She spent a lot of time lately thinking about reincarnation. The first life was good. There was no overwhelming yearning or grand ambitions. Just a quiet content life filled with different kinds of media and sufficient socialization. For some, it was a goal, for others a baseline. Then it was just enough. And then came the reset. Well. That's what she calls the violent accident that ended the first life. In the second one, she was somehow blessed yet again with a great starting point.

After realizing that she was reborn in the world she obsessed over deeply enjoyed the lore of, she decided to participate in the plot. For the first time, she found herself a goal in life. Then her enthusiasm slowly withered off as she realized what the plot conveyed. Even more with Ereaserhead revelation. And the societal issues. And villain attack. The world gradually became a much more rigid and grey place. She was vulnerable, weak, and questioning her life choices. Was becoming a secret puppetmaster of BNHA worth it? Or even possible? Maybe dumping it all on Nedzu was the correct answer.

She didn't have to risk her life in the name of...huh. She didn't want to die or see the people she cared about suffer. Also, the novel experience of seeing the anime from the front row sounded fun. But beyond that? It didn't really matter.

Selfish.

Her reasoning was purely selfish.

She didn't see that as a bad thing. It just put everything else into perspective. Like the fact her mentality was not even close to the one of a typical shounen protagonist. Most of her actions were a product of her curiosity or survival instincts. When one overpowered the other the results were...mixed but in her opinion she managed to keep the healthy balance most of the time. Not exactly a heroic personality.

And now she was left with the question how much she was willing to give to fulfill her little power trip fantasy. She didn't have to be secretive and alone. But she wanted to. This way every change in the world was a product of her actions. It's the closest she'll ever get to divine powers.

How much did she care for her life? Maybe it was a one-time thing or maybe she will be stuck reincarnating time after time after time again and again. Maybe the wisest decision was to just enjoy her life while it lasts, without caring too much about consequences or death.

Selfish.

Would it be that selfish to manipulate them into creating a better ending? Just a different ending. Or maybe derailing it all was the answer. Cutting strings of all the puppets and just letting them flail to their own accord.

But then again.

She had already chosen the path she wanted to follow.


Kieruko was fine.

Period.

She was still attending school and all of the extra classes. She was still hanging out with her friends. So what if she completely lost the initiative in her irl interactions? She did enough. If the trio planned to do something together she participated. She might have started to spend more time online, talking to strangers about her favorite topics. Hopping from site to site in search of community just as excited about Quirks as her. (Unsuccessfully, why were people just fine with not knowing everything there is to know about evolution-defying mutation?) And maybe she even got into some private server that looked like hero trivia exchange heaven but hosted a lot of conversations of potentially criminal characters.

If she was in a better place mentally she would not make some of the decisions but right now she was in a.. transitional state. No contacting important characters, no changing the main plot, no destroying anything already established in this world (even outside of canon when the domino effect exists). She already let All Might get his crippling injuries why would she risk ruining the plot now by helping Izuku build up his confidence or snitching that grandson of a certain dead pro hero was alive?

So instead she was gossiping with small-time criminals on how to avoid heroes and what kind of trends were moving the local underbelly. Reckless but in the grand scheme of things harmless. Then again she didn't know how she would ever explain to her parents that the only way to cope she found effective, with being almost killed by a high-rank villain, was to chat with less murderous criminals. Still, it was a shit coping mechanism.

She did not leave her house the next summer but a year after her nagging friends managed to drag her out. No one died when they went to the beach or the mall. After all, the plot dictates canon characters had at least a few more years of life in them. Maybe being outside wasn't that dangerous.

As time passed her confidence was slowly coming back.


Toru once again proved that she's the only truly organized person in their group.

"Which middle school are you planning to go to?"

"Eadu," supplies Kieruko without looking up.

"Either Ondero or Nabu Middle School," Mei adds nonchalantly.

"I nearly went with Ondero," gasps Toru. "We could have all gone to different schools!"

"Huh, I guess you're right." Kieruko just chose the closest one with good ratings.

"How can you be so calm! I would be so upset if we didn't go together."

"Sooooooo...what's the plan?"

"Hmmmm." The next few minutes the invisible girl spent searching on her phone. "We all should go with Edau, it has the best commute out of all of them."

"Okay." Pink-haired teen didn't seem to have anything against that choice.

"I mean I already was going to aim for that place."

