This story is written with a lot of different purposes in mind. It might be kind of confusing, but I don't intend for it to come off that way. So, I will be trying to write in the most clear and concise way possible without giving away every little secret. Hopefully you all enjoy! That said, I will only be including warnings and disclaimer in this chapter. All author notes, if any, will be found at the end of the chapters. Thank you.
Warnings: Language, mature themes, graphic depictions of violence, potentially triggering content, original characters, Self-Insert-Original-Character
Disclaimer: I do not own Boku no Hero Academia or any works affiliated or produced by Horikoshi Kohei. All original characters and content written in this story is of my own creation.
Can you ever be a hero if all you cause is pain?
"Kaguya Akimitsu."
"Present."
"Kiyosa Haru."
"Present!"
"Kubo Momoe."
"Present," I responded.
If being reborn into a new life in a world where people are born with abilities that surpass even the wildest imagination has taught me anything, it's that school is just as boring the second time around.
Growing up again really sucks.
On the plus side I'm not making as many mistakes as I did in the past. On the downside, I'm making entirely new ones.
"Togata Mirio."
But more on that later.
"Present!" the blond to my left cheerily replied, a huge grin on his face.
In my past life, middle school was the turning point where my rose-tinted glasses came off and I realized everything around me was crumbling down in dark greys and deep blacks. From the fights I'd overhear my mom and step-dad having to witnessing my older brother come home with a broken nose and black eye, the skin on his knuckles shredded and bleeding.
It also started the long train of thoughts of I'm not good enough, I hate life, I can't do anything, I'm nobody, I'm-
In the end, I made a lot of first mistakes in middle school. Like getting detention because I wasn't turning in my assignments. Or, punching a hole in my bedroom wall that I covered with a random poster because of these overwhelming feelings I didn't understand, much less knew how to control.
This new life of mine, despite the fact that it made me dizzy and often times near hysterical (squash it down, squash it all down, ignore it, ignore it) because of how often I overthought its possibilities and what it meant for myself, it gave me a chance at a do-over. One that I have always wanted, craved, needed.
But that didn't mean I wanted to be thrown right into the middle between two characters that would show up in an anime I used to watch.
Literally.
If it hadn't been for Mirio - er, Togata - leaning over his desk and shooting a thumbs up and wide grin in my direction but not aimed at me but the person to my right, I would have never remembered that Tama. . . jiki? Tamajiki? was also a highlighted character in the series as part of the strongest students at UA.
The fact that I was seated right between them at a totally ordinary middle school?
Well, how's that for exciting and extremely terrifying.
Exciting because wow I get to be up close to not only one but two real life anime characters that aren't an animation any more but actual flesh and blood and terrifying because I'm in an actual anime and I think my brain might explode, I can't believe this is really happening.
As it was, I couldn't do anything about either conflicting feeling because it was my first day of attending middle school all over again and I was much more focused on getting over my trepidation of doing things right this go round.
Though, that didn't account for Mirio leaning over my desk any chance he got to talk to his more timid counterpart who was practically shaking in his seat. Now, it wouldn't have bothered me so much if it wasn't for Mirio getting his arm stuck through my desk.
It was right after our third class of the day ended when it happened. I pinched my eyes closed while I rubbed the top of both my brows with my thumb and forefinger, mind reeling from all the kanji and reading I was put through. Even though I've come a long way in the language, it still took a lot of brain power on my end to keep up with everybody else, having still been hardwired for English more than Japanese, so the literature lecture we just finished up made me sorely tempted to call it a day and fake an illness to take a nap in the nurse's office.
Mirio had taken the switch between teachers to talk to the pointed-eared seatmate beside me for the third - or was it fourth? - time that day. I could hear as he planted both hands down on my desk, mindful of my notebook and pencil, his voice too loud for my near headache induced state.
"Hey, hey, Tamaki. I really am glad that we could be in the same class together this year! I was really worried that'd we be separated but I'm so glad we're not! This definitely helps lift my spirits!"
His friend mumbled something I couldn't quite make out, not that I really cared to either.
"Man, I can't wait for lunch! Say, did you want to eat here in the classroom or do you think we should find our own cool little spot? I'm sure that there's somewhere outside that would be nice, a little fresh air could do us some good after spending cooped up in here so long."
Dear god, did this boy ever stop talking?
"My dad is going to be so happy to hear that we got into the same class together. Oh, by the way, did your mom make her tamagoyaki for your lunch? Her food always tastes so good and I haven't eaten her cooking since last week and -"
"Young man! Get back in your seat!
"Wha-! Ooh!"
The three of us failed to realize that the next teacher had walked into the classroom, finding Mirio leaning over my desk and engaged in idle conversation with my purple haired seatmate. While I dropped my hand from my face, eyes flying open at the sudden shrill yell of the new teacher, Tamajiki jumping in his seat beside me and sweating bullets, the blond doofus got spooked and ended up phasing his arm right through my desk and then solidifying again.
