Hello Readers, I am at an impasse and not sure how to proceed. Should I use the canon first names for the characters despite them being swapped such as Izumi for Izuku and Katsumi for Katsuki, or should I stay with their canon names since everyone is gender swapped, not just a few characters.
Let me know, and as always, enjoy.
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Damien was cold.
The frigid feeling of liquid washing off him only to be replaced twofold by stale air that tore away any sense of warmth without remorse.
Slowly, the darkness in his vision was pulled away, allowing Damien to start to pick apart the world around him.
He noted a few things almost instantly. The first being the muted sounds of machines and voices, like listening to the fading music from someone's vehicle as they got farther away.
However, the music in this instance was the soft spoken language of Japanese. The realization of the fact letting a small mental exhale escape Damien as he was forcefully moved by hands to who knows where.
Next, and with much familiarity, he registered the faintest smells tingling his nose every time he inhaled. It stunk of blood and chemicals, leading him to almost ignore the previous insights to think he was back on that God forsaken hospital bed again.
Thirdly, was the scenery which was blurred to the point it was almost impossible to tell what was moving and what wasn't. Unidentifiable… figures? Occasionally crossed back and forth like a slideshow in his vision.
After soaking in everything, Damien had come to the conclusion he both hoped and feared.
He had been reborn.
Thankfully, and oppositely possibly worrying, the encounter with the otherworldly being called Death was not some lucid figment of his dying brain.
Damien was relieved at the fact, truly he was. There had been a silent doubt when he woke up in the void able to move his limbs and speak.
Dread found him next though, which was new, since it had been awhile since something had been taken away from him: save for his life of course.
However, he had not particularly wanted this second chance, but there had never been a real choice for him to begin with. Damien died on that hospital bed broken, angry, tired, and filled with regrets.
He was only eighteen, well sixteen when the disease took him, which was barely old enough to be a sophomore in high school; but just old enough to start to make memories.
They came to him as he just let whatever was going on around him happen, since it was not like he could do much about what went on around him anyway.
Although, he did cry when he felt a sting of something on his back, doing so just long enough to let whoever was handling him have confirmation that he was indeed alive. The second he was cleaned and wrapped in what he could only assume was a blanket, Damien grew quiet again.
However, his mind grew louder.
The times of playing sports with faces he couldn't quite remember, constant late nights in the group chats talking about this or that with names that were already faded, moments in school were Damien wanted to tear his hair out, other times when he stared wide eyed after learning about something cool, and funnily enough even a spark of what he assumed was his hormones as he couldn't help but stare at his English teacher; of course with no face sadly.
Those many memories had been crammed into only four years of being adopted by his parents who were rich actors who probably only took him in to see themselves as someone charitable.
Damien wasn't going to complain though.
Fancy cars, lavish decorated rooms, foreign foods he had trouble pronouncing, and constant trips to places he saw on a globe on occasion. His parents had been good people, frivolous and sometimes vain, but they had not neglected him, brushed him off, or forgotten him.
Well, until it came, the sickness that took it all away
And as if to remind him, here he was somewhere in a crib he guessed, not able to do anything once again.
The situation was just like those two years spent aimlessly and miserably crippled as an autoimmune disease he could not pronounce ate away at his joints, muscles, and organs till he spilled his last breath.
Unable to move, unable to talk, unable to read, unable to eat properly, and unable to live.
'Right back in the saddle,' Damien thought darkly, but soon after decided to let the anger fall away. He had enough on his plate right now with being reborn and all to focus on it.
He wasn't even sure how long he was awake, a habit he formed during those two years bedridden which enabled himself to slip into a constant string of never ending thoughts.
Time had no meaning when he did this, minutes slipping into hours, hours falling into days, and days blurring into weeks.
Things were quite boring in his life… new life?
His life, he hadn't really lived long enough to call it new, seeing as he did mostly the same thing for countless days just as before.
However, each time sounds became clearer, the scenery became crisper and smells stronger, he couldn't help but feel a rise of hope in his gut.
Soon, or well perhaps after a year or two, he would finally be able to walk again. He would be able to talk, experience the world, make friends, and maybe even meet parents that wouldn't forget about him like last time.
