I know I said in the first chapter I wouldn't add warnings/disclaimers to the rest of my chapters but it seems fitting for this last chapter.

Warnings: Time-skip, lots flip-flopping back and forth between time/dates, potentially triggering content (mental health, fascinations with death, abuse, domestic violence), violence, blood, vomit, death, long-ish chapter

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?

"Quirkless?"

The chitters among the group grows.

"Oh, don't tell me you didn't know Togata-kun?" The girl continues.

It's the oddest thing really, when I think about it. About how I lived one life, died, and came to live another. Even more so that I came to live an entirely new life in an entirely different universe, one created by a totally average person with an imaginative mind.

It's mind blowing.

It's something that keeps me up at night, thinking, wondering. . . How? Why? More specifically: how is this possible, why here, why me?

Quite frankly, it's rather ridiculous about how hung up about it I am. I should have come to terms with it years ago and moved on with my life. It's not like I don't enjoy what I have. Two loving parents and an adorable little sister all under a nice home with a small backyard in a world where just about anything is possible. I was never left wanting or needing, from food to clothes to technology. I had everything I could want within reason. Yet, somehow, I found myself struggling.

Struggling with accepting. Struggling with coping. Struggling with living.

Pathetic, truly.

But like all things, there is an end.

An end to my struggling, my coping.

My living.

I could barely register the feeling of my fingers clenching at the roots of my hair, the heel of my palms pressed tightly against my head. My eyes were squeezed shut, teeth clenched together. Nothing mattered beyond the turmoil occurring within me.

I was in agony.

Forced to endure a never ending torture.

I wasn't sure if I could last another hour.

"Don't give up, Momoe-chan," Tamaki encouraged. "You can get through this."

I shook my head, my eyes becoming watery. "I can't."

"Yes, you can," he continued. "You're strong. I believe in you."

"The only strong one here is you," I mumbled. "Mirio is barely even conscious."

Across from me the blonde let out a suffering groan.

Tamaki stayed quiet beside me to my right. I don't know what he was thinking, perhaps recognizing that Mirio and I would not last much longer in our current situation. After a moment, my indigo-haired friend let out a small sigh.

"Okay," he said. "I guess we can take a little break."

Mirio sprang up from his slumped over position on the chabudai, a cheer erupting straight from his soul while I flopped backwards onto the floor with a groan, stretching my arms and legs as far as they could go. My feet pressed against Mirio's knees, letting me push off against him to add pressure in my stretch.

It was, without a doubt, beyond satisfying.

"Oh thank kami," I breathed.

"We hadn't even been studying that long," Tamaki grumbled.

I peaked over at him from my prone position, my tense muscles loosening with every second. "We'd been studying for hours."

"I've been studying for hours; you two have been taking a break every thirty minutes."

"We went a whole forty-two minutes this round," Mirio piped up cheerily.

I gave a weakly pointed wave at the blond before letting my arm plop back down onto the floor. "Yeah, what he said."

"You two are awful," Tamaki pouted.

Mirio laughed loudly and I could practically feel his beaming smile like sunshine on my skin even though I couldn't see it. "Aw c'mon Tamajiki," he cooed, referring to Tamaki's nickname from when we first met over two years ago and I struggled to remember what to call the shy boy, "you know Mochi struggles with literature, don't be so rough on her."

"And what's your excuse," he countered at the same time I complained: "Stop calling me 'Mochi.'"

Mochi. A stupid-but admittedly endearing-nickname I received from Mirio some time back when we started becoming good friends. I didn't necessarily mind being called it, but it was always fun to grumble and complain about it when they did call me that.

The blond ignored us both. "Come on, you guys. I think this calls for another snack."

"Snack!" I cheered.

"Snack. . ." Tamaki begrudgingly agreed to our enthusiastic snack announcement. No doubt he did crave a snack too, but didn't want to admit it in face of our lack of studying. But, if there was anything that Tamaki never turned down, it was food.

Mirio jumped up from the floor, arms stretching over his head and making his spine pop. Tamaki stood from his own spot on the floor, reaching out a hand for me to take to help me up to my feet. Despite having just stretched, I did again once I was standing, twisting so my hips relieved built up tension and my lower back cracked satisfyingly.

My old life's body had nothing on my new life's flexibility. While I still can't do the splits, the stretches that I can do are simply amazing and damn if I don't feel like a cat most of the time with how languid it felt to twist and turn my body. It especially helped in cases like this where the three of us spent hours sitting on the floor at the chabudai. Things tend to get sore real quick.

"I think I could go for some potato chips," Mirio hummed.

My mouth watered at the suggestion. "Potato chips. . ."

"They offer zero nutritional value," Tamaki pointed out.

"They don't," Mirio said, "but they taste so good."

"Potato chips. Potato chips. Potato chips. . ."

"We should have some fruit or vegetables instead."

"We could but potato chips are so crunchy and salty and yummy ."

"Potato chips. Potato chips. Potato chips. . ."

"Yes but carrots are also crunchy and yummy."

I stopped my potato chip chanting. "Carrots. . ."

"But they're not salty like potato chips," Mirio pointed out.

"Potato chips. . ."

Tamaki placed his hands on my shoulders steering me towards the kitchen in Mirio's apartment, his thumbs running slow circles over the fabric of my shirt. "The last thing that Momoe-chan needs more of is chips."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean," I cried and turned to face my pointy-eared companion from over my shoulder.

I, admittedly, was not a very lean person. As someone whose diet consists mostly of meats and starches, my body was not as thin as it probably could be, definitely not as thin as some of the other girls in my age group. And I, admittedly, did not work out as much as I should, so if my stomach was soft and my thighs constantly chaffed, well. . . It's not like I had a six-pack in my previous life either so whatever.

"It means," Tamaki continued, "that as much as you complain that you never get to eat as many vegetables as you would like, you also don't choose to eat them when you have the opportunity to. Like right now, for instance."

"Mirio," I pouted, "Tamajiki is being mean to me."

"It's okay," Mirio comforted. "So long as you're in my home you can eat whatever you want, Mochi."

I stuck my tongue out at my pointy-eared friend. Take that Tamajiki.

He, in return, looked downright offended. "You two really are awful. . ."

As we stood at the kitchen counter divvying up our snacks of chips and vegetables and whatever else we could find in Mirio's pantries and fridge, laughing and talking and eating, I was happy.

