Heyo, to the two guest accounts who wanted more, here ya go, bit of a slow chapter but I tried to sprinkle some humour here and there, hopefully that's good enough.
Izuku found himself walking down a street, he couldn't remember why he was there, or what he was doing but he quickly realised that he was much shorter and his hand was warm as though it was being held.
"Iz...u..ku" he heard his father's voice, and looked up in excitement towards him.
However his excitement turned to horror as his dad bled profusely from his throat, before exploding into a mist.
Izuku shot up with a gasp, finding himself in his room, on a bloodied bin bag on the floor.
"Ahh back already? Half an hour to be exact"
Izuku looked towards his chair, where his wraith sat, writing in a notebook that Izuku didn't remember owning.
"What the?! What happened? And what are you doing?" Izuku asked as the wraith put down the pen and closed the notebook, which disappeared soon after.
"Smart huh, I doubted you wanted a bloody bed and time was of the essence" the wraith held the roll of plastic bin bags with pride.
"As for what I'm doing, just recording what abilities we have displayed so far, when you're ready, I would like to continue experimenting, can you touch your toes very quickly?" The wraith instructed, Izuku did what he was told and was surprised that he didn't even need to bend his knees to reach, in fact he felt he could put his legs behind his head.
"So your flexibility has changed" The wraith noted, the notebook reappearing in its hand as it continued writing.
"Right, can you remove your shirt? I want to see if your external physiology has changed, plus so we can bin it, it's torn and has blood on it" the wraith then asked. Izuku was a bit embarrassed but he figured that the wraith had technically already seen his body, so he did as he was instructed.
"No notable difference, still skinny and puny, but your wounds have disappeared so that proves my theory" the wraith said as he wrote, much to Izuku's embarrassment at the first part.
"Hey don't insult my body like that" Izuku covered himself up with a baggy hoodie.
"Are you saying you are not a skinny runt?" The wraith asked rhetorically.
"It's not my fault I'm-" Izuku began but the wraith cut in.
"-The kind of person who thinks they can achieve anything without working towards it, yeah I know, I'm you" The wraith finished, seemingly frustrated with Izuku's lackluster exercise routine.
"Ok can you stop insulting me please?" Izuku pouted as the wraith's stare softened.
"Don't worry, after these tests, we'll train your body so at least you'll have some strength behind your attacks" The wraith said more like a doctor than a part of Izuku.
"Now I want you to do some pushups, try 10 for now" Izuku groaned as he yet again did as was instructed.
"Tell me when you feel the lactic acid build up in your muscles" The wraith said as it kept writing up new tests.
"Weird? I feel like I can do a hundred of these" Izuku said as he went up and down with ease.
"Ok, do 500 then" the wraith said with no care for Izuku's feelings.
"What? Are you crazy?" Izuku cried as he kept going.
"I'm trying to figure out our limits, if you can do 500 pushups with no lactic acid build up, that means your internal mechanisms have changed and we can narrow down what's different" the wraith explained as it continued writing.
When Izuku got to 500 he didn't feel sore at all.
"Ok hold your arm out?" The wraith put down the notebook and inspected Izuku's left arm, much like a doctor.
But unlike a doctor, the wraith stabbed the pen through Izuku's hand, drawing out a scream of pain from Izuku.
"So you still feel pain? But no muscle soreness, interesting, and your blood is drier, could this mean you are between states of living and nonliving?" the wraith theorised as Izuku looked at it with rage in his eyes, the wraith noticed his look before writing more.
"Don't be so angry, now we know that you aren't immune to pain, would you rather find that out in the middle of battle?" the wraith asked and although Izuku was mad, he could see the logic, but that didn't heal his damn hand.
"Now it took you 30 minutes to come back from the dead, tell me if your hand heals in that time" the wraith put down the notebook and went to leave the room.
"Wait. I died!"
"Yeah, fortunately I was able to get you home before you did, and avoid you leaving blood everywhere" the wraith once again picked up the roll of bin bags before leaving the room.
"Where're you going?" Izuku asked confused, before the wraith looked deadpan at him as if it was a stupid question.
"What? You've been stabbed through the hand, I'm getting you a bandage, I don't know if It could get infected" the wraith said as it left Izuku alone with a hole in his hand which showed no sign of bleeding nor healing.
Izuku chose this time to inspect his body, it had blood on it, but no wounds, the blood on the bin bags had dried so he put them in his bin just as his wraith returned.
"So I've realised that I can no longer move as freely as I used to, but I now have limited interaction with items in this realm, so fair trade" the wraith said as it re-entered the room and took a look at Izuku's hand.
"I see no sign of healing, I was hoping we had a healing factor of some sort but it looks like death is the only way" the wraith sighed while it wrapped up Izuku's hand.
"So I really did die?" Izuku asked, still wrapping his head round that specific ability.