It was all he could think about, but there were also the other things he had discovered with his exchange with Death, things that were quite troubling indeed.
My Hero Academia.
A once fictional world, now real, and the place Damien would reside in till the day came in which he died again. The idea itself was surreal, bizarre, bewildering, and countless other words he couldn't quite think up on the spot.
He would see the story, see Izuku Midoriya and his struggles, witness the untold destruction All for One can bring, and maybe even stop it if he could.
He wasn't a hero, not yet at least, but Damien would damn sure try.
He didn't want others to suffer as he did, to be forced against their will to be hurt by raging villains who had daddy issues or ideals that simply had civilians as casualties and not chess pieces in their grand game.
No, he would keep the peace, hold onto it with an iron grip no matter how much his hands might bleed from doing so.
There would be no unnecessary suffering, and to guarantee it he would need to train, both mind and body till he could help stop what was to come.
Sure, to him this was a world that wasn't originally his, it shouldn't merit the selflessness and self sacrifice, but Damien was sure he would meet people he cared about.
He wasn't some stone cold emotionless bastard, he knew himself well enough to understand all he wanted was to love and be loved. To eventually live a quiet life with a family.
However, before he could even start to climb that mountain, he needed to don his climbing gear or heck, even go shopping for the equipment first.
So, as more time passed and his senses grew sharper, his short but concise plans he once started to make may be harder to realize than he initially thought.
"Hello sweetie, my name is Hina, I'm your Handler."
The sweet voice of a younger woman speaking English entered Damien's ears. His eyes widened slightly at the mention of his new name.
'Handler? What does that mean? Where am I?' Damien swallowed hard, staring up at the black haired women whose eyes sparkled like green jade. She looked happy with the current tilt of her head and the small smirk that adorned her pretty face.
She held Damien tightly, swaying him back and forth until the sound of the door opening brought her attention elsewhere.
"Hina, I see you are already acquainted with your Agent." A male voice spoke in a lazy and calm tone, also in English.
"Well as much as I could be," Hina began. "Not like he could respond anytime soon."
"I suppose." The male voice drew closer until its owner was revealed.
He had balding blonde hair, a face aged from probably countless years of stress, lips thinned and held tight to silence his want to complain constantly, and finally golden eyes that glowed as they met Damien's in earnest.
"Fascinating, truly it is. To think there would be someone born with such a strong Quirk Factor."
Damien's mind short circuited, dozens of worrying thoughts coming to him as he heard those words.
"Luckily," the man smiled, the gesture looking odd on his worn face. "We will ensure to make him a great Professional Hero."
The worrying thoughts ceased, Damien simply staring absently while also making baby noises out of habit as he weighed those words.
All for One protege was ruled out because of the use of Agent, but next came the idea of perhaps a testing facility that might be taking advantage of his biology, but then again why would they want to make him a hero?
As sick as it sounded, if he was their subject then by all means why would they even think of letting him free? No, he should be deep underground where he could be thoroughly tested without worry.
A troublesome thought if there could ever be one.
The door opened again, and Hina and the man slipped back into talking Japanese to whomever appeared, Damien slightly miffed he wouldn't be able to gather more information about his predicament.
Fortunately, he was patient, and he had to be when he had been forced to stay bedridden by the disease for so long.
So steadily like clockwork, time marched on, a whole year practically passing in a blink of an eye.
In the time that had transpired, Damien finally got his answers, as difficult as they were to swallow.
The Hero Commission.
His parents had died shortly after his birth in a villain attack that devastated the rural village he would have grown up in if nothing went wrong. After the incident, Damien—well Kai now he supposed—, went through a screening to weigh how strong his Quirk Factor was through an initiative screening done by the Hero Commission to find Agents just like Hawks was in the anime.
The stronger the Quirk factor, to no one's surprise, the stronger the Quirk. Not necessarily in strength, but potential in application or scale. Someone with a weak Quirk factor whose Quirk allowed them to sense bodies of water in a certain distance may be only able to observe an area of a few feet. With how strong Kai's QF was, the Quirk could cover Tokyo.