Such was the norm of my life, now. From going about thirteen years of my life without actual friends to having two extremely close friends that I considered family, my new world went from content to happy.

Mirio and Tamaki. My sun and my moon. One a bright ray and the other a soothing luminescent.

They are what grounded me whenever I felt that I was losing myself.

And lose myself I did. Often.

It's not that I meant to. I tried hard to be happy and live in the moment, live my life without a care in the world. But it never seemed to work out that way. I was constantly anxious about my surroundings, that one day I'll wake up and this would have all been some sort of dream or hallucination. Or that, maybe, my past life was some sick fever dream I had as a child and stuck in me like some decaying, rotting root and this 'new' life has always ever been my only life.

But as it is, I often felt like I wasn't even real. Like I could get hit by a passing car and I wouldn't feel a thing or that the ground beneath my feet was shifting, tilting and I could lose my footing at any moment and pass straight through the earth. Everything felt so distant, so unreal and it was like the air was rushing right through my chest and I couldn't breathe.

It's hard for me to distinguish reality sometimes. Hard for me to remember what time it is or what happened the previous day. Sometimes it felt like those moments when I wake up in the morning extremely sleepy and I intend to get up and get ready but instead I end up falling back to sleep only to dream that I was brushing my hair and getting dressed, before I shoot up in bed and realize it never actually happened and I'm actually running late for school.

But then they pop up and I'm slamming back into earth, into myself, and I can laugh and be happy, and there's this lightness in my heart that weighs me down and I can feel my toes curl up inside my shoes because Mirio makes the most ridiculously funny, corny jokes and I can feel the warmth of Tamaki's body pressed near my own as he laughs alongside me.

"I can't help that literature is my weakest subject," I said in between bites of cucumber. "I just struggle with that bullshit."

"Well, you've come a long way from when we first met," Mirio said resolutely, always ever supportive.

"Ah, yes," I nodded. "Adding five more words to my vocabulary in the span of three years is definitely an improvement."

"Without a doubt," he grinned cheekily.

I picked up a stick of celery and feigned throwing it at him.

"You really have improved a lot, Momoe-chan," Tamaki interjected. "Your pronunciation is a lot more clear and fluid."

"There's that at least. . . I still can't believe you guys told me I talked weird!" Which, definitely beyond embarrassing.

"It's true!" Mirio said, bits of food spraying out of his mouth. He used the sleeve on his bicep of his button up to wipe the bits clinging to the edge of his mouth. "You talked like some kind of foreigner."

Tamaki nodded, his shoulders hunched around his head, an anxious expression on his face. "It's no wonder you didn't talk much, I don't think I would have either if I sounded like that."

I wacked at his arm, indignant. "Don't be anxious about something you never had to go through. I'm the one who actually went through it! Yeesh."

"You definitely sound like the true Japanese native you are now though." A pause. "Sometimes."

I lobbed my celery at the obnoxious blond. It hit his chest with a sad thud before he casually caught it and handed it back to me.

In my defense, my speaking was not all that great because if I hadn't been reborn, then I would have been a foreigner. The language was new to me and with the exception of a few basic phrases, I didn't know shit about it. Thus, I suck at anything relating to it. So, when I spoke out loud, it sounded too slow and I enunciated it with so much emphasis it came out like if it was a new second language - which technically, it was.

Growing up with it as the only language in my new life as Kubo Momoe didn't make things easy. Sure, it was easier because full immersion made it a necessity, but it was a never ending struggle.

When I ended up meeting and ultimately befriending Tamaki and Mirio, I spoke more and more. Casual banter and conversations (with lots and lots of trial and error), I became much more proficient at Japanese and spoke it fluently.

But damn if reading and writing it isn't a bitch and a half to do for me. Typing in hiragana was a godsend, truly.

"Whatever. At least I'm better at math."

"The confidence in your statement is admirable, Mochi."

Tamaki put a hand on my shoulder before I could throttle the boy. "And I think we could all work a little more on our sciences."

Which, true. Because what even was science in this world. It was complicated enough as it was in a universe without quirks, but some of the stuff we learned was downright ridiculous. Yes, there were the basics like learning about gravity and the mitochondria, but we also learned about quirk factor and correlation, as well as a slightly more intensive basic engineering study. Which, in comparison, was rather fun but added a lot to our already strenuous workload. The good thing was that unless we decided to actually study in depth in a certain area of a quirk-related discipline, the material was kept simple and basic.

Mirio jabbed a thumb into his chest, megawatt smile on display. "I'm doing great in science."

"You got a D on our last assignment," I refuted.

"I'm doing good enough to get by," he continued undeterred.

"Even heroes need to pass science, Mirio."

"I'm passing!"

"Barely."

"I'll be the first hero to fail science then!"

"I don't think that's the right way to go about this," Tamaki pointed out.

"That's why as our resident honor-student," Mirio looped an arm around Tamaki's shoulders and drew him into the blond's side, "you are here to help us study."

"I've been trying but all you want to do is take snack breaks!"

"But your quirk thrives off of food so you should be happy with snack breaks," I said.

Tamaki slumped in Mirio's hold. "You two make my head hurt. This is why I'll never be a teacher. . ."

"And all the more reason to be a hero," Mirio declared.

Tamaki slumped even further and grumbled under his breath. With the need to further instigate the situation, I threw my own arm over his shoulders as well, my arm overlapping with Mirio's and tugging them both down a few centimeters. "And then we can tack rigorous training on top of zealous studying on the list of Things That Tamaki Needs To Do To Ensure Mirio And Momoe Are Successful Individuals."

"I think I feel queasy," our indigo-haired friend muttered, face pale.

I offered him my mostly-eaten-has-slight-shirt-fuzz celery stick.

Tamaki certainly knew how to give some dirty side-eyes.

A boy with light blue skin scoffs, white-milky eyes flicking away from the blond and indigo haired friend duo. "Of course they don't know. They wouldn't be friends with her otherwise."

Mirio tries-her really does- to not let his smile drop from his face. Tamaki's own smile has fallen long ago.

Something that I would like to point out about being reborn is that while I was in fact a twenty-one (twenty-five? twenty-six? I'm not too sure if I should count the years after my death as well or not) years old in a three, nearly four, years old body and had all the thoughts and memories of my previous life, I was still wholly under the whims of four years old developments and milestones.

