PROLOGUE

I was at the rather young age of thirteen when we got the news. I remember it as clear as day, and could still see it all playing out in the back of my mind. I could still see my mother attempting to hold back tears as she clenched our house phone within her hand, trying her absolute best to not freak out for what I now knew was for my own sake. I was sitting in front of our old box-back television set when she came over and took ahold of my hand. I still remember how cold her hands felt when she stutteringly told me that my dad had been hurt. I remember still attempting to process what I had been told as the television automatically switched channels for an emergency broadcast due to an apparent villain attack in the city. The last thing I remembered before my mom and I began to head to the hospital was seeing my dad get wheeled out on a gurney during live television.

Between my mom and I, we were too worried to even remotely process what was going on. With that said, I could still remember the car ride being oddly quiet despite all of the chaos that was happening around us. Between the multitude of detours that we had to take and the abundance of traffic, the ride to the hospital felt like it took an eternity.

Once we actually arrived, everything began to become a bit of a blur. I remember running in with my mom and frantically going up to the help desk. It wasn't too much longer until we were being rushed to his room. It wasn't until we entered his room when we were finally able to realize the situation.

At the time, he had just been removed from intensive care, but it was rather obvious that he was still in extremely rough shape. The heavy smell of pneumonia was in the air, and the typical hospital sounds of mechanical beeping and people running up and down the halls were flooding my eardrums. The image of my dad laying in the hospital bed with a breathing mask and blood-stained bandages wrapped around him is still burned into my head to this very day. He was still fully conscious, but it didn't take a genius to tell that something was off.

My dad was decently known throughout our home city of Minato, Japan. In fact, some could say that he was a bit of a local celebrity due to his hero work under the alias of Crixus. Of course, this caused his pride to be a bit inflated, which was something that I had gotten pleasantly used to throughout my life. One could almost feel it whenever my dad was around. However, when I walked into that hospital room, I could feel that the usual pride filled atmosphere was gone.

I remember yelling for him as I rushed to the side of the hospital bed, watching as he painfully attempted to sit up and great my mom and I with a smile on his face. Everything from this point forward has begun to slip my mind... but if there was one thing that I could for sure remember from this entire day, it was when my dad managed to summon up enough strength to grab my hand and say these words:

"Son... This is a dangerous world we live in. Granted, it has it has its bright sides, but there will be times when it chews you up and spits you back out just for the hell of it. So, if there's one thing I want you to take from everything I've ever told you in life... It's that if you get kicked down eight times, then you sure as hell better be getting back up nine more."

That day was a little over three years ago now, and those words have stayed with me for the entirety of it. My dad ended up being okay, but due to a severe back injury that rendered him paralyzed from the waist down he had to step down from his Job as the towns local hero. Considering my mom never had to work before (as my dad was always bringing in enough income to the point where she didn't have to), the change in pace for our household was rather rough. Considering my dad could no longer help out around the house, my mom and I had to pick up all of the slack. I even spent time cutting lawns in my spare time in an attempt to help pay the bills, but the price of our house ended up being too much for my mom and I's usual wage to cover. We ended up having to move into a small apartment complex on the cheaper side of town. Nonetheless, it was my dad's words that kept us going through it all. Through thick and thin, my dad was the sole reason that my family didn't fall into despair. He always wore a smile on his face when we were around, but I could only imagine what he resorted to when he was alone.

It wasn't hard to tell that he changed mentally after that day. I wouldn't go as far to say that he simply gave up, but I could tell that he felt like a burden due to all of the extra assistance he needed now. This didn't stop me from looking up to him, however.

I always admired his role as a hero, and I even wanted to become one myself for the longest time. My Situational Adaptation quirk that I had even suited the role, as it literally made me prepared for just about anything that I found myself up against. Essentially, my quirk allows my body to rapidly evolve itself depending on what is going on around me. For example, let's say that I needed to breath underwater, my body would react by adjusting my DNA to the point where I would basically grow fully functioning gills in just under a few seconds. Or let's say that my body sensed that I was about to be struck by something, then my skin would harden to the point of it being a fully functioning carapace-like armor in order to better absorb the blow. It was a rather useful quirk, and was only possible due to the combination of my dad's ability to inherit the attributes of the things he touches and my mom's ability to breath underwater.

But, no matter how hard we tried nowadays, we simply couldn't afford the cost of your everyday hero school. We had almost given up on sending me to hero school altogether, and began to face the facts that I would have to find a way to become extremely successful in order to send myself to school as my family would never be able to afford it. Or at least that was what we thought for the longest of time.

It wasn't even three weeks ago when we got the letter in the mail saying that a brand-new hero school was being opened up just on the outskirts of our hometown. According to the letter, the school was called Yosai Hero Academy, and was evidently supposed to be "The Hero School for the Unfortunate". They advertised that any student who signed up and was accepted would get in scot free with a clean slate and zero payments. At first, we were going to write this off as spam, as it just felt far too good to be true... but as I was about to throw the letter away I had a bit of an epiphany. I decided to send them a letter back with my name, address, course selection, and a three-paragraph essay on why I wanted to be a hero as the original letter instructed. According to the letter, only ten students would be selected for the hero course, and sure enough I received an invitation to tour the school not a week later. We were still in disbelief of the whole situation, as every single piece of it felt way too good to be true... That was, until the day we showed up for the tour.

Today was that very day. I was still skeptical about the whole ordeal all the way up until the point where my family and I were walking through the armored gates that made up the school's entrance. Giant bronze letters with the name and motto of the school arched over us as we walked in only to be greeted by a mass of people who evidently received the same letter that we did. The school wasn't exactly big compared to the other hero schools out there, and parts of it were very obviously still being built, but something about this place just felt correct. I wasn't sure if it was the people around us or the overall atmosphere of the place, but one thing was absolutely certain: The second my family walked through those gates was the first time in years we had all felt truly happy.

It didn't take me long to decided that this was the place. This was where I was destined to be. This was the place where I would earn my fortune so I could bring my families old way of life back to reality! I know that it's going to be hard, and I'm completely aware of the dangers that lurk around every corner in this profession... but I am okay with all of it if it means that I'll be able to help my family!

All I have to do is make it through the tour, and then I'm in!