He was snatched up immediately.
Kai could only helplessly agree to their eagerness, seeing as the Quirk he had rolled for his reincarnation was as powerful as One for All. Although, he would be getting them in reverse order.
[Gear Shift], [Fa Jin], [Smokescreen], [Danger Sense], [Float], [Blackwhip], and finally the One for All strength portion that Izuku used as a way to soothe his masochist tendencies.
Kai had plenty of time to come to terms with the oddity that was his future Quirk, along with the final decision Death had seemingly made for him.
On the tablet screen in front of him, a tall muscular woman with flowing blonde hair resting on broad shoulders smiled brightly, her figure currently clad in a red, white and blue skin tight outfit along with a silver cape which whipped in the wind.
Her laughter echoed across the room almost like a song, loud yet soothing and as enticing as a lullaby.
All Might was a female, and hot, top of the list of milf material.
Kai would not lie, as he began to be able to crawl he had been overcome with the idea of being able to move on his own volition. He became so hyper focused on that and getting an idea for where he was, he had thoroughly skipped over an important detail about how this world was different from the one he knew and loved.
[Mutator selected: Rule 63- all living and will be living beings' genders have been flipped.]
Kai wasn't sure how to feel about it, since originally he picked the world for the fact that with a super power he could make more of the difference he was looking for; not necessarily to see and meet the characters.
He was a fan of the show, so except for Aizawa he liked most if not all the characters and their motivations. As a result disappointment was not exactly what he was currently feeling at the discovery.
The most obvious one though was confusion, because watching a female Endeavor use sex appeal like a well placed dagger to disrupt Villains and burn them was something entirely different to what Kai expected.
Anyways… he was not particularly worried about the fact all of the main cast were gender swapped, the show of their personalities from All Might and other Pro Heroes seemed the same from the show and manga, so canon was thankfully still a thing.
He hoped.
On a more stressful note, Kai had other more important issues to take notice and react to. Specifically, the fact all the media he was allowed to consume was only Hero related, as if they were conditioning him to like them.
A horrible thing to do to a child, but Kai could take a guess and say he would have been doing it anyways if he was in a…more normal setting.
The place he was growing up in looked like a family home, but on the scant few times they brought him out when he was still a baby, he could see that the house was not in a neighborhood in a city, but a small corner in a huge facility yard with constant roaming important looking individuals who definitely weren't true civilians going about their day.
Also, there were other children, who Kai would see being taken through different types of training for a plethora of Quirks.
Some were young, though thankfully Kai seemed to be the youngest, but still making child soldiers was wrong no matter which way you spun it.
They were preying off children's dreams of heroism, but Kai believed it was more of an exchange, no matter how hard that pill may be to swallow.
Like Hawks, they were giving children who would have been stuck in an orphanage or foster care where every step they took would be as challenging as the last, a second chance at a more straightforward life.
He knew both of those lives well enough to understand how volatile and prone to crime they would be otherwise.
Here, with the Hero Commission, they had a purpose and would be given enough skills to live out their dreams of helping people or simply having power to exercise their Quirks.
This reality was different from what Kai believed, a side of the show no one had seen before but only from the occasional glimpses of Hawks' flashbacks and perhaps Lady Nagant's as well.
All in all, it was an opportunity, one for Kai to excel in given he was essentially a teenager mentally, an eighteen year head start of sorts.
Well, maybe sixteen, because two years learning nothing and rotting away in agony wasn't exactly an advantage.
So, Kai was studious, calm, observant, perhaps stubborn when they forced him to play with figurines of Heroines he found too important to make them have mock battles, and most of all; he was patient.
However, he did find fun in being witty with his Handler.
Hina, the black haired green eyed woman that was as close as Kai would get to a Mother, frowned deeply upon looking at his drawing.
"Is this supposed to be me?" She asked with hidden irritation.
Kai used his four year old legs to waddle over and point at the notepad she held, especially tapping the forehead he drew that was especially longer than normal.
"Yes, isn't it great, it looks just like you Hina."
The woman's mouth twitched, "Why thank you Kai, I will keep this for… a while."