"I don't wanna leave Usachi behind!" I cried. Near hysterical actually.

I knew that I was being dramatic and childish, deep in my bones, in my soul, I knew that I was throwing a tantrum for no damn good reason, but I was very oddly attached to my small beige (used to be white but I really put the poor doll through the ringer) bunny, that had a fraying red ribbon bow around its neck. But this bunny is one that I have had since my first birthday in this new life, and like hell I was going to give it up.

New father also looked near in tears, though with frustration mostly. We'd been going at it for what felt like an hour but was probably closer to five minutes about me leaving the bunny, Usachi, behind while I went to my first day of preschool.

New mother had gotten me up and dressed in a light yellow overall dress earlier in the morning, even styled my black hair- not green, thank god, but the same color as new father's- into two small pigtails before she had to scamper off and get herself ready for the day. That left new father in charge of getting me into the family car so he could drop me off at primary and new mother off at. . . wherever she was going - it's not like I was actually privy to everything that they did. Oh the woes of being a child.

The moment he had spotted me jumping off the last few steps of the house stairs with Usachi in hand, he was telling me to put it right back upstairs in my bedroom. I lifted an eyebrow at him, though I think I ended up raising both as being in charge of my facial muscles was still a work in progress, and promptly ignored him, instead moving to the genkan to put on my shoes.

Understandably, he wasn't having it.

New father sighed a deep, suffering sigh that I think was patented just for fathers that were absolutely done with everyone and everything, and ran a hand through his short, slicked back coal colored hair. "You can't take Usachi with you to preschool, you need to leave it here."

I stomped my shoe-cladded foot onto the hardwood of the common room, beige-previously-white bunny clutched close to my chest. "No!"

"Momoe!" he snapped at me. He never called me Momoe, always Megumi. It was the realization more than the fact he yelled at me that had my anger and stubbornness dropped and sadness spiked.

Despite the fact that I had childish urges all the time due to my physical age, my 'spiritual age' kept me from acting on most of those urges. So even when I colored because there was nothing else to do, the tip of the crayon never strayed off the page even though I was oftentimes sorely tempted to do so. Or like the time I had the inexplicable urge to rip off my diaper and run around naked, I refrained from doing so.

All-in-all, I was an easy kid to take care of for first time parents especially. But sometimes, 'technical age' meant nothing to physical age and toddler brain. And that meant I couldn't always hold back such urges. Such as the ones I was having now.

I hiccuped a heavy sob, one of those that caught my breath in twos. Big, fat crocodile tears welled up in my eyes and streamed heavy down my face and dammit if my nose didn't start dripping too.

His face went from angry and frustrated to full on guilty in a whopping 0.2 seconds flat.

"Oh, Megumi," he sighed, scooping me up into his arms and cradling my head into his neck, tears (and boogers) and all, while gently swaying his body side-to-side. "I shouldn't have yelled at you, I'm sorry. Hush, Megumi, it's okay. Shh-shh, it's okay. I'm sorry."

He didn't put up any fight after that and I was allowed to take Usachi with me to my first day of preschool.

I really should have listened to new father and left the damn rabbit at home.

The preschool was its own separate building on the same block of what I assumed would probably be the primary school I would later attend a year from now. It was a good sized building with classes separating children into an even twenty.

The man and woman in charge of taking care of a class of us brats looked fairly normal all things considered, but I immediately noticed that not all kids quite looked as "normal." For instance, a young girl that came in through the door before myself had levitating blue hair that swirled around her head as though she were underwater, only for it later pool around her shoulders in beach waves; when she'd get excited, it would go right back up in the air. Or how a little boy had webbed hands and drank liters of water any chance he got, his black eyes beady and contained a brille coating. Other kids didn't look any different from how they would appear in my first life, with the exception of brightly colored hair and eyes, and skin different shades of colors. Maybe some horns here and there.

One such kid had blue tinted skin so light that my mind immediately went straight to hypothermia, and his eyes were a glossy white. He immediately took rank in the class, chest puffed and telling which kids could hang out with him while looking down his nose at the others.

He gave the man and woman a hard time, broke crayons and colored on the tables, and even claimed the only red beanbag as his own. He was loud and rude, making jokes at the expense of others that only he found funny.

All in all, he was a little bastard and I wanted nothing to do with the snot-nosed brat.

So of course he would single me out.

Part of the problem of being reborn with my memories intact was that I couldn't quite make myself fit in with the children around me. I never had a problem with young children in my previous life, I was rather decent with interacting with them. But that was as a teenager taking on babysitting jobs, ensuring that the kids ate their lunch, vegetables and all by making it fun for them; helping them do their 1+1 homework before letting them color or play with toys; and promising them that if they behaved, they could have a cookie before bed and that I wouldn't tell their parents.

As being a child myself with an adult mind, save for my childish excursions, I did not know how to interact with them. Before I died, I was a loner and became socially awkward, often keeping to myself and only interacting with others when I was at work because it was my job. But I didn't make friends in my college courses, I didn't strike up a conversation with my seatmates. I didn't do anything but stayed quiet unless spoken to, and that was usually by a professor. Then I had been reborn as an only child, and save for visiting my new extended family, I was alone.

New father worked most days save for the weekend, and would often come home late, leaving me and new mother in the house; and new mother, well, she's a quiet individual herself, mostly tending to her garden and plants save for the times she checked up on me and made me food and snacks. Hence, I often stayed in the common room messing with puzzles or taking a nap in the backyard, my mind stuck in my thoughts.

I stayed stuck in my thoughts most of the time. Thinking and thinking and thinking. Thinking about my past life, wondering about what was happening now that I was gone. If my parents missed me, if my brother finally settled down, if my dogs were being taken care of - ah, fuck my dogs (wait, no time-gotta suppress that shit). And then my thoughts would linger on morbid ideas, if maybe I was actually in a coma and making this new life up, because what were the chances of me actually being reborn into a universe that somebody made up and drew on paper? Then the question of, why me? If I was the only one, or if there were others like me.

It was no different while being ushered into a class with a bunch of kids that smelled like milk that hadn't even lost their first baby tooth yet. I kept to myself at one of the round tables covered in leftover crayon markings and spots of glitter that wouldn't rub off no matter how much it was scrubbed while all the other children babbled incessantly about one thing or another with chewed on toys and capless markers - hold on, I might have gotten that mixed up: chewed on markers and headless toys (who knew with kids honestly-heathens, the lot of them).

