Author's Note: I do not own BNHA or elements of other fandoms, but I do own Keiyu and the village of Tsurukosa

Chapter 13: Level Up

Six months since this ability first appeared and she only reached Level 4. She figured that she had to do a certain amount of hours to reach Level 5, but instead had reached level 4 upon finishing the Friendship Quest and acquiring bonds with Daichi and Mebuki-san (she found out the girls name was Ami but the teacher didn't let them refer to each other by first names.) So she still didn't know what she had to do to reach Level 5. Nor has she been able to figure out how this ability saved her life that one day. Her healing rate was as normal as far as she was concerned, and nothing else was obvious to her at all. Why was it so hard to level up, was there certain things she needed to do? Was Quests part of what she had to do? She had read every book in the school and more than half of the manga in the digital archive Mikan-san gave her access to. Her ice skating and Go knowledge was also more than it ever was. So what could she do to increase levels, if it was even possible. The map icon was the only thing to have changed after all the walking that she did. It had increased to include the whole island and dots had appeared to indicate people. She knew practically every inch of the house, school, and every building in the surrounding area. She knew where every path was, except for the forest.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind she shivered, wishing to take it back, but this was something she had to do.

In the chat room, she talked about exploring the mountain to Green Might and Violet Cat.

Green Might: Isn't it a bad idea to go by yourself in the forest?

VioletCat: Should you go somewhere you almost died.

VC was right on the nose, she didn't want to go back there, afraid of recalling a certain memory at the wrong moment.

Most of all however, her six year old self was firmly against it.

All the more reason for her to go, she was not six years old and she wasn't going to let her almost death bar her from figuring out this ability, she needed to move past it.

DakoxLeon: All the more reason to go right?

Hitoshi stared at the text with a twitching eye,

"She's insane, what if she gets lost or falls? Why is she so insistent on going into the forest?" Izuku bit his lip, agreeing with his friend but at the same time.

"Maybe, maybe she wants to get past her fear and explore a place she hasn't before, she's been everywhere on the island and knows where everything is. She even went to the dam, despite it being for her career choice thing." the purple haired boy groaned.

"Why do I have insane friends?" ignoring Izuku's offended squawk, he typed a 'Careful, and take snacks and a flashlight and compass with you' before exiting the chat and pulling up the book series. They were in a library closer to his apartment since Hitoshi's mom didn't like visitors over to use up electricity unless she was there, and Izuku's own mom thought he still hung out with Kacchan after school.

"You just finished Book Five right?" the Hero Analyst nodded.

"I wanted to get farther, but I can't take my computer to school, and Mama doesn't want me going to that cafe by myself anymore ever since that villain attack a few weeks ago. Plus, I don't know if she'll like me going on the chat anymore after what DL said," the both of them winced, recalling that incident.

DL had been reading one of the manga series and had drawn parallels between Izuku and the main characters. Bullied young, considered useless by those around him, an absentee father, and oblivious mother.

He had immediately protested his mother not being like that and she had asked why then does his mom ignore the fact he comes home injured every day, that he flinches ("I told you not to tell her!" "She deserves to know,") when his child friend is close to him. Why, when his mom comes to Parent-Teacher Meetings, that she overlooks how the teacher treats him or how the kids call him 'Deku'. Why she doesn't stand up for him and seems more content at convincing herself that everything is alright rather than making sure her own son doesn't end up committing suicide because of the lack of support from his own family and her refusal at seeing his suffering.

Izuku hadn't known his mom was behind him till a plate crashed against the floor and he whirled around to see his mom's face turning pale as she stared at the text. He didn't even get to say 'Mom' before she was picking up the broken plate in her Quirk and retreated from the room. They still didn't have a talk about that, and Izuku had scolded DL about it, asking her about her own mom, but she just admitted that she already knew her mom was an even worse mom.

"She reminds me of the stalker Kraken has," why the author changed Catalyst to Kraken he didn't know, but the thought of the stalker had him shivering.

