Practice makes perfect.

It was one of the most basic sayings around, and for good reason. There was no situation outside of instinct or another's incompetence where you couldn't get better at whatever you were doing by simply doing it more.

As I danced across the beach of a bay I'd not bothered to learn the name of, ducking around and leaping from the path of flying sharks, never had all my practice of playing dodgeball in a past life leant itself more to my existence than right now. After all, everyone who knew that saying also knew that if you could dodge a ball, you could dodge a shark.

I think that was an ancient Chinese proverb. Truly, they were ahead of their time.

From the turbulent waves in the bay came a face that resembled a skull more so than any actual defining features. Four red lines in the shape of claw marks ran down a bleached and bald head, standing proudly above a mouth with no lips and sunken eyes that were as blue as the water he was attacking me from.

"Quit dodging!"

"Quit throwing sharks at me, then!"

For my impudence, I got another shark thrown at me. Truly it was an interesting life to lead when your first thought of the shark flying at your face is, 'oh, another one.'

A twist of my heel had its jaws snapping shut on open air. It landed in the sand with a solid thump, thrashing wildly for a moment before a pillar of earth rose up underneath it. With a shower of displaced sand and grit, the shark shot from the ground as though it had been fired from a cannon, sailing far over the asshole who had summoned it and only losing altitude once it reached the horizon.

Yes, it was more potential ammunition against me, but none of these animals that were being thrown at me had done anything wrong. And I should know, seeing as hunting down wrongdoers was the entire point of this haphazard road trip I'd found myself on.

In the time it had taken the shark to land, three waterspouts had formed over the waves, flinging debris from the seabed in every direction as they closed in on the shoreline. Two of them wavered and fell apart as the sand shifted and a pillar of earth erupted inside of them. The third, too far from solid ground for Overhaul to effectively reach, was blown apart with a punch.

The muscles in my arm, compacted numerous times over in a way that spat in the face of science, sang with the exertion. It was a weird feeling to get used to; my own body celebrating with every new challenge I put it through. Though really, how much of it could be considered my body was up for debate.

With every new encounter, it became something more. A sum of parts that I'd filched and commandeered, a puppet made flesh that I had every intention of abandoning at the end of the line. My hair flowed with Mineta's birthright and the sum of Chisaki's failings. My arms vibrated with Muscular's glee. Every nerve in my body was alight with energy, siphoned from yet another skull-faced weirdo I'd hunted down at the beginning of the week. And it was only a Thursday, my word.

The waves grew more sporadic as the waterspouts crashed back down into them. An oceanic hand, wider than I was tall, erupted up from the surf, the jagged fingers cutting deep lines into the sand as it rushed towards me. The howling in my ears spiked as it came crashing down, but that wasn't the adrenaline making any sounds.

It was the distant, approaching sound of sirens. The beach wasn't deserted, it hadn't been when my target had started making a ruckus and it certainly wasn't by the time I'd nearly skewered him through the stomach and he'd fled into the ocean.

Either their response time was shit, or someone had finally realised that they should call the police. Fifteen minutes of playing keepaway, corralling a villain away from a hasty exit while also protecting myself and anyone stupid enough to remain in the area, was simply too much.

Already I'd had to pull two children out of the choppy water after they'd jumped in from a nearby pier. That was after I had to catch a boat that had been thrown at me, because the person driving it hadn't seemed to notice the whirlpool it had been sinking into before being launched directly at my face. It was a constant war with myself these days, trying to give people the benefit of the doubt even while they went out of their way to kill themselves as quickly and painfully as possible.

Even if the approaching law enforcement left me bereft of time, it didn't mean I was out of options. The water had stopped coming now; as the waves calmed down I could see the silhouette of my quarry darting through the shallow depths towards freedom. No doubt he'd heard the sirens as well, and perhaps was hoping that they would be more focused on me if he slipped away.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn't the first Halloween decoration looking motherfucker I'd taken out this week. The other one had been on a crowded street and required nothing more than a brief touch, though, so I liked him way more.