Usachi sat on the table facing me, soulless button eyes staring into my mustard colored eyes - because apparently, yellow from new father and hazel from new mother make an off-color gold that closely resembled a sour condiment more than anything else. I was sick of coloring at that point, as the instructors had us coloring for the better part of the morning and teaching us to write our names in shitty crayon (apparently, if kids were eating or sleeping, coloring took up a lot of their time).

The beige bunny was ripped out of my loose grip, causing me to whip around to glare at the offender.

It was the boy with blue tinted skin. His milky eyes were eerie to see so up close. I started to think that instead of hypothermia he resembled a corpse.

"Ha- you still play with dolls," he sneered, dangling Usashi in his grubby hands.

Well, yeah, you little zombie fuck, I'm barely four.

Is what I wanted to say, but instead I said: "Give 'er back!"

He laughed, taking a step back as I got up from the small chair. "It's mine now, you can't have it."

I scowled at the boy, but I hardly looked intimidating in my little yellow dress and adorable baby face. The adult in me should have just let it be, but the child that I am became deeply upset.

"No, 'is mine! Give it!"

All he did was taunt me and laugh while I tried taking it from him, but he kept holding it behind him and not letting me grab it.

"Inoue-kun, give Kubo-chan back her doll, please." The man in charge of our class tried helping. And failing.

"I only wanted to see it," the blue boy, Inoue, said, clutching the doll tightly to his chest.

It was a standoff between me and the brat, the man trying to mediate peace between us in supplying what Inoue could do like asking for it, and telling me that it's nice to share.

It just pissed me off. Made my chest feel like it was swelling and itching, my palms moist.

With him holding my bunny to his chest but distracted by the adult berating us both, I took that as my chance to get back the one thing that I wanted most at that time: Usachi. I lunged for the stuffed doll, fingers curling around one of it's long beige ears and tugged with all the might of a three-nearly-four years old.

Inoue's reaction was near immediate and he clung tighter to the doll, light blue hand gripping the doll's torso with enough strength to keep me from taking it back. We both pulled with everything we had, the teacher's voice rising in pitch in the background and making an attempt to calm us both.

Usachi wasn't an old doll, but it wasn't exactly new either and as much as I had taken care of it, it was still susceptible to wear and tear as anything else, considering that I took that damn thing nearly everywhere.

I should have stopped pulling at the first sign of warning, the slight chrrr of the threads giving way, but I didn't. I pulled relentlessly, and so did Inoue.

And then the little ear that I was holding onto tore off from the base of it's head, causing me to fall flat on my butt with the appendage held in my hand. I stared down at the torn piece, so big in my tiny little hands, threads loose from where it was previously attached, and noticed that there was a little patch of white amid the beige.

My blood began to boil and there was a ringing in my ears as I shifted my gaze from my hand with the single-white-spot-aming-beige-but-used-to-be-white bunny to the perpetrator in front of me.

I could feel my face heat up as I glared daggers at the boy with as much furocity as my baby face could muster. I was boiling inside. And it ached and bubbled and threatened to spill over. It made my chest hurt and itch, and hurt and itch, and hurt and itch, and all I could think was that the little kid was a snot nosed brat and I really wanted him to be taught a lesson.

And then, he dropped Usachi and started clutching at his head and crying, his whimpers turning into loud wails before squatting into a ball. The man and woman rushed to his side, the kids around us clamoring and trying to see what was happening.

As if I was broken out of a trance, I blinked and he stopped, his wails turned into sniffles and broken sobs. I clutched the ear in my fist to my chest while the itching faded away.

That day I learned that my father's quirk gave people migraines.

The girl laughs while leaning forward from her seat on the desk. "Neh, neh, you're not wrong, Inoue-kun!" She turns back to Mirio and Tamaki, a grin on her face like there was nothing more funny in the world than gossiping about Kubo Momoe. "It's no wonder you two still hang out with her! You should really stop if you know what's good for you."

A society filled with people where mostly everyone contains a quirk was definitely a different society from the ones who were all ordinary in that aspect, like in my old world. But that didn't mean that these people didn't have the same issues that my old life presented.

People were still people. They had emotions and motivations, they loved and created families, they tried to be happy and make the most of everything.

They also had lots of the same problems like hunger, poverty, abuse. . . struggles that nobody should go through but don't have a choice of whether they want to or not.

Inoue Hideki was one of those people.

Inoue bullied me for all of half a day before my quirk manifested and had him curling up into a ball because of the pain I inflicted on him without even having to lift a finger. Olfactory quirks were not exceedingly rare, but certainly weren't a dime a dozen.

As my parents pulled me aside later that night after new father had come home, they explained to me that my father's quirk was something that I ultimately inherited. He could, with a single look, cause someone to get painful migraines so long as he kept them locked on without blinking, but that it only affected one person at a time. That being said, it wasn't a good quirk for him to have and it was never to be used.

"Quirks like ours, Megumi, aren't very nice powers to have. They can hurt people if we don't know how to control it, and we don't want to hurt people."

"Yeah but," I sniffled, "he broke Usachi."

"It wasn't just him and you know it. If you hadn't reacted the way you did, Usachi would still have its ear."

"But- but! He's just a big bully and mean!"

"It doesn't matter, Megumi. Even if he is a bully, you don't hurt others."

Inoue never bothered me again after that, but neither did the other kids in my preschool. They all avoided me, thinking that they would be the ones that I would hurt next.

The thing is though, while my father berated me for my actions but still gave me mochi before I went to bed as a way to console me; Inoue went home to a father who degraded him for causing him trouble by making him get a call from work.

You see, Inoue's father was a horrible man who took his frustrations and anger out on his wife and son, spitting on them and calling them names for being weak and never up to his standards. He called his wife's efforts of cooking and keeping the house clean awful and that she only had one job and that was to be a good wife, but she couldn't even do that. He called his son a pussy for playing with figurines, calling them girls' toys and that he had better grow up and become a man. All of this to a woman who devoted her entire life to the man she loved and to a son who couldn't even tie his own shoe yet.

Inoue Hideki was a little boy with light blue skin and milky white eyes who, for once in his life, wanted to feel powerful in a life that was far too cruel to him.

