He was probably here for Fuyumi.

"Ah, speaking of which, I believe I have to help someone now," Inoue-sensei said, picking up the clipboard. "I'll get this sorted when I'm done with him." She got up and walked over to Natsuo. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I..." He took a breath. "I'm here for my sister. I'm her emergency contact?"

"Of course. May I please have your name and some identification?"

"Right, right," he mumbled, fishing through his pocket. "Todoroki Natsuo, her name is Fuyumi." He pulled out his wallet and showed her a card. "Can... how is she?"

"Ah, Todoroki-san." Natsuo winced at his own name. Honestly, I couldn't blame him... "Fuyumi is sleeping for the moment, but she's doing well. Luckily, we had a hero student with a powerful healing ability volunteering for an unrelated matter and he was quick to lend his aid. Thanks to him, she shouldn't suffer much permanent damage and her stay will be much shorter than it otherwise would have been."

"Oh, that's... that's great." He looked over to me. I probably looked out of place in my hero costume... "You're Shoto's classmate, right? Are you the one who healed 'Yumi?"

"Ah... yeah," I said, nodding.

The next thing I knew, Natsuo was hugging me. "Thank you!" he shouted. "When I heard Fuyumi was injured, I... I..." He sobbed into my shoulder.

I awkwardly patted him on the back. "I... You're welcome. I'm just glad I was in the right place at the right time."

Natsuo sniffed, then let me go. "Sorry for crying on you," he said, wiping his face off.

I smiled. "You're good. I don't think I'd be doing much better if I was in your situation. And I have a residual mutation that affects my tear ducts, so it'sway worsewhen I cry."

He chuckled. "Right, well, uh, thanks for all that." He sighed. "Ugh, sorry, I'm just... dealing with a lot right now. I should probably check on Fuyumi now."

"I hope she recovers quickly," I told him.

Natsuo nodded. "Yeah, me too." He walked back over to Inoue-sensei. "Right, could you take me to her, please?" he asked.

"Of course, follow me," Inoue-sensei said, directing Natsuo to the room they'd relocated Fuyumi to.

"I feel good about today, actually," I said to the various beings that could arguably be described as the voices in my head as I watched the two leave. "Though I am a bit concerned about what happened to Fuyumi... By the way, are you okay, Dune?" I looked over at Dune's ethereal form, where she appeared to be sitting on the bench next to me. She'd looked a bit queasy ever since she helped me with Fuyumi, and for some reason she got even worse while I was talking to Inoue-sensei.

"I don't think I like lungs..." she wheezed, looking like she was about to puke.

"You get used to it," Halitus said, suddenly sitting next to her... in the air.

Juniper appeared on another bench nearby in my view. "I rather like feeling them work," she chimed in.

"Yeah, well they're related to your guys' elements!" Dune shouted, then gagged a bit. "I will hopefullyneverfeel that again, especially if we get out before the metal lady breathes again!"

"Analyzing her lung capacity, it will take roughly an hour for her to need to breathe again," Halitus offered. "Potentially less, if she takes part in strenuous activity."

"Well thank Arc-" Dune stopped herself mid-sentence, looked at me, then continued with, "an elemental god that may or may not exist for that."

Well that was weird... "Wait, do elementals have a god?" I asked.

"We are not religious," Halitus quickly declared. At the same time, Dune shrugged noncommittally.

"...Okay?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, at any rate, we're done here, so if Inoue-sensei's Quirk really bothers you that much I can go find Torino-sensei and we can leave, Dune."

"And thank elemental Jegus forthat..." Dune sighed. Halitus elbowed her for some reason. "And you too," Dune added.

xoxoxo

I summoned a Mana Dome, inverting it so that I was on the outside and the villain was trapped inside with Gran Torino. I still wasn't supposed to fight unless absolutely necessary, but I was perfectly clear to provide support. Torino-sensei was especially fond of the Mana Dome arena trick I'd figured out. Not only did it help him out, since he worked better in enclosed spaces, but he also pointed out how important keeping villains away from civilians was.

"Plus it can prevent collateral damage," Nana pointed out, as part of the past bearers adding to Torino-sensei's teachings. "Let me tell you, Toshinori always had a lot of problems with collateral damage. Speaking of which, Izuku, trynotto cause vast amounts of collateral damage when possible, please. I know you can put out a lot of power, but finesse is best!"

"Ialways thought overwhelming power was pretty good at deterring villains," Hikiishi mused.

