Dragon of Cold Fury

Chapter 1

I did not suddenly 'wake up', as it were, not quite. My reincarnation was different, memories I gained growing up that were set in the back of my mind, waiting until now, the time that I gain the last of them, and shifting the perception of them entirely. Now, I recognize them as memories of another life, where this world now would have been fiction.

On the other hand, they are also more than a decade old, thus having lost much of the emotional connections, and of someone only a few years older than me. In other words, I do not care enough about that life to chase after the near impossibility of going back.

But the experience of having lived without the instincts of a dragon in the back of my head are useful.

It adds a bit of perspective, gives me a bit of empathy with other people. Even if they, I, were a teenager then, and thus not fully developed. I get angrier more easily, now, and the emotion is a bit different itself. I'm more possessive now. Stereotypical 'dragon' things are greater, as it were.

Ah, yes, the most extreme change. Quirks. Genetic superpowers, as it were, from that one anime/manga in that life. Mine, I inherited the best of from the four my grandparents had. A variable transformation into a Dragon, biological immortality including perfect, albeit slow, regeneration, and creation, though not manipulation, of ice.

Of course, all of these abilities have their drawbacks, most general my stamina. However, the first requires me to allow the draconic instincts a greater presence in my mind. My regeneration, at least for now, cannot help with immediately fatal wounds, we assume.

Still, even before training, it is one of the strongest and versatile Quirks on record. I can recognize a bit of arrogance I have, due to both being a dragon and knowing the former, though I do not believe myself to be nearly as bad as that blond boy.

On the other hand, my family knows how to deal with dragons. I know how to control myself, and their blunting of my ego is only helped by the memories of my past life.

Humming to myself, I shake off those thoughts and get on with my day. It's ten months to the entrance exams for U.A. and I know that I need to start training, somehow. I don't know if I will be in the year of the green boy, but Villains will be Villains, and there will always be strong ones around.

XXXXX

After getting done with school and the homework from it, I started looking for a place to train. My first thought was for that one beach used by the green boy, but as a local new report confirmed, he will be using it this year. That beach is his and I will not be taking it from him.

Then I started looking into other places that are technically public, but not in quite the same way as where Quirk use is illegal. Looking through the laws and various pieces of history, I'm reasonably certain that, due to how various reforestation via Quirks got around that, there's enough of a gray area, as it were, around them that they shouldn't get me in trouble with the law for it.

Well, so long as I don't damage anything, anyway. I should be okay, any sort of basic equipment I can make out of ice. And it will work as extra training for that ability.

And that's where I'm headed right now. With the strongest use of my Quirk that is still subtle, additional scales, sharper teeth and claws, longer horns and tail, etc., I jog. Well, for most people, it would be a bit more than that. Right now, I'm training to maintain a certain 'level' of enhancement, as it were.

It is going okay, but I continually need to concentrate on the balance of control and power. Too much and I either start growing the beginnings of wings, or the transformation fades away.

It seems that it will be more effective than I thought, for something just off the top of my head.

Crossing into the forest, I discover the need to be far more careful, and thus slower and more concentration for the transformation, as the ground isn't level like pavement is. Dirt, rocks, roots, all of that can be dangerous until I get used to moving at faster speeds.

Gradually, I get used to it, though I know it will be a long time until I master the skill.

Since the forest was planned out, all the clearings throughout have been mapped. Placed at strategic spots, they were designed to be beautiful spots, generally along the path of some kind of trail. That said, many are also placed both deeper and not quite as easy to access, and it is to one of the larger of those that I am headed.

Ahead of me, I see the forest lightening, another benefit of the transformation being enhanced senses. Slowing down and walking through the tree line, I take a look around.

A rather nice area, it looks like it could hold my entire house with room to spare. A bit of a mishappen ovaloid, a few larger rocks spread around and the ground covered in soft grass and moss, with a small stream running through one 'corner', as it were.

