"...How am I supposed to read this?"

A hand, vascular and toned, massaged the paperclip on the left corner of a manila folder bearing a large and imposing "CLASSIFIED" stamp. The papers within seemed ancient, yet their condition was immaculate, deliberately preserved, and untouched. They held information that should have been outdated, so why was he given this?

"Pretty much everything on here is redacted," remarked the man in the suit, tapping his index finger on the folder. "I've been part of this family for 6 years now; shouldn't I be authorized to access this information?"

"Agent 14-S, it's not a matter of authorization," replied the burly man in front of him in identical attire. "This is all the information we have. It's redacted to prevent any doubt about the authority behind the boss' orders. Besides, you should consider yourself lucky to be leading this investigation. It's a highest-priority case."

"I see... However, the date on these documents is around 14 years old. What's the point of pursuing these individuals if they're middle-aged and past their prime now?"

"It's the boss' daughter, her son, and her husband, for crying out loud," he scoffed. "It's the teenager we're after. He has manifested, or will manifest, a Quirk that will bring every other villain organization to its knees."

"Are you certain of this? What if he's just an ordinary person? Quirkless people are still a thing, you know."

"It's impossible. He has Akuzoma blood. Find him, or it's your ass."

"Fine," he grumbled, setting down the document folder and leaning back in the creaking office chair. The harsh glare of the fluorescent lights illuminated their faces against the backdrop of darkness, casting shadows over the rugged desk that was as outdated as the documents. The only well-maintained entity in the concrete facility was a jet-black ornament depicting a revolving serpent, the ouroboros.

"By the way, we're shutting down this front," the burly man added, gesturing towards the window where a sign for a bread bakery shop hung crookedly.


"...Just give me a stuffed bread, please," a voice said towards a friendly, youthful woman behind a counter. The request was connected to a rather tall boy who would never be believed to be in middle school. He had wavy, tousled obsidian locks reaching his nape, as well as peculiar eyes as white as opals. He was more focused on the fact that the poster, although giving off a homely mom-and-pop vibe, the actual bakery seemed to have undergone some financial collapse. The smell of freshly baked goods seemed to entice him enough to disregard the red flags the establishment gave off. Despite this, the only thing that reciprocated the advertisement was the waitress working the register.

"Of course! Have a good day, Shoyu!" she responded cheerfully while handing him a plastic-wrapped pastry, despite the dilapidated environment. "A little secret… I have a feeling we're gonna shut down soon… so please let me know if you find any job offers!"

"Sure. I'll see you," he responded formally, giving her a wave before he exited through the clearly stained glass doors. "These windows are dirty, by the way."

"...Huh? They're perfectly clean…"

Musutafu was bustling as usual, especially at this time of day. The morning signified early birds, eager students, and unhappily employed adults commuting and moving throughout the city. It was a population of diverse origins and dispositions, however, one thing remained constant; the camaraderie. Most people respected and accepted one another which fostered a generation of aspiring leaders, altruists, and heroes. To have such a tight-knit and unified community was a blessing.

Too bad he couldn't be a hero.

"Finally, that sketchy bakery is being shut down," Shoyu says to himself, rubbing the back of his neck. "I keep getting a terrifying vibe from that place. I hope Hana finds a new job, though. She's too nice to be out of one."

As if to match the vibe of the bakery that Shoyu continues to pick up, an earthquake forced his center of gravity off-balance, forcing his stuffed bread out of his hand. "What… the hell…?"

Earthquakes are ephemeral phenomena. However, the rumbling continued to persist even after Shoyu clung to the ground. Which meant that it was no ordinary earthquake, this was the product of a Quirk, and the memories came flooding into his mind.

"If you see a villain attack, don't check it out, even if there's a crowd. If there's a villain, they might be there, too. So be careful."

Shoyu wasn't the type to disobey his parent's warnings. He was more or less fully aware of their past and the horrors they faced, and the joy when they found out he was Quirkless, he also shared. He believed a normal, free life was finally within reach for his parents. So he continued on his path to school, paying no mind to the crowd or the gigantic villain.

"Hey, there they are!"

"It's Kamui Woods! There's so many heroes here!"

"Wait, get closer we need to check it out!"