"No you don't?" Banjo said.

"Yeah, remember that time I sublimated an iceberg?"

"What is it with everyone and bringing up the time I sublimated an iceberg?" I muttered.

"Maybe because yousublimatedaniceberg?" the villain suggested, his voice a bit muffled from how his face was now pressed into the ground.

"It was pretty impressive," Torino-sensei, the one pressing the villain's face into the ground with a foot on the back of his head, supplied. "Right, your turn, kid."

I nodded and dropped the barrier, immediately throwing a glowing blue rope of Bind at the subdued villain. Honestly, I hadn't been using the spell as much as I should have, but Stain breaking out of the zip ties and Grimalkin subduing him with chains reminded me of why it was such a good spell. The magic wrapped around him, restraining him without trapping Gran Torino. "I mean, I wasn't the one who made an iceberg on live TV to begin with..." I griped.

Torino-sensei shrugged and jumped off the villain, checking him to make sure he was secure. "Yeah, but you just nonchalantly made it disappear while scolding the kid." He turned back to me, holding up a gloved finger. "I have a boo-boo here," he told me.

I snorted and healed him, checking his status while I did so. "And a bruise forming on your shoulder, but there, that should take care of that. Tell me or a doctor if you feel it later, though."

"Ah, this is making me feel nostalgic for working with Recovery Girl in the good old days," Torino-sensei chuckled. "You always forget how good it is having a healer to take care of you until you're working with one again."

"I'm glad I could be helpful even with the limits I have for not being a hero student," I said.

"Yeah, you're doing good, kid," he said. "And I'm glad I could help guide you this week."

"Thank you for teaching me, Sensei," I replied.

Torino-sensei gave me a little grin, then glanced down at one his pockets as his phone started ringing. "Sorry, let me get this. Keep an eye on the villain, would you?" He took out his phone and picked up the call. "Torino speaking. Who are you again?"

I snorted at his greeting. Was that something he always said? I walked over to the villain that I'd restrained. "Are you going to try to escape?" I asked him.

"Heck no," he said, "you'd probably just put me in another bubble and throw the old guy at me again." He squirmed a bit. "And I don't think I can get out of these weird... energy restraint things. Kind of uncomfortable, to be honest..." He was still lying facedown on the ground.

"Would it be better if you were sitting up?" I asked.

He... tried to shrug. "Probably not much, but I'll take it."

I helped him sit up, adjusting the Bind slightly in an attempt to make it more comfortable while still keeping him restrained. While I did that, I overheard Torino-sensei talking over the phone. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but he was still pretty close so it was hard not to hear what he was talking about.

"You sure?" he asked whoever he was talking to. "Kid doesn't have his license yet, so we can't technically put him in a position where he has more than a support role."

I silently told Sonia not to give me what the person on the phone was saying, though I couldn't say that I wasn't curious.

Torino-sensei scoffed at whatever they said. "Yeah, and what are the chances that the brat will stand down and let us cuff him? And for that matter, why would you want the kid for support if he's just gonna come quietly?"

His lip twitched as he let the caller talk for a bit.

"I suppose that's true. Right, I'll ask him, but ultimately it's up to him if he says no. And I guess his mother, since this is definitely going to need parental permission. Oh, and you have to sort out the paperwork!"

He laughed at whatever the response was.

"Listen, this is your idea and I'm fresh from retirement. I'm not doing the mountain of paperwork needed to get a kid with only a healer license close to such a high-profile arrest, even if we're just having him as support."

I thought I heard a sigh on the other end, then something that was probably the word 'fine.'

"Good. I'll talk to him." He hung up and turned back around to face me. "Good news, you're going to get to do something special for your last day of your work study, if your mother signs off on it."

"I heard you talking," I said.

He nodded. "Then you already have some of the details. Again, you don't have to come, if you don't want to, and hopefully there won't be any trouble, but we can't exactly rule it out."

"Why me?" I asked.

"First, there's your wide array of support abilities," he pointed out. "Barrier-making, ally strengthening, or healingaloneis pretty good, so having all of them together plus more makes you pretty valuable. Also, you're already pretty involved in this case between..." He glanced at the bound villain. "...some events you helped set up earlier and the person you healed yesterday, so you probably deserve some of the credit anyway. Still, this is a bit unusual, so there's going to be a lot of paperwork before and after so you can tag along." He grinned. "Luckily, since it's not my idea, I can pawn the paperwork off on someone else!"

