It really started when Izuku awakened his quirk, but we can pinpoint it down to a single day about a year before the UA entrance exam. 'There's the eggs, now I just need some milk.'
BEERP DHSKSBDBDR
'Why does the store alarm sound like that? Never mind, is it a villain attack?' He quickly poked his head out of the aisle and saw the dangerous villain knife guy robbing the store and knife point.
'Well, I'm not just gonna let this happen.' "Path to knocking out that villain, causing him no permanent injury, whilst keeping everybody except the villain utterly unharmed, start."
He quickly felt the telltale sign of his quirk, the puppeteering of his body. The path was no climactic battle, all he did was grab a wok and slam the guy on the head with it while his back was turned, and the puppeteering ended.
"Well, that was boring. Is everyone okay?" He knew already that they were, but he wanted to leave a good impression, probably not helped by his first comment.
The Vigilantism quickly escalated, as only a week later Izuku was sneaking out of his house to fight crime. "Path to capturing and delivering the most amount of villains to the police whilst causing myself to stay anonymous, unhurt, and not captured or otherwise inconvenienced in a way which will last into the next day. Path length 3 hours."
He was getting much better at his path choices now, figuring out that specific lengths could be preset, and always ensuring that he included self protection in his requirements. He went out of his window with his little disguise, a mask and hoodie, on and bolted in a very specific direction towards an alleyway. He bent ground and grabbed some sand, which confused the boy. He climbed the side of the building and continued. As he got closer he heard some talking and was that sound guns?
"Hand over the trigger! The Shie Hassaikai can't keep their monopoly forever!" Izuku let his path throw him off of the building. He landed on top of one of the Yakuza members, jumping off of him to land a punch to the head of another, knocking him out. He ducked, dodging a flying razor that was shot at him, and grabbed a gun from the downed villain. 'Time for the catchphrase' "Your defeat is predetermined, surrender now or face the consequences."
Izuku liked the catchphrase, something just as corny as All Might's "I AM HERE" while also adding his own twist on to it. He kicked another villain but at this point the gangs were prepared, and started to shoot their guns at him. With surgical precision, he aimed his gun and shot at the villains, breaking all of their guns in the process, while dodging in-between the bullets aimed at him. And that was when the rumble started.
The dumpster was first, but nails and bolts of all kinds joined and started being thrown at him on all direction. "Path, what is this quirk?" And so it was. Something else be found out is that if he asked his quirk a question, it would pilot his very brain itself to make him think of the correct answer, something kind of scary but useful. 'Metal manipulation, quirk of the villain Magneto'
Magneto was sloppy in his attacks. He jumped on top of the dumpster, grabbing a baseball that he threw at an incoming piece of debris. He got his footing on a piece of metal sheet and jumped at Magneto, and went for a punch. And that was when the sword came flying out of nowhere, getting so close to cutting his head off. Until he pulled out the Detnerat shield he had snagged with the first use of his quirk and blocked it with that. It was easy to knock the villain out once he was close, a single punch to the right spot dropping him to the ground.
Pulling out the burner phone, he called the cops and put zip ties on the villains that would wake up before they got there. His quirk allowed him to disguise his voice on the call, to no small amount of pain to his vocal cords. On to the next crime scene he went.
Now at this scene, there was already a hero present. The great Eraserhead. He was weaving inbetween goons like the professional he is. His power simply made him sit and watch, unusual considering what usually happened on a path. What Eraserhead didn't notice was one villain he downed earlier get back up, and aim his hand at the hero. Jumping down, Izuku quickly grabbed the villains arm and force it into the direction of another villain with what seemed to be a mutation of some sort. The hand released a massive stream of lightning, sending the other villain into the wall as Izuku kicked the lightning villain.
"A vigilante?" Eraserhead questioned, but took no action as he was busier fending off the goons. With Izuku there though, they stood no chance and were all down within minutes.