He would grow up going to the same primary school as me, avoiding me at all costs, while keeping his chest puffed up in a show of supremacy to everyone around us. Kids would flock to him and admire his quirk because he could freeze any liquid that he touches. But that would never change the fact that those same kids would talk about him behind his back, whispers of how his home life was shitty and that he could never afford the latest clothes and technology.

I would once again grow up alone, not making any friends in school and being deemed as that one kid that hurts others and could never be trusted. But I would not be lonely.

This time around in my life, while even though it still took a lot of getting used to, I had two doting parents who loved and cared for me and only sought the best for my well-being. I had a (new) father who considered me his own little blessing and always spoiled me with yummy little treats when nobody was looking. I had a (new) mother who was as sweet as she was soft spoken, beckoning me over to help her water the plants and tucked me into bed every night. I would also eventually have a kid sister who looked up at me like I held all the answers in the world and sought my hand with her own for the sake of doing so.

I was a quiet kid, and that was through every fault of my own. I didn't enjoy doing mindless activities like playing with barbies but instead devoured puzzle after puzzle. I didn't run around ignorant and free but instead chose to learn and dedicate myself to bettering my language comprehension. And I probably didn't laugh and smile as much as I should have, my thoughts on a constant loop of why am I here, is this all a dream, how can this be reality, it can't be real it can't be real it can't be real. But as I spiraled down into the darkest corners of my mind, (new) mother would silently and gently bring me close to her, fingers stroking my hair or (new) father would smile and suggest we play a boardgame together, talking endlessly about little things that went on in his life and asking me about mine.

Inoue Hideki would never have that.

Not that I knew it at the time.

Before I was reborn, I entertained the idea of being a hero a lot, especially as a child. I acted out my own one-man plays of defeating bad guys and coming out on top as a hero. I was strong, resilient; I fought for what was right and people remembered me for it.

Then, I was reincarnated into a world where it was actually possible.

A hero with an unwavering smile who fought the baddest of the bad. A man who was cloaked in flames and stopped anyone in his path. A woman who was as beautiful as she was deadly.

I could be a hero.

But probably not.

With the emergence of quirks came the need to regulate such powers. It was forbidden for people to use their quirks in public spaces, and only a hero who had a license could do so but in times of need. Yet, even then, a hero was to never kill or nearly kill another individual even under the name of the law.

The sole function of my own quirk was to hurt others, not help.

I couldn't use it to save someone from beneath a pile of rubble. I couldn't use it in the event of someone having a heatstroke and needed assistance. I couldn't even use it to stop a gang of robbers from stealing from a convenience store when it was limited to one person.

I wasn't bulletproof. I couldn't run super fast. I couldn't even punch my way out of a situation.

My quirk was either useless, or to cause pain.

Neither were heroic.

My incident with Inoue, the little blue skinned boy, was a testament to that.

In my old life, I had been kind of a pushover. I let people walk all over me and allowed it with a smile on my face. I had let my mother passive-aggressively determine my life for me from what I ate to what I wore to what I did. I let my step-father get away with talking shit about my older brother to me because I never said anything to defend him. I let my boyfriend flirt with other girls when he thought I didn't know, but instead I turned a blind and told myself it's okay.

With my second chance at a new life, I told myself I would never let myself be stepped on again. I would speak up when a situation called for it, get mad when somebody had done me wrong.

But it's hard to do so when my emotions rise and my quirk emerges. And when it comes to doing something about anything, there is no middle ground-I either go all the way or nothing at all.

Inoue was the first person I hurt, with many others coming after him.

There was once when I overheard my elementary school classmates talking shit about one of the kids in our class who had a mutant-type quirk. She had a quirk that made her look like a cheez-it cracker; her skin was orange and speckled, and she didn't have any hair atop her squared head. But her quirk, as I would later find out, was that she could erupt citrine quartz from her skin like a rather glamorous porcupine. I once saw her sneeze and those quartz came out of her hard and sharp, nearly poking the student beside her.

The kids who were making fun of her had emitter quirks or transformation quirks and didn't look much different than just regular children with colorful hair or eyes. Yet, because of the differences between her and them, they took it upon themselves to call her names and make jokes.

Loud enough that she could hear too.

She was a sweet kid as far as I knew, all shy smiles and timid gestures. She looked different, but she was still just a little girl who cared about getting good grades and making friends, so it made my teeth grind to witness such blatant bullying to her.

I looked at the one kid who seemed to be making the most jokes at little girl's expense. She was red haired and browned eyed with what I could only think was nasty grin on her face, and I wanted her to hurt.

I wanted to see that smirk twist into something downturned and full of pain. I didn't want to see those brown eyes open, I wanted to see them pinched with tears.

I wanted to knock her off her damn pedestal.

It was cruel of me to crave it. Especially when I knew that I was not actually a child but a woman in a child's body and should have handled the situation more maturely. But my rationality was gone and instead replaced with contempt. I didn't see a little girl making fun of another little girl.

I saw a little girl being hurt and thought I could help her by making someone else hurt.

The red haired child gasped, body lurching forward in her seat with furrowed brows.

"Aka-chan? Are you okay?"

Hurt.

She gripped at her head, fingernails digging into her scalp and pulling at the strands of red, red, red like pain and blood and hurt.

"Aka-chan, what's wrong!"

She trembled in her seat, gasping for air as she squeezed her eyes close, fat tears rolling down her face and landing atop her desk.

"Somebody, go get help!"

A sob wracked her body as she vomited her lunch onto the table, spilling over the desk and tears and onto the floor, figure convulsing.

Needless to say, I got sent to the office while she was taken to the nurse.

"I don't know what happened," I said, eyes wide and hands clenched at my sides. "She just started crying and getting sick! Is she okay?"

"Don't play coy, Kubo. We are aware of your quirk and its properties."

"I swear it wasn't me! I would never hurt anybody! I promise!"

Fingers were pointed and I was sent to more quirk counseling than anybody else, but nobody could actually pin it on me without a confession and clear proof that I had caused her harm.

I had a deep sense of smug satisfaction that I hid with a carefully blank facade when I returned to the classroom.

It certainly didn't help me in making any friends though.

"Kubo Momoe is not quirkless," Inoue said.

"Are you sure you don't want me to walk you home, Momoe-chan," Tamaki offered, hitching his backpack higher into his shoulder. "It's pretty late out, so I really don't mind."

"Ehh," Mirio hummed and leaned all his weight on the leaner male. "I want alone time with Mochi, too!"