Kai tried to hold back a chuckle, keyword 'tried' as he gave in and laughed while he pointed at her.
Hina got the memo, "Guh! You! I swear you and Agent Red Wing would get along well, both of you have to be related with that grin."
Red Wing?
Hawks he supposed, just without his infamous moniker, since he was only thirteen if Kai's math checked out.
Also, apparently, he was already the snarky bastard he was known to be.
Kai stifled more laughter, much to his Handler's irritation, accepting the notepad that was practically shoved back at him.
"You need to work on your coloring and um, facial structure, but other than that you get a pass Kai, good job."
Kai beamed at the words, hiding deftly his slight urge to eye roll. This was all training for face recall and memorization, he wasn't a complete idiot after all.
They were training him in subtle ways, each 'game' he played or assignments for his homeschooling all somewhat revolving about the possibility of his future.
The times he was urged to draw the personnel of the Hero Commission that would only come see him for a minute or so, reading children's books that spoke of teamwork and how doing things alone was a big no-no, or even the cartoonishly dressed up board games that were just Clue and making Kai think laterally if wished to win and earn the sweets promised as a reward.
He took it all in stride honestly, noticing that possibly because of his young mind he was actually learning the things they were slowly teaching him.
The realization made Kai wonder how much a growing body would affect him, which also came with the existential dread of going through puberty again. Luckily the disease in his first life had stunted it and made anything down stairs rarely work, so puberty would be both familiar but also entirely new.
Gulp.
"Now Kai, let's go through the Quirk rounds again, you are almost five afterall." Hina seemed proud at the statement, as if it was a miracle he had made it this far.
He wondered where it stemmed from, seeing as he had done some stealthy information gathering to see that the Hero Commision wasn't entirely black, just gray.
If any child was deemed without potential or were not mentally going to mature for what came in their line of work, they were put back into the system and even expedited to be adopted into good homes.
It gave them brownie points with Kai, seeing as he knew the hardships of an orphanage and being so hopeful for a better life.
Although, child soldiers and all that stuff, so Kai still always approached everything with caution.
However, he did find some hidden childish glee in trying to make colorful building blocks tip over with his mind, trying to lift heavy weights, running along a track, meditating in different environments, completing scarily complex number games, or even doing the occasional odd thing like singing or dancing.
They were trying to stimulate a reaction for his Quirk to manifest. Kai himself understood how futile it was since he totally already knew his Quirk, but he couldn't just up and say it.
The manifestation had to be natural, seamless or extremely abrupt to show genuineness.
Kai went for the latter, since he had his Quirk for over a week and was itching to start a form of training. The week-long secrecy was because he wanted to understand it a bit himself before it was dissected by others without his input.
As a result, as he threw tennis balls at moving targets that looked like generic robbers with ski masks and big bags with a dollar sign, one tennis ball sped up significantly, impacting the cardboard cutout hard enough to snap it off its holders.
Hina's breath hitched at the sight, and with a look shared between her and Kai, her face blossomed with a determined smile.
"Well Kai, you got your Quirk! I'm so proud of you." She ruffled his black hair, locks of midnight annoying falling into his vision. "Just…"
Hina grew silent.
"What's the matter?" Kai asked in faux innocence.
"We won't be seeing each other as much anymore but, I'll make sure when we do to make it count. How about ice cream, maybe we can go to that park you like, or you can play with the other kids again?"
Kai grinned ear to ear, "Ice cream."
Hima mirrored his enthusiasm. "Ice cream it is."
They left the practice range, though Kai's thoughts were occupied as they did so, and he raised one of his stubby hands to look at it.
He would be a Hero, and he would become stronger, both for himself and others.
Maybe in the end, he was a bit selfish, because he promised himself he would be the number one Hero then and there.
Not for some convoluted sense of cradling his insecurities like Bakugou, or out of obligation like Midoriya.
No, it was to prove to himself that his conviction was right, to prove to others and possibly Death who was watching that everything he was fighting for was not in vain.
Although, second life or not, he did still love Vanilla Bean.
He hurried after Hina with a pep in his small step.