This is my first MHA story that is in dedicated to my favourite cousin, who has assisted in helping me with creating this story despite the fact that we are miles apart. We are both big weebs in the MHA world, and I am very happy to have worked on this with her (and not my up-tight story advisor). Please leave a comment below of what you think of the first chapter, and please follow up on the other fanfics that I've written of the anime Bungou Stray Dogs.

Enjoy!

Note: I own the OC characters in this chapter (All Might & Rappa not included), and I do not own the MHA (or Bungou Stray Dogs) series.

Prologue

My name is Jessie Allen, like every boy and girl in my preschool with quirks, we all wanted to be heroes when we grew up. We all wanted fame, money, popularity, and to be respected and loved by everyone who saw out quirks as something special. Well, I never wanted that, at least not at first. When I just turned 12 years old and around my first semester of middle school, after I saw All Might's first debut on the news, I slowly began to realise that being a real hero meant more than any of those things. Being a hero meant risking your own life for others, even when the fight may appear to be hopeless, there would always be a reason to keep on fighting. Since then, I have stuck with that mindset for what I heroes meaning was.

Throughout my middle school years, I worked hard to get into the best hero-course on the planet, it was every kid's dream school; UA High. After graduating, I transferred to Japan to get enrolled and I was able to pass the entrance exam with flying colours. Even with having an average quirk like mine, after 3 long years and around a year after I graduated UA, I started to make a name for myself in Hous City as, The Teleport Hero "Shifter." Whenever there was a call in my office, no matter whether it was very big or small, I'd take it. I have saved hundreds of lives, made relationships with the civilians, and have made many close friends in the hero business. Every day when I was on the job, I felt that all the hard work and determination I had to put into reaching for this dream, had become worth something to me that I would never want to lose. I was happy.

However, that all changed a year later. There came rumours from Musutafu that a student from UA was kidnapped after he vanished and was missing from class for several days. My office was one of the many in Japan that volunteered to help find them, with every pro-hero and sidekick teaming up together to help with the search. 'Mind-Walker', who was a co-worker at my office, had a quirk called "Vibes", this power would allow him to travel through an astral plane where he would be able to sense where the missing student was. However, his quirk would only activate if he held an item that belonged to the student, so we received permission to go through the missing student belongings in his home and class to find items that he frequently touched and used.

After collecting a few of the student's items, Mind-Walker was able to see a glimpse of the memories of where the missing student was and where he was taken. Many hours later in the cover of night a small team of heroes, including me, we're investigating a warehouse on the quiet side of Musutafu. From the glimpses of what Mind-Walker was able to gather, for some unknown reason, the UA student was taken by a Japanese crime syndicate called, "The Eight Precepts of Death". It was supposed to be a quick mission. The plan was for the offensive heroes to assault the enemy and the defence heroes cover fired them while I rescued the student and get him out of the fight since I was the only one with a teleportation quirk. As soon as I got him to safety, I'd join back with them, we'd apprehend the yakuza associates that were involved with the kidnapping and interrogate them for questioning.

However, only half of the plan went along smoothly. One of the villains, who we knew went by the codename "Rappa", made the entire warehouse shake as it began to collapse right on top of us with a single punch as the rest of the yakuza crew retreated. My team was already heading out the door as well, however as I was about to join them, from of the corner of my eye a yakuza operative who wore a white mask with a red scar across his mask's eye, was running towards a briefcase on top of an oil drum just as a massive chunk of the warehouse's ceiling was just minutes away from crushing him.

I don't know why I did it, but instead of running towards the door with the rest of my team, I ran towards the man, trying to get to him before it was too late. The only thoughts I could recall when I was only steps away from him, was that I told myself that I just had to save him. I was a fool. Although the memories of the incident are painful to speak of, the choice I had made that day resolved in me being crushed under the warehouse while the yakuza operative I saved had escaped. Despite japan's best doctors and quirks, in the end, I still had sustained serious injuries to both my left eye, which made me almost unable to see and also my right leg.

While trying to forget about the incident, I had to stay in the hospital and go through rehabilitation to learn to walk again and to get used to my blind eye. Three months later, I was finally discharged from the hospital and was allowed to go back to work. However, on my first day back when I was about to run to my first call in months, I felt my right leg emanating a sharp pain that made it almost unbearable for me to move. I thought it was just some strain from having to take it easy and slow in the rehabilitation trail, but as the day went on, I continued to ignore it. I was struggling to move normally, and I was putting my entire team at risk when we were fighting villains while putting myself in a lot of pain.