I couldn't help the grin that overtook my face as Tamaki's face burnt red while trying to splutter something intelligible.

"Mah-mah, don't be like that Toro," I fanned. "You get way more alone time with me than Tamajiki does. The amount of times I've slept over with just you is downright scandalous."

Mirio laughed heartily and undraped himself from Tamaki's back. "I can't ever get enough alone time with you, Mochi. I'm your own personal parasite, remember?"

I laughed because it was true. When we had first started to get to know each other, Mirio took it upon himself to never let me out of his sight if he could help it. From the moment we crossed paths before school until we parted ways on our way back home, my school day was filled with the blond's presence. Walking, eating, talking, joking, to even napping. He attached himself to me and never let go. Something that I am undeniably grateful for everyday.

The more he showed up in my life, the more I realized I never wanted to be separated from him. His sunny disposition and can-do attitude spurred me forward and kept me on my feet. And when sometimes his presence alone wasn't enough, it was when he allowed me to open up to him, confide in him.

It's because of him that I gradually became so open to being touched and touching others. Mirio would casually pull me into his arms and lean his cheek on my head, tuck my hair behind my ear when he whispered something for only me to hear, rub his thumb across the back of my hand when he listened to me talk about my day.

In return, I often found myself hugging him from behind with my face tucked into his shoulder blades, running my fingers through his hair while he laid his head in my lap, idly played with his fingertips while we sat together.

But my affections did not merely occur only between us. It extended as closely with Tamaki as well. I often laid my head on his shoulder when we talked, held hands with him casually just to feel his warmth, pecked him on the cheek when I said goodbye.

It was odd, really. Especially in a society where such affections between friends were limited. When such affections were not something that I ever felt comfortable with before. Yet now it only came naturally, something I craved and sought after in their presence.

It felt warm. And happy.

It felt like everything was good in the world.

Tamaki picked my bag up from the floor and helped me hook it over my shoulder, his hand lingering on the strap pressed against my shoulder, seeping warmth into the contact. "And I said that if you're going to keep declaring yourself as a parasite, that you should at least change it to symbiote."

I nodded my head in agreement. "Yeah, sorry bubs. I can't afford to be bled dry by you. I need to attach as much as you need to attach. I scratch, you scratch."

I turned to Tamaki then. "And it's fine, really. I need to get something from the store for my mom anyways before I head home, while your mom is probably already halfway done with dinner by now."

Tamaki gave me a light smile. "I know."

I rolled my eyes, "Stop being so sweet to me Tamaki. With all you do for me, I'm probably the parasite in this relationship."

"A very cute parasite," Mirio piped up.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Then we should get going now before it gets any later," the purple-haired boy suggested to me before turning to Mirio. "Is your mom still at Koichi-san's?"

"Yeah, but she should be heading back soon. She'll want to have dinner ready for my dad before he gets home."

"Okay, let me know if you need anything. We'll be leaving now."

"I'll walk you to the door."

We made our way to the genkan, Tamaki and I stepping down to put on our shoes before facing the taller male. He bumped fists with Tamaki before reaching over and ruffling my hair, strands of my black locks coming loose from my ponytail. I grumply shoved his hand away to fix my hair.

"Be safe getting home, I'll see you two Monday."

Tamaki and I said our goodbyes to Mirio and left his apartment, leisurely making our way out of the complex.

It was a Saturday evening in mid-June, with clear skies allowing us to see the moon and the setting sun in the sky in the residential area of Chiba. The humidity calmed down as night drew near, but my skin still felt far too sticky for my liking. But, it was pleasant.

A cool breeze flew by and ruffled my skirt and hair, Tamaki's own hair swaying gently.

It was comfortably quiet between us, something I appreciated with Tamaki. It was peaceful and content, and we did not need to talk to enjoy each other's company. But I loved it when we did.

"Let me know when you get home?" Tamaki asked as we came closer to the street he lived on.

I grinned at him, bumping my shoulder with his. "Of course, I will. I still need to wrangle the answers out of you on the study questions Yamanaka-sensei assigned."

He shook his purple head at me. "But you do well at math. You don't need my answers."

"I do if I want to focus on literature and writing. I still embarrass myself when I get picked to read outloud if I don't add the hiragana beforehand," I pouted.

"It's amazing how you do so well at English though and not Japanese," he laughed. "You always get near perfect marks on the tests."

"It's a gift," I joked.

We stopped at the opening of his street, the lamplights spluttering to life as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon and night draped its darkness over Japan.

"I guess it can't be helped then," he chuckled.

"Nope!"

"Alright, well make sure not to cause too much trouble while you're out."

I mock-saluted him. "Sir, yes sir."

He rolled his eyes good naturedly. "I'll see you Monday, Momoe-chan."

"See you Monday," I bid while walking backwards to my destination, my front facing him as I went. "And you might as well just send me the answers now so I have something to look forward to when I get home!"

"Okay, okay," he relented. "I will."

With that I turned around to face forward and walked to the nearest supermarket to grab the items my mom asked me for. I couldn't keep the smile off my face as I made me way down the street, hands clutching the strap of my bookbag across my chest, the steady thumping of it against my side matching my footsteps.

It was a scene straight out of a movie, or er, anime, with the soft glow of illuminating streetlight drowned out by the reds and orange hues of the setting sun, birds chirping and dogs barking in the distance, the steady thrum of residential life.

Stepping around an older couple, I entered through the sliding doors of the small neighborhood market. The alarm above the doors chimed signaling my entrance and a worker who was stocking a shelf nearby greeted me.

I politely greeted him back before making my way to the spice aisle, my nose scrunched minutely from the change of smell and residual powder in the air.

"Cayenne. . . Cayenne," I mumbled quietly to myself as I search through the bottles. "Not cumin. . . C'mon where are you cayenne. . ."

Probably one of the most annoying things I ever have to go through on a continuous basis is searching for something I need and not finding it even though it should be there. But nope, no fucking cayenne. I go back to the top and make my way to the bottom again, but yet again can't find the deep orange spice.

This is bullshit.

I turn my back on the spices and instead face the various packaged dry goods, the colorful wrappings and boxes drawing my eyes from one item to the next. I know the cayenne is somewhere there behind me among those various seasonings and spices, but I will scream if I turn around and can't find it.