His hand brushed over the top of my thigh and I scooted my leg out of his reach, face heating up at the touch and the fact that she had started yelling at us.
"You three! What are your names? And get your arm out of that desk!"
The class erupted into giggles and I felt like being swallowed by a blackhole. No matter which life, I've never been a fan of being laughed at, never been a fan of being the center of attention. And now he had gone and put me through both.
"Togata Mirio, ma'am!" he blushed, arm jerking wildly trying to free himself from my desk. My pencil rolled off and onto the floor. I cringed.
"Kubo Momoe. . ."
"A-A-Amajiki Ta-Tamaki," my seatmate stuttered, lips trembling and sweat coming out of every pore in his body. His entire body shook as he looked down at his desk, his hair obscuring his face.
"I will see you three in the office after school," she clipped. "And Togata, refrain from using your quirk in class. This will not happen again."
"Yes ma'am," he said, an embarrassed smile on his face, still attempting to jerk his arm free, the sleeves of his uniform bunched up at his elbow.
That would be the first of many times that I would witness him getting stuck in places he didn't belong
I always wondered what it would be like to live an extraordinary life.
When I was little, all I ever wanted was to become an actress. To be somebody different, somebody new. Somebody else.
I would pretend I was a princess in a far away kingdom, tasked with taking care of my subjects while being a kind and fair ruler. I could wear beautiful dresses and magnificent crowns, be the most beautiful in the land. I could delegate tasks and save my people as the smartest woman that walked the earth. I was strong and could fight, defend my entire kingdom from the evil that lurked in the shadows.
Sometimes I would pretend to be a magical pixie with glittering wings that would take me high into the sky, weaving between trees and sprinkling dust to help grow the most beautiful flowers. I was revered amongst my kind, as the most powerful and brave. I kept my kind safe from the evils of human nature, destroying the earth with their metals and trash. I fought against the darkness and pollution, restoring nature to its rightful glory.
And sometimes, I was just a human. Abandoned at a young age where I learned to grow up on the streets with the ability to run and maneuver my way through any obstacle. I befriended the kids left out on the street and found food for them to eat so they could live another day. I kept women safe as they walked home at night, keeping muggers from stealing their fancy purses and sparkling jewelry.
They always ended the same way.
In death.
I would die for my kingdom in a fight against the evil dark lord where I was impaled by a sword, but not before taking him down with me, leaving behind my people where my name would live on in a place I always imagined for them. I would die for fae kind where I exploded with my magical powers and brought down the disgust of new technologies that ruined the planet, leaving nothing but green in my departure. I would die protecting civilians from a bad guy that tried to rob a convenience store, my name no longer only muttered among the streets but throughout the city, revered as a hero.
From a young age, I always had a morbid obsession with death.
Maybe that's why when I truly died, I cursed myself for never becoming somebody. I died as a nobody.
And it made me spiteful of myself.
When I was reborn, my first thoughts were not that I was reincarnated into a new life. I awoke with lights too bright that I had to squeeze my eyes shut and gasping for breath. It was with my first inhale of air that I realized that I was alive. And I screamed.
I would like to say that I was complete and utterly grateful to still be kicking, but a large part of me was disappointed that I hadn't stayed dead. I hated my life and what I made of it, and I thought that if I was gone, then I would never have to worry about my troubles again.
Never have to worry about my family, my education, my financial problems. I would never have to worry about my stupid car always breaking down for the billionth time as a I struggled to get to my shitty waitress job. Never have to worry about going school full time as I juggled my part-time gig and piles of literature essays. Never have to worry about my parents constantly giving me lip about how I needed to get my degree, needed to get a job, needed to live on my own, needed to-
I just thought I'd never have to worry about these problems that shouldn't have been as big of a deal as I made them out to be.
But the thing about being reborn with consciousness of my past life, is the startling realization of beginning my new life.
Like the fact that I could feel what was going on around me. Because it certainly didn't feel like I was laying on a hospital bed hooked up to a bunch of monitors and IV bags. It most definitely felt like I was being manhandled by too many people wrapped in a cloth that was a little too itchy for my liking.
My begrudging acceptance that I was reborn started from there. Or at least, acknowledging the fact that I had been reborn at least. I didn't really accept the fact until much later in my new life. Especially when I found out where I was reincarnated.
At first, things were really normal and relatively boring. As a newborn, there was only so much that I was capable of grasping and only so much detail that I could pay attention to.
For instance: my new parents.
I had always entertained the idea of what life would be like if I had been born to another family, or what would have happened if my mom had stayed single and never remarried to my step-father. Would I have been better off, or worse off?
So, having new parents was something I was extremely curious about, but also rather put off about because these people were absolute strangers to me. As much as they would view me as their daughter, love me unconditionally, I didn't view them as such.
