Chapter 3

In the past, Kaori had often wondered what life was like for the wealthy with no responsibilities. It must be nice, she had thought, to be able to cruise through life without needing to study nor work, and to spend her days bumming around at home with the air conditioning on.

Fortunately for her, her wish had come true. Babies had no such responsibilities, and the only expectations placed upon her were to drink baby formula and sleep at designated times. She killed those expectations with ease, not that it was anything to brag about.

Her carefree lifestyle had come at a price — boredom. Her parents had started playing kid shows on the TV every day, something Kaori had been thrilled about initially. Her eyesight had returned gloriously some time ago, allowing her to finally take in the finer details of life. The shows themselves, however, left a lot to be desired. She tried her best to pay attention to them, she really did — it was her best bet at learning Japanese, after all; but there was only so much she could endure, and after the fiftieth time of watching a cartoon dog teach the Japanese words for different colors she dipped.

Kaori would secretly switch the channels and turn down the volume whenever her parents looked away, which was quite often given how independent she was. The news channel was her favorite, something she never would've thought to be possible. In a world where quirks and heroes were real, the news channel was as entertaining as TV shows, if not more. Despite not understanding anything that was said by the anchor, she had a good time watching heroes take out the villains live. Even better, she found that she recognized some of the heroes from the show, and it was incredible to watch them in action even though it was still through a screen.

Watching the heroes show off their quirks was awe-inspiring. Kaori couldn't tear herself away. She admired the way they utilized their quirks in such creative ways — she never could've imagined how powerful some seemingly weak quirks could be when used to their full potential. It only made her anticipate the coming of her own quirk that much more and she wasn't sure if she had the patience to wait until she was four years old.

Finally, her free reign over the television ended when her parents caught her watching the news with a mesmerized expression. They panicked immediately, an expected reaction. The remote's placement had been changed to the top of a tall shelf and her TV consumption was heavily monitored as a result. Thus, Kaori's connection to the outside world was sadly severed, and she had to entertain herself with kiddie channels once again. She wanted to see more quirks, dammit. Her father very rarely used his quirk, and no matter how carefully Kaori observed his everyday movements, she never got to see him show off his quirk for more than a few minutes at a time. She doesn't understand why. If she had a quirk, no matter how weak, she'd make damn sure everyone around her knew what it was at all times.

To make matters worse, her mother hadn't shown any signs of having a quirk at all. At least, if she did have one, it wasn't blatantly obvious. Both her parents had jet black hair and dark eyes, not much different than the Japanese people she had met in her previous life. With how wacky some hair colors and eye colors can be in the MHA world, Kaori was mildly disappointed, even though she hadn't yet seen herself in a mirror yet.

It was quite a shocking revelation. She still had no clue what she looked like in this life. Granted, she was probably an ugly baby still and there wasn't much to see, but she was deathly curious still.

So, she gave herself a new quest. To find a mirror and see just how ugly of a baby she was. She crawled around, looking for a reflective surface. The television was one, but it wasn't clear enough for her, at least not color-wise.

Kaori wandered around aimlessly, still not exactly familiar with the layouts of the house. Her parents had baby-proofed everything exceedingly well and many rooms were off-limits. She grumbled to herself in annoyance — she had probably come across a mirror at one point and just hadn't paid attention to it.

Eventually, she had made her way back to the living room empty-handed. Was she just cursed to live in a mirror-less house forever? She climbed up on the sofa and crossed her arms petulantly, feeling unsatisfied.

From the sofa, she noticed something on the coffee table in front of her. Some papers, mugs, and most importantly, pictures! She could see an open photo album too, lying next to all the scattered photos.

They had been making a photo album! How cute. It was so utterly domestic that she couldn't help but smile.

After swiping off some of the photos and causing a mess, she clumsily gathered them in a semi-neat pile next to her.

She checked her parents' whereabouts before starting. Her mom was cooking, and her dad was doing the laundry, which meant she could take her time. After the television fiasco, she was afraid of doing anything abnormal and standing out even more.