"But now we go together!"

"Sure."

If somehow two of those won't get into the U.A. because of Kieruko's choice of middle school, she'll cry. A lot.


Graduating from elementary didn't feel like an accomplishment. But yeah. She felt absolutely nothing saying goodbye for the last time to those people. Her only hope was to never step into this building again.

One of the baffling choices of the Japanese education system was having the opening day on a Sunday just before the start of the school year.

Kieruko was waiting for her friends in front of the school gate. Technically today was just orientation day but Toru seemed slightly nervous so Mei and her decided to accompany her as much as possible. She was too early. Why. Students were slowly trickling onto school grounds as she scrolled through her phone. Any moment now. She looked up to see a familiar figure.

"Fumi?"

The sudden explosion of darkness formed a bird demon creature in front of her.

"Kieru-chan!" shouted delighted Dark Shadow with claws outstretched.

She received the message. With a thrilled laugh, she jumped into the hug. It was almost crushing her. In a comforting way.

"Dark Shadow! It's so good to see you two. I missed you" she says fondly. It's nice to see birbs once again. She thought they wouldn't see each other for three more years. Honestly, it's great to see she was remembered. Toddlers don't have the best memory. "How have you been?"

"I am pleased that our paths cross again." Puzzled Fumikage froze for a second before softly adding "Kieru-chan." Dark Shadow let go of her.

So he was already in his chuunibyou form. She always wondered what made him embrace the edginess in the first place. Considering he wasn't like that before it wasn't an inherently Quirk-induced personality trait. Just a teenager thing.

"School is boring and Fumi is so shy around people but now we can-"

"Yo! Will you introduce us to your friend?" Mei called out from behind with the invisible girl walking beside her. The whole canon squad was here.

"Of course! The crazy one is Hagakure Toru and the pink one is Hatsume Mei, the greatest inventor in whole Japan. And this is Dark Shadow and-"

This time Kieruko froze. Oh, wait. Technically speaking they never called each other anything else besides childhood nicknames. Huh. So that's why he acted awkwardly before. It must be hard to act aloof and give -chan suffix at the same time. She paused to give him a chance to introduce himself. Fumikage had the gall to actually look her in the eyes without making a single sound. He knew what he was doing. Petty birdboi.

"-Fumi."

"Pleasure is all mine."

Dark Shadow cackled before disappearing.

They were put in the same class and quickly she came to the conclusion that thankfully all of her friends liked each other. Also finally they knew each other's names due to first-day introductions. Then the most genius idea came to her. By the end of the day, she gave Fumikage a piece of paper before briskly walking away.

Toru was worried whenever her friends started to plot something with a mischievous glint in their eyes. She was distressed the next day when Fumikage approached Kieru-chan and they spent the whole lunch animatedly whispering to each other. It was rarely a good thing when her friends hid their plans from her. After all, she was the impulse control of the group and without her interventions, there were a lot more accidents (and explosions in Mei's case).

"Tabletop RPG."

Huh?

"I've given Fumi an idea for a fun game to organize for us all" exclaims loudly Kieruko before whispering to Toru "I've planned to do this before but didn't want to be stuck as a DM" What does that even mean? "And now I found someone who was more than excited to take that position." She chuckled. "Don't worry I'm doing anything stupid, you're going to love it."


Kieruko was not fine. Whatever happened during that summer, it was really bad. At least the first time she had a bad summer the only change was her best friend spending more time with her. Next time she looked genuinely scared most of the time. Not in the obvious way. More of the: flinch at loud noises and look behind when she thought no one was looking way. She said it was a reasonable cautiousness. Toru didn't believe her. But it was okay. Kieruko still would go outside her house with Toru (or Mei) so the trust was there. And she would not disappoint her friend as the most trusted person.

She just needed to support her and be patient.

When she talked about complicated topics like a joke. When she lied to hide her fear. When she looked for excuses to avoid certain places. When she recklessly tested with their Quirks and got injured, Toru helped her hide it. Sometimes she got a grateful look and sometimes a hug from a sobbing mess that her best friend was on bad days.

She would never say it out loud but it was good to feel needed.