"So this is about..." I raised a hand, making sure it wasn't easily visible to the villain, and made a small fireball shaped slightly like a certain fire-themed quote-unquote 'hero' with some rather questionable ideas on parenting. "...him, then?"

Torino-sensei tapped his nose. "With the amount of evidence we have of crimes he's committed as well as his... status, we basically have to treat him like a high-threat villain unless he's found innocent somehow, and that's rather unlikely unless this is anincredibleframe-up."

I nodded. "I've heard that that's how it works. Alright, I'll do it." After what I'd learned about him and what happened to Fuyumi, I couldn't say that I wasn't a little eager to help arrest Endeavor.

"You sure?" he asked. "I doubt he's going to come in quietly, so you're likely to be close to the action."

"It wouldn't be the first time," I said. "If worst comes to worst, I can use Fire Embodiment to become immune to... probably most of his offensive abilities. Or just escape into an Illusion Barrier if I'm really getting in the way."

Gran Torino frowned. "A bit worrying that you've already been in enough action that you're confident you can handle this. Being ready to remove yourself from the threat is good, though. The adults are supposed to be the ones handling him, so if we don't have to worry about keeping you safe we can focus more on the goal. Not that I don't think you can handle yourself, but youarea minor that we're bringing along to an arrest."

"I understand," I assured him.

"Good, good. I'll arrange everything later, then. I'd tell you to rest up for the arrest, but you've already kinda proved that you don't need it so just ready yourself in general."

I nodded. "I will."

Chapter 36

Chapter Text

I adjusted my tie as we walked into the meeting room. I spotted... was that Wash? Huh, I suppose that made sense. Despite his... comical appearance and persona in (washing machine) costume, Wash more than earned his high hero ranking, both in terms of popularity and effectiveness. He could use his Clean Bubbler Quirk to attack villains with high-power streams of bubbles, restrain or protect people by sticking them in very strong bubbles, and even had some first-aid capability because his bubbles acted as disinfectant. Wow, I was going to meet Wash? And... help him and several other heroes arrest Endeavor.

Fun.

Aside from Wash, I recognized Manual, Backdraft, and a few other water-related and firefighting heroes. That made sense; even if they weren't also there to help with directly confronting Endeavor, the man wasn't known to back down easily so any attempt to arrest him would likely end with them needing to help put out fires.

And then there was... "Oh hey, Aizawa-sensei!" I said, waving to my teacher.

"Again, call me Grimalkin when I'm on the job, please," he sighed. "Right, is that everyone here, then?"

"Looks like, unless you or Wash invited someone else to the party that I wasn't aware of," Torino-sensei chipped in from my side. "So, let's get down to business."

"Before that, why's the kid here?" Backdraft asked, raising a hand. I winced at the tone of his voice, remembering that time all those months ago (was itreallyonly a few months) when he and a few other heroes had scolded me for attacking the sludge villain. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I saw his work at the Sports Festival-unless he happens to be some other kid with freckles and curly green hair-but he's a first year, so unless he's been taking a lot of extra-curriculars I doubt he has his provisional license."

"Oh, that was my idea, actually!" Wash said. Wait,Washvouched for me? Oh, wow! "I also saw his performance in the Sports Festival, and what stood out to me wasn't just his power in combat but also the support and healing abilities he showed, washa! When I heard from Grimalkin-san that he could do more,andthat he was now a licensed healer, I just had to have him along to help!"

"Thank you, sir, that means a lot to me," I told Wash, not bothering to hide my smile.

"So, how are you going to be supporting us?" Manual asked. "And for that matter, I suppose we should talk strategy now." He looked around at the assembled heroes. "I'm guessing most of us are going to mostly be on firefighting duty or protecting civilians, Wash is going to be doing the fighting, and... Deku, right?" I nodded at his question. "Deku is obviously going to be on support, but what about Grimalkin and Gran Torino?"

"I'll be fighting with Wash, mostly," Aizawa-sensei said. "My Quirk allows me to disable other Quirks, and I've recently developed... a certain form of magic that so far seems to be unique to me, which I suspect may come from my Quirk in the same way that elemental affinities do. To be honest, I don't think I've even so much as scratched the surface of its full potential so far, but what Ihavefigured out so far is... pretty ridiculous in a way that I believe is particularly effective against people who throw around massive amounts of a single element. To demonstrate..." He nodded in my direction. "Deku, throw some fire at me, please."