The first few pictures didn't reveal much. Most were just her mom with a baby bump at various stages of her pregnancy. The first baby picture she found of herself showed Kaori at the hospital with her eyes closed. Her head was also devoid of any hair whatsoever. Oh well, it was expected.

She flipped past some more. Why were her eyes closed in so many of them? It was starting to get annoying.

Then finally, at the bottom of the pile, she found one with a clear shot, a more recent one of her with the crinkly panda. Her eyes were wide open, and to her surprise, were a pale blue. She did a double-take and took a closer look. Definitely blue. The few tufts of hair on her relatively bald hair were also not black as she had expected, but almost white?

Odd, but she had heard babies' eye color and hair color changed as they grew up. Perhaps this was the case here? The hair she had was sparse anyway, so it might've looked paler than it actually was. She was surprised her parents weren't concerned about this at all though, but then again, in the world where quirks were real this didn't seem to be that much of a stretch. Genetics was weird anyway, and she who wasn't a biology major didn't want to think too far into it.

That didn't stop her from admiring the pictures for a while — her appearance had changed quite a fair bit from her in her past life, and she wanted to know what she'd look like once she had grown up a little bit. Besides, it was quite interesting to see herself in baby form. There was something about it that was odd and unsettling almost.

Today was Kaori's first birthday, and they were having a mini party with just the three of them to celebrate. It had always struck her as odd how her family never invited anyone over, not even extended families or even family friends, not even for momentous milestones such as her birthday. Some people just liked their solitude, she supposed.

Kaori was no expert on the developmental process of babies, and as such wasn't sure at what age they began to talk. She was deathly afraid of talking too soon and being assumed to be mentally gifted or something absurd; being put in school early than she has to be was her worst nightmare. She thought saying her first words on her first birthday would be perfect.

The kid's shows she had been forced to watch for so long had finally come of use. She had managed to figure out from context the Japanese words for mom and dad and was determined to say it perfectly.

Thus, just as she finished blowing out her candles, she looked at her parents straight in the eye and said her first words to them: mom and dad.

Shocked and blank expressions were what she was rewarded with.

Kaori gave them a large smile, but panicked internally. While her pronunciation was no doubt inaccurate, she thought it was at least understandable. She had even spent hours muttering the words as practice in the crib at night.

Then, their expressions cleared, and she watched as they morphed into identical ones of pure joy and excitement.

Many videos and bribes later — they tried very hard to get her to repeat the performance, but she only wanted cake — they wrapped up the party and went to bed with smiles on their faces.

She ran the events of the day through in her mind instead of watching the mobile spin for the thousandth time. She had a great day.

While her parents here would never truly replace her first ones, she could feel her love for them grow steadily each and every day. It was a dangerous feeling in a way, and Kaori was afraid. She was afraid that the distinction between her previous life and this one would one day grow thin and disappear. That she would somehow lose her memories the longer she stayed in this world. Her mental image of herself and her parents in the past life was beginning to blur, and the memories of them felt more like a fever dream than something she actually experienced — like she was watching a movie of her own life.

She never thought she had made a large impact on the world, but her life must've had some meaning at least, no matter how small it might've been. To think that it was all for naught was unfathomable.

The moment she gets some paper and pens she was going to write down everything she could remember, and all the events she could recall from the show. There was no chance of her forgetting who she was, even if everyone else had as well; she wouldn't allow it.

She wanted to make a mark on this world. To make a deep undeniable etch right in the center, where people would point at it and say, look, that's Kaori's doing.

In a world where superpowers were real, how hard could that be? She just needed to rise above and beyond everyone else, All Might and Izuku included. With all the knowledge from her past life intact, she had a great advantage and wasn't about to squander it. It might be a selfish reason for becoming a hero, but she had a tough time believing that everyone else only had altruistic motivations in mind.

She made a fist with her tiny hand. The villains had better watch out, for Kaori was coming for them.

A/N: I'm sure you guys will be happy to hear that this chapter will be the last one with baby Kaori. I'm sure ya'll are super bored of her getting nothing done lol. She'll be aged up in the next chapter and the story will start for real. Anyway, thanks for the reviews! I appreciate them! :D

Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be up in about a week or so.