So, in order to avoid such a scene I walked away and went through the other aisles. Maybe I'll look where the snacks are and see what I can find. I am always on the hunt for new treats for myself and Tamaki anyways. . .

I grab a bag of wasabi flavored cheetos in one hand and spicy saki ika in the other, eyes still browsing through the various crunchy goodness debating what else I can find that I would enjoy. Today seems like a spicy kind of day (cayenne not included) and I could really go for a little heat to end my night. But now that leaves finding something for Tamaki when I see him on Monday. I eyeballed the yawaraka ikaten.

Tamaki liked his squid legs dry and crunchy especially because they stored better, but he never turned down the chewy version either. . .

Something caused me to turn my head, packed goods still in my hand, watching as a man ran passed the aisle I was in, his breathing loud from where I was standing and footsteps heavy. Something stirred in my stomach, a cold sweat to run down my spine. I shivered.

What the hell was his problem?

I turned my head in the other direction at the other end of the aisle. A woman was holding onto her son's hand, her other one frozen midair curled in front of her chest but not touching. They were both facing the front of the store, but even from her side profile I could see the way her open mouth trembled.

Her son, who looked to be a little older than Hinami, was grinning from ear to ear, his All Might action figure clutched in his palm at his side.

"Look mom! They're-!"

My body hit the snack shelf that I had previously been scouring, my face smacking into a dozen different bags of dried seafood goodness, the crunching of hundreds of bags popping and crackling was louder than the fireworks at the summer festival I went to with Mirio and Tamaki where I tripped in my yukata and fell into a bush.

I could never recall what happened first: the fireworks or my falling. But I do remember them individually. The fireworks were so beautiful, so bright. They were loud and going off one after the other, the smell of smoke buried beneath the scent of sweet, sizzling yakitori and sugary crepes. They popped in the air and made my ears rattle, the previous sounds of talking, laughter, and music buried beneath the cacophony of explosions. It was hot and I was sweaty, especially with the way Miro was hanging off of me and Tamaki, but it never crossed my mind to shake him. I was too busy smiling and enjoying myself.

This though. . . This was a hundred times louder than that. It was so loud it rattled my bones. Or maybe, it was my bones that were actually being rattled.

I coughed. And I coughed and I coughed, because coughing was my first outtake of breath and I couldn't remember actually breathing. I don't think I even did breathe.

I sucked in a heaving breath that didn't actually feel like it was going to my lungs but stayed somewhere in my trachea and coughed some more.

It was difficult to do so and I felt something like terror wash over me and seep straight into my breathless lungs because if I couldn't breathe then I was going to suffocate and if I was going to suffocate then I would die.

My breathing became shallow and came in and out in sort spurts that made the tips of my fingers tingle.

Ah- my fingers.

I felt myself gripping uselessly at the now destroyed bags of snacks.

My poor snacks.

I opened my eyes and realized belatedly when had I even closed them. Why did I close them?

Something caused them to water.

I closed them.

What the fuck.

I blinked them open and close to clear out whatever was making them irritated, before my eyelids settled and my sight cleared and I could make sense of my surroundings. Or, whatever sense I could actually make.

I was laying face down on the snack shelf, bags and bags of chips, dried treats, and savory goodies crushed beneath my body. My hands were laying uselessly at my sides, still gripping to my destroyed cheetos and saki ika. While I may have been laying the prone position, my neck was skewed to the side and I was left facing the end of the aisle where-

Oh, where I saw the woman and her child.

I couldn't see them now. I could only make out the open gap the shelves made after having collided (they fell?) with each other, the one on top empty with its contents strewn on top of the other shelf-the one I was laying on- or on the floor.

The sound of crashing and crumbling and crunching were gone, I realized, but it wasn't quiet. There were bangs and thuds and-and screaming and yelling.

What the fuck what the fuck.

Did the ceiling cave in or something? Did somebody fall asleep at the wheel and accidentally drive through the grocery store?

What the fuck!

I let out a whimper, or was it a sob?

And tried to get my hands in front of me to push myself up. It didn't hurt but everything felt tight and tense. It felt wrong.

I managed to get my arms under me and heave myself enough into a plank, but everything shifted and crumbled underneath me making me lose balance and fall back over and over.

"Fuck," I cried.

I wanted out. I wanted out from underneath these damn shelves and I wanted out of this damn grocery store.

My fingers grabbed at the shelves and railing, anything to wrap around and give myself purchase. Anything to help drag me out of this death trap.

I scooted my way towards where I saw the woman and her son last. That would take me to the middle of the store and closest to the doors.

My legs scrambled along the chips and metal shelves, shoes kicking away at destroyed snacks and whatever else was in this carnage.

I felt cold and hot all over but it didn't matter, I just needed to get the hell out of dodge and go home to my mom and dad, to Hinami, to all the houseplants and the dinner that was hot on the stove.

I closed in on the end of the aisle and dropped onto the store tiling like a viscous fluid.

My right knee banged particularly hard on the grocery building's floor, but I hardly felt it.

I turned towards the front doors-

I turned towards where the front doors should be and gawked in terror at the sight before me.

There was a giant hole where the glass doors used to be. And calling it a hole was taking it lightly. Everything, the entire wall of class, was completely shattered. Missing. Gone. Strewn across the floor in a sparkling mess of destruction. And standing among it was a, a, a monster laughing and towering over a powerless man. He was huge and bulging with muscles, his grin feral and sharp.

"M-Mommy," a choked sob cried out. "Mommy wake up!"

My eyes that were locked onto the predator slid to the side to look behind me, my head slowly catching up and twisting to look over my shoulder.

My body quivered with fear.

"Mommy, please!"

The little boy that I had seen previously was a few feet away from me, body covered in white dust. But where that dust covered his head, face and torso in white, his legs and hands and arms were soaked in burgundy. He was kneeling on the floor, his feet tucked beneath him as his hands shook and shook and shook at his mother's arm who lied twisted and unmoving on the white store tiles, spilled wine pooling around her body like blood.

Fuck.

"Mommy wake up please! I'm sorry! Please mommy wake up, I'll be a good boy! I promise! Cross my heart mommy! Please wake up! Mommy!"

His hands were red, red, red. And I realized they weren't anywhere near the alcohol aisle. That wasn't spilled wine. That wasn't anything other than blood, blood, blood.

There was a deep, gruttal laugh that raised goosebumps all across my body and the feeling of cold, brutal terror sank in my stomach.