"Do you want magic-based fire, Quirk-based fire, or chemical-based fire?" I asked, opening up my inventory and Quirk windows.

"How would you..." Aizawa muttered, furrowing his brow, then shook his head. "Doesn't matter, just throw a fireball spell at me, please."

"Okay," I said, dismissing the windows and calling up a fireball to throw at him. He caught it effortlessly, despite residual magic in spells usually making it harder to control spells made by others even if you have the right element for it, and then... again, a wave of peculiar blue magic washed over the fire and suddenly Aizawa was holding a ball of water, about the same size as my fireball had been. "This should work on Endeavor's flames as well, and is surprisingly energy-efficient for literal energy-to-matter transmutation, so I'll be using it to turn his own attacks against him and give our hydrokinetics more material to work with."

"Seriously,howare you doing that?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's a sort of... conceptual transmutation or whatever. My magic seems to be, well... it seems to let me elementally manipulate magic itself the same way elemental magic allows people to manipulate elements." He turned the waterball back into a fireball, then used what seemed to be regular fire magic to make it shuffle through a few different colors. "There's probably something ontologically weird about how I'm doing it, but to me it feels a bit like shifting fire between different colors with magic, if I squint a bit."

"Ah, is that the thing we talked about that one time, Deku?" Torino-sensei asked me. "The magic element I brought up?"

"It's... possible," I said, rubbing my chin. "From the way Grimalkin described it, it sure sounds like it..." I turned Eye for Magic on and got myself ready to Analyze Aizawa's spell. "I've got a few magic-analyzing skills, so if you use it again I can try to get some answers."

He nodded and- "GAH!" I cried, suddenly blinded from a bright flash ofindigoand a sharp pain in my eyes. I didn't even have time to use Analyze before recoiling like I'd just stared into a blue sun.

"Midoriya, are you okay?" I heard Aizawa-sensei's concerned voice ask, as well as a few exclamations from the other heroes.

"Sorry, I'm fine, just got a bit of backlash." The pain was already gone, though I didn't know if that backlash would be more serious on another person, between The Gamer's changes to my body and the fact that I had Hyper Regeneration on. I opened my eyes and, yup, no permanent vision damage, though there was a system error text box saying that Eye for Magic was forcibly deactivated because of overexposure to "&/!(&$^ #&%!$," which was interesting to say the least. Whatever Aizawa had turned the fireball into, it was gone now. "Yeah, all I'm getting is error messages from that. I should probably warn Hatsume and the other support course people about that..."

"Error messages?" Wash inquired.

"Ah, my Quirk, The Gamer, works by... I guess you could say it affects how I interact with the world, or maybe how the world interacts with me, so that I act a bit like a video game character. Part of that is having what's basically a UI that automatically alerts me of level ups, stat increases, and, in this case, error messages for when a skill-that is, a spell-gets disrupted or something like that. It also makes me learn and improve spells a lot faster than people usually can, because video game characters usually don't need to spend years mastering high-leveling magic, just enough stats, levels, and whatever other prerequisites."

"That sounds quite useful!" Wash declared. "I suppose that's how you were able to master so much useful and powerful magic, washa!"

"Yeah, pretty much," I nodded. "It also helps that video game logic, at least according to whatever system my Quirk uses, means pretty good stat growth even without using my stat points. But back to Grimalkin's magic, I unfortunately probably can't make heads or tails of it quite yet."

"I suppose I can't complain about that," Grimalkin said. "Thanks for the attempt, and sorry about your eyes. As I was saying, I'll be drawing fire from Endeavor if it comes to a fight and will use my elemental conversion to turn his fire into water, air, and ice." He looked around at the assembled heroes. "Most of you should be able to use water or ice magic, or at least control water somehow. If you somehow don't know how to use magic yet, we have some time scheduled before the operation for you to get pointers from Deku, Wash, or myself. I suggest you make the most of it." He then shifted his attention back to me. "Deku, I believe you have a few support effects you can provide us. As some of them will likely take everyone some time to get used to, I'd prefer it if you gave everyone an idea of what you can do for us now."