"Vigilante, your presence here is illegal. I don't want to turn you in, but it is required of us." Izuku walked towards him and handed him his burner phone with his contact page loaded. Taking the sign, Aizawa memorized it quickly, and decided that taking the Vigilante in couldn't wait. Just as he was about to activate his quirk, he suddenly had sand in his eyes. By the time he reoriented himself, Izuku was gone, and the phone with him.
"I can't believe I just did that to a pro hero! Forget this, this path is ending early." He deactivated it and activated another one to take him home.
"Intelli-san, is this all really necessary?" What he is referring to is the kettle, deionized water, and general lab equipment that the girl brought into his house. "Well, you said that you wanted to make the best possible tea for my quirk, so I came prepared." What Izuku had not told her is that he had already made his quirk conjure the best recipe, but what she doesn't know is can't hurt her. "I was thinking that we should start by individually adding proteins and nutrients to the water itself and see if that counts as tea." His only friend had many ideas herself, the two have decided that Dragoah beach, the trash heap, was the best spot to practice due to the relative emptiness, of people at least.
Izuku decided that he was not in the mood for a whole day of experimentation "I have been taking notes on your quirk, I'd like to try something." Now, this tea is insanely hard to make. Requiring precise mixtures of chemicals, solid gold, several quirk materials sourced mostly from India and Brazil, many such things. This tea cost 4,000 to make, something pretty easy for the fastest growing digital artist to raise (Inko still has no idea where all the money transferred to her account is coming from).
'She looks like she's having fun making this!'
Izuku, who was not staring at all, let his quirk pilot his body to get the mix perfect, but it was done within an hour, and Intelli tested it out. Taking a sip, she closer her eyes. "Midoriya-kun, get me my phone."
'Chess, isn't it?' Intelli is a great chess player. Before she discovered her quirk at 11, she never tried tea before then, she had won many junior chess tournaments. She was even known as the most promising female player since Judit Polger. Once she had her phone, she sent a match request to her online rival RATGOD69420, which was accepted instantly.
'Path, give me the best move in every chess position that appears.' He was getting a lot better at this quirk stuff, but that is besides the point. The game was a Spanish with a time control of an hour with no increment. 'Ah, 21: Nd6 was a mistake' both players made very small mistakes, but the game can only last so long. On move 132 it ended in three fold repetition.
"DAMMIT! I HAD HIM! That's 20 losses and 80 ties, I'll get him!" Izuku, sensing her anger, ended his path and added his insight. "Isn't is possible that he is a cheater? Stockfish 94 just released right?" He got a slap to the back of the head for that. "No, I've played Stockfish and with my quirk I can win one out of 20 games. He is much better. Once I find that guy I will strangle him to death."
Well, Izuku has no idea about chess so he just accepted that as fact. "Weren't we supposed to train today? We've spent three hours today sitting down." This angered her very much. "Intelli-chan, you said you wanted to be able to use your quirk in the middle of a fight, what happened to that?" She begrudgingly agreed and got up, and challenged Izuku to a spar.
'Now, using my quirk I'd obliterate her. Path; spar in a way which will most helpfully further her ability to fight.' Now, this was a good fight. Quick jabs here, a punch there, faints meant to give exactly enough time to let her think through her next moves, his quirk pushed her to her limit, and allowed her to get in hits herself. "Midoriya-kun, I'm gonna try the tea packs now." This was their best investment so far, trapping tea in a solid shell that was edible and easily usable meant that she could throw one in her mouth and bite down to use her quirk on the go.
Popping one in her mouth, she made some distance and closed her eyes, opening them exactly a second and a half later, barely short enough to dodge any attack he could have made in that time. Her punches went towards much more precise areas, and she starting using her spacing more correctly. Multiple times Izuku noticed that during time he blinked, those were the moments she went for her attacks. She kept in mind which direction his eyes were pointed, and did everything to keep control of the tempo of the match. 'That punch left her wide open for a counter attack, is Pathfinder going to take advantage of that?' Nope, being too punishing would discourage her from trying as hard in the future.