With an odd sort of shifting of control, I allow myself to transform entirely into Dragon Form. Even after experiencing another life without the ability, it is hard to describe control over the mental and physical shifts involved. It's sort of, rather than limiting the presence of those particular instincts, I instead control my actions based around them.

I suppose the closest comparison is how you might 'allow' yourself to feel fear, compared to how you act on that fear.

As a dragon, I am somewhere between 6-7 meters long, with all other measurements being in proportion. I am also pure white with red eyes, much like an albino, with my body being based around the shape of Western Dragons. However, I also have fur, like a mane running from my head down and covering my tail, along my legs and stomach, and the front of my wings. Those also differ from the standard, running along my body and down my tail much like the Gold Dragons from DnD.

It came up after I got my Quirk.

Aside from that, I have all the normal features common to dragons. Four legs, claws, sharp teeth, and horns facing backward from my head, following my neck. Much of which are present, albeit smaller, in my human form.

According to my mother, while physical training helps somewhat, and the longevity maintains whatever we train ourselves to, our dragon forms grow larger and stronger as we age, likely being better than whatever I'll manage after a couple of years just by borrowing a portion through the transformation.

And my father's Quirk basically turns him into a Yeti. Thematic as it is, it isn't weak either. And just like his, even my ice gets stronger as I get deeper into the transformation.

So right now, training will just be to get more used to using my Quirk, in both dragon and more humanoid forms. Since the transformation comes in stages, I need to get used to all of them; enhancement of traits, wings, and full dragon.

Looking around again, the clearing isn't really big enough to fly, not for me. I'm just too large, even in my 'half-sized' form, as it were. Somewhere around three meters long, where the rest of it is just growing larger. I might manage to fly at the winged stage, but I wouldn't count on it.

Well, if that's out, I can still use my ice. I've seen a lot of Heroes, so there is a lot of material to work with. Forming barriers, weapons, terrain advantage, even stabilizing buildings and possibly patching injuries in emergencies.

Ice is versatile in its own right, so long as you don't just try to brute force everything.

Other than that, the only other thing I can work on is using Dragon Form for things other than flying.

I've flown a little, when my mother managed to get access to specific areas, especially around mountains. But even for Heroes, there are laws about where and when you can fly at the sizes we get to. They need to account for planes in the airspace, after all.

XXXXX

The next ten months passed quickly, even with everything I had to do. The downside of versatility is even more to work on, but I like my Quirk. I've managed to get the hang of keeping up roughly the amount of control I want with minimal concentration, and can get to just about any point I wish within moments, but forming more than just basic shapes out of ice is difficult.

Walls and spikes are fine, but anything more complicated than a triangle on a stick is difficult and prone to falling apart. Ice forms as crystals, and those are easy to make into basic geometric shapes, but creating ice sculptures and anything mechanical will take a lot of practice, if I can do it at all.

But training has gone well.

Today is the day of the entrance exam, and the main character inherits All Might's Quirk.

I pause for a moment, considering that. I hadn't actually thought that much about it before now, but I wonder how that works? Obviously, something like a virus that overwrites the hosts' Quirk DNA, considering what Quirks are, but I don't know much beyond that.

Never mind, it's not my Quirk, I don't have to worry about it. What I have to worry about, is the written test that I need to pass to even take the physical exam.

I know I can pass the test, I prepared for that as well, but my Quirk doesn't make me any smarter. Whereas I know that my Quirk is perfectly suited for Hero work. Though honestly, most of the nervousness that comes from that is from the other life. Dragons do not fear.

XXXXX

In the end, I did well. I managed somewhere in the top 10%, more than passing the cutoff. Not that I know the exact numbers, but that's fine.

And the presentation about the exam was interesting. That blue haired kid was rather uptight, hopefully he doesn't take it too far. Nerves are fine, going full LAW is not.

Shaking my head, I let my transformation wash over me. For now, I'll leave it at the wings stage. What I need here is mobility, which means being lighter and better able to turn corners.

Full Dragon is faster in a straight line, but takes slightly longer to get up to speed. There's just more mass to it than my humanoid forms. Gliding is also a better choice than flying for now, mostly due to stamina. Cities aren't known for the pressure differentials that make flying easier.