"Of course," I said, nodding. "I guess... the first thing is probably the party system?" I cringed, noticing a few odd looks from some of the heroes. "Um, it's another aspect of my Quirk. I guess it'll probably be a bit easier to show off if you can see it, so... can I use my Quirk on everyone? Raise your hand if you'd prefer I didn't, I guess." After giving myself a minute to do the standard clearout of chat logs and secret party members that should be dead, I mentally recited the party invites for all of the present heroes except Backdraft, who had silently put his hand up after a moment. Or, rather, the hose spigot he had instead of a hand. "Right, as... most of you can see, you now have access to some of the informational aspects of my Quirk. Everything's off by default, but you should be able to use the status, party chat, and map menus, and in the options menu you can enable UI elements like a status bar and minimap. You don't really get any of the physical bonuses of my Quirk like EXP gain, but it should hopefully be helpful to everyone to have your stats quantified and bars you can just look at to see how much fight you still have left in you. It should respond to both verbal and mental commands, so I should probably give you all a few minutes to get things set up?"

I waited a bit, watching the heroes set themselves up and react to their stats. I snorted at a few grumblings of "Why is my WIS so low..." and "Oh, f*ck you game, IknowI have sh*t luck," as well as some more positive appreciation of some good stat or other. As they got their bearings straight, I messed around in the Party Options menu a bit. Ah, good, there was an option to put the health bars of everyone in the party in my HUD. And it didn't even clutter up my vision despite all the people currently in my party. Like with my own health bar, I just saw them somewhere that I felt was in the corner of my vision, yet could still focus on perfectly without having to move my eyes.

When the chatter started to die back down, I spoke up once more. "Alright, everyone good?" I asked. I looked around to see if there was anyone with any questions, then nodded and continued after a wave of nods and 'yeah's. "Great! Next, does anyone have any support items or materials that they'd like me to hold onto? Another part of my Quirk, Inventory, gives me the ability to store... pretty much any object that can fit through the window it makes, as far as I'm aware." I pulled out a water bottle to demonstrate. "Living animals get ejected automatically, but plants and inanimate objects stay in just fine. Any food I put in there doesn't go bad or even change temperature, but I wouldn't say that no time passes because clocks track time accurately... without losing any battery charge. There seems to be some kind of stasis going, at least, so if it's something time-sensitive I should probably be able to keep it fresh. I've already got plenty of water jugs, rocks, dirt, batteries, seeds, and other elemental sources, so don't worry about that, but if you've got anything else I should be able to hold it for you."

Backdraft put a spigot-hand to his mask. He looked pensive, but it was a bit hard to tell for sure since I couldn't see his face and he didn't have any fingers to stroke his chin with. "Hm..." I idly wondered if he had some form of special dispensation to use his Quirk to hold things, given that his Quirk seemed to fully replace his hands. I didn't ask him, though, because I was worried it would be rude to ask how he did things with spigots for hands. "Deku, you can store fluids, right?" he asked after a few moments.

"Not by itself, technically, but if it's in a container, even an open container like a cup, it goes in fine. I guess it's a safety mechanism to prevent my inventory from just sucking in large amounts of air whenever I open it?"

"Can I borrow a cup or something, then?" Backdraft asked. "I wanna try something." As he said that, a thin stream of water dribbled out of one of his nozzles and formed a ball in the air.

"Sure," I said, pulling a cup out of my inventory. Observe told me that his Quirk only let him control the water that he produced, and only for twelve minutes at max before the effect faded and it just became normal water to him. I could guess at what he wanted to see, so I just held the cup out to him. "I'm guessing you want to see if I can preserve the water you make with your Quirk?"

He nodded and floated the water into my cup. "That's what I was thinking. I can feel water under my control, but not well enough to tell how much time I have left with it until it's about to run out of time, so I figure we wait until after my current max time limit and see if I can still control it."

"Sounds good," I said, then Observed and Analyzed the water out of curiosity. Observe gave me... some TMI about how Backdraft's Quirk produced water that made me very unwilling to drink it even though it also assured me the water was perfectly sanitary. Analyze, meanwhile, was a lot more helpful than its older brother and informed me of the name of the Quirk currently acting against it (Water Pump), said Quirk's owner (Tachikawa Dansui, AKA Backdraft), and a live-updating countdown for how long that Quirk effect would last (about eleven and a half minutes when the box opened). "It looks like I can tell how long it's gonna last with one of my Quirk's analytical powers, but to be safe, let's put it in for thirteen minutes." I put the cup in my inventory, noting that the countdown on the Analyze box paused the moment I did, then pulled out my phone and set a timer for it.

"Thanks," Backdraft said. "And, ah, I changed my mind about the party thing. You can include me, if you don't mind."