Unfortunately for Saiko Intelli, Izuku's power decided that she was to lose this match. It let her get pretty close, at least it seemed that way, she had no chance from the very beginning, but she wouldn't know the difference. 'End Path'
Omake time!
'She has gotten better' Ratgod69420 twirled around in his chair in the UA principal's office. "When I get my hands on this girl, after stopping her attempts at strangling me, I think she may be helpful in Plan B46A.
The door to the room opened, Aizawa. "Did you expel the whole class again?" He didn't need an answer, he already knew. Nezu had given his new class a week before the entire class was gone, a single day was way faster than he expected. "Had something happened? You don't expel classes this quickly normally."
Nezu eyed his teacher, what was he hiding? "What's the story, I want to know what you saw." His teacher avoided the question, but Nezu saw through it. He saw a kid around the age of his students who showed more potential than all of his current ones combined. Given the massive uptick of Vigilante activity, and the stories of villains about a "boogeyman" who flawlessly decimated them, always described as looking young, he pieces things together quickly. Let's hope this vigilante would choose the correct hero school when he came of age.
"So, Intelli-san, how does your power feel to you as you use it?" Izuku was just curious. "Well, when used, I can visualize things way easier. But mostly I can see things broken down into numbers and math. Like with that spar, I could see your center of gravity, eyesight, which muscles were being used and at what strength, all sorts of things like that in exhaustive mathematical detail. Sadly, I can only see such thing with my eyes closed within 20 seconds of drinking tea, which is why I popped multiple packets during the spar. I try to predict movements and plan my attacks when I know I'm far enough away that closing my eyes for a second won't hurt."
Izuku of course wrote this all down in his notebook. After some theorizing, he decided to test something out. "Sit down and drink some of that tea again. Once you do close your eyes and begin keeping track of how long you have your eyes closed by your perception, I'm sure your quirk allows for accuracy in that. Keep track of how long in-between the two times I will poke you.
Setting it up real quick, she activated the quirk, and he poked her twice. Exactly five seconds apart down to the millionth of a second due to his quirk's guidance, and the results were surprising to the both of them. To Intelli, she counted fifty seconds between the pokes. She of course knew that there was time dilation, but this level was still surprising. They did this some more times and got the same result every time, a 10 to 1 ratio.
"Midoriya-kun, be honest with me, what is your quirk? Those pokes were way too precise the be a coincidence. And in retrospect you did find the perfect tea mixture for me, and you consistently beat me in spars." Izuku was terrified.
'Oh crap, will she hate me if I don't tell her? Will she be mad for hiding it if I do tell her? I need to think quick.' Silence filled the air, should he tell her?
'I don't want to really, she may blow my cover, I'm keeping it a secret for a reason after all. I- I can't let her know.' "I-it's just a precog. I can look into my own future and change what I do in certain scenarios if I don't like the outcome. That tea for example was what we would have come up with after a month of experimenting, in the spar I saw your attacks coming in advance which allowed me to keep up, plus my natural athletic advantage." He just couldn't say it, not yet.
"Okay, I believe you, Izuku-kun. Now that we have no secrets, call me Saiko-chan." Oh you poor thing, never trust a man. It wouldn't be for a while until Intelli realized this important fact.
A/N: wow, I actually wrote a new chapter! A five month delay isn't too bad right? Flame me all you want, I insist. There was a minor timeskip there, I didn't want to write no sleepover so just imaging what happened there. More specifically, I imagined the previous chapters taking place when Izuku was 10, while he is 13 here. About the Omake, was it good? Should I have not included it? You decide! I'm planning on one each chapter to get other characters perspectives. I debated on having him reveal the quirk, but decided that some character development is needed first. I was accidentally genius when I made this the ship for the story and I plan on making Saiko more like Number Man in the future, quirk wise at least. Never read worm, but know enough to realize my genius. On OFA, Izuku won't get it (I maybe said this already), and I did a Reddit poll which decided that Mineta will get the quirk, beating Kirishima by 3 votes 54 to 51.