In the end, I swallowing my pride and I told my boss, who ordered me to get an examination of my leg and to take time off work before I could come back. The very next day, I was waiting in the hospital waiting for the results on my leg. Throughout the examination, I was quiet as they took tests and scans n my leg, but above all honesty, I was terrified, even when I tried to tell myself not to worry. For some reason, deep down in my gut, no matter how much I tried ignoring it I had a feeling that was telling me I needed to prepare myself for the worse.

When the doctors who examined me finally call me in and me down, from the sad looks on their faces, I knew the worse had come. They told me that my right legs' motor-functions were badly impaired and had deteriorated from the amount of muscle and tissue that was damaged and lost during the incident in Musutafu. He explained to me that even with modern medicine, rehab trails, and the number of healing quirks users, it could take a decade of surgeries to get my leg back to how it used to be. I called my boss to tell him the results on the same afternoon.

A few days afterwards, my boss called me to work. With a disheartened look, he told me that due to my condition, I could no longer be a pro-hero anymore. My world from their crumbled.

(And from there, my life all went to ruin and hell…)

Chapter 1 - The Afterlife of a Pro-Hero

I wake up to the sound of the alarm going off on the nightstand beside the bed. My head was in a daze and my eyes squint open to the dim darkness of my room. I sighed annoyingly as I can see the time on the alarm as it read 8:15 am. 'Man, I'm still tired.' I unconsciously think to myself, letting out a groan as I pulled my arm over my face to rest on my eyes and lay on my bed for a few minutes to gather my thoughts. I soon finally slowly start to move off my bed, sitting up to face the window. Through a crack in my curtains, I catch a glimpse of the horizon illuminating the azure sky before I stood up to turn on the switch to brighten the room.

When I moved back to my home in Chicago, everything I owned before I moved to Japan 5 years was all there. My books, that were alined along with my desk, old photos that I taped to my tall mirror on the wall, my bright floral patterned bedsheets, and even my large poster of All Might. When I first walked in and saw it had remained the same, I felt a little heartache about it looking untouched. I knew that to be a hero back then and go to the best school, I had to leave all of this behind, that including my parents. Thinking about that dumb choice, made me feel disgusted with myself and I immediately took everything down and I only kept the things that were a necessity. I tore down the poster of All Might, I put all the photos in a shoebox hidden in my closet, leaving the mirror bare of them, and I donated most of my books and bedsheets. The only things that stilled remained in this room were my bed (which were now draped in dark sheets), my dresser, shoe rack, and my tall mirror that was still pinned against the wall.

From the light switch beside my door, I walk over to my wooden dresser, opened my draws, and pick out a dark polo top, navy denim jeans, and a moss green jacket, while also a pair of black ankle boots off the shoe rack. As I began taking off my pyjamas, which were an oversized t-shirt with shorts, in the reflection of the tall mirror that faced me next to the side of my bed, I catch a glimpse of the jagged scar that was spread down my right leg. Though it had long healed since the incident, the shading of the scar was darker than my skin and it would always slightly sting whenever I stare at it. From my leg, I then travelled up to my shoulders and face. My ragged white-dyed pixie cut was fluffed up with bedhead and I had light purple sacks under my eyes. I wanted to say aloud that I look like hell, but really if I said that, then I would have no one to blame for that but myself for letting myself go like this.

Almost two years have passed since I retired. I moved back to America to live with my parents in Chicago and had cut all ties with my colleges from my former office in Japan so I could start my life again with a clean slate. So while doing that, I then cut my long blond hair and dyed it white, giving myself a new look that made me look like an entirely different person from the preppie teenager that I was before when I first went to Japan. I sigh at the reflection in the mirror as I then quickly finished changing into my clothes before walking out of the room. I headed downstairs to the kitchen, where my Mom was making breakfast, which was bacon and scrambled eggs on the stove, while my Dad was sitting on the dining room table reading a newspaper and drinking a mug of coffee. "Morning," I greeted them unenthusiastically as I made a direct beeline for the fridge.

"Morning sweetie," my mom greeted me back, turning away from the stove and frying pan to plant me a small kiss on my cheek. Even from my blindspot, I knew what her face looked like when she asked than me in a murmur, "How was your sleep?" I replied to her flatly, "Fine I guess." Grabbing out the milk from the door and closing the fridge, I walk over to one of the cabinets where I pulled out a round stone pale blue bowl. "Really?" As I opened another cabinet to another grab out a box of oatmeal, I can hear Dad speak out from behind me as he then said, "From here your aura looks black. Plus you look like you hardly got any sleep."