As his white black-trimmed shoes trekked across the crosswalk, Shoyu was faced with another incoming mob that was attracted to the villains and heroes. Their appearance was sudden and unforeseen, and so Shoyu was unfortunately dragged closer and closer, his pleas to move away from the throng unheard. He was caught right in the center of the mob.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said a weak, timid voice when Shoyu bumped into a short figure.

"N-No, my apologies…" he replied to the green-haired student, who had a fervent smirk on his face.

"It's not every day you see a giant villain attack in broad daylight," spoke the freckled boy, appearing to have inadvertently forced a conversation out of his shy nature due to pure fascination. "And with Kamui Woods coming to stop it, no less!"

"Yeah… we're lucky," Shoyu replied in an attempt to match his energy.

The crowd faced a torrent of wind as Kamui Woods' branches failed to ensnare the villain due to a more intense approach. An immensely tall woman clad in a beige skintight suit collided with the villain in a flying kick. It was an appearance that fostered a reaction of shock and surprise rather than excitement and cheering.

"Ah… here they come," Shoyu said, looking to his right as if he spotted something he was disgusted at, yet it was something he anticipated the moment he saw the heroine.

It was a different throng of camera-wielding men in an assembly line capturing the moment of Mt. Lady's debut. "Here it is. Here it is. Here it is," Shoyu heard them speak robotically. Among the crowd that was cheering and celebrating, Shoyu seemed to be the only one who was sighing and scratching his head.

"Guess the city isn't as pure as it appears," he said to himself. "I guess that's to be expected, though."

Before he was quickly going to hightail it out of the street, a relentless mumbling pierced his eardrums.

"Gigantification, huh? She looks like she'll be popular, and it's an amazing Quirk, but thinking about the damage in the citythat'llgohandinhandwiththat,itsusemightbelimited?No,butwhetherornotshecancontrolthesize…"

Shoyu, despite being Quirkless, still had a talent. He could somewhat tell who this boy was despite not knowing him at all. He was Quirkless, or extremely weak at least. So why was he so eager to learn about all these heroes if he couldn't even get the same opportunities? Within the pity that he couldn't help but feel, there was a small light of admiration within that void. It was odd.

He approached the green-haired student from behind, who was speaking with another individual with a spiked head. "You're gonna be a hero?" he asked innocently.

The student of small stature looked to him, with a contrast that highlighted their height difference. He displayed that same passionate smile. "I hope so! I'd like to prove that anyone can be a hero no matter what."

It was a hard statement to believe, but the boy was speaking nothing but his cold, hard truth. It was the cold, hard truth that Shoyu could tell was stepped on by people numerous times in the past, but the student's resolve kept that fire burning. It almost led him to believe he could do the same thing. Who was he to step on the dream of someone he didn't even know?

"...I'll be waiting to see you on television," Shoyu said in response to the student's passion.

The boy bowed down to him unnecessarily low. "Thank you very much!"

"Ah… you don't have to do that."

"You're one of the only people that showed me kindness. I'd like to know your name," the boy said, holding out his phone while maintaining his bow.

His name? Shoyu's parents urged him not to give out his name to any people he didn't know or found suspicious, but they also urged him to make friends despite the adversities they faced in the past. So Shoyu nonchalantly connected the camera of his phone to the boy's.

"Izuku Midoriya (緑谷 出久) has been added to your contacts."

"Shoyu Fujiyagi (藤柳 漿生) has been added to your contacts."

They waved goodbye as they went their separate ways. As Shoyu continued to make his way towards school, it was as if a bell began to ring in his head as he clutched his temples.

"Ah… not again."

Memories that weren't his flooded his brain. Memories of a mountain of corpses, sick and twisted experiments on people he never recognized, a youthful doctor clutching a hospital gown-clad woman holding an infant, these sights caused intense stabbing sensations in his skull that extended to his eyes.

"It happened again?! AND you were in the crowd from this morning?!" yelled a female voice from Shoyu's phone.

"Yeah… I'm sorry Mom," Shoyu said abjectly. "I was kinda sucked into it, it was on my route to school."

"Well… I guess there's nothing you could've done. But you could've been spotted! We don't know whether or not they know what you look like."

"I know."

"And it's the same headaches… you're already Quirkless so it can't be from a Quirk…"

"I know."

