He wasn't kidding about the pain. I must have screamed for like 6 minutes before it subsided.

I then passed out for the rest of the day.

That is all.

...

When I came to, it was Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining, the sky was clear and blue, birds were singing, the whole nine.

And I was mad.

Well not really. I wasn't mad at anything, at least. I just had a bunch of energy that felt mad, just swirling around me. It felt natural, too. Like it had been there for a while.

I opened my mouth to ask what it was. Gojo answered before the words left my mouth.

"Cursed energy. In my world, everyone has it. It's powered by negative emotions, after all, which everyone has. However, only sorcerers could use cursed energy. For everyone else, it just collected until it manifested into curses."

"Curses?"

"Picture biblical demons, but worse, because they don't pretend to be angels of light."

"Ah."

"Yeah, they look pretty nasty," Gojo said, pausing a bit to reminisce. "At any rate, sorcerers fought them forever, and curses spawned forever using cursed energy. Which you now have."

I wondered if having cursed energy would spawn curses as I rolled out of bed and opened the door so mom and I could start our routine. However, Gojo was quick to inform me that because of my status as a sorcerer, combined with the fact that it would be treated as a quirk in this world, I would have nothing to worry about in that department.

Mom looked at me funny for the entirety of the morning. When I asked her what it was, she said, "Something feels different about you. Not anything bad, just ... different."

I wondered if I would be unrecognizable to her if I got as strong as possible.

...

"What music do you listen to?" Gojo asked as I got my food for lunch with my mom. It was a type of Katsudon-fusion with ramen that was surprisingly good. Blasphemy, but good.

Usually, whatever's on the radio.

"You use a radio at this time."

Yeah, so sue me.

"Ok, so since you don't have a taste, how about you make a playlist of some heavy metal and rap music? I'll explain when we get home."

"Sure, I could do that I guess," I said, as I started eating.

"You're looking this more than I thought you would," mom said as she used her powers to eat her dumplings with ease."

"People sin because the sin tastes good," I replied after finishing half the dish before coming up for air.

"You know, if you're not willing to experiment with things, you'll never know what could lie waiting on the horizon for you, which is bad if you're still trying to be a hero," she quipped at me.

"Yeah, I guess your right."

...

"Now I know you're wondering why I told you to make a playlist of angry music for you right now."

"Yeah," I admitted. "I mean, I had to use mom's phone for it, and some of the songs have bad words in them, so I would like an explanation before she finds out and everything goes bust."

Gojo snickered a bit. "I'll tell you after you answer this question."

"I'm scared now."

"C'mon, it'll be quick I swear." I heard the smirk in his voice but thought out my trust.

"Does this hurt?"

This was followed by a smacking sound, and then incredible pain erupted through my everything for a second. Think of a hot flash, but you are also on fire, which is everywhere on your body.

As I crumbled to the ground and cried, Gojo yelled his apologies.

And I never trusted him again.

He also didn't ask for the rest of the day, electing to just fiddle around with it until he was satisfied with the level of discomfort I was feeling.

I'm starting to realize Gojo is not the best person.

...

"Gojo, why did you do that?"

"Oh, you're talking to me again. I was beginning to think that after a week-"

"Think nothing except the reason, Gojo. I only asked why you would do that off of your previous things being good for me in some way. If I'm not satisfied, I'll-"

"Do what, exactly? Nothing changes for me if you stop talking to me, and you lose in the long run. Unless you don't want to be a hero anymore?"

I cursed. He was right; he had been fine just showing up in my dreams and showing off: I, on the other hand, would have to give up on my dreams of being a hero, which would only be doubly frustrating because of my current predicament.

"Just say it," I said, hearing the edge in my voice. The frustration must have been leaking into my present. Gojo paid it no mind.

"To use my ability to its fullest, you must be able to use your quirk subconsciously, effectively coating yourself in cursed energy at all times. Currently, you can only feel it leaking out of you, right? The cursed energy."

"Yes ..." I said, curious to see where he was going with it.

"See, we don't want that to happen, because that means you can't use all of your cursed energy to its full extent, on top of naturally having smaller pools than what you would have otherwise. So what you have to learn to do, then, is to learn to constantly circulate cursed energy around you at all times, which would help your physical and mental fortitude without actually stunting your growth.

"The only problem is that I couldn't punish you for failing. So I needed to get creative."

"So, what did you do, slap my nerves or something?"

"Basically. Just injected cursed energy into them."

"... Did torture happen a lot in your world with this method?"

"I'd imagine. Anyways as I was saying, now I have all I need to properly train you!"

"Wait," I said, remembering something. "Why do I need the music?"

"For the distraction."

"I see," I said when I thought of something.