But, rating them on a scale of parent-ness, I'd give them a seven out of ten. Mostly because well, they couldn't be perfect even though they nearly were.
When I started to be able to really see after hitting a few months old and saw that my new mother had neon green hair well- I thought that she probably had me because she was wild and careless. Which, while not a bad thing, I thought would make a pretty interesting change from my old life considering my mom had been a very conservative Catholic woman who hardly showed an inch of skin.
New mother was very caring and tender though, in ways that I had not experienced and made me a tad uncomfortable, because when I would gaze into her hazel eyes and see such tenderness and love aimed at me, it made my skin crawl. My mom loved me and I knew she probably looked at me the same way new mother did when I had been born my first go round, but she never held me nor gave me much affection anymore after I neared the double digits, leaving me sorely touch starved but also very, very hesitant to ever be touched by anyone.
New mother hardly ever put me down.
So while I had to get used to the fact that I was constantly being held, as well as breastfed to my utter horror, it was overall okay.
And then I had gotten a good look at my new father and realized I might have been born colorblind because his eyes were yellow like the damn sun I used to draw in the corner of my childhood creations. I know for a fact I gaped up at him with widened eyes and mouth because he cringed and passed me right back to new mother, who started shushing me like I would start crying.
Speaking of which, the language barrier was downright awful. These people, while they didn't look entirely Japanese, most definitely spoke it, and while I died an English major, I had zero knack for any language outside of it. Which is why I had studied literature, because I was good at it.
Fuck foreign language. I couldn't even speak Spanish and I'd been taking classes for it since I was in junior high! Apparently immersion really is the way to go when learning a new language.
My situation only really started to hit me after I hit the crawling stage which was right before I turned one. I had gone through all the normality of being an infant at the pace of a snail, everything was so much slower for me because there was just nothing to do. I could only swing around a rattle so many times before my baby brain went stiff with boredom after housing a twenty-one year old soul.
Teething should be considered a cruel and unusual punishment all on its own, and drooling on myself got old when that was the only thing I could do. So, for a lack of anything better to do, I was going to start crawling even if it killed me.
Which, thank god it didn't because I seriously did not want to go through infancy again for a third time.
Crawling on my pudgy weak hands and legs was awful, leaving me breathless more than I'd like to admit. I had been blessed during my first life to have a rather athletic body (though to say I did anything with it is to be determined - two years of track before quitting after becoming bored wasn't very sportsmanlike). It was after I managed to move five feet away from my usual placement on the floor of the common room that my hand struck something slippery and I face-planted right into the hardwood of my new -to me- home. It wasn't so much painful as it was startling, but it was the occurrence afterwards that had me crying.
My spatial awareness was shit during my infancy stages, so I had failed to notice the magazines that new mother had ditched on the floor when she went into one of the other rooms. For no other reason than because it was there, I plopped myself onto my diaper cushioned butt and picked up the tabloids.
It was colorful and noisy and so, so beautiful to my deprived self that I felt so blessed to come into contact with it. I couldn't read anything save for maybe a few words that were written in English, which were few and far between, but the images were more than enough. There were all sorts of pictures of different men and women, all dressed up in the weirdest costumes that made me believe that maybe I had picked up a Halloween catalogue. What tipped me off though was the man dressed in fire.
In my first life, I lived for anything that was anime or manga related. My older brother and cousins had been watching Dragon Ball Z on a small boxed television set when I bounded into my cousin's room with all the grace of a ten year old brat that wanted to hang with the older kids. Said older kids just wanted to watch the show, so I joined them. And I was hooked.
The colorful characters, the noisy yelling, the blur of the fights, and expletives drew me in immediately, and I was insatiable after that. I watched Neon Genesis, Naruto, Fruits Basket, anything I could possibly get my hands on. I read the mangas when the shows weren't caught up and drowned myself in all of it. Anything to get away from reality.
When I got to high school and joined the track team and got myself a jock boyfriend, I slowed my roll on anything anime related. He was tall and fit and everybody loved him. I loved him. And if he didn't think anime was cool, then, I didn't think it was either.
Like most high school love stories that weren't a story or tv show, we broke up once we got to college. He got himself into a fraternity and the rugby team, and I got a broken heart and anime to pick up the pieces.
My Hero Academia was not a new anime at the time I started watching it, but it was definitely new to me. So, when I started watching it while trying to ignore the fact that my homework and essays were piling up, my mom and step-father getting a divorce, and my older brother getting fired from yet another job and having to move back home, I binged the anime that told the story of heroes and becoming the best that they could ever be.
One character that stood out to me was Endeavor, the flame hero who was a shitty person but undeniably hot. The red hair, those bright blue eyes, his muscles. He instantly became the face to my wet dreams.