"It's passed, right? Try seeing if you can make it through the school day. Come right home afterward."

"I know. Bye, Mom. Love you."

Even though he was so intelligent, there was a lie behind his statement. He didn't know anything about his situation. Why he had to be so cautious, why he was so sought after, why he'd have to live in constant fear… it was exhausting.

And infuriating.


Korusanto Junior High

"There are many of you in this room who aspire to be heroes. None of you in here have applied to go to U.A., that's fine… but you should think about using your Quirks to help people. In my eyes, middle school seniors have more opportunities than high school."

The professor with serpents replacing her locks gave out the spiel of high school opportunities that only a handful of students in the room paid attention to. Shoyu was not one of them. "I can't become a hero. So I'll get a nice, high-paying job… get my parents out of that dump… and retire. It'll be an easy life."

The daydreamer, sat in the second-to-last row of the classroom, peered out the window that stretched across the whole wall. Musutafu seemed to have a perpetual blue sky that anyone couldn't help but appreciate. It was reliable because the sky was one of the only things in the world that was truly unchanging. It was comforting. A safe haven for those in distress.

That unfortunately did not apply for Shoyu.

The sky was warping and the sun was distorted. The same sky that he had been comfortable with for his whole life had become the thing that caused every threat detector in his body to go haywire. He went from a sitting position with his cheek resting against his palm to a more relaxed one with his arms on his desk and his head tucked away, his eyes closed shut. Those same memories came back. Mountains of corpses, test subjects, a fleeing couple. These headaches had been consistent throughout his whole life and for no good reason. He was fully aware that he was physically okay and where he needed to be, but he perceived such vivid hallucinations that he started to question if he was even in the right classroom.

"Shoyu?"

The room and its noise slowly echoed out of earshot.

"Shoyu...?"

Even though his eyes were shut, there was nothing but red.

"Shoyu!"

His head swung upward and his posture straightened in half a second, causing chuckles to permeate through the room.

"...Why don't you pay attention, please," she said, clearly irritated.

"Sorry…" Shoyu replied while sinking into his seat.

"Ugh… this is the second time. Why do I keep getting these headaches? And these memories are different than usual… I usually just see weird distortions… something's wrong."

Shoyu continued to think these inquiring thoughts about his situation as he looked around the room to relieve his head pain. He paid attention to his professor's words, but there was always a lingering feeling of dread that followed these episodes.

Perhaps there was something to Shoyu that no one knew?


"So, it's just the headache, and you seeing some 'doctor' running while holding a woman in a hospital gown?" asked Shoyu's mother, appearing noticeably more wrinkled and aged than the last time she was seen.

"Yeah," Shoyu said, allowing his body to fall on the couch cushions lazily. "That's all. It's giving me some pain in my eyes, too."

"Sounds like a migraine," arrived Dr. Shinyu Fujiyagi, placing his palm on Shoyu's forehead. "Wouldn't explain the memories though."

"The memories sound like the story you and Mom told me, Dad. About leaving that building and being chased by agents 14 years ago."

"It might just be… Well, take a nap for a bit. Nothing you can do about it right now."

Shoyu sighed in sarcastic disappointment as his father went to his mother who was preparing dinner. He didn't tell his parents about his other hallucinations of a mountain of corpses or people being experimented on. He didn't want them to believe that he was some sort of psychopath. So he soon dozed off, still in his shoes and student uniform.


"Ack!"

What could've been minutes or hours later, Shoyu arose from his position on the couch, the side of his mouth stained with saliva and his black hair a dark mess. He woke up in response to a pained cry as he saw his mother Yumie step back from the gas stove with a fresh, blistered, and red marking on her palm and oil spilled on the counter.

"Mom!" Shoyu cried, immediately rushing to her aid. He had to bend down considerably to reach his mother's petite stature.

"I'm okay, Shoyu. See? My Quirk."

The burn marking was slowly fading and releasing steam.

"Oh… okay… huh?"

New thoughts entered his mind as he inspected the steam being emitted from her wound. It wasn't thoughts that were like the hallucinations he saw earlier in the day, it was more strange. It wasn't even memories. It was information.

"Adapter. Class: Mutant. Gradually adapts and heals to external damage, releasing energy in the form of steam during the healing process."

Whose thoughts were these?