It took some coaxing for the Quirk I'd stolen from the first one, a man calling himself Tesla, to manifest. Electricity sparked along my arms to my fingertips, bringing with it an uncomfortable burn. It was nothing like the soothing heat of Overhaul as it delved into my body and manipulated on the subatomic level. It was the sharp, crackling sting of an exposed wire against naked skin.

Electricity Quirks were powerful and rare. And the first chance I got, I would be stripping this one from my body and putting it somewhere else. Even so, even if the sensation left me feeling like my skin was peeling and my bones were being ground to powder, that didn't stop water from being extremely conductive.

The bolt of lightning I shot from my hand wasn't the controlled and careful exertion of power that I'd grown used to with Overhaul. It wasn't the same kind of wild brutality that Muscular's quirk seemed to thrive on. Those same muscles, gifted to me by a madman, locked up and protruded grotesquely against my skin as the charge carved its way out from me. The lightning flew out into the bay with the rumbling of thunder and the flash of a nuclear detonation, feeling for all the world like it had taken my arm with it.

But even through all the discomfort, the unnatural accuracy of a body that had spent its entire life throwing things shone through. The concussive clap that bellowed out as the energy touched the water was overwhelming, replacing the howling of sirens with the ringing of tinnitus that wouldn't be inclined to ease up anytime soon.

Most of the sharks, as well as the other fish and wildlife that had been in the area, drifted up to the surface, their bellies pointed at the sky. I felt a little bad about that, but my primary concern was the body further out, his arms spread wide as he floated listlessly atop the waves. With his face down I couldn't tell if he was breathing or moving, but after taking a bolt of lightning to the head, I didn't have high hopes for him.

The muscles in my leg tensed. Newer fibres bubbled up from under my skin, pushing against my pants for a moment before Overhaul took over and they were folded down atop one another. After days of repeating the process, I probably had enough stored away in my body for the laws of physics themselves to put a bounty on my head for dishonouring them. How they managed to fit inside me along with the multiple pieces of my motorcycle was beyond me, and likely would be until I figured out how to safely vivisect myself.

I tensed, stance lowered and legs ready. I ignored the footsteps behind me, the shouts to get on the ground and the clicking of firearms. Missing would be a massive pain in the ass, and as I hesitated a second longer the sharp crack of a gun firing cleaved the abused and singed air.

One of them must have gotten a bit too excited. Happens to every guy at least once, or so I'd been led to believe by the internet.

I was off like that bullet a moment later, the spent chunk of metal bouncing off the back of my neck and, more importantly, the thickly interwoven layers of muscle beneath the skin. It wasn't exactly pleasant, especially when getting rid of pain receptors was just inviting even more trouble down the line, but a small sting and skin closing up before any blood could escape was still better than what would have happened if I didn't decide to go for Goto Imasuji and his ridiculous Quirk first.

All part of the plan. The circular route would take me around the country and lead me right where I wanted to be in ten month's time. For the better of me and the much, much worse of everyone who decided to get in my way.

I was used to geysers at this point, so smacking into the water atop the body of my most recent foe didn't really affect me. We sank beneath the waves quickly, my body atop his far heavier than buoyancy would typically allow. I'd put on quite a bit of weight with my new workout routine in the past week.

One simple tip and everything. Doctors hated me, but that was probably because I was just an asshole.

Like a rock, we sank to the bottom. My breath, fairly sparse though it may have been, managed to survive the impact of the water. With practised ease I let my hair flow freely, multiple strands connecting to the body I was riding all the way to the bottom.

…Don't take that out of context.

All Quirks were different, in any way that I could think of. They did different things, they changed different parts of the body, they even tasted different. Note to self, passing a Quirk through the papillae was a fascinating process and I would never do it again. Not after Muscular's had brought with it the salty tang of a locker room in a crowded gym.

The most important distinction for me, though, was where exactly it was located. Chisaki's had been in his arms, which I'd then taken and distributed across my entire body. Muscular's had been in his pituitary gland. Tesla's had been in his brain, and as Overhaul got to work and mapped out the nervous system of my new friend, he too seemed to house his somewhere within his frontal cortex.