My Dad was very heavy-build, with his skin lightly tanned, brown eyes, and his light blond hair in a buzzcut, unlike my Mom who has a very petite figure with pale skin, green eyes, and light brunette hair that was down to her shoulders. He has a quirk called "Aura", which can allow him the see the emotions of others by a coloured-aura that surrounds their body. I already knew a few colours, like if he sees red that usually means either anger or passion, and if he sees yellow it means happiness, curiosity, or admiration. (He tells me it depends how to illuminate it glows or something.) However, with the black aura he pointed out just now, he's not entirely sure what it represents since it's a new colour that he hasn't seen before. Every morning he would tell me what colour aura since I moved back in with them, and never once has he told me that my aura changed into any other colour.

"I got home late last night," I explained as I grabbed myself a spoon and sat down in a chair while preparing my oatmeal. "There was some small quarrel at work. They ended up making the whole club turn into a brawl and the place was a mess by the time everyone settled down and convinced them to leave. Me and the staff almost an hour to clean up, and I had to teleport back here." On the other side of the table across from Dad, I could my Mom sits herself down on the table as she also sets down a glass of water and two large plates of bacon and scrambled eggs for herself and Dad. "What time did you get home?" She asks me. "2 am I think… Not sure." I answered her with a mouthful of oatmeal. "I got to bed at around 3 am after taking a quick shower…" ('…?')

Though I was unsure if my answer was the reason but after telling them that, the table suddenly went quiet. They both give me a certain look on their faces as if they were wanting to tell me something. "…What?" I asked them almost to ring an eyebrow. In unison, they both turned their heads to look at each other before they turned back to me. (When you see any parent do that or even a group of friends giving each other nervous looks before they all turn their eyes on you, you know that it's something not good.) "Your dad and I have been talking for a while," Mom then says to me in a mumble and stuttering over her words as if to think of the right words to say. "…We think it's time that you quit that job." As soon as I hear the words 'quit that job', I let out a silent groan in my mind, cause I know which job she means. After I moved back in with my parents, I started looking for a job so that I could make myself some money to live off and therefore pay them back. Although finding employment was tough and considering that I was an early retired hero with health issues with an empty resume, I wasn't able to find a job in the first few months that would allow me to work in an environment where I could not strain or overwork my leg with heavy lifting or stressful tasks. Luckily soon after, I was offered a few jobs, one of them was an opening job I stumbled across to work as a bartender at a nightclub downtown of Chicago.

I wasn't all too keen about working at a bar at first, but after looking more into the shop's background and hearing a bit of the rumour that was going around about the place, I took the job after consulting with the club's manager and owner the next day. However, when I told my parents, they at once started arguing and they tried to convince me to quit. It took a bit of arguing back and forth, but after some time I made them a deal that I would work at the local diner near our house, that also offered to hire me, so long as I could work at the bar as a night-job. Although they against the idea and were unsure about the deal, they both agreed and allowed me to go through with it. For the past year and a half since then, I've been working at both the diner and the bar from 9 am to 4 and 8 to midnight. Never have I had any problems with working at the club during the night-shifts. Although on occasion I would get eyed by a sketchy-looking customer, I'd always tried to settle the situation as gently and quickly as I could so that I wouldn't be a nuisance to my boss or other colleges at the club. Apart from those days, I had always been sure that I'd never get myself to be involved in a fight. 'So why the hell are they telling me to quit now?'

Dad then speaks as he makes his input on the subject. "I lately spoke to one of my friends who said his boss was looking for new hires." 'Oh no, I know where this is going.' I thought to myself as I held back the urge to roll my eyes to the side. "He works in the pastry business." Mom continues, "They recently opened a delivery service, and he's searching for someone who could do quick deliveries in no time at all." My Dad then cut her off and continued from her. "He brought it up to me when we went to catch up since he already knew about you and your quirk and I said to him that I would talk it over with you after I told your Mom." As I hear him say this, I swallowed down hard my oatmeal as I looked at them in disbelief. I figured they must have planned to tell me this if they were finishing each other sentences like this. "I don't need to change jobs?" I told them, sounding annoyed as I slowly continued chewing my oatmeal so that I would speak clearly to them. "I'm not getting hurt, I'm getting a good salary, I'm not getting into any fights—"

"You also come home late in the night, you look like a zombie when you wake up each morning and you're hardly getting enough sleep." Dad abruptly puts in bluntly giving me a stern look. I see my Mom glare at him as she's chewing on her scrambled eggs, and as if ignoring Dad's comment, she then said to me softly, "We're just worried that you're not taking care of yourself properly enough and are getting overworked. We just thought that you might need a new change of paste."