Seeing him in a magazine that I couldn't read for shit threw me for a loop. I scrambled through the rest of the pages trying to figure out if this was some weird promoting advertisement for the manga. I mean, it was Japan I was in right? They're bound to promote their country's own media right? Right?
I failed to hear as new mother entered the room.
It's not like I immediately connected the dots to being reborn into an anime series. Being reincarnated was an absurd notion to me all on its own, but into a whole other imaginative universe? That was downright off the charts and not something I could so plausibly accept.
But when new mother picked me up, magazine and all, and I looked up at her green hair - and dear lord, green eyebrows- I couldn't help but cry.
"Amajiki Tamaki, Kubo Momoe, and Togata Mirio; you three know why you are here, correct?"
"Yes, Haise-sensei," we responded in unison, bodies slightly bowed in apology.
"Togata-kun," the teacher continued, peering up at him from her seat on her chair in the faculty office. "Quirk usage is strictly prohibited unless otherwise authorized to do so. I understand that it may have been an accident, but you need to learn better control over it so as to not harm yourself or others. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sensei," he smiled good natured from beside me. If I didn't know any better, and maybe I don't, but he didn't really seem all that apologetic. He'd probably heard the same spiel before then.
"As for you Amajiki-kun, Kubo-kun, I expect better classroom behavior from you both and not allow such disruptions between classes."
"Yes, sensei," we both replied. Though, one of us stuttered slightly more than the other, and it wasn't me.
She gazed at us a moment longer before concluding. "As it is, it is just the first day so I will let you three off with a warning. Please do not allow this to happen again."
We all agreed and apologized to her before she dismissed us. We filed out of the office, Mirio leading with Tamajiki- I mean, Amajiki- taking the rear behind me, even if I did feel inclined to allow him to walk behind the tall blond considering their relationship.
As well filed out into the hallways, I started taking my leave from the duo only slightly peeved that they got me involved in their mess. But only slightly. Because while I was annoyed with the fact I got called out in class and into the faculty office, it was funny. I'd have laughed at Mirio's situation if I hadn't been so mortified at the time.
"Ah, wait- Kubo was it," Mirio called out to me and I turned around. He had taken a few steps towards me, Tamajiki lingering a few paces behind with his face turned away from us.
"Uh, yeah?"
"I'm sorry for getting you into trouble with us, I'm sure you didn't want that for your first day," he chuckled, rubbing the back of his head.
"Oh, um - no worries. It wasn't really a big deal, so it's fine."
The smile he gave me was like trying to look into the sun. "I haven't properly introduced myself yet! I'm Togata Mirio," he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, "and he's Amajiki Tamaki."
Said boy just hunched his shoulders as though it would hide him from view.
"Kubo Momoe."
I, honest to goodness, thought that he'd leave it at that but Togata Mirio must've loved the sound of his own voice because he continued on, much like he does in class.
"Ho as in protection right," he asked me. "For your name I mean. Ho in Kubo is to protect?"
One of the first things I was taught when I was learning to read and write was how to write my name and what it meant. Kubo meant something along the lines of "to protect a long time," it was a heroic name for our family and one my father used to remind me of in regards to my quirk. He had said that our quirk made it easy to hurt others, but that we should never give in to it; that it's easier to hurt others than it is to help them. If I should find myself in a position where I wanted to make somebody else hurt, to remember where I come from: protect.
A corner of my lip tugged upward, but it wasn't out of happiness. "You forgot to add hisa."
He looked excited then. "Does that mean you want to be a hero too?"
"Isn't that what all kids want?"
"Is it what you want?"
I thought about my quirk. About my (new) father's words. About a little boy with light blue skin.
I shrugged.
It didn't deter him. Instead he practically bounded up to me like a golden retriever pup, tail wagging. I eyed his friend behind him whose eyes were still downcast.
"What's your quirk? I can permeate through things, but you probably already knew that," he laughed.
"It's-"
I thought about telling him, but ultimately, I stopped myself. They didn't know about my quirk. Didn't know that it wasn't anything heroic at all but something dastardly.
I could tell him and possibly lose the one person who's been willing to talk to me for the first time in a long time.
But I didn't want to.
Because his eyes were blue, and his hair was blond, and he was smiling at me like there wasn't a single care in the world. I didn't want to tell him because he sat to my left in class and his friend sat to my right and it would be so easy for them to include me in a conversation by simply turning in my direction.
I remembered glimpses of what I once saw in an anime, of a bright eyed teenager with a million-watt smile who could move through objects and win fights in a blink of an eye. And for a second I thought that maybe it would be okay.
"I don't have one."
Thank you all for reading! Leave a review if you would like; it's not mandatory but is very much appreciated. On that note, letting you all know that I do not write in first person, so I'm definitely experimenting with that point of view in this story. Alas, it is for a very good reason. I'll also try to upload every other week on Thursday or Friday. See you all next time!