With my now-greater hearing, I note and discard several comments about my change in form, while listening out for the– there!

I launch myself almost-explosively from my position just as I hear the "START!" from Present Mic, cracking the ground as I go.

On my hands I form clawed gauntlets, mostly for a bit of extra reach. My own claws are actually a bit sharper than I can make while limiting myself as I am, but they wouldn't get far enough in to damage the robots enough.

The 1-pointers, I notice, are 'flimsy', as it were. That's not exactly true, but compared to the others, their armor is closer to aluminum than steel, and their weapons don't even scratch my scales. The ice claws can get through the armor of all of them, but need repaired after a 2- or 3-pointer.

Still, I am making good time. On one street, before anyone else arrived, I even briefly turned into my full Dragon Form and Breathed, icing it over and causing spikes to impale every robot on it.

At other times, I would catch various pieces of debris from falling onto other students, when their or their opponents' attacks go awry.

The time passed quickly, as is normal in a fight. Including that street, which wasn't all that populated, I got somewhere around 40 points.

In spite of myself, I was having fun. This is the first time I've been able to fight, and it feels better than I'd have thought. I even caught my control slipping, my mouth beginning to turn into a muzzle, with a grin very much present and vicious.

And then the 0-pointer showed up, crashing through buildings, and things got very confusing, very quickly.

I remember going Full Dragon, picking up the other students that were too slow to escape the giant robot, and then getting away as quickly as possible. I might have iced over one of the treads it had, but I don't know if that did anything to it, and the moment was lost in the adrenaline.

And then the exam ended, the teachers shepherding the students who aren't injured into the busses and on our way home.

Our results will be sent to us through the mail in a week. The deadline for last minute Hero Course submissions for Shiketsu and other, smaller academies is a week after that, with the general idea being to poach any 'hidden talent', as it were.

XXXXX

"With 49 Villain points and 24 Hero points, for a total of 73; I wish to congratulate you, Tatsuya Shirou, on joint third place," the not-mouse that will be my new principle said. "We look forward to seeing you become a splendid Hero."

Nodding to myself, pleased, I bring the projector downstairs to my parents to tell them the good news.

XXXXX

Okay, that's the first chapter. Sorry for the short chapter, but as in the actual show, not much happened in those ten months, and the character here is not getting involved overmuch with many other people.

For those of you who noticed it, yes that was deliberate. No, I don't really have a reason for it. I just decided to have it be a thing.

Onto some of the other things about the story, this is a Jumpchain. More specifically, this is the First Jump on the Chain. The Quirk Marriage here is Myth – Dragon, form as described in-story – Longevity – with additional, thematic abilities due to being an effective tier 3 – Beast – the werewolf thing being overwritten by Dragon – and Ice Cube – also with increased effectiveness, but keeping the limitation of ice having to originate from the user.

And, as per Beast, all abilities are limited in effect to the level of transformation. While even in base form Ice Cube works about as well as a tier 1 Quirk, it is far better in Dragon Form. The regeneration is stronger, though nowhere near the same as the dedicated Quirk. Etc.

Aside from the Quirk, the character I'm going for is roughly me, if I knew little to nothing after the Training Camp, and then didn't look at it again for about a year when they started the jump. The memories and knowledge they had was saved as of their last moments in that life, but the jump itself didn't give them any additional information.

Oh, and if any of you are interested, his grandmother is around 80-90 years old, but looks to be 30 at worst, and as her biological advancement has halted at around the same, that's how they know about the immortality Quirk.

His great-grandfather, who had a somewhat weaker version of Myth, changed his last same to Tatsuya, which means Dragon. Yes, his full name in the western order would basically translate to "White Dragon." He's heard all about it. Yes, I know I'm an uncreative hack.

Oh, and one last thing. What do you think should be his nickname from Bakugo? I'm honestly leaning towards Snow Lizard, being diminutive about all of his Quirk, but I'd like to hear from you. I'm sure you could think of something better.