"We agreed that if I worked at the diner, then I would also be able to work at the club." I reminded them, my voice raising at them a little irately.

"Yes, but we never agreed that we wouldn't try finding better jobs for you to have." Dad puts in again, his voice raised a little higher than mine. I groaned under my breath as I quickly finished my breakfast. "I'm not quitting the diner," I told them both as I pushed myself out of my seat to stand. "and I'm not quitting the club."

"We're only asking you to consider the job and think about quitting." I hear my Mom say behind me while I walk to the sink and put my bowl under the tap to rinse. "We only want what's best for you."

At this stage, I felt annoyed with them and the discussion of trying to help. I know why they would be concerned for me, but come on, I'm a (former) pro hero! If I can survive fighting villains, even with a blind eye and impaired leg, I can survive a couple of hours a night at a bar. I finish rinsing off my bowl and was about to walk out of the kitchen, I told them both in a firm voice, "This is my life, I'm allowed to chose what kind of job I want and I don't need you to tell me no otherwise. I can take care of myself, and I'm old enough to make my own choices."

From behind me, I hear my Dad small snicker as he mumbles under his breath, "We can see that." I stopped walking just as I heard my Mom quietly grumble his name, and I turned back to him and ask him offensively as I slightly elevate my arms from my sides, "What's that suppose to mean?"

"Nothing," He says sarcastically, putting his newspaper down to the side as he pushes away from the table and carries his plate and cutlery to the sink. "I was only thinking that you were referring to the choice you made when you decided to study abroad in Japan. Although I forgot to ask you about it, I didn't understand what was so wrong with the hero courses that were in America that made you want to attend UA."

'God we're doing this again.' I thought to myself letting out an annoyed sigh as I answered. "UA was the best school in the world that had a high acceptance value to students who could past the entrance exams. I wanted to get into the best school the hero course could offer and I knew about the conditions I about studying abroad in Japan."

"What about me and your mother?" As if setting off a spark in him, he raises his voice at me in a powerful tone. "Did you ever think about us, that maybe we never would've wanted you to leave us for 5 long years?!" I was taken aback by his outburst and I took a step back from him. However, immediately a second after I too was enraged and without thinking I yelled, "I wanted to be a hero!" I used the same tone of voice he used on me, and I could feel my lungs expanding in my chest as my voice felt raw. "I wanted to help people!"

"And look where wanting that got you!" He yelled, his voice more beastly than angry. I froze for almost a second of his words just before he keeps going. "You can't run, you're half-blind, you risked your life to save some villain and he didn't get caught in the end! For all we know, that day we could've gotten a call from your work telling us you were killed!" From there, frustration and rage began to build up inside me as I wanted to scream back at him and tell him that I had done some good in the world and why couldn't he see that.

"ENOUGH!" However just as I was about to say something back to him in response, my mom let out a high-pitch scream that shook both me and my dad and made us stop. Although my mom was always the timid one in my family aside, from me and Dad who were very both determined and stubborn, she would step in to resolve the situation before it got worse. However, instead of having the more subtle approach like most of us would take, she would sometimes get panicked about what to do at the moment and she would do something like this without even thinking it through. Apart from Dad, Mom was the only other person who I knew has a more powerful voice that could make a whole room of people freeze in terror.

"Stop it both of you!" Mom yells to us again, this time her voice was a little dialled down as she started taking in some deep breaths to calm herself down. Not because she was angry, but because she barely used an outdoor voice unlike me and Dad do from time to time. She then whips her head to me and I could see your eyes were strangely wide open as she then orders me, "Jessie you need to get ready for work, and you, we need to talk." Mom then grabs Dad's hand and pulls him into the living room past me as I watch them both walk out the sliding screen doors and into the backyard. As soon as they were gone and out of my vision of sight, I let out another irritated sigh as I grit my teeth and headed back upstairs to get my things ready to leave.