"Oh, of course!" I said, quickly sending him an invite. "Honestly, it's gonna be more convenient for me with everyone in it, because it'll let me track your health more easily and that'll let me know who needs healing the most. I mean, hopefully we won't really need it, but as Wash said, I have a healing license and that's probably the biggest reason I'm here, so, uh..." I trailed off and just brought out my license. "You're... in good hands if you get injured, hopefully."

"Ya might wanna sound a bit more confident the next time you say that, kid," Torino-sensei advised me. A few of the other heroes muttered agreements.

I winced. "Sorry," I muttered, and put the card back in my inventory. "Uh, I guess the last thing we need to go over is..." I readied myself to use my four buff spells, then had an idea. 'I wonder if I can combine them...' I thought to myself. I held my hands out in front of me and concentrated, forming four balls of magic in front of me. Green for Regeneration, blue for Defense Up, red for Attack Up, and yellow for Speed Up. I thought about how I'd combined skills in the past and how those four skills would mesh together with each other (rather well, given that I made the other three as variations of the first), then I clapped my hands together around the four orbs. The magic almost slipped between my fingers, but I forced it to come together and solidify. There was a flash of light from between my fingers and thepingof a notification, and then I opened my hands to show the completed magic orb. "This is... I guess you could call it a crystallized buffing spell," I told them. It was the same sort of glass-looking material that the individual buff orbs were, but instead of being a solid color it had slowly-shifting splotches of the colors of the four spells that made it up, plus a small amount of white. "It's a combination of four spells, put in a solidified form that holds itself without discharging for about an hour or until crushed." I tossed it to Grimalkin. "I figure I could give one or two to everyone, it's not really that expensive to me because of how many options I have for restoring MP, but first I think everyone should probably practice a bit first under the effects because the speed and attack boosts could throw you off a bit."

"That's an excellent point, Deku," Grimalkin said, crushing the orb between his finger and his thumb. The magic inside burst out and wreathed him in a multicolored light that sunk into his skin and vanished after a moment, the solid shell dissolving away with it. "That's actually why I arranged for us to meet here, because there's also a gym with a shooting range in this building. I knew Deku had a few support abilities that we might want to practice with before the operation, so I made sure we have time set aside for that. Deku, can you put those spells in your inventory? And if you do, do you have any more on you?"

I almost nodded, then shook my head. "I... can, but at the moment I don't have any of the composites in it, just a few of the individual spells. The skill I used to make that is... relatively new, so I haven't gotten around to making any to just put in my inventory yet." I decided not to mention that by 'relatively new,' I meant 'I only just got it.' Speaking of, I pulled up the window for the skill I just made by combining the four buff spells.

A new skill has been created through special action! By combining multiple compatible skills, the skill 'Skill Synthesis' has been created!

Skill Synthesis (Active) LV 1 EXP 0.00% MP 200x
A good mage knows not only a large variety of spells, but also when and how to innovate and combine those spells to create new effects. This skill represents the ability to merge compatible spells together on the fly.
The user may use this skill to merge multiple other skills together to combine and/or alter their effects, as long as they are eligible.
Ability to use skills for Skill Synthesis determined by compatibility and level of all skills involved.
MP cost of Skill Synthesis is multiplied by number of skills combined using Skill Synthesis. MP cost of Skill Synthesis does not cover costs of skills combined using Skill Synthesis, which must still be paid as normal.
Distinctive enough results of Skill Synthesis may result in the creation of new skills.

Huh, that wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was probably a lot better, though. Would that work with passive skills? It didn't say anything about it, but it wasn't like I could smash, say, Physical Endurance together with one of my skills to make something new. Or could I? "I guess while you guys are practicing, I can work on putting more in my inventory while you guys are doing that." I made another orb (this time without quite as much dramatic fanfare since now that I had Skill Synthesis I could simply focus on combining the four skills and have the finished product come out just fine) and immediately shoved it in my inventory like I said I would. As I made a few more, my mind whirled with possibilities of what I could do with Skill Synthesis.

"Of course!" Wash declared. "We should go over a few more things before that, but I don't believe there's anything that requires your input. As long as you are still paying attention, it should be perfectly fine for you to get ahead on making more of those spell orbs for us, washa!"

I smiled. "Thank you, Wash. I won't let you down." Saying that, I opened up my skill menu. "And while everyone else is practicing with my buffs, I think I'll try to experiment and see if I can find any other support I can give everyone else."