"Yes, but with your quirk, death could be more like a revolving door" The wraith revealed, but the pit remained.
"Does that mean? Am I immortal?" Izuku asked but the wraith gave the most useless answer, a shrug?
"That I do not know, every quirk has a limit, and I don't want to test that limit"
"So avoid death like everyone else? Sounds easy enough" Izuku laughed, though he did feel better knowing that he always had a second or third chance.
"You are aware you've died twice today, you are terrible at staying alive" the wraith mocked, though the smile on its face showed that it was joking.
However as the wraith remembered something, its face went serious.
"There is something else I would like to inform you about, the villain, I think I may have the ability to interact with the souls of others, however I understand you may have some ethical issues with testing that" the wraith revealed, though Izuku wasn't too shocked.
"Yeah, I remember seeing what that sick freak did to people, and no, we shouldn't mess with people's souls for testing" Izuku said, however it did feel good to hurt that villain.
"That's fine, I doubt many people would be willing to have their soul manipulated for research" the wraith added before it changed the subject.
"Now, I would like to see how your physical capabilities have changed, but we'll need more space" the wraith said, distracting Izuku from his thoughts as he tossed some loose clothing.
Instead of going home after talking to 'Izuku', Bakugo decided to follow the blood drops and when he found the source he was yet again stunned, the amount of blood lost was not survivable by any means.
Seeing the bloody table leg, Bakugo deduced that Izuku must have fallen from the roof, the distance would've been further if he jumped.
Using some explosions and some parkour, Bakugo got to the top of the roof rather easily and when he saw the remnants of slime, more and more questions came.
Was Deku there when he was attacked? Was he the reason the villain lost control of Bakugo?
The villain didn't even put up a fight when it was caught. Did Deku have something to do with that?
The more questions he had, the more he realised that he barely did anything to that villain.
"So I guess a gym was too simple huh?" Izuku asked his wraith as they stood before a trash heap.
"Oh yeah, cause our pockets are so full with money and mother is too busy eating diamonds to share her grand wealth from working part time" the wraith sarcastically replied as it led Izuku down towards the beach.
"I'm starting to wish I just died" Izuku muttered, surprising himself by his own dark joke.
"That could be arranged, especially since we can test your lung capacity" the wraith pointed to the water, and after Izuku looked at it with a frown it sighed.
"I'm joking, though death by drowning could be permanent, especially if your body is left in the water" the wraith said absentmindedly, managing to frighten Izuku enough that he took a couple steps away from the water.
After a few hours, both Izuku's knew that the whenever Izuku used the Wraith's power, the body part he used would glow but also found that their power had limits, without the wraith, Izuku could theoretically run forever, his speed wasn't supernatural but it was faster than before, but with the wraith's help Izuku could run much faster than a regular person however he couldn't maintain the speed for more than a few seconds before the wraith would disappear, though the distance he could cover was substantial enough that it wasn't useless.
It was a similar story with his strength, he could slightly lift a fridge off the ground with the wraith but eventually his strength would return to normal.
"So we have short bursts of power, try punching?" The wraith wrote in its notebook, filling multiple pages.
Izuku reeled back his fist aiming at a fridge, he was hesitant but equally curious, he threw a punch and yup, it hurt as expected and the fridge had the smallest dent in it.
Izuku rubbed his knuckles for a moment, fortunately nothing was broken. He then reeled back his other hand, which glowed with the power of the wraith.
This time, the fridge was both dented and knocked over, not super strong but once again, stronger than normal.
"So punching is a viable option, and we are much more durable during our bursts" the wraith analysed as it conjured the bow.
"Final test for today, shoot this as many times as you can, and tell me how you feel after every arrow"
Izuku aimed the bow at the ocean, an arrow appearing in the string as he pulled it back.
Izuku released the string and the arrow flew through the air, slowly descending before disappearing into the ocean.
"Ok so far, so good" Izuku pulled the string again and released.
"No change" Izuku repeated his action and felt a bit drained.
"Ok, I feel a bit off" Izuku said as he pulled the string again, as the arrow appeared.
"Hm?" The wraith wondered, but seeing the arrow, it had a rough theory.
By the 5th arrow Izuku felt like he was donating blood, he was breathing a bit heavier now.
When the 6th arrow wouldn't appear the wraith found its answer.
"So the arrows are limited? Annoying. Let's wait a moment and hope that they come back" the wraith instructed, Izuku used this opportunity to walk towards fallen fridge, he went to the top and squatted down, and lifted, trying to get it back upright.
"what are you doing?"
"You said it yourself, I need to get stronger" Izuku got the fridge to his shoulders before the bottom part slid down due to being on sand, fortunately Izuku reacted quick and jumped away, sparing his toes from an unfortunate pain.
"Mind if I suggest an alternative?" the wraith pointed to a thin pole on the floor plus some plastic bottles.