Perhaps that was a feature shared by all kinetic-based Quirks. Tesla's Electrokinesis had been in the same exact spot that Hanzo Suiden's Hydrokinesis was taking up.

With a shrug, I plucked it from his brain, the strand of hair that had been responsible for finding it having the rare honour of being the one to house it. I had no idea what would happen if I decided to try and mash the two Quirks together in the same space, but I had no intention of finding out.

Well, I probably did know what would happen. An exposed brain, a beak taking the space where my mouth once was, and an emptier head than I had right now. Unlikely, but not impossible. After all, I was dumb enough to jump into the middle of the ocean fully clothed, and far too heavy to swim back up.

The ocean in the bay wasn't too deep, but the light still struggled to pierce through to the depths I'd descended to. I glanced up, withdrawing the last of my hair and allowing Hanzo's quirkless body to drift away in the gentle current, pondering if it would be worth it to attempt to breach the surface.

Probably not, especially when there were two people swimming down directly at me. I had to do a double take at that, the first fleeting glimpse I caught being rationalised away as particularly stubborn sharks with feet and faces. There were multiple reasons I didn't like using that electricity Quirk.

Still, those faces were familiar. Even with the distance and the waning light, there was very little that could make you forget the faces of people who were killed right in front of you.

Until that point, I'd anticipated that Overhauling injuries that killed someone would be difficult. Having to get the heart pumping while also reconstructing the brain to enough of a degree that the lack of oxygen wouldn't leave behind debilitating side-effects, while also making sure every organ and cell was functioning to the degree of complexity that a living, breathing body required? I'd attributed that aspect of the Quirk to maybe some level of Chisaki's inherent talent, or him knowing Eri's body to an extent that approached levels of discomfort that would get him killed in prison.

But no. It had been as simple as a brief touch and a command to reset. It hadn't even been something I was planning on, it was simply the knowledge that I'd stumbled across an event that would leave a young child orphaned and realised that I could do something. Even if I didn't want to be here, that didn't mean I should condemn someone else to living with that same sense of loss if I could help it.

A hiccup, and oversight, a mistake. Maybe, definitely. The scrutiny surrounding me was higher than I wanted at this point, but I would make it work. I didn't regret saving them, even if I should have.

I didn't even know their names. All I knew was that they were Kota Izumi's parents, and they were swimming down to me at speeds that I wouldn't be able to compare to until I could actually figure out how this latest Quirk worked.

I think they were saying something to me. Through the water and their oxygen equipment, I could hear any of it. Kota's father was in the lead, his mother having slowed down significantly while he sped up. In one hand he held a metal cylinder, in the other…

Ah, right. They were rescue heroes, weren't they?

If I wasn't holding my breath, I would have chuckled. Even if you didn't respect the heroism industry as a whole, you'd have to respect the man who was swimming down to someone he'd just watched murder another man so that he wouldn't drown. Even if it was just to ensure that I would face justice, that took balls.

I let my hair flow again, diving into the sand below my feet and digging lower to find the solid ground beneath the sediment. Kota's father was so close by the time the first strands of hair found a layer of dirt and stone that I could see the panic in his eyes, as well as the way he adjusted the mask in his hand so it would slam over my mouth and nose.

A thoughtful gesture, but one I would have to ignore nonetheless.

That panic in his eyes turned to alarm as the sand around me exploded upwards, clouding the water around us but leaving our immediate area undisturbed. In a fit of artistic inspiration, I shot him a cheery grin as the large clam I'd assembled out of the stone arched upwards, the indented seam closing around me and leaving me in darkness.

From below, a tunnel was carving itself out, an extended lattice of hair follicles coating the ceiling and walls to keep it going at a breakneck pace. From within came the pieces of my motorcycle, assembling itself beneath me between one step and the next. As I moved, the other half of my hair extended behind me, closing up the tunnel just as quickly as it had been dug out.

By the time the clam would be broken open, I would be long gone.

Only time would tell exactly what I would be taking with me.