"That sounds like a good idea," Grimalkin said. "Keep us updated with anything you find."

xoxoxo

We marched to gate the large estate in silence, escorting a few police officers with us. Since they were the ones with the arrest power and we were only here in the likely case that things got ugly, they were going to be the ones leading the conversation until Endeavor tried to attack. Grimalkin and I flanked them, both poised to protect them and get them out of the line of literal fire the second anything happened. My Quirks were currently set to Super Regeneration and Fear, with Swift as the Wind for my title. Grimalkin would attempt to use an intimidation spell of his invention if Endeavor lit up in the hopes that it would get him to reconsider attacking, and when he did I was supposed to use Fear to help him. Once the fighting started, I was ordered to immediately exchange Fear for a new Quirk, Fireproof, that one of the fire rescue heroes had volunteered to give me when I mentioned being able to copy Quirks. As the name implied, it gave me drastically increased resistance to fire damage, as well as resistance to some fire-related hazards like smoke inhalation. On top of that, I'd applied a new skill I made to myself and the other heroes through the composite buff orbs.

A new skill has been created through special action! By synthesizing the skills 'Physical Endurance' and 'Elemental Aura,' the skill 'Elemental Aegis' has been created!

It was mildly disappointing because I'd been hoping for a passive elemental resistance skill like Physical Endurance, but it still was pretty good. It worked a bit similarly to Elemental Aura, in that I could use it for any element I had affinity for and continuously paid the price for it as long as it was active. Instead of enhancing my abilities, though, it gave me resistance to the element I used it with and lesser resistances to related damage types, with the resistance scaling based on WIS and elemental affinity. It was a bit tenuous because Elemental Aegis was low-level and self-targeted, but after I managed to grind another level on both it and Skill Synthesis I was just barely able to put it in my combined buff orbs. Which meant that I needed to make even more, but everyone agreed that the fire resistance would be worth it if we had to fight Endeavor. The skill seemed to be less powerful when I put it in the synthesized spell, but its duration increased to be at the level of the other buffs instead of running out after a minute.

"Last check, is everyone ready?" Wash asked everyone.

I double-checked that my inventory and Quirk menus were open to the right areas for me to quickly pull out and switch what I was supposed to, then nodded. The other heroes checked their support gear, activated various spells, and checked to make sure they still had the orbs I gave them. One of the heroes popped their buff orb in their mouth, which to be fair probably was a good place to hide it and yet still have it an a place where they could easily break it.

"Good, washa," he said, then nodded to the police officers we were escorting. "Officers, you may proceed. If Todoroki uses any powers, you will get behind Grimalkin and Deku immediately and comply with any directions they give you."

One of the officers nodded, then pressed the buzzer to the side of the Todoroki estate's main gate. After a bit of waiting, Endeavor's face appeared on a screen next to the buzzer. Or, I suppose, Todoroki's face, since he wasn't in costume and didn't have his trademark fire beard. "What do you want, officers?" he asked. We'd been careful to keep everyone but the police out of the view of the gate call box's camera so he wouldn't suspect anything until he came out.

"We need to speak to you in person," the leading officer said. "It's somewhat urgent."

He raised an eyebrow. "Should I get my costume?"

"That won't be necessary," the officer shook his head. "Just come out here, I'll tell you more then."

Enji scoffed. "This had better be important, then." And with that, the screen shut off.

"And now we wait," Grimalkin said. "Remember, nobody show any signs of aggression-and especially no overt power use-until he actually starts fighting. Even if you think he's probably going to fight immediately, wewantto give him a chance to turn himself in first. Even aside from the fact that it's better for everyone if he comes quietly, it won't look great for us if we shoot first against the number two hero."

I looked at the sheathed sword that I still had as part of my hero outfit and quickly dequipped it with my inventory. In hindsight I was a bit surprised that nobody had commented in it, but then again I wasn't the only person there with a weapon as part of their outfit. After a bit of thought, I also put up my costume's bunny-eared hood. I wasn't sure exactly what Endeavor thought of me, but if he thought I was related to All Might in any way like Shoto had then I was a bit worried I'd set him off if he recognized me. What else could I do to prepare...

I was jolted out of my thoughts by apingand quickly checked the popup that created the sound.

A quest has been created!

Firefighter Support
Yeah, we all know that Endeavor isn't going down without a fight. Do your best to make sure the heroes you're supporting are able to keep Endeavor from escaping or causing too much collateral damage.

Oh. That was... worrying.