So for the next half hour Izuku assembled a makeshift barbell, using the plastic bottles as weights that he filled with sand and lifted that for awhile before remembering why he was occupying his time.
He put down his weights, went to the ocean and tried to shoot an arrow, noticing the Wraith's relived sign as an arrow shot.
"So they come back with time. Good to know."
"Its getting late, we should go home before mom worries" Izuku turned, picking up his things.
"How about one final test?" the wraith asked
"Fine. What do I need to do now?" Izuku asked.
"Simple. Run home and see how many times you can access burst speed" the wraith said as it fused with Izuku.
"Burst speed?" Izuku asked, disappointed with the choice of name.
"You have a better name for short term speed?" The wraith responded with the usual annoyance.
Izuku's silence was answer enough as he began running, accessing burst speed 4 times before being unable to, though it wasn't much of an issue since he was able to continue running home without stopping.
However, a hero clad in black watched the young boy run and use his quirk publicly, which although he personally had no issue with this, he knew of some heroes in the area who wouldn't give this kid a break so he decided to make his presence known.
"We are being followed" the wraith observed as Izuku turned around, not seeing anyone until he suddenly coughed up blood and pain spread through his body.
"What the?" Izuku tried to move but his body barely responded, even the wraith was nowhere to be found.
But as fast as it began, it stopped.
"Izuku!" The wraith reappeared, fear evident on its face as it looked down the street, seeing a rapidly approaching man who strangely also had a worried expression.
"Are you alright!?" He shouted, his hair flowing behind him along with his scarf.
Izuku felt like he had just been thrown into a wall, so his response was a simple and kind "what the hell do you think?!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't know that would happen, my quirk nullifies other quirks" The secret admirer revealed themselves, holding up their hands to disperse any offensive reaction before helping Izuku to his feet, offering a tissue to wipe away the blood.
"Do you require medical attention?" He asked, noticing that Izuku had managed to recover from having his quirk nullified.
"No, I don't think so" Izuku replied, finding this man to be familiar but not sure exactly who he was.
"Look kid, I only meant to tell you that public quirk usage without a license is a criminal offence, I would recommend you avoid using your quirk" he said, this time more relaxed and soft.
At the revelation, Izuku relaxed and gave a smile.
"Apologies, I just activated it today so we're testing what I can do" Izuku explained as the man's eyebrow raised.
"We're?" He asked, glancing around to see anyone.
"Oh of course, Wraith? Can you show yourself?" Izuku asked, and as commanded the wraith appeared with an annoyed expression.
"do you have any idea how long I was gone for?" The wraith muttered under it's breath, though the man barely reacted to its appearance.
"I see, a sentient quirk, those are rare" the man said, before turning.
"Stay out of trouble kid, there's some heroes in the area who would have no issue giving you a fine for using your quirk" the man said as he entered the shadows.
"Do we know him?" Izuku turned, continuing on his way home.
"I assume he is a hero, though not one I know of" the wraith answered, leaving the mystery for another day.
Inko Midoriya paced around the apartment nervously, her son messaged her saying that he would be out for a bit, but he still hadn't returned.
She knew she was being over protective but she couldn't help it, she hated that she was more worried about Izuku because of his lack of a quirk which made him a target for mockery, but after what happened to Hisashi, she didn't want to lose Izuku.
Her worries were dispelled when Izuku opened the door. The moment they saw each other, Izuku smiled brightly, before being smothered in a momma bear hug.
"She smells like lavender and love" the wraith cracked a smile of content as it wrapped its arms around her, hugging her back as Izuku's arms were crushed against him.
Eventually Inko noticed the extra pair of arms, and looking down she saw her son as expected, but she did not expect another being to be sharing his place, and her reaction was...both expected and similar to her son's initial reaction.
Izuku spent a few minutes calming his mother down while the wraith quickly retreated into its realm. He made some tea and explained the events that lead up to this, making sure to avoid mentioning his deaths because he didn't want to give her a heart attack.
After everything was said and done, the wraith appeared hesitantly, not wanting to scare Inko again with its aged appearance, however knowing that this was still her son, she embraced the wraith, even rubbing it's back like she would Izuku.
And the wraith would smite anyone who said they saw a tear run down its cheek.
Now that Izuku's mother was at ease, Izuku went to shower, though found it difficult knowing the wraith could see him, but it simply disappeared, back to its realm.
In its realm, it recorded the results of their training, plus some theories.
'Improved agility and strength'
'Interaction with souls, possibly capable of manipulation'
'Cannot survive without eachother'
Heyo hope you enjoyed this chapter, even if it was more talking than Izuku being a nightmare.
I've decided to use the focus bar from SoW as reference for Izuku's burst style of power, mainly so I can have limits that can be exploited by others.
Anyhoo see you in the next chapter, which may either take place at the entrance exams or a few months/days before.