The laugh came from a few feet away.

I dared not turn my head forward again because I knew.

I knew, I knew, I knew.

He was right

There.

Glass crunched underfoot as he stalked past me and straight towards the little boy covered in his mother's blood that turned cold besides him.

The monster smelled of death.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to yell in a store, little boy," he cood with the gentleness of a bear on the hunt.

I could see the little boy tremble from where he sat, tear stained face looking upward and mouth pulled back in agony.

The little boy opened and closed his mouth, only whimpers coming out instead of words.

I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to cry. To vomit. To scream. To run. To. . . To what. . . To save him? Save a little boy covered in mother's-cold-body-warm-blood? Stop the hulking monster of pure muscle and death?

I can't. I can't. I can't.

I can't.

The little boy leaned backwards when the monster stood merely a foot in front of him. I could barely see the child anymore from behind its legs.

The little boy fell back onto his hands, a clatter coming from the movement.

From behind the monster's legs I made out the child's hand pressed against the floor. Ah- no, not pressed against the floor.

His palm was pressed against the All Might figurine, and that was pressed against the floor. I could make out the blonde hair and blue cape from where I sat uselessly and watched the monster descend upon the child.

Ah fuck me.

"S-stop," I whispered. I tried to yell, I did. Tried to say it strongly but my voice would barely come out. "S-stop, ple-please."

It was like in my dreams where I tried to yell, but no matter how much I tried, it never came out loud enough.

My knee throbbed.

I remembered then that I had sprained that same leg when I fell at the summer festival. We were rushing up the stairs to somewhere, I don't really recall where. And my geta were hard to run in, especially with the lack of legroom in the yukata, and as we were going up one of the steps I tripped and slipped, but because I didn't want to fall I tried to catch myself and only managed to land myself in a shrub. Somewhere along the way, I had twisted my ankle, pouting all the while Mirio laughed and Tamaki fussed over me.

"Stop!" I cried a little louder. Not by much, but enough. Enough that the, the monster turned around and looked at me and we locked eyes. Mustard yellow on an endless pit of black. Fearful on gleeful.

Gleeful.

He was happy.

This monster was happy about the destruction and death and chaos he caused.

He was proud of it. He was smug. He wanted this.

My knee throbbed again.

The prickling in my fingertips spread throughout my palms.

My chest.

It ached.

It itched.

It burned.

And something

Snapped

Within

Me.

Snapped and spilled sand and magma into my chest.

In my lungs.

Where it bubbled and itched.

Threatened to spill over like lava.

Threatened to consume me.

Something whispered in my ear, phantom fingers caressing my cheek and throat, carmine lips hidden in my black hair.

"It would be so easy."

And it seduced me into getting rid of that itch. Get rid of the cause of it all.

My body stilled and the itch consumed me, from my chest to my torso, to my limbs, and it crawled its way up my face and into a grin.

It bubbled out of my lungs and onto my tongue like a sweet, fuzzy soda where it spewed out as laughter and my shoulders shook with mirth.

The monster in front of me sneered. "What's so funny, little girl?"

"I always did hate the feeling of desperation," I said.

"What-?"

Quirks are a funny thing to have. They're instinctual. Like moving an arm or a leg, or holding my breath when I go underwater.

People don't need to learn how because they just know. For some it's like flexing a muscle and others it's like thinking a particular thought. It's like that for me. To just think it and have it happen. To look at someone and think, I want that person to hurt, hurt, hurt.

But now I just want him to die, die, die.

And die he will.

The veins around his, the monster's, eyes darkened and bulged, cutting him off mid-sentence. He froze, that sneer, that grin, sliding off his face and dripping into a frown, a grimace. He looked down at the floor, looked back up at me, took a step forward, stopped.

Die.

"Wh- you doi- me," he choked.

He tried moving his arms up but they froze in front of him, in front of his trembling body.

Die.

My ears rang.

My knee throbbed.

I itched all over.

I couldn't hear anything except for the ringing in my head and the sound of the summer festival's fireworks as a distant memory.

The man fell to his knees with a hard thud, eyes never leaving mine.

Die.

He slumped forward and landed on his face with a crunch.

And all was silent.

The summer festival's fireworks. The ringining.

And the itch that burned like lava gave way to nothingness.

I remembered then, when I looked up from the man's fallen body where blood slowly pooled around his face and looked into the wide and frightened eyes of the little boy covered in white dust and his dead mother's blood, his All Might action figure clutched tightly in his hand, that I fell before the fireworks. That we were running to the top of the hill to reach where we could watch them go off, and the reason Mirio's hot body was pressed so tightly against mine was because my ankle was sprained and swollen and he was holding me up to watch the fireworks, his other arm holding Tamaki just as tightly.

It was a summer festival that celebrated All Might as a hero.

It was bright. With reds, blues, and silvers.

My eyes fell from the boy's and onto his All Might figurine and then fell away until everything disappeared into a black abyss of being gone, gone, gone.

"She's a damn villain."

Thank you to everyone who has read, followed, and favorited this story! And a very special thanks to those who have reviewed! I'd like to apologize for such a late update, but school came down hard on me and all I do all day everyday is read and write so sometimes it can be rather tedious to have to write my stories so just bear with me.

WhEdgy: Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm really glad you liked the foreshadowing haha It's actually one of my most favorite literary devices to use. On that note, I wonder if you might be able to spot any other devices/elements I may be implementing in my story (though one in particular may not be apparent until later on but is very important hmmm)

xenocanaan: You're too kind, thank you so much! I'm glad you like her interactions with Tamaki. Tamaki and Mirio are such wonderful characters and the rays of sunshine Momoe desperately needs. Hopefully I keep up the good work of their interactions and it's something you still enjoy as the story progresses!

On that note, this was on doozy of a chapter lol. So this is where things start getting a little uh chaotic? All I can say is that there is a lot to come with the next chapters and hopefully you all will still enjoy what I have in store. With that being said, thank you again and again and again. Also! This is very important to me! BUT! While I am so, so happy to get nice reviews telling me what you all love/like about the story, I also want to know what you don't like or what you think is bad or needs improvement on etc! So, yes, I love love love when you all give me love, but I really do want to become a better writer and storyteller and that means also knowing what it is I'm doing wrong. Also let me know if there are certain things you would like to see happen or your thoughts on things that you see happening or has happened or anything really!