In Book 3, the squad now has five people, the fourth person being someone skilled in illusions while the fifth was training to be the medic but refused to reveal their ability apart from making the air cold. Kraken is 9 years old and on a mission to uncover a weapons arm dealer who was preparing anti-psychic weapons for rogues who were intent on using them against the guardians. However the organization wanted to adapt these weapons for their own use in order to deal with rogue ability users easier. Kraken ran into a girl working for the arms dealer and ended up rescuing her from an explosion, which was a mistake. She gains an obsession with him and starts stalking him across different countries before he has Jackalope, the telekinetic, erasing any trace of him with her hacking skills.

Considering that in Book Five the stalker was still there, Izuku had a feeling that it was going to take something miraculous to get her to leave him alone.

"Has your mom tried talking to you about what DL said?" he shook his head and Hitoshi grimaced.

"My mom's job has kept her busy plus the fact the case she tried to bring against that Quirk therapist never went through pisses her off to no end," wincing, Izuku gave his friend a look.

"If DL ever comes to the mainland and finds out everything, she'll probably have an even worse reaction than your mom," apparently it was not up to the kid to name their Quirk but the Quirk therapist who listened to the description and looked up their parents cases before naming them. The fact Hitoshi's therapist went with Brainwashing had enraged his mom to no end, but for whatever reason the Quirk registry refuses to have an evaluation of his skills.

And they wonder why villains kept appearing. So now his mom can't do anything about Hitoshi being ignored by the teachers and students, because as long as they didn't harm him there was nothing she could do to bring up the injustice.

Izuku tried not to let DL's points about his own mom's inaction appear, but it was hard when he had his classmates mocking him for being Quirkless and his teachers turning a blind eye to the abuse.

He just wished Kacchan still liked him, he missed the days where Kacchan didn't look at him with contempt.

"That is if she doesn't believe what everyone else does," Izuku gave him a look.

"Remember the Harry Potter book where you asked her thoughts on the Imperio and she said, done with the right intentions it can save a lot of lives?" Hitoshi shut up at that.

Keiyu grimaced as she stared at the fence in front of her, looking at the dirt on the other side and recalling her naive five year old self who had done everything she could to get the other kids to like her.

Maybe she should just call it a day?

Glancing at her watch, she sighed at the time, it had only been an hour since she entered the forest and it was only seven in the morning.

Just till lunch, she told herself, you can last till lunch, technically the forest wasn't even that big because it was on the island. So it won't take all that long to walk through it, and her ability made it so that she wouldn't get lost.

Ok, she can do this.

Around noon she stumbled out of the forest and brushed herself off, her stomach growling which confused her as she had already eaten lunch.

Mama wasn't home when she came in, and she found herself going to the guest room which was decorated with various sea shells and had a jar of sand in the corner. Not knowing why, she reached into the jar and grabbed a handful, bringing it out and swallowing it.

Wait.

Immediately she wanted to spit it out, because it tasted horrible, but the sand seemed to disappear in her mouth as a chime sounded, but it wasn't the Level-Up she expected.

"Quest Alert! Go to the eye-glass store and request new glasses, current ones no longer sufficient for Level Up," wait, how was she going to persuade Mama to get her new glasses?

Then her eyesight got blurry even with the pink ones and she had to take them off, only to cringe at how bad her eyesight was without them.

When Mama came home, she was not happy when Keiyu admitted to not being able to see with her glasses, but considering Grandma was also with her, the green haired woman said she would make an appointment and disappeared into the other room.

"It's common for some to have to change glasses, especially when they read in the dark," she gave her Grandma a sheepish smile at the pointed sentence.

Mama brought her there the next day and they managed to have her fitted with glasses that were ready within the hour instead of waiting several weeks (she had a feeling it was due to Grandma's presence.) They gave her the glasses in their case and they all went home.

She went to her room while the other two got dinner ready, taking out the glasses and staring at them for a moment, frowning as she realized Mama had made them pink, again.

"Seriously?" then the sensation from before appeared and she ended up swallowing her new glasses, feeling weird that she didn't even choke on them as they dissolved before reaching her throat.

"Congratulations! You are now Level 5! Your upgraded glasses are ready for use," a bubbling sensation appeared in her throat and she spit it out, staring at the now violet frames that were on the floors.

Don't freak out, don't freak out.

She took a calm breath went under her bed with a pillow, and screamed into it.

Just when she thought she was getting a hold of her new ability, this happened!