Even with the first accident that brought them together, Kieruko's face made it look like the rescue while appreciated was not necessary. Then Kieruko called her a hero. And suggested martial arts. And Quirk training. And always looked at Toru. Even made it possible for others to finally notice her. I made her feel seen, wanted and loved more than ever before. Her life changed drastically for the better. But only hers. Kieruko liked to spend time together but didn't have to. She would be absolutely fine on her own, just doing her thing, probably thinking how her classmates' Quirks worked. And that thought stung.

But now they needed each other. And Toru would prove how much of a great friend she was.


Two weeks later a new party began their journey in a small tavern at the edge of Forgotten Realms. They all met up at Kieruko's house on a sunny Friday afternoon to practice the almost extinct after 150 years art of playing Dungeons and Dragons. Fumikage looked positively elated to act as the Dungeon Master. Dark Shadow was excited to be an active player (half-orc barbarian), Toru spent way too much time deciding her character before going with a pink tiefling bard, Mei saw the artificer class and that was it. Kieruko went with a cleric in the hope of keeping the party alive.

It began a bit awkwardly with them just talking.

Two hours later that was definitely not the problem.

Everyone at the table was screaming in panic.

"How many cultists there can be in one basement!?"

"Apparently enough to almost kill us all. We need a rest, I'm out of heals."

"I'm at 1hp."

"Me too!"

"And we still have at least one more encounter."

"How did we even survive this!?"

By the end of a session certain keep was finally free of it's unwanted occupants and the ragtag group of barely alive adventurers left it with heavier pouches. Everyone felt emotionally exhausted.

"And now you're level two" announced stoically Fumikage.

The rest of the table groaned.

"We are repeating this next week, right?"

"Yep."

"Yeah."

"Absolutely."


The good thing about indoctrinating your friends to your beliefs is that sometimes they do the work for you, Kieruko noticed during one of the school lunch conversations.

"We are planning to go to UA. Me and Kieru-chan to Hero Course and Mei to Support. We are learning how to fight, train our Quirks and we'll become the best hero duo ever!"

"And I'll make their babies." Unfortunately, Mei started to call her inventions that.

"I am also considering enrollment into the prestigious establishment that is UA."

"Oh, what kind of preparations do you do?" asked Toru.

The silence told a lot.

"Group training?" Kieruko finally suggested.

Fumikage nodded.

Their first group hero training session was informative. Fumikage's lack of physical training became apparent during spars. In a Quirkless fight, Toru could knock him down in a matter of seconds. Ironically for similar reasons, in a Quirked match, Kieruko would win almost just as fast. (And no, she wasn't as bitter as she could be about being worse at martial arts than a child. Just a little bit.)

"You need to know at least the basics of hand-to-hand. Standing vulnerable makes you much less effective and..." Kieruko's eyes sparkled. "...we should do some tests to find limitations of Dark Shadow."

"Again?"

"Hmm?"

"Nothing."

"Perfect, because I've already prepared a list of things to try out."

Same way Tokoyami left the party barely alive after each dungeon, Hiseki with matching ruthlessness and precision judged Quirks.

So maybe Kieruko had a habit of gathering data. But at least it was for the greater good (called her curiosity). And maybe answering dozens of questions wasn't the most thrilling way to spend an afternoon for a kid but there was a payoff. Fumikage in manga mastered many ultimate moves and she gladly gave "suggestions" to the younger counterpart as a thank you. Starting with the-

"I'm flying."

"You're flying!"

"I've never thought of that."

"That's why giving me info is a great idea."

"Do you have more of those?" Dark Shadow asked.

"Maybe. I'll share them when you're good enough at staying afloat."

"I do not think there is a reason to stall-" Tokoyami crashed to the ground.

"Daylight" she informed his form splayed out on the ground.

"Daylight" he solemnly repeated.

Kieruko showed the simple sketch. "He should go around you like a suit of armor."

"That could work." It did originally.

Fumikage enveloped in his Quirk looked over himself. "With a cape, it would be possible for Dark Shadow to rejuvenate even during day hours."

Look at him go, making the same decisions as in the first run.

"Yup."

"I don't know how to thank you for all the help."

"Awwww. Don't worry, that's what friends do. And analyzing Quirks is pure dopamine for my brain." As well as making sure you will be well-prepared for the future. Also sorry Hawks, but I'm afraid by the time Fumi gets into UA he'll be competently using all the techniques you were supposed to teach him.

The canon was approaching rapidly and she was running out of time for preparations.

Less than 3 years left till UA.