The frustration that built in my slowly began to die down, but it remained only because of the words that still echoed in my head. 'You can't run, you're half-blind, you risked your life to save some villain!' 'He's wrong.' I told myself this, I wanted to be right, but deep down I knew what point he was trying to make. I just wished that even after 2 years I would forget about that night so that I could finally try to live my new life in peace.

Later

It's 8:47 am, around this time I take a 15-minute walk from my house to the diner before my shift starts. Even though I could get to my work in no time at all if I use my teleport quirk, my parents told me that if I use my quirk to get to work, I would make myself too lazy (more than I already was) and I could make my leg worse if I don't get the right exercise. I could have ignored their advice and accusation, but I would've if only I didn't already hear this from the doctors who checked my leg after I retired from my office in Japan. This is one of the few reasons, apart from my leg, why I can't use my quirk willy-nilly these days unless necessary.

"Jess." Just as I'm about to walk on the usual route I took, I'm abrupt stopped at the driveway by the voice calling out to me. I turn in the direction of my house where the voice was coming from and I could see my Dad walking down the driveway towards me from my house. "Did she ask you to come to apologise to me?" I asked him bluntly as he wore a less aggravated and more ashamed look on his face. "No, this was my choice." He answers as he stopped a few steps from the driveway in front of me. "I didn't mean to lash out like that to you, I'm sorry."

"Dad, it's alright," I told him, failing to sound like I didn't mean it. "No, it isn't." He snapped back at me hesitantly, trying not to raise his voice. Taking a quick breath, he continues. "It's just, ever since you got back from Japan, for some time, I felt like you've changed. I use to see your aura filled with bright colours, yellow, green, blue, and even red, but now all I see is painful pitch blackness. I missed seeing those colours from you. The only reason why I'm pushing you to talk to me about what happened two years ago is that I'm scared that I don't know what your thinking, and that can't understand what you are feeling. I want you to know that whether it's now or soon, I want us to talk about it and—"

"Dad," I spoke out in a solum tone and cut him off as I tried not to sound annoyed. I needed to cut this conversation short. "Sometimes… words aren't enough to express what people are feeling. I know that you want to help, understand my choices and why I don't stop working at the bar, but as I told you both, this is my life. I want to figure things out for myself on my own…" For long moments there was an uncomfortable silence between us before I then told him that I needed to get to work and that we'd talk more about this later. I turn my back to him, and continued to I take my walk, however as I only took the first 5 steps, "I love you." from behind me I heard my Dad loudly say this from the driveway and I stopped myself abruptly from walking as I slowly turn my head to see him from the corner of my (good) eye. "You know that right?" he asked. Was he expecting me to answer that? The serious stare he gave me suggested that he did. 'Love you too.'

"I know." That was all I said to him, in a mumble that I know that was loud enough for him to hear. Without even waving him goodbye, I turned my head away from him and continued walking down the path. He didn't call back to me, so I assumed that whether he went back inside or he was just standing on the driveway and watching me leave. Either way, I didn't turn my head back around to check.

Although I know my parents mean well when they tell me these things, like quitting my job or finding a better one, I'm always the person who is too stubborn to listen to anyone else but herself. I'm pretty much the most stubborn person that I know, and Dad I guess knew that too. I can never be open about my feelings or be honest with anyone who tries to help me even though I might need it. I never want people to get too close to me, and I never want them to treat me as if I'm still a young child that needs a shoulder to cry on.

He was right about one thing though, I have changed. From the happy, hopeful young teenager that I was, I turned into a woman who treated the world as if it wasn't going to do me any favours for what I'd already done to ruin my life as a pro. If the incident wasn't a good enough reason for my change, then I changed because I wanted to make a new start, to forget all about the life I lost, erase that childish dream and maybe find some kind of closure to keep me sane. But I guess even heroes can't closure that easily.

End Chapter 1

Disclaimer:

(I'm not sure if I'm the only one that agrees, but I think I did a pretty sloppy job at making the first chapter of my first MHA story...)

I want to let you readers know that I am not planning on making a second chapter of this story until next year after I finished completing part 1 of "The Girl Who Wanted No Gift". I have so many ideas, so can't say for sure when I will next post, but I hope that I will be able to work on this with my cousin further since this is the only thing that could keep us both together in contact during these troubled times in 2020. I'll be posting monthly to weekly in my profile if you want to hear anything more about my progress in stories and chapters.

Thank You for reading, Ryan F0ster!