"You realize I could've just lived life and done this, right? Like it's not like I don't have school to do, especially with midterms coming this time of the month. And did you even teach me how to circulate it in the first place?

I heard the sweat drop in his voice.

"Yeah, that would be easy to start with, huh?"

"Yeah, you should've started with that, huh? Just kind of invalidated all of those reasons."

"Eh..."

"It's cool though. the pain thing will come in handy anyways."

"Right."

"..."

"..."

"Still a complete waste though."

"Knock it off."

...

"Ok, so to start with, circulating the energy," Gojo said, as I was walking to school. Bakugo was next to me, so perhaps he thought the awkward energy I could feel myself blasting out was as good a time as any.

"Anything to-" shit.

"What'd you say, you damn nerd?" Bakugo asked though it felt like he was suppressing a yell. Too early, maybe.

"A-ah... nothing Bakugo," I muttered. I thought his face fell a bit when he heard his last name, but he walked up before I could tell.

"...So anyways," Gojo said with amusement, "What you want to do is picture that your heart is a bottle."

After doing that, he said, "Put the negative emotions you are feeling right now into the bottle so that you stop leaking."

Oh-kay... I thought as I tried to picture bottling my embarrassment. It worked, and the energy stop leaking.

"Alright, cool," Gojo said with an audible clap.

This... kind of hurts, I thought as I started sweating, my armpits pricking as the glands come to life. Like it doesn't want to be contained.

"Yeah, it has that tendency," Gojo chipped up. "Cursed energy is negative and unpleasant emotions which you don't usually have bottled up. It usually at least feels bad. On the bright side, unless you use some sort of huge technique, it's very hard to run out of cursed energy, although everyone has a limit."

"Now imagine that bottle has pipes, leading to different areas of your body. These pipes, of course, loop back around in the bottle, so that you don't leak cursed energy."

It's so hard to control it, I thought as a light blue light started flowing from my chest, before sputtering out

"You not supposed to force it," Gojo said. "You're supposed to guide it. No hard turns in circulating blood now, right?"

"Mmhmm," I mused to myself. Realizing what I did a second later, I glanced at Katsuki. He had walked ahead enough to not hear.

"So just focus on turning the cursed energy around your body. You're also using way too much at your current skill level, so try using less, a 'happy medium' if you will."

After a few minutes, I decided this wasn't working.

"I'm changing the metaphor," I told Gojo, not caring if Bakugo heard me or not.

"Feel free."

I pictured a water bucket being emptied over my head. The water rushes over me, covering every surface until a fine screen sticks to me. Nothing is affected by this, other than me. Even the ground is dry.

I'm the only one that is wet, and so no one cares.

I feel my eyes get wet as I open them. I don't see anything has changed about me. I certainly feel stronger though.

Gojo tells me to go punch a wall. I take a running start as I close the gap a lot faster than I normally would in the best of circumstances, and punch a hole through it with relative ease.

"Huh," Gojo says as a squeal builds inside me. I finally have a...

"Nooo, my drink!"

I hear a slosh as I turn around to see a colored drink heading my way. Tea, I think. I realize I can't dodge it in time and throw my hands up so that the uniform takes the brunt of the damage and wait for it to get ruined.

And wait...

And wait... this is taking too long.

I look through my hands and see that the fluid has effectively stopped dead in front of me. I feel my cursed energy leaving my body, but still invisibly circulating.

The woman, a girl with horns, says "I'm sorry about the drink. Still, that's a pretty good quirk you have there."

I mutter my thanks as she walks away, and the squeal in my throat reaches a fever pitch.

I like to imagine that no one heard me jumping and screaming for joy, but judging from the way that the shop owner looked at me, at least one person saw.

But you know what? That's fine. I feel amazing. I am amazing.

Look out, world. Izuku has a quirk.


Hey. I didn't know this was an actual thing but dang, this is convenient.

Anyways, I'll be responding to Alkorian today. Tonight. It's 4:33 as I'm writing this. I just came back from a mission trip and my sleep schedule's already fucked. Lol.

Anyways, the chapters will come out around two weeks after each other, at least, two weeks is when I start writing. You might see a lul when school starts but for now, I'm trying to keep a schedule.

Also, if you don't tell me the mistakes I'm making, you realize I can't change them, right? Not that I mind you being honest with me, just feels a bit pointless when I don't know where they are or what they are. Hit me up on my DM's about it. We'll talk.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter and now I simply must die in my bed, because I copped Covid on the mission trip I went on last week. My symptoms are a cough and depression.

Although there's a case to be made that I always was, I mean I'm a drawer and a fanfic writer. That says